Analetheism

 ©2020 by Joel Marks*   A Tribute to Joel J. Kupperman Most people, I imagine, think they know the world or reality directly. You open your eyes (or touch something, etc.) and there it is. That was certainly what I assumed at first too. What could be more obvious? But now I believe that what we experience is very far removed from reality. Or, more precisely, I think the answer to the question “Do we know reality?” is “Yes and no.” In fact, what I am about to talk about could be considered as much a demonstration of the Philosophy of Yes and No as an essay on our knowledge of reality.               My first step away from the naïve belief in knowledge of reality came in college, when I was introduced to the concept of the visual field by psychology professor J. J. Gibson at Cornell University. Ironically he intended to use that concept to  debunk  the idea that we  don’t  know reality directly,...

My sense is that most philosophers believe or assume that they are in the business of proving, or attempting to prove, some thesis or other. Thus, an ethicist may think they are proving the truth of utilitarianism, or the falsity of Kantianism, or that morality is objective, or that abortion ought to be a woman’s prerogative and society ought to facilitate the means, etc. ad inf. Humility may temper this into a form of fallibilism, according to which they might, despite their confidence in their proof, nevertheless be mistaken. But even then the assumption would be that there is a truth of the matter, and so sooner or later somebody ought to be able to prove it.  I submit that this assumption is mistaken. Let me caution at once that I am not asserting this as a truth and do not intend to prove it. I am putting it forward as a hypothesis, which I myself happen to believe (although not in the sense of believing it is true but only in the sense that I am motivated to act according...