Does anyone know much about this kind of view? I was considering today just how far we could take this position. Like, could we explain everything we think about the external world in terms of projection? As the article says, Hume held something like this view, and he certainly wanted to explain morality and causation in terms of projection. It seems to me we could do so much more. For example, the ontological status of scientific laws could be explained this way rather like Hume explains causation.
We’d need to differentiate types of projection. If the way we view the external world visually is to be a projection it needs to be of a different type to the projection of moral distinctions onto actions. If we want to view scientific theories as projections/models then we need an ‘intellectual’ type of projection too.
Any thoughts?
If Faust reads this, how do you think this fits with perspectivism? They certainly seem to be in the same general area.
I see what you’re trying to say, I think, but I don’t see how thats a problem. We exist, then begin to project. Its something we learn, and build up, as we grow. We don’t start to project moral values onto actions until we’ve learnt the basics of what kinds of things are acceptable and what aren’t. There’s no need for essence to precede existence here.
Maybe I browsed that Wiki article too quickly, but doesn’t it just say that people tend to project? Does it say that everything that exists is simply projection? Is projectivism as an ‘ism’ merely everyday projection taken to its logical conclusion or absurd limits? I apologize if I’m just too lazy to read the whole thing - but maybe my question is what do you mean by it?
Well its really not a well written article at all, but it was the obvious thing to link to. You tend to get projectivism ‘about’ various things: ethics, colours, causation, aesthetics. I’m currently wondering how far we can extend this: can we, for example, view scientific laws as projections? If we view causation as a projection it isn’t much of a step to say the same about scientific laws.
The simplest example of a projectivist view is possibly Hume’s view on causation. We project necessary connections onto the world because we, by habit, expect certain effects to follow certain causes.
The point is that the concept of ‘necessary connection’ refers to something we project, not to anything in the external world. All that exists in the external world is constant conjunction of cause and effect.
I’m currently thinking how many concepts that we think exist, in some sense, external to us are actually mere projections in the above sense. I’ve long held that moral values are projections (another view Hume held) and I’m starting to think that our perception involves a large amount of projection too. Can we explain scientific laws in the same way? All we observe is, within the domains in which we have experience, that certain relationships between observed phenomena hold: that is what a scientific law is, one that holds in all of the domains in which we have tested it. But we tend to think of these laws as ‘features’ of the world. A projectivist view would say that all that there really exists, external to us, is the relationships; the law is projected onto the world by us. This makes sense: as we enter new domains, we get new laws, for example the replacement of newtonian mechanics by relativity essentially came about because we discovered new domains of experience.
In general, we think the universe exhibits order. Is this not too a projection?
It makes a lot of sense to me to see that much of what we experience as ‘reality’ is in fact projection. But I have to admit I have some troubles with the term itself. Hume intellectually refuted the existence of a fundamental self, but if there is no self, then what is doing the projecting? I do think that scientific laws are often at least subconsciously reified into metaphysical realities - as if there are universal laws which work ‘behind the scenes’ giving birth to and structure to phenomena. Even people who profess a disbelief in noumena will often betray themselves through a belief that scientific laws are if not exactly real, are at least true. Trading a more concrete version of essentialism for a more abstract version of essentialism is of little consequence. I think the very idea of ‘projection’ substantializes an essential ‘projector’ who is doing the projecting. Maybe I’m just being picky though - after all it’s just a word. I mean, I think I know what you’re saying in a basic sense and I agree. ‘Order’ is certainly a concept not at all intrinsic to reality. Likewise with ‘chaos’.
I suppose you could respond in various ways to this objection.
We could, of course, deny Hume’s conclusion. There is a fundamental self. My view in inspired by Hume, not Hume’s view itself. Problem: on what basis can we claim there is a fundamental self? What Hume essentially does in the Treatise is prove conclusively that its very, very hard to prove anything conclusively, at least thats my reading of it.
The fundamental self is also a projection. So what is projecting? Maybe this question is mis-worded, the entire structure of grammar pre-supposes that there is a fundamental self: the rock moves, I project - there is a subject, a self, doing the projecting. Maybe there is projection, there is movement, etc, but no projector, no thing moving. If you want to mis-word it, an intelligent being just is a thing that projects, but the being just is the projection. A bit like what I see Nietzsche’s view of the self as being really, and a view Hume would maybe have accepted if he’d lived in a more modern age.
We could declare the question ‘is there a fundamental self?’ unanswerable and hold a view that says that projection happens, but its a natural-type process. So whether there is a fundamental self or not is, in a sense, irrelevant. Because we view projection as a natural process we don’t need a fundamental, intelligent, self to be behind it; maybe it just happens.
I don’t know which option to take. I need to think about this some more.
On 2): I don’t know if I want to say that ‘all is projection’. I’m tempted to think of it in terms of a distinction between the external and the internal. The external is a projection, without exception. But the internal is ‘real’, so to speak. What you’ve pointed out is that this is maybe unworkable: the same arguments that lead you to believe that the external is a projection lead to the same conclusion for the internal. as Hume shows. Very interesting. Thanks a lot.
You’re welcome. I think you’re seeing it in a very similar way as I do. Accentuating internal reality through the idea of projection creates an internal/external dualism that really can’t be substantiated. It mistakenly makes the person more real than the context.
So in a sense all our thoughts are projections onto existence but at the same time has nothing to do with existence altogether. Atleast that is what I’m getting from this thread.
Well, we need to be careful, because I think there is something worrying about a view that splits the world into ‘things themselves’ and ‘things as they appear, or we project them’ but then says we can’t have any access at all to ‘things themselves’. The idea of ‘existence independent of our projections’ needs to be thought about carefully. In essence, the distinction is very similar to Kant’s distinction between the phenomenal and noumenal worlds; and we saw what fun the German idealists had with that.
I have sympathy with the type of view that thinks ‘things in themselves’ are a bit unnecessary. In that case, projection is just ‘existence itself’. Its just that different people, and presumably different types of intelligences (animals, aliens, whatever) project differently.
But at the same time, for the metaphor to work we need to project onto something.
I must admit I’ve not figured out what I think about this yet.