What perspectivism is not

Satyr wrote:

This is incorrect. Firstly - and I hope I do not take you too literally here, Satyr - perspectivism contains virtually no epistemology - the perspectivists view of reality is that reality is pretty much what it appears to be, before we start thinking too hard about it. Dogs, cats, planes, trains, earth and sky are more or less what they appear to be. And if they are not, we cannot know this - or at least we do not know this, and prospects for that condition to improve are not very good. There are no separate realites - there is only that one big one we come to know even as children. This is assumed by perspectivism, and is the context within which perspectivists operate.

More importantly, the perspectivist most assuredly does not value all perspectives equally - that superficial treatment in that Wiki article notwithstanding. Perspectivism holds that the judge of a good perspective is the individual perspectivist - and this is a very different thing than saying that all perspectives are equal. To the contrary, they cannot be measured against each other at all - equality is nonsensical here.

So does every logician, and every logical positivist. This is not fundamental to perspectivism - or at least not any more than to any modern logician.

Egalitarianism is anathema to a perspectivist. Reciprocal arrangements are irrelevant. Perspectivism is unusual in philosophy in that perspectivist truly don’t care if anyone else agrees.

Deductive arguments are not required. Perspectivism lends itself more to legalistic arguing - induction, basically. This is in recognition that all premises are arrived at by induction. Deductive reasoning is allowed, however. Either way, perspectivism requires that a case be made. It is a philosophy, after all. really, it is.

Perhaps this is just ill-chosen verbiage. The idea of rights has no place in perspectivism.

Glad I got that off my chest.

real - we couldn’t call it subjectivism. Subjectivism is a flavor found in most modern philosophy, and is not a school of though unto itself. I dare you to find anything in common between Nietzsche and Descartes, for instance.

The post mentioned how this “inability to know” is used by many to equate all opinions on the grounds that they are all equally ignorant.

But they can be measured agaisnt reality and by using prediction.

I take my perspective and I predict an outcome. you do the same. the one more accurate displays the superiority of his perspective.

Exactly. this means that all perspectives are equally valid because they cannot be compared, according to you, and anyone can keep on beleiving whatever they want. A Democracy of stupidity.

It depends upon a system that protects these minds from the errors of their own particular perspective.

For example, in my mind God will aid me if I pray hard enough. This is my perspective.
If someone threatens me, I pray to God asking for His aid. The system protects me from such threats. I take this as evidence of God’s hand in events. My perspective is reinforced even if without this system I would have become a victim of it.

But given your earlier…

…means that all products of induction or deduction will lead to no alteration.

No matter how much I’m challenged or arguments agaisnt my perspective are offered, I remain unconvinced and safe within my own perspective.

How?
Because my perspective has no or little connection to reality. It doesn’t matter how absurd it is, if there is a system there protecting me from its stupidity.
It is then propagated, as no culling occurs, no pain no gain, and we can all live in a bubble world.

And tha tis why it is the preffered tactic of those that have no rational basis for their opinions and can offer no arguments in their support.
Stupidity is saved from reality.

Satyr - strictly speaking, we are unable to truly know. This is not unique to perspectivsm, nor did the poster claim that it was. You did. More or less.

Perspectivists may claim that thier own prediction is more accurate for them. Perspectivism is individualistic - we do not make claims that we intend to be universally accepted. That is an important clarification.

No - all perspectives are not equal, because equality is never a question. They may look equal to a nonperspectivist. But, more likely, they look meaningless, which is a different thing. But yes, people may keep believing anything they want. But that is because we do not care what they believe. It’s not an issue to the perspectivist. The perspectivist himself is limited, however. Metaphysics is precluded, just for one example.

A perspectivist will surely accept that many people do believe in God - we read the papers - but we definitely do believe they are mistaken. But in the end, we just don’t care. We only want to know this in order to live well in a society full of theists. It’s all about us, and never about them.

The challenges to my perspective do not come from others - that you are correct about. But they come - you have left that out. They come from just that daily interaction with just that everyday notion of “objective” reality. They come from our own will to power, as it rubs up against ordinary reality. They come, my friend.

Following Hume, which perspectivism does, no one has an entirely rational basis for belief. To argue against perspectivism on these grounds, you must first argue against Hume.

Good luck with that.

Satyr - an addendum. I think you are exposing some of the great misuses and misunderstandings of perspectivism. We have seen this over and again, yes. I know you have seen it. But to say that many have abused perspectivism isn’t enough. They have skewed and skewered it. They have burlesqued it. But that misuse is not representative of the actual school of thought.

I’m not arguing against Perspectivism but how it is used and misused.

Maybe they should.
This sheltering, I described, creates a tidal wave of stupidity which can sweep away even the one not caring about it.

I am exposing how a philosophical position is now used to defend the most absurd propositions on the ground that it is their perspective or reality is malleable and concerned about how we interpret it or that we can somehow live in our own individual reality.

The only way the last is possible, which gives credence to absurdity, is that there’s a system protecting these perspectives from the worse of their errors.

I just don’t buy it, Satyr. Any philosophy can be misused - which is to say misunderstood. But a misundertanding as thorough as you are describing is simply no longer perspectivism.

So in a nutshell, for the perspectivist perception is reality?

I know. just as Christianity, the way it is practiced and believed in is not Christianity and Nietzsche’s insights, the way they are often portrayed and defined are his.

It seems to me:
Words are convenient - although hypothetical and approximate - descriptions of awareness.
Logic succeeds only in the validation of logic.

Logic succeeds, often enough, in forcing us to realise that certain statements that we accept as true “contain” (imply) further statements the truth of which we haven’t (yet) accepted as true, and sometimes don’t really want to accept as true. Thus the attraction of logic. And the reason it sometimes repulses us.

Dio - Ordinary, everyday conceptions of “reality” are assumed by the perspectivist. Epistemology lies outside perspectivism. Perspectivism is concerned mainly with psychological truths. Perception allows access to reality, but perception is a process. It is not reality itself.

Maybe perception is the process of creating the existence I am aware of?
Happy Thanksgiving!

That’s certainly a workable stance, delbolt. But, in practise, it needn’t differ from the idea that percpetion merely allows us to know about what is already there (not what we “create”).

Most likely, perception is a filter - more than an avenue. It could be that our species once had three or four additional senses, but that this meant that we experienced too much.

Same to you, brutha.

How can anything be “already there” (for us) without perception/awareness? Don’t we use the “process” of perception (thru our senses) to create the existence that we are aware of?
Also, how can we ever “experience too much”?

deleted

Exactly - except for the last sentence. We cannot be aware of what came before experience - or what is happening outside of experience - except in supposition - imagination. I think there is only one reality for me - mine. I think there is only one reality for you - yours. Our unique experience and awareness creates the existence we are aware of.

Delbolt - because it’s not there “for us”. When we perceive it, we are not “creating” it. We are merely accessing it, in our way.

I think there is no way to know absolutely that anything exists without our awareness/consciousness/perception/experience of it. Our awareness of it creates the existence of it in our consciousness - without which it does not exist for us.