A world for us : the case for phenomenalistic idealism / John Foster.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Foster, John, 1941 May 5-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Idealism.

Realism.

Phenomenology.

Physical Description:

ix, 252 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2008.

Summary:

Almost all modern philosophy is founded on the assumption of a realist view of the physical world-a view that represents the world as something whose existence is both logically independent of the human mind and metaphysically fundamental. In sharp contrast, John Foster here sets out to refute such physical realism and establish in its place a form of idealism. Foster finds the realist view problematic in a number of ways, but his central argument is that it does not allow the world the empirical immanence it needs if it is to qualify as our world, as a world for us. The form of idealism that he seeks to establish in its place, and which he calls phenomenalistic, rejects the realist view in both its aspects. Instead of according the world the independent and fundamental status assigned to it under realism, it takes the world to be something whose existence is ultimately constituted by facts about human sensory experience, or by some richer complex of non-physical facts in which such experiential facts centrally feature. Such phenomenalistic idealism can itself be developed in a number of ways. In the version of it which Foster elaborates and defends, the experiential facts that centrally contribute to the existence of the world concern the way in which our sensory experiences are organized. The key idea is that, in the context of certain other factors, this experiential organization creates the physical world by disposing things to appear systematically worldwise at the human empirical viewpoint. Chief among the other relevant factors is the role of God as the one who is responsible for this organization and ordains the system of appearance it yields. It is this, as Foster sees it, which ensures that what gets idealistically created is not only something empirically immanent, but something with the objectivity to qualify as a real world.

A World for Us is a work of revisionary metaphysics on a grand scale, arguing for a radically new understanding of the existence of the physical world and our place within it.

Contents:

The problem of perception

The inscrutability of intrinsic content

Realism and phenomenalistic idealism

The refutation of realism

The challenge of nihilism

The issue of objectivity.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [247]-248) and index.

ISBN:

9780199297139

0199297134

OCLC:

191023997