definicje | Solipsism

The One

Melissus This argument then provides the strongest proof that there is one only. If there is earth and water and air and fire and iron and gold, and one living and another dead, and again black and white – each must be such as we first decided, and they cannot change or become different, but each is always as it is.

But as it is we say that we do see and hear and perceive correctly, and yet it seems to us that the hot becomes cold and the cold hot, and the hard becomes soft and the soft hard, and the living dies and there is birth from what is not living, and all these things change around and what a thing was and what it is now are not at all the same.

So it happens that we don’t see or understand what there is. These claims do not agree with each other. We say that many things are constant, but they all seem to us to become different that we were not seeing correctly, and that those many things do not appear as they rightly are, for they would not change if they were real, but each would be as it seemed. Therefore, if there were many things, they would each have to be as the one is.

Melissus

Demythologizing

Some therorize about the end of philosophy because they have lost the meaning of philosophy. Philosophical problems arise and develop as an attempt to understand and explain the whole, that is, the totality of things, or at least as the problematic of the totality. Philosophy remains such if and only if it searches for the perspective of the meaning of the whole. On chthe contrary, the sciences have arisen as rational considerations restricted to the parts or sectors of reality. They have an elaborate methodology and technique of inquiry that changes in function of the structure of these parts, and their value resides in these parts, and hence they are not of value for the whole of reality.

But what purpose is there to philosophizing today, in a world in which science, technology, and politics seem on the whole to divide the power, in a world in which the scientist, the technocrat, the politician become the new magicians moving all the levers? The purpose, in our judgement, remains always the same for philosophy as it has from its beginning, the aim of demythologizing. The ancient myths were those of poetry, of fantasy, of imagination; the new myths are those of science, of technology, and of ideology, that is to say, the myths of power.

Certainly the task of demythologizing is more difficult today than it was with the ancients. The new myths of today are constructed by reason itself, at least in great part, since science and technology would seem to lead directly to the triumph of reason. But it is a reason that, once it has lost the meaning of the totality, the sense of the whole, risks losing even its own identity.

Giovanni Reale – Preface to A History of Ancient Philosophy

Everything but a Feeling

When at different periods in life one speculates about solipsism (which considers all material bodies as nothing more than just our ideas), it usually happens as follows:

First, as boys, we laugh at the absurdity of this idealism.
A little bit later, this theory seems to us witty and presumable; we discuss it eagerly with people who in terms of age or education, are still in the first period.
At a more mature age, we consider it to be very accurate, we annoy ourselves and others with it, but we think it is unworthy of disproving and against nature. Man believes that it is not worth brooding over it, because it seems to him that he had thought enough about it.
In the end, however, after deeper deliberation this idealism becomes the truth quite invincible for him.

Please only think that even if there are any items outside of our mind, we know nothing about their objective reality. Everything we receive is solely through our impressions and ideas. The belief that these impressions and ideas are caused in our mind by external objects, is after all nothing more than just our idea again. There is no way to overcome idealism, since we would always be only idealists, even if there were material objects around us, because we could know absolutely nothing of the essence of these objects.

Everything is but a feeling; knowledge of external things would be a contradiction: man cannot go beyond himself. By judging that we perceive material external objects, we are clearly in the wrong, because we only see ourselves, i.e. our imagination. Nothing in the world can we know except ourselves and except changes which occur in us. Also, we cannot feel for someone else or as them, as we say sometimes: we only feel for ourselves. This sentiment seems strange, but on closer deliberation ceases to be such. No one loves a father, mother, wife and children, but only loves pleasant feelings that these people cause; these feelings flatter either our pride or our self-love; we love ourselves, i.e. ourselves in someone, but not that someone. It cannot be otherwise, anyone who denies this assertion, does not understand it.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg – Vermischte Schriften

Pourquoi y a-t-il quelque chose plutôt que rien?

A belief in the existence of the material world is impossible to justify using reason. When I get lost in thoughts on that subject, what happens to me always when I wonder about it, I come to a conclusion that everything we see is a mere phenomenon, that there is nothing outside of us that relates to our fantasies, and I always go back to this question of the Indian king: “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

Jean d’Alembert – Letters to Voltaire

What is Zen?

It is presented right to your face, and at this moment the whole thing is handed over to you. For an intelligent fellow, one word should suffice to convince him of the truth of it, but even then error has crept in. Much more so when it is committed to paper and ink, or given up to wordy demonstration or to logical quibble, then it slips farther away from you. The great truth of Zen is possessed by everybody. Look into your own being and seek it not through others. Your own mind is above all forms; it is free and quiet and sufficient. In its light all is absorbed. Hush the dualism of subject and object, forget both, transcend the intellect, sever yourself from the understanding.

Miyun Yuanwu

The basic idea of Zen is to come in touch with the inner workings of our being, and to do this in the most direct way possible, without resorting to anything external. Therefore, anything that has the semblance of an external authority is rejected by Zen. Absolute faith is placed in a man’s own inner being. For whatever authority there is in Zen, all comes from within. This is true in the strictest sense of the word.

Zen professes itself to be the spirit of Buddhism, but in fact it is the spirit of all religions and philosophies. When Zen is thoroughly understood, absolute peace of mind is attained, and a man lives as he ought to live. What more may we hope?

For Zen reveals itself in the most uninteresting and uneventful life of a plain man of the street, recognizing the fact of living in the midst of life as it is lived. Zen systematically trains the mind to see this; it opens a man’s eye to the greatest mystery as it is daily and hourly performed; it enlarges the heart to embrace eternity of time and infinity of space in its every palpitation; it makes us live in the world as if walking in the garden of Eden; and all these spiritual feats are accomplished without resorting to any doctrines but by simply asserting in the most direct way the truth that lies in our inner being.

Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki – An Introduction to Zen Buddhism

Solus ipse. What is Solipsism?

Solipsism is a epistemological concept, according to which the self alone is real to consciousness, all other contents of consciousness are mere ideas (subjectivism), as methodological rule used e.g. by Descartes. The main claim of solipsism is that all that exists is only a projection of one’s individual perceptions, all the while, the reality is just a collection of its subjective impressions: all objects, people, things, shapes etc. experienced, are merely the creation of mind.

Solipsism is extreme subjective idealism in the epistemological sense. Solipsist not only denies the existence of the material world. The most controversial argument made by the solipsism is a denial of the existence of consciousness in other people and other people in general.

Solipsist argues that contact with the world is always a personal experience. After all, other people’s experiences are always secondary, and may be perceived only by analogy to one’s own experiences. cf. 2

Relationship between Subject and Object of Thought as Self-Reference Paradox

Uroboros
This means to subject the point of departure of the question in Being and Time to the immanent criticism. Thus it must become clear to what extent the critical question, of what the matter of thinking is, necessarily and continually belongs to thinking.

Martin Heidegger – The End of Philosophy and the Task of Thinking