Nontheistic religions are traditions of thought within a religious context—some otherwise aligned with theism, others not—in which nontheism informs religious beliefs or practices. Nontheism has been applied to the fields of Christian apologetics and general liberal theology, and plays significant roles in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Satanism.
While many approaches to religion exclude nontheism by definition, some
inclusive definitions of religion show how religious practice and
belief do not depend on the presence of god(s). For example, Paul James and Peter Mandaville distinguish between religion and spirituality, but provide a definition of the term that avoids the usual reduction to "religions of the book":
Religion can be defined as a
relatively-bounded system of beliefs, symbols and practices that
addresses the nature of existence, and in which communion with others
and Otherness is lived as if it both takes in and spiritually transcends
socially-grounded ontologies of time, space, embodiment and knowing.[2]
The Buddha said that devas (translated as "gods") do exist, but they were regarded as still being trapped in samsara,[3] and are not necessarily wiser than we. In fact, the Buddha is often portrayed as a teacher of the gods,[4] and superior to them.[5]
Since the time of the Buddha, the denial of the existence of a creator deity has been seen as a key point in distinguishing Buddhist from non-Buddhist views.[6] The question of an independent creator deity was answered by the Buddha in the Brahmajala Sutta. The Buddha denounced the view of a creator and sees that such notions are related to the false view of eternalism, and like the 61 other views, this belief causes suffering when one is attached
to it and states these views may lead to desire, aversion and delusion.
At the end of the Sutta the Buddha says he knows these 62 views and he
also knows the truth that surpasses them.
Metaphysical questions
On one occasion, when presented with a problem of metaphysics by the monk Malunkyaputta, the Buddha responded with the Parable of the Poison Arrow.
When a man is shot with an arrow thickly smeared with poison, his
family summons the doctor to have the poison removed, and the doctor
gives an antidote:[7]
But the man refuses to let the
doctor do anything before certain questions can be answered. The
wounded man demands to know who shot the arrow, what his caste and job
is, and why he shot him. He wants to know what kind of bow the man used
and how he acquired the ingredients used in preparing the poison.
Malunkyaputta, such a man will die before getting the answers to his
questions. It is no different for one who follows the Way. I teach
only those things necessary to realize the Way. Things which are not helpful or necessary, I do not teach.
Christianity
A few liberal Christiantheologians, define a "nontheistic God" as "the ground of all being" rather than as a personal divinebeing. John Shelby Spong
refers to a theistic God as "a personal being with expanded
supernatural, human, and parental qualities, which has shaped every
religious idea of the Western world."[8]
From a nontheist, naturalist, and rationalist perspective, the concept of divine grace appears to be the same concept as luck.[9]
Many of them owe much of their theology to the work of Christian existentialist philosopherPaul Tillich,
including the phrase "the ground of all being". Another quotation from
Tillich is, "God does not exist. He is being itself beyond essence and
existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him."[10]
This Tillich quotation summarizes his conception of God. He does not
think of God as a being that exists in time and space, because that
constrains God, and makes God finite. But all beings are finite, and if
God is the Creator of all beings, God cannot logically be finite since a
finite being cannot be the sustainer of an infinite variety of finite
things. Thus God is considered beyond being, above finitude and
limitation, the power or essence of being itself.
Nontheist Quakers
Logo of the Society of Nontheist Friends
A nontheist Friend or an atheist Quaker is someone who affiliates with, identifies with, engages in and/or affirms Quaker practices and processes, but who does not accept a belief in a theistic understanding of God, a Supreme Being, the divine, the soul or the supernatural. Like theistic Friends, nontheist Friends are actively interested in realizing centered peace, simplicity, integrity, community, equality, love, happiness and social justice in the Society of Friends and beyond.
Hinduism
Hinduism is characterised by extremely diverse beliefs and practices.[11] In the words of R.C. Zaehner, "it is perfectly possible to be a good Hindu whether one's personal views incline toward monism, monotheism, polytheism, or even atheism."[12] He goes on to say that it is a religion that neither depends on the existence or non-existence of God or Gods.[13]
More broadly, Hinduism can be seen as having three more important
strands: one featuring a personal Creator or Divine Being, one that
emphasises an impersonal Absolute and a third that is pluralistic and
non-absolute. The latter two traditions can be seen as nontheistic.[14]
Although the Vedas are broadly concerned with the completion of
ritual, there are some elements that can be interpreted as either
nontheistic or precursors to the later developments of the nontheistic
tradition. The oldest Hindu scripture, the Rig Veda mentions that 'There is only one god though the sages may give it various names' (1.164.46). Max Müller termed this henotheism, and it can be seen as indicating one, non-dual divine reality, with little emphasis on personality.[15] The famous Nasadiya Sukta,
the 129th Hymn of the tenth and final Mandala (or chapter) of the Rig
Veda, considers creation and asks "The gods came afterwards, with the
creation of this universe. /Who then knows whence it has arisen?".[16]
This can be seen to contain the intuition that there must be a single
principle behind all phenomena: 'That one' (tad ekam), self-sufficient,
to which distinctions cannot be applied.[17][18]
It is with the Upanishads, reckoned to be written in the first millennia (coeval with the ritualistic Brahmanas),
that the Vedic emphasis on ritual was challenged. The Upanishads can be
seen as the expression of new sources of power in India. Also, separate
from the Upanishadic tradition were bands of wandering ascetics called
Vadins whose largely nontheistic notions rejected the notion that
religious knowledge was the property of the Brahmins. Many of these were
shramanas, who represented a non-Vedic tradition rooted in India's pre-Aryan history.[19] The emphasis of the Upanishads turned to knowledge, specifically the ultimate identity of all phenomena.[20] This is expressed in the notion of Brahman,
the key idea of the Upanishads, and much later philosophizing has been
taken up with deciding whether Brahman is personal or impersonal.[21]
The understanding of the nature of Brahman as impersonal is based in
the definition of it as 'ekam eva advitiyam' (Chandogya Upanishad 6.2.1)
- it is one without a second and to which no substantive predicates can
be attached.[22] Further, both the Chandogya and Brihadaranyaka Upanishads assert that the individual atman and the impersonal Brahman are one.[23] The mahāvākya statement Tat Tvam Asi, found in the Chandogya Upanishad, can be taken to indicate this unity.[24] The latter Upanishad uses the negative term Neti neti to 'describe' the divine.
Classical Samkhya, Mimamsa, early Vaisheshika and early Nyaya schools of Hinduism do not accept the notion of an omnipotent creator God at all.[25][26]
While the Sankhya and Mimamsa schools no longer have significant
followings in India, they are both influential in the development of
later schools of philosophy.[27][28] The Yoga of Patanjali
is the school that probably owes most to the Samkhya thought. This
school is dualistic, in the sense that there is a division between
'spirit' (Sanskrit: purusha) and 'nature' (Sanskrit: prakṛti).[29] It holds Samadhi or 'concentrative union' as its ultimate goal[30] and it does not consider God's existence as either essential or necessary to achieving this.[31]
The Bhagavad Gita, contains passages that bear a monistic reading and others that bear a theistic reading.[32] Generally, the book as a whole has been interpreted by some who see it as containing a primarily nontheistic message,[33] and by others who stress its theistic message.[34] These broadly either follow after either Sankara or Ramanuja[35]
An example of a nontheistic passage might be "The supreme Brahman is
without any beginning. That is called neither being nor non-being,"
which Sankara interpreted to mean that Brahman can only be talked of in
terms of negation of all attributes—'Neti neti'.[36]
The Advaita Vedanta of Gaudapada and Sankara
rejects theism as a consequence of its insistence that Brahman is
"Without attributes, indivisible, subtle, inconceivable, and without
blemish, Brahman is one and without a second. There is nothing other
than He."[37]
This means that it lacks properties usually associated with God such as
omniscience, perfect goodness, omnipotence, and additionally is
identical with the whole of reality, rather than being a causal agent or
ruler of it.[38]
Jainism
Jain texts claim that the universe consists of jiva (life force or souls) and ajiva
(lifeless objects). According to Jain doctrine, the universe and its
constituents-soul, matter, space, time, and principles of motion-have
always existed. The universe and the matter and souls within it are
eternal and uncreated, and there is no omnipotent creator god. Jainism offers an elaborate cosmology, including heavenly beings/devas,
but these heavenly beings are not viewed as creators-they are subject
to suffering and change like all other living beings, and are portrayed
as mortal.
According to the Jain concept of divinity, any soul who destroys its karmas
and desires, achieves liberation/Nirvana. A soul who destroys all its
passions and desires has no desire to interfere in the working of the
universe. If godliness is defined as the state of having freed one's
soul from karmas and the attainment of enlightenment/Nirvana and a
god as one who exists in such a state, then those who have achieved
such a state can be termed gods (Tirthankara).
Besides scriptural authority, Jains also employ syllogism and deductive reasoning to refute creationist theories. Various views on divinity and the universe held by the vedics, sāmkhyas, mimimsas, Buddhists, and other school of thoughts were criticized by Jain Ācāryas, such as Jinasena in Mahāpurāna.
Satanism
Lucien Greaves, the founder of the Satanic Temple, argues that contemporary Satanism
is "the future of religion" insofar as it offers a model for how
religious traditions can evolve and be maintained without the need for
the supernatural, as cultural and philosophical identities that inform
the narratives and the rituals of individuals adherents and communities.
His organization challenges the traditional view that religion must incorporate supernatural claims.
Others
Philosophical models not falling within established religious structures, such as Daoism, deism and pandeism, have also been considered to be nontheistic religions.
Cutting the risk of dying in half. The new study, led by thoracic medical oncologist Leena Gandhi, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine and director of the thoracic medical oncology program at NYU’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, shows that treating lung cancer by a combination of immunotherapy with Merck’s Keytruda (aka pembrolizumab) and chemotherapy is more effective than chemotherapy alone, according to a statement by NYU Langone Health.
The combination cut in half the risk of dying or having the cancer worsen, compared to chemo alone, after nearly one year, the Associated Press reported in The New York Times.
“The results are expected to quickly set a new standard of care for
about 70,000 patients each year in the United States whose lung cancer
has already spread by the time it’s found,” the AP stated.
“Another study found that an immunotherapy combo — the Bristol-Myers
Squibb drugs Opdivo and Yervoy — worked better than chemo for delaying
the time until cancer worsened in advanced lung cancer patients whose
tumors have many gene flaws, as nearly half do. But the benefit lasted
less than two months on average and it’s too soon to know if the combo
improves overall survival, as Keytruda did.”
Micrograph of a squamous carcinoma, a type of non-small-cell lung cancer (credit: Wikipedia)
Removing a cloak. All three of these “checkpoint inhibitor” treatments remove a “cloak” that some cancer cells have that hides the cancer cells from the immune system.
These immune-therapy treatments — which are administered through IVs
and cost about $12,500 a month — worked for only about half of patients.
But that’s far better than chemo alone has done in the past, notes the
AP.
The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2018, there will be about 234,030 new cases of lung cancer in the U.S and about 154,050 deaths from lung cancer.
The
saying holds that the world is supported by a chain of increasingly
large turtles. Beneath each turtle is yet another: it is "turtles all
the way down".
"Turtles all the way down" is an expression of the problem of infinite regress. The saying alludes to the mythological idea of a World Turtle
that supports the earth on its back. It suggests that this turtle rests
on the back of an even larger turtle, which itself is part of a column
of increasingly large turtles that continues indefinitely (i.e. "turtles all the way down").
The exact origin of the phrase is uncertain. In the form "rocks all the way down", the saying appears as early as 1838.[1] References to the saying's mythological antecedents, the World Turtle and its counterpart the World Elephant, were made by a number of authors in the 17th and 18th centuries.[2][3] This mythology is frequently assumed to have originated in ancient India and other Hinduist beliefs.
Early variants of the saying do not always have explicit references
to infinite regression (i.e., the phrase "all the way down"). They often
reference stories featuring a World Elephant, World Turtle, or other similar creatures that are claimed to come from Hindu mythology. The first known reference to a Hindu source is found in a letter by Jesuit Emanual de Veiga (1549–1605), written at Chandagiri on 18 September 1599, in which the relevant passage reads:[5]
Alii dicebant terram novem
constare angulis, quibus cœlo innititur. Alius ab his dissentiens
volebat terram septem elephantis fulciri, elephantes uero ne
subsiderent, super testudine pedes fixos habere. Quærenti quis
testudinis corpus firmaret, ne dilaberetur, respondere nesciuit.
Others hold that the earth has nine
corners by which the heavens are supported. Another disagreeing from
these would have the earth supported by seven elephants, and the
elephants do not sink down because their feet are fixed on a tortoise.
When asked who would fix the body of the tortoise, so that it would not
collapse, he said that he did not know.
Veiga's account seems to have been received by Samuel Purchas, who has a close paraphrase in his Purchas His Pilgrims
(1613/1626),
"that the Earth had nine corners, whereby it was borne up by the Heaven.
Others dissented, and said, that the Earth was borne up by seven
Elephants; the Elephants' feet stood on Tortoises, and they were borne
by they know not what."[6] Purchas' account is again reflected by John Locke in his 1689 tract An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,
where Locke introduces the story as a trope referring to the problem of
induction in philosophical debate. Locke compares one who would say
that properties inhere in "Substance" to the Indian who said the world
was on an elephant which was on a tortoise, "But being again pressed to
know what gave support to the broad-back'd Tortoise, replied, something,
he knew not what".[2] The story is also referenced by Henry David Thoreau,
who writes in his journal entry of 4 May 1852: "Men are making speeches
... all over the country, but each expresses only the thought, or the
want of thought, of the multitude. No man stands on truth. They are
merely banded together as usual, one leaning on another and all together
on nothing; as the Hindoos made the world rest on an elephant, and
the elephant on a tortoise, and had nothing to put under the tortoise."[7]
Modern form
In the form of "rocks all the way down", the saying dates to at least 1838, when it was printed in an unsigned anecdote in the New-York Mirror about a schoolboy and an old woman living in the woods:
"The world, marm," said I, anxious
to display my acquired knowledge, "is not exactly round, but resembles
in shape a flattened orange; and it turns on its axis once in
twenty-four hours."
"Well, I don't know anything about its axes,"
replied she, "but I know it don't turn round, for if it did we'd be all
tumbled off; and as to its being round, any one can see it's a square
piece of ground, standing on a rock!"
"Standing on a rock! but upon what does that stand?"
"Why, on another, to be sure!"
"But what supports the last?"
"Lud! child, how stupid you are! There's rocks all the way down!"[1]
A version of the saying in its "turtle" form appeared in an 1854
transcript of remarks by preacher Joseph Frederick Berg addressed to Joseph Barker:
My opponent's reasoning reminds me
of the heathen, who, being asked on what the world stood, replied, "On a
tortoise." But on what does the tortoise stand? "On another tortoise."
With Mr. Barker, too, there are tortoises all the way down. (Vehement
and vociferous applause.)
Many 20th-century attributions claim that William James is the source of the phrase.[9]
James referred to the fable of the elephant and tortoise several times,
but told the infinite regress story with "rocks all the way down" in
his 1882 essay, "Rationality, Activity and Faith":
Like the old woman in the story who
described the world as resting on a rock, and then explained that rock
to be supported by another rock, and finally when pushed with questions
said it was "rocks all the way down," he who believes this to be a
radically moral universe must hold the moral order to rest either on an
absolute and ultimate should or on a series of shoulds "all the way down."[10]
The linguist John R. Ross also associates James with the phrase:
The following anecdote is told of
William James. [...] After a lecture on cosmology and the structure of
the solar system, James was accosted by a little old lady.
"Your
theory that the sun is the centre of the solar system, and the earth is a
ball which rotates around it has a very convincing ring to it, Mr.
James, but it's wrong. I've got a better theory," said the little old
lady.
"And what is that, madam?" inquired James politely.
"That we live on a crust of earth which is on the back of a giant turtle."
Not
wishing to demolish this absurd little theory by bringing to bear the
masses of scientific evidence he had at his command, James decided to
gently dissuade his opponent by making her see some of the inadequacies
of her position.
"If your theory is correct, madam," he asked, "what does this turtle stand on?"
"You're
a very clever man, Mr. James, and that's a very good question," replied
the little old lady, "but I have an answer to it. And it's this: The
first turtle stands on the back of a second, far larger, turtle, who
stands directly under him."
"But what does this second turtle stand on?" persisted James patiently.
To this, the little old lady crowed triumphantly,
"It's no use, Mr. James — it's turtles all the way down."
— J. R. Ross, Constraints on Variables in Syntax 1967[11]
In epistemology and other disciplines
The metaphor
is used as an example of the problem of infinite regress in
epistemology to show that there is a necessary foundation to knowledge,
as written by Johann Gottlieb Fichte in 1794:[12][page needed]
"If there is not to be any (system
of human knowledge dependent upon an absolute first principle) two cases
are only possible. Either there is no immediate certainty at all, and
then our knowledge forms many series or one infinite series, wherein
each theorem is derived from a higher one, and this again from a higher
one, et., etc. We build our houses on the earth, the earth rests on an
elephant, the elephant on a tortoise, the tortoise again--who knows on
what?-- and so on ad infinitum. True, if our knowledge is thus
constituted, we can not alter it; but neither have we, then, any firm
knowledge. We may have gone back to a certain link of our series, and
have found every thing firm up to this link; but who can guarantee us
that, if we go further back, we may not find it ungrounded, and shall
thus have to abandon it? Our certainty is only assumed, and we can
never be sure of it for a single following day."
How, therefore, shall we satisfy
ourselves concerning the cause of that Being whom you suppose the Author
of Nature, or, according to your system of Anthropomorphism, the ideal
world, into which you trace the material? Have we not the same reason to
trace that ideal world into another ideal world, or new intelligent
principle? But if we stop, and go no further; why go so far? why not
stop at the material world? How can we satisfy ourselves without going
on in infinitum? And, after all, what satisfaction is there in that
infinite progression? Let us remember the story of the Indian
philosopher and his elephant. It was never more applicable than to the
present subject. If the material world rests upon a similar ideal world,
this ideal world must rest upon some other; and so on, without end. It
were better, therefore, never to look beyond the present material world.
By supposing it to contain the principle of its order within itself, we
really assert it to be God; and the sooner we arrive at that Divine
Being, so much the better. When you go one step beyond the mundane
system, you only excite an inquisitive humour which it is impossible
ever to satisfy.
If everything must have a cause,
then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it
may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any
validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the
Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant
rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, 'How about the tortoise?'
the Indian said, 'Suppose we change the subject.'
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell)
once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth
orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center
of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the
lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said:
"What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate
supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a
superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But
it's turtles all the way down!"
In our favored version, an Eastern
guru affirms that the earth is supported on the back of a tiger. When
asked what supports the tiger, he says it stands upon an elephant; and
when asked what supports the elephant he says it is a giant turtle. When
asked, finally, what supports the giant turtle, he is briefly taken
aback, but quickly replies "Ah, after that it is turtles all the way
down."
Solipsism (/ˈsɒlɪpsɪzəm/ (listen); from Latin solus, meaning 'alone', and ipse, meaning 'self') is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist.
Varieties
There are varying degrees of solipsism that parallel the varying degrees of skepticism:
Metaphysical solipsism
Metaphysical solipsism is a variety of solipsism. Based on a philosophy of subjective idealism, metaphysical solipsists maintain that the self is the only existing reality and that all other realities, including the external world and other persons, are representations of that self, and have no independent existence.[citation needed] There are several versions of metaphysical solipsism, such as Caspar Hare's egocentric presentism (or perspectival realism), in which other people are conscious, but their experiences are simply not present.[citation needed]
Epistemological solipsism
Epistemological solipsism is the variety of idealism
according to which only the directly accessible mental contents of the
solipsistic philosopher can be known. The existence of an external world
is regarded as an unresolvable question rather than actually false.[2]
Further, one cannot also be certain as to what extent the external
world exists independently of one's mind. For instance, it may be that a
God-like being controls the sensations received by one's brain, making
it appear as if there is an external world when most of it (excluding
the God-like being and oneself) is false. However, the point remains
that epistemological solipsists consider this an "unresolvable"
question.[2]
Methodological solipsism
Methodological solipsism is an agnostic variant of solipsism.[citation needed] It exists in opposition to the strict epistemological requirements for "knowledge" (e.g. the requirement that knowledge must be certain). It still entertains the points that any induction is fallible.
Methodological solipsism sometimes goes even further to say that even
what we perceive as the brain is actually part of the external world,
for it is only through our senses that we can see or feel the mind. Only
the existence of thoughts is known for certain.
Importantly, methodological solipsists do not intend to conclude
that the stronger forms of solipsism are actually true. They simply
emphasize that justifications of an external world must be founded on
indisputable facts about their own consciousness. The methodological
solipsist believes that subjective impressions (empiricism) or innate knowledge (rationalism) are the sole possible or proper starting point for philosophical construction.[3] Often methodological solipsism is not held as a belief system, but rather used as a thought experiment to assist skepticism (e.g. Descartes' cartesian skepticism).[citation needed]
Main points
Denial of material existence, in itself, does not constitute solipsism.
Philosophers try to build knowledge on more than an inference or analogy. The failure of Descartes' epistemological enterprise brought to popularity the idea that all certain knowledge may go no further than "I think; therefore I exist"[4] without providing any real details about the nature of the "I" that has been proven to exist.[citation needed]
The theory of solipsism also merits close examination because it
relates to three widely held philosophical presuppositions, each itself
fundamental and wide-ranging in importance:[4]
My most certain knowledge is the content of my own mind—mythoughts, experiences, affects, etc.
There is no conceptual or logically necessary link between mental
and physical—between, say, the occurrence of certain conscious
experience or mental states and the 'possession' and behavioral
dispositions of a 'body' of a particular kind (see the brain in a vat).
To expand on this a little further, the conceptual problem here is that the previous assumes mind or consciousness
(which are attributes) can exist independent of some entity having this
capability, i.e., that an attribute of an existant can exist apart from
the existant itself. If one admits to the existence of an independent
entity (e.g., your brain) having that attribute, the door is open.
3. The experience of a given person is necessarily private to that person.
Some people hold that, while it cannot be proven that anything
independent of one's mind exists, the point that solipsism makes is
irrelevant. This is because, whether the world as we perceive it exists
independently or not, we cannot escape this perception (except via
death), hence it is best to act assuming that the world is independent
of our minds.[5]
For example, if one committed a crime, one is likely to be punished,
causing potential distress to oneself even if the world was not
independent of one's mind; therefore, it is in one's best interests and
is most convenient to assume the world exists independently of one's
mind.
There is also the issue of plausibility to consider. If one is
the only mind in existence, then one is maintaining that one's mind
alone created all of which one is apparently aware. This includes the
symphonies of Beethoven, the works of Shakespeare,
all of mathematics and science (which one can access via one's phantom
libraries), etc. Critics of solipsism find this somewhat implausible.
However, since as an example, people are able to construct entire worlds
inside their minds while having dreams when asleep, and people have had
dreams which included things such as music of Beethoven or the works of
Shakespeare or maths or science in them, solipsists do have
counter-arguments to justify their views being plausible.
Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it.
Even if something could be known about it, knowledge about it can't be communicated to others.
Much of the point of the Sophists was to show that "objective"
knowledge was a literal impossibility.
Descartes
The
foundations of solipsism are in turn the foundations of the view that
the individual's understanding of any and all psychological concepts (thinking, willing, perceiving, etc.) is accomplished by making an analogy with his or her own mental states; i.e., by abstraction from inner experience. And this view, or some variant of it, has been influential in philosophy since Descartes elevated the search for incontrovertible certainty to the status of the primary goal of epistemology, whilst also elevating epistemology to "first philosophy".[citation needed]
George Berkeley's arguments against materialism in favour of idealism provide the solipsist with a number of arguments not found in Descartes. While Descartes defends ontological dualism, thus accepting the existence of a material world (res extensa) as well as immaterial minds (res cogitans) and God, Berkeley denies the existence of matter but not minds, of which God is one.[7]
Relation to other ideas
Idealism and materialism
One
of the most fundamental debates in philosophy concerns the "true"
nature of the world—whether it is some ethereal plane of ideas or a
reality of atomic particles and energy. Materialism[8]
posits a real 'world out there,' as well as in and through us, that can
be sensed—seen, heard, tasted, touched and felt, sometimes with
prosthetic technologies corresponding to human sensing organs. (Materialists do not claim that human senses or even their prosthetics
can, even when collected, sense the totality of the 'universe'; simply
that what they collectively cannot sense cannot in any way be known to
us.)
Materialists do not find this a useful way of thinking about the ontology and ontogeny
of ideas, but we might say that from a materialist perspective pushed
to a logical extreme communicable to an idealist (an "Away Team"
perspective), ideas are ultimately reducible to a physically
communicated, organically, socially and environmentally embedded 'brain
state'. While reflexive existence is not considered by materialists to
be experienced on the atomic level, the individual's physical and mental
experiences are ultimately reducible to the unique tripartite
combination of environmentally determined, genetically determined, and
randomly determined interactions of firing neurons and atomic collisions.
As a correlative, the only thing that dreams and hallucinations
prove are that some neurons can reorganize and 'clean house' 'on break'
(often reforming according to emergent, prominent, or uncanny cultural
themes), misfire, and malfunction. But for materialists, ideas have no
primary reality as essences separate from our physical existence. From a
materialist "Home Team" perspective, ideas are also social (rather than
purely biological), and formed and transmitted and modified through the
interactions between social organisms and their social and physical
environments. This materialist perspective informs scientific
methodology, insofar as that methodology assumes that humans have no access to omniscience and that therefore human knowledge is an ongoing, collective enterprise that is best produced via scientific and logical conventions adjusted specifically for material human capacities and limitations.[citation needed]
Modern Idealists,
on the other hand, believe that the mind and its thoughts are the only
true things that exist. This is the reverse of what is sometimes called classical idealism or, somewhat confusingly, Platonic idealism due to the influence of Plato's Theory of Forms (εἶδος eidos or ἰδέα idea) which were not products of our thinking.[9] The material world is ephemeral,
but a perfect triangle or "beauty" is eternal. Religious thinking tends
to be some form of idealism, as God usually becomes the highest ideal
(such as Neoplatonism).[8][10][11] On this scale, solipsism can be classed as idealism.
Thoughts and concepts are all that exist, and furthermore, only the
solipsist's own thoughts and consciousness exist. The so-called
"reality" is nothing more than an idea that the solipsist has (perhaps
unconsciously) created.
Cartesian dualism
There is another option: the belief that both ideals and "reality" exist. Dualists commonly argue that the distinction between the mind (or 'ideas') and matter can be proven by employing Leibniz' principle of the identity of indiscernibles
which states that if two things share exactly the same qualities, then
they must be identical, as in indistinguishable from each other and
therefore one and the same thing. Dualists then attempt to identify
attributes of mind that are lacked by matter (such as privacy or
intentionality) or vice versa (such as having a certain temperature or
electrical charge).[12][13] One notable application of the identity of indiscernibles was by René Descartes in his Meditations on First Philosophy. Descartes concluded that he could not doubt the existence of himself (the famous cogito ergo sum argument), but that he could doubt the (separate) existence of his body. From this, he inferred that the person Descartes must not be identical to the Descartes body
since one possessed a characteristic that the other did not: namely, it
could be known to exist. Solipsism agrees with Descartes in this
aspect, and goes further: only things that can be known to exist for
sure should be considered to exist. The Descartes body could only exist as an idea in the mind of the person Descartes.[14][15]
Descartes and dualism aim to prove the actual existence of reality as
opposed to a phantom existence (as well as the existence of God in
Descartes' case), using the realm of ideas merely as a starting point,
but solipsism usually finds those further arguments unconvincing. The
solipsist instead proposes that his/her own unconscious is the author of
all seemingly "external" events from "reality".
Philosophy of Schopenhauer
The World as Will and Representation is the central work of Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer saw the human will as our one window to the world behind the representation, the Kantian thing-in-itself.
He believed, therefore, that we could gain knowledge about the
thing-in-itself, something Kant said was impossible, since the rest of
the relationship between representation and thing-in-itself could be
understood by analogy as the relationship between human will and human body.
Idealism
The idealist philosopher George Berkeley
argued that physical objects do not exist independently of the mind
that perceives them. An item truly exists only as long as it is
observed; otherwise, it is not only meaningless but simply nonexistent.
The observer and the observed are one. Berkeley does attempt to show
things can and do exist apart from the human mind and our perception,
but only because there is an all-encompassing Mind in which all "ideas"
are perceived – in other words, God, who observes all. Solipsism agrees
that nothing exists outside of perception, but would argue that Berkeley
falls prey to the egocentric predicament –
he can only make his own observations, and thus cannot be truly sure
that this God or other people exist to observe "reality". The solipsist
would say it is better to disregard the unreliable observations of
alleged other people and rely upon the immediate certainty of one's own
perceptions.[16]
Rationalism
Rationalism is the philosophical position that truth is best discovered by the use of reasoning and logic rather than by the use of the senses (see Plato's theory of Forms). Solipsism is also skeptical of sense-data.
Philosophical zombie
The theory of solipsism crosses over with the theory of the philosophical zombie in that all other seemingly conscious beings actually lack true consciousness, instead they only display traits of consciousness to the observer, who is the only conscious being there is.
One critical test is nevertheless to consider the induction from
experience that the externally observable world does not seem, at first
approach, to be directly manipulable purely by mental energies alone.
One can indirectly manipulate the world through the medium of the
physical body, but it seems impossible to do so through pure thought (e.g. via psychokinesis). It might be argued that if the external world were merely a construct of a single consciousness, i.e.
the self, it could then follow that the external world should be
somehow directly manipulable by that consciousness, and if it is not,
then solipsism is false. An argument against this states the notion that
such manipulation may be possible but barred from the conscious self
via the subconscious self, a 'locked' portion of the mind that is still
nevertheless the same mind. Lucid dreaming
might be considered an example of when these locked portions of the
subconscious become accessible. An argument against this might be
brought up in asking why the subconscious mind would be locked. Also,
the access to the autonomous ('locked') portions of the mind during the
lucid dreaming is obviously much different (for instance: is relatively
more transient) than the access to autonomous regions of the perceived nature.
The method of the typical scientist is materialist: they first
assume that the external world exists and can be known. But the
scientific method, in the sense of a predict-observe-modify loop, does
not require the assumption of an external world. A solipsist may perform
a psychological test on themselves, to discern the nature of the
reality in their mind - however David Deutsch
uses this fact to counter-argue: "outer parts" of solipsist, behave
independently so they are independent for "narrowly" defined (conscious) self.[18]
A solipsist's investigations may not be proper science, however, since
it would not include the co-operative and communitarian aspects of
scientific inquiry that normally serve to diminish bias.
Minimalism
Solipsism is a form of logicalminimalism.
Many people are intuitively unconvinced of the nonexistence of the
external world from the basic arguments of solipsism, but a solid proof
of its existence is not available at present. The central assertion of
solipsism rests on the nonexistence of such a proof, and strong
solipsism (as opposed to weak solipsism) asserts that no such proof can
be made. In this sense, solipsism is logically related to agnosticism in religion: the distinction between believing you do not know, and believing you could not have known.
However, minimality (or parsimony) is not the only logical virtue. A common misapprehension of Occam's Razor has it that the simpler theory is always the best. In fact, the principle is that the simpler of two theories of equal explanatory power
is to be preferred. In other words: additional "entities" can pay their
way with enhanced explanatory power. So the realist can claim that,
while his world view is more complex, it is more satisfying as an explanation.
Solipsism in infants
Some developmental psychologists believe that infants are solipsistic, and that eventually children infer that others have experiences much like theirs and reject solipsism.[19]
Hinduism
The earliest reference to Solipsism in Hindu philosophy is found in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, dated to early 1st millennium BCE.[20] The Upanishad
holds the mind to be the only god and all actions in the universe are
thought to be a result of the mind assuming infinite forms.[21] After the development of distinct schools of Indian philosophy, Advaita Vedanta and Samkhya schools are thought to have originated concepts similar to solipsism.[citation needed]
Advaita Vedanta
Advaita is one of the six most known Hindu philosophical systems and literally means "non-duality". Its first great consolidator was Adi Shankaracharya, who continued the work of some of the Upanishadic teachers, and that of his teacher's teacher Gaudapada.
By using various arguments, such as the analysis of the three states of
experience—wakefulness, dream, and deep sleep, he established the
singular reality of Brahman, in which Brahman, the universe and the Atman or the Self, were one and the same.
One who sees everything as nothing but the Self, and the Self in everything one sees, such a seer withdraws from nothing.
For the enlightened, all that exists is nothing but the Self, so how could any suffering or delusion continue for those who know this oneness?
The concept of the Self in the philosophy of Advaita could be interpreted as solipsism. However, the transhuman, theological implications of the Self in Advaita protect it from true solipsism as found in the west. Similarly, the Vedantic text Yogavasistha, escapes charge of solipsism because the real "I" is thought to be nothing but the absolute whole looked at through a particular unique point of interest.[22]
Advaita is also thought to strongly diverge from solipsism in
that, the former is a system of exploration of one's mind in order to
finally understand the nature of the self and attain complete knowledge.
The unity of existence is said to be directly experienced and
understood at the end as a part of complete knowledge. On the other
hand, solipsism posits the non-existence of the external void right at
the beginning, and says that no further inquiry is possible.[citation needed]
Samkhya and Yoga
Samkhya philosophy, which is sometimes seen as the basis of Yogic thought,[23]
adopts a view that matter exists independently of individual minds.
Representation of an object in an individual mind is held to be a mental
approximation of the object in the external world.[24] Therefore, Samkhya chooses representational realism
over epistemological solipsism. Having established this distinction
between the external world and the mind, Samkhya posits the existence of
two metaphysical realities Prakriti (matter) and Purusha (consciousness).
Buddhism
Some misinterpretations of Buddhism assert that external reality is an illusion, and sometimes this position is [mis]understood as metaphysical solipsism. Buddhist philosophy,
though, generally holds that the mind and external phenomena are both
equally transient, and that they arise from each other. The mind cannot
exist without external phenomena, nor can external phenomena exist
without the mind. This relation is known as "dependent arising" (pratityasamutpada).
The Buddha stated, "Within this fathom long body is the world,
the origin of the world, the cessation of the world and the path leading
to the cessation of the world".[25]
Whilst not rejecting the occurrence of external phenomena, the Buddha
focused on the illusion created within the mind of the perceiver by the
process of ascribing permanence to impermanent phenomena, satisfaction
to unsatisfying experiences, and a sense of reality to things that were
effectively insubstantial.
Mahayana
Buddhism also challenges as illusion the idea that one can experience
an 'objective' reality independent of individual perceiving minds.
From the standpoint of Prasangika (a branch of Madhyamaka
thought), external objects do exist, but are devoid of any type of
inherent identity: "Just as objects of mind do not exist [inherently],
mind also does not exist [inherently]".[26]
In other words, even though a chair may physically exist, individuals
can only experience it through the medium of their own mind, each with
their own literal point of view. Therefore, an independent, purely
'objective' reality could never be experienced.
The Yogacara
(sometimes translated as "Mind only") school of Buddhist philosophy
contends that all human experience is constructed by mind. Some later
representatives of one Yogacara subschool (Prajnakaragupta, Ratnakīrti)
propounded a form of idealism that has been interpreted as solipsism. A
view of this sort is contained in the 11th-century treatise of
Ratnakirti, "Refutation of the existence of other minds" (Santanantara dusana), which provides a philosophical refutation of external mind-streams from the Buddhist standpoint of ultimate truth (as distinct from the perspective of everyday reality).[27]
In addition to this, the Bardo Thodol,
Tibet's famous book of the dead, repeatedly states that all of reality
is a figment of one's perception, although this occurs within the
"Bardo" realm (post-mortem). For instance, within the sixth part of
section titled "The Root Verses of the Six Bardos", there appears the
following line: "May I recognize whatever appeareth as being mine own
thought-forms";[28] there are many lines in similar ideal.
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