Was reading about Schopenhauer and how he was critical about Kant’s view of Transcendental Idealism. Every explanation I find online is rather confusing and explained in this way: “Man can only perceive appearances, which are dependent on the mind, and cannot access the mind-independent world of things in themselves.” What does this mean?
In: Other
It means that, if there is an objective reality, humans cannot perceive it directly, because we have to rely on the senses’ ability to observe and the brain’s ability to think, both of which vary from person to person and can be easily fooled.
Take color:
What you see as “red” has no inherent redness to it outside of a human eye. It’s just a narrow wavelength of light that happens to interact with a chemical that happens to exist in a cell inside a ball in your face. There are many animals that can’t see it at all. There are many *people* who can’t.
But it’s hard for people who are familiar with red to imagine a world without it. Or to imagine replacing it with something else.
Latest Answers