Examples Of Subjective Realism

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At least once in our lifetime we will ask or be asked the question, “What is real?” Sometimes this is cause from a lost relationship, changing social complexes, and even when experiencing a midlife crisis. In answering this question, we must look deep into our thoughts, and meditate on what we believe it means to exist, to be, and to have meaning. To answers the questions lurking in your mind, a combination of Realism and Antirealism is needed to describe Reality. We must use a subjective mind to observe the objective external world, which in turn creates what we perceive to be real. The Matrix begins with Trinity talking with a man through a phone, about a person they have been watching. A man called Agent Smith has tracked her down, …show more content…

“Subjective idealism is the position that the world consists only of my own mind and things that are dependent on my mind” (Velasquez, p156). Subjective idealist believe that the source of the predictable and reliable nature of our perceptions comes from a higher being, God. This leads us to objective reality, which “refer[s] to anything that exists as it is independent of any conscious awareness of it (via perception, thought, etc.)” (Mulder). Perception is an important aspect in describing reality, as it is used in explaining both realism and antirealism. “Perception is the use of our senses to perceive something; to make an observation using these processes of sight, touch, taste, hearing, and smell” (Velasquez, …show more content…

“George Berkeley, a Christian bishop believe that the conscious mind and its ideas or perceptions are the only reality. He denied that this world we see, is external and independent of the mind” (Velasquez, p155). Berkeley believe that only the mind and spirit were real, and the sensations and ideas that they perceive constitutes reality. John Locke’s ideas on reality are simple, as he believes that our knowledge and perception of reality comes from our senses which become simple ideas for us to build on. He believed that these simple ideas, “represent external reality and that they represent it perfectly well—in comparison to other ideas” (Priselac). Kant was very skeptical of many other philosophers, always finding an argument to oppose philosophers like Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Descartes. Kant found solace in natural science and mathematics. Time according to Kant, “is simply a construct of the human mind (Velasquez, p216). He reasoned this by explaining how we experience sensations, and that these sensations have no meaning until the mind constructs them together to paint the picture that we see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. Space then works with time in the mind, as space is just a way to organize the sensations. Kant concluded, “space and time are mental maps that the mind uses to organize its sensations by locating them in a spatial and temporal

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