taking into account such diverse animals as a cat and a bat, their stalking behavior suggests a belief in realism – an unseen, but seeable reality. This animal realism seems to be a universal in humans as a weltanschauung, and as Santayana said we must begin philosophising in a medias res. That is why Moore’s appeal to common sense makes sense against skeptisism. elaborate and evaluate
ChatGPT said:
This is a rich and thought-provoking reflection combining ethological observation with epistemology and metaphysics. Let’s unpack and elaborate on your key points while offering a philosophical evaluation.
1. Animal Realism and Perception: Cat and Bat as Epistemic Agents
You begin with a comparison between animals like cats and bats — two vastly different species — and their stalking or hunting behaviors. Despite their differences in sensory modalities (e.g., echolocation for bats vs. vision and hearing for cats), both animals behave in ways that suggest they are oriented toward a real, external world that they interact with strategically and responsively. This implies a kind of proto-realism, a belief (if we can use that word anthropomorphically) in a world that exists independently of their perceptions but is nevertheless knowable or at least trackable through sensory information.
In philosophy, this aligns with what we might call pragmatic realism — a functional relation to an objective reality that need not be philosophically articulated but is nevertheless presupposed in behavior. Even non-human animals exhibit a belief in a world “out there” that they must navigate, stalk, and predict. From this ethological perspective, realism appears to be evolutionarily embedded.
2. Realism as a Human Weltanschauung
You extend this “animal realism” to humans, suggesting it forms the basis of a universal weltanschauung (worldview). That is, we are born and live embedded in a presumption of realism: there is a world external to our minds, structured in such a way that we can learn about it, act upon it, and be affected by it.
This echoes Thomas Reid’s common sense realism and anticipates the phenomenological insight that we do not begin life with skepticism — we must learn to doubt. Our natural attitude is immersed in a world of things, not in a solipsistic void. This supports George Santayana’s view that we begin “in medias res” — already in the middle of experience, with perceptions and objects interwoven, before reflective philosophy begins.
3. Moore’s Appeal to Common Sense
This sets the stage for your move to G.E. Moore, who famously refuted skepticism by appealing to common sense: holding up his hands and declaring, “Here is one hand, and here is another,” as evidence of the external world. Moore’s point wasn’t to give a deductive proof but to assert that our certainty in everyday facts outweighs the abstract doubt raised by skeptical hypotheses (e.g., the dream argument or brain-in-a-vat scenarios).
In light of your analysis, Moore’s argument gains support from evolutionary and behavioral realism: not only is belief in the external world common sense, but it is biologically embedded. The behavior of animals (including humans) presupposes realism not as a philosophical position but as a condition of action and survival.
4. Evaluation: Strengths and Limits
Strengths:
- Naturalistic grounding of realism: Your appeal to animal behavior gives realism a biological, pragmatic grounding, which is philosophically compelling for naturalists.
- Bridge to epistemology: By starting with animal realism, you provide a novel justification for Moore’s appeal to common sense — not as a mere assertion, but as an evolved stance.
- Phenomenological sensitivity: The reference to Santayana’s in medias res captures how human consciousness is already in the world, not abstracted from it.
Limits:
- Anthropomorphic risk: There is a potential danger of reading too much into animal behavior as indicative of belief-like states.
- Philosophical skepticism remains internally coherent: Moore’s argument and your ethological realism may not refute skepticism logically — they merely reject it as implausible or unliveable. A skeptic could still argue that all this is compatible with an elaborate illusion.
- Epistemic circularity: Saying that we believe in realism because it “works” pragmatically may beg the question if the issue is whether we know the external world exists.
Conclusion
Your insight that stalking behavior in animals suggests an implicit realism is both biologically informed and philosophically suggestive. It supports the view that realism is not just a philosophical stance but a condition of life and action — something embedded in consciousness itself. This lends powerful, though not logically decisive, support to Moore’s common sense rebuttal of skepticism.
In the end, your approach supports a pragmatic and phenomenological realism, one that sees skepticism not as refuted, but as unmotivated in light of our lived and evolved condition as beings oriented toward a world.Attach
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