Did you read the Paul Marshall paper on Idealism that I suggested?
I had a look at the Marshall paper
Very hard read for me - coming from my perspective
I would say only someone who is an idealist will find it entertaining or convincing
Just a couple of comments:
I hold a representationalist view of perception; and I don’t see the criticism that the representational model of perception gives grounds for scepticism as being a problem for the representational model. It is only a problem for philosophers who hanker for completely absolutist knowledge
Personally I have no problem with the implicit limitations to knowing in my dualist and representational model
I am happy the universe is mysterious and we must use intelligence and observation to endeavour to solve its many mysteries
It was this hankering or demand for absolute truth that led Kant to create his transcendental idealism
Kant in my opinion was not primarily concerned with metaphysics, but with science
His puzzle was this - how could scientific knowledge be rendered absolute, in the manner that mathematics and geometry is absolute
His answer was to create an a priori epistemology and claim that scientific knowledge is a priori
To do this he had to create the absurd notion of the synthetic a priori; the notion that experience is somehow a priori
He eliminated objective matter, space, time and causality and made them subjective mind dependent categories
(He did not deny an objective physical universe, but it plays no active part in his epistemology)
I think he had the wrong motivation; and he got human epistemology wrong
Following the opposite motivation lead Berkeley to his form of idealism; a similar idealism to Marshall and Kastrup (?)
Berkley wanted to oppose the malign influence of scientific knowledge and its challenge to religious revelation and authority
His method was to simply remove the material upon which scientific knowledge relies - matter, space, time and causality
just as Kant did in his own manner
For Berkeley matter, space, time and causality were mental ideas or activities in the mind of God
Neither of these philosophies succeeded in unravelling the puzzle of human knowing
They are ingenious attempts to shoehorn human knowing into different prejudices and ideologies
Which means they are sophistries
This view of Berkeley and Kant is not mainstream etc; it is my view
Also I confess that I see a similar anti-science motivation in many regular posters here who are idealists
Another thought:
The puzzle as to how consciousness interacts with the body (the nervous system) does not dispose me to collapse subject and object, consciousness and the universe, into a reductive monism of either matter or mind. It is in my view a problem for science to investigate and hopefully one day solve. I am certain that consciousness does interact with the body and therefore I see no reason to abandon the problem by reducing it to a monism.
The puzzle of human knowing is properly a matter for a mature and expanded human science
(which we do not have at this time)
It is not a matter for rational sophistries;
(I do not mean people ought not to engage in creating them; only that they will not solve the problem)
Apologies for lengthy post