The Stan McKenzie Salon Series: Dr. Katie Terezakis presents, "Everyone's an Idealist" 10/5/2016 4-6 PM

Realism, in philosophy, represents the view that reality is independent of human actors. Idealism, in its later modern forms, represents the view that regardless of what the truth is, we rely upon uniform mental intermediaries to know it. When we actually know something, we can identify the conceptual conditions for knowing it per se. These conceptual orders are non-negotiable; they never disappear even when they disappear from notice. Yet both people of common sense and most realist philosophers distrust idealism insofar as it posits a barrier between our knowledge and the real world. Why, they ask, must conceptual frameworks necessarily affect what we encounter directly, via our senses? The empirically minded naturalist and the antiauthoritarian meet in suspicion of the limits idealism imposes. And yet, I argue, any time we distinguish an experience or define a concept, we do, in fact, rely upon formal activities best defined in the idealist tradition. We rely as well upon tools. These media don’t just extend our agency; they help shape the constitution of every inquiry we launch. An account of functioning tools provides the missing link between an idealism that otherwise appears preternatural and a naturalism that otherwise cannot justify its knowledge claims. This is significant, because it means, for example, that when we use numbers to do math or formulate models to orient our goals, we must conscript systems to structure information as information. Only by way of these systems and their vehicles can we identify things and recognize relationships, including between the things we already know and the things we do not yet know. This talk draws from the concluding chapters of my current book project to defend a form of idealism as it is embodied in our everyday actions and tools. While no mind thinks unaided by fundamental conceptual structures, I make the case that we all become savvier and more able when we come to terms with them—that is, when we acknowledge and study our idealist commitments.