The ontology of the epistemic act: An explication of intentionality and the possibility of epistemological realism.

摘要

This study is an examination of the philosophy of mind in the context of epistemological questions concerning the possibility of knowledge of the external world.;Philosophy necessarily begins with experience. This fact can be interpreted in two ways. It can be taken to mean that philosophy must begin with our acquaintance with our private perceptual states—the egocentric viewpoint (the common thread in representationalism, idealism, Kantianism, and Humean skepticism). Or, it can be taken to mean that philosophy must begin by examining the objects that our experiences are of or about—the direct realist perspective, which entails that these objects cannot be a part, or a property, of the acts that grasp them. I provide an extended defense of direct realism by providing an ontology of intentionality that explains how it is possible for us to be directly acquainted with the world. Once it is maintained that the immediate objects of experience are private mental objects, a veil is placed between us and the world of public objects, which are then, forever, beyond our immediate and direct knowledge. Just as skepticism presupposes an ontology of the epistemic act that makes knowledge impossible, so the fact of knowledge presupposes an ontology of the epistemic act that makes knowledge possible.;I attempt to show that it is impossible to begin one's philosophical inquiry consistently as a methodological solipsist and that, therefore, we can know that the mind is not sequestered from the objective world. Logic and mathematics are clear examples of such objective realities. Furthermore, I argue that the arguments against direct realism fail, and that thinking of what does not exist does not require the introduction of mental, or non-existent, objects as the immediate objects of knowledge. Consequently, I argue that there is not a veil of ideas between us and the external world.;The ontologies of Gottlob Frege, Gustav Bergmann, and Edmund Husserl are examined, because these thinkers give the most detailed defenses of the intentionality of consciousness in addressing the epistemological question of our access to the mind-independent world, thereby making justification of our scientific and philosophical theories possible.