What’s the difference? I know phenomenalism as the position that things are as they seem. Phenomenalism can be a form of subjectivism/idealism, but it needn’t be. The window-to-reality view of consciousness (i.e. niave realism) could also posit that reality is just as it seems. Is this what you mean by phenomenalism?
Do you mean that they are taught these concepts from their ancestors but they don’t remember it? I agree that certain universal concepts aren’t learned from particular experiences, like in the way we might learn the concept of a tree by having experiences of trees (whereas an alien on another planet where there are no trees would not learn this concept), but I think it requires experience in general to learn any concept. That’s not to say that the concept is based on experience, but that the mere fact of having experience is necessary to form concepts period. The brain does not develop unless there is incoming information to stimulate growth. There are ample studies to support this. If I were to offer an analogy, maybe the following would work: experience is like the electric current flowing into a computer, and the concepts we acquire are like programs that are infused into the computer. Both require electrical input from the same source. But that source, the inflow of electric current, is sometimes used as input into the program (that is, as specific information that the computer interprets and processes) but sometimes used just to power the computer, making the programming of the computer possible in general.
I’m not a Kantian, at least not in the sense that we are born with a priori knowledge, as if the computer comes prepackages with a suite of programs (the OS notwithstanding), though I do believe we are all born with the potential to develop so-called “a priori” knowledge.
Why can’t theories be both? Attempts to explain the universe and devices that generate predictions?
As a subjectivist myself, I can tell you that isn’t true. I have not been able to convince myself that disease doesn’t exist though I wish it were true (though I can’t speak for all subjectivists). Subjectivism is more the position that reality is based on experience than that reality is based on what one wants to be true. As I said earlier, I am an observer of how the mind works. I observe that the mind is sometimes convinced by evidence and at other times by desires for what one wishes were true (and also by reason and the words of authority figures–the big 4 ). Observing that this is the way the mind works has convinced me that reality is first and foremost based on subjective experience, but at the same time, it has not changed the way my mind works. It hasn’t made it so that I am no longer convinced by evidence. It hasn’t made it so that I am any more capable of believe things just because I want them to be true. Believing that reality is based on experience hasn’t given me the ability to create reality out of the things I wish were true. I’m still aware that disease exists even though I wish it weren’t true, and even if I try to convince myself that disease doesn’t exist, I find that I still need evidence or reason (or the words of a trusted authority figure). This is hardwired into the brain, an immutable way it works–adopting this or that “ism” doesn’t change this. Being a subjectivist isn’t magic; it doesn’t give you a different brain.
Well, then you really need to explain to me the difference between phenomenalist and subjectivism.
Ok, so when you say that we “select” assumptions as opposed to “creating” assumption, you mean we apprehend them in others first before we adopt them for ourselves. ← Is that correct?