Peter Kropotkin: Kant believes that our perception of reality is
based on categories we have inside of us…
but that question presupposes an interesting point,
this question of “reality”…….
What exactly is “reality”?
now, right now, look around you… what do you see?
I see the inside of my condo, I see the kitchen, with the stove
and fridge and sink and then I also see the living room with its
couch and a couple of bookcases with books by Kant, Goethe,
some biography’s of Marx………… with an exercise bike nearby…
I also see if I look out my sliding class door, my neighbors windows
and my patio fence and some pots for the plants we have in our
common area……
so, I ask you, of what I see, what exactly is reality?
everything I have described is and has been created by someone…
so what exactly is reality in this picture?
think about this while I feed the cats…"
K: fed the cats… ok, now what in my description was reality?
K: the only thing that I can tell that was actually “reality” were the cats…
and the plants I mentioned.
we created everything else in that description… so, if we created
it, is that reality? a reality that conforms to our ease or pleasure…
the couch, the couch I fall asleep on every day, is that reality?
a reality that we made or created… it could have been very different
or made differently and still be called a couch…
so, are the plants in my courtyard, reality? well they have been put there
and nutured by gardeners who come every week and water them and trim
them as needed…the plants are also part of reality but a reality created
by humans… the reality that I see is basically a human construct…
made by humans, for humans… and is this “reality”???/
or is reality, something that isn’t constructed by humans?
is the weather for example, reality? it isn’t constructed by
humans, it exists separately, outside of human intervention…
we do not control the weather, so is the weather, “reality”?
how about the tree’s in the forest… we don’t “construct” the tree’s
in the forest, we don’t change those tree’s, we don’t influence
the tree’s, at least not directly, we do influence the tree’s
indirectly, but does that count as “reality”?
so, the question becomes, what exactly is reality?
for example, let us think about an ism or ideology, like
capitalism…… is an ism, which is created by humans,
for humans, is capitalism, reality? Capitalism is
changeable and malleable to human interest, so
is an ism/ideology, reality?
this question of understanding “reality” really comes to down
to what you think “reality” is…………….
perhaps part of our problem with this understanding “reality”
lies in our confusion over what exactly is “reality”…….
what is and what isn’t is has confusion because we not sure
what is “reality”…………
is our existence, “reality”?
Perhaps, but then isn’t our existence, to use a fancy philosophical word,
“contingent”? and how can we understand our “reality” if it is “contingent”?
perhaps, this entire idea of “reality” just an exercise in futility because
our existence and every thing in our existence, is “contingent”?
what is real if we have created everything around us?
and if we didn’t create it, like the weather, then how can we
understand it, and by understanding, I mean put into context,
where do I stand in relation to the weather? what is my role
in the weather? once again, this is really about what/where is my location
in regards to one system in which I am part of, the weather system…
but one might say, you influence the weather system by your participation
in global warming… but is that “reality”?
the entire question of understanding “reality” comes down to
our understanding of what “reality” actually is…
so, how are we suppose to know/understand “reality”
if we don’t have a firm grasp on what “reality” is……
so ask yourself, what is “reality”? and what is my relationship to
that thing, we call “reality”?
Kropotkin