When a bloke told Dr. Johnson that he wasn't real and neither was anyone else, only figments of the bloke's imagination, Dr. Johnson kicked a stone and said "I refute it thus." How did that refute it?
2007-03-18 05:23:54 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Education & Reference ➔ Quotations
The story is based on competing 18th century theories of perception (early philosophical forms of psychology of sensation and perception).
The "bloke" is following the idealist theories of Bishop Berkieley. What is important in perception and existence is the mind. If a flower is growing in a forest, and no one sees it, then there is no mind to witness if it exists or not (though in the 20th century, Fr. Reginald Knox, a Catholic wit, worte a bit of verse th at says that God was there to see it and everything else). The issue in perception is whether since everything depends on the mind, can the mind delude itself into believing something exists?
Dr. Samuel Johnson exemplifies the contrary theory, the realism espoused by John Locke at the end of the 17th century which laid the basis for the British school of philosophical realism (e.g., early work of Bertrand Russell) and empirical psychology. Things exist (reality defined in materialistic terms) and the mind perceives them when sensations in relation to these things (visual sensations, but also touch, ec.) impinge upon the "blank page" (tabula rasa) of the mind. By kicking the rock, Johnson makes the sensible connection between the material reality and the mind. In so doing, he verifies that the rock exists, and also that he exists, as a creature capable of sensation and perception.
2007-03-18 05:36:18 · answer #1 · answered by silvcslt 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
dashed silly way to refute that kind of argument! now if johnson had kicked the other bloke, hard, in the, er, knee, that might have been a tad more convincing.
2007-03-18 06:23:48 · answer #2 · answered by waif 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, if it is your imagination, it mostly follows your will or your subconscious. Knowing the human natural instinct is to avoid pain, why should actual pain exist in your imagined world?
So Dr. Johnson was saying that pain shouldn't exist in our imaginations under normal circumstances because no one naturally likes pain. (Unless you're a sadist...) That's how he refuted it.
2007-03-18 05:38:16 · answer #3 · answered by Studier Alpha 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
because he showed that both of them saw the stone being kicked at the same time, if it was only a figmant of imagination then the other chap must have been a mind reader to see the stone move at the instant it was kicked.
2007-03-18 05:29:09 · answer #4 · answered by dave a 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
how can a figment of ur imagination kick a stone?
the stone wouldn't have moved if the kicker didn't exist.
i think, therefore I AM.
2007-03-18 05:34:32 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Lalalalla....lalallalaa...
2007-03-18 05:31:26 · answer #6 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The stone moved !!!!
2007-03-18 05:27:23 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
He was referring to the fact that he could feel the pain !!
2007-03-18 05:28:01 · answer #8 · answered by nicemanvery 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋