This paper explores how Gustav Bergmann, following an Aristotelian paradigm of knowledge, propounded a realist ontology of knowing that accounts for our knowledge of the world and explains why science has been so successful. However, non-veridical acts make it appear as if we are not acquainted with physical objects, but, rather, with some kind of mental objects. What else could it be that we are perceiving when having a hallucination? If such objects must exist in order to account for non-veridical thinking and perception, then intentionality is more like hitting than hunting, because one cannot hit what does not exist. Once it is maintained that the immediate objects of experience are private mental objects, this places a veil in between us and the alleged world of public objects, which are forever beyond our knowledge. On the other hand, if some kind of "philosophers' objects" do not need to be introduced to account for non-veridical thinking and perception, then thinking is more like hunting than hitting, because one can hunt for something-say, a lion-and there exists no lion that one is hunting for. Bergmann held that materialism, skepticism, representationalism, idealism, and phenomenalism all had inadequate ontologies of intentionality to account for what we know. For as the eyes of bats are to the blaze of day, so is the reason in our soul to the things which are by nature most evident of all. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 993b, 9-10 [Many] philosophers and mathematicians alike […] have not seen through the twin follies of skepticism on the one hand and the search for an elusive kind of absolute certainty (an irrecoverable philosophic use of 'certain'!) on the other.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.