I like your first approach, including the Kantian noumena, much better than its reformulation, because the first one made a distinction between subjective experiences and objective reality, which IMO is quite important.
I don't think it is necessary for the sake of your argument to postulate some kind of onthological Idealism. An epistemological one is enough - and much more appealing to common-sense.
The crucial point being that, though we usually think there is some objective reality causing our experiences, it is highly unlikely that we experience it in exactly the way it is.
It could also be helpful to introduce the concept of intersubjectivity instead of your notion of consensus, which seems to be rather mistakable, and stating that
a) there very likely is some kind of objective reality,
b) but as we are not able to approach this reality directly, we have to rely on our subjective experiences, which might differ quite a lot from it,
c) so to communicate our notions about objective reality, we first have to constitute some intersubjectively accessible theories, our peer-group generally agrees on, basing on subjective experiences.
This is a very general, and I think not very controversial statement, which leaves enough room for different ways to go on. E.g. one could start to investigate the nature of objective reality, which would either lead into the realms of phyics or of metaphysics. Also we could explore the ways reality is perceived and constructed from a psychological, sociological or philosophical point of view. Or talk about the ways theories are verified/falsified and do change over the centuries, i.e. Theory and History of Science.
I think all these approaches could be used to justify a magical worldview, without necessarily denying the existence of natural laws like gravitation (which, of course, can be explained in several ways, but that doesn't change the fact that I actually do experience myself as sticking to the ground on a very regular basis).
But it seems you're taking a different way with your argument, and I don't think I've really understood, where you are going.
Is it to say that magic and science are two different but equally valid theories about the world? There would be great difficulties in trying to prove that, I'm afraid. As there are some commonly agreed-on means to justify the validity of a theory and I don't really see the point in e.g. claiming that a thermostate is acting intentionally when the physical stance is so much more simple and logical.
Perhaps a pragmatic approach would be more promising - but I haven't really gone through this myself, yet. I'm just thinking there could be some good reasons e.g. to see a tree as a concious being in some situations, while it would be rather pointless in others. |
should just accept that other people are experiencing a different sort of reality and quit trying to reduce everythingto mterialism...