Desert Reign: ok I will take seriously that you are not being subjectivist, but it’s hard to initially grasp the difference between subjectivism and what you’re saying. I am beginning to understand your viewpoint as poststructuralist: that things don’t exist as themselves until we name them and thus distinguish them from other things. Is this fair?

Jacob: Point taken, that ontology and epistemology are different. Things may exist apart from our perception of them but that doesn’t mean we can know they exist or prove it in any way. To see the cat at x and then at y doesn’t prove it exists between those two times.

The test comes in the ability to predict what will happen and act based on that prediction. If we assume that things exist even when we’re not aware of them, then we can plan our lives much more easily. I’m not at home right now, but a lot of the decisions I make today are on the assumption that my house exists, that it will exist even when nobody’s at home. Call it faith, if you will - in a sense it really is faith. But it’s a faith that’s built on years of not being disappointed.

Moreover, surely things must be separable from the name given it, because two people could attach opposing meanings to the same object. It doesn’t matter what they think of it, or what significance they give it - the thing is still there, interfering with their lives. You could even attach the wrong meaning to things, and this does lead to disappointment and grief when the thing fails to live up to our expectations. But how could it be the wrong meaning if the only meaning the thing had was the meaning I gave it?