Will and Solipsism

Spinoza proposes that the knowledge of external objects is mediated by the knowledge of the bodily modifications effected by those objects. For Kant, objective knowledge is constructed on analogy with that of those effects, which, according to Kant, are sensory representations of their causes. Pragmatism neutralizes the skepticism to which Kant's Constructivism is vulnerable, by formulating objective knowledge as hypothetical. Still, the matter of a Pragmatist hypothesis remains subjective representations, which leaves its and Kant's variations on Spinozism vulnerable to the charge of solipsism. However, Formaterialism, with its principle that Will is the immediate matter of representation, recovers Spinoza's insight that what is immediately represented in knowledge are objective physiological processes. That principle exposes the charge of solipsism as confusing privileged access to an objective event with groundless imagination, thereby reinforcing Spinoza's thesis in a way that neither Kant nor Pragmatism does.