A Non-Mental Reality Must Exist.

I want to begin by saying that I fully agree that, if my opponent's position that conceptions of things are indistinguishable from things themselves, my position falls apart and I have lost the debate. As such, I'll devote most of my time to this point. My first objection is that my opponent misrepresentates the relationship between concepts and concretes, or the relationship between epistemology and metaphysics. He raises the point as follows: "if definition does not distribute over definiendum, then either the definiendum is inconceivable and the distinction meaningless, or the definiendum somehow differs from how we’ve defined it, thus amounting to “X =/= X”." This misses out on a few major things - firstly, what a concept is. A concept is a formation of the mind to classify existents - it observes similarities between like objects and unifies them according to those similarities. For instance, from two tables the concept of "table" can be formed by looking at their similar features: they both have legs, they both are used to support objects, etc. What is not looked at is their differences: their sizes, colours, materials, etc. These are disregarded because a concept does not describe a specific existent, but a classification or group in which all members have a specific set of qualities (their essence, if you will). When you think of the concept "table", you think of specific existents or potential existents as a way of seeing an example of something which would be a table - this does not mean that, by "table", you are referring only to one concrete. Although there are concrete tables, there are many of them and many potential tables, so it can be seen that a concept is nothing but a classification. While it is true that all knowledge is conceptual, this in no way leads to the idea that all existents are conceptual. When you think of a concept, it is fine to say that you are thinking of a mental construct. Even looking at a specific concrete, it is fine to say that you are looking at the conceptualization of sense data. The point of disagreement is that concepts are formed via observation, and, in a world in which only concepts exist, there would be nothing to initially observe. A concept of "tables" is only formed by observing similar objects via sense data - data of non-mental existents. In my opponent's quote above, it can be seen that he treats definitions as being one with concretes, which is not the case and can be seen to be so just from observing what concepts are. He assumes many things and uses those assumptions to verify the assumptions - he assumes things such as that concepts being distinct from existents implies that x =/= x, which is only the case if it is already assumed, from the outset, that concepts = existents. This has not been justified in any real and non-circular manner. As I have explained, concepts describe groups of entities with the "essence" of that group, but this does not mean that those entities are identical in all aspects - they must only be identical insofar as the concept is narrow or broad. If it is true that multiple and distinct entities can be thought of as having the essence of a concept, and that concept = concretes, then it follows that the following contridiction comes: concept = y concrete 1 = x concrete 2 = z y = x (since x is included in y and, as my opponent states, concepts = the concrete referents) y = z (as above) From this, it is drawn that x = z, which is absurd. I would also want to drop my argument about “mental” being meaningless without the non-mental that I had at the end of my r1. I do not think that this hurts my case at all, and I believe that I still have fulfilled my BOP regardless.