Philosophical Idealism (Pro) vs. Realism (Con)

Greetings to my opponent! Before we begin, I"d like to specially thank SolonKR for moderating this debate tournament, and to the mentors for their kind assistance. My first argument will be loosely based off of the "Chariot Analogy" made by the Buddhist philosopher Nagasena in a conversation with the Greek king Milinda. It is recorded in the Milinda Panha, which was written around 100 years B.C. The full conversation is available here: http://personal.carthage.edu... The argument made by Nagasena goes as follows. King Milinda told Nagasena that he had come to meet him (Nagasena) on a chariot. Nagasena denies this assertion, telling the king that no "chariot" can exist. The king expresses bafflement, and Nagasena explains his assertion. First, Nagasena asks the king if the object known as a chariot is manifested in any of the constituent parts of the "chariot" (wheels, axle, seat, etc.). To this Milinda replies no. Nagasena then asks if the "chariot" is manifested in the combination of its parts. It cannot be, as the scattering about of the parts would not create a chariot. Finally, Nagasena asks if the chariot is something outside or not included in the chariot. The answer to this is certainly not, for obvious reasons. Thus we can only conclude that no "chariot" objectively exists, and that the word"and the parts of the chariot"do not represent anything but themselves. Now I shall apply this argument to the topic at hand. Let"s take the image of a tree. A realist would perceive a tree and assume the existence of a tree. An idealist would not assume the objective existence of any such tree underneath their mental perceptions. Nagasena"s point applied to this debate topic would go something like this: One perceives, through one or more of their senses, what is generally recognized to be a tree. Per Nagasena"s argument, however, no tree exists. Is the tree manifested in any of its constituent visual parts? The answer is no, as the existence of a part does not create the whole. Is the existence of a tree suggested by the combination of its perceived parts (branches, leaves, trunk, etc.)? No"the visualizations of a tree (or perceptions, more broadly) do not necessarily suggest the existence of such, as the individual may be hallucinating, dreaming, or simply looking at a visual representation of a tree, such as a painting or photograph. Does the tree exist because of something outside of the tree? No, as mentioned above. Furthermore, no external entities are known to exist, so we cannot draw upon them to prove the existence of a tree. So when we perceive a tree, we have no reason to believe that such a tree exists, because no part inside or out of the tree necessitates its existence. Since we can"t know that a tree exists, we must assume it doesn"t until proven otherwise. This brings me to my next point, and it is a short one. It is simply that one can only know two things: i.Matter appears to exist. ii.I exist in some form. The first is obvious. I perceive through sight, sound, and touch the laptop that I am typing this horribly convoluted and poorly written argument on. But I cannot know the objective existence of the laptop or any other matter because the only evidence I have of its existence is my perception of it, and because of Nagasena"s argument. The second is explained by Descartes" famous "I think, therefore I am." For one to ponder any topic, there has to be an individual doing the pondering. The existence of an "I" or "ego" is debatable, but the epistemological point still stands. Since all of our observations on the world are based upon perception, we cannot know the existence of any "external" entities without referring to perception"for what else could we use to prove their existence? I"ve proven that perception is untrustworthy, so the only possibility left is mental phenomena"but of course these cannot be used, as the existence of A (mental perceptions) cannot be used to infer the existence of B (physical reality) because A and B are fundamentally different from each other. My final argument concerns Ockham"s razor. (Given two hypotheses that equally explain a situation, the simpler one should be preferred over the more complex explanation). The two solutions are realism and idealism, and idealism is the simpler of the two. Realism would concern the mind and all the manifestations of external reality. Idealism concerns only the mind because idealism asserts that the appearance of external reality is in some way wholly dependent on the mind. I believe I have shown that, epistemologically, one cannot know anything apart from the two points listed above and so have fulfilled my BoP under our definition of idealism. I apologize for the poor formatting and the (possibly?) confusing presentation of the arguments. If you have any questions or confusion about my arguments, please ask in the comments. The topic we have chosen is one I am not completely familiar with, so I apologize for any incoherence. Thanks again to Con, the mentors, and Solon. Over to Con now. Good luck!