What is a "noumena" or "a thing in itself", and why it isn't
Scott Stephens
having problems understanding the concept of "noumena", and why "things
in themselves have neither spatiotemporal characteristics nor do they
exist in a spatiotemporal order."
Then perhaps I can try to understand why Kant forbids inductive and
deductive reason applied to 'metaphysics 2nd part', about cosmology and
theology.
Is a noumena an abstract information-entity?
My understanding is a noumena, or thing in itself, is the ineffable
*object* responsible for our sensations of it. We sense "black - furry -
purring" and conclude "cat". Cat is not a "Platonic ideal" concept, it
is an object. Concepts are not black, pur and have fur, but some objects do.
But how can a noumena be a real object beyond and more prime than our
senses and understanding? I think it is a symbol in our minds, of our
minds and by our selfish understanding we project into the only one,
true, real noumena - the universe itself, that contains our
consciousness and what it perceives.
I say this because "cat" is a composite object, made of atoms and
information. We can explode that cat, vaporize the cat or metamorphisize
the cat into a butterfly with some strange virus, which will cause us to
lose our sense of its cat-noumena. But if we named that cat "Fluffy"
before transfiguring it, "Fluffy" would still be "Fluffy" whatever form
its mass-energy and information components take?
How does this affect Kant's conclusions about what we can know?
Comments?
1 - http://enlightenment.supersaturated.com/objectivity/walsh1/
Scott
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dave odden
> Is a noumena an abstract information-entity?
As I understand it, "noumena" are the actual things, i.e. the actual cats
and villages full of wheat farmers.
> My understanding is a noumena, or thing in itself, is the ineffable
> *object* responsible for our sensations of it.
Actual cats can be effed. The important thing to realise is that if you
perceive a cat, you don't have an actual cat in your brain. You can explain
the properties of a cat in nauseatingly fine detail (which is why there are
books on cats), hence cats aren't ineffable.
> We sense "black - furry -
> purring" and conclude "cat".
That's the indirect realist approach, that we never know X, we only conclude
X. The direct realist (Objectivist) answer is "I see (hear, smell) a cat".
> Cat is not a "Platonic ideal" concept, it
> is an object. Concepts are not black, pur and have fur, but some objects
do.
Actually, there is a metaphysical entity, which we comprehend as an instance
of the concept "cat". Concepts are mental entities and we don't know much
about what they do (they don't make noise, and they probably are not
physically contiguous in the brain). The concept describes a class of
entities which may purr, or slither.
> But how can a noumena be a real object beyond and more prime than our
> senses and understanding?
Since I don't know how you'd measure degree of primeness, I don't know. The
entity is simply there, so it's "simpler" in that sense. Our sensory and
conceptual faculty lets us identify that entity as a case of "cat".
> I think it is a symbol in our minds,
I think it's the actual cat: the concept "cat" is the thing in your mind.
> of our
> minds and by our selfish understanding we project into the only one,
> true, real noumena - the universe itself, that contains our
> consciousness and what it perceives.
I don't know what that means.
> I say this because "cat" is a composite object, made of atoms and
> information. We can explode that cat, vaporize the cat or metamorphisize
> the cat into a butterfly with some strange virus, which will cause us to
> lose our sense of its cat-noumena. But if we named that cat "Fluffy"
> before transfiguring it, "Fluffy" would still be "Fluffy" whatever form
> its mass-energy and information components take?
Since the physical matter making up the cat isn't completely constant over
time, you can't say that the particular cat is the set of atomic bits that
compose it at some moment (ever change a litter box?). If you change the cat
into a butterfly, it isn't a cat and it is a butterfly. More interestingly,
what would happen if you could change a named cat into a butterfly? Since
proper names don't have definitions it's not possible to violate the
definition of "Fluffy" in the same way that you can violate the definition
of "cat". So really the question is, would people still call the entity
"Fluffy" after it had been radically altered. That's hard to answer. Cats
which have undergone a backyard underground conversion to floral status are
often still called "Fluffy"; but a still-living cat which is in the last
stages of rabies will typically be denied their former name (i.e. "That's
not Fluffy, that's a cat-monster"). The right way to approach this is
experimentally, to see whether named entities are still believed to "be X"
(X being the name) under various radical alterations.
John Hernlund
Stephens" <sco...@comcast.net> wrote:
> I read "Ayn Rand and the Metaphysics of Kant" by Walsh(1), and I'm
> having problems understanding the concept of "noumena", and why "things
> in themselves have neither spatiotemporal characteristics nor do they
> exist in a spatiotemporal order."
You're making claims about noumena, which goes against everything it is
supposed to mean. Does noumena have this or that characteristic? Who knows?
We certainly don't. That is probably the root of your misunderstanding.
> Then perhaps I can try to understand why Kant forbids inductive and
> deductive reason applied to 'metaphysics 2nd part', about cosmology and
> theology.
>
> Is a noumena an abstract information-entity?
It is the condition for all possibility of experience. That's it. You have
to stop trying to add attributes like that, or you'll never get it.
> My understanding is a noumena, or thing in itself, is the ineffable
> *object* responsible for our sensations of it. We sense "black - furry -
> purring" and conclude "cat". Cat is not a "Platonic ideal" concept, it
> is an object. Concepts are not black, pur and have fur, but some objects do.
It is not an object, since "object" refers to experience. According to Kant,
"object is that in which a manifold of intuition is unified." (see below)
> But how can a noumena be a real object beyond and more prime than our
> senses and understanding?
It's a condition for experience.
> I think it is a symbol in our minds, of our
> minds and by our selfish understanding we project into the only one,
> true, real noumena - the universe itself, that contains our
> consciousness and what it perceives.
The will can be called noumena, but not any object of experience.
> I say this because "cat" is a composite object, made of atoms and
> information. We can explode that cat, vaporize the cat or metamorphisize
> the cat into a butterfly with some strange virus, which will cause us to
> lose our sense of its cat-noumena. But if we named that cat "Fluffy"
> before transfiguring it, "Fluffy" would still be "Fluffy" whatever form
> its mass-energy and information components take?
>
> How does this affect Kant's conclusions about what we can know?
>
> Comments?
>
> Scott
You may be slightly confusing noumena-phenomena with Plato's theory of
forms. For Plato, the forms are stored in God's mind, and particular
instances of these forms are only imperfect copies. To make a rough analogy
with Kant, such "forms" are stored in our own minds and take the form of
intuitions, such as space, time, quantity, quality, etc., that allow us to
have objects of experience and to use such in our understanding.
But noumena is completely outside of all this, since our intuitions (i.e.
forms) can only be applied to objects of experience. The noumena is the
thing-in-itself, which we cannot experience.
J
Robert J. Kolker
John Hernlund wrote:
>> But noumena is completely outside of all this, since our intuitions (i.e.
> forms) can only be applied to objects of experience. The noumena is the
> thing-in-itself, which we cannot experience.
What is the connection between the thing in itself and the phenomenon
that it gives rise to (somehow)? I am pretty sure the Kant did not think
we were all hallucinating. Nor did he think that all there was, were
bundles of perceptions in someone's mind, as did Berkeley.
Bob Kolker
Scott Stephens
>>We sense "black - furry -
>>purring" and conclude "cat".
>
>
> That's the indirect realist approach, that we never know X, we only conclude
> X. The direct realist (Objectivist) answer is "I see (hear, smell) a cat".
Would an indirect realist (Kant?) claim then that "we can never really
know and be sure of anything, (because our senses are limited and
finite?), but there is probably a cat".
Where an Objectivist would claim "there is a high-probability I sense a
real cat, unless somebody is fooling me with a high-quality toy cat" for
instance?
Perhaps Rand was more confident in the understanding from her senses
after a couple centuries of science? Of course there are political
advantages in revolutions, rather than trying to modify and reform the
corrupted and old.
Eudaimonus
> I read "Ayn Rand and the Metaphysics of Kant" by Walsh(1), and I'm
> having problems understanding the concept of "noumena", and why "things
> in themselves have neither spatiotemporal characteristics nor do they
> exist in a spatiotemporal order."
The concept of "noumena" is a difficult one to understand, but it is
simple in it's nature, once you understand it.
> Then perhaps I can try to understand why Kant forbids inductive and
> deductive reason applied to 'metaphysics 2nd part', about cosmology and
> theology.
>
> Is a noumena an abstract information-entity?
No, it caries no information. "In" formation, to Kant, occurs internal
to the mind, in the creation of phenomena out of noumena. Noumena,
strickly speaking, are without form. They are given form by our
sensative intuition, and thus become phenomena. (Thus, they are very
difficult to think about, since any predication of a property to them
would involve intuition, and hence turn them into phenomena.).
> My understanding is a noumena, or thing in itself, is the ineffable
> *object* responsible for our sensations of it. We sense "black - furry -
> purring" and conclude "cat". Cat is not a "Platonic ideal" concept, it
> is an object. Concepts are not black, pur and have fur, but some objects
> do.
Kant would say - we are presented with a "black, furry, purring" thing
by our sensative intution. Thus, what is black, furry, and purring is
the phenomena - the "thing as it appears to us", and not a noumena - the
"thing as it is in itself".
"As it is in itself" the cat is not a cat, for it is only a cat in terms
of it's relation to us (thus not 'in itself') for it is only a cat as it
appears to us. The forms in which things appear to us constitute a
relation of that thing to us, and thus are not of the thing "in itself",
which, nontheless (says Kant), we posit as the "cause" of the phenomena.
> But how can a noumena be a real object beyond and more prime than our
> senses and understanding? I think it is a symbol in our minds, of our
> minds and by our selfish understanding we project into the only one,
> true, real noumena - the universe itself, that contains our
> consciousness and what it perceives.
That is close to what Kant would say - he would say we are so
consitutied as Rational beings, to possess a non-empirically-aquired
Ideal of Pure Reason that is the Idea of the Noumena. Empirically, all
we are aquainted with are the phenomena, so our "knowledge" that there
are noumena must be unempirical. He calles it a regulative ideal.
> I say this because "cat" is a composite object, made of atoms and
> information.
Insofar as being a cat means the having of a certain form, and that form
is perceptable, cats are phenomena, not noumena. But even "atoms" to
Kant, would be either phenomena or a regulative idea of pure reason.
A distinquishing characteristic of noumena is that you can make no
predications of it.
> We can explode that cat, vaporize the cat or metamorphisize
> the cat into a butterfly with some strange virus, which will cause us to
> lose our sense of its cat-noumena. But if we named that cat "Fluffy"
> before transfiguring it, "Fluffy" would still be "Fluffy" whatever form
> its mass-energy and information components take?
Since we are talking about determinations - forms which the nounema
express to us through sense, we are not talking about nounema. Neither
the cat nor Fluffy are nounema, but phenomena.
> How does this affect Kant's conclusions about what we can know?
Well, it only goes I think to show you don't understand what he was
saying. Which is ok, it's deep stuff.
> Comments?
Eudaimonus
> dave odden wrote:
>
>>> We sense "black - furry -
>>> purring" and conclude "cat".
>>
>> That's the indirect realist approach, that we never know X, we only
>> conclude
>> X. The direct realist (Objectivist) answer is "I see (hear, smell) a
>> cat".
>
> Would an indirect realist (Kant?) claim then that "we can never really
> know and be sure of anything, (because our senses are limited and
> finite?), but there is probably a cat".
Kant was not an indirect realist, in the sense that he held that the
nounema do not exhibit the properties that they appear to. An indirect
realist would so hold when the appearance is veridical. Kant would
consider that move on the part of the indirect realist a category error
of sorts.
> Where an Objectivist would claim "there is a high-probability I sense a
> real cat, unless somebody is fooling me with a high-quality toy cat" for
> instance?
No, he would say "That there is a cat" not "It is highly probable that
that there is a cat." Of course, it does not follow for _us_, hearing
his proclamation, that he is in fact seeing a cat, but it is for us only
highly probable that he is seeing a cat (it would be, however, not
merely probable that he says that there is a cat).
What Kant would say is - "I most certainly know of the existence of this
internally existing phenomena which is a cat, but I do not percieve
anything external to me that is in itself a cat, though Reason proposes
that such a thing exists, thought not as a cat."
An Objectivist would say - "I most certainly know of the existence of
this externally existing thing which is a cat."
> Perhaps Rand was more confident in the understanding from her senses
> after a couple centuries of science? Of course there are political
> advantages in revolutions, rather than trying to modify and reform the
> corrupted and old.
Rand is not the only direct realist. The first explicitly direct
realist I know of was Thomas Reid.
"The foundation on which [idealism] rests ought to be very solid and
well established; yet Berkley says nothing more for it than that it is
evident. If he means that it is self-evident, this indeed might be a
good reason for not offering any direct arguement in proof of it. But I
apprehend this cannot justly be said. Self-evident propositions are
those which appear evident to every man of sound understanding who
apprehends the meaning of them distinctly, and attends to them without
prejudice. Can this be said of the this proposition, That all objects
of our knowledge are ideas in our own minds? I believe that, to any man
uninstructed in philosophy, this proposition will appear very
improbable, if not absurd. However scanty his knowledge may be, he
considers the sun and moon, the earth and sea, as objects of it; and it
will be difficult to persuade him that those objects of his knowledge
are ideas in his own mind, and have no existence when he does not think
of them. If I may presume to speak my own sentiments, I once believed
this doctrine of ideas so firmly as to embrace the whole of Berkley's
system in consequence of it; till, finding other consequences to follow
from it, which gave me more uneasiness than the want of a material
world, it came into my mind, more than forty years ago, to put the
question, What evidence have I for this doctrine, that all the objects
of my knowledge are ideas in my own mind? From that time to the present
I have been candidly and impartially, as I think, seeking for the
evidence of this principle, but can find none, excepting the authority
of philosophers." from "Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man", 1785
It's not, I dare say, about anything like "confidence". Direct realists
do not believe in direct realism because they are more confident that
the impressions of which they are directly aware are accurate. Qua
direct realists, they don't believe that little story about receiveing
impressions, and those being that of which we are directly aware, is
true. So they don't have more "confidence" in their truth - they don't
believe they exist!
Mr Michael Bibby
>I read "Ayn Rand and the Metaphysics of Kant" by Walsh(1), and I'm
>having problems understanding the concept of "noumena", and why "things
>in themselves have neither spatiotemporal characteristics nor do they
>exist in a spatiotemporal order."
based on my interpretation of Kant, he makes a distinction between 'appearances'
and 'things-in-themselves' and argues that the concepts of 'space' and 'time'
are necessary conditions for the possibility of experience, as for how things
are independent of, and prior to, our experience of them, WE CANNOT KNOW!!!!
(this is his answer to the epistemological question of 'what can we know') hence
we cannot impose the categories of space and time on the world as it is
independently of our means and ways of experiencing it. as for Ayn Rand, i
couldnt care less.
>
>Then perhaps I can try to understand why Kant forbids inductive and
>deductive reason applied to 'metaphysics 2nd part', about cosmology and
>theology.
>
>Is a noumena an abstract information-entity?
>
>My understanding is a noumena, or thing in itself, is the ineffable
>*object* responsible for our sensations of it. We sense "black - furry -
>purring" and conclude "cat". Cat is not a "Platonic ideal" concept, it
>is an object. Concepts are not black, pur and have fur, but some objects do.
>
>But how can a noumena be a real object beyond and more prime than our
>senses and understanding? I think it is a symbol in our minds, of our
>minds and by our selfish understanding we project into the only one,
>true, real noumena - the universe itself, that contains our
>consciousness and what it perceives.
>
>I say this because "cat" is a composite object, made of atoms and
>information. We can explode that cat, vaporize the cat or metamorphisize
>the cat into a butterfly with some strange virus, which will cause us to
>lose our sense of its cat-noumena. But if we named that cat "Fluffy"
>before transfiguring it, "Fluffy" would still be "Fluffy" whatever form
>its mass-energy and information components take?
>
>How does this affect Kant's conclusions about what we can know?
>
>Comments?
>
>
>
>1 - <a href="http://enlightenment.supersaturated.com/objectivity/walsh1/">http://enlightenment.supersaturated.com/objectivity/walsh1/</a>
>
>Scott
>
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>**********************************
>
>DIY Piezo-Gyro, PCB Drill Bot & More Soon!
>
><a href="http://home.comcast.net/~scottxs/">http://home.comcast.net/~scottxs/</a>
>
>**********************************
>
>
>
mickeyd
Scott Stephens
> Scott Stephens wrote:
> "As it is in itself" the cat is not a cat, for it is only a cat in terms
> of it's relation to us (thus not 'in itself') for it is only a cat as it
> appears to us. The forms in which things appear to us constitute a
> relation of that thing to us, and thus are not of the thing "in itself",
> which, nontheless (says Kant), we posit as the "cause" of the phenomena.
I can understand that; what I sense and what I conclude are all in my
own head/mind, so if I recognize some object, its not the object *in
itself* but my sense of it, which is all I can know.
In that regard, we can never sense *things in themselves* - things in
themselves aren't perceptions, and don't fit in our heads! =)
Mr Michael Bibby
>Eudaimonus wrote:
>
>> Scott Stephens wrote:
>
>> "As it is in itself" the cat is not a cat, for it is only a cat in terms
>> of it's relation to us (thus not 'in itself') for it is only a cat as it
>> appears to us. The forms in which things appear to us constitute a
>> relation of that thing to us, and thus are not of the thing "in itself",
>> which, nontheless (says Kant), we posit as the "cause" of the phenomena.
>
>I can understand that; what I sense and what I conclude are all in my
>own head/mind, so if I recognize some object, its not the object *in
>itself* but my sense of it, which is all I can know.
>
>In that regard, we can never sense *things in themselves* - things in
>themselves aren't perceptions, and don't fit in our heads! =)
>
>Scott
precisely! things in themselves are things as they are independent of our means
and ways of knowing them; its as simple as that. This is a major revolution in
epistemology as it tells us that our explanations of phenomena, objects which we
isolate in the domain of our experiences, cannot be rooted in a world that we
cannot possibly know (hence the conceptual condition of objects, as kant puts
it, and his charaterization of transcendental metaphysics).
>
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>**********************************
>
>DIY Piezo-Gyro, PCB Drill Bot & More Soon!
>
dave odden
> Would an indirect realist (Kant?) claim then that "we can never really
> know and be sure of anything, (because our senses are limited and
> finite?), but there is probably a cat".
Eud said it quite well. I don't think an indirect realist would say "we can
never really know..": that's what skeptics would say. The book "Skepticism
and the Veil of Perception" by Mike Huemer gives some comparative and
historical context that lays out the various versions of skepticism and
realism.
> Where an Objectivist would claim "there is a high-probability I sense a
> real cat, unless somebody is fooling me with a high-quality toy cat" for
> instance?
I'd say "I see a cat", or "That looks like a cat", depending on the actual
conditions. {You don't "sense" cats, you perceive them. It's a subtle but
important difference, that your brain gets raw voltage from nerves in the
form of sense data which then has to be processed perceptually. The
conceptual facility may be relevant in deciding if the thing is a cat (or
something else).}
There are many facts about the relation between the cat out there and your
comprehension of cat existence. A fundamental fact accepted by Objectivists
is that it's hard to make things out in the dark, or when you're drunk, and
so on; human fallibility is a virtual axiom of Objectivism. Fallibility is,
however, very different from failure.
I might say that it's highly probable that there's a real cat and not a good
imitation especially if someone asked the question the right way and the cat
were far enough away, but that's such a basic background assumption that
it's not worth focusing on. In volunteering such a disclaimer, you imply
that you have doubts, and right at the moment I am completely free of doubt
about that hairy meatloaf in the hall being an actual cat. The emphasis
should not be on disavowing knowledge because of some immeasurably small
possibility of error, but rather on understanding the real circumstances and
being able to reliably distinguish between what you are certain of, vs.
things that do warrant further scrutiny (and better room lighting).
The real crime of skepticism is that it propagates the fallacy that if an
error can ever happen, then it can always happen.
> Perhaps Rand was more confident in the understanding from her senses
> after a couple centuries of science? Of course there are political
> advantages in revolutions, rather than trying to modify and reform the
> corrupted and old.
I don't think Rand had any special scientific knowledge. Note BTW that the
skeptic "you can't ever know anything for sure" line is even more popular
nowadays (my judgement) when people have more scientific knowledge. I think
it's purely about philosophical primaries.
Eudaimonus
> Eudaimonus wrote:
>> Scott Stephens wrote:
>> "As it is in itself" the cat is not a cat, for it is only a cat in
>> terms of it's relation to us (thus not 'in itself') for it is only a
>> cat as it appears to us. The forms in which things appear to us
>> constitute a relation of that thing to us, and thus are not of the
>> thing "in itself", which, nontheless (says Kant), we posit as the
>> "cause" of the phenomena.
> I can understand that; what I sense and what I conclude are all in my
> own head/mind, so if I recognize some object, its not the object *in
> itself* but my sense of it, which is all I can know.
> In that regard, we can never sense *things in themselves* - things in
> themselves aren't perceptions, and don't fit in our heads! =)
That is the Idealist position (which is why Kant describes himself as a
"Transcendental Idealist"). There are those who deny the notion that
all we have direct access to is images in the mind. These philosophers
are "direct realists" and they maintain that we, in fact, directly know
the objects of our experience and that, in fact, the knowledge of our
sensations and perceptions is of a derivative, not direct, nature, which
requires scientific reasoning to come to know.
Mr Michael Bibby
>Scott Stephens wrote:
>> Eudaimonus wrote:
>>> Scott Stephens wrote:
>
>>> "As it is in itself" the cat is not a cat, for it is only a cat in
>>> terms of it's relation to us (thus not 'in itself') for it is only a
>>> cat as it appears to us. The forms in which things appear to us
>>> constitute a relation of that thing to us, and thus are not of the
>>> thing "in itself", which, nontheless (says Kant), we posit as the
>>> "cause" of the phenomena.
>
>> I can understand that; what I sense and what I conclude are all in my
>> own head/mind, so if I recognize some object, its not the object *in
>> itself* but my sense of it, which is all I can know.
>
>> In that regard, we can never sense *things in themselves* - things in
>> themselves aren't perceptions, and don't fit in our heads! =)
>
>That is the Idealist position (which is why Kant describes himself as a
>"Transcendental Idealist").
Its important to distinguish Kants transcendental idealism from traditional
(i.e., Berkelian-) Idealism. The latter deny's the material existence of
'things-in-themselves' the former leaves open this posibility, and, in fact,
says that it is a precondition for the possibility of the empirical self.
There are those who deny the notion that
>all we have direct access to is images in the mind. These philosophers
>are "direct realists" and they maintain that we, in fact, directly know
>the objects of our experience and that, in fact, the knowledge of our
>sensations and perceptions is of a derivative, not direct, nature, which
>requires scientific reasoning to come to know.
>
>
>
mickeyd
David Schwartz
Sorry for the late reply.
> >> I can understand that; what I sense and what I conclude are all in my
> >> own head/mind, so if I recognize some object, its not the object *in
> >> itself* but my sense of it, which is all I can know.
The sense is not the object itself. But you say "what I sense" is only
in your head/mind. This is incorrect. The sensation itself is only in your
head/mind, but what you sense is something else. When you recognize some
object, it is the object itself that you recognize from your perception of
it. In other words, you say, "that looks like an apple", and in so doing you
identify that the apple itself has certain specific characteristics (at
least the ability to create the same sensation you get when you look at an
apple).
> >> In that regard, we can never sense *things in themselves* - things in
> >> themselves aren't perceptions, and don't fit in our heads! =)
Non sequiter. We can sense things in themselves, however the perceptions
aren't the same as the things perceived. When I perceive an apple, it is the
apple itself that I perceive. I don't perceive the perceptions.
And, in any event, perceptions *are* things in themselves and they do
fit in our heads. I totally reject the presumption that mental entities are
somehow less real than other types of entities.
DS
Eudaimonus
> Its important to distinguish Kants transcendental idealism from traditional
> (i.e., Berkelian-) Idealism. The latter deny's the material existence of
> 'things-in-themselves' the former leaves open this posibility, and, in fact,
> says that it is a precondition for the possibility of the empirical self.
But what makes them both Idealist, is that they posit the direct objects
of our awareness are ideas or other similar kinds of mental things.
Prehaps "internalist with respect to the given" as a descriptive phrase,
would work, but if memory serves me right the historical term for that
is Idealist.
Kant is a transcentendal idealist because he asks the transcendental
question - what makes sense data possible?, and answers with - only if
the nounema exist as the cause of our sense data can the sense data
exist. He is not, however, a representationalist because he argues that
the sense data are not "copies" of, or in any way actually 'like' the
thing-in-itself that gives rise to it. Thus he is not skeptical
regarding the _existence_ of an external world, but he is a skeptic as
regarding the _nature_ of the external world. (Indeed, he is even
skeptical on the issue of if it _has_ a nature at all.)
Idealism is a genus of which Berkelianism, Kantianism, and
Representationalism are species. You have an idealist whenever you have
someone who describes perception by starting with the proposition that
we are directly aware of, not objects in the world, but "sense data"
inside of ourselves from which we then infer the existence of an
external world. Different Idealists hold that the inference in question
is either invalid (Berkley) an innate regulative idea of reason (Kant)
or generally valid (Representationalists like Locke and Descartes).
This kind of view is often taught as being simply received wisdom, and
many don't even imagine that there could be people who don't believe it,
but they do exist. True Skeptics hold that we know nothing at all, so
they can't be classed as Idealists, for all Idealists at least hold that
we know our sense data. Direct Realists hold that the given is not our
sense data but the objects of our perception, and that our knoweldge of
sense data is derivative and infered from that.
So this classification "Idealist" as a generalization of a kind of
philosophical position, is usefull. Of course, one has to dinstinquish
between the different kinds of Idealism when it bears on the issue in
question, but when the only issue at hand is that view common to all the
forms of Idealism, then it should be acceptable to simpe refer to
Idealism, indeed it would be wrong to only reference on form of it, as
if the other views are not also covered by what one is saying.
Scott Stephens
> Scott Stephens wrote:
>
>> In that regard, we can never sense *things in themselves* - things in
>> themselves aren't perceptions, and don't fit in our heads! =)
>
> That is the Idealist position (which is why Kant describes himself as a
> "Transcendental Idealist"). There are those who deny the notion that
> all we have direct access to is images in the mind. These philosophers
> are "direct realists" and they maintain that we, in fact, directly know
> the objects of our experience
Before I was a direct realist, since I thought I was experiencing the
thing in itself when I sensed and recognized the phenomena of the thing
in itself. Not that I didn't know it was an understanding in my mind
rather than the thing in itself, I never made a distinction that my
understanding wasn't the thing in itself.
> and that, in fact, the knowledge of our
> sensations and perceptions is of a derivative, not direct, nature, which
> requires scientific reasoning to come to know.
It seems natural that the knowledge of sensation and perception would be
a derivative, since it takes deliberate introspection to become aware
one is perceiving perception.
As I entertain an understanding that all my mind can know is perceptions
and conclusions rather than objective reality, I feel disoriented
and unsure. Several times when I've worked with robots or computer
controlled physical systems, I've felting a nagging worry that my
sensors would not accurately provide data for the computer control
system, and the control system was accurately modeling, predicting and
controlling a process. Reminds me of the 'phenomenology' used on the
hung smart-bomb in the movie Dark Star.
So far I like realism better than idealism.
Mr Michael Bibby
>
> Sorry for the late reply.
>
>> >> I can understand that; what I sense and what I conclude are all in my
>> >> own head/mind, so if I recognize some object, its not the object *in
>> >> itself* but my sense of it, which is all I can know.
>
> The sense is not the object itself. But you say "what I sense" is only
>in your head/mind. This is incorrect. The sensation itself is only in your
>head/mind, but what you sense is something else.
THis is a non-sequiter; you are trying to divine the necessary and sufficient
conditions for the kinds of experiences we have by pressupossinng that they are
experiences *of* things- this is the very position that Kant was challanging!
When you recognize some
>object, it is the object itself that you recognize from your perception of
>it. In other words, you say, "that looks like an apple", and in so doing you
>identify that the apple itself has certain specific characteristics (at
>least the ability to create the same sensation you get when you look at an
>apple).
>
>> >> In that regard, we can never sense *things in themselves* - things in
>> >> themselves aren't perceptions, and don't fit in our heads! =)
>
> Non sequiter. We can sense things in themselves,
by definition, we cant! Kant defines things in themselves as what may or may not
be independent of our experiences. Of course our experiences are *of* things but
it is meaningless to say that they represent something when we cannot compare
the 'representations' with the things they are supposed to represent!!!!!!!!
this is precisely why Kant wrote the Critique of pure reason!
however the perceptions
>aren't the same as the things perceived. When I perceive an apple, it is the
>apple itself that I perceive. I don't perceive the perceptions.
>
> And, in any event, perceptions *are* things in themselves and they do
>fit in our heads. I totally reject the presumption that mental entities are
>somehow less real than other types of entities.
>
> DS
>
>
>
>
mickeyd
Mr Michael Bibby
>Eudaimonus wrote:
>
>> Scott Stephens wrote:
>>
>>> In that regard, we can never sense *things in themselves* - things in
>>> themselves aren't perceptions, and don't fit in our heads! =)
>>
>> That is the Idealist position (which is why Kant describes himself as a
>> "Transcendental Idealist"). There are those who deny the notion that
>> all we have direct access to is images in the mind. These philosophers
>> are "direct realists" and they maintain that we, in fact, directly know
>> the objects of our experience
>
>Before I was a direct realist, since I thought I was experiencing the
>thing in itself when I sensed and recognized the phenomena of the thing
>in itself. Not that I didn't know it was an understanding in my mind
>rather than the thing in itself, I never made a distinction that my
>understanding wasn't the thing in itself.
>
>> and that, in fact, the knowledge of our
>> sensations and perceptions is of a derivative, not direct, nature, which
>> requires scientific reasoning to come to know.
this itself pressupposes that the things given in perception correspond or
'represent' things-in-themselves, this is precisely what we cannot do, compare
the 'picture' (appearances) with the 'origonal' (things-in-themselves). both
realism and anti-realism (i.e., idealism) invite scepticism of the most
pervasive kind (this includes scientific realism, radical empiricism, naive
realism and so on).
>
>It seems natural that the knowledge of sensation and perception would be
>a derivative, since it takes deliberate introspection to become aware
>one is perceiving perception.
>
>As I entertain an understanding that all my mind can know is perceptions
>and conclusions rather than objective reality, I feel disoriented
>and unsure. Several times when I've worked with robots or computer
>controlled physical systems, I've felting a nagging worry that my
>sensors would not accurately provide data for the computer control
>system, and the control system was accurately modeling, predicting and
>controlling a process. Reminds me of the 'phenomenology' used on the
>hung smart-bomb in the movie Dark Star.
>
>So far I like realism better than idealism.
>
>Scott
>
>--
>**********************************
>
>DIY Piezo-Gyro, PCB Drill Bot & More Soon!
>
><a href="http://home.comcast.net/~scottxs/">http://home.comcast.net/~scottxs/</a>
>
>**********************************
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Mickeyd
Robert J. Kolker
Scott Stephens wrote:
> As I entertain an understanding that all my mind can know is perceptions
> and conclusions rather than objective reality, I feel disoriented
> and unsure.
And well you should. For if all you know is perceptions and conclusions
(brain generated stuff) then you might as well be a brain in the vat.
For all you know and understand is self generated. Welcome yourself to
your self generated Kingdom of Solopsia. A land where nothing is real.
Bob Kolker
Eudaimonus
> Eudaimonus wrote:
>
>> Scott Stephens wrote:
>>
>>> In that regard, we can never sense *things in themselves* - things in
>>> themselves aren't perceptions, and don't fit in our heads! =)
>>
>> That is the Idealist position (which is why Kant describes himself as
>> a "Transcendental Idealist"). There are those who deny the notion
>> that all we have direct access to is images in the mind. These
>> philosophers are "direct realists" and they maintain that we, in fact,
>> directly know the objects of our experience
>
> Before I was a direct realist, since I thought I was experiencing the
> thing in itself when I sensed and recognized the phenomena of the thing
> in itself. Not that I didn't know it was an understanding in my mind
> rather than the thing in itself, I never made a distinction that my
> understanding wasn't the thing in itself.
Hmm, you think that making a distinction between your understanding of a
thing, and the thing ('itself' is redundant), is evidence for Idealism?
It is not. The direct realist position is that the _given_ is the
objects in the world around us. It does not deny that we have this
direct awareness by the normally understood means of light rays hit the
cornea ect ect. The point of direct realism is that _awareness_ _starts
at the level of object-perception_.
That we are not aware of our sense data. I open my eyes, and lo do I
see a fleeting sense data. No, I don't think so, I see my computer.
Scientific investigation and reasoning causes me to posit, and later
accept as proven, the existence of sense organs and the fact of objects
acting through space to impact them and hence cause my awareness
objects. As a direct realist, I could even do AI research into modeling
percpetual systems, without feeling any contradiction to my direct
realist position. I would merely note that human awareness does not
begin at the level of "sense data" but as the level of awareness of objects.
>> and that, in fact, the knowledge of our sensations and perceptions is
>> of a derivative, not direct, nature, which requires scientific
>> reasoning to come to know.
>
> It seems natural that the knowledge of sensation and perception would be
> a derivative, since it takes deliberate introspection to become aware
> one is perceiving perception.
But we don't become aware of them thorugh introspection. I know I, at
least, find no "raw sense data" when I introspect. We are simply not
self-aware of our raw sense data - only of our perceptions, and these
are perceptions _of_ objects in the world.
> As I entertain an understanding that all my mind can know is perceptions
> and conclusions rather than objective reality, I feel disoriented
> and unsure. Several times when I've worked with robots or computer
> controlled physical systems, I've felting a nagging worry that my
> sensors would not accurately provide data for the computer control
> system, and the control system was accurately modeling, predicting and
> controlling a process. Reminds me of the 'phenomenology' used on the
> hung smart-bomb in the movie Dark Star.
What would "accurate data" consist in? Isn't all "inintepreted" "data"
"accurate"? Doesn't accuracy and inaccuracy only occur at the level of
interpretation?
> So far I like realism better than idealism.
Idealism has never been proved, only assumed, usually as the only
possible option when someone can not find a way to explain some fact
about perception.
Eudaimonus
> THis is a non-sequiter; you are trying to divine the necessary and sufficient
> conditions for the kinds of experiences we have by pressupossinng that they are
> experiences *of* things- this is the very position that Kant was challanging!
But it is not a presupposition on his part he argues for it's truth on
the basis of the sematics of the term. I hardly call that "presupposing"
> by definition, we cant! Kant defines things in themselves as what may or may not
> be independent of our experiences.
But why does he define them so? Is "things in themselves" an accurate
translation of this concept?
> Of course our experiences are *of* things but
> it is meaningless to say that they represent something when we cannot compare
> the 'representations' with the things they are supposed to represent!!!!!!!!
Why? Why must we be able to "compare" them? One need not suppose they
are _like_ them at all, in order to represent them. "Babe" represents
Babe, but Babe wasn't just transmitted by electrons through wires.
"Babe" looks, feels, acts, ect absolutely nothing at all like Babe.
"Babe" is a word, and Babe is a pig. For christ's sake, "Babe" is
actual, Babe is fictional! No two more different things could be
compared to each other. Yet the one represents the other.
> this is precisely why Kant wrote the Critique of pure reason!
To the detriment of all philosophy since his time.
Eudaimonus
> this itself pressupposes that the things given in perception correspond or
> 'represent' things-in-themselves, this is precisely what we cannot do, compare
> the 'picture' (appearances) with the 'origonal' (things-in-themselves). both
> realism and anti-realism (i.e., idealism) invite scepticism of the most
> pervasive kind (this includes scientific realism, radical empiricism, naive
> realism and so on).
But you are presupposing that what we start with, in awareness, is sense
data.
I deny that that is so.
I agree, we can not compare "appearance" with "original". We don't have
to, because we don't _start with_ "appearance". What is this
appearance thing you speak of? I have seen none!
It's not that I can't know the thing in itself, it's that I have no way
of looking at the "appearance" you speak of!
Mr Michael Bibby
>Mr Michael Bibby wrote:
>
>> this itself pressupposes that the things given in perception correspond or
>> 'represent' things-in-themselves, this is precisely what we cannot do, compare
>> the 'picture' (appearances) with the 'origonal' (things-in-themselves). both
>> realism and anti-realism (i.e., idealism) invite scepticism of the most
>> pervasive kind (this includes scientific realism, radical empiricism, naive
>> realism and so on).
>
>But you are presupposing that what we start with, in awareness, is sense
>data.
I am not presupposing anything. I am pointing to the fundamental problem with
'representationalism'.
>
>I deny that that is so.
>
>I agree, we can not compare "appearance" with "original". We don't have
>to, because we don't _start with_ "appearance". What is this
>appearance thing you speak of? I have seen none!
I am refering to the distinction that Kant draws between "appearances" and
"things-in-themselves", which is basically the distinction between 'perception'
and 'reality', 'thought' and 'non-thought' etc.
>
>It's not that I can't know the thing in itself, it's that I have no way
>of looking at the "appearance" you speak of!
By definition, all that you have access to are 'appearances', how things 'seem'
to you.
>
>
>
Mickeyd
Mr Michael Bibby
>Mr Michael Bibby wrote:
>
>> THis is a non-sequiter; you are trying to divine the necessary and sufficient
>> conditions for the kinds of experiences we have by pressupossinng that they are
>> experiences *of* things- this is the very position that Kant was challanging!
>
>But it is not a presupposition on his part he argues for it's truth on
>the basis of the sematics of the term.
I have no idea what you mean here.
I hardly call that "presupposing"
>
>> by definition, we cant! Kant defines things in themselves as what may or may not
>> be independent of our experiences.
>
>But why does he define them so? Is "things in themselves" an accurate
>translation of this concept?
once again, I have absolutely no clue as to what you are saying, I need you to
clarify if you want me to redress this statement or at least have me understand
it
>
> > Of course our experiences are *of* things but
>> it is meaningless to say that they represent something when we cannot compare
>> the 'representations' with the things they are supposed to represent!!!!!!!!
>
>Why? Why must we be able to "compare" them?
If we are going to say that 'X' represents, and is (structurally) isomorphic
with, 'Y', then we need to be able to see the relations that may or may not hold
between X and Y, otherwise it is meaningless to say that X represents Y.
One need not suppose they
>are _like_ them at all, in order to represent them. "Babe" represents
>Babe, but Babe wasn't just transmitted by electrons through wires.
>"Babe" looks, feels, acts, ect absolutely nothing at all like Babe.
you are talking about signifiers and that which is signified, where the
signifier doesnt 'represent' what is signified, it stands in its place, as a
sign. Further to this, langauge is a operationally closed network or system
i.e., words are defined by words, we clime from one node to the next on this
complex crystalline structure; that is, words refer to words, nothing else!!
>"Babe" is a word, and Babe is a pig. For christ's sake, "Babe" is
>actual, Babe is fictional! No two more different things could be
>compared to each other. Yet the one represents the other.
>
>> this is precisely why Kant wrote the Critique of pure reason!
>
>To the detriment of all philosophy since his time.
You are entitled to your opinion.
>
>
>
mickeyd
Eudaimonus
>
> I am not presupposing anything. I am pointing to the fundamental
> problem with 'representationalism'.
I thought I was the one doing that.
What you are presupposing is refered to you below -
> I am refering to the distinction that Kant draws between
> "appearances" and "things-in-themselves", which is basically the
> distinction between 'perception' and 'reality', 'thought' and
> 'non-thought' etc.
And I am denying the very basis of that distinction. I deny that there
are such things as "appearances" _as opposed to_ "things-in-themselves".
I deny that what we have direct access to is
> By definition, all that you have access to are 'appearances', how
> things 'seem' to you.
But that is not true at all. What is it I have direct access to in
perception? I look out at the world and see "apperances"? I don't
_see_ appearances at all.
It's not even true, let alone true by definition. All I can see are
things seen by me, but that doesn't mean that all I can see is some
things called "appearance".
If what you mean by "apperance" "all that I have access to", then
things-in-themselves are apperances. But I wouldn't talk that way - I
would say that what appears to me, when it appears to me, is in-itself
appearing to me. What "seems" to me, when something "seems" to me, is
the thing-in-itself, for it is, itself, seeming to me at that time and
in that way.
I break the "unbridgable" gap between myself and reality with the simple
move of an internalist account of relations and a relational account of
preception. The first is a rather esoteric metaphysical move, but the
second is something you should recognize - a repudiation of what I call
"Idealism".
That is, I disagree with Kant, I find Kant to be wrong in making the
distinction he makes, as I find it to be made on no sound basis. It is
a distinction that is no distinction. I am anti-Kantian.
But that's not "representationalism" It is "presentationalism" with the
stress on the absence on the "re-" in front. Another name for it is
Direct Realism.
Eudaimonus
>> But it is not a presupposition on his part he argues for it's truth
>> on the basis of the sematics of the term.
>
> I have no idea what you mean here.
>
> I hardly call that "presupposing"
It's not presupposing, that's what I said - it's not a presupposition on
his part, though it's something very close to it, I would admit.
>>> by definition, we cant! Kant defines things in themselves as what
>>> may or may not be independent of our experiences.
>> But why does he define them so? Is "things in themselves" an
>> accurate translation of this concept?
>
> once again, I have absolutely no clue as to what you are saying, I
> need you to clarify if you want me to redress this statement or at
> least have me understand it
Where does the "in itself" come from, when speaking of "what may or may
not be independant of our experiences." I have never experienced an
actual alien from another planet. Hmm, that isn't what Kant meant by
"noumena". Something is fishy here.
>>> Of course our experiences are *of* things but it is meaningless
>>> to say that they represent something when we cannot compare the
>>> 'representations' with the things they are supposed to
>>> represent!!!!!!!!
>>
>> Why? Why must we be able to "compare" them?
>
> If we are going to say that 'X' represents, and is (structurally)
> isomorphic with, 'Y', then we need to be able to see the relations
> that may or may not hold between X and Y, otherwise it is meaningless
> to say that X represents Y.
No, it only becomes difficult to judge - not difficult to _be_. If x
represents y, but we neccessarily can have no knowledge of y, that
doesn't mean that x doesn't represent y, it only means we have no way of
knowing that x represents y.
But then, prehaps we _do_ have a way to gain knowledge of y, namely, x.
If x _does_ represent y, then x gives us knowledge of y ...
>> One need not suppose they are _like_ them at all, in order to
>> represent them. "Babe" represents Babe, but Babe wasn't just
>> transmitted by electrons through wires. "Babe" looks, feels, acts,
>> ect absolutely nothing at all like Babe.
>
> you are talking about signifiers and that which is signified, where
> the signifier doesnt 'represent' what is signified, it stands in its
> place, as a sign. Further to this, langauge is a operationally closed
> network or system i.e., words are defined by words, we clime from one
> node to the next on this complex crystalline structure; that is,
> words refer to words, nothing else!!
All the way down? Words go down into words go down into words ...
infinitely? Does it not stop somewhere? Have you never heard of the
term "ostensive definition"?
>> "Babe" is a word, and Babe is a pig. For christ's sake, "Babe" is
>> actual, Babe is fictional! No two more different things could be
>> compared to each other. Yet the one represents the other.
>>> this is precisely why Kant wrote the Critique of pure reason!
>> To the detriment of all philosophy since his time.
> You are entitled to your opinion.
It isn't just mine opinion - I'm not the only one who doesn't buy into
his philosophy.
Mr Michael Bibby
>Mr Michael Bibby wrote:
>
> >> But it is not a presupposition on his part he argues for it's truth
> >> on the basis of the sematics of the term.
> >
> > I have no idea what you mean here.
> >
> > I hardly call that "presupposing"
>
>It's not presupposing, that's what I said - it's not a presupposition on
>his part, though it's something very close to it, I would admit.
>
> >>> by definition, we cant! Kant defines things in themselves as what
> >>> may or may not be independent of our experiences.
>
> >> But why does he define them so? Is "things in themselves" an
> >> accurate translation of this concept?
> >
> > once again, I have absolutely no clue as to what you are saying, I
> > need you to clarify if you want me to redress this statement or at
> > least have me understand it
>
>Where does the "in itself" come from, when speaking of "what may or may
>not be independant of our experiences." I have never experienced an
>actual alien from another planet. Hmm, that isn't what Kant meant by
>"noumena". Something is fishy here.
yes, *we* made the distinction between appearences and reality and both are
human-specific concepts, the free creations of the human mind. of course I
concede this much.
>
> >>> Of course our experiences are *of* things but it is meaningless
> >>> to say that they represent something when we cannot compare the
> >>> 'representations' with the things they are supposed to
> >>> represent!!!!!!!!
> >>
> >> Why? Why must we be able to "compare" them?
> >
> > If we are going to say that 'X' represents, and is (structurally)
> > isomorphic with, 'Y', then we need to be able to see the relations
> > that may or may not hold between X and Y, otherwise it is meaningless
> > to say that X represents Y.
>
>No, it only becomes difficult to judge - not difficult to _be_. If x
>represents y, but we neccessarily can have no knowledge of y, that
>doesn't mean that x doesn't represent y, it only means we have no way of
>knowing that x represents y.
exactly; we have no way of knowing, that is precisely the very point that i was
making- its a possibility that x represents y, not a certainty: it is a
possibility amoung a plethora of possibilities and we have absolutely no way of
collapsing this multiverse of possiblities to a single point of 'universality'-
which is simply to say that 'we cannot know that we can know just as we cannot
know that we cannot know'.
>
>But then, prehaps we _do_ have a way to gain knowledge of y, namely, x.
> If x _does_ represent y, then x gives us knowledge of y ...
yes, but (and its a big but), see above.
>
> >> One need not suppose they are _like_ them at all, in order to
> >> represent them. "Babe" represents Babe, but Babe wasn't just
> >> transmitted by electrons through wires. "Babe" looks, feels, acts,
> >> ect absolutely nothing at all like Babe.
> >
> > you are talking about signifiers and that which is signified, where
> > the signifier doesnt 'represent' what is signified, it stands in its
> > place, as a sign. Further to this, langauge is a operationally closed
> > network or system i.e., words are defined by words, we clime from one
> > node to the next on this complex crystalline structure; that is,
> > words refer to words, nothing else!!
>
>All the way down? Words go down into words go down into words ...
>infinitely? Does it not stop somewhere? Have you never heard of the
>term "ostensive definition"?
and how do you define ostensive definitions (ha ha!).
>
> >> "Babe" is a word, and Babe is a pig. For christ's sake, "Babe" is
> >> actual, Babe is fictional! No two more different things could be
> >> compared to each other. Yet the one represents the other.
>
> >>> this is precisely why Kant wrote the Critique of pure reason!
>
> >> To the detriment of all philosophy since his time.
>
> > You are entitled to your opinion.
>
>It isn't just mine opinion - I'm not the only one who doesn't buy into
>his philosophy.
I dont 'buy' into his philosophy, I see the intrinsic utility in it, however, as
he does challange realism and anti-realism (idealism) by showing us that neither
position is necessitated by logical analysis and have no way of avoiding
scepticism.
>
>
>
mickeyd
Mr Michael Bibby
>Mr Michael Bibby wrote:
> >
> > I am not presupposing anything. I am pointing to the fundamental
> > problem with 'representationalism'.
>
>I thought I was the one doing that.
>
>What you are presupposing is refered to you below -
I am presupposing nothing, i am 'presenting' (and not re-presenting) my
understanding of the position maintained by Kant.
>
> > I am refering to the distinction that Kant draws between
> > "appearances" and "things-in-themselves", which is basically the
> > distinction between 'perception' and 'reality', 'thought' and
> > 'non-thought' etc.
>
>And I am denying the very basis of that distinction.
We made that distinction, I agree- this very point was the thesis of a paper i
recently wrote called 'The Architectonics of Reality', but i beleive that all
phenomenological domains arise as the result of operations of distinction made
by the cognizing being.
I deny that there
>are such things as "appearances" _as opposed to_ "things-in-themselves".
>I deny that what we have direct access to is
>
> > By definition, all that you have access to are 'appearances', how
> > things 'seem' to you.
>
>But that is not true at all.
I am not saying that it is! I am saying by Kants definition all that we have
access to is 'appearences', I also use this characterization, but its not a
'synthetic' statement but rather an analytic statement- it has no dimension of
synthetic truth!
What is it I have direct access to in
>perception? I look out at the world and see "apperances"? I don't
>_see_ appearances at all.
>
>It's not even true, let alone true by definition.
it is if i define it (see above).
All I can see are
>things seen by me, but that doesn't mean that all I can see is some
>things called "appearance".
>
>If what you mean by "apperance" "all that I have access to",
yes, hence the analytic tautology!
then
>things-in-themselves are apperances.
this is a non-sequiter, hopefully now that should be clear- I am defining my
terms, you define yours!
But I wouldn't talk that way - I
>would say that what appears to me, when it appears to me, is in-itself
>appearing to me. What "seems" to me, when something "seems" to me, is
>the thing-in-itself, for it is, itself, seeming to me at that time and
>in that way.
>
>I break the "unbridgable" gap between myself and reality with the simple
>move of an internalist account of relations and a relational account of
>preception.
and so do I. therefore, by extension, the truth or falsehood of my statements is
not a function of the extent or degree to which they correspond with some
extralinguistic reality, but rather a function of there relations with other
such statements and the internal logic structure constituted by their mutual
relitions.
The first is a rather esoteric metaphysical move, but the
>second is something you should recognize - a repudiation of what I call
>"Idealism".
>
>That is, I disagree with Kant, I find Kant to be wrong
I dont believe in right or wrong- 'nothing is either good or bad, right or wrong
but thinking makes it so and so to is it with thought itself'.
in making the
>distinction he makes, as I find it to be made on no sound basis.
can we ever draw a distinction on a 'sound basis'- just what is a 'sound basis'?
It is
>a distinction that is no distinction. I am anti-Kantian.
>
>But that's not "representationalism" It is "presentationalism" with the
>stress on the absence on the "re-" in front.
presumably to avoid the kind of scepticism associated with re-presentationalism.
Another name for it is
>Direct Realism.
>
and what, pratel, do you have direct access to?
mickeyd
Bert Clanton
perceptual image of Mars. If I rightly understand the Direct Realist
position, it denies that distinction. If I've misunderstood, please
correct me.
It seems quite reasonable to suppose that there is some sense in which
the planet Mars is a thing-in-itself, distinct from any sentient being's
perceptual image of it. If that were not the case, then Mars wouldn't
have existed before it was first perceived by some sentient being. Right?
If indeed there is a sense in which Mars is a thing-in-itself, distinct
from any being's perception of it, then the question arises: is there
any orderly relationship between what Mars is like in itself, and the
form taken by my perceptual image of Mars? Physical and biological
science seems to me to suggest that there is such an orderly
relationship, mediated by the physiology of my nervous system. We call
similar relationships in other contexts "representation"-relationships.
It makes sense to me to use the same term to designate the relationship
of my perceptual image of Mars to the planet itself.
Refutations?
Best wishes,
Bert
--
"Believe nothing ... merely because you have been told it or because it
is traditional or because you yourselves have imagined it. Don't
believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the
teacher. But whatever, after due examination and analysis, you find to
conduce to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings--believe
and cling to that doctrine, and take it as your guide."
--Gautana Siddhartha, "The Dhammapada"
Bert Clanton
items, "things-in-themselves", "appearances", and "perceptions of
appearances". There are only two: "things-in-themselves", and
"appearances/perceptions". I don't think that there's some faculty which
stands apart from "appearances" and produces perceptions of them. I
think that it doesn't make any sense to distinguish between
"appearances" and "perceptions".
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
dave odden
> Surely it makes sense to distinguish between the planet Mars and my
> perceptual image of Mars. If I rightly understand the Direct Realist
> position, it denies that distinction. If I've misunderstood, please
> correct me.
Consider yourself corrected. Now perhaps I could also show why that isn't
the position. For the sake of grounding the discussion, let us accept that
Objectivist epistemology assumes the fundamental ideas of direct realism.
Mars actually exists, and it isn't just in your mind (if it were, you'd be a
skeptic). Surely you must know that Objectivists accept existence
(otherwise, we wouldn't go on so about the primacy of existence and we
wouldn't say that wishing doesn't change reality). But you must surely know
that percepts are fundamental in Objectivist epistemology, and they come
from the mind operating on sense data (which it itself a couple of steps
removed from Mars). The wrench in the ointment here may be this expression
"perceptual image" of yours. As long as you understand that a "perceptual
image" is nothing like a regular image (such as a photograph or a drawing)
and that it's a metaphorical use of "image", we could be okay with that.
Finally, consult Huemer's book because what he presents is, by his words, "a
version of direct realism" (and here we don't have to care about the
relationship between Objectivism and direct realism).
idlemuse
I think Kant is almost unassailable on this point. Two other ways of
looking at this:
1) We filter the world through space-time goggles. Our understanding
of experience is dependent upon notions of locality and sequentiality.
2) We know for a fact by way of atomic theory that we are not
experiencing a table in itself when we eat dinner.
Several of the folks after Kant wrote exhaustively about this matter,
but it has always struck me as fairly straightforward. I don't think
one needs to accept phenomenology and all of its complexities to
accept that we have sensory limitations.
Mr Michael Bibby
I dont think you appreciate the epistemological turn that Kant initiated, which
he called (quite aptly) the next copernican revolution, whereby the objects that
furnish our experiences are no longer seen as determined by intrinsic or
essential mind-independent properties but rather determined by our very capacity
to 'represent' them. This, as simple insight as it may seem, is nothing short of
an epistemological revolution- an explanatory shift from the objectivazation of
the object to the conceptual condition of the object.
mickeyd
Mr Michael Bibby
>What makes sense to me is to suppose that there are not three distinct
>items, "things-in-themselves", "appearances", and "perceptions of
>appearances". There are only two: "things-in-themselves", and
>"appearances/perceptions". I don't think that there's some faculty which
>stands apart from "appearances" and produces perceptions of them. I
>think that it doesn't make any sense to distinguish between
>"appearances" and "perceptions".
>
>Please correct me if I'm wrong.
>
>Best wishes,
>Bert
if your characterizing Kants position then- yes, it doesnt make sense to
distinguish between 'perception' and 'appearances' (at least on this level of
analysis/abstraction).
>--
>"Believe nothing ... merely because you have been told it or because it
>is traditional or because you yourselves have imagined it. Don't
>believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the
>teacher. But whatever, after due examination and analysis, you find to
>conduce to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings--believe
>and cling to that doctrine, and take it as your guide."
>--Gautana Siddhartha, "The Dhammapada"
>
>
mickeyd
Mr Michael Bibby
>"Bert Clanton" wrote:
>
>> Surely it makes sense to distinguish between the planet Mars and my
>> perceptual image of Mars. If I rightly understand the Direct Realist
>> position, it denies that distinction. If I've misunderstood, please
>> correct me.
>
>Consider yourself corrected. Now perhaps I could also show why that isn't
>the position. For the sake of grounding the discussion, let us accept that
>Objectivist epistemology assumes the fundamental ideas of direct realism.
>
>Mars actually exists, and it isn't just in your mind (if it were, you'd be a
>skeptic).
No. otherwise you would be an idealist, *not* a sceptic.
Surely you must know that Objectivists accept existence
>(otherwise, we wouldn't go on so about the primacy of existence and we
>wouldn't say that wishing doesn't change reality). But you must surely know
>that percepts are fundamental in Objectivist epistemology, and they come
>from the mind operating on sense data (which it itself a couple of steps
>removed from Mars). The wrench in the ointment here may be this expression
>"perceptual image" of yours. As long as you understand that a "perceptual
>image" is nothing like a regular image (such as a photograph or a drawing)
>and that it's a metaphorical use of "image", we could be okay with that.
this is not a refutation, as far as i can tell there is no argument here. You
are going to have to do much better than this to adequately address the post you
intended to 'correct'. you seem to be hidding behind words like 'exist'- this is
precisely what is at contention here, EXISTENCE, modes of being; ontology.
Therefore, I suggest clarifying what you properly mean by 'exist' and
'existence' (i.e., proceede from your epistemological assumptions and build up
your metaphysical position upon the foundation they provide).
>
>Finally, consult Huemer's book because what he presents is, by his words, "a
>version of direct realism" (and here we don't have to care about the
>relationship between Objectivism and direct realism).
>
>
>
>
>
mickeyd
dave odden
> >Mars actually exists, and it isn't just in your mind (if it were, you'd
be a
> >skeptic).
> No. otherwise you would be an idealist, *not* a sceptic.
No, that is what skeptics would say. Skeptics are historically prior; the
distinction between Plato and Pyrrho is hardly worth metioning, from the
realist perspective.
> this is not a refutation, as far as i can tell there is no argument here.
It's an observation, a statement of fact; a clarification. I don't need to
clarify what existence means. The point is that -- sorry Bert -- he didn't
represent the realist position correctly. I'm totally uninterested in trying
to persuade you of the realist position. You don't seem to have even read
Bert's post, and it's totally obvious that you didn't read mine, because if
you did, you'd understand what I said. Either that, or you don't speak
English fluently, and you don't understand the meaning of English sentences.
Mr Michael Bibby
>"Mr Michael Bibby" wrote:
>
>> >Mars actually exists, and it isn't just in your mind (if it were, you'd
>be a
>> >skeptic).
>
>> No. otherwise you would be an idealist, *not* a sceptic.
>
>No, that is what skeptics would say.
the position you presented is an idealist position (i.e., mars subsists only in
the mind, its existence is contingent upon a mind etc.), although you might have
had scepticism in mind when you wrote it, this statement, you will perceive, is
a *positivist* metaphysical statement, an ontological commitment to
mind-dependent existence.
Skeptics are historically prior; the
>distinction between Plato and Pyrrho is hardly worth metioning, from the
>realist perspective.
>
>> this is not a refutation, as far as i can tell there is no argument here.
>
>It's an observation, a statement of fact; a clarification. I don't need to
>clarify what existence means. The point is that -- sorry Bert -- he didn't
>represent the realist position correctly. I'm totally uninterested in trying
>to persuade you of the realist position. You don't seem to have even read
>Bert's post, and it's totally obvious that you didn't read mine, because if
>you did, you'd understand what I said. Either that, or you don't speak
>English fluently, and you don't understand the meaning of English sentences.
>
you seem to be saying, in reply to berts post, that the notion of 'perceptual
image' is inadequate as it implies some kind of 'representation' with the
thing-in-itself which you dont agree with and supplant it with a notion of
'presentation'? if so, the question still remains; what is, or is not, outside
of our presentations? anything? if the answer is a tentative 'yes' then you must
ask; what is the relationship between the presentation of something in the mind
(i.e., sense data) and that which is or is not outside of the mind and its
presentations of things? This is epistemology 101, the
correspondence/relationship between sense data and what is or is not prior to,
and independent of, our experiences.
again, from an epistemological platform you must support some kind of
metaphysical edifice.
mickeyd
dave odden
> the position you presented is an idealist position (i.e., mars subsists
only in
> the mind, its existence is contingent upon a mind etc.), although you
might have
> had scepticism in mind when you wrote it, this statement, you will
perceive, is
> a *positivist* metaphysical statement, an ontological commitment to
> mind-dependent existence.
I don't understand why you persist in claiming that there is any substantial
distinction between idealists and skeptics. They're part of a class, and you
can use other characteristics to distinguish radical skeptics from pissy
skeptics and idealists it you want.
> you seem to be saying, in reply to berts post, that the notion of
'perceptual
> image' is inadequate as it implies some kind of 'representation' with the
> thing-in-itself which you dont agree with and supplant it with a notion of
> 'presentation'?
No, I'm saying that the concept of "perceptual image" may be over-laden
baggage, and unless he explains what he means, there's no way to know
whether it is a referring expression for a realist.
> if so, the question still remains; what is, or is not, outside
> of our presentations?
Uh, what is a "presentation"?
> anything? if the answer is a tentative 'yes'
If the answer to a wh-question is ever "yes", shoot me.
Your question doesn't mean anything, but let me rephrase in the hopes of
finding something that does has a meaning. How about: "is there anything
other than our perseptions?". The answer is a resounding "YES!". I think I
made that clear with my first post.
> then you must
> ask; what is the relationship between the presentation
What is this "presentation" thing???
> of something in the mind
> (i.e., sense data)
Do you mean "sensations"? I ask because representationalists have a quirky
concept of sense data, which is wrong.
> and that which is or is not outside of the mind and its
> presentations of things? This is epistemology 101, the
> correspondence/relationship between sense data and what is or is not prior
to,
> and independent of, our experiences.
Existents cause sensations, and the mind operates on the sensations which it
receives to produce percepts. We could get more fine-grained at some point,
but this is good enough for the moment, I think.
Mr Michael Bibby
>
>> the position you presented is an idealist position (i.e., mars subsists
>only in
>> the mind, its existence is contingent upon a mind etc.), although you
>might have
>> had scepticism in mind when you wrote it, this statement, you will
>perceive, is
>> a *positivist* metaphysical statement, an ontological commitment to
>> mind-dependent existence.
>
>I don't understand why you persist in claiming that there is any substantial
>distinction between idealists and skeptics.
OF COURSE THERE IS!!!!!!! idealism and realism both invite scepticism (i.e.,
asserting and denying the existence of material things is logically equivalent
and both positions cannot avoid scepticism) there is a difference, this is an
important distinction to make, i am not being overly scrupulous here.
They're part of a class,
on some level of abstraction, maybe, but it is important to distinquish between
them here, on this level of analysis.
and you
>can use other characteristics to distinguish radical skeptics from pissy
>skeptics and idealists it you want.
again, it depends on the level of abstraction, these distinctions are not
relevant for our purposes here.
>
>> you seem to be saying, in reply to berts post, that the notion of
>'perceptual
>> image' is inadequate as it implies some kind of 'representation' with the
>> thing-in-itself which you dont agree with and supplant it with a notion of
>> 'presentation'?
>
>No, I'm saying that the concept of "perceptual image" may be over-laden
>baggage, and unless he explains what he means, there's no way to know
>whether it is a referring expression for a realist.
I cannot disambiguate this sentence, its an equivocation ("referring expression
for a realist"?)
>
>> if so, the question still remains; what is, or is not, outside
>> of our presentations?
>
>Uh, what is a "presentation"?
substitute 'presentation' with 'experience' in this sentence.
>
>> anything? if the answer is a tentative 'yes'
>
>If the answer to a wh-question is ever "yes", shoot me.
>
>Your question doesn't mean anything,
? its the most important question in epistemology! the relationship between the
knowing subject and the knowing object! i.e., Kants answer to the question 'what
can we know'?
but let me rephrase in the hopes of
>finding something that does has a meaning. How about: "is there anything
>other than our perseptions?". The answer is a resounding "YES!". I think I
>made that clear with my first post.
an you have involved yourself in scepticism! but again, what is the relationship
between perception and what is or is not outside of perception- this is at the
heart of the matter.
>
>> then you must
>> ask; what is the relationship between the presentation
>
>What is this "presentation" thing???
experience *of* something, i.e., right now i am 'presented' with experience of a
computer screen, but this does presuppose that a computer screen exists
independently of my experience of it (as in representationalism).
>
>> of something in the mind
>> (i.e., sense data)
>
>Do you mean "sensations"? I ask because representationalists have a quirky
>concept of sense data, which is wrong.
I know that you dont agree with representationalism (either do I), which is
precisely why i made a distinction between 'representation' and 'presentation';
basically, a representation is a re-presentation of something, a presentation is
a presentation of something (i.e., sense data, ideas, perceptions are all
presentations, that is, something is presented to the knowing subject not
re-presented as in representationalism).
>
>> and that which is or is not outside of the mind and its
>> presentations of things? This is epistemology 101, the
>> correspondence/relationship between sense data and what is or is not prior
>to,
>> and independent of, our experiences.
>
>Existents cause sensations, and the mind operates on the sensations which it
>receives to produce percepts.
this is similiar to Lockian materialism, it is a well known circular argument;
"the fact that i have ideas (sense data) lets me know that something caused
them, therefore, things exist without" (to paraphrase)- again, this involves you
in scepticism and begs the question by presupposing the very thing it asserts!
these are the positions which Kant was arguing against! - this discussion is not
getting very far fast.
We could get more fine-grained at some point,
>but this is good enough for the moment, I think.
>
>
>
>
>
mickeyd
Mr Michael Bibby
>perceptual image of Mars. If I rightly understand the Direct Realist
>position, it denies that distinction. If I've misunderstood, please
>correct me.
>
>It seems quite reasonable to suppose that there is some sense in which
>the planet Mars is a thing-in-itself, distinct from any sentient being's
>perceptual image of it. If that were not the case, then Mars wouldn't
>have existed before it was first perceived by some sentient being. Right?
its existence, in this view, would be mind-dependent and not mind-independent.
>
>If indeed there is a sense in which Mars is a thing-in-itself, distinct
>from any being's perception of it, then the question arises: is there
>any orderly relationship between what Mars is like in itself, and the
>form taken by my perceptual image of Mars?
this is the problem of the relationship between object and subject in
epistemology, it is a most vexing problem, a problem we cannot possibly solve (
you have generated the conditions for the possibility of an impossiblity as the
only way to collapse the distinction between appearances and things in
themselves is to 'withdraw the distinction'- thats my position anyway).
Physical and biological
>science seems to me to suggest that there is such an orderly
>relationship, mediated by the physiology of my nervous system.
physical and biological science *presuppose* an oderly relationship- NOTHING
MORE AND NOTHING LESS, lets make sure that we are clear on this matter! i.e.,
Maturana and Varela (who are both Biologists) showed that from within the
operational/organizational/informational closure of the nurvous system it is
impossible to make a-priori distinctions between effects caused by endogonous
stimulation and exogenic factors.
We call
>similar relationships in other contexts "representation"-relationships.
>It makes sense to me to use the same term to designate the relationship
>of my perceptual image of Mars to the planet itself.
because you are presupposing a relationship between them!
"we are what we think. all that we are arises with our thoughts. with our
thoughts we make the world" Sid Gautana.
>
>Refutations?
>
>Best wishes,
>Bert
>
>--
>"Believe nothing ... merely because you have been told it or because it
>is traditional or because you yourselves have imagined it. Don't
>believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the
>teacher. But whatever, after due examination and analysis, you find to
>conduce to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings--believe
>and cling to that doctrine, and take it as your guide."
>--Gautana Siddhartha, "The Dhammapada"
>
>
mickeyd
Mr Michael Bibby
<correction in astrix- ops!>
>experience *of* something, i.e., right now i am 'presented' with experience of a
>computer screen, but this does *not* presuppose that a computer screen exists
mickeyd
idlemuse
Oh, don't get me wrong. I fully appreciate that Kant crushed our
hopes of ever knowing things in themselves, and I fully appreciate
that later epistemology was therefore forced into analysis of
conceptual conditions. That bummed me out for a while, especially
when combined with Wittgenstein's analysis of language and its
limitations.
Then, while trying to wrap my brain around the intentionality of
phenomenology, it occurred to me that post Kant, Hume was essentially
still correct in most things. We have no choice but to believe some
things, constant conjunction gives rise to the unavoidable mental
habit of assigning causation to events, impressions can be deceptive.
Here is the biggie, though. Perception may be decptive, but it is all
we have. The only way we can know anything about anything is through
our filters. So be it.
Post Kantian epistemology seems mostly to be running in circles to me.
It is the analysis of perceptions without the luxury of an objective
yardstick. Any internally consistent postulation about how perception
may function is just as good as any other in the absence of a 'reality
check'.
I feel much the same way about post Wittgensteinian analysis. Okay, so
we can't ever talk about anything in specifics. What is the point in
the study if we know that our postulations, which are conceived in
language, will necessarily be inaccurate?
dave odden
> ("referring expression
> for a realist"?)
That simply means, "it does't mean anything".
> >Uh, what is a "presentation"?
> substitute 'presentation' with 'experience' in this sentence.
Okay, I will. You earlier asked
> what is the relationship between the experience of something in the mind
> (i.e., sense data) and that which is or is not outside of the mind and its
> experience of things?
I summed up the relation between that which is outside the mind and the
experience in the mind (viz. existent causes experience). The relation
between that which is not ourside the min and the experience is null or
identifity, depending on what thing not outside the mind you're talking
about. As for the relation of sensations to "its experience of things",
there isn't any because sensations don't themselves have experiences.
> >Your question doesn't mean anything,
> ? its the most important question in epistemology! the relationship
between the
> knowing subject and the knowing object! i.e., Kants answer to the question
'what
> can we know'?
The question you asked earlier doesn't have any meaning. But taking this
rephrasing and focusing on the first clause, the relation is generally null.
The person who knows (the knowing subject) has knowledge that is completely
independent of the person he know, and I assume you're saying "the one he
knows and who knows him", i.e. reciprocal acquaintance. Otherwise, I don't
understand what you mean by "the knowing object". The object would have to
be sentient because only sentients can know, hence a person. This is
basically because my knowledge of a person isn't generally contingent on his
knowledge of something else (but you could cook up a scenario where it could
be). That's far-fetched enough that for most purposes it would suffice to
say "no relation".
On the other hand, the second question of what we can know, the answer is
simple: facts (of reality, to be redundant).
> but let me rephrase in the hopes of
> >finding something that does has a meaning. How about: "is there anything
> >other than our perseptions?". The answer is a resounding "YES!". I think
I
> >made that clear with my first post.
> an you have involved yourself in scepticism! but again, what is the
relationship
> between perception and what is or is not outside of perception- this is at
the
> heart of the matter.
I involved myself in skepticism? Well, in the sense that I'm aware of it and
spend a certain portion of each day combatting it. The relation between
perception and existents (somewhat more fine-grained this time) is that --
because of physical laws -- an existent causes a change in parts of me,
namely my sense organs, and there is a cascade of such changes resulting in
a pattern of electrochemical changes in my head.
> but this does presuppose that a computer screen exists
> independently of my experience of it (as in representationalism).
And direct realism.
> I know that you dont agree with representationalism (either do I), which
is
> precisely why i made a distinction between 'representation' and
'presentation';
> basically, a representation is a re-presentation of something, a
presentation is
> a presentation of something (i.e., sense data, ideas, perceptions are all
> presentations, that is, something is presented to the knowing subject not
> re-presented as in representationalism).
Hang on. Before, you said that "presentation" is an experience. But a
re-presentation is simply a presentation again, i.e. a second experiencing.
A painting is a representation, but it is not an experience. An experience
only exists in the mind (be it a first presentation or a later experience),
whereas very many representations are non-mental.
> >Existents cause sensations, and the mind operates on the sensations which
it
> >receives to produce percepts.
> this is similiar to Lockian materialism, it is a well known circular
argument;
> "the fact that i have ideas (sense data) lets me know that something
caused
> them, therefore, things exist without" (to paraphrase)- again, this
involves you
> in scepticism and begs the question by presupposing the very thing it
asserts!
It's not circular, since we actually have somewhat detailed independent
knowledge of how the chain of events works, based on advances in physiology
and physics (which Locke didn't have access to). For example, light at
certain wavelengths causes particular atoms to absorb a photon, and at a
certain point the atom dumps some energy, which is absorbed by some other
atom etc. I'm speaking here of the really low-level makeup up the eye (no
pun intended).
Bert Clanton
"dave odden" <od...@ling.ohio-state.edu> wrote:
> "Bert Clanton" wrote:
>
> > Surely it makes sense to distinguish between the planet Mars and my
> > perceptual image of Mars. If I rightly understand the Direct Realist
> > position, it denies that distinction. If I've misunderstood, please
> > correct me.
>
> Consider yourself corrected. Now perhaps I could also show why that isn't
> the position. For the sake of grounding the discussion, let us accept that
> Objectivist epistemology assumes the fundamental ideas of direct realism.
>
But you haven't corrected my viewpoint, you've only asserted (perhaps
correctly) that I'm mistaken.
I guess my problem may be that I don't correctly understand the
distinction between Direct Realism and Indirect Realism. I'd appreciate
it if you'd explain the distinction to me.
> Mars actually exists, and it isn't just in your mind (if it were, you'd be a
> skeptic). Surely you must know that Objectivists accept existence
> (otherwise, we wouldn't go on so about the primacy of existence and we
> wouldn't say that wishing doesn't change reality). But you must surely know
> that percepts are fundamental in Objectivist epistemology, and they come
> from the mind operating on sense data (which it itself a couple of steps
> removed from Mars).
I'd say "the nervous system operating on sense data", but no matter. I
accept the idea that the contents of my perceptual field come ultimately
from my nervous system operating on information coming from my body's
sensors, and that such information is a couple of steps removed from
Mars. Is that a Direct Realist position?
And what do you mean by "percepts are fundamental in Objectivist
epistemology"? More precisely, what do you mean by "fundamental" in this
context?
> The wrench in the ointment here may be this expression
> "perceptual image" of yours. As long as you understand that a "perceptual
> image" is nothing like a regular image (such as a photograph or a drawing)
> and that it's a metaphorical use of "image", we could be okay with that.
>
I'd describe it as a *mathematical* use of "image". Informally, any item
J is an image of an item O, distinct from J, if the structure of J is
isomorphic to some substructure of O (not necessarily a *proper*
substructure of O). The two items might be in entirely different
"media", so long as the image is some orderly "structural transform" of
the object.
In the case in point, I take O to be the planet Mars itself , and J to
be that portion of my perceptual field derived by my nervous system from
electromagnetic radiation from the planet Mars. If this is a form of
Direct Realism, then I'm a Direct Realist. But my understanding has been
that a Direct Realist would say that there's something superfluous in
such an account, and if that's the case, I want to know what it is.
> Finally, consult Huemer's book because what he presents is, by his words, "a
> version of direct realism" (and here we don't have to care about the
> relationship between Objectivism and direct realism).
Unless it's on line, I have no access to it.
dave odden
> > > If I've misunderstood, please
> > > correct me.
> > Consider yourself corrected. Now perhaps I could also show why that
isn't
> > the position.
> But you haven't corrected my viewpoint, you've only asserted (perhaps
> correctly) that I'm mistaken.
I wasn't trying to correct your viewpoint, but rather, as you requested,
your understanding of Direct Realism.
> I guess my problem may be that I don't correctly understand the
> distinction between Direct Realism and Indirect Realism. I'd appreciate
> it if you'd explain the distinction to me.
Seriously, if you've got a few bucks ($24) to spare -- and you suggest that
you don't -- I would recommend Owl's book. He has a whole chapter on
Indirect Realism. What I'll give you is a real travesty of a condensation.
But you get what you pay for. The Indirect Realist position basically says
that what we know are "mental images", and that we infer that there are real
objects corresponding to the images. In contrast, direct realists say that
we are directly aware of these objects.
> I'd say "the nervous system operating on sense data", but no matter. I
> accept the idea that the contents of my perceptual field come ultimately
> from my nervous system operating on information coming from my body's
> sensors, and that such information is a couple of steps removed from
> Mars. Is that a Direct Realist position?
Yeah, though the "steps" part could be problematic; barring a hidden agenda,
that's the deal. The hidden agenda can't be "and then we infer...".
> And what do you mean by "percepts are fundamental in Objectivist
> epistemology"? More precisely, what do you mean by "fundamental" in this
> context?
Two answers. One is, if you screw up there, you're more likely to get yelled
at loudly by some people, than if you screw up on a non-essential. Less
sociologically, in the hierarchy of characteristics of beings that "know",
it's lower on the list (with "all entities" being on top). It probably
distinguishes mammals from, I dunno, maybe tunicates. BTW if you were
thinking that percepts are the *most* fundamental, I didn't mean to mislead
you -- concepts are THE fundamental for Objectivists. Percepts are pretty
important, though, since that's basically how we retain anything in the mind
at all.
> In the case in point, I take O to be the planet Mars itself , and J to
> be that portion of my perceptual field derived by my nervous system from
> electromagnetic radiation from the planet Mars. If this is a form of
> Direct Realism, then I'm a Direct Realist. But my understanding has been
> that a Direct Realist would say that there's something superfluous in
> such an account, and if that's the case, I want to know what it is.
One thing that can confuse the issue is materialism vs. dualism. Huemer
admits he's a dualist (how disappointing), but I'm a Kolker-style
materialist (I can't tell whether to call Bob a representationalist or not,
but I'm at least more inclined to do so than to not do so). So somebody
could object that this stuff about nervous systems is wrong, or whatever --
I've never understood the common Objectivist rejection of materialism.
You've added what might be considered a somewhat superfluous bit of
information about exactly *how* you know this.
The important barrier here is this isomorphism J in the brain. I can't get
my brain around this well enough to figure out if the percept can be an
isomorphism of the existent. Since there are a lot of small details of Mars
that I can't actually see, it's not clear that this is a bijection. If you
drop the isomorphism part, I don't see any superfluity. I'll have to think
about it, to figure out the consequence of insisting on this isomorphism.
Bert Clanton
"dave odden" <od...@ling.ohio-state.edu> wrote:
Dave, I still wish that you would explain to me the difference between
Direct Realism and Indirect Realism.
This is what I understand the facts of the epistemological situation to
be:
There are things-in-themselves out there in the real world. The
existence of these things does not depend in any way on their being
perceived by some sentient being. For example, the existence of the
planet Mars diesn't depend in any way on there being sentient beings in
the universe which are capable of perceiving it: Mars would still exist
of all sentient beings were suddenly to cease to exist. I'm pretty sure
we agree so far.
Electromagnetic radiation is reflected from the planet Mars and
eventually arrives at my eyeballs. Built into my eyeballs are
transducers which convert the form of the incident electromagnetic
radiation into the form of neural impulses. These neural impulses are
just some of the changes of state of which my body is capable. In an
abstract mathematical sense, these neural impulses constitute a neural
*image* of part of the planet Mars: not a "picture", but still a form
related in an orderly way to the form of the impinging radiation, which
is in turn related in an orderly way to the reflective processes going
on at the surface of Mars. So these neural impulses themselves are in
turn an image, in the mathematical sense, of part of the surface of
Mars. Arriving at my brain, these neural impulses are ultimately
transformed, in an orderly way, into *subjectively experienced* forms
which I've called a "perceptual image" of the planet Mars. I'd agree
with Varela and Maturana, as I understand them, that the physiological
substrate of this final subjective image consists purely of possible
states of parts of the nervous system, and is not completely determined
by the form of the planet Mars, or of the radiation from Mars impinging
on my eyeballs, but is partly determined by just what nervous-system
states are physiologically possible for me. But since the
transformations of form at every stage from planet to subjective image
are orderly, I reject their view that the final subjective image should
not be termed a "representation" of Mars.
I'd call this model an Indirect Realist model. What part of my model
would have to be left out to make it a Direct Realist model?
dave odden
> Dave, I still wish that you would explain to me the difference between
> Direct Realism and Indirect Realism.
Mike still wishes you'd buy his book (or would, if he knew we were having
this discussion). I disavow any special knowledge of or ability to convey
the difference, but let me try to un-fog the difference a little bit.
When I see my dog (and am alert, etc), I'm directly aware of the dog. To put
it in almost Huemerian terms, I have a mental state of "grasping", and the
actual dog 'satisfies the content' of the grasping. This latter is a bit
hard to grok, but the idea behind the content of a representation is that
it's what it's about, so the spoken utterance "The cat is on the mat", the
preceding written words, "kissa on matossa" (or thereabouts), a painting of
a mat-cat, a photograph of same, and the belief in "I believe that the cat
is on the mat" are the content. Satisfaction is some kind of correspondence.
If I see an apparently human shadow, know that Bill is the only human other
than me, I can't say that I am directly aware (visually) of Bill -- I'm
indirectly aware. Whereas if I actually see Bill, then I am directly aware
of him. As I understand the essential characteristics of indirect realism,
an indirect realist says that we only have awareness of mental states (which
may have some connection to the thing outside us), the "sense data", whereas
a direct realist holds that we have awareness of the things we see (if we do
see them).
> I'd call this model an Indirect Realist model. What part of my model
> would have to be left out to make it a Direct Realist model?
I think the name "representationalist" for "indirect realist" derives from
an older view that there would be actual pictures in the brain and that we
are aware of the brain pictures, not the external objects. So AFAIK it's not
about whether there are representations in the mind (a good thing, because
there *are* representations in the mind). Let's leave aside the few hundreds
of years old nobody believes it brain spot theory. It sounds like you're
saying that your perceptual experience *is* your awareness of the thing you
see, and if so that is direct realism.
Eudaimonus
> yes, *we* made the distinction between appearences and reality and
> both are human-specific concepts, the free creations of the human
> mind. of course I concede this much.
Interesting how you "condeed" something I never claimed.
>> No, it only becomes difficult to judge - not difficult to _be_. If
>> x represents y, but we neccessarily can have no knowledge of y,
>> that doesn't mean that x doesn't represent y, it only means we have
>> no way of knowing that x represents y.
>
> exactly; we have no way of knowing, that is precisely the very point
> that i was making- its a possibility that x represents y, not a
> certainty:
You are speaking here as if it is the _representing_ that has the
properties of "possible" or "certain" but it's not. It is the
_judgement_ of wither it is represeting that is "possible" or "certain"
- judgements are certain, things just are.
> it is a possibility amoung a plethora of possibilities and we have
> absolutely no way of collapsing this multiverse of possiblities to a
> single point of 'universality'-
Indeed, on the presumption that we start with awareness of appearance
and _infer_ the existence of objects, but that is a presumption it is
possible to question.
> which is simply to say that 'we cannot know that we can know just as
> we cannot know that we cannot know'.
Given you presuppositions, yes. But fortunately those presuppositions
are wrong.
>> But then, prehaps we _do_ have a way to gain knowledge of y,
>> namely, x. If x _does_ represent y, then x gives us knowledge of y
>> ...
>
> yes, but (and its a big but), see above.
But then, if we can know - then can we not know that we know, in the
same way - by something that does represent _that_, though we can not
"confirm" it.
The basis point here is that "can prove" is not a requirement for "does
know".
>> All the way down? Words go down into words go down into words ...
>> infinitely? Does it not stop somewhere? Have you never heard of
>> the term "ostensive definition"?
>
> and how do you define ostensive definitions (ha ha!).
I can give you an easy ostensive definition - I hold up my hand and
point to it with the index finger of my other hand "This is a hand".
Then I pause, smile, and say "What I just did was give an ostensive
definition, pointing my finger slightly up into the air as if trying to
point backwards in time.
Yes, that is an ostensive definition of what an ostensive definition is,
but then, so what?
>> It isn't just mine opinion - I'm not the only one who doesn't buy
>> into his philosophy.
>
> I dont 'buy' into his philosophy, I see the intrinsic utility in it,
> however, as he does challange realism and anti-realism (idealism) by
> showing us that neither position is necessitated by logical analysis
> and have no way of avoiding scepticism.
Kant doesn't challenge Idealism - his philosophy is a _form_ of idealism
- transcendental idealism. According to Kant, all we have direct
cognative access to is appearances - and that is the defining
characteristic of "Idealism" a philosphical-theory-type.
What Kant was against wasn't Idealism, but specifically _Humean_
skepticism - skepticism regarding _the truths of science_. Kant _is_ a
"skeptic regarding the nature of the external world" and he saves
science only by making it _internal_.
But that is _not_ Anti-Idealism - that is as much Idealism as Berkley's
Idealism.
Kant, bye the way, was an anti-skeptic, not a skeptic, and he had his
way of avoiding skepticism, that is, the same way as Berkley - namely,
making what we take to be the objects of common experience into ideas
internal to the mind.
Eudaimonus
>> Mr Michael Bibby wrote:
>>
>>> I am not presupposing anything. I am pointing to the fundamental
>>> problem with 'representationalism'.
>>
>> I thought I was the one doing that.
>>
>> What you are presupposing is refered to you below -
> I am presupposing nothing, i am 'presenting' (and not re-presenting)
> my understanding of the position maintained by Kant.
Then it is Kant who is/was presupposing. And, insofar as you agree with
Kant on these issues, you also are presupposing what he is/was presupposing.
> We made that distinction, I agree- this very point was the thesis of
> a paper i recently wrote called 'The Architectonics of Reality', but
> i beleive that all phenomenological domains arise as the result of
> operations of distinction made by the cognizing being.
But not all "distinctions" are valid. The distinction between "things
as the appear" and "things as they are".
>>> By definition, all that you have access to are 'appearances', how
>>> things 'seem' to you.
>>
>> But that is not true at all.
>
> I am not saying that it is! I am saying by Kants definition all that
> we have access to is 'appearences', I also use this characterization,
> but its not a 'synthetic' statement but rather an analytic statement-
> it has no dimension of synthetic truth!
I also deny the distinction between analytic and synthetic!
But this only goes to show my point - if Kant means "all that we have
access to" by "apperance", then whence the distinction between
"appearance" and "reality", as if we dont have access to "reality" to
"things as they are in themselves"?
Whence the notion that "phenomena" and "noumena" are _kind_ terms?
> All I can see are
>> things seen by me, but that doesn't mean that all I can see is some
>> things called "appearance".
>>
>> If what you mean by "apperance" "all that I have access to",
>
> yes, hence the analytic tautology!
>
>> then things-in-themselves are apperances.
>
> this is a non-sequiter, hopefully now that should be clear- I am
> defining my terms, you define yours!
But then, if you mean simply by "things-in-themselves" things only
"things that not things-as-they-appear" then things-in-themselves "turn
into" things as they appear, by means of appearing. So the only
difference then between thing-in-itself and thing-as-it-appears is a
potentiality/actuality distinction - and again, they do not mark out
different _kinds_ of things.
>> But I wouldn't talk that way - I would say that what appears to me,
>> when it appears to me, is in-itself appearing to me. What "seems"
>> to me, when something "seems" to me, is the thing-in-itself, for it
>> is, itself, seeming to me at that time and in that way.
>>
>> I break the "unbridgable" gap between myself and reality with the
>> simple move of an internalist account of relations and a relational
>> account of preception.
>
> and so do I. therefore, by extension, the truth or falsehood of my
> statements is not a function of the extent or degree to which they
> correspond with some extralinguistic reality, but rather a function
> of there relations with other such statements and the internal logic
> structure constituted by their mutual relitions.
But that's not my view - I am not here even _talking_ about statements,
but about _perceptions_ Perceptions put us in contact with reality by
means of making ourselves _in our person_ a _realization_ of the powers
of the things we perceive, and so we in this sense become one with it.
>> The first is a rather esoteric metaphysical move, but the
>> second is something you should recognize - a repudiation of what I
>> call "Idealism".
>>
>> That is, I disagree with Kant, I find Kant to be wrong
>
> I dont believe in right or wrong- 'nothing is either good or bad,
> right or wrong but thinking makes it so and so to is it with thought
> itself'.
But then, that I disagree with to. "It is by the gift of nature that
our statements turn out true." (Who said that, Russell?)
>> in making the
>> distinction he makes, as I find it to be made on no sound basis.
>
>
> can we ever draw a distinction on a 'sound basis'- just what is a
> 'sound basis'?
A sound basis is a difference that exists between some two things. If
the difference does not exists, drawing a distinction there is invalid.
Techinically, the terms in which we would express the distinciton
would be intentially objects that fail to refer, and thereby they are
invalid (that is what their invalidity consists in).
>> It is
>> a distinction that is no distinction. I am anti-Kantian.
>>
>> But that's not "representationalism" It is "presentationalism"
>> with the stress on the absence on the "re-" in front.
>
> presumably to avoid the kind of scepticism associated with
> re-presentationalism.
Of course.
> Another name for it is
>
>> Direct Realism.
>
> and what, pratel, do you have direct access to?
Right now? My computer, my television, my copy of the "Introduction to
Objectivist Epistemology", my legs, my hands, my tv remote, my two
tables, the wall behind me, (in the visual sense) the solidity of one of
the tables, the solidity of the chair I am in (in the tactile sense) and
so on and so on.
What I have only _indirect access to_ is the direct effect of the light
rays striking my eyes and the pattern of neurons that fire because of
it. That is the direct effect upon me of the objects, which thereby
causes other effects in me such that I become aware of the object, BUT
I know that there are light rays striking my eyes (and of the various
intermediary steps) only because of my scientific education, not because
I have direct access to that fact, which is what representationalism
says that I do have direct access to.
Eudaimonus
> Surely it makes sense to distinguish between the planet Mars and my
> perceptual image of Mars. If I rightly understand the Direct Realist
> position, it denies that distinction. If I've misunderstood, please
> correct me.
It doesn't so much deny the distinction as it denies the existence (as a
a direct object of awareness), of what you call "sense data".
> It seems quite reasonable to suppose that there is some sense in which
> the planet Mars is a thing-in-itself, distinct from any sentient being's
> perceptual image of it. If that were not the case, then Mars wouldn't
> have existed before it was first perceived by some sentient being. Right?
Given that terminology, that is correct. But what the direct realist
would say is this - what is this "percpetual image" you are talking
about? I have never seen a percepetual image, I have no idea what you
are talking about! That is what a direct realist would say.
> If indeed there is a sense in which Mars is a thing-in-itself, distinct
> from any being's perception of it, then the question arises: is there
> any orderly relationship between what Mars is like in itself, and the
> form taken by my perceptual image of Mars?
The essense of _direct_ realism is the denial of the little story,
presented yet agin here, that "the form [is] taken [from] my perceptual
image of Mars" - he would (and I do) deny that we _start with an
awareness of an image and then infer the existence of a thing_, but
rather we _start with the awareness of things, directly_. That is why
it is called "direct" realism.
> Physical and biological
> science seems to me to suggest that there is such an orderly
> relationship, mediated by the physiology of my nervous system. We call
> similar relationships in other contexts "representation"-relationships.
> It makes sense to me to use the same term to designate the relationship
> of my perceptual image of Mars to the planet itself.
It might be ok to speak of "representations" if it weren't for the fact
that is supposes that the representation or "image" is being _presented_
to the person. But direct realism denies this - at the explanatory
level of "light rays hit my eyes" _we have yet to rise to the level of a
judgement of conciousness_ - we are dealing with a _preconcious_ phenomena.
> Refutations?
The basic refution is that we don't see sense data, we see things, and
this is obvious, or at least what nearly everybody, not under the
influence of Idealist philosophers, understands themselves to be seeing.
Prehaps by _means_ of something _like_ sense data which are
_nonconcious_ but not _directly_.
If what we are directly aware of are internal states of our own minds
(ie. "apperances"), then why have I never seen one? Why have I instead
only seen objects?
If anything, Idealism (in my sense of the word) is the doctrine that is
trying to revise common sense, and hence is the claim with the strongest
burden of proof - which it has never crossed.
Eudaimonus
> No. otherwise you would be an idealist, *not* a sceptic.
But there is no _rational_ way to not end up being a skeptic if you are
an idealist. Kant proved that! He had to put everything that we common
take ourselves to experience within the mind (just like Berkley) in
order to have any knowledge at all.
> this is not a refutation, as far as i can tell there is no argument here. You
> are going to have to do much better than this to adequately address the post you
> intended to 'correct'. you seem to be hidding behind words like 'exist'- this is
> precisely what is at contention here, EXISTENCE, modes of being; ontology.
> Therefore, I suggest clarifying what you properly mean by 'exist' and
> 'existence' (i.e., proceede from your epistemological assumptions and build up
> your metaphysical position upon the foundation they provide).
Why must you start with epistomology, and not metaphysics?
>>Finally, consult Huemer's book because what he presents is, by his words, "a
>>version of direct realism" (and here we don't have to care about the
>>relationship between Objectivism and direct realism).
You would do very well to take his advice - it's a very good work, I
suggest it highly (contrary to what I thought I would say when I noticed
who was the editor of the book, I might add).
dave odden
> > they come
> > from the mind operating on sense data
Red alert! When I said that, I was speaking loosely. I had forgotten that
the term "sense data" has a particular interpretation under indirect
realism. What I meant by that was simply "the stuff that the sense organs
produce", i.e. voltages and chemicals. What indirect realists mean by sense
data (indeed, what *do* they mean) soes not exist.
Eudaimonus
> OF COURSE THERE IS!!!!!!! idealism and realism both invite scepticism
> (i.e., asserting and denying the existence of material things is
> logically equivalent and both positions cannot avoid scepticism)
> there is a difference, this is an important distinction to make, i am
> not being overly scrupulous here.
Denying the existence of material things is logically equivelent to
direct realism?
You must be assuming that _indirect realism_ (that is,
representationalism) is the only form of realism. It's not.
>> No, I'm saying that the concept of "perceptual image" may be
>> over-laden baggage, and unless he explains what he means, there's
>> no way to know whether it is a referring expression for a realist.
>
> I cannot disambiguate this sentence, its an equivocation ("referring
> expression for a realist"?)
What he means is - wither the statement, as a realist would interpret
it, is intentionally successfull in refering to it's intentional object.
> substitute 'presentation' with 'experience' in this sentence.
But he asked what _thing_ it is. "Experiences" are not _things_.
>>> anything? if the answer is a tentative 'yes'
>>
>> If the answer to a wh-question is ever "yes", shoot me.
>>
>> Your question doesn't mean anything,
>
> ? its the most important question in epistemology! the relationship
> between the knowing subject and the knowing object! i.e., Kants
> answer to the question 'what can we know'?
But that is a _different_ question. How we can infer from our sense
data the existence of material objects is a very different question from
what is the relationship between the knowing subject and knowing object.
The former is a complex question in a way the latter is not.
>> finding something that does has a meaning. How about: "is there
>> anything other than our perseptions?". The answer is a resounding
>> "YES!". I think I made that clear with my first post.
>
> an you have involved yourself in scepticism! but again, what is the
> relationship between perception and what is or is not outside of
> perception- this is at the heart of the matter.
It leads to skepticism _only_ on the presumption that Idealism is true.
>>> then you must ask; what is the relationship between the
>>> presentation
>>
>> What is this "presentation" thing???
>
> experience *of* something, i.e., right now i am 'presented' with
> experience of a computer screen, but this does presuppose that a
> computer screen exists independently of my experience of it (as in
> representationalism).
But just because you are being presented to, doesn't mean there is some
_thing_ called a "presentation" - it means only that something is
_happening_ to you - that you are being presented to. IT's as if you
assumed there were "walks" when you are walking. No, there is just the
_act_ of walking, not a _thing_ that is a _walk_. Nor a _thing_ that is
a "presentation". (This is a form of the adverbial analysis of perception.)
>> Do you mean "sensations"? I ask because representationalists have a
>> quirky concept of sense data, which is wrong.
>
> I know that you dont agree with representationalism (either do I),
You do, insofar as you are an Idealist. You agree with precisely that
part of it that he disagrees with.
> which is precisely why i made a distinction between 'representation'
> and 'presentation'; basically, a representation is a re-presentation
> of something, a presentation is a presentation of something (i.e.,
> sense data, ideas, perceptions are all presentations, that is,
> something is presented to the knowing subject not re-presented as in
> representationalism).
But that is just direct realism. Idealism is the position that what is
presented directly to awareness is "sense data".
>> Existents cause sensations, and the mind operates on the sensations
>> which it receives to produce percepts.
>
> this is similiar to Lockian materialism, it is a well known circular
> argument; "the fact that i have ideas (sense data) lets me know that
> something caused them, therefore, things exist without" (to
> paraphrase)- again, this involves you in scepticism and begs the
> question by presupposing the very thing it asserts!
How does it beg the question - all arguements "presupose" the truth of
the conclusion in the premises - that is what makes a deductive
arguement valid, that the premises taken together are logically
equivelent to the conclusion.
> these are the positions which Kant was arguing against! - this
> discussion is not getting very far fast.
Where it is going is a growing recognition on your part that there are
those who radically disagree with nearly everything you hold true about
this issue. I think that is somewhere.
Remember, no arguement (as opposed to demonstration) can ever establish
_conclusively_ the truth of anything - all a good arguement can show is
what follows from what, not which premises to start from - that is
something that occurs prior to arguementation. Which is not to endorse
solipsism, but just to note the limitations of speach regarding changing
someone's mind.
That is, as Quine put it "anything can be held come what may". That
doesn't of course, mean that everything is equally justified - just that
choice is allways involved, when we meet with a contradiction, of which
half of the contradiction to keep and which to throw out.
At best, we can try to show you how your belif in Idealism contradicts
many common sense beliefs that you hold, but then, to the extent that
you have internalized Idealistic principles, you will have allready
rejected all of those common sense beliefs because they conflict with
Idealism, so our task will be increadibly difficult.
Similarly, I could analyize your attempt to convince us of the truth of
the Idealist principles in the same way - nearly all of the beliefs
which for you form your evidence on which you base your belief in such
principles, we do not grant.
Eudaimonus
> I feel much the same way about post Wittgensteinian analysis. Okay, so
> we can't ever talk about anything in specifics. What is the point in
> the study if we know that our postulations, which are conceived in
> language, will necessarily be inaccurate?
Aren't you here confusing ambiguity with inaccuracy?
Eudaimonus
> I guess my problem may be that I don't correctly understand the
> distinction between Direct Realism and Indirect Realism. I'd appreciate
> it if you'd explain the distinction to me.
"Direct realism is often understood as the view that, in cases of normal
perception, we are directly aware of something in the external
world."....."Indirect realism is then characterized as the veiw that, in
normal precpetion, we are only directly aware of internal (mental)
phenomena, and we are _indirectly_ aware of external phenomena, by means
of our awareness of the mental phenomena." (Micheal Huemer, "Direct
Realism and the Brain-in-a-Vat Arguement" from "Epistemology:
Comtemporary Readings")
dave odden
> What is the point in
> the study if we know that our postulations, which are conceived in
> language, will necessarily be inaccurate?
What do you mean by "inaccurate"? You appear to be blaming language, but
that isn't where the blame really lies. It's all due to the shameful fact
that man is not omniscient. It's not that we're being tricked by language
(that crafty devil, which mysteriously exists out there yet nowhere
identifiable). It's simply that we don't happen to know everything.
What's the point? Getting closer.
Eudaimonus
I think the fundamental distinction here is on where "awareness" begins.
What I would point out, drawing on my Direct Realist presuppositions,
is that the "perceptual image" is only an "image" in a very metaphorical
sense, as I would claim is that at that stage of the game, we have not
yet gotten to the point of _judgements of the kind that our held in the
form of propositions_, that is what are _actually_ refered to as
"beliefs". The moves from the waves hitting our eyes to neural
impulses, and from the neural impulses to the perceptual "image" are
_non-inferential_ even though _regularly ordered_, because they are not
"judgements" in the sense of beleifs as I described them.
My contention would be that when you get to the part of the story where
a specific "belief", in the form of a proposition added to our "list of
beliefs held" occurs, is not at the level of image-formation, but on the
level of judgement-of-image, and that the intentional object of these
preception-judgements are not the images but the objects - the images
are the _means by which_ we judge but not _that of which_ we judge.
And that is only granted something which may well be false - that this
purely _linear_ story is accurate. Indeed, given what the science of
the brain seems to tell us - various judgements are made in very
different parts of the brain in parrallel - "computations" that find
lines from color and shading differences, that detect motion, that
detect shape - all of these seem to be done independantly, so it may
well be false to speak of "an" image. That may well be relying on a
form of the homonculous fallacy.
Indeed, your whole story approaches the "homonculous fallacy" in that it
seems to suppose, implicitly, that what we _as minds as opposed to
physical object_ are _aware_ of is the preceptual image, but once you
start speaking of the light rays hitting the eyes, you are allready_
talking about the concious being - after that all you are speaking of is
_internal to_ the _process_ of awareness - to posit that what we are
directly aware of is the preceptual image (which is what we mean by
"indirect realism"), is to push awareness back away from the sense
organs into something else - but to leave the _fundamental_ question, of
_how we are aware of that which we are aware_ unanswered - it has simply
made the "homoculus" a bit smaller, but left the fundamental phenomena
(awareness as such) unexplained.
It's basic premise is a kind of Dualism - note that the story you have
given hasn't changed in any real sense since Descartes. You are still
implicitly making a reference to the Cartesian "seat of the soul" which
is where the preceptual images go to and where the soul as the "seat of
awareness" becomes aware of that of which it is aware.
It is as if saying that I drove from the street outside of my workplace,
when I went to work. No, where I started from was my house, even though
I did go _through_ the street outside of my workplace, on my way there.
On the way from object to perceptual judgement, we may well go through
a stage of perceptual-image-formation, but that doesn't mean that what
the judgement is a judgement _of_ is the perceptual image.
For more information, see Searle's "Intentionality" which is where I get
this basic framework of ideas. The basic notion is that what goes on
between the rays of light leaving the object and my perceptual judgement
(ie. experience) is _non-inferential_. (Even if granted we can _model_
it as an inferential pattern.) This means that, strickly speaking, it
not _evidence for_ the belief to which it gives rise, strickly speaking,
it is merely the _cause of_ the belief to which it gives rise. As such
it can be neither rational nor irrational but is quite specifically
a-rational. (Thus the skeptics contention that the inference is
irrational is blocked).
For instance, the notion that certain perceptual illusions are based on
inherint _inferences_ made by the perceptual system - is a notion based
on bad semantics - it is an orderly transition, but that an inference
does not make (for it is non- or pre- concious)
As I have said before - I have made no inference from sense data to
object existing, hence the demand of the skeptic to display that
inference for public inspection for errors, is an ill-motivated demand.
So, it is not so much that you must leave something out, as that you
_did_ leave something out - the perceptual judgement, which is what
gives us our perceptual beliefs, and are the _real_ substrate of what is
_given_ in preception - given _as belief_ as that _from which we can
make inferences_. We can make no inference from a preceptual image
because at that level, we don't yet have a belief from which we can make
an inference - we don't yet have a perceptual judgement. But that
judgement is a judgement _by means of_ the perceptual image, not a
judgement _of_ the image.
Direct Realists are not believers in any sort of "magical ability" to
"directly cognize" objects sans any _means_ of doing so. (As some,
though not you I think, seem to believe). The primary move of the
position is not a scientific one, but a _semantic_ (or conceptual) one.
Mr Michael Bibby
I will ignor the rest of your post because everything else is periphery to this
problem. it *is* a circular argument, a well known one at that, again, this is
the very reason why Kant wrote the critique. "advanced physiology" (I study
neuropsychology) and " physics" both presuppose such a causal chain, as
demonstrated by your crude example of the 'transduction of information by
sensory surfaces in the neurvous system', they do not necessitate it through
logical regression. The problem with this account of 'transduction' is the 'law
of undifferentiated encoding' which states that a receptor neuron (by the way,
every neuron has sensory and effectory surfaces) does not codify the stimulis
that purturbed it. A further problem to this model is the lack of a 'neural
code'.
mickeyd
Mr Michael Bibby
>
>
> > OF COURSE THERE IS!!!!!!! idealism and realism both invite scepticism
> > (i.e., asserting and denying the existence of material things is
> > logically equivalent and both positions cannot avoid scepticism)
> > there is a difference, this is an important distinction to make, i am
> > not being overly scrupulous here.
>
>Denying the existence of material things is logically equivelent to
>direct realism?
precisely!
>
>You must be assuming that _indirect realism_ (that is,
>representationalism) is the only form of realism. It's not.
I have absolutely no idea where you got this from!
>
> >> No, I'm saying that the concept of "perceptual image" may be
> >> over-laden baggage, and unless he explains what he means, there's
> >> no way to know whether it is a referring expression for a realist.
> >
> > I cannot disambiguate this sentence, its an equivocation ("referring
> > expression for a realist"?)
>
>What he means is - wither the statement, as a realist would interpret
>it, is intentionally successfull in refering to it's intentional object.
>
> > substitute 'presentation' with 'experience' in this sentence.
>
>But he asked what _thing_ it is. "Experiences" are not _things_.
WHAT?
>
> >>> anything? if the answer is a tentative 'yes'
> >>
> >> If the answer to a wh-question is ever "yes", shoot me.
> >>
> >> Your question doesn't mean anything,
> >
> > ? its the most important question in epistemology! the relationship
> > between the knowing subject and the knowing object! i.e., Kants
> > answer to the question 'what can we know'?
>
>But that is a _different_ question. How we can infer from our sense
>data the existence of material objects is a very different question from
>what is the relationship between the knowing subject and knowing object.
>
>The former is a complex question in a way the latter is not.
Yes, i suppose I agree with that, but the latter question requires an answer to
the former.
>
> >> finding something that does has a meaning. How about: "is there
> >> anything other than our perseptions?". The answer is a resounding
> >> "YES!". I think I made that clear with my first post.
> >
> > an you have involved yourself in scepticism! but again, what is the
> > relationship between perception and what is or is not outside of
> > perception- this is at the heart of the matter.
>
>It leads to skepticism _only_ on the presumption that Idealism is true.
No, again, asserting or denying the existence of external reality both invite
scepticism; has anyone on this forum even read Kant?
>
> >>> then you must ask; what is the relationship between the
> >>> presentation
> >>
> >> What is this "presentation" thing???
> >
> > experience *of* something, i.e., right now i am 'presented' with
> > experience of a computer screen, but this does presuppose that a
> > computer screen exists independently of my experience of it (as in
> > representationalism).
>
>But just because you are being presented to, doesn't mean there is some
>_thing_ called a "presentation" - it means only that something is
>_happening_ to you - that you are being presented to. IT's as if you
>assumed there were "walks" when you are walking. No, there is just the
>_act_ of walking, not a _thing_ that is a _walk_. Nor a _thing_ that is
>a "presentation". (This is a form of the adverbial analysis of perception.)
my god, you are quibbling over semantics- what i was refering to was the
intentionality of conscious experience, im not making ontological commitments.
>
> >> Do you mean "sensations"? I ask because representationalists have a
> >> quirky concept of sense data, which is wrong.
> >
> > I know that you dont agree with representationalism (either do I),
>
>You do, insofar as you are an Idealist.
WHAT, i am not an idealist!
You agree with precisely that
>part of it that he disagrees with.
>
> > which is precisely why i made a distinction between 'representation'
> > and 'presentation'; basically, a representation is a re-presentation
> > of something, a presentation is a presentation of something (i.e.,
> > sense data, ideas, perceptions are all presentations, that is,
> > something is presented to the knowing subject not re-presented as in
> > representationalism).
>
>But that is just direct realism. Idealism is the position that what is
>presented directly to awareness is "sense data".
dude, you need to read some George Berkeley, you dont seem to understand
idealism!
(is this a philosophy forum?)
>
> >> Existents cause sensations, and the mind operates on the sensations
> >> which it receives to produce percepts.
> >
> > this is similiar to Lockian materialism, it is a well known circular
> > argument; "the fact that i have ideas (sense data) lets me know that
> > something caused them, therefore, things exist without" (to
> > paraphrase)- again, this involves you in scepticism and begs the
> > question by presupposing the very thing it asserts!
>
>How does it beg the question - all arguements "presupose" the truth of
>the conclusion in the premises - that is what makes a deductive
>arguement valid, that the premises taken together are logically
>equivelent to the conclusion.
>
> > these are the positions which Kant was arguing against! - this
> > discussion is not getting very far fast.
>
>Where it is going is a growing recognition on your part that there are
>those who radically disagree with nearly everything you hold true about
>this issue. I think that is somewhere.
>
>Remember, no arguement (as opposed to demonstration) can ever establish
>_conclusively_ the truth of anything -
I emphatically agree!
all a good arguement can show is
>what follows from what, not which premises to start from - that is
>something that occurs prior to arguementation. Which is not to endorse
>solipsism, but just to note the limitations of speach regarding changing
>someone's mind.
>
>That is, as Quine put it "anything can be held come what may". That
>doesn't of course, mean that everything is equally justified - just that
>choice is allways involved, when we meet with a contradiction, of which
>half of the contradiction to keep and which to throw out.
>
>At best, we can try to show you how your belif in Idealism contradicts
>many common sense beliefs that you hold, but then, to the extent that
>you have internalized Idealistic principles, you will have allready
>rejected all of those common sense beliefs because they conflict with
>Idealism, so our task will be increadibly difficult.
>
>Similarly, I could analyize your attempt to convince us of the truth of
>the Idealist principles in the same way - nearly all of the beliefs
>which for you form your evidence on which you base your belief in such
>principles, we do not grant.
Im confussed. Ive been studying philosophy for about 6 or 7 years now and have
never been 'miss-construed' as much as i have on this forum. Everyone using this
forum seems to be using there terms in very different ways, these discussions
are getting no where fast. you profess to tell me what i do and dont believe yet
you have absolutely no idea what i do and dont believe (i.e., I dont even
believe in 'truth'!). this conversation is fustrating me and i can see no
reason to continue arguing at cross purposes with you.
Mickeyd
Mr Michael Bibby
>
>
>> No. otherwise you would be an idealist, *not* a sceptic.
>
>But there is no _rational_ way to not end up being a skeptic if you are
>an idealist. Kant proved that! He had to put everything that we common
>take ourselves to experience within the mind (just like Berkley) in
>order to have any knowledge at all.
I fail to see the logical necessity here between scepticism and idealism. Kant
proved nothing. yes, kant did advocate the conceptual condition of objects but
he contrasts himself rather sharply against Berkelian idealism which deny's the
possibility of 'things-in-themselves'.
>
>> this is not a refutation, as far as i can tell there is no argument here. You
>> are going to have to do much better than this to adequately address the post you
>> intended to 'correct'. you seem to be hidding behind words like 'exist'- this is
>> precisely what is at contention here, EXISTENCE, modes of being; ontology.
>> Therefore, I suggest clarifying what you properly mean by 'exist' and
>> 'existence' (i.e., proceede from your epistemological assumptions and build up
>> your metaphysical position upon the foundation they provide).
>
>Why must you start with epistomology, and not metaphysics?
interesting point, lets see how far it gets you! personally i dont believe that
one is necessarily antecedent to the other, they are mutually dependent in my
view.
>
>
>>>Finally, consult Huemer's book because what he presents is, by his words, "a
>>>version of direct realism" (and here we don't have to care about the
>>>relationship between Objectivism and direct realism).
>
>You would do very well to take his advice - it's a very good work, I
>suggest it highly (contrary to what I thought I would say when I noticed
>who was the editor of the book, I might add).
I have a thousand books to read, i may or may not get arount to it.
>
>
>
mickeyd
Mr Michael Bibby
>
>> What is the point in
>> the study if we know that our postulations, which are conceived in
>> language, will necessarily be inaccurate?
>
>What do you mean by "inaccurate"?
perhaps he means 'it being of the nature of the infinite not to be comprehended
by that which is finite'- our human concepts are necessarily inadequate for the
purposes at hand.
You appear to be blaming language, but
>that isn't where the blame really lies. It's all due to the shameful fact
>that man is not omniscient. It's not that we're being tricked by language
>(that crafty devil, which mysteriously exists out there yet nowhere
>identifiable). It's simply that we don't happen to know everything.
>
>What's the point? Getting closer.
>
>
>
>
>
>
mickeyd
dave odden
> perhaps he means 'it being of the nature of the infinite not to be
comprehended
> by that which is finite'- our human concepts are necessarily inadequate
for the
> purposes at hand.
That could be what he means, but if so it would indicate he hadn't thought
about the question very well. We can see whether he claims that this was
what he meant. Anyhow, this so-called "infinite" is a fiction invented by
the human mind, i.e. it is invented by the finite, and is nothing more than
a particular type of general method created by people. It makes no more
sense to say that the finite human mind is necessarily inadequate for
comprehending the infinite, than it would to say that the finite infinite
mind cannot comprehend the method for combining yeast and grapes to make
wine.
In fact, I find it quite incomprehensible that anyone would think that "the
infinite" is incomprehensible. There's certainly no reason to think that it
is.
dave odden
> "advanced physiology" (I study
> neuropsychology) and " physics" both presuppose such a causal chain, as
> demonstrated by your crude example of the 'transduction of information by
> sensory surfaces in the neurvous system', they do not necessitate it
through
> logical regression.
You mean that in the sense of being deduceable via symbolic logical alone
without reference to any facts of existence, I assume. That's true, but
irrelevant, since the laws of nature aren't just a good idea or a helpful
suggestion. The particular laws which are involved in cause-effect relations
have to be determined empirically, not plucked out of an a priori orifice. I
will, however, grant that the assumption of causality is a foundational one,
but it is defeasible (though as a foundational assumption, it's not
trivially defeasible).
Bert Clanton
Eudaimonus <jwsc...@insightbb.com> wrote:
> Bert Clanton wrote:
> > Surely it makes sense to distinguish between the planet Mars and my
> > perceptual image of Mars. If I rightly understand the Direct Realist
> > position, it denies that distinction. If I've misunderstood, please
> > correct me.
>
> It doesn't so much deny the distinction as it denies the existence (as a
> a direct object of awareness), of what you call "sense data".
>
Depends on one's usage of the term "sense data". What *I* would mean by
"sense data" in my example is "electromagnetic radiation impinging on my
eyeballs". Such radiation is indeed not a direct object of
awareness--indeed, it isn't an object of awareness at all. Awareness
comes much later in the train of events which begins at Mars and ends
with my perceptual image of Mars. And I'd say as well that this final
image of Mars *is* an image (in the mathematical sense) of neural
impulses, and *is* an image (in the mathematical sense) of
electromagnetic radiation, but the only matter relevant to the question
of Direct Realism that "counts" is that it *is* (in the mathematical
sense" ultimately an image of Mars. I guess that makes me a Direct
Realist after all.
> > It seems quite reasonable to suppose that there is some sense in which
> > the planet Mars is a thing-in-itself, distinct from any sentient being's
> > perceptual image of it. If that were not the case, then Mars wouldn't
> > have existed before it was first perceived by some sentient being. Right?
>
> Given that terminology, that is correct. But what the direct realist
> would say is this - what is this "percpetual image" you are talking
> about? I have never seen a percepetual image, I have no idea what you
> are talking about! That is what a direct realist would say.
>
The perceptual image is IMHO identical to my subjective experience of
the planet Mars. You don't see a perceptual image. Your seeing is not a
seeing of an image distinct from itself, which it stands aside from and
is aware of. Your seeing and your perceptual image are "the same thing".
> > If indeed there is a sense in which Mars is a thing-in-itself, distinct
> > from any being's perception of it, then the question arises: is there
> > any orderly relationship between what Mars is like in itself, and the
> > form taken by my perceptual image of Mars?
>
> The essense of _direct_ realism is the denial of the little story,
> presented yet agin here, that "the form [is] taken [from] my perceptual
> image of Mars" - he would (and I do) deny that we _start with an
> awareness of an image and then infer the existence of a thing_, but
> rather we _start with the awareness of things, directly_. That is why
> it is called "direct" realism.
>
Again, I guess that I'm a Direct Realist. I don't think that any
inference takes place anywhere along the chain of events beginning at
the surface of Mars and ending at my perceptual image of Mars. IMHO
inferences about things in the world can only occur using ultimately the
"raw material" given by perceptual images, and thus ultimately by the
"thing-in-itself". I'd agree that our world-referring awareness is of
things in the world, not of perceptual images.
> > Physical and biological
> > science seems to me to suggest that there is such an orderly
> > relationship, mediated by the physiology of my nervous system. We call
> > similar relationships in other contexts "representation"-relationships.
> > It makes sense to me to use the same term to designate the relationship
> > of my perceptual image of Mars to the planet itself.
>
> It might be ok to speak of "representations" if it weren't for the fact
> that is supposes that the representation or "image" is being _presented_
> to the person. But direct realism denies this - at the explanatory
> level of "light rays hit my eyes" _we have yet to rise to the level of a
> judgement of conciousness_ - we are dealing with a _preconcious_ phenomena.
>
I don't think I understand what you mean by "presented" here. If you're
saying that the Indirect Realist asserts that there's an "image",
separate from "the mind", which is presented to "the mind" and which
"the mind" stands aside from and is aware of, then I'm definitely not an
Indirect Realist. In my view the "image" is a *content* of the mind, not
something outside the mind which the mind contemplates.
> > Refutations?
>
> The basic refution is that we don't see sense data, we see things, and
> this is obvious, or at least what nearly everybody, not under the
> influence of Idealist philosophers, understands themselves to be seeing.
> Prehaps by _means_ of something _like_ sense data which are
> _nonconcious_ but not _directly_.
>
I agree.
> If what we are directly aware of are internal states of our own minds
> (ie. "apperances"), then why have I never seen one? Why have I instead
> only seen objects?
>
I agree that what we are directly aware of are not states of our own
mind, but only because I believe that our awareness *is itself* an
internal state of our own mind, not something separate from our mind
which our mind stands aside from and is aware of.
[snip]
dave odden
> Such radiation is indeed not a direct object of
> awareness--indeed, it isn't an object of awareness at all.
> You don't see a perceptual image. Your seeing is not a
> seeing of an image distinct from itself, which it stands aside from and
> is aware of. Your seeing and your perceptual image are "the same thing".
> I don't think that any
> inference takes place anywhere along the chain of events beginning at
> the surface of Mars and ending at my perceptual image of Mars.
> I agree that what we are directly aware of are not states of our own
> mind, but only because I believe that our awareness *is itself* an
> internal state of our own mind, not something separate from our mind
> which our mind stands aside from and is aware of.
> I guess that I'm a Direct Realist.
No more guessing. Know it.
idlemuse
Alas, according to Wittgenstein, it doesn't matter what we think we
know. The greater the degree of specificity of language we use to
formulate our thoughts, the greater the disparity between our
postulation and reality. I believe the quote from the Tractatus was
"Of that which we cannot speak, we must remain silent." There is a
kind of uncertainty principle at work. This is not a limitation of
knowledge.
>
> What's the point? Getting closer.
Witt's thesis is that we either must sacrifice accuracy in our
language or correspondence to reality. In either case, we literally
can't know what we are talking about. The whole thing is very
depressing.
Bert Clanton
"dave odden" <od...@ling.ohio-state.edu> wrote:
> The important barrier here is this isomorphism J in the brain. I can't get
> my brain around this well enough to figure out if the percept can be an
> isomorphism of the existent. Since there are a lot of small details of Mars
> that I can't actually see, it's not clear that this is a bijection. If you
> drop the isomorphism part, I don't see any superfluity. I'll have to think
> about it, to figure out the consequence of insisting on this isomorphism.
>
It definitely ain't an *isomorphism* between my perceptual image of Mars
and the planet Mars. It's what I believe mathematicians call a
"homomorphism".
Abstractly: I'd say that an image J is a "homomorphic image" of an
existent E if and only if for every element of J there is an element of
E, and for every relation R(J) among elements of J, then there exists a
corresponding relation R(E) among the corresponding elements of E. I'd
say that J is a "*proper* homomorphic image" of E if there is at least
one element of E that has no corresponding element in J, and/or at least
one relation in E that has no corresponding relation in J. So you might
think of a homomorphic image as an isomorphic image "with some details
left out".
So forget isomorphism in this context.
idlemuse
> >"idlemuse" wrote:
> >
> >> What is the point in
> >> the study if we know that our postulations, which are conceived in
> >> language, will necessarily be inaccurate?
> >
> >What do you mean by "inaccurate"?
>
> perhaps he means 'it being of the nature of the infinite not to be comprehended
> by that which is finite'- our human concepts are necessarily inadequate for the
> purposes at hand.
>
I could live with that level of uncertainty. As indicated elsewhere,
that would simply imply that we could gain knowledge toward an infinte
limit.
The most significant issue raised by Wittgenstein, to me, was that we
can't ever know what we are talking about. As we seek to hammer down
meaning, we lose correlation to the outside world. This is a more
restrictive case than what you were getting at above. It leaves me
with the feeling of 'Why bother drilling down,' since I know that we
will only be compounding the problem.
dave odden
> Alas, according to Wittgenstein, it doesn't matter what we think we
> know. The greater the degree of specificity of language we use to
> formulate our thoughts, the greater the disparity between our
> postulation and reality. I believe the quote from the Tractatus was
> "Of that which we cannot speak, we must remain silent." There is a
> kind of uncertainty principle at work. This is not a limitation of
> knowledge.
I find that to be the opposite of my experience: when a short sound bite is
insufficient for expressing The Point, a few more words work better. There
are only reasons why we can't speak of something. First, because we (or
they, the people I'm speaking to) don't know the thing; second; because the
thing doesn't exist (and you can even fold the second into the first). If I
were achromatically color-blind, I couldn't explain purple, and even if I
could see purple, I could not use language to implant the experience of
purple into the head of an achromat. That's a limit of knowledge, not
language.
> > What's the point? Getting closer.
> Witt's thesis is that we either must sacrifice accuracy in our
> language or correspondence to reality. In either case, we literally
> can't know what we are talking about. The whole thing is very
> depressing.
He's wrong. Cheer up. Sure, if you're congenitally deaf you can't be told
what a symphony is like, if you're living in black and white land then fall
colors don't mean anything to you. That's not what you're talking about, is
it?
Eudaimonus
>> Denying the existence of material things is logically equivelent to
>> direct realism?
> precisely!
You can't mean that. You just can't. I refuse to believe you are that
stupid.
You are saying that the doctrine that we have direct awareness of
material things, is equivelent to the denial of the existence of
material things? My claim that I know my computer directly, and don't
infer it from beliefs about sense data, logically entails that my
computer doesn't exist?
Surely, you are not THAT stupid. Are you?
>> You must be assuming that _indirect realism_ (that is,
>> representationalism) is the only form of realism. It's not.
>
> I have absolutely no idea where you got this from!
Because, your arguement only works, and obviously so, against _indirect_
realism. _Direct_ realism is non-Idealist, non-Representationalist,
non-Sense-Data-ist
>> But he asked what _thing_ it is. "Experiences" are not _things_.
>
> WHAT?
That's right "experience" is not a thing, it is an _action_ or
_activity_. One "experiences" things, "experience" is something that
one _undergoes_. It is not some kind of mental 'object', but a mental
_process_.
>> But that is a _different_ question. How we can infer from our
>> sense data the existence of material objects is a very different
>> question from what is the relationship between the knowing subject
>> and knowing object.
>>
>> The former is a complex question in a way the latter is not.
>
> Yes, i suppose I agree with that, but the latter question requires an
> answer to the former.
NO IT DOES NOT.
The first is a complex question. It assumes that we actually do infer
our beliefs in material objects, from beliefs about sense data. But if
we form our beliefs about material objects _directly_, THEN THE QUESTION
NEVER ARISES BECAUSE THE ACTIVITY OF WHICH IT ASKS A QUESTION NEVER OCCURS.
>> It leads to skepticism _only_ on the presumption that Idealism is
>> true.
>
> No, again, asserting or denying the existence of external reality
> both invite scepticism; has anyone on this forum even read Kant?
Yes, I have. Kant was wrong. About nearly everything.
>> But just because you are being presented to, doesn't mean there is
>> some _thing_ called a "presentation" - it means only that something
>> is _happening_ to you - that you are being presented to. IT's as
>> if you assumed there were "walks" when you are walking. No, there
>> is just the _act_ of walking, not a _thing_ that is a _walk_. Nor
>> a _thing_ that is a "presentation". (This is a form of the
>> adverbial analysis of perception.)
>
> my god, you are quibbling over semantics- what i was refering to was
> the intentionality of conscious experience, im not making ontological
> commitments.
But what _I_ am refering to is the intentionality of conscious
experience, that is my basic and strongest evidence in favor of direct
realism - our foundational beliefs just _aren't_ about sense data -
their intentional object is the objects in the world about us, material
objects, NOT sense data in our head!
>>
>> You do, insofar as you are an Idealist.
>
>
> WHAT, i am not an idealist!
You are, in _my_ sense of the word - you believe that what we have
foundational access to as beliefs, are beliefs about something you call
"sense data". That is why I call you an Idealist.
>> But that is just direct realism. Idealism is the position that
>> what is presented directly to awareness is "sense data".
>
> dude, you need to read some George Berkeley, you dont seem to
> understand idealism!
>
> (is this a philosophy forum?)
Yes. And I DO understand Idealism - it comes in many forms -
Berkleyism, Kantianism, Representationalism. They are all forms of what
I call "Idealism".
>> Remember, no arguement (as opposed to demonstration) can ever
>> establish _conclusively_ the truth of anything -
>
> I emphatically agree!
>> Similarly, I could analyize your attempt to convince us of the
>> truth of the Idealist principles in the same way - nearly all of
>> the beliefs which for you form your evidence on which you base your
>> belief in such principles, we do not grant.
>
> Im confussed. Ive been studying philosophy for about 6 or 7 years now
> and have never been 'miss-construed' as much as i have on this forum.
> Everyone using this forum seems to be using there terms in very
> different ways, these discussions are getting no where fast. you
> profess to tell me what i do and dont believe yet you have absolutely
> no idea what i do and dont believe (i.e., I dont even believe in
> 'truth'!). this conversation is fustrating me and i can see no
> reason to continue arguing at cross purposes with you.
The problem is likely that you have never before been made aquainted
with the position of direct realism, and so you have yet to form the
requisite conceptual categories required to fit the position into a
meta-theory of philosophical positions.
At least, that is my initial guess.
Eudaimonus
>> Mr Michael Bibby wrote:
>>
>>> No. otherwise you would be an idealist, *not* a sceptic.
>>
>> But there is no _rational_ way to not end up being a skeptic if you
>> are an idealist. Kant proved that! He had to put everything that
>> we common take ourselves to experience within the mind (just like
>> Berkley) in order to have any knowledge at all.
>
> I fail to see the logical necessity here between scepticism and
> idealism. Kant proved nothing. yes, kant did advocate the conceptual
> condition of objects but he contrasts himself rather sharply against
> Berkelian idealism which deny's the possibility of
> 'things-in-themselves'.
But he _did_ deny their knowablity. He maintained that they are
unknowable and that all that we know directly are the fleeting
impression that are within our mind. And he holds that position in
common with Berkeley and the Representationalists (indirect realists).
They all hold that what we are directly aware of are sense impressions
or sense data or sensations, ect. In this, they occupy a specific
classification of philosophical positions, of which they are all
varients. The name I give this classification is "Idealism" and I
sub-divide this into three forms - "Berkleyan Idealism" ,"Transcendental
Idealism", and "Lockean Idealism". They all posit that what we directly
know is ideas or other mental things such as sensations, in our own
minds. The first species of this genus holds in addition that nothing
else exists, the second species of this genus holds that other things
exist but are unknowable, and the third species of this genus holds that
other things exist and are knowable by inference from what we are
directly aware of.
All of these hold a common position _as against_ direct realism, which
denies their commonly held position that what we are directly aware of
are sense data, but rather holds that what we are directly aware of are
the actual object-in-the-world themselves.
When I say then, that "Idealism neccessarily leads to skepticism" I mean
that the indirect realist position (the only Idealist position that
holds that we can know external objects) is untennable.
One might quibble about wither "Idealism" is the proper word to use
regarding the concept I just explained, or wither it should be
restricted in use to just what I here have called "Berkleyan Idealism".
However, that would just be quibbling if no other alternative term is
considered to replace it. Do you have any suggestion as to what word I
should use instead? Maybe "Internalism"? But then, this is purely an
issue of terminology, not of any actual substance. "Internalism" I
understand, is usually reserved for the issue of sources of
justification for our beliefs, but that's not what I mean by "Idealism".
>> Why must you start with epistomology, and not metaphysics?
>
> interesting point, lets see how far it gets you! personally i dont
> believe that one is necessarily antecedent to the other, they are
> mutually dependent in my view.
In my view also, so the issue of which one starts with is not one that
should be brought up to disparage anybody's views. If somebody is using
a metaphysical claim to support an epistomological claim, you can't just
say "but that's not valid" - if you want to invalidate the arguement,
you will have to actually argue against the metaphysical principle, or
at least argue against his right to put it in evidence in support of his
epistemological claim.
Eudaimonus
> Depends on one's usage of the term "sense data". What *I* would mean by
> "sense data" in my example is "electromagnetic radiation impinging on my
> eyeballs". Such radiation is indeed not a direct object of
> awareness--indeed, it isn't an object of awareness at all. Awareness
> comes much later in the train of events which begins at Mars and ends
> with my perceptual image of Mars. And I'd say as well that this final
> image of Mars *is* an image (in the mathematical sense) of neural
> impulses, and *is* an image (in the mathematical sense) of
> electromagnetic radiation, but the only matter relevant to the question
> of Direct Realism that "counts" is that it *is* (in the mathematical
> sense" ultimately an image of Mars. I guess that makes me a Direct
> Realist after all.
I might - it depends upon one further conceptual move, which is the real
point of Direct Realism - what is it that you are aware of, in having
the image - the image, from which you then go "hmm, it looks like this,
so Mars must look like this?" or do you jumpt directly to "Mars looks
like this". If the latter, then I would call you a directly realist.
>>Given that terminology, that is correct. But what the direct realist
>>would say is this - what is this "percpetual image" you are talking
>>about? I have never seen a percepetual image, I have no idea what you
>>are talking about! That is what a direct realist would say.
>
> The perceptual image is IMHO identical to my subjective experience of
> the planet Mars. You don't see a perceptual image. Your seeing is not a
> seeing of an image distinct from itself, which it stands aside from and
> is aware of. Your seeing and your perceptual image are "the same thing".
I think you are, at the very least, nearly a direct realist. You are
making the proper kinds of distinctions at least.
>>The essense of _direct_ realism is the denial of the little story,
>>presented yet agin here, that "the form [is] taken [from] my perceptual
>>image of Mars" - he would (and I do) deny that we _start with an
>>awareness of an image and then infer the existence of a thing_, but
>>rather we _start with the awareness of things, directly_. That is why
>>it is called "direct" realism.
>
> Again, I guess that I'm a Direct Realist. I don't think that any
> inference takes place anywhere along the chain of events beginning at
> the surface of Mars and ending at my perceptual image of Mars. IMHO
> inferences about things in the world can only occur using ultimately the
> "raw material" given by perceptual images, and thus ultimately by the
> "thing-in-itself". I'd agree that our world-referring awareness is of
> things in the world, not of perceptual images.
Hmm, you say that no inference takes place along the chain of events,
yet you say that inferences about things in the world can only occur
using the "raw material" give by perceptual images. I think you haven't
quited gotten what I am saying yet, or you'd notice the disagreement we
have here. My position would be that when we go from preceptual image
(considered, say, as a diagram in the mind) to a _perceptual judgement_
which would not be an "image" but a "proposition" expressed like "There
is here now ... sphere/red/Mars/ect" that going from the first to the
second is not, strickly speaking, an _inference_, but we are still on
the level of _subconcious automatic processes_. The evidence here is
rather obvious when you think about it - the image is not held in
propositional form, and inferences are allways from one or more
propositions to another. I would maintain that the infering begins just
one small step after you seem to believe, or at least as you said above.
>>It might be ok to speak of "representations" if it weren't for the fact
>>that is supposes that the representation or "image" is being _presented_
>>to the person. But direct realism denies this - at the explanatory
>>level of "light rays hit my eyes" _we have yet to rise to the level of a
>>judgement of conciousness_ - we are dealing with a _preconcious_ phenomena.
>
> I don't think I understand what you mean by "presented" here. If you're
> saying that the Indirect Realist asserts that there's an "image",
> separate from "the mind", which is presented to "the mind" and which
> "the mind" stands aside from and is aware of, then I'm definitely not an
> Indirect Realist. In my view the "image" is a *content* of the mind, not
> something outside the mind which the mind contemplates.
I say that is implied by the way they speak of the relation between
image and belief, not neccessarily that they believe that (they might
hold contradictory beliefs about it).
>>The basic refution is that we don't see sense data, we see things, and
>>this is obvious, or at least what nearly everybody, not under the
>>influence of Idealist philosophers, understands themselves to be seeing.
>> Prehaps by _means_ of something _like_ sense data which are
>>_nonconcious_ but not _directly_.
>
> I agree.
>
>>If what we are directly aware of are internal states of our own minds
>>(ie. "apperances"), then why have I never seen one? Why have I instead
>>only seen objects?
>
> I agree that what we are directly aware of are not states of our own
> mind, but only because I believe that our awareness *is itself* an
> internal state of our own mind, not something separate from our mind
> which our mind stands aside from and is aware of.
A very laudable avoidance of the homoculus fallacy!
Bert Clanton
Eudaimonus <jwsc...@insightbb.com> wrote:
_Direct_ realism is non-Idealist, non-Representationalist,
> non-Sense-Data-ist
>
As someone who has recently been assured by some folks who are Direct
Realists that I am one of them, I guess that I have to take partial
issue with your statement here. Perhaps my reservations arise from a
misunderstanding of what you (or the epistemologist community) mean by
"representationalist" and "sense-dataist".
I'd certainly agree that Direct Realism isn't idealist.
I don't know what *you* mean by "representationalist". What *I* would
mean by it is "characterized by a belief that one's awareness of an
external object is itself an internal image of that object". I would
contrast this view with the view that what one is aware of is not the
external object itself, but the perceptual image of the object. I
believe that when I perceive the planet Mars, there is as a constituent
of my field of awareness which is a perceptual image of the planet Mars;
but I don't stand off from that image as a homunculus and perceive that
image as something separate from me. Instead, there is no perceiving
homunculus, and that image *is* my perception of Mars. I don't see why
it would be a mistake to characterize the relation between that internal
image and the planet Mars as a relation of "representation", at least in
ordinary language. If there is some technical epistemological usage of
the term "representationalist" that I'm ignorant of, please instruct me.
Similarly, I don't know what *you* mean by "non-Sense-Data-ist". If I
were going to employ such a term, I'd use it to mean "characterized by a
belief that one perceives not external objects themselves, but the
energies, originating from the external object, which impinge on one's
sensors". In that case, I'm indeed a non-Sense-Data-ist. But again, if
there's some technical epistemological usage of the term "sense-data"
that I'm ignorant of, please instruct me. "I am only an egg".
So if I'm a Direct Realist, I'm a Representationalist Direct Realist, at
least as I presently understand the term "representationalist".
Bert Clanton
_Direct_ realism is non-Idealist, non-Representationalist,
> non-Sense-Data-ist
>
As someone who has recently been assured by some folks who are Direct
Bert Clanton
_Direct_ realism is non-Idealist, non-Representationalist,
> non-Sense-Data-ist
>
As someone who has recently been assured by some folks who are Direct
Bert Clanton
Eudaimonus <jwsc...@insightbb.com> wrote:
> Bert Clanton wrote:
>
>
> > Depends on one's usage of the term "sense data". What *I* would mean by
> > "sense data" in my example is "electromagnetic radiation impinging on my
> > eyeballs". Such radiation is indeed not a direct object of
> > awareness--indeed, it isn't an object of awareness at all. Awareness
> > comes much later in the train of events which begins at Mars and ends
> > with my perceptual image of Mars. And I'd say as well that this final
> > image of Mars *is* an image (in the mathematical sense) of neural
> > impulses, and *is* an image (in the mathematical sense) of
> > electromagnetic radiation, but the only matter relevant to the question
> > of Direct Realism that "counts" is that it *is* (in the mathematical
> > sense" ultimately an image of Mars. I guess that makes me a Direct
> > Realist after all.
>
> I might - it depends upon one further conceptual move, which is the real
> point of Direct Realism - what is it that you are aware of, in having
> the image - the image, from which you then go "hmm, it looks like this,
> so Mars must look like this?" or do you jumpt directly to "Mars looks
> like this". If the latter, then I would call you a directly realist.
>
The latter. It seems weird to me to say that "My perceptual image of the
planet Mars looks like this". I don't get to "look at" my perceptual
image of Mars, as if the image were one thing and I were another,
standing off from it and looking at it. In my view, my "looking at Mars"
and my "perceptual image of Mars" are not distinct; they're two ways of
talikng about the *same* thing.
> >>Given that terminology, that is correct. But what the direct realist
> >>would say is this - what is this "percpetual image" you are talking
> >>about? I have never seen a percepetual image, I have no idea what you
> >>are talking about! That is what a direct realist would say.
> >
> > The perceptual image is IMHO identical to my subjective experience of
> > the planet Mars. You don't see a perceptual image. Your seeing is not a
> > seeing of an image distinct from itself, which it stands aside from and
> > is aware of. Your seeing and your perceptual image are "the same thing".
>
> I think you are, at the very least, nearly a direct realist. You are
> making the proper kinds of distinctions at least.
>
Thanx.
But I completely agree with what you've just said. We can derive
propositions about perceived things from perceptual images of those
things; but the *deriving* of propositions from perceptual images is not
an *inferring* of propositions from perceptual images. It is, as you
say, a subconscious automatic process. And as you say, inferences are
always from one *proposition* to another.
In fact our conceptual models seem pretty nearly identical.
dave odden
> _Direct_ realism is non-Idealist, non-Representationalist,
> > non-Sense-Data-ist
> As someone who has recently been assured by some folks who are Direct
> Realists that I am one of them, I guess that I have to take partial
> issue with your statement here. Perhaps my reservations arise from a
> misunderstanding of what you (or the epistemologist community) mean by
> "representationalist" and "sense-dataist".
You should take "representationalist" and "sense data" to be technical
terms, not to be interpreted intuitively. A "representationalist" is
definitionally an Indirect Realist, someone who thinks they are aware of
mental images, and not the things (and this seems to be standard terminology
in philosophy). It's like "liberal", a term which managed to become twisted
to the point that a few old codgers and Brits will say that they are
"classical liberals" meaning they are, well, certainly not liberals.
I suggest that it is a mistake to give much attention to generic
"awareness", because you can't just be "generally aware", you're aware of
something. It's a small but important nit to pick.
> What *I* would
> mean by it is "characterized by a belief that one's awareness of an
> external object is itself an internal image of that object".
If you define "image" in a particular fashion, okay. I'd be hard-pressed to
apply the term "image" to a smell or a sound, or a tactile experience.
That's why I think "perceptual experience" is more suitable, in that it
doesn't prejudice the question in favor of our favorite modality.
Bert Clanton
Eudaimonus <jwsc...@insightbb.com> wrote:
>
> I think the fundamental distinction here is on where "awareness" begins.
> What I would point out, drawing on my Direct Realist presuppositions,
> is that the "perceptual image" is only an "image" in a very metaphorical
> sense, as I would claim is that at that stage of the game, we have not
> yet gotten to the point of _judgements of the kind that our held in the
> form of propositions_, that is what are _actually_ refered to as
> "beliefs".
I completely agree.
> The moves from the waves hitting our eyes to neural
> impulses, and from the neural impulses to the perceptual "image" are
> _non-inferential_ even though _regularly ordered_, because they are not
> "judgements" in the sense of beleifs as I described them.
>
Right.
> My contention would be that when you get to the part of the story where
> a specific "belief", in the form of a proposition added to our "list of
> beliefs held" occurs, is not at the level of image-formation, but on the
> level of judgement-of-image, and that the intentional object of these
> preception-judgements are not the images but the objects - the images
> are the _means by which_ we judge but not _that of which_ we judge.
>
I agree.
> And that is only granted something which may well be false - that this
> purely _linear_ story is accurate. Indeed, given what the science of
> the brain seems to tell us - various judgements are made in very
> different parts of the brain in parrallel - "computations" that find
> lines from color and shading differences, that detect motion, that
> detect shape - all of these seem to be done independantly, so it may
> well be false to speak of "an" image. That may well be relying on a
> form of the homonculous fallacy.
>
Maybe.
> Indeed, your whole story approaches the "homonculous fallacy" in that it
> seems to suppose, implicitly, that what we _as minds as opposed to
> physical object_ are _aware_ of is the preceptual image, but once you
> start speaking of the light rays hitting the eyes, you are allready_
> talking about the concious being - after that all you are speaking of is
> _internal to_ the _process_ of awareness - to posit that what we are
> directly aware of is the preceptual image (which is what we mean by
> "indirect realism"), is to push awareness back away from the sense
> organs into something else - but to leave the _fundamental_ question, of
> _how we are aware of that which we are aware_ unanswered - it has simply
> made the "homoculus" a bit smaller, but left the fundamental phenomena
> (awareness as such) unexplained.
>
But I can't see that as what I'm doing. I *deny* that what I'm aware of
is the perceptual image of the planet Mars. What I'm aware of, what the
perceptual image is an image *of*, is the planet Mars.
I definitely don't agree that in my model once I start speaking of light
rays hitting the eyes I'm already talking about the conscious being, or
about the process of awareness. I see me as talking about non-conscious
processes going on in the physical universe, right up until the *very
last* stage, which is that at which somehow (and I admit that I have no
solution to the "mind/body" problem) the final transformation from
brain-impulses in the physical universe into conscious awareness takes
place. And even that conscious awareness of Mars is not something that
is separate from some perceiving homunculus, and "looked at" by that
homunculus. There is no homunculus, and the "looking at" *is* the image.
> It's basic premise is a kind of Dualism - note that the story you have
> given hasn't changed in any real sense since Descartes. You are still
> implicitly making a reference to the Cartesian "seat of the soul" which
> is where the preceptual images go to and where the soul as the "seat of
> awareness" becomes aware of that of which it is aware.
>
> It is as if saying that I drove from the street outside of my workplace,
> when I went to work. No, where I started from was my house, even though
> I did go _through_ the street outside of my workplace, on my way there.
> On the way from object to perceptual judgement, we may well go through
> a stage of perceptual-image-formation, but that doesn't mean that what
> the judgement is a judgement _of_ is the perceptual image.
>
I don't think that's the story I'm telling. Why do you?
I totally agree that the judgment is not a judgment of, or about, the
perceptual image.
> For more information, see Searle's "Intentionality" which is where I get
> this basic framework of ideas. The basic notion is that what goes on
> between the rays of light leaving the object and my perceptual judgement
> (ie. experience) is _non-inferential_.
But I totally agree! What have I said that's inconsistent with this?
> (Even if granted we can _model_
> it as an inferential pattern.) This means that, strickly speaking, it
> not _evidence for_ the belief to which it gives rise, strickly speaking,
> it is merely the _cause of_ the belief to which it gives rise. As such
> it can be neither rational nor irrational but is quite specifically
> a-rational. (Thus the skeptics contention that the inference is
> irrational is blocked).
>
Again, I totally agree. What have I said that's inconsistent with this?
> For instance, the notion that certain perceptual illusions are based on
> inherint _inferences_ made by the perceptual system - is a notion based
> on bad semantics - it is an orderly transition, but that an inference
> does not make (for it is non- or pre- concious)
>
Right on!
> As I have said before - I have made no inference from sense data to
> object existing, hence the demand of the skeptic to display that
> inference for public inspection for errors, is an ill-motivated demand.
>
> So, it is not so much that you must leave something out, as that you
> _did_ leave something out - the perceptual judgement, which is what
> gives us our perceptual beliefs, and are the _real_ substrate of what is
> _given_ in preception - given _as belief_ as that _from which we can
> make inferences_. We can make no inference from a preceptual image
> because at that level, we don't yet have a belief from which we can make
> an inference - we don't yet have a perceptual judgement. But that
> judgement is a judgement _by means of_ the perceptual image, not a
> judgement _of_ the image.
>
But I have had nothing to say so far about beliefs and their
relationship to things-in-themselves or states-of-affairs-in-themselves.
I believe, as I think you do, that the process that derives propositions
from states-of-affairs-in-themselves is not a process of inference. I
would interpose a stage in this process which is not generally
interposed, however. I think that the process of deriving perceptual
images from things-in-themselves is as I've already described it, and is
basically the process assented to by Direct Realists. But epistemology
is not about perceptual images, it's about (at least) beliefs. I
wouldn't quite agree that beliefs have to be propositions. Instead, I'd
say that beliefs are suppositions (i.e., ascriptive linkages of
attributive concepts with indicative concepts), and that propositions
(or as I would prefer, sentences) are linguistic encodements of
suppositions. Suppositions are IMHO derived from perceptual images of
states of affairs; but the derivation is not inferential, but
"subliminal". Inferences are derivations of one supposition (or
proposition, or judgment) from another, and cannot take place at the
level of perception.
So I guess that I'm as much of a Direct Realist as you are.
Scott Stephens
> "dave odden" <od...@ling.ohio-state.edu> wrote in message news:<DgL9b.8110$uJ2....@fe3.columbus.rr.com>...
>
>>"idlemuse" wrote:
>>
>>
>>What do you mean by "inaccurate"? You appear to be blaming language, but
>>that isn't where the blame really lies. It's all due to the shameful fact
>>that man is not omniscient. It's not that we're being tricked by language
>>(that crafty devil, which mysteriously exists out there yet nowhere
>>identifiable). It's simply that we don't happen to know everything.
>
It seems language is an interlocking, interdependent system, which when
correlated with learned experiences and the subject and context, forms a
meaningful unity, which is effectively processed.
> Alas, according to Wittgenstein, it doesn't matter what we think we
> know. The greater the degree of specificity of language we use to
> formulate our thoughts, the greater the disparity between our
> postulation and reality. I believe the quote from the Tractatus was
> "Of that which we cannot speak, we must remain silent." There is a
> kind of uncertainty principle at work. This is not a limitation of
> knowledge.
>
>
>>What's the point? Getting closer.
>
>
> Witt's thesis is that we either must sacrifice accuracy in our
> language or correspondence to reality. In either case, we literally
> can't know what we are talking about. The whole thing is very
> depressing.
The only way life can function is to make gross simplifications, use
lossy compression methods, to internal model and symbolically manipulate
the world we perceive and live in.
What bothers me (aside from my inability to upgrade my mind as easily as
my computer) is that the universe may be a done-deal, in terms of Time.
We are aware of cause and effects as our consciousness glides through a
finished, complete space-time, in the direction of the thermodynamic
arrow of time. We remember the past, because it is more ordered than the
future. I have a free-will, I know I do. It can't be a delusion...
Scott
--
**********************************
DIY Piezo-Gyro, PCB Drill Bot & More Soon!
http://home.comcast.net/~scottxs/
**********************************
Mr Michael Bibby
> >> Mr Michael Bibby wrote:
> >>
> >>> No. otherwise you would be an idealist, *not* a sceptic.
> >>
> >> But there is no _rational_ way to not end up being a skeptic if you
> >> are an idealist. Kant proved that! He had to put everything that
> >> we common take ourselves to experience within the mind (just like
> >> Berkley) in order to have any knowledge at all.
> >
> > I fail to see the logical necessity here between scepticism and
> > idealism. Kant proved nothing. yes, kant did advocate the conceptual
> > condition of objects but he contrasts himself rather sharply against
> > Berkelian idealism which deny's the possibility of
> > 'things-in-themselves'.
>
>But he _did_ deny their knowablity.
I know, what i said (above) was ' Berkelian idealism... deny's the *possibility*
of things in themselves'. you miss-construed me.
He maintained that they are
>unknowable and that all that we know directly are the fleeting
>impression that are within our mind. And he holds that position in
>common with Berkeley and the Representationalists (indirect realists).
>They all hold that what we are directly aware of are sense impressions
>or sense data or sensations, ect. In this, they occupy a specific
>classification of philosophical positions, of which they are all
>varients.
you make some rather unusual distinctions, i wouldnt disagree with you here,
save to say that this is not a very useful way of distinguishing between these
various positions.
The name I give this classification is "Idealism" and I
>sub-divide this into three forms - "Berkleyan Idealism" ,"Transcendental
>Idealism", and "Lockean Idealism". They all posit that what we directly
>know is ideas or other mental things such as sensations, in our own
>minds. The first species of this genus holds in addition that nothing
>else exists, the second species of this genus holds that other things
>exist but are unknowable, and the third species of this genus holds that
>other things exist and are knowable by inference from what we are
>directly aware of.
>
>All of these hold a common position _as against_ direct realism, which
>denies their commonly held position that what we are directly aware of
>are sense data, but rather holds that what we are directly aware of are
>the actual object-in-the-world themselves.
>
>When I say then, that "Idealism neccessarily leads to skepticism" I mean
>that the indirect realist position (the only Idealist position that
>holds that we can know external objects) is untennable.
no more or less than direct realism.
>
>One might quibble about wither "Idealism" is the proper word to use
>regarding the concept I just explained, or wither it should be
>restricted in use to just what I here have called "Berkleyan Idealism".
> However, that would just be quibbling if no other alternative term is
>considered to replace it. Do you have any suggestion as to what word I
>should use instead?
no, i dont make such distinctions.
Maybe "Internalism"? But then, this is purely an
>issue of terminology, not of any actual substance. "Internalism" I
>understand, is usually reserved for the issue of sources of
>justification for our beliefs, but that's not what I mean by "Idealism".
>
> >> Why must you start with epistomology, and not metaphysics?
> >
> > interesting point, lets see how far it gets you! personally i dont
> > believe that one is necessarily antecedent to the other, they are
> > mutually dependent in my view.
>
>In my view also, so the issue of which one starts with is not one that
>should be brought up to disparage anybody's views. If somebody is using
>a metaphysical claim to support an epistomological claim, you can't just
>say "but that's not valid" - if you want to invalidate the arguement,
>you will have to actually argue against the metaphysical principle, or
>at least argue against his right to put it in evidence in support of his
>epistemological claim.
I dont believe in 'invalid'- every position is equally valid in my view (call it
'perspectivism')
>
>
>
mickeyd
Eudaimonus
> In article <3F689803...@insightbb.com>,
> Eudaimonus <jwsc...@insightbb.com> wrote:
>
> _Direct_ realism is non-Idealist, non-Representationalist,
>
>>non-Sense-Data-ist
>>
>
>
> As someone who has recently been assured by some folks who are Direct
> Realists that I am one of them, I guess that I have to take partial
> issue with your statement here. Perhaps my reservations arise from a
> misunderstanding of what you (or the epistemologist community) mean by
> "representationalist" and "sense-dataist".
>
> I'd certainly agree that Direct Realism isn't idealist.
>
> I don't know what *you* mean by "representationalist". What *I* would
> mean by it is "characterized by a belief that one's awareness of an
> external object is itself an internal image of that object".
My definition is slightly different - "characterized by a belief that
one's awareness of an external object is mediated by an awareness of an
internal image of that object"
> I would
> contrast this view with the view that what one is aware of is not the
> external object itself, but the perceptual image of the object.
A Representationalist (Indirect Realist) would not claim (as Berkley or
Kant would) that what one is aware of is not the object, but would
instead say that what one is _directly_ aware of is not the object.
> I
> believe that when I perceive the planet Mars, there is as a constituent
> of my field of awareness which is a perceptual image of the planet Mars;
> but I don't stand off from that image as a homunculus and perceive that
> image as something separate from me.
> Instead, there is no perceiving
> homunculus, and that image *is* my perception of Mars. I don't see why
> it would be a mistake to characterize the relation between that internal
> image and the planet Mars as a relation of "representation", at least in
> ordinary language. If there is some technical epistemological usage of
> the term "representationalist" that I'm ignorant of, please instruct me.
>
> Similarly, I don't know what *you* mean by "non-Sense-Data-ist".
I mean that what the senses give is is not "data" in anything but a
highly metaphorical sense. To be "data" it would have to allready be
within the perview of the belief-system, but at the level of the senses,
that mental level has not yet been reached. Of course, we can use the
term "sense data" with the understanding that all we are really talking
about are patterns of physical changes which act causally up the the
chain of physicomental changes. Indeed, a misunderstand no this point
may well be one possible cause of holding to an Idealist view.
> If I
> were going to employ such a term, I'd use it to mean "characterized by a
> belief that one perceives not external objects themselves, but the
> energies, originating from the external object, which impinge on one's
> sensors". In that case, I'm indeed a non-Sense-Data-ist. But again, if
> there's some technical epistemological usage of the term "sense-data"
> that I'm ignorant of, please instruct me. "I am only an egg".
There is a sense of "data" in which it would be wrong to call our
sensory states "data", in that they are as yet un-interpreted (that does
not occur until the level of perceptual judgement). They have, so to
speak, only potential, but not actual, semantics. They can only really
be said to "represent" (as opposed to being merely hylomorphic) when
given a place in an interpretive scheme. My point is rather esoteric -
our sense "data" are not "data" because they do not carry with them
their own semantic interpretation (though, of course, they _will be_
semanticly intepretated higher up the chain of mental action) - they
will be data, but are not data in and of themselves.
I would argue for this by pointing to the many simple animals that have
sense organs that guide their behavior, but where the transition between
sense organ stimulation and their action is not mediated by any
centrally located interpretative mechanism.
> So if I'm a Direct Realist, I'm a Representationalist Direct Realist, at
> least as I presently understand the term "representationalist".
Prehaps we could distinquish between "causal" and "foundational"
sense-data-ism. Where "causal" sense-data-ism would hold that our
beliefs in external objects are caused by the aquisition of certain
sensory states, and where "foundational" sense-data-ism would hold that
our beliefs in external objects are inferentially justified from the
aquisition of certain beliefs regarding our sensory states.
Eudaimonus
> You should take "representationalist" and "sense data" to be technical
> terms, not to be interpreted intuitively. A "representationalist" is
> definitionally an Indirect Realist, someone who thinks they are aware of
> mental images, and not the things (and this seems to be standard terminology
> in philosophy).
A small correction- a "representationalist" does, by definition, believe
they are aware of things, but they believe their awareness of things is
_mediate_ and not _immediate_ and mediated though an _immediate_
awareness of mental "images". One who would only believe that they are
aware of mental images, and not aware of things, would be either a
Berkleyite (who would claim they don't exist) or a Kantian (who would
say they exist, but we can't know them).
By your definition Berkley was a representationalist. That should, I
think, sound rather odd to your ears, considering that Berkley didn't
believe that there was anything that the mental image was representing.
Other than that, I agree with you that these terms we are using, we are
using in highly technical senses (hence my nit pick above).
Eudaimonus
> I definitely don't agree that in my model once I start speaking of
> light rays hitting the eyes I'm already talking about the conscious
> being, or about the process of awareness. I see me as talking about
> non-conscious processes going on in the physical universe, right up
> until the *very last* stage, which is that at which somehow (and I
> admit that I have no solution to the "mind/body" problem) the final
> transformation from brain-impulses in the physical universe into
> conscious awareness takes place. And even that conscious awareness of
> Mars is not something that is separate from some perceiving
> homunculus, and "looked at" by that homunculus. There is no
> homunculus, and the "looking at" *is* the image.
My only disagreement with you would be that I would call the _process_
we have been talking about, the "looking at", and would consider the
image merely a means involved in that process.
If the process of awareness doesn't begin "at the skin" (so to speak),
where does it start, and how does it operate? It seems to me that you
are still trying to draw a big sharp line demarkating the "body" from
the "soul" - but you're also trying not to draw the line at all, at the
same time. You still seem to be trying to make all awareness direct, in
that there is no real "process" involved - where there is the process,
there is no awareness, you seem to hold. Only after the process do you
hold there is awareness. Yet you refrain from saying that one is aware
_of_ the result of the process. Prehaps this is just a definitional
disagreement between us, regarding what it means to say that something
is "part of awareness", I am not sure.
> But I have had nothing to say so far about beliefs and their
> relationship to things-in-themselves or
> states-of-affairs-in-themselves. I believe, as I think you do, that
> the process that derives propositions from
> states-of-affairs-in-themselves is not a process of inference. I
> would interpose a stage in this process which is not generally
> interposed, however. I think that the process of deriving perceptual
> images from things-in-themselves is as I've already described it,
> and is basically the process assented to by Direct Realists. But
> epistemology is not about perceptual images, it's about (at least)
> beliefs. I wouldn't quite agree that beliefs have to be propositions.
> Instead, I'd say that beliefs are suppositions (i.e., ascriptive
> linkages of attributive concepts with indicative concepts),
I don't quite understand what you mean by "indicative concepts".
Eudaimonus
> It seems language is an interlocking, interdependent system, which when
> correlated with learned experiences and the subject and context, forms a
> meaningful unity, which is effectively processed.
"when correlated with experience"??? Are the two systems - language and
experience, really that disconnected that we have to actually perform an
act of correlation between them?
I'm reminded now of Putman's comments regarding "magical" theories of
reference.
Eudaimonus
> I know, what i said (above) was ' Berkelian idealism... deny's the *possibility*
> of things in themselves'. you miss-construed me.
> you make some rather unusual distinctions, i wouldnt disagree with you here,
> save to say that this is not a very useful way of distinguishing between these
> various positions.
Why is it not useful? I have not made reasonably profitable use of
them? Do they not provide me with the framework I need to show the
uniqueness of the Direct Realist position?
>>When I say then, that "Idealism neccessarily leads to skepticism" I mean
>>that the indirect realist position (the only Idealist position that
>>holds that we can know external objects) is untennable.
>
> no more or less than direct realism.
It is not a _direct_ assertion to direct realism.
It is the claim that if one part of the Indirect Realism is true, then
the other part of Indirect Realism can not be true. This leave the
field open then, to Berklian Idealism, Transcendental Idealism, and
Direct Realism as the only choices that are self-consistent. I have to
further add the premise (in good old fashioned Moorian style) that I do
in fact know this or that given external object, and from that further
premise deduce that Direct Realism must be true.
> no, i dont make such distinctions.
That is too bad, as the differences exist.
> I dont believe in 'invalid'- every position is equally valid in my view (call it
> 'perspectivism')
Well, that's nice. And who do you think will win the world seriese this
year? (that is, I don't really care what you believe, that is, to me, a
wholely uninteresting fact).
By the way, "prespectivism" is normally used for the position that all
conceptual schemes are equally valid, NOT for the position that all
_judgements_ are equally valid.
dave odden
> A small correction- a "representationalist" does, by definition, believe
> they are aware of things, but they believe their awareness of things is
> _mediate_ and not _immediate_ and mediated though an _immediate_
> awareness of mental "images".
Accepted. It's hard to accurately represent the details of a theory that you
know to be mistaken.
idlemuse
> Scott Stephens wrote:
>
> > It seems language is an interlocking, interdependent system, which when
> > correlated with learned experiences and the subject and context, forms a
> > meaningful unity, which is effectively processed.
>
> "when correlated with experience"??? Are the two systems - language and
> experience, really that disconnected that we have to actually perform an
> act of correlation between them?
Wittgenstein would say, "Yes! They are radically disconnected."
He argued that most philosophical problems weren't really problems of
concept. Rather, they were problems of language. Language is a poor
reflector of experience, and its inherent inaccuracies lead to
confusion. These bits of linguistic confusion are what we are trying
to resolve through philosophical analysis. To Wittgenstien, when we do
so, we are frequently spouting nonsense because we are using limited
language to address what we perceive to be conceptual problems, when
in fact it is the limitations of language itself we should be
analyzing.
dave odden
> Wittgenstein would say, "Yes! They are radically disconnected."
> He argued that most philosophical problems weren't really problems of
> concept. Rather, they were problems of language. Language is a poor
> reflector of experience, and its inherent inaccuracies lead to
> confusion. These bits of linguistic confusion are what we are trying
> to resolve through philosophical analysis. To Wittgenstien, when we do
> so, we are frequently spouting nonsense because we are using limited
> language to address what we perceive to be conceptual problems, when
> in fact it is the limitations of language itself we should be
> analyzing.
Wittgenstein was a beery swine who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.
I only know of one problem in philosophy that is due to language (there are
myriad problems, interesting in their own right, in the philosophy of
language, but these are philsophical problems about language and not about
something else because of language). This is mostly due to sloppy behavior
of people w.r.t. language, and can be avoided simply by being at least
halfway awake.
The problem is the assumption that pronunciation is primary and the concept
is secondary. You see this all the time, where one guy says "By rules of
logic..." and then gives some hoo-hah; and the other guy says "That doesn't
follow from logic....". And then it turns out that actualy mean different
things, like one guy means "the method of reasoning" and the other means "a
specific formal system of symbolic deduction". Different concepts, same
pronunciation. Then of course people come up with fancy excuses like saying
"But meaning X is related to meaning Y in such and such a way". That always
strikes me as the stupidest thing one could ever say. I'm related to my
mother in a specific way: does that mean that I am the *same* as my mother?
In other words, people develop philosophies of words, not concepts. What a
waste of time. Anyhow, there's nothing that can't be explained in regular
old language, if you just pay attention to the concepts you're trying to set
forth.
Much as I'd be tickled to make basic ethics be a linguistic issue, it ain't.
HPO Jury = Malenoid
wrote:
>Eudaimonus wrote:
>
>> Scott Stephens wrote:
>
>> "As it is in itself" the cat is not a cat, for it is only a cat in terms
>> of it's relation to us (thus not 'in itself') for it is only a cat as it
>> appears to us. The forms in which things appear to us constitute a
>> relation of that thing to us, and thus are not of the thing "in itself",
>> which, nontheless (says Kant), we posit as the "cause" of the phenomena.
>
>I can understand that; what I sense and what I conclude are all in my
>own head/mind, so if I recognize some object, its not the object *in
>itself* but my sense of it, which is all I can know.
>
>In that regard, we can never sense *things in themselves* - things in
>themselves aren't perceptions, and don't fit in our heads! =)
It's not a matter of not knowing the thing-in-itself, but of simply
abstracting away from the thing of perception its forms of
sensibility, leaving you with an abstract concept of the thing that
obviously is not perceptual BECAUSE it is now a mere concept of the
same thing only without the forms.
As one smart person recently put it, abstracting away "weight" from a
body does not thereby render it weightless. Kant is not dissecting the
universe into two realms, one knowable and the other not knowable. The
process is only methodological and does not make any claim to some
ontological dichotomy.
Henry Allison, in 'Kant's Transcendental Idealism', simply refers to
this process as a *consideration* of a thing as seen from different
transcendental viewpoints. Once you have attributed sensible forms as
the basis for appearances, you are then free to abstract away those
same forms, leaving the "thing-in-itself," i.e., the same "thing" as
you had before abstracting, only now considered in abstracto from the
forms of sensibility.
Bert Clanton
Eudaimonus <jwsc...@insightbb.com> wrote:
> Bert Clanton wrote:
> > In article <3F689803...@insightbb.com>,
> > Eudaimonus <jwsc...@insightbb.com> wrote:
> >
> > _Direct_ realism is non-Idealist, non-Representationalist,
> >
> >>non-Sense-Data-ist
> >>
> >
> >
> > As someone who has recently been assured by some folks who are Direct
> > Realists that I am one of them, I guess that I have to take partial
> > issue with your statement here. Perhaps my reservations arise from a
> > misunderstanding of what you (or the epistemologist community) mean by
> > "representationalist" and "sense-dataist".
> >
> > I'd certainly agree that Direct Realism isn't idealist.
> >
> > I don't know what *you* mean by "representationalist". What *I* would
> > mean by it is "characterized by a belief that one's awareness of an
> > external object is itself an internal image of that object".
>
> My definition is slightly different - "characterized by a belief that
> one's awareness of an external object is mediated by an awareness of an
> internal image of that object"
>
But that way of putting it seems to me to reintroduce the homunculus.
What is it that is being aware of an internal image of the object? So in
that sense of "representationalist", I ain't one.
> > I would
> > contrast this view with the view that what one is aware of is not the
> > external object itself, but the perceptual image of the object.
>
> A Representationalist (Indirect Realist) would not claim (as Berkley or
> Kant would) that what one is aware of is not the object, but would
> instead say that what one is _directly_ aware of is not the object.
>
Ok. I think they're mistaken.
> > I
> > believe that when I perceive the planet Mars, there is as a constituent
> > of my field of awareness which is a perceptual image of the planet Mars;
> > but I don't stand off from that image as a homunculus and perceive that
> > image as something separate from me.
> > Instead, there is no perceiving
> > homunculus, and that image *is* my perception of Mars. I don't see why
> > it would be a mistake to characterize the relation between that internal
> > image and the planet Mars as a relation of "representation", at least in
> > ordinary language. If there is some technical epistemological usage of
> > the term "representationalist" that I'm ignorant of, please instruct me.
> >
> > Similarly, I don't know what *you* mean by "non-Sense-Data-ist".
>
> I mean that what the senses give is is not "data" in anything but a
> highly metaphorical sense. To be "data" it would have to allready be
> within the perview of the belief-system, but at the level of the senses,
> that mental level has not yet been reached.
I don't like this terminology, but I'm not at all sure that we have a
substantive disagreement about how the process works.
> Of course, we can use the
> term "sense data" with the understanding that all we are really talking
> about are patterns of physical changes which act causally up the the
> chain of physicomental changes. Indeed, a misunderstand no this point
> may well be one possible cause of holding to an Idealist view.
>
That would be my preference, as I've said. But I'm not one to engage in
semantic disputes. My usual practice in such matters is to let the
person whose dispute with me seems purely semantic have his terminology,
and try to adapt mine to fit, at least for the purposes of a particular
discussion.
> > If I
> > were going to employ such a term, I'd use it to mean "characterized by a
> > belief that one perceives not external objects themselves, but the
> > energies, originating from the external object, which impinge on one's
> > sensors". In that case, I'm indeed a non-Sense-Data-ist. But again, if
> > there's some technical epistemological usage of the term "sense-data"
> > that I'm ignorant of, please instruct me. "I am only an egg".
>
> There is a sense of "data" in which it would be wrong to call our
> sensory states "data", in that they are as yet un-interpreted (that does
> not occur until the level of perceptual judgement). They have, so to
> speak, only potential, but not actual, semantics. They can only really
> be said to "represent" (as opposed to being merely hylomorphic) when
> given a place in an interpretive scheme.
> My point is rather esoteric -
> our sense "data" are not "data" because they do not carry with them
> their own semantic interpretation (though, of course, they _will be_
> semanticly intepretated higher up the chain of mental action) - they
> will be data, but are not data in and of themselves.
>
OK. I understand that usage. But I don't like it. If I adopt it, I'll
have to adopt another term for "the energies which impinge on one's
sensors". What do we call those?
[snip]
Eudaimonus
> It's not a matter of not knowing the thing-in-itself, but of simply
> abstracting away from the thing of perception its forms of
> sensibility, leaving you with an abstract concept of the thing that
> obviously is not perceptual BECAUSE it is now a mere concept of the
> same thing only without the forms.
But that is too transparently stupid. It's too clearly the very same
thing, just in a different respect. Kant couldn't possibly have meant
that. You wouldn't get to say that we don't know the thing in itself,
if that is what he meant, because we do know the things as it appears,
and that is the same thing as the thing in itself as you here describe
"thing-in-itself".
> As one smart person recently put it, abstracting away "weight" from a
> body does not thereby render it weightless. Kant is not dissecting
> the universe into two realms, one knowable and the other not
> knowable. The process is only methodological and does not make any
> claim to some ontological dichotomy.
I don't think you understand Kantianism, or the role of the distinction
between the noumenal and phenominal in "dissolving" the antimonies, or
in the prividing room for faith.
They have to be two different realms, or at least two different things,
or else Kant would have to be too transparently an idiot to say that
things he does.
> Henry Allison, in 'Kant's Transcendental Idealism', simply refers to
> this process as a *consideration* of a thing as seen from different
> transcendental viewpoints. Once you have attributed sensible forms as
> the basis for appearances, you are then free to abstract away those
> same forms, leaving the "thing-in-itself," i.e., the same "thing" as
> you had before abstracting, only now considered in abstracto from the
> forms of sensibility.
But you, as you seem to want to grant, don't get anything else when you
do that. So how can you say you don't know that? You can't - you do
know it. You know, say, that it is a cat, or a mat, or a cat on a mat.
So it would be wrong to say you don't know a thing in itself.
Otherwise "you don't know the thing in itself" is just "you don't know
what you don't know" and that can't exacly support the resolution of the
antimonies, or explain the existence of the Ideas or the Categories, or
provide a basis to explain Free Will or the Moral Law.
If that is supposed to be the meaning of the distinction, then the whole
structure he builds up from it falls like a house of cards. That is
just the old "bare substratum" theory, and I don't think that was Kant's
theory. And anyway, wasn't Kant talking about noumena as the
neccessarily postulated _cause or ground_ of the phenomena? It's not a
matter of abstracting away all the forms - wouldn't that leave you with
a bare sensuous intuition, not a thing in itself, that is, wouldn't what
you get be the synthetic a-priori intuitions of Space and Time? I can
abstract away all of the forms in which a thing is presented to me in
intuition, but then I am still getting a
something-I-know-not-what-in-intuition, not a
something-I-know-not-what-_behind_-intuition (I am speaking here of
course, of sensuous intuition).
I don't think you, or Henry Allison, really understand Kant on this
point. Kant would not ever hold that the sensable forms are attributed
as the basis for experience. The sensable forms are attributed to the
_phenomena_ not the noumena. It is the presentation of the
thing-in-itself in my sensuous intution, that has the form
"cream-colored" (I am now looking at my computer), _not_ the
thing-in-itself that is grounding that presentation in my sensuous
intuition.
Or so holds Transcendental Idealism. Henry Allison seems to be trying
to read Kant as some kind of Aristotelian.
Eudaimonus
> OK. I understand that usage. But I don't like it. If I adopt it, I'll
> have to adopt another term for "the energies which impinge on one's
> sensors". What do we call those?
"Sensations" would be ... better. "Sense data" isn't neccessarily bad,
it depends upon how you use it, but it has a very bad use that it is
easy to fall into.
If you wonder where I was going, I am thinking of Searle's problems with
computers and intelligence
HPO Jury = Malenoid
wrote:
>HPO Jury = Malenoid wrote:
>
> > It's not a matter of not knowing the thing-in-itself, but of simply
> > abstracting away from the thing of perception its forms of
> > sensibility, leaving you with an abstract concept of the thing that
> > obviously is not perceptual BECAUSE it is now a mere concept of the
> > same thing only without the forms.
>
>But that is too transparently stupid. It's too clearly the very same
>thing, just in a different respect. Kant couldn't possibly have meant
>that. You wouldn't get to say that we don't know the thing in itself,
>if that is what he meant, because we do know the things as it appears,
>and that is the same thing as the thing in itself as you here describe
>"thing-in-itself".
Yes, they are the same thing, only viewed from different angles. And
if it's transparently stupid because it is too clear, because Kant
isn't supposed to be clear, after all, he's KANT, not Aristotle (who
wasn't clear either), then it seems that it's time for you to change
your system of biases.
I'm not interested in reading the rest of your biased post.
Robert J Bullock
news:eubiotist-56668...@corp.supernews.com:
> "appearances/perceptions". I don't think that there's some faculty
> which stands apart from "appearances" and produces perceptions of
> them. I think that it doesn't make any sense to distinguish between
> "appearances" and "perceptions".
>
> Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Depending on what you're referring to with the term "perception" you are
possibly wrong. If by perception you mean "raw sense data", the
environmental stimulus that impinges on our sensory organs, then I would
say appearances ARE different. An appearance is what you see in your
"mind's eye", not the raw perceptual data. If that were the case, when
you look at your computer screen, you wouldn't see a steady image. If
you saw the raw perceptual data, it would be jumping all over the place.
Instead, our brains have a built-in "steady cam" that stabilizes the
image that APPEARS to us. What do you think? That's just my thought on
the matter... Of course, if my perception you mean what we see
"internally" - not the raw sensory data - then yes, they're possibly the
same.
Robert
dave odden
> > Please correct me if I'm wrong.
> Depending on what you're referring to with the term "perception" you are
> possibly wrong.
Actually, the question was primarily about the distinction between Direct
and Indirect Realism.
> If by perception you mean "raw sense data", the
> environmental stimulus that impinges on our sensory organs, then I would
> say appearances ARE different.
Let's set aside the fact that "sense data" has a special technical
interpretation for Indirect Realists; the neutral term is simply
"sensations". And the distinction between percept and sensation is crucial:
the voltages hitting the neural system are not percepts. Perception are in
the mind.
> An appearance is what you see in your
> "mind's eye", not the raw perceptual data.
Thank heavens for scare quotes. Otherwise I'd think you were claiming that
you actually have a visual organ inside your brain. Unfortunately, the term
"mind's eye" is just a clever expression, and I have no idea what you really
mean by it. Also, you don't see an appearance of Mars in something, you
simply see Mars.
> If that were the case, when
> you look at your computer screen, you wouldn't see a steady image.
Are you certain? I'd have to look the numbers up, but I think it's actually
a consequence of the sensory system itself. The image as presented to the
min is indeed continuous, because the impulses that hit the eye don't
instantly start and stop -- i.e. the eye and optic nerve themselves do a
certain amount of smoothing.
> If
> you saw the raw perceptual data, it would be jumping all over the place.
Well, that's raw sensory data, but there is certainly perceptual filtering
to stitch images together (for example). Apart from the need to distinguish
sensory and perceptual levles, the important thing to get is that we don't
see perceptual data. We have perceptual experiences, and we see things. This
is a pretty important distinction.
> Instead, our brains have a built-in "steady cam" that stabilizes the
> image that APPEARS to us.
That is, the perceptual system integrates the sensations, and the
end-product of that is an actual perceptual experience. Tetrahydrocannabinol
can interfere with this perceptual integration, and has been extremely
widely documented as modifying perception of music. Dude.
Mr Michael Bibby
You guys have turned an epistemological discussion into one on
cognitive-neuro-psychology which itself presupposes an absolute mountain of
epistemological assumptions. It takes a brain to write a theory of the brain,
such a theory, if it is ever to be complete, must account for the writing of
itself, and, even more bizzare, the person who actually wrote it!
Mickeyd
dave odden
> You guys have turned an epistemological discussion into one on
> cognitive-neuro-psychology which itself presupposes an absolute mountain
of
> epistemological assumptions. It takes a brain to write a theory of the
brain,
> such a theory, if it is ever to be complete, must account for the writing
of
> itself, and, even more bizzare, the person who actually wrote it!
Isn't life amazing: art imitates life. Epistemology is about knowledge,
knowledge is about the nervous system and psychology, so stunningly,
epistemology actually has to do with the brain. Which itself has to do with
physics, but screw that topic for the moment.
See, the reason is, Objectivism is a philosophy where existence is primary,
so it follows from that.
Robert J Bullock
> primary, so it follows from that.
Yes, that's TRUE, that is what Objectivism is... which is why I abandoned
it. Rand made too many assumptions... About "reality", about freewill,
about the relationship between the individual, society and organized
subgroups within a society (corporations, for example). I really used to be
a "hardcore" Objectivist, but I found too many unanswered questions. Rand's
philosophy simply doesn't reflect the complexity of our situation. That's
the bottom line.
Also, for such a rationalist, she certainly used a lot of emotionally-
loaded language... "Good", "evil", "moral", "immoral"... She obviously
WANTED to believe in the old tale of good vs. evil, but since I don't
believe freewill is so free, I can't condemn anyone as "evil", no matter
how twisted and screwed up their minds may be. People exhibit degrees of
rationality, but why some of us are able to reason quite well while others
struggle so much is a deep topic and you can't simply condemn irrational
people as "evil". Stupid and confused, perhaps, but not "evil". If they had
1) the ability to THINK clearly and 2) the right information, odds are much
better they wouldn't be quite so "evil".
I've come to realize and accept that MOST OF US hold contradictory
beliefs... hell, ALL of us do. Rand and most Objectivists I know like to
pretend that they have a perfectly consistent worldview that is supremely
rational, but to as much degree as any God-fearing Babtist, they are
emotionally wrapped up in certain views and massage the "evidence" (i.e.,
language) to support those views... Her way with words was Rand's greatest
talent. Too bad she went wacky on us like a religious fanatic.
Ayn really overlooked far too many details to be taken seriously.
Robert
HPO Jury = Malenoid
<s403...@student.uq.edu.au> wrote:
>>I read "Ayn Rand and the Metaphysics of Kant" by Walsh(1), and I'm
>>having problems understanding the concept of "noumena", and why "things
>>in themselves have neither spatiotemporal characteristics nor do they
>>exist in a spatiotemporal order."
>based on my interpretation of Kant, he makes a distinction between 'appearances'
>and 'things-in-themselves' and argues that the concepts of 'space' and 'time'
>are necessary conditions for the possibility of experience, as for how things
>are independent of, and prior to, our experience of them, WE CANNOT KNOW!!!!
>(this is his answer to the epistemological question of 'what can we know') hence
>we cannot impose the categories of space and time on the world as it is
>independently of our means and ways of experiencing it. as for Ayn Rand, i
>couldnt care less.
That is the more common interpretation. However, there is no
epistemological claim being made in the Aesthetic, it is not a
question of what we can or cannot know. The method for generating a
thing-in-itself is to start with the appearance, a thing that appears
in space and time, and then abstract out space and time, leaving only
the abstract notion of a thing-in-itself, which is the same thing, but
with space and time omitted from its concept.
dave odden
> > See, the reason is, Objectivism is a philosophy where existence is
> > primary, so it follows from that.
> Yes, that's TRUE, that is what Objectivism is... which is why I abandoned
> it. Rand made too many assumptions... About "reality", about freewill,
> about the relationship between the individual, society and organized
> subgroups within a society (corporations, for example). I really used to
be
> a "hardcore" Objectivist, but I found too many unanswered questions.
Rand's
> philosophy simply doesn't reflect the complexity of our situation. That's
> the bottom line.
I don't understand why the primacy of existence (as a feature of
Objectivism) is the reason you abandoned it. When you say that Rand made too
many assumptions (and maybe you could say what in particular you had in
mind), are you really claiming that the number of assumptions she made is an
issue? Or are you saying that she was wrong -- which is a statement about
existence? The idea that life is so complex that rational thought about it
is a waste of time is at best tragically cynical, and I promise it's untrue.
> Also, for such a rationalist, she certainly used a lot of emotionally-
> loaded language... "Good", "evil", "moral", "immoral"... She obviously
> WANTED to believe in the old tale of good vs. evil, but since I don't
> believe freewill is so free, I can't condemn anyone as "evil", no matter
> how twisted and screwed up their minds may be.
If you reject the concept of free will, you're definitely rejecting a
fundamental principle of Objectivism -- and a lot of other philosophies. It
seems to me that you're saying that there are no good people, also no bad
people, in other words, you're claiming that the words don't have any
meaning. Since there is virtually universal agreement that Hitler and Stalin
were evil, as a statement about meaning, you're wrong in the (possible)
implication that evil doesn't have a meaning.
Since you might be saying that you can't condemn Hitler and Stalin for being
evil (even though you might recognise that they are evil), then you're
guilty of moral cowardice, but I won't berate you for that. What I don't
understand is whether you're saying that you deny that Hitler and Stalin
were evil, or are you simply declining to make any public statement about
their evilness?
> People exhibit degrees of
> rationality, but why some of us are able to reason quite well while others
> struggle so much is a deep topic and you can't simply condemn irrational
> people as "evil". Stupid and confused, perhaps, but not "evil". If they
had
> 1) the ability to THINK clearly and 2) the right information, odds are
much
> better they wouldn't be quite so "evil".
You must be confused, or else got in with a really bad lot. A slow, stupid
or confused person is not evil, and only an evil person would hold such a
claim out as a principle of Objectivism. You can't be accidentally evil, and
you can't be evil out of ignorance. You have to knowingly and deliberately
be evil.
> I've come to realize and accept that MOST OF US hold contradictory
> beliefs... hell, ALL of us do. Rand and most Objectivists I know like to
> pretend that they have a perfectly consistent worldview that is supremely
> rational,
That may well be, but it isn't a virtue (something that you ought to work to
keep). Here's where I think you're confused. The universe is not
contradictory; but it might seem to be; thanks to the fact that you're not
omniscient, you don't understand how to resolve the apparent contradiction
(since you haven't named any particular contradictory set of beliefs of
yours, I have no particular suggestions how you would resolve the
contradiction).