Realism (was: What is Truth?)
andy-k
the OP cross-posted to these three groups. Apologies to anybody
who thinks this stuff irrelevant to their particular forum, but I didn't
want to exclude any of the contributors with whom I was conversing.
andy-k
> andy-k wrote:
>> "gibbs" wrote:
>>> I can see a person looking at a tree and I can see a tree. And I can
>>> see that that tree has nothing to do with that person and remains when
>>> that person walks away. The reason is simple. Because when I perceive
>>> I don't perceive concepts. Concepts illuminate my perceptions and allow
>>> me to designate a person and a tree.
>>
>> Perception and conception are just more concepts.
>
> That's your claim, but I've yet to see good grounds to think you are
> correct. Indeed, there are clear reasons to say that perception
> (specifically, the content of a perception) need not be based on the
> relevant concepts. Consider a child who has no concept whatsoever of
> "daffodil". We show her a daffodil. She looks at it and says something
> like: "pretty!". Now here's the question: does she see the daffodil? The
> answer seems to me to be very obviously, yes. Sure, she does not see it
> *as* a daffodil - how could she, she has no daffodil concept - but that is
> a different issue. She can see the daffodil as well as, perhaps even
> better than, we can. That seems to me to demonstrate that perception -
> that is the perception *of* something - is independent of having the
> *concept* of that kind of thing. Someone can see a tree without a tree
> concept, etc. Think about how children learn concepts - often they point
> to something and ask: "what's *that*?". Clearly, they can perceive the
> object prior to having the concept of that object.
It appears that you regard only named things (presumably along with named
classes of things and named properties of things) as concepts. I'm using the
word to refer to any entity, class, or property that manifests as in
contrast to what it is not -- i.e. that is considered to have a complement
for all practical purposes (even though the boundary is not discrete in most
cases). In this regard I would say that a neonate has a concept of the human
face since it is capable of picking this out from what is presumably a
"buzzing blooming confusion":
"In this sense, creatures extremely low in the intellectual scale may have
conception. All that is required is that they should recognize the same
experience again." (James, Principles of Psychology).
I largely agree with the following post appearing on alt.philosophy, though
the poster may disagree with some of my connotations:
news:0Nydnbt-1rc847zY...@nethere.com
So it can be seen that any distinction between conception and perception
can only be the result of a conceptual model that resides in the conceptual
framework. The question "yes but what is the origin of this conceptual
framework?" can only elicit a theory of perception and conception according
to the resident conceptual model.
>>> But there is no logical reason that my cognitive experiences are not
>>> about a world independent of all concepts.
>>
>> What would be the practical applications of such a conjecture?
>
> Note that the poster asserts a negative here about your argument - that
> your arguments provide no reason to think that our experiences are not
> about a world independent of all concepts. In itself, it is not a claim
> that there is a world independent of all concepts.
I have addressed this point in a reply to Ted and you have criticized my
reply, to which I have in turn made my reply in another post in this thread.
> But even of it were a metaphysical posits, I wonder why anyone would think
> that practical applications have anything to do with the issue.
> Metaphysical posits are not generally characterised or assessed by whether
> they have practical applications.
It is clear from gibbs' reply that he considers his conjecture very much to
have practical applications:--
>> What would be the practical applications of such a conjecture?
>
> Of this description? It only explains how we learn about the world we
> find ourselves in, why we create, change, or toss, concepts, why we can
> have real and useful knowledge about the world, about ourselves, etc. In
> other words, the strange description that you are making about how we
> interact with our world, how we talk to one another, how we know that we
> are talking to others, how we know learn about our world and exchange
> ideas about it, makes more sense and is radically simpler than what you
> have proposed.
andy-k
> andy-k wrote:
>> "Goober" wrote:
>>> andy-k wrote:
>>>> I wasn't disagreeing with you, but rather saying that I view proper
>>>> names as labels for concepts.
>>>
>>> I think that is precisely what I was rejecting. Proper names are labels
>>> for things (or, if you prefer, sets of events). They aren't labels for
>>> concepts. Though, of course, I will likely associate the name with
>>> concepts.
>>
>> A thing is only the thing it is because it is conceived as that thing --
>> i.e. on the one hand there is a flux about which nothing can be said (not
>> even that is "exists"), and on the other hand "things" are carved out of
>> that flux and stand in contrast to the *conditions* in which they exist
>> (i.e. stand out). It is this process of "carving out" -- i.e. the
>> appearance of boundaries within the flux -- that I understand (perhaps
>> you might say misunderstand) as conception. "Things" are considered to
>> consist of sets of what are conceived to be their constituent properties,
>> and also considered to be members of what are conceived to be broader
>> classes of "things". In this way the conceptual framework constitutes a
>> *hierarchy* of concepts, and "things" hold no special status within that
>> hierarchy.
>
> No. A thing is the thing it is because of its properties. Whether it is
> conceived at all makes no difference to it.
I don't believe we cognize a set of properties and then use that set in
order to recognize the thing, but rather that we cognize the thing and
subsequently analyze it into its constituent properties by comparison
with similar things.
> I don't disagree with your understanding of conception. Conception
> consists of the drawing of conceptual boundaries - categorisation. Things
> are indeed considered (or can be considered) to be sets of properties.
> But none of this undermines the realist claim that the having of those
> properties is independent of the conceptualisation. I'm not trying to
> carve out a special status for "things".
Those properties themselves are concepts abstracted from comparisons
of sameness and difference between things. Naming misleads us into
thinking that there is something that "has" these properties (even naming
them "properties", as if they "belong" to something, conspires in this
error).
> You can have an ontology of properties if you wish.
I'm not suggesting an ontology of properties.
> But concepts (predicate terms) are names for properties;
I don't understand the claim that concepts are names for properties.
> they are not the properties that are named.
I agree, but the properties that are named are concepts.
>>>>> But there is only one object referred to by that name - namely,
>>>>> Aristotle. What other objects are you thinking of?
>>>>
>>>> Aristotle Onassis, for example. Even "Aristotle of Syracuse" might be
>>>> non-unique, but my guess is that most people would be even less likely
>>>> to confuse "Aristotle" with a different "Aristotle of Syracuse" than
>>>> they would to confuse "Aristotle" with an Aristotle from a different
>>>> place, except in particular circumstances like the family members of
>>>> Aristotle Onassis.
>>>
>>> Let me see whether I understand you - when someone who knows next to
>>> nothing about Aristotle says "Aristotle was Greek" they are not
>>> referring to any particular individual, as they would seem to suppose,
>>> they are, in fact, referring to *everyone* whose first name is
>>> "Aristotle" who has ever existed?
>>
>> No. When you said "there is only one object referred to by that name",
>> I took you to be speaking objectively. Speaking subjectively, any
>> particular subject will have established their own prioritization scheme
>> wherein certain references are brought to mind more quickly than others.
>> The example I gave of the family members of Aristotle Onassis is
>> pertinent here. This is entirely a matter of inference through cultural
>> conditioning.
>
> I was speaking objectively. "Aristotle" denotes an object (which, if you
> wish, you may understand "object" as a collection of properties - that
> suits me fine.) My point is that the subjective associations (the concepts
> brought to mind within the speaker when they think "Aristotle") do not
> serve to denote the object, in the case mentioned.
Sorry it's taken me so long to catch on. To bat this idea back to you in my
own words so that you may correct me if I'm still misunderstanding, when
the speaker uses a name, he has a specific intentional object in mind.
>>>> Lots of inference goes on because symbolic references often don't
>>>> uniquely identify members of a classification within the conceptual
>>>> framework. But proper names do uniquely refer to things. That's part
>>>> of what makes them proper names. If that's the case, then how is it
>>>> possible to mistake such references (e.g. "Oh, *that* John Locke -- I
>>>> thought you meant the philosopher")?
>>>
>>> Because people often fail to understand the meaning of a sentence, or
>>> correctly identify its reference. In your example, the speaker refers to
>>> some particular John Locke who is not a philosopher. The audience
>>> mistakes the reference of the name for the famous philosopher. The
>>> speaker does not ambiguously refer - the audience mistakenly interprets.
>>> Notice that the audience cannot sensibly insist that the speaker
>>> actually referred to the philosopher called John Locke (as well as,
>>> perhaps, someone else by the same name). The speaker can rightly stamp
>>> their foot and so "no, dammit - I did *not* mean the philosopher".
>>
>> It is neither the speaker's fault nor the audience's fault that
>> communication goes awry, but rather a consequence of the massive
>> redundancy that is necessarily entailed by language. The probability of
>> error may have been reduced both by the speaker making fewer assumptions
>> and by the audience making fewer assumptions, but often those assumptions
>> are made at an unconscious level because they are culturally conditioned.
>
> I'm not interested in establishing fault here for why communication goes
> awry - the point is that the speaker's reference is to an unique person,
> to some John Locke character who happens not to be the famous philosopher.
> The denotation of names are (at least generally) not determined by the
> conjunction of the set of concepts that spring to the speakers mind when
> they think "Aristotle" or "John Locke" or "Copernicus" or whoever.
Yes.
>>>> A person uses a word as they have been culturally conditioned to use
>>>> that word (or in deliberate violation of such conventions). Some words
>>>> are used as symbolic representations, and again the association between
>>>> the word and the referent is established by a process of cultural
>>>> conditioning.
>>>
>>> I'm not disagreeing for the most part. My point is that internal
>>> concepts do not determine reference in the case of proper names. Suppose
>>> I think that Copernicus was Greek. Greekness is part of the internal
>>> conceptualisation of Copernicus that I happen to have formed - when I
>>> think "Copernicus" I think of some Greek guy. If someone then points out
>>> to me that he was not Greek, I don't say: "well, the one *I'm* referring
>>> to definitely was Greek - it's one of the concepts that is part of the
>>> meaning of the word "Copernicus" whenever I use it". No - I say "I guess
>>> I was wrong after all." And that can be the case only because I actually
>>> referred to Copernicus - the non-Greek guy. If I didn't refer to
>>> Copernicus then I wouldn't have been wrong. So the concepts that I might
>>> associate with the proper name, don't determine the reference of that
>>> name.
>>
>> Within any particular community of language users, the members of
>> that community are "trained" by the rest of the community in the use
>> of particular words. Words are often used incorrectly, and one is then
>> corrected by other members of that community, and is adequately
>> trained only when such corrections cease to occur.
>
> You're avoiding or missing the point. Regardless of how we happen to be
> trained, when I say "Copernicus was Greek", I will be *wrong*. And being
> wrong here depends on my denoting *Copernicus* in that sentence. The fact
> that in the above example my internal conceptual associations for
> "Copernicus" include Copernicus being Greek, makes no difference
> whatsoever to the denotation. I still refer to Copernicus. Sure, I will be
> corrected and trained by my community to avoid making mistaken conceptual
> associations in the future, but the point is that my mistake occurs *only
> because* I actually referred to Copernicus, and not because of my
> conceptual associations with that name (namely, "Greekness").
Yes.
> On your account, however, it is exclusively the conceptual associations of
> a name that determine its denotation. But if that were the case, then when
> I say "Copernicus was Greek" I would have denoted something Greek (and
> hence, would not have denoted Copernicus, and need not have been wrong),
> for Greekness is conceptually associated with that name when I use the
> word.
>
> In a nutshell: my account explains how someone can be wrong in cases like
> the above, but your account leaves it a complete mystery, for the
> conceptual associations fail to pick out the referent that it would be
> required to pick out for the sentence to be false.
Now we have to go back to my propensity to regard proper names as labels for
concepts, which led us out on this tangent. I think the disagreement here is
grounded in my propensity to regard the thing as a concept, in contravention
of the theory of perception entailed by indirect realism. This is because I
reject indirect realism. I have defended my use of the word "concept" in
andy-k
> andy-k wrote:
>> "Reality", as I understand most people's use of the word, denotes the
>> self (as an organism in the world) along with the world it inhabits, in
>> contrast to "appearance" which denotes that self's mental representation
>> of the world. The point to note is that the concept of self (within the
>> conceptual framework) has the consequence that the whole conceptual
>> framework is conceived (i.e. represented within itself) as nothing more
>> than that self's "mental representation of reality". That is to say that
>> the concept of self causes the same data to be counted twice over --
>> regarded in one instance as part of "reality" and in another as part of
>> "appearance".
>
> Thanks for that. But there are several point at which I disagree.
>
> Firstly, "reality", as I use the word, denotes the way things are - pure
> and simple. It does not denote a conceptual framework
What would you say is the difference between "the way things are"
and "the way things are conceived to be"?
> nor does it denote "self" (at least in my usage) nor does it necessarily
> encompass "self". Sure, if I exist (qua "self") then I am part of reality,
> but if I do not exist, then I am not part of reality.
Surely there can be no conditional sense to this assertion
(i.e. it cannot cogently be argued that the self concept does not exist)?
> I can clearly conceive of there being a reality without me (qua "self")
> in it. Of course, whilst I'm thinking about it, my being a part of reality
> (qua "self") is entailed by that very thinking about reality (at least, so
> Descartes argued),
The statement "I can conceive of a world without me in it"
could not be made in a world without me in it.
> but that does not make my being part of reality a part of that thought,
> imo. All the logical entailments of P are not necessarily part of my
> thinking that P.
"I" is a thought, and thoughts are transient, so the "I" thought arises and
passes away like any other thought. The upshot is that thinking proceeds for
much of the time without "me" in it, and there need be nothing logically
inconsistent about thinking as it proceeds in that manner. But thinking
involves concepts, and so necessarily entails the conceptual framework
within which this dynamic proceeds.
> Secondly, I don't quite agree with your inference. The self is not another
> *part of* appearance. What we can say is that the self *has* mental
> representations of reality and those mental representations, in virtue of
> them being distinct from their content, are appearances. And that, I
> think, is your premise. But it does not follow that the self is part of
> the appearances. For that, the self itself would need to be a
> representation distinguishable from its content.
The notion of representation entails an implicit assumption of indirect
realism, and it is indirect realism that I am rejecting. If I have
understood you correctly, then is it valid to support an argument for
indirect realism with an appeal to indirect realism?
> In my view, one might more accurately speak of the self as the locus of
> appearances, rather than being part of appearance. And of course, there is
> a substantial argument (owing largely to Hume in the Western tradition)
> that there really is no "self" - it's nothing more than a bundle of
> sensations - and certainly no "self" qua appearance.
I'm inclined to agree with Hume on that point -- "I" is just a thought
amongst other thoughts that arise within the conceptual framework,
but it does hold a place within that framework nonetheless,
and its reification is the ground upon which indirect realism is built.
> Now I think your point might be that the mental representations are both
> appearances and part of reality. There is an obvious sense in which you're
> right. Clearly, if I have appearances those very appearances (the mental
> representations) are themselves real. If that is your point then I agree,
No, that's not my point. My point is that when, say, a chair is manifest "in
experience" (to use a common but misguided phrase), it is taken to be the
chair "as subjectively experienced" (appearance) *as well as* a
representation of the chair "as it objectively is" (reality) -- i.e. it is
duplicated.
> but it is not quite correct to say that the "same data" is counted twice
> over - once as part of reality and once as appearance. We need to
> distinguish, I think, the representation under two quite different
> aspects. Qua appearance it is always in relation to some *particular*
> content. There is no such thing as an appearance except as an appearance
> that P, where P is the content of the appearance. But qua representation
> its particular content is completely irrelevant. (That it has some content
> or other is not irrelevant - that makes it a representation). So it's not
> the "same data" presented twice over, it seems to me. Qua appearances,
> "the data" *is* the content. Qua representation, there really is no
> "data" - unless you are referring to the data of a representation having
> some content (which in not the same thing as the content of the
> representation).
I hope I've presented my case clearly enough above so that I don't have to
untangle this paragraph.
>> Now since the whole conceptual framework is conceived as nothing more
>> than that self's "mental representation of reality", this accounting
>> error has the unfortunate consequence of giving the impression that the
>> whole conceptual framework is mere "appearance" and that "reality" is
>> external to the conceptual framework.
>
> Unless reality were, at least in principle, external to the conceptual
> framework, it would not be a representation, imo. What else is a
> mental representation a representation *of*, if not some part of a
> possible reality? If you say it is a representation of "the self" I can
> only insist that it is not - my representation of the Sun, for example,
> is not a representation of "self", but of the Sun. If you say it is a
> representation of "the conceptual framework", I can only answer is
> similar fashion.
I'm rejecting indirect (i.e. representational) realism.
> Reality is external to the conceptual framework, with the notable
> exception of the conceptual framework itself which is part of reality.
> But the conceptual framework is often not (or at least need not be)
> represented *within* the conceptual framework. Someone might have
> no concept for "appearance" or "conceptual framework" and nevertheless
> have a conceptual framework replete with representations. In such cases,
> it would surely be false to suggest that the conceptual framework is
> conceived as anything at all, let alone as nothing more than the self's
> "mental representations of reality".
In that case the notion of indirect realism would not arise and so would not
mislead.
>> That external "reality" is then posited as the explanation of why the
>> conceptual framework takes the form that it does. The idea that the
>> conceptual framework stands in need of explanation is question-begging
>> on the grandest scale possible. Explanation consists in finding a more
>> encompassing framework in which to place the explanandum, so to demand
>> an explanation is to assume the existence of just such a framework.
>
> I'm sure that there is no single privileged conceptual framework.
> Certainly, a large number of conceptual frameworks might be used. But that
> it no way undermines realism. After all, some conceptual frameworks work
> much better than others, and that is clearly not arbitrary. Hence, some
> part of the explanation for the conceptual framework is presumably
> external to the framework itself; a function of both reality and our
> interests, the latter being determined, in part, by our biological nature.
All such conceptual frameworks take their place in a wider conceptual
framework, and the widest conceptual framework of all -- the framework that
is *conceived* as being the all-encompassing apex of the hierarchy --
encompasses the world model wherein the interests of the self are
determined, in part, by its biological nature.
andy-k
> Ted King wrote:
>> Yeah, I think my flu-fever has amplified my tendency to mix things up.
>> There are similarities between what you an andy-k say, but andy-k's
>> statements tend to be more focused on what linguistic expressions are
>> about; i.e., whether or not we can meaningfully talk about anything other
>> than our conceptions. In retrospect I don't think "natural kinds" is a
>> central issue (although it probably enters the picture). IOW, I don't
>> think I said anything helpful, so there isn't any reason to consider my
>> comments farther.
>
> Well, from my point of view, whether there are natural kinds (natural
> distinctions between kinds of things out there in nature) is pretty
> central. Because it seems to me that the inference is being made from
> certain epistemic or semantic points to metaphysical ones about there not
> being such distinctions - that the distinctions are all only of our own
> making. I'm happy to concede the premises but reject the inference.
No, not "of our own making", since the "me" is just another concept in the
conceptual framework.
> On the semantic side, in something I wrote a long time ago, I defended the
> idea that there are, strictly speaking, no natural kind terms, whilst
> leaving open the question of whether there are natural kinds. I'm happy
> that our language categorises the world ultimately according to our
> interests, and draws boundaries between kinds and objects according to
> those interests. So, in my view, there is no natural *necessity* in the
> kinds themselves lying behind the boundaries that our concepts draw.
> Coffee is mostly H2O, but we categorise it differently from water. The
> Dead Sea contains proportionately less H2O than does coffee, but we call
> that a body of water. The reasons for dividing things up this way stem
> from our interests, not any natural fault lines in the stuff themselves.
I agree with your claim that there are no "natural fault lines in the stuff
themselves", but still contend that the "me" that "categorizes the world
ultimately according to my interests" is itself a part of the conceptual
framework -- i.e. there is no "me" watching the conceptual framework
from the sidelines and directing attention to certain aspects of it.
> But at the same time, we are material beings constrained by material needs
> and the world imposes limitations on what categories we can adopt whilst
> at the same time still hope to satisfying those needs (or even, continue
> to live). Not distinguishing between the liquid filling the Dead Sea
> (which would probably kill you if you drank it) and a cup of freshly
> brewed coffee (which usually won't kill you) simply will not work. It is
> not simply down to an arbitrary choice that we draw such distinctions.
> This clearly suggests to me that there are *real* differences between the
> two kinds of stuff. Simply by choosing not to categorise them differently
> we cannot drink the water of the Dead Sea.
I agree with all of this, but it is all a conceptual model that
distinguishes a "me" from its environment and then identifies
with the "me" concept.
> Some of the argument seems to me to focus on the idea that without a sharp
> or completely precise boundary condition between kinds there can be no
> natural kinds. We could construct a coninuum of samples between the black
> coffee and intensely salty water. Many of those samples are neither
> clearly one nor the other. But natural kinds, it seems to me, can
> perfectly well admit of marginal cases. Just because there are some vague
> of fuzzy areas in our language of conceptual framework does not imply that
> *everything* is vague or fuzzy in reality, which is what the denial of
> natural kinds amounts to.
Acknowledging distinctions even where there are no clear boundaries
has utility for the "me" concept.
andy-k
> "andy-k" wrote:
>> "Reality", as I understand most people's use of the word, denotes the
>> self (as an organism in the world) along with the world it inhabits, in
>> contrast to "appearance" which denotes that self's mental representation
>> of the world. The point to note is that the concept of self (within the
>> conceptual framework) has the consequence that the whole conceptual
>> framework is conceived (i.e. represented within itself) as nothing more
>> than that self's "mental representation of reality". That is to say that
>> the concept of self causes the same data to be counted twice over --
>> regarded in one instance as part of "reality" and in another as part of
>> "appearance".
>>
>> than that self's "mental representation of reality", this accounting
>> error has the unfortunate consequence of giving the impression that the
>> whole conceptual framework is mere "appearance" and that "reality" is
>> posited as the explanation of why the conceptual framework takes the form
>> that it does. The idea that the conceptual framework stands in need of
>> explanation is question-begging on the grandest scale possible.
>> Explanation consists in finding a more encompassing framework in which to
>> place the explanandum, so to demand an explanation is to assume the
>> existence of just such a framework.
>
> reality independent of cognition". I should have said "a part of reality
> independent of cognition". I had a vague feeling that I needed to think
> about that expression more but I was so involved in trying to put the
> rest of the thoughts together that I didn't catch the goof.
>
> I don't think that what I am looking for is an explanation of the
> conceptual framework. What I am looking to try to explain is the nature
> of experience. That there is experience seems to be the one undeniable
> thing. If one is not a solipsist then it seems to follow that one
> accepts that there is a part of reality independent of the flow of
> experience. So a really deep question is - if there is a relationship
> between experience and the part of reality independent of experience,
> then what is the nature of that relationship? You might reject the
> notion that there is any relationship or at least an assumption that
> there is a relationship or that we can know anything about that
> relationship. Whether you do or not, you do say that any proposed answer
> to that question will be nonsensical because we can only use a
> conceptual framework to address the question and the conceptual
> framework cannot have a referent outside of itself, so there is no
> meaningful way to address the question. I have put forth reasons to
> suggest that the concepts within the conceptual framework can have
> referents outside of the conceptual framework. If you have provided
> sufficient reason to reject that then I apologize for not having the
> acumen to see it, but I have not seen it. Further, it seems to me that
> it is an almost ineluctable consequence of experience itself that one
> "feels" that the sensory impression aspect of experience is very often
> being induced by the part of reality independent of experience. I think
> that alone is enough to justify the assumption that there is a
> relationship between experience and the part of reality that is
> independent of experience. With that assumption in place, the question
> remains of how to account for the aspects experience other than sensory
> impressions, like conception and volition - including volition that
> leads to action. In an earlier post I tried to put those pieces together
> (admittedly probably not all that well). So, it isn't that I am looking
> for an explanation for the conceptual framework that leads me to assume
> an external "reality", it is that the conceptual framework - along with
> sensory impressions and other things - has a relationship with a part of
> reality independent of experience that forms at least a partial
> explanation for the nature of experience. Of course, that explanation
> could be partially or all wrong.
Given that "experiencer", "experiencing", and "experienced" are concepts
that arise in mutual dependence within the conceptual framework (i.e.
none of the elements in this set can arise in the absence of the other two
elements), isn't talk of the conceptual framework as being "experienced"
begging the question (i.e. making the assumption of indirect realism) yet
again?
andy-k
> "gibbs" wrote:
>> "Ted King" wrote:
>> > I don't think that what I am looking for is an explanation of the
>> > explanation for the conceptual framework that leads me to assume an
>> > external "reality", it is that the conceptual framework - along with
>> > sensory impressions and other things - has a relationship with a part
>> > of reality independent of experience that forms at least a partial
>> > explanation for the nature of experience. Of course, that explanation
>> > could be partially or all wrong.
>>
>> word "concept" is used. In an unsual way!
>
> I am not very confident that I have a grasp of what a conceptual
> framework or "the conceptual framework" is either. I do have a rough
> notion that I've been using so that I could delve into other matters -
> but perhaps doing that has been a mistake.
>
> I assume andy-k means by the term "framework" that there are connections
> between concepts that sort of create a meta-level conceptual structure
> of other concepts. I imagine that there could be multiple meta-levels of
> concept structures. That does imply a hierarchy of structures and that
> may not be what he is thinking. Perhaps he is thinking more along the
> lines of a structure where the elements function to "hold" each other
> together. Or maybe he is thinking of a combination of the two.
I mean that the framework has a hierarchical structure, and that any
particular element in the framework could not exist in the absence of the
rest of the framework -- i.e. no member of that framework has any "inherent"
existence, that is to say, an existence that is independent of the rest of
the framework.
> The "concept" part of a conceptual framework is what I am least clear
> about. Is a concept the "result of" processing pre-conceptual
> information or is it a spontaneous creation not resulting from
> processing of pre-conceptual information?
By "concept" I am referring to any aspect that is taken to have a boundary
that distinguishes it from "everything else" (i.e. its complement), and by
which it may be considered to have "membership criteria". Within the
framework there are concrete and abstract concepts. The idea that concepts
result from the processing of pre-conceptual information is an abstract
conceptual model that takes its place within the conceptual framework.
<Ted lated added:>
> What I was thinking about here was sort of "fundamental" concepts. It
> seems that there are many concepts that result from the processing of
> other concepts - so, of course, they wouldn't be the result of
> processing pre-conceptual information. But there must be some kinds of
> "basic" concepts or else there would have to be an infinite regress of
> concepts.
<End of addition>
The idea that there must be some kinds of "basic" concepts in order to
avoid an infinite regress is an abstract conceptual model that takes its
place within the conceptual framework.
> Perhaps he thinks some concepts are of the former kind and some of the
> latter kind. To me, if perception is going to be thought of as a type of
> conception, then perception is either the result of processing of
> pre-conceptual information or a spontaneous creation. There certainly are
> other ways of thinking about perception but I can accept thinking about it
> as the processing of pre-conceptual information (and the primary candidate
> for that would be sense impressions). I do have severe reservations about
> the notion of perception as the result of spontaneous creation without any
> processing of pre-conceptual information.
The idea that the only alternative to a pre-conceptual foundation for
concepts is the spontaneous creation of concepts is a false dichotomy.
An analogy is the claim that a non-random event is either caused by
something else or it is self-caused, the idea of a _causa sui_ being
paradoxical. This may be a useful picture as far as events in the cosmos are
concerned, but it is nonsensical to apply this picture to the cosmos itself.
Similarly, the ideas of "beginning" and "end" are useful when applied to any
particular process within the conceptual framework, but are misappropriated
when applied to the framework itself.
> Anyway, my general "model" for thinking of experience is a basic "input,
> processing, output" one. Sensory impression often serve as the input,
> and perception/conceptualization is the processing, and often volition -
> which can cascade to action - is the output. These are the general
> elements of experience as I tend to think of it. "The conceptual
> framework" works well enough for me as a rough appellation for the
> processing aspect of experience.
The whole conceptual model to which you subscribe is a part of the
conceptual framework.
andy-k
> There may be something to the part of what I said about andy-k thinking
> there are no natural distinctions. But I'm not sure that he thinks that
> way (or that "fuzzy edges" matter much) and it may very well be that the
> core of disagreement lies elsewhere - in fact, it could very well be
> that the reason he thinks there are not natural distinctions (assuming
> he does) is because he doesn't think we can say anything meaningful
> about the part of reality independent of cognition. I think andy-k would
> agree that there is part of reality independent of cognition (he said he
> is not a solipsist), but he has stated more than once that we cannot say
> anything about that part of reality.
It often seems implicit in debate that a denial of solipsism implies a
belief in indirect realism and vice versa, as though the law of the excluded
middle operates here. My claim is that this impression is specious.
> He said that it is possible to conceive of a reality independent of
> cognition but positing that we can talk about referents that are part of
> the reality independent of cognition is nonsensical or specious (I assume
> he meant in the "having the ring of truth or plausibility but actually
> fallacious" sense of the specious). I now suspect that that issue is a
> central one - or implies a more central one. Hopefully we'll soon see
> whether or not that is the case. I'm trying to figure out how his recent
> points about "self" relate to his point about the speciousness of positing
> referents that are part of reality independent of cognition. Perhaps your
> exchange with him about his notion of "conceptual framework" will help
> bring it to light for me.
I hope that some of the other posts in this thread have brought some light
to bear on that issue.
andy-k
> Ted King wrote:
>> "gibbs" wrote:
>>> "Ted King" wrote:
>>>> surrounding the notion of perception are about as woolly as any of
>>>> them. For example, what is an illusion? Is there a chain of causality
>>>> that leads to perception? If so, what are the particulars of the chain?
>>>> If there is no chain of causation then what is the nature of the
>>>> relationship between an "object" and its perception? Should "raw"
>>>> sensory information be considered part of perception? If not, what role
>>>> do they play in perception? Because of all those issues (and more) I
>>>> have a tendency to not talk about perception, but instead focus on what
>>>> seems to be raw sensory information that I consider to be "input" and
>>>> then say that that input gets processed. I imagine perception is "in"
>>>> there somewhere, it just isn't clear to me in what way it is.
>>>
>>> An illusion is a false perception. It is not a perception. An illusion
>>> can be corrected (a drug could wear off or you might get a better look).
>>> I don't think there is any mystery in that.
>>
>> I've been exceptionally sloppy in my thinking today (above and beyond my
>> usual level of cognitive dishevelment). Instead of asking "What is an
>> illusion?" I should have referred to "the argument from illusion". Here
>> is a site that spells out some of the problems associated with
>> perception:
>>
>> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception-problem/
>>
>> There are several theories of perception. Since we are already grappling
>> with theories related to truth and reference I was hoping to side-step
>> the question of which theory of perception best applies. Maybe the
>> directions this discussion are going make it desirable to tackle the
>> issue of theories of perception as well. I really do hope we can avoid
>> it, though.
>
> As I was rereading the article cited above (it had been quite a awhile
> since I last read it) it occurred to me that maybe hashing through some
> of the issues related to perception might actually bring to light some
> of the underlying differences that are not yet explicitly evident. For
> example, I was thinking as I read the following passage that getting
> everyone's take on it may reveal some of those differences that have not
> yet been explicitly stated:
>
> [quote]
>
> 3.1 The Sense-Datum Theory
>
> The sense-datum theory holds that when a person has a sensory
> experience, there is something of which they are aware (see Broad 1923,
> Moore 1903, 1910). What the subject is aware of is the object of
> experience. The object of experience is that which is given to the
> senses, or the sense-datum: this is how the term sense-datum was
> introduced by many writers (e.g., Price 1932: 13). The standard version
> of the theory takes the argument from illusion to show that a
> sense-datum, whatever else it may be, cannot be an ordinary physical
> object. The early sense-datum theorists (like Moore 1914) considered
> sense-data to be mind-independent, but non-physical objects. Later
> theories treat sense-data as mind-dependent entities (see Robinson
> 1994), and this is how the theory is normally understood in the second
> half of the twentieth century. (It should be noted here that there are
> sense-data theories (e.g., Jackson 1977) which do not appeal to the
> argument from illusion in any form. Also, there are other arguments for
> sense-data, understood as mind-dependent entities, which will not be
> discussed here: in addition to Jackson 1977, see also Lowe 1992; see
> also entries on epistemological problems of perception and sense-data.)
>
> The conception of perception which most sense-data theories propose is
> as a relation to a non-physical object. This relation is the relation of
> being given or sensing. The relational conception of perception is
> sometimes called an act-object conception, since it posits a distinction
> between the mental act of sensing, and the object which is sensed. It is
> straightforward to show how this theory deals with the arguments from
> illusion and hallucination. The sense-datum theory treats all phenomenal
> propertiesproperties which determine the phenomenal character of an
> experienceas properties of the immediate object of experience. So, when
> in the case of an illusion, an external object appears to have a
> property which it does not have in reality, the theory says that some
> other object, a sense-datum, really does have this property. A similar
> move is made in the case of hallucination. Perceptions and subjectively
> indistinguishable hallucinations share their phenomenal character. This
> means that they share their phenomenal properties: the properties which
> determine what it is like to have an experience of this character.
> Assuming the Phenomenal Principle, the conclusion is drawn that these
> properties must be instantiated in an object of the same kind: a
> sense-datum. So the sense-datum theory retains the claim discussed in
> 2.1, that experiences depend on their objects; but it denies that these
> objects are the ordinary, mind-independent objects we normally take
> ourselves to be experiencing.
>
> 3.1.1 Indirect Realism and Phenomenalism
>
> The sense-datum theory need not deny that we are presented with objects
> as if they were ordinary, public, mind-independent objects. But it will
> insist that this is an error. The things we take ourselves to be aware
> of are actually sense-data, although this may only be apparent on
> philosophical reflection. This is an important point, since it shows
> that the sense-datum theories are not simply refuted (as Harman 1990
> seems to argue) by pointing to the phenomenological fact that the
> objects of experience seem to be the ordinary things around us. A
> consistent sense-data theorist can accept this fact, but insist that the
> objects of experience are really sense-data.
>
> The sense-datum theory can say, however, that we are indirectly aware of
> ordinary objects: that is, aware of them by being aware of sense-data. A
> sense-datum theorist who says this is known as an indirect realist or
> representative realist, or as someone who holds a representative theory
> of perception (see Jackson 1977, Lowe 1992; see also the entry
> epistemological problems of perception). A theorist who denies that we
> are aware of mind-independent objects at all, directly or indirectly,
> but only of sense-data, is known as a phenomenalist or an idealist about
> perception (see Foster 2000 for a recent defence of this view).
>
> The difference between indirect realism and idealism is not over any
> specific thesis about perception. The difference between them is over
> the metaphysical issue of whether there are any mind-independent
> material objects at all. Idealists, in general, hold that all objects
> and properties are mental or mind-dependent. There are many forms of
> idealism, and many arguments for these different forms, and there is no
> room for an extensive discussion of idealism here (see Crane and Farkas
> 2004: section 2 for an introduction to the subject; and the entry on
> idealism). What is important in this context is that idealists and
> indirect realists can agree about the nature of perception considered in
> itself, but will normally disagree on grounds independent of the
> philosophy of perception about whether the mind-dependent sense-data are
> all there is. Thus Foster (2000) argues for his idealism first by
> arguing for sense-data as the immediate or direct objects of perceptual
> experience, and then arguing that idealism gives a better explanation of
> the reality underlying this appearance, and of our knowledge of it.
> Hence, idealism and indirect realism are grouped together here as the
> sense-datum theory since they agree about the fundamental issue in the
> philosophy of perception.
>
> [unquote]
Whilst I reject indirect realism, I also reject idealism, if idealism is
taken to mean that everything is "in the mind". Mind is just another concept
in the conceptual framework, and stands in contrast to matter or to body.
If the concept of mind is taken to be the "internal" aspect of "body" then
the notion that everything is "in the mind" is contradictory, since by
implication it entails the "external" aspect of "body". The dichotomy
presented in the foregoing is, in my view, a false dichotomy,
as if the law of the excluded middle were to operate in this respect.
andy-k
> "andy-k" wrote:
>> That external "reality" is then posited as the explanation of why the
>> conceptual framework takes the form that it does.
>
> hypothesis or an explanation. There is no reality "posited" in
> experience. Reality is experienced. To claim that reality is posited is
> an abuse of language and the making up of definitions of words as you want
> them to be defined. Nor is reality inferred, whether it be the objects
> external to us, objects of thought (generalities or universals) that we
> can talk about that may or may not be instantiated in the world, or
> entirely private experiences (like what it feels like when someone aims a
> blowtorch at your foot).
"Reality" is an idea.
The idea of a "reality" that is independent of ideas is itself an idea.
> "The conceptual framework", whatever that means, itself doesn't have a
> basis in reality, except as it follows from a misuse, or a very peculiar
> use, of language.
"The conceptual framework" is an idea in the conceptual framework.
andy-k
> "andy-k" wrote:
>> "gibbs" wrote:
>>>> How would we speak about such an "actual way of being independent of
>>>> our concepts and their relations", except by virtue of how we conceive
>>>> it? And if we have to conceive it in order to speak about it, then we
>>>> aren't speaking about that "actual way of being independent of our
>>>> concepts and their relations" but rather we are speaking about our
>>>> concepts and their relations.
>>>
>>> No, none of this follows logically, but only by assertion.
>>
>> Where is the logical error in my statement above?
>
> If the two of us are in a room and we are talking about painting, the
> premise that we are talking about concepts is false.
If we have no concept of painting then we wouldn't be able to talk about it.
> We are talking about an object that is independent of us.
The "me" concept and the "gibbs" concept would be discussing a third concept
that is distinct from "me" and "gibbs".
> The fact that our perceptions of the painting are illuminated by various
> concepts and that we can speak in generalities, doesn't imply that we are
> just speaking about concepts. We aren't. We are speaking about an object
> that is independent of us and any concepts we might have about it.
Unless we had a concept of "painting" to which we annex that label,
we wouldn't be capable of discussing paintings at all.
> In fact, all the concepts we use could be wrong (it could turn out that it
> wasn't a painting at all, but alien spaceship) and the only way it can be
> wrong is that there is something that is independent of us.
There are concepts that are distinct from the "me" concept and the "gibbs"
concept.
>>> I can see a person looking at a tree and I can see a tree. And I can
>>> see that that tree has nothing to do with that person and remains when
>>> that person walks away.
>>
>> And all because of the concepts of "I", person, tree, and vision.
>
> Not at all. When we see, we see. When we perceive anything we perceive,
> by definition, something that exists and exists independent of us. We
> don't see our concepts: we use concepts to enlighten our sense
> perceptions. What we perceive always exists and exists independently of
> us. If it doesn't, it is not a perception. It is a misperception: a
> hallucination. A hallucination, or a false perception, can be realized
> and corrected (say a drug wears off and we realize that the pink elephants
> we were seeing are actually not sitting in the room with us). It isn't
> because we saw illusory concepts, but because we didn't have a true
> perception. If our perception is only deluded (the ol' stick bent in the
> water or water in the desert tricks) there is always the possibility of
> correcting our delusion. But this isn't because we saw the wrong concept,
> but because we misapplied a concept.
What you're describing is a conceptual model of the process of perception,
and that conceptual model takes its place within the conceptual framework.
>>> The reason is simple. Because when I perceive I don't perceive
>>> concepts. Concepts illuminate my perceptions and allow me to designate a
>>> person and a tree.
>>
>> Perception and conception are just more concepts.
>
> So what? We can have the concept of perception, but that isn't a
> perception. I think this gets at the heart of what you've done: you have
> made up your own definition of the word "perception" that confuses it with
> something else.
Perception is how we conceive the organism to process information from its
sense organs. This is a conceptual model that takes its place within the
conceptual framework.
>>> But there is no logical reason that my cognitive experiences are not
>>> about a world independent of all concepts. What would be the practical
>>> applications of such a conjecture?
>
> Of this description? It only explains how we learn about the world we
> find ourselves in, why we create, change, or toss, concepts, why we can
> have real and useful knowledge about the world, about ourselves, etc. In
> other words, the strange description that you are making about how we
> interact with our world, how we talk to one another, how we know that we
> are talking to others, how we know learn about our world and exchange
> ideas about it, makes more sense and is radically simpler than what you
> have proposed.
What you're describing is a conceptual model of the conceived processes by
which the conceived organism is conceived to interact with its conceived
environment.
> What you've made isn't a description at all, but an interpretation based
> on the misunderstanding of words that neither you nor anyone else owns.
What I've made is a transition away from the default paradigm of cognitive
science, namely indirect realism.
gibbs
"andy-k" <spam.free@last> wrote in message
news:CH7Yg.17332$L.2...@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net...
> "Reality" is an idea.
Very lame.
gibbs
"andy-k" <spam.free@last> wrote in message
> What you're describing is a conceptual model of the conceived processes by
> which the conceived organism is conceived to interact with its conceived
> environment.
This is a massively confused "description" of what's happening.
chazwin
Lame but true!
gibbs
"chazwin" <chaz...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1160845430.9...@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
Reality is the object of an idea. Reality is the object of a concept.
Concepts have objects, which can be non-concepts and other concepts.
Learn what a concept is and learn what an idea is!
gibbs
"andy-k" <spam.free@last> wrote in message
> By "concept" I am referring to any aspect that is taken to have a boundary
> that distinguishes it from "everything else" (i.e. its complement), and by
> which it may be considered to have "membership criteria".
A concept is a mental abstraction, the result of conceptualizing. There are
two sorts of concepts: concepts built out of the experience of the world
and concepts derived from other concepts. All concepts are ultimately
derived from experience.
We have to be educated to have and to use concepts.
Citizen Bob
>> > "Reality" is an idea.
>> Very lame.
>Lame but true!
It all depends on which Worldview you adopt. If you adopt Idealism,
then it is true. If you adopt Realism, then it is not true.
The justification for adopting Realism is that it is the Worldview
adopted by productive physicists.
--
Govt is an insult to human dignity. With or without govt,
you would have good people doing good things and evil
people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil
things, that takes govt. Govt is the root of all evil.
gibbs
"Citizen Bob" <sp...@uce.gov> wrote in message
news:453121bf...@news-server.houston.rr.com...
> It all depends on which Worldview you adopt.
That's pretty much what it boils down to Bob. But it strikes me as
irrational to mistake the world with an idea of it. The world is not an
idea or a concept, but the object of an idea or concept. If you and I are
talking about the world, we are talking about the object of the concept of
the world (ie, about the world). If you and I are talking about dogs, we
are talking about the object of that concept (dogs) and that object may
actually have instances in the world. In the case of dogs, there are dogs!
In the case of boogeymen, we can talk about the object of our concept of
boogeymen, but there may or may not be an instance of boogeymen in the world
(something I doubt, but who knows? ;-))
Either way, we aren't talking about your concept or my concept (though we
talk loosely like that), but the objects of conceptual thought. Concepts
without objects are empty; objects without concepts are not noticed!
gibbs
> then it is true. If you adopt Realism, then it is not true.
> The justification for adopting Realism is that it is the Worldview
> adopted by productive physicists.
Hmmm..., Citizen Bob, probably "Concepts without objects are empty; objects
without concepts are not recognized!" is a better way to put it than,
gibbs
"andy-k" <spam.free@last> wrote in message
> Those properties themselves are concepts abstracted from comparisons
> of sameness and difference between things. Naming misleads us into
> thinking that there is something that "has" these properties (even naming
> them "properties", as if they "belong" to something, conspires in this
> error).
That depends on what sort of name is employed. A proper name names a
specific thing, but a common name names a class of objects (particulars, as
it were). A proper name is always meant to designate something. What a
common name names (a class) may or may not designate anything: it may be a
null class. "Horse" is a common name that is not a null class; "Seabiscuit"
designates a specific horse. The horse Seabiscuit is an instance of the
named class, "horse". "Unicorn" is a common name that names a class that is
null; it has no instances, except in the imagination.
gibbs
"andy-k" <spam.free@last> wrote in message
> What would you say is the difference between "the way things are"
> and "the way things are conceived to be"?
There is a clear distinction between these two notions. "The way things
are" does not have to be "the way things are conceived to be", and vice
versa.
> I'm inclined to agree with Hume on that point -- "I" is just a thought
> amongst other thoughts that arise within the conceptual framework,
> but it does hold a place within that framework nonetheless,
> and its reification is the ground upon which indirect realism is built.
What is designated by "I" is probably preconceptual in that it is probably
first a feeling. The self felt to be is probably the object of the thought
of self. As a term, "I" used by a particular person is more like a
substitute for a proper name or finger. It identifies the person who has
this feeling, conceptualizes it, and says, "I am.". Is this the ground that
realism (I'm not sure what "indirect realism" is) is built on? Maybe. What
if we suddenly lost this feeling and only had the collective feeling (it's
controversial, of course, to claim that there is a collective feeling, but I
think it is evident if we look at the animal world) "we". Realism would
still survive since it is the claim of reality independent of any mind.
>> Now I think your point might be that the mental representations are both
>> appearances and part of reality. There is an obvious sense in which
>> you're
>> right. Clearly, if I have appearances those very appearances (the mental
>> representations) are themselves real. If that is your point then I agree,
> No, that's not my point. My point is that when, say, a chair is manifest
> "in
> experience" (to use a common but misguided phrase), it is taken to be the
> chair "as subjectively experienced" (appearance) *as well as* a
> representation of the chair "as it objectively is" (reality) -- i.e. it is
> duplicated.
When we refer to a chair we experience we employ the concept of a chair to
name what we experience to imply its relation to other all other things that
are chair. Employing the concept "chair" (and saying the name, "chair",
which goes hand in hand with the employment of the concept) illuminates the
experience. The perceptual experience itself is a judgment of sorts: the
judgment that there is something other than the concept to which the concept
applies (or, simply, exists). It can be a false judgment (the object may
not exist). In that case, it isn't a perception, but a hallucination.
Whether it actually exists or not has no bearing on the concept employed,
for a conception doesn't imply existence like a perception does (as we
normally define "perception" and "conception" - what you no doubt take issue
with).
Suzana
andy-k wrote:
>>>
>
>
> By "concept" I am referring to any aspect that is taken to have a boundary
> that distinguishes it from "everything else" (i.e. its complement), and by
> which it may be considered to have "membership criteria".
It's not that concept have aspects that distingush it from 'everything
else'. It's that concepts have a refferent to something that exists P.
P (or reffereant) has aspects that distingush it from everything else
and thus concept that relates to it have it as well.
Craig Franck
> "Ted King" wrote:
>> There may be something to the part of what I said about andy-k thinking
>> there are no natural distinctions. But I'm not sure that he thinks that
>> way (or that "fuzzy edges" matter much) and it may very well be that the
>> core of disagreement lies elsewhere - in fact, it could very well be
>> that the reason he thinks there are not natural distinctions (assuming
>> he does) is because he doesn't think we can say anything meaningful
>> about the part of reality independent of cognition. I think andy-k would
>> agree that there is part of reality independent of cognition (he said he
>> is not a solipsist), but he has stated more than once that we cannot say
>> anything about that part of reality.
>
> It often seems implicit in debate that a denial of solipsism implies a
> belief in indirect realism and vice versa, as though the law of the
> excluded
> middle operates here. My claim is that this impression is specious.
The reasoning is it is logically inconsistent to hold that current
states of being represent past states of being in the form of memories,
but then to deny indirect realism when the same logical relationship
stands between our current mental states and an external world.
As a minimum, you need indirect realism of past states: past states
are external to the current one (time wise, if nothing else), and in some
sense "real" in that they are independent of what we think about them
and statements about them can be false.
The basic idea is you need a mental framework capable of generating
ideas about the mental framework. For example, if someone says
"nothing exists but the present, and there are no valid "records" of
the past," how the heck would you determine that?
If a solipsist said "I checked out a book about Solipsism from the
library last Tuesday" I can respond, "What's this 'last Tuesday
business?'"
There is no hope without some form of representationalism.
--
Craig Franck
craig....@verizon.net
Cortland, NY
Craig Franck
> "andy-k" wrote
The point is that all that is ever given in a perceptual field are
relations of some kind. There similarities and differences of distinct
kinds of perceptions, but it is always given as a unified whole. You
abstract individual things.
It is easy to see I abstract my feet from the blob-feeling of my body,
or a drum beat from a song. But saying I abstract a picture of Gillian
Anderson from my wall calendar is also correct, phenomenologically
speaking: there is just a field of colors and shapes with a sense of
volume.
A criticism of Realism is the claim there is a relation between what
is perceived and some external object, but all that is perceived are
relations between perceptions. A relation of "All my perceptions and
something else" is a different kind than is ever given in perceptions.
gibbs
"Craig Franck" <craig....@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:%leYg.1730$IW6.793@trndny01...
> The point is that all that is ever given in a perceptual field are
> relations of some kind. There similarities and differences of distinct
> kinds of perceptions, but it is always given as a unified whole. You
> abstract individual things.
>
> It is easy to see I abstract my feet from the blob-feeling of my body,
> or a drum beat from a song. But saying I abstract a picture of Gillian
> Anderson from my wall calendar is also correct, phenomenologically
> speaking: there is just a field of colors and shapes with a sense of
> volume.
Do you abstract individual things or do you abstract a unified whole? I
think we perceptually experience individual things with common aspects and
create general concepts. We experience individual horses and create the
concept of "horse", an abstraction from experience. A concept, once formed
and remembered (by creating a common name), illuminates further experience:
it makes life easier and that's why concept formation is strong evolutionary
trait.
> A criticism of Realism is the claim there is a relation between what
> is perceived and some external object, but all that is perceived are
> relations between perceptions. A relation of "All my perceptions and
> something else" is a different kind than is ever given in perceptions.
I'm not quite sure of what you're saying here. Realism (as far as it
applies to perception) is simply the claim that a perception is
simultaneously the judgment that what is perceived exists independent of
whoever is doing the perceiving. A false perception is not a perception, it
is a hallucination or illusion. There certainly is a relation between the
perceiver and what is perceived. But how the perceiver perceives (eg, we
perceive things a human being would) has no bearing on the independence of
what is perceived from the perceiver. Conceiving (conceptualizing,
conceptual thought) is something else.
gibbs
"Suzana" <suz...@hwcn.org> wrote in message
news:1160858505.0...@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> It's not that concept have aspects that distingush it from 'everything
> else'. It's that concepts have a refferent to something that exists P.
> P (or reffereant) has aspects that distingush it from everything else
> and thus concept that relates to it have it as well.
A very good point. What distinguishes the concept "horse" from the concept
"freedom" or the concept of "pain" is that the object of each concept (its
extension, referent, instance) is different. Both are generalizations of
thought that make it easier to think and talk about the world and ourselves.
andy-k
> "andy-k" wrote
>> It often seems implicit in debate that a denial of solipsism implies a
>> belief in indirect realism and vice versa, as though the law of the
>> excluded middle operates here. My claim is that this impression is
>> specious.
>
> The reasoning is it is logically inconsistent to hold that current
> states of being represent past states of being in the form of memories,
> but then to deny indirect realism when the same logical relationship
> stands between our current mental states and an external world.
>
> As a minimum, you need indirect realism of past states: past states
> are external to the current one (time wise, if nothing else), and in some
> sense "real" in that they are independent of what we think about them
> and statements about them can be false.
>
> The basic idea is you need a mental framework capable of generating
> ideas about the mental framework. For example, if someone says
> "nothing exists but the present, and there are no valid "records" of
> the past," how the heck would you determine that?
>
> If a solipsist said "I checked out a book about Solipsism from the
> library last Tuesday" I can respond, "What's this 'last Tuesday
> business?'"
>
> There is no hope without some form of representationalism.
Thanks Craig.
It's not representation per se that I'm rejecting, but the idea that the
conceptual framework is a mere representation ("appearance") of
something beyond it ("reality"). (Neither am I saying that there is nothing
beyond it -- that would be a misapplication of the law of the excluded
middle.) All representation is representation of something else in the
conceptual framework. Regarding your point about representation of the
past, the past is a concept that takes its place in the framework, and
denotes present memories (either of events themselves or of stories
about events). The past is not "somewhere else" beyond the framework,
but rather is embedded in the framework as an aspect of its present
condition. Similarly the future is a concept that denotes present
anticipations embedded in the framework, and is not "somewhere else"
beyond the framework. The problem is that we have a picture of some
kind of substantive "time" that "flows" like a river, and misleads us into
regarding past and future as "somewhere else".
chazwin
Duh!! All objects are concepts too, patronizing idiot! In fact there is
nothing that is not a concept, as all things are conceptualised.
mikeg...@xtra.co.nz
chazwin wrote:
> Duh!! All objects are concepts too, patronizing idiot! In fact there is
> nothing that is not a concept, as all things are conceptualised.
Hey bozo, grab a stick sharpen the end and then give yourself a poke in
the eye and see (if you can) how much of a *concept* that fucking well
isn't. goodgod what a twit.
How are you coming along with the name of a really intelligent person
who claims it is not an absolute 100% certain fact of reality that man
can not survive in the so called vacuum of space, out-side of his
spaceship, without wearing a special space-suit?
Michael Gordge
chazwin
mikeg...@xtra.co.nz wrote:
> chazwin wrote:
> > Duh!! All objects are concepts too, patronizing idiot! In fact there is
> > nothing that is not a concept, as all things are conceptualised.
>
> Hey bozo, grab a stick sharpen the end and then give yourself a poke in
> the eye and see (if you can) how much of a *concept* that fucking well
> isn't. goodgod what a twit.
Pain is a concept. Get over it! Some people claim to not feel it, some
claim to overcome it. Other people call it: pijn, douleur, shmetz,
dolore, dor etc. This makes it a concept. The fact that you have
dreamed up this little fantasy makes it a concept. The verb to poke is
a concept, a twit is a concept. You are a fuckwit.
>
> How are you coming along with the name of a really intelligent person
> who claims it is not an absolute 100% certain fact of reality that man
> can not survive in the so called vacuum of space, out-side of his
> spaceship, without wearing a special space-suit?
You have accepted this information on FAITH, wanker! Now prove to me
that you can't breath in space. Don't get me wrong though (because you
get everything else wrong), I beleive that space IS a vacuum and that
you also need air to breath. BUT I have no grounds for being absolutely
100% certain of this and I have, just like you, taken this information
on FAITH.
Now try again wanker. Prove it!
You can not do it becasue your concept of truth is faulty.
>
>
> Michael Gordge
mikeg...@xtra.co.nz
chazwin wrote:
> mikeg...@xtra.co.nz wrote:
> > chazwin wrote:
> > > Duh!! All objects are concepts too, patronizing idiot! In fact there is
> > > nothing that is not a concept, as all things are conceptualised.
> >
> > Hey bozo, grab a stick sharpen the end and then give yourself a poke in
> > the eye and see (if you can) how much of a *concept* that fucking well
> > isn't. goodgod what a twit.
>
> Pain is a concept. Get over it!
I wasn't talking about the pain your dumb arse, I was talking about the
damage, get over it.
BTW have you come up with the name of a really intelligent person who
claims it is not an absolute 100% certain fact of reality that man can
not survive in the so called vacuum of space without wearing a special
space suit?
How about the name of an intelligent who cant claim to be absolutely
that Maggie Thatcher has been a PM of GB.
MG
gibbs
>> Reality is the object of an idea. Reality is the object of a concept.
>> Concepts have objects, which can be non-concepts and other concepts.
>>
>> Learn what a concept is and learn what an idea is!
>
> Duh!! All objects are concepts too, patronizing idiot! In fact there is
> nothing that is not a concept, as all things are conceptualised.
Because we can conceptualize (think abstractly) doesn't mean that all things
are concepts. In fact, the logic of it works the other way around: because
there are things that can be conceptualized (thought about abstractly),
concepts are possible (if there is someone that can form concepts).
"All things are conceptualized" implies that there is a conceptualizer who
cannot be a concept, even though it can be the object of a concept.
gibbs
> Pain is a concept. Get over it! Some people claim to not feel it, some
> claim to overcome it. Other people call it: pijn, douleur, shmetz,
> dolore, dor etc. This makes it a concept. The fact that you have
> dreamed up this little fantasy makes it a concept. The verb to poke is
> a concept, a twit is a concept. You are a fuckwit.
Pain is a private experience. The fact that we can give it different names
just means that the words we use to designate it are arbitarary. It doesn't
mean that it is a concept.
Learn what a concept is!
chazwin
mikeg...@xtra.co.nz wrote:
> chazwin wrote:
> > mikeg...@xtra.co.nz wrote:
> > > chazwin wrote:
> > > > Duh!! All objects are concepts too, patronizing idiot! In fact there is
> > > > nothing that is not a concept, as all things are conceptualised.
> > >
> > > Hey bozo, grab a stick sharpen the end and then give yourself a poke in
> > > the eye and see (if you can) how much of a *concept* that fucking well
> > > isn't. goodgod what a twit.
> >
> > Pain is a concept. Get over it!
>
> I wasn't talking about the pain your dumb arse, I was talking about the
> damage, get over it.
>
> BTW have you come up with the name of a really intelligent person who
> claims it is not an absolute 100% certain fact of reality that man can
> not survive in the so called vacuum of space without wearing a special
> space suit?
WHy do I have to? I think the onus is on you to prove your case but you
have not the wit, or the means to do it.
Your own method of determining truth is faulty and cannot attempt such
a question.
You have accepted this on FAITH!
You are a wanker!
>
> How about the name of an intelligent who cant claim to be absolutely
> that Maggie Thatcher has been a PM of GB.
Same goes for this question.
>
> MG
Citizen Bob
<gib...@fakedemailaddress.edu> wrote:
>> It all depends on which Worldview you adopt.
>That's pretty much what it boils down to Bob. But it strikes me as
>irrational to mistake the world with an idea of it.
A Worldview is not an idea of the world. It is the set of principles
that you adopt to build a formal rational system to deal with the
world.
For example, the Worldview of Existential Realism (aka "direct
realism") is composed of these fundamental principles:
1) The Principle of Being, which is an act that constitutes itself by
asserting itself. This is also known as the "Authority of the Senses"
in Existential Metaphysics (Scholastic Philosophy). It says that if
you experience Being you can know that something is really out there.
This principle is what productive physicists use to validate their
studies. It is supported by the fact that physicists can make accurate
predictions of the outcome of future events.
2) Principle of Consistency (aka "Principle of Non-Contradiction).
This comes from Aristotle.
3) Principle of Causality.
By contrast the Worldview of Idealism does not require those
principles. There are no objects in the subjective world of the mind.
There is no imposition of consistency or causality. I can fantasize
about all sorts of things that do not exist as real objects, that are
contradictory and do not rely on causality for their presence in my
mind.
The Worldview of Realism leads to Ontology. The Worldview of Idealism
leads to Epistemology. They are completely separate worlds other than
brain activity is ontological.
You cannot adopt the Worldview of Idealism when dealing with the
objective ontological world. You cannot adopt the Worldview of Realism
when dealing with the subjective epistemological world.
It is possible to impose Consistency and Causality on certain
subjective epistemological activity, but it is an artificial
imposition. For example, mathematics and logic have such impositions
placed on them. That's why there is some liason between
mathematics/logic and the realist objective ontological world. But
they remain separate worlds.
Citizen Bob
<gib...@fakedemailaddress.edu> wrote:
>Hmmm..., Citizen Bob, probably "Concepts without objects are empty;
Correct. They have no ontological content. They are not substances in
the Aristotlean/Thomistic sense.
>objects without concepts are not recognized!"
I disagree. Being manifests itself directly to your awareness. There
is no requirement for recognition of what the object is.
An infant puts his hand on a hot stove burner and immediately
perceives Being - something out there that is asserting itself on his
senses. But the infant has no clue what it is that is doing that to
him. He recognizes Being, but has no concept of what it is.
Ted King
"andy-k" <spam.free@last> wrote:
>
> Given that "experiencer", "experiencing", and "experienced" are concepts
> that arise in mutual dependence within the conceptual framework (i.e.
> none of the elements in this set can arise in the absence of the other two
> elements), isn't talk of the conceptual framework as being "experienced"
> begging the question (i.e. making the assumption of indirect realism) yet
> again?
Actually I think it has been a mistake on my part to try to elucidate
examples of how a term can have a referent that is not a concept because
all you do is look at the words I use to give the example and say - hey,
those words refer only to concepts, too. Isn't that as much a begging of
the question as you say I am doing? You assume that terms only have
concepts as referents and then use that assumption to show that the
terms I use only have concepts as referents! With that assumption in
place, it is literally impossible to say anything that would show the
assumption could be wrong. *Can you present an argument for the
proposition that terms only refer to concepts that does not have as one
of its assumptions that terms only refer to concepts?* I don't recall
seeing one yet. You could fairly enough ask if I can present an argument
for the proposition that terms can refer to something other than
concepts that does not have as one of its assumptions that there may be
something other than concepts. No I can't - but I did present reason to
think that there is something other than concepts (which, if accepted
can be used to argue that terms can refer to something other than
concepts). But you say in another post that the reason I gave relies on
the law of the excluded middle. Your reason for rejecting that seems,
once again, to rest on the assumption that terms only have concepts as
referents. That is, talk of there only being this or that possibility
relies on using terminology that has as a referent something which is
not a concept and as such is nonsense - presumably because you assume
terms only have concepts as referents. If you don't accept the reason I
gave that relied on the law of the excluded middle and I don't accept
your assumption that terms only have concepts as referents, I don't see
any way we will ever be able to resolve the difference.
Ted
chazwin
chazwin
get your thumb out of your arse, let go of your
little cock at wipe your self off.
Now stop for just one moment and consider this.
I am happy that as you rise above the earth the atmosphere gets
thinner and thinner and eventually you will die without help. In this
we are in agreement.
My versions of truth have helped me to understand this fact. What I
understand of the world via truth and meaning have led me to a point
where I am 99.99999% certain that this is indeed true. But there is a
slight problem.
You are the problem.
Your version of truth does not give you access to this information.
Let me state why.
You insist that reality can be understood via the senses, that those
things which appear to be contradictory have to be reconcilled and
choices made until your picture of reality contains no contradictions.
You claim, here, and on other Newsgroups that sense data has to be
employed to construct your reality, and despite 1000s of errors in
judgement from scientists in history reality is no different now than
it has ever been. Indeed reality is real and all we have to do is
observe it carefully without contradictions to find out what is really
there.
I insist that 90% of what you think and believe is NOT derived from
such a system of truth.
My system of truth works because it admits things for which I have no
experience. As I have said "truth" has many meanings and we all derive
our view of the universe from all of them to differing degrees: relying
on hearsay and beliefs that defy common sense - even scientific truths
seem to defy common sense.
Example: I have never seen Machu Pichu, but believe it exists as I rely
on "truth as authority". I am happy to accept people's assertion that
it exists, and have seen pictures which seem consistent with other
examples. But ultimately I rely on the authority of my sources.
You have a serious problem as without seeing Machu Pichu you are unable
to run it past your truth detector. You have no personal experience of
it.
Such is also the case with the vacuum of space. You have faith in
science. You have accepted on faith that you need a space suit. You
have never met an astronaut (but he might be lying), you have never
been in space. Your method of truth cannot decide whether or not it is
true. Eventhough a vacuum contradicts your common sense (literally), as
every moment of your life has been lived without a vacuum.
> How are you coming along with the name of a really intelligent person
> who claims it is not an absolute 100% certain fact of reality that man
> can not survive in the so called vacuum of space, out-side of his
> spaceship, without wearing a special space-suit?
This is a pure example of your reliance on "truth as authority".
I might ask what you think "really intelligent person" means but that
is a whole new story.
Chazwin
1Z
andy-k wrote:
> Thanks Craig.
> It's not representation per se that I'm rejecting, but the idea that the
> conceptual framework is a mere representation ("appearance") of
> something beyond it ("reality"). (Neither am I saying that there is nothing
> beyond it -- that would be a misapplication of the law of the excluded
> middle.) All representation is representation of something else in the
> conceptual framework.
Not necessarily, since concepts can represent non-concepts.
1Z
andy-k wrote:
> Whilst I reject indirect realism, I also reject idealism, if idealism is
> taken to mean that everything is "in the mind". Mind is just another concept
> in the conceptual framework,
If everything is conceptual, everything is mental.
1Z
andy-k wrote:
> "gibbs" wrote:
> > "andy-k" wrote:
> >> That external "reality" is then posited as the explanation of why the
> >> conceptual framework takes the form that it does.
> >
> > Of course, the whole idea of "the conceptual framework" is suspect as a
> > hypothesis or an explanation. There is no reality "posited" in
> > experience. Reality is experienced. To claim that reality is posited is
> > an abuse of language and the making up of definitions of words as you want
> > them to be defined. Nor is reality inferred, whether it be the objects
> > external to us, objects of thought (generalities or universals) that we
> > can talk about that may or may not be instantiated in the world, or
> > entirely private experiences (like what it feels like when someone aims a
> > blowtorch at your foot).
>
> "Reality" is an idea.
The idea of reality is an idea.
> The idea of a "reality" that is independent of ideas is itself an idea.
Which refers to a reality independent of ideas, since ideas can refer.
>
> > "The conceptual framework", whatever that means, itself doesn't have a
> > basis in reality, except as it follows from a misuse, or a very peculiar
> > use, of language.
>
> "The conceptual framework" is an idea in the conceptual framework.
One of those rare idea/comncepts that really does only refer to
other ideas/concepts.
1Z
Conceptualising somethig doesn't turn it into a concept ,
any more than painting it turns it into oli on canvas. It is
still whatever it was in the first place.
gibbs
"1Z" <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1160932762....@m7g2000cwm.googlegroups.com...
> Conceptualising somethig doesn't turn it into a concept ,
> any more than painting it turns it into oli on canvas. It is
> still whatever it was in the first place.
Good point!
Suzana
Thank you. And yes. Thus we can talk about 'freedom' even if we live in
despotic regime, or talk about 'horse' even if horse is not right
beside us. They are tools for communication.
gibbs
"Citizen Bob" <sp...@uce.gov> wrote in message
news:453243a2....@news-server.houston.rr.com...
> I disagree. Being manifests itself directly to your awareness. There
> is no requirement for recognition of what the object is.
You're probably right. There are experiences where we are aware suddenly
aware of something and react automatically without recognition.
andy-k
I'd like to understand your argument here, but I'm not there yet so I'd ask
you to be patient with me.
Firstly, I'm not attacking you personally for begging the question. Indirect
realism is a widely subscribed paradigm, and it is indirect realism that I'm
attacking for begging the question.
Secondly, I'm not following you on the point of my begging the question
by claiming that proper names always relate to concepts -- this isn't an
assumption as far as I can see, but a description of the way that language
operates. How could language operate in the absence of the conceptual
framework? The indirect realist would answer "the proper name refers not
to the concept but to the thing itself" -- which is to recruit indirect
realism in support of indirect realism. Indirect realism is such a seductive
paradigm that I'm not in the least embarrassed by the fact that I took it as
axiomatic for so long. If anything at all may be referred to as "percept"
then it is the flux out of which all concepts emerge, for if sameness is
acknowledged then conception has already taken place. Any talk of
"pure percepts", then, is nonsensical, since the plural implies that the
flux has already been shattered into recognizable portions, or concepts.
Thirdly, I'm not suggesting for an instant that "there is nothing other than
concepts", but rather that nothing can be *said* of anything other than
concepts. You refer to my rejection of your argument from the law of the
excluded middle -- I presume you're referring to my claim that the statement
"either indirect realism or solipsism must be the case" is specious.
I'm having no success in linking this to your point that I'm begging the
question by claiming that proper names always refer to concepts.
What I'm rejecting is the idea that there is a "thing-in-itself" that is the
"real existent", and that the concept of that "thing-in-itself" is merely a
mental representation of it (appearance), and furthermore that the
"thing-in-itself" can be an object of linguistic reference just as is the
concept of it. Whatever is not conceived cannot be made an object of
linguistic reference -- the "thing-in-itself" is an addition to the
conceptual framework and not something beyond it.
Finally, I hope this doesn't all come down to each of us saying to the other
"I don't accept your argument and there's an end to it". I would hope that
any such rejection would be supported by reasons. If you feel I've failed to
do that, then please point me to my omissions so that I may reappraise my
line of argument.
Craig Franck
> "Craig Franck" wrote
>> The point is that all that is ever given in a perceptual field are
>> relations of some kind. There similarities and differences of distinct
>> kinds of perceptions, but it is always given as a unified whole. You
>> abstract individual things.
>>
>> It is easy to see I abstract my feet from the blob-feeling of my body,
>> or a drum beat from a song. But saying I abstract a picture of Gillian
>> Anderson from my wall calendar is also correct, phenomenologically
>> speaking: there is just a field of colors and shapes with a sense of
>> volume.
>
> Do you abstract individual things or do you abstract a unified whole?
Infants most likely experience things initially as a unified whole,
as do some mystics and drug users.
(There is the issue of whether it is the body or environment which
differentiates out of the whole. Freud believed all was initially seen
as self, but I believe this is backwards and the body idea is formed
as a theory of perception an infant unconsciously forms by
interacting with objects.Prior to that, the body is just another
object.)
>I think we perceptually experience individual things with common aspects
>and create general concepts.
That true with almost everyone. You form an idea about how your
experiences are organized, and then everything confirms it.
>> A criticism of Realism is the claim there is a relation between what
>> is perceived and some external object, but all that is perceived are
>> relations between perceptions. A relation of "All my perceptions and
>> something else" is a different kind than is ever given in perceptions.
>
> I'm not quite sure of what you're saying here. Realism (as far as it
> applies to perception) is simply the claim that a perception is
> simultaneously the judgment that what is perceived exists independent of
> whoever is doing the perceiving.
But that relation is never given in perception. We infer the existence
of objects that are external to the mind that cause our perceptions.
But it is never given as anything other than animal intuition.
We see large rocks and think of them as hard and heavy, but that
is not given by just looking at them. If pick you one up and find it is
made out of painted foam, that comes as a shock.
If you have an actual rock set next to a holographic rock, the image
of which is turned off whenever you look away, can you tell which
is which?
Craig Franck
> It's not representation per se that I'm rejecting, but the idea that the
> conceptual framework is a mere representation ("appearance") of
> something beyond it ("reality"). (Neither am I saying that there is
> nothing
> beyond it -- that would be a misapplication of the law of the excluded
> middle.) All representation is representation of something else in the
> conceptual framework.
That works, but then there is the issue of the present self being
nothing but a representation in the framework. I hit my thumb with
a hammer, and it hurts. Ten minutes later someone asks me what
happened to my thumb. I tell them.
It is the fact that hitting my thumb feels more real than my memory
of hitting my thumb that makes the experience seem "more real."
What explains the contrast?
It's like someone told me they were dead, and I tell them I can see
them, and they say "that's because you're dead too!" or we are on
a planet of zombies.
All I can conclude is your system is logically flawless, but my
experiences and intuitions tell me I would never take such a thing
up myself.
> Regarding your point about representation of the
> past, the past is a concept that takes its place in the framework, and
> denotes present memories (either of events themselves or of stories
> about events). The past is not "somewhere else" beyond the framework,
> but rather is embedded in the framework as an aspect of its present
> condition. Similarly the future is a concept that denotes present
> anticipations embedded in the framework, and is not "somewhere else"
> beyond the framework. The problem is that we have a picture of some
> kind of substantive "time" that "flows" like a river, and misleads us into
> regarding past and future as "somewhere else".
You've clearly thought all this through, but I think the problem is
more that if I know how to do brain surgery, it is because I spent
years in medical school training. The word "be-cause" has a
metaphysical sense in that it "caused" be to become expert. Most
people would want to take credit for that, but for them to do so,
those experiences must be as real as the one's I'm having now.
So you need to be able to construct a time line in which events
are spread out. (It's also not clear that the framework can function
in zero-point time, since language itself cannot.Calling time an
illusion makes everything an illusion since we exist in time.)
If all this fits into the conceptual framework, then my comments
can't be taken as any kind of refutation.
gibbs
> But that relation is never given in perception. We infer the existence
> of objects that are external to the mind that cause our perceptions.
> But it is never given as anything other than animal intuition.
> We see large rocks and think of them as hard and heavy, but that
> is not given by just looking at them. If pick you one up and find it is
> made out of painted foam, that comes as a shock.
> If you have an actual rock set next to a holographic rock, the image
> of which is turned off whenever you look away, can you tell which
> is which?
I wouldn't say we infer the existence of objects. I never do, do you? The
only time we would do that is if we thought we might be hallucinating and
wanted to prove to ourselves that we aren't. There is no distinction in
perceptual experience between the experience and the judgment of existence.
That comes with analysis.
I'm not sure what your example of the rock is trying to show? Our visual
experience has nothing to do with determining an object's weight. Also, our
perceptual experience isn't infallible. We can make the mistake of thinking
that we see a rock when it actually isn't one. Getting a closer look or
picking it up tells us it isn't a rock, but we weren't doubting whether
something was actually there.
Robert Epstein
> On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 14:31:18 -0400, "gibbs"
> <gib...@fakedemailaddress.edu> wrote:
>
>
>>Hmmm..., Citizen Bob, probably "Concepts without objects are empty;
>
>
> Correct. They have no ontological content. They are not substances in
> the Aristotlean/Thomistic sense.
>
>
>>objects without concepts are not recognized!"
>
>
> I disagree. Being manifests itself directly to your awareness. There
> is no requirement for recognition of what the object is.
>
> An infant puts his hand on a hot stove burner and immediately
> perceives Being - something out there that is asserting itself on his
> senses.
That is not Being, that is the opposite.
where are you guys posting from?
not from absfg, I am sure.
robert
= = = = = = = =
Robert Epstein
> On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 14:08:06 -0400, "gibbs"
> <gib...@fakedemailaddress.edu> wrote:
>
>
>>>It all depends on which Worldview you adopt.
>
>
>>That's pretty much what it boils down to Bob. But it strikes me as
>>irrational to mistake the world with an idea of it.
>
>
> A Worldview is not an idea of the world. It is the set of principles
> that you adopt to build a formal rational system to deal with the
> world.
>
> For example, the Worldview of Existential Realism (aka "direct
> realism") is composed of these fundamental principles:
>
> 1) The Principle of Being, which is an act that constitutes itself by
> asserting itself.
That is the opposite of Being. Being doesn't do anything. You are
waaaay off.
Ted King
"andy-k" <spam.free@last> wrote:
I must have woke up on the wrong side of the bed yesterday. I am getting
frustrated, though. Part of the frustration is that you have written
responses to my comments that include elements of ideas I did not
mention, nor do I see that they are necessarily implied by what I said.
>
> Secondly, I'm not following you on the point of my begging the question
> by claiming that proper names always relate to concepts -- this isn't an
> assumption as far as I can see, but a description of the way that language
> operates. How could language operate in the absence of the conceptual
> framework? The indirect realist would answer "the proper name refers not
> to the concept but to the thing itself" -- which is to recruit indirect
> realism in support of indirect realism. Indirect realism is such a seductive
> paradigm that I'm not in the least embarrassed by the fact that I took it as
> axiomatic for so long. If anything at all may be referred to as "percept"
> then it is the flux out of which all concepts emerge, for if sameness is
> acknowledged then conception has already taken place. Any talk of
> "pure percepts", then, is nonsensical, since the plural implies that the
> flux has already been shattered into recognizable portions, or concepts.
>
> Thirdly, I'm not suggesting for an instant that "there is nothing other than
> concepts", but rather that nothing can be *said* of anything other than
> concepts.
I got that that is what you think, though I don't accept it.
You refer to my rejection of your argument from the law of the
> excluded middle -- I presume you're referring to my claim that the statement
> "either indirect realism or solipsism must be the case" is specious.
> I'm having no success in linking this to your point that I'm begging the
> question by claiming that proper names always refer to concepts.
> What I'm rejecting is the idea that there is a "thing-in-itself" that is the
> "real existent", and that the concept of that "thing-in-itself" is merely a
> mental representation of it (appearance),
I tried to address that but you didn't respond directly to what I said;
i.e., I said that if the part of reality that is not concepts is not
completely uniform than it follows that there are differences and those
differences are inherent characteristics (qualities or properties), and
I further talked about assuming that some sensory information reliably
provides impressions of those differences. Your response involved talk
of "self" and "appearance" - notions I said nothing about, and frankly I
don't even see as implied by what I said. Hence, my frustration.
and furthermore that the
> "thing-in-itself" can be an object of linguistic reference just as is the
> concept of it. Whatever is not conceived cannot be made an object of
> linguistic reference -- the "thing-in-itself" is an addition to the
> conceptual framework and not something beyond it.
I don't accept that and I've given reasons for that rejection. But once
again I didn't see a direct response.
>
> Finally, I hope this doesn't all come down to each of us saying to the other
> "I don't accept your argument and there's an end to it". I would hope that
> any such rejection would be supported by reasons. If you feel I've failed to
> do that, then please point me to my omissions so that I may reappraise my
> line of argument.
I do think I've provided reasons. I'm afraid I've let my frustration
grow to the point where it is going to get in the way - as the
"testiness" of my post yesterday showed. That is, of course, a failing
on my part and not yours. Never-the-less, that is the way I am feeling
so I think it would be better to just let this discussion go. I do
appreciate that you have been civil and thoughtful in your posts, and
it's generally good for my noggin to exercise it by pondering on these
kinds of questions so I thank you for that.
Ted
Citizen Bob
<epste...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 1) The Principle of Being, which is an act that constitutes itself by
>> asserting itself.
>That is the opposite of Being. Being doesn't do anything. You are
>waaaay off.
You clearly do not understand Existential Metaphysics.
Read:
On Being and Essence
by Thomas Aquinas
Translated by Armand Maurer
Paperback: 80 pages
Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies
(Second Ed. 1968)
ISBN: 0888442505
1Z
Are you sure it isn't question-begging to declar that concepts can't
refer to non-concepts.
> Secondly, I'm not following you on the point of my begging the question
> by claiming that proper names always relate to concepts -- this isn't an
> assumption as far as I can see, but a description of the way that language
> operates. How could language operate in the absence of the conceptual
> framework?
By relating sounds directly to perceived things
or situations, as in animal cries.
> The indirect realist would answer "the proper name refers not
> to the concept but to the thing itself"
That would surely be *direct* realism.
> -- which is to recruit indirect
> realism in support of indirect realism. Indirect realism is such a seductive
> paradigm that I'm not in the least embarrassed by the fact that I took it as
> axiomatic for so long. If anything at all may be referred to as "percept"
> then it is the flux out of which all concepts emerge, for if sameness is
> acknowledged then conception has already taken place. Any talk of
> "pure percepts", then, is nonsensical, since the plural implies that the
> flux has already been shattered into recognizable portions, or concepts.
There may be an intermediate stage where percepts have been separated,
but not yet logically interaleted.
> Thirdly, I'm not suggesting for an instant that "there is nothing other than
> concepts", but rather that nothing can be *said* of anything other than
> concepts.
Which is not merely question-beggin but actually false.
> You refer to my rejection of your argument from the law of the
> excluded middle -- I presume you're referring to my claim that the statement
> "either indirect realism or solipsism must be the case" is specious.
> I'm having no success in linking this to your point that I'm begging the
> question by claiming that proper names always refer to concepts.
> What I'm rejecting is the idea that there is a "thing-in-itself" that is the
> "real existent", and that the concept of that "thing-in-itself" is merely a
> mental representation of it (appearance), and furthermore that the
> "thing-in-itself" can be an object of linguistic reference just as is the
> concept of it. Whatever is not conceived cannot be made an object of
> linguistic reference -- the "thing-in-itself" is an addition to the
> conceptual framework and not something beyond it.
What is not conceived can be an object of reference.
Just not of sense.
andy-k
> I'm afraid I've let my frustration grow to the point where it is going to
> get in the way - as the "testiness" of my post yesterday showed. That is,
> of course, a failing on my part and not yours. Never-the-less, that is the
> way I am feeling so I think it would be better to just let this discussion
> go. I do appreciate that you have been civil and thoughtful in your posts,
> and it's generally good for my noggin to exercise it by pondering on these
> kinds of questions so I thank you for that.
As you wish.
andy-k
> "andy-k" wrote
>> It's not representation per se that I'm rejecting, but the idea that the
>> conceptual framework is a mere representation ("appearance") of
>> something beyond it ("reality"). (Neither am I saying that there is
>> nothing beyond it -- that would be a misapplication of the law of the
>> excluded middle.) All representation is representation of something
>> else in the conceptual framework.
>
> That works, but then there is the issue of the present self being
> nothing but a representation in the framework. I hit my thumb with
> a hammer, and it hurts. Ten minutes later someone asks me what
> happened to my thumb. I tell them.
>
> It is the fact that hitting my thumb feels more real than my memory
> of hitting my thumb that makes the experience seem "more real."
> What explains the contrast?
>
> It's like someone told me they were dead, and I tell them I can see
> them, and they say "that's because you're dead too!" or we are on
> a planet of zombies.
>
> All I can conclude is your system is logically flawless, but my
> experiences and intuitions tell me I would never take such a thing
> up myself.
Here is a fascinating 56 minute lecture (it starts just after minute 7)
on the "illusion" of selfhood, given by the German philosopher
Thomas Metzinger:
http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.asp?showID=9181
>> Regarding your point about representation of the
>> past, the past is a concept that takes its place in the framework, and
>> denotes present memories (either of events themselves or of stories
>> about events). The past is not "somewhere else" beyond the framework,
>> but rather is embedded in the framework as an aspect of its present
>> condition. Similarly the future is a concept that denotes present
>> anticipations embedded in the framework, and is not "somewhere else"
>> beyond the framework. The problem is that we have a picture of some
>> kind of substantive "time" that "flows" like a river, and misleads us
>> into regarding past and future as "somewhere else".
>
> You've clearly thought all this through, but I think the problem is
> more that if I know how to do brain surgery, it is because I spent
> years in medical school training. The word "be-cause" has a
> metaphysical sense in that it "caused" be to become expert. Most
> people would want to take credit for that, but for them to do so,
> those experiences must be as real as the one's I'm having now.
The self concept appropriates -- i.e. once there's a "me"
there's also a "mine" along with everything entailed by that.
> So you need to be able to construct a time line in which events
> are spread out. (It's also not clear that the framework can function
> in zero-point time, since language itself cannot. Calling time an
> illusion makes everything an illusion since we exist in time.)
I reject the substantivalist idea of "events-in-themselves", the eternally
unchanging naked bearers of the attributes of events. Were that the case
then events-in-themselves would exist in splendid isolation, eternally
bearing no relations with each other, and therefore bearing no *temporal*
relations with each other. I also reject the substantivalist view of time --
the idea of "time-in-itself", the eternally unchanging naked bearer of
temporal relations between events, that would exist in the absence of those
events and of their relations. There is no "past-in-itself", no
"present-in-itself", and no "future-in-itself", else how would they relate
to one another? I embrace the idea that "time" is a word we use to denote
the existence of the relations "before" and "after", and to denote the
existence of duration. We say things like "there's not enough time for
that", and so language gives us the impression of time as a substantive.
We then unconsciously reify time and consider it to be that very substance.
I've always felt that Special Relativity is a model that provides a better
description of the way that objects and events relate to each other under
extreme conditions, but that we lose something in the process -- namely
*change* (or perhaps you might prefer the word flow?). This has always
made me feel uncomfortable with SR despite the obvious advance on previous
conceptions of time. The bottom line for me is that the conceptual framework
*changes*. We abstract invariants because they help us to codify those
processes of change, but when we codify them to the point where change
is no longer possible then isn't that an indication that we've gone wrong
somewhere?
chazwin
Everything to which a word is put is conceptual - I think you need to
learn what a concept is buddy.
1Z
So "cat" means "concept"
"Tree" means "concpet"
"Bicycle" means "concept"...
Gibbs is right. It is you You who need to learn.
1Z
Rejecting that kind of realism doesn't mean you have to
reject every kind.
> Were that the case
> then events-in-themselves would exist in splendid isolation, eternally
> bearing no relations with each other,
That doesn't follow.
>and therefore bearing no *temporal*
> relations with each other. I also reject the substantivalist view of time --
> the idea of "time-in-itself", the eternally unchanging naked bearer of
> temporal relations between events,
> that would exist in the absence of those
> events and of their relations. There is no "past-in-itself", no
> "present-in-itself", and no "future-in-itself", else how would they relate
> to one another? I embrace the idea that "time" is a word we use to denote
> the existence of the relations "before" and "after", and to denote the
> existence of duration. We say things like "there's not enough time for
> that", and so language gives us the impression of time as a substantive.
> We then unconsciously reify time and consider it to be that very substance.
>
> I've always felt that Special Relativity is a model that provides a better
> description of the way that objects and events relate to each other under
> extreme conditions, but that we lose something in the process -- namely
> *change* (or perhaps you might prefer the word flow?). This has always
> made me feel uncomfortable with SR despite the obvious advance on previous
> conceptions of time.
You can have realistic metaphiscs based on relations,
realistic metaphiscs that eschews on relations,
realistic metaphiscs based on time and change,
realistic metaphiscs based on eternity and changelessness.
Just because you don't like one kind of realism,
doesn't entitle you to reject them all.
Goober
> On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 14:08:06 -0400, "gibbs"
> <gib...@fakedemailaddress.edu> wrote:
>
>>> It all depends on which Worldview you adopt.
>
>> That's pretty much what it boils down to Bob. But it strikes me as
>> irrational to mistake the world with an idea of it.
>
> A Worldview is not an idea of the world. It is the set of principles
> that you adopt to build a formal rational system to deal with the
> world.
>
> For example, the Worldview of Existential Realism (aka "direct
> realism") is composed of these fundamental principles:
>
>
> Govt is an insult to human dignity. With or without govt,
> you would have good people doing good things and evil
> people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil
> things, that takes govt. Govt is the root of all evil.
You have the strangest philosophical topography. Especially if I am to
understand "existentialist realism" as having anything to do with
existentialism (and if not in that sense, then what is it?)
One can be a direct realist without being existentialist (such as Thomas
Reid). Similarly, (under the above assumption about what you mean by
"existential realism") existential metaphysics is not scholastic philosophy.
Moreover, idealism (for which the reference point is or should be, first
and foremost, Berkeley) is an ontological theory. It says that what
exists are perceptions. This leads to epistemological claims, but not
more or less in general than other ontological views. Realism also leads
to epistemological issues, and (except perhaps in its direct form) to
problems of skepticism. But realism and idealism are ontological theories.
One can adopt realism when dealing with the subjective world. "Mental
states really do exist" - it's what psychology and cognitive science
studies. And when one adopts idealism one can deal with the objective
world because, on that view, perceptions *are* the objective world.
Idealism does not sanction violating the law of non-contradiction (which
is not to say some idealist might not sanction that, but that's their
concern). Nor does it suggest that anyone can imagine contradictory
things. And neither does it reject the idea of causality.
Goober.
I can tell I'm not going to like something whenever someone capitalises
the word "Being". :)
Craig Franck
> "Craig Franck" wrote:
>> So you need to be able to construct a time line in which events
>> are spread out. (It's also not clear that the framework can function
>> in zero-point time, since language itself cannot. Calling time an
>> illusion makes everything an illusion since we exist in time.)
>
> I reject the substantivalist idea of "events-in-themselves", the eternally
> unchanging naked bearers of the attributes of events. Were that the case
> then events-in-themselves would exist in splendid isolation, eternally
> bearing no relations with each other, and therefore bearing no *temporal*
> relations with each other.
That seems as bad as the notion of substance. But I'm not sure
that any system can withstand a thorough analysis because what
we are talking about is so ill defined.
For example, I feel I may have finally found a death-blow argument
against your framework:
You are born in a library with no window and no way of contacting
the outside world. Your captor educates you, and then tells you
that every fact you have learned is false: all the history books are
made up, the cosmology is wrong, and you can't even tell if you
are on the surface of a planet or accelerating through space
("Dark City").
But he will free you if you find one book in the library which is
known to be correct. Since you have done little else but study for
the last 20 years, you immediately answer: the card catalogue!
You know it is correct because you can verify what it says. The
catalogue says call number PN13445, for example, is the book
"The History of the World in Phone Numbers" and, sure enough,
it is.
Your captor laughs (because that's always what they come up
with for starters) and says that the card catalogue is a tautology.
All it does is list the books, but tells nothing about the world
outside, which is what all the books refer to.
The point: your framework is the card catalogue. Saying "The
WWII story is a conceptual framework about some war" says
nothing because *everything* is a concept in the framework. So
that statement gives no information.
All you're doing is cataloguing framework concepts, which
actually explains nothing.
> I also reject the substantivalist view of time --
> the idea of "time-in-itself", the eternally unchanging naked bearer of
> temporal relations between events, that would exist in the absence of
> those
> events and of their relations.
I agree time most likely emerges from the "events
themselves" (whatever that means) in the form of the 2nd
Law of Thermodynamics:
http://www.idiocentrism.com/Reichenbach.htm
Craig Franck
> "Craig Franck" wrote
>> But that relation is never given in perception. We infer the existence
>> of objects that are external to the mind that cause our perceptions.
>> But it is never given as anything other than animal intuition.
>> We see large rocks and think of them as hard and heavy, but that
>> is not given by just looking at them. If pick you one up and find it is
>> made out of painted foam, that comes as a shock.
>> If you have an actual rock set next to a holographic rock, the image
>> of which is turned off whenever you look away, can you tell which
>> is which?
>
> I wouldn't say we infer the existence of objects. I never do, do you?
> The only time we would do that is if we thought we might be hallucinating
> and wanted to prove to ourselves that we aren't.
I agree that animal intuition gives us objects in the form of
naive realism, but I'm referring to the fact that we must infer
that the objects in our environment that cause our perceptions
have no color or scent, for example. We infer the physical
space and matter of physics.
This isn't about false perceptions, but about what we are
actually perceiving during our most veridical sensory encounters.
We notice perfume, but infer that it refers to the shape of the
molecules, a basic fact that cannot be recovered
phenomenologically.
> There is no distinction in perceptual experience between the experience
> and the judgment of existence. That comes with analysis.
Correct.
> I'm not sure what your example of the rock is trying to show? Our visual
> experience has nothing to do with determining an object's weight. Also,
> our perceptual experience isn't infallible. We can make the mistake of
> thinking that we see a rock when it actually isn't one. Getting a closer
> look or picking it up tells us it isn't a rock, but we weren't doubting
> whether something was actually there.
An argument for objects existing "in themselves" is they are
stable perceptually. My point is that no sensory input can ever
go toward a metaphysical claim. You can say that an apple is
more real than its shadow, but that's an empirical claim.
Craig Franck
> gibbs wrote:
>> "chazwin" wrote
>> > Pain is a concept. Get over it! Some people claim to not feel it, some
>> > claim to overcome it. Other people call it: pijn, douleur, shmetz,
>> > dolore, dor etc. This makes it a concept. The fact that you have
>> > dreamed up this little fantasy makes it a concept. The verb to poke is
>> > a concept, a twit is a concept. You are a fuckwit.
>>
>> Pain is a private experience. The fact that we can give it different
>> names
>> just means that the words we use to designate it are arbitarary. It
>> doesn't
>> mean that it is a concept.
>>
>> Learn what a concept is!
>
> Everything to which a word is put is conceptual - I think you need to
> learn what a concept is buddy.
That may be one sense of a word. The word "horse" can refer to
the set of all horses as well as a conceptual template for testing
membership.
"Pain" can refer to the set of all painful experiences, which can
conceptually vary from culture to culture.
But there are huge problems with holding that basic perceptual
experiences are themselves concepts. For example, if sensing
"red" is a concept, I don't see why I shouldn't be able to define
it with other word-concepts. But all you can do is point to some-
thing red and say "red."
1Z
Goober wrote:
Some good stuff which is doomed to fall on the deaf ears of...
> Citizen Bob
1Z
Craig Franck wrote:
> "gibbs" wrote
>
> > "andy-k" wrote
>
> >> of sameness and difference between things. Naming misleads us into
> >> thinking that there is something that "has" these properties (even naming
> >> them "properties", as if they "belong" to something, conspires in this
> >> error).
> >
> > That depends on what sort of name is employed. A proper name names a
> > specific thing, but a common name names a class of objects (particulars,
> > as it were). A proper name is always meant to designate something. What
> > a common name names (a class) may or may not designate anything: it may
> > be a null class. "Horse" is a common name that is not a null class;
> > "Seabiscuit" designates a specific horse. The horse Seabiscuit is an
> > instance of the named class, "horse". "Unicorn" is a common name that
> > names a class that is null; it has no instances, except in the
> > imagination.
>
> The point is that all that is ever given in a perceptual field are
> relations of some kind. There similarities and differences of distinct
> kinds of perceptions, but it is always given as a unified whole. You
> abstract individual things.
>
> It is easy to see I abstract my feet from the blob-feeling of my body,
> or a drum beat from a song. But saying I abstract a picture of Gillian
> Anderson from my wall calendar is also correct, phenomenologically
> speaking: there is just a field of colors and shapes with a sense of
> volume.
>
> is perceived and some external object, but all that is perceived are
> relations between perceptions. A relation of "All my perceptions and
> something else" is a different kind than is ever given in perceptions.
The fact that it is no itself given does not mean it is of
a different kind. At any moment, there are things you
can't see because they are behind you, but
they are not of a different kind ot the things in
front of you which you can see.
Realists can hypothesise unseen things, and
relations between unseen things and their
own experiences. They can thest these
hypothesis. For the realist, that
constitutes "good enough" knowledge
of the outside world. For the sceptic
it is not good enough. Is the realist
settig the bar too low, or is the sceptic
setting it too high?
1Z
Craig Franck wrote:
> But that relation is never given in perception. We infer the existence
> of objects that are external to the mind that cause our perceptions.
> But it is never given as anything other than animal intuition.
In what way is that a *problem*.
> We see large rocks and think of them as hard and heavy, but that
> is not given by just looking at them. If pick you one up and find it is
> made out of painted foam, that comes as a shock.
>
> If you have an actual rock set next to a holographic rock, the image
> of which is turned off whenever you look away, can you tell which
> is which?
The possibility of error is no argument
against realsim. On the contrary ,
it *is* an an argument against idealism.
Robert Epstein
> On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 05:49:15 GMT, Robert Epstein
> <epste...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>>1) The Principle of Being, which is an act that constitutes itself by
>>>asserting itself.
>
>
>>That is the opposite of Being. Being doesn't do anything. You are
>>waaaay off.
>
>
> You clearly do not understand Existential Metaphysics.
Well, aside from my healthy background in Existentialism and
Phenomenology, I know what Being is, and it ain't Doing.
Here's a nice dictionary definition, compliments of Houghton-Mifflin:
"One's basic or essential nature."
What would you, or Thomas Acquinas for that matter, say that this
essential nature is? Keep in mind that you are cross-posting to a
Buddhist newsgroup.
robert
- - - - - - - - -
Goober
To put my cards on the table, I see indirect realism to be a combination
of a metaphysical and an epistemological thesis:
Realism (R): that there exists a mind independent world. This is the
metaphysical thesis.
The "Indirect" part is constituted by the epistemological thesis:
Indirect (I): that any epistemic access to mind-independent reality is
mediated by representations (such as sensations). Hence, indirect.
Now (I) does not presuppose realism unless we add in a further
non-skeptical claim:
Non-Skepticism (NS): that we have epistemic access to mind-independent
reality.
Each of these, taken as theses, cannot beg any questions simply because
theses are not arguments. (NS) *presupposes* (R) and so (NS) plus (I)
presupposes (R).
So my question here is just what arguments (and for which thesis) do you
think begs the question?
>
> Secondly, I'm not following you on the point of my begging the question
> by claiming that proper names always relate to concepts -- this isn't an
> assumption as far as I can see, but a description of the way that language
> operates. How could language operate in the absence of the conceptual
> framework? The indirect realist would answer "the proper name refers not
> to the concept but to the thing itself" -- which is to recruit indirect
> realism in support of indirect realism. Indirect realism is such a seductive
> paradigm that I'm not in the least embarrassed by the fact that I took it as
> axiomatic for so long. If anything at all may be referred to as "percept"
> then it is the flux out of which all concepts emerge, for if sameness is
> acknowledged then conception has already taken place. Any talk of
> "pure percepts", then, is nonsensical, since the plural implies that the
> flux has already been shattered into recognizable portions, or concepts.
There are at least two very different claims in play here:
1. Language only operates by use of conceptual frameworks.
But what I took Ted to be questioning (and I have attacked it also) is:
2. All reference is reference to concepts.
(1) seems obviously true, but (2) seems false to me. Proper names, I
argue, if they refer at all, refer not to concepts, but to things. That
conclusion does not entail realism by itself. But since I am a realist,
I am happy to fill in the antecedent of the conditional and would
endorse the claim that proper names refer to things, not concepts. Note,
however, that I'm not begging the question for indirect realism
precisely because because none of that is offered as an argument for
realism (of any sort).
My first concern here is that you appear to treat (1) and (2) as the
same claim, and that seems to me to be completely wrong. The fact that
all sentences (or thoughts) appeal to or make use of concepts does not
entail or imply that all reference within those sentences is to
concepts. Specifically, it does not imply or entail that proper names
refer to concepts.
So let's turn to the following claim:
"the proper name refers not to the concept but to the thing itself"
Now, for the record, I would not express my view in exactly those terms.
I would express it as follows, and I'll call it P:
P: "If a proper name refers, it refers to a thing (not to a concept)"
You say that it invokes indirect realism to argue for indirect realism.
To that, keeping in mind the distinction I made above about (R), (I) and
(NS), I say the following:
a) I would never use P by itself to argue for indirect realism. If
others do, that's their business.
b) P presupposes realism *only if* the additional claim is made that
proper names actually refer. Because P is a conditional, there is
nothing in P that presupposes that names actually refer to anything, and
hence, no presupposition that there is a mind-independent reality. It is
entirely consistent with there being no mind-independent world for
proper names to refer to. IF one makes the additional claim that proper
names actually refer, then one is committed to realism. I am a realist,
so I have no qualms about adding the latter claim. I think proper names
refer, and hence, I think they refer to things.
c) P does not presuppose indirect realism understood as the claim that
*all* epistemic access to reality is mediated via representations.
d) P is neither an epistemological nor a metaphysical claim, it is a
semantic claim.
e) P does presuppose that proper names are representations.
Now, I have presented some arguments for P. Those arguments presuppose a
realist account of truth. Since I'm not using P to argue for realism,
and since P does not presuppose realism, any arguments of mine for P
that presuppose realism are not begging the question.
>
> Thirdly, I'm not suggesting for an instant that "there is nothing other than
> concepts", but rather that nothing can be *said* of anything other than
> concepts. You refer to my rejection of your argument from the law of the
> excluded middle -- I presume you're referring to my claim that the statement
> "either indirect realism or solipsism must be the case" is specious.
> I'm having no success in linking this to your point that I'm begging the
> question by claiming that proper names always refer to concepts.
> What I'm rejecting is the idea that there is a "thing-in-itself" that is the
> "real existent", and that the concept of that "thing-in-itself" is merely a
> mental representation of it (appearance), and furthermore that the
> "thing-in-itself" can be an object of linguistic reference just as is the
> concept of it. Whatever is not conceived cannot be made an object of
> linguistic reference -- the "thing-in-itself" is an addition to the
> conceptual framework and not something beyond it.
There are a lot of claims in there, and I'd personally prefer them
stated separately rather than as a compound sentence because I'm not
sure of the scope of "What I'm rejecting..." extends over.
Depending on what precisely you mean by "conceived" I could agree with
some of the above. Understood as "represented" I might agree. Clearly,
names are representations. What I argue, however, is that the content of
a proper name is its reference, not a concept. If that referent exists,
then the proper name refers to that thing, otherwise, it fails to refer
to anything.
What I would disagree with is the claim that proper names refer to
concepts. I am not disagreeing with the suggestion that the use of
proper names in sentences requires us to *employ* concepts. I may not be
able to think "Aristotle was Jewish" without employing concepts, but
that does not suggest that "Aristotle" refers to a concept; If it refers
to anything, it refers to Aristotle.
Goober
P.S. In case you haven't noticed, I've not provided any arguments for
realism.
mikeg...@xtra.co.nz
chazwin wrote:
> WHy do I have to?
Because YOUR claim is that there is nothing that any intelligent man
can claim as being a 100% absolute certain fact, not even when you took
your last crap, oh thats not fair you aren't intelligent are you chaz,
so you probably do know for absolute 100% certainty when you did.
Fancy having to be dumb to know 100% for absolute certain when you take
a crap.
You didn't answer chaz, is your spouse upset with you, after you
telling him that your love for him is a few bricks short of a load.
MG
Citizen Bob
>So "cat" means "concept"
It does not mean the actual cat. It is a reference to the actual cat.
Citizen Bob
<craig....@verizon.net> wrote:
>> Everything to which a word is put is conceptual - I think you need to
>> learn what a concept is buddy.
>That may be one sense of a word. The word "horse" can refer to
>the set of all horses as well as a conceptual template for testing
>membership.
>"Pain" can refer to the set of all painful experiences, which can
>conceptually vary from culture to culture.
>But there are huge problems with holding that basic perceptual
>experiences are themselves concepts. For example, if sensing
>"red" is a concept, I don't see why I shouldn't be able to define
>it with other word-concepts. But all you can do is point to some-
>thing red and say "red."
You guys are so confused it's pathetic. You are failing to distinguish
between the idealist subjective epistemological world and the realist
objective ontological world. They are not the same in any way. But
most people confuse them nonetheless.
You would all benefit from reading
On Being and Essence
by Thomas Aquinas
Translated by Armand Maurer
Paperback: 80 pages
Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies
(Second Ed. 1968)
ISBN: 0888442505
If I can understand it, you can too.
Citizen Bob
>You have the strangest philosophical topography.
That's because you are not schooled in Aristotlean and Thomistic
Metaphysics (aka "Scholastic Philosophy"). You undoubtedly grew up in
the epistemological setting of post Cartesian/Kantian "philosophy",
which emphasized the idealist subjective epistemological world over
the realist objective ontological world.
>Especially if I am to
>understand "existential realism" as having anything to do with
>existentialism (and if not in that sense, then what is it?)
The term "existential" has little to do with "existentialism". It's
purpose is to emphasize Being (existence) as the center of Realism and
Metaphysics. "Existentialism" on the other hand is a psychology, a
form of "psychoanalytical phenomenology" as Sartre put it.
>Moreover, idealism (for which the reference point is or should be, first
>and foremost, Berkeley) is an ontological theory. It says that what
>exists are perceptions.
That is not Direct Realism. What crap are they brainwashing you guys
with.
Citizen Bob
<epste...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> You clearly do not understand Existential Metaphysics.
>Well, aside from my healthy background in Existentialism and
>Phenomenology, I know what Being is, and it ain't Doing.
I did not use the term "Existentialism".
>Here's a nice dictionary definition, compliments of Houghton-Mifflin:
> "One's basic or essential nature."
>What would you, or Thomas Acquinas for that matter, say that this
>essential nature is?
Aristotle believed that essence was existence (Being, Esse). Aquinas
showed that existence and essence are two distinct principles.
This book is the primary reference is the book I cited. Another
version is available online in entirety:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/aquinas-esse.html
>Keep in mind that you are cross-posting to a Buddhist newsgroup..
I don't know what I should keep in mind.
About the closest person you will find to an Existential Realist is a
productive physicist. If you want to study some really far out
"mystical" stuff that would make the Buddha blush, try Quantum Field
Theory:
Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell
By A. Zee
Princeton U. Press 2003
518 pages
ISBN: 0691010196
All of the Universe consists of the Quantum Vacuum which is the
reservoir for zero point fluctuations of the quantum field. All
particles in the Universe, including those that you are made out of,
are created from those fluctuations. They are also destroyed in the
vacuum. At any one instant your particles are being created and
destroyed at an incredibly fast rate. Fortunately they are out of
phase so you don't disappear. In fact the phase of those particles is
a conjugate variable to the number of particles present at that
instant.
A beam of electrons in a cathode ray tube does *not* consist of a
collection of individual particles each possessing a unique identity
(e.g., Particle #1, Particle #2, etc.) That's classical, not quantum
physics. Instead that beam of electrons consists of a many body wave
function that contains a variable number of particles, as I alluded to
above. These particles are all identical in the sense that it is not
possible to assign an identity to them. They come and go so rapidly
that such an endeavor would fail at the very outset. How can you
identify single particles when they come into existence for an instant
and then are destroyed forever. It's like trying to name individual
snowflakes.
I have read some of Mircea Eliade's work on Eastern Mysticism and I
found it fascinating. But I have also studied Quantum Mechanics and I
find it infinitely more fascinating than mysticism. For one thing it
is not based on vague theories and it can be used to predict the
outcome of certain kinds of future events. Buddhism and the other
mystical systems can't say the same.
You can sit in an asram Omming your fool head off forever and none of
it will ever put a man on the Moon or build a nuclear reactor. How
many Buddhists have received the Nobel Prize in Science?
andy-k
> "andy-k" wrote
>> "Craig Franck" wrote:
>>> So you need to be able to construct a time line in which events
>>> are spread out. (It's also not clear that the framework can function
>>> in zero-point time, since language itself cannot. Calling time an
>>> illusion makes everything an illusion since we exist in time.)
>>
>> I reject the substantivalist idea of "events-in-themselves", the
>> eternally unchanging naked bearers of the attributes of events. Were that
>> the case then events-in-themselves would exist in splendid isolation,
>> eternally bearing no relations with each other, and therefore bearing no
>> *temporal* relations with each other.
>
> That seems as bad as the notion of substance.
No, that is a *consequence* of the notion of substance,
and a reason why I reject that notion.
To the contrary, that statement *is* information.
Turtoni recently posted an interesting quote:
news:1160631485.0...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com
> All you're doing is cataloguing framework concepts,
> which actually explains nothing.
No, I'm not cataloguing them -- I'm just saying that they are there and that
they bear relations with each other. Furthermore, that explanation amounts
to finding a more encompassing system of relations. And finally, that there
can be no explanation for the most encompassing system of relations --
the conceptual framework as far as it extends.
>> I also reject the substantivalist view of time --
>> the idea of "time-in-itself", the eternally unchanging naked bearer of
>> temporal relations between events, that would exist in the absence of
>> those events and of their relations.
>
> I agree time most likely emerges from the "events
> themselves" (whatever that means) in the form of the 2nd
> Law of Thermodynamics:
>
> http://www.idiocentrism.com/Reichenbach.htm
Thanks for the link Craig. The author seems more to be arguing for
irreversibility than for time. I would agree with him that processes are
irreversible on the grounds that the conceptual framework carries with it
traces of everything that came before, but that doesn't mean that what came
before still exists somewhere in a "real" past. I presume the author's
target is the time-reversibility of the equations of physics that might lead
one to conclude that time is unreal, but that's not the platform for my
argument.
I particularly liked this extract:
Interviewer: Is there a fundamental level of reality?
Heisenberg: "That is just the point; I do not know what the words
'fundamental reality' mean. They are taken from our daily life situation
where they have a good meaning, but when we use such terms we are usually
extrapolating from our daily lives into an area very remote from it, where
we cannot expect the words to have a meaning. This is perhaps one of the
fundamental difficulties of philosophy: that our thinking hangs in the
language. Anyway, we are forced to use the words so far as we can; we try to
extend their use to the utmost, and then we get into situations in which
they have no meaning."
andy-k
> andy-k wrote:
>> I'd like to understand your argument here, but I'm not there yet so I'd
>> ask you to be patient with me.
>>
>> Firstly, I'm not attacking you personally for begging the question.
>> Indirect realism is a widely subscribed paradigm, and it is indirect
>> realism that I'm attacking for begging the question.
>
> To put my cards on the table, I see indirect realism to be a combination
> of a metaphysical and an epistemological thesis:
>
> Realism (R): that there exists a mind independent world. This is the
> metaphysical thesis.
>
> The "Indirect" part is constituted by the epistemological thesis:
>
> Indirect (I): that any epistemic access to mind-independent reality is
> mediated by representations (such as sensations). Hence, indirect.
>
> Now (I) does not presuppose realism unless we add in a further
> non-skeptical claim:
>
> Non-Skepticism (NS): that we have epistemic access to mind-independent
> reality.
>
> Each of these, taken as theses, cannot beg any questions simply because
> theses are not arguments. (NS) *presupposes* (R) and so (NS) plus (I)
> presupposes (R).
>
> So my question here is just what arguments (and for which thesis) do you
> think begs the question?
I'm sorry if I'm not talking your language here, but I'm confused by what
seems to me to be a claim that "indirect" does not presuppose "realism"
unless it is "indirect realism". I'm reduced to answering the question in my
language, which may not be to your satisfaction:
When "mind" is conceived in contrast to "body" or to "matter" then there
exists a mind-independent world, but "mind", "body", "matter" and "world"
are all concepts. What I'm calling into question is the identification of
the conceptual framework with "mind", and the consequence of that move,
namely the conclusion that the conceptual framework is a mere representation
of a "more real" mind-independent world beyond it.
I think we are in agreement on the point that proper names are often used
for symbolic representation -- the question being raised seems to be in
respect of what is being represented. You say "not concepts but things", and
I say that I don't understand the distinction unless by "thing" you mean
"that which is being conceptually represented" -- i.e. unless you are
already assuming indirect realism. David Bohm (Wholeness and the Implicate
Order) makes the argument better than I can:
"It is of course implicit that what is thought about has an existence that
is independent of the process of thought [...] Of course, the real thing has
more in it than can ever be implied by the content of our thought about it,
as can always be revealed by further observations. Moreover, our thought is
not in general completely correct, so that the real thing may be expected
ultimately to show behaviour or properties contradicting some of the
implications of our thought about it. These are, indeed, among the main ways
in which the real thing can demonstrate its basic independence from thought.
The main indication of the relationship between thing and thought is, then,
that when one thinks correctly about a certain thing, this thought can, at
least up to a point, guide one's actions in relation to that thing to
produce an overall situation that is harmonious and free of contradiction
and confusion.
If the thing and the thought about it have their ground in the one
undefinable and unknown totality of flux, then the attempt to explain their
relationship by supposing that the thought is in reflective correspondence
with the thing has no meaning, for both thought and thing are forms
abstracted from the total process. The reason why these forms are related
could only be in the ground from which they arise, but there can be no way
of discussing reflective correspondence in this ground, because reflective
correspondence implies knowledge, while the ground is beyond what can be
assimilated in the content of knowledge." (pp54-5)
"What is required here, then, is not an _explanation_ that would give us
some knowledge of the relationship of thought and thing, or of thought and
'reality as a whole'. Rather, what is needed is an _act of understanding_;
in which we see the totality as an actual process that, when carried out
properly, tends to bring about a harmonious and orderly overall action,
incorporating both thought and what is thought about in a single movement,
in which analysis into separate parts (e.g., thought and thing) has no
meaning." (p56)
"The function by which we thus identify a numerically distinct and permanent
subject of disclosure is called CONCEPTION; and the thoughts which are its
vehicles are called concepts.
[...]
"Each act of conception results from our attention singling out some one
part of the mass of matter for thought which the world presents, and holding
fast to it, without confusion. Confusion occurs when we do not know whether
a certain object proposed to us is the same with one of our meanings or not;
so that the conceptual function requires, to be complete, that the thought
should not only say 'I mean this,' but also say 'I don't mean that.'
[...]
"Some conceptions are of things, some of events, some of qualities. Any
fact, be it thing, event, or quality, may be conceived sufficiently for
purposes of identification, if only it be singled out and marked so as to
separate it from other things. Simply calling it 'this' or 'that' will
suffice. To speak in technical language, a subject may be conceived by its
denotation, with no connotation, or a very minimum of connotation, attached.
The essential point is that it should be re-identified by us as that which
the talk is about; and no full representation of it is necessary for this,
even when it is a fully representable thing."
-- William James, Principles of Psychology.
chazwin
mikeg...@xtra.co.nz wrote:
> chazwin wrote:
> > WHy do I have to?
>
> Because YOUR claim is that there is nothing that any intelligent man
> can claim as being a 100% absolute certain fact, not even when you took
> your last crap, oh thats not fair you aren't intelligent are you chaz,
> so you probably do know for absolute 100% certainty when you did.
>
> Fancy having to be dumb to know 100% for absolute certain when you take
> a crap.
I don't have to take your crap!
If your truth method is only capable of determining that you "take a
crap" then so be it. Personally I am noting very interested in whether
or not shitting has anything to do with certainty. Clearly you have
never encountered the "brain in vats hypothesis".
But Mikey, if it pleases you to be certain of shit - then continue. But
fuck off and leave me alone in future.
Truth has many meanings. Get over it!
chazwin
Citizen Bob wrote:
> On 16 Oct 2006 11:04:37 -0700, "1Z" <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >So "cat" means "concept"
>
> It does not mean the actual cat. It is a reference to the actual cat.
>
This is not a pipe.
Cat does not MEAN concept. "Cat" is an example of a concept.
The word cat is a concept.
The cat itself may or may not exist, but it is not a cat in and of
itself.
It exists as a concept in those that perceive the object of the "cat".
Its a reference, the actual item is not a cat per se - but it is
called "cat". Cat is a reference label.
It may seem like a trivial distinction but it is a vital and valid one
which we cannot ever ignore.
1Z
chazwin wrote:
> Citizen Bob wrote:
> > On 16 Oct 2006 11:04:37 -0700, "1Z" <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > >So "cat" means "concept"
> >
> > It does not mean the actual cat. It is a reference to the actual cat.
> >
>
> This is not a pipe.
> Cat does not MEAN concept. "Cat" is an example of a concept.
> The word cat is a concept.
> The cat itself may or may not exist, but it is not a cat in and of
> itself.
What is it, then?
> It exists as a concept in those that perceive the object of the "cat".
"In those". How liteally do I take that? Do I (literally)
have a cat in my head when I look at a cat?
> Its a reference, the actual item is not a cat per se
What is it, then?
> - but it is
> called "cat". Cat is a reference label.
> It may seem like a trivial distinction but it is a vital and valid one
> which we cannot ever ignore.
It is you who are muddling the distinction.
chazwin
1Z wrote:
> chazwin wrote:
> > Citizen Bob wrote:
> > > On 16 Oct 2006 11:04:37 -0700, "1Z" <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > >So "cat" means "concept"
> > >
> > > It does not mean the actual cat. It is a reference to the actual cat.
> > >
> >
> > This is not a pipe.
> > Cat does not MEAN concept. "Cat" is an example of a concept.
> > The word cat is a concept.
> > The cat itself may or may not exist, but it is not a cat in and of
> > itself.
>
> What is it, then?
THis question cannot be answered without introducing more metaphors,
such as animal, furry thing, quadraped etc. "cats" existed before the
English language, before humans could speak. It is what it is and we
call it a cat. In order tha we perceive it, we concieve it.
>
> > It exists as a concept in those that perceive the object of the "cat".
>
> "In those". How liteally do I take that? Do I (literally)
> have a cat in my head when I look at a cat?
No you have the idea of a cat. You have sensory data via your eyes, you
perceive the object and you label it "cat". The thing may exist
whether or not you perceive it, but in perceiving it you reference the
concept "cat"
>
> > Its a reference, the actual item is not a cat per se
>
> What is it, then?
It is what it is. If you were French it would not be a "cat" but a
"chat", if German a Katze, if Portugese a Gato.
>
> > - but it is
> > called "cat". Cat is a reference label.
> > It may seem like a trivial distinction but it is a vital and valid one
> > which we cannot ever ignore.
>
> It is you who are muddling the distinction.
There is no muddle here!
mikeg...@xtra.co.nz
chazwin wrote:
>
> I don't have to take your crap!
FFS its YOUR crap you dumb arse.
Answer the question, WHAT use is *proof* and *evidence* to someone who
cant even be 100% certain whether or not he took a crap today?
MG
1Z
chazwin wrote:
> 1Z wrote:
> > chazwin wrote:
> > > Citizen Bob wrote:
> > > > On 16 Oct 2006 11:04:37 -0700, "1Z" <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >So "cat" means "concept"
> > > >
> > > > It does not mean the actual cat. It is a reference to the actual cat.
> > > >
> > >
> > > This is not a pipe.
> > > Cat does not MEAN concept. "Cat" is an example of a concept.
> > > The word cat is a concept.
> > > The cat itself may or may not exist, but it is not a cat in and of
> > > itself.
> >
> > What is it, then?
>
> THis question cannot be answered without introducing more metaphors,
> such as animal, furry thing, quadraped etc.
There is nothing *metaphorical* about describing
a cat as a furry quadruped animal. That is a very
literal truth.
> "cats" existed before the
> English language, before humans could speak.
So cats are not concepts.
> It is what it is and we
> call it a cat. In order tha we perceive it, we concieve it.
>
> >
> > > It exists as a concept in those that perceive the object of the "cat".
> >
> > "In those". How liteally do I take that? Do I (literally)
> > have a cat in my head when I look at a cat?
>
> No you have the idea of a cat. You have sensory data via your eyes, you
> perceive the object and you label it "cat". The thing may exist
> whether or not you perceive it, but in perceiving it you reference the
> concept "cat"
In perceiving it, it becomes the reference of the
concpet cat.
> > > Its a reference, the actual item is not a cat per se
> >
> > What is it, then?
>
> It is what it is.
What it is...is a cat. Per se.
> If you were French it would not be a "cat" but a
> "chat", if German a Katze, if Portugese a Gato.
It would not be *called* a cat. It would
still *be* (what we call) a "cat" (which the french call "chat", etc,
etc).
> > > - but it is
> > > called "cat". Cat is a reference label.
> > > It may seem like a trivial distinction but it is a vital and valid one
> > > which we cannot ever ignore.
> >
> > It is you who are muddling the distinction.
>
> There is no muddle here!
Yes there is.
For instance there is a contradiction between your
"Its a reference, the actual item is not a cat per se"
and your
"It is what it is".
Craig Franck
> "Craig Franck" wrote:
>> The point: your framework is the card catalogue. Saying "The
>> WWII story is a conceptual framework about some war" says
>> nothing because *everything* is a concept in the framework.
>> So that statement gives no information.
>
> To the contrary, that statement *is* information.
> Turtoni recently posted an interesting quote:
>
> news:1160631485.0...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com
I may have been overly optimistic about my rebuttal, perhaps
because it appeared to be a way of undercutting an entire class
of arguments, and not just yours in particular.
>> All you're doing is cataloguing framework concepts,
>> which actually explains nothing.
>
> No, I'm not cataloguing them -- I'm just saying that they are there and
> that
> they bear relations with each other. Furthermore, that explanation amounts
> to finding a more encompassing system of relations. And finally, that
> there
> can be no explanation for the most encompassing system of relations --
> the conceptual framework as far as it extends.
I have no problem with the basic idea of a system of relations,
since that is essentially how I conceive of nature. The conceptual
problem I have is realism seems to have a justification for itself
built right in to the ontology, and not just in some question
begging way. An external brain running a mind which runs a
framework can explain why the framework looks the way it does
(All this may come down to a bias on my part.)
Craig Franck
> "Craig Franck" wrote:
>>> Everything to which a word is put is conceptual - I think you need to
>>> learn what a concept is buddy.
>
>>That may be one sense of a word. The word "horse" can refer to
>>the set of all horses as well as a conceptual template for testing
>>membership.
>
>>"Pain" can refer to the set of all painful experiences, which can
>>conceptually vary from culture to culture.
>
>>But there are huge problems with holding that basic perceptual
>>experiences are themselves concepts. For example, if sensing
>>"red" is a concept, I don't see why I shouldn't be able to define
>>it with other word-concepts. But all you can do is point to some-
>>thing red and say "red."
>
> You guys are so confused it's pathetic. You are failing to distinguish
> between the idealist subjective epistemological world and the realist
> objective ontological world. They are not the same in any way. But
> most people confuse them nonetheless.
There is a huge bias in favor of some form of realism -- after all,
there is common sense realism but no common sense idealism
-- but I think the problem here is it's a question not just of this
or the philosophical system, but why it would have occurred to
someone to think of such a thing in the first place.
It seems to impress upon one simply by how they experience
time that the past was at one point just as real as the present.
But that's not the case. It becomes a concept too.
Robert Epstein
> On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 03:35:23 GMT, Robert Epstein
> <epste...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>>>You clearly do not understand Existential Metaphysics.
>
>
>>Well, aside from my healthy background in Existentialism and
>>Phenomenology, I know what Being is, and it ain't Doing.
>
>
> I did not use the term "Existentialism".
>
>
>>Here's a nice dictionary definition, compliments of Houghton-Mifflin:
>
>
>> "One's basic or essential nature."
>
>
>>What would you, or Thomas Acquinas for that matter, say that this
>>essential nature is?
>
>
> Aristotle believed that essence was existence (Being, Esse). Aquinas
> showed that existence and essence are two distinct principles.
He showed this, or he opined it?
In any case, the way Aquinas defined being seems to apply to individual
nouns, while essence is what makes something what it is. My use of
Being is more existentialist [whether you mentioned it or not] and is
the ground upon which individuated beings and essences cohere.
> This book is the primary reference is the book I cited. Another
> version is available online in entirety:
>
> http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/aquinas-esse.html
>
>
>>Keep in mind that you are cross-posting to a Buddhist newsgroup..
>
>
> I don't know what I should keep in mind.
I just told you, Bud.
If you have no idea what the Buddhist/Taoist sense of Being is, you
endanger the purity of your nomenclature by cross-posting to a Buddhist
NG. Why was abfsg included in the post in the first place, do you know?
Love it. Wouldn't make Buddha blush, wouldn't make him blink either.
> I have read some of Mircea Eliade's work on Eastern Mysticism and I
> found it fascinating. But I have also studied Quantum Mechanics and I
> find it infinitely more fascinating than mysticism.
Well you'd have to go closer to the source to find what it is.
For one thing it
> is not based on vague theories and it can be used to predict the
> outcome of certain kinds of future events. Buddhism and the other
> mystical systems can't say the same.
Your turn not to know what you are talking about. Buddhism is based on
direct experience, all the rest is mere talk.
> You can sit in an asram Omming your fool head off forever and none of
> it will ever put a man on the Moon or build a nuclear reactor. How
> many Buddhists have received the Nobel Prize in Science?
You sound like an imbecile saying such things, since they are clearly
designed in ignorance, probably close to a cognitive vaccuum. Before
speaking about something with such certainty, you should try to
experience it for a few decades. :)
May the Force be with you!
I'll ask you a zen question and if you can answer it with some immediate
ingenuity, I'll grant you know something about Buddhism. It's just a
common zen koan, and the answer is in your accessing your spontaneous
mind, not in the logic of the question or answer:
What was your original face before your parents were born?
Not a bad Quantum question either!
Robert
andy-k
That's the very point I was making -- the question "why does the
framework look the way it does?" seems reasonable enough because
it's reasonable to ask "why does it look like that?" of any *part* of the
framework. But explanation consists in finding a more encompassing view,
which is possible for any *part* of the framework, but not for the framework
in its entirety. There is no "more encompassing view" than the framework
in its entirety, though by *conceptualizing* the framework in its entirety
(i.e. by regarding it as a "thing", like "the mind running on a brain") we
erroneously confer one upon it, since it becomes just another concept
within the conceptual framework.
Goober
> On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 14:21:35 -0700, Goober <goa...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>
>> You have the strangest philosophical topography.
>
> That's because you are not schooled in Aristotlean and Thomistic
> Metaphysics (aka "Scholastic Philosophy").
This is about your claims, not my schooling.
You undoubtedly grew up in
> the epistemological setting of post Cartesian/Kantian "philosophy",
> which emphasized the idealist subjective epistemological world over
> the realist objective ontological world.
Why do you think the modern philosophy emphasises the "idealist
subjective epistemological world" over the "realist objective
ontological world"?
On the contrary, most 20th Century philosophy is emphatically
ontologically realist and emphatically not epistemologically idealist.
Note: I'm not denying that Descartes emphasised an internal and
rationalistic approach to epistemology, but he was no idealist. He was a
dualist, as I'm sure you know.
>
>> Especially if I am to
>> understand "existential realism" as having anything to do with
>> existentialism (and if not in that sense, then what is it?)
>
> The term "existential" has little to do with "existentialism".
Then you will only sow confusion when you use it without clarifying that
you do not mean the metaphysics of existentialism. If you mean
Scholastic metaphysics, then your claims would sound less strange if you
stuck to those terms rather than "existential metaphysics".
It's
> purpose is to emphasize Being (existence) as the center of Realism and
> Metaphysics.
To the extent in which "existential" is used by you to indicate realism,
then the majority of modern and 20th Century philosophy is realist and
has, with some exceptions, become increasingly so as the centuries have
progressed.
"Existentialism" on the other hand is a psychology, a
> form of "psychoanalytical phenomenology" as Sartre put it.
>
>> Moreover, idealism (for which the reference point is or should be, first
>> and foremost, Berkeley) is an ontological theory. It says that what
>> exists are perceptions.
>
> That is not Direct Realism.
I did not say idealism was direct realism, so let us put that straw man
aside. I said idealism was essentially an ontological theory, and
explained why it is such.
Now, would you like to explain why you think that idealism is not an
ontological theory? Especially, given that the idealism is based around
the claim that what exists are perceptions?
What crap are they brainwashing you guys
> with.
I may return to that question if and when the time suits me. Until then,
I prefer to attempt to encourage you to defend your claim or to retract
it - viz: that idealism is not an ontological theory.
Goober.
Goober
> On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 14:31:18 -0400, "gibbs"
> <gib...@fakedemailaddress.edu> wrote:
>
>> Hmmm..., Citizen Bob, probably "Concepts without objects are empty;
>
> Correct. They have no ontological content. They are not substances in
> the Aristotlean/Thomistic sense.
>
>> objects without concepts are not recognized!"
>
> I disagree. Being manifests itself directly to your awareness. There
> is no requirement for recognition of what the object is.
Aside from your use of "Being", I might agree you to the following
extent. I am a realist and I take it that one can perceive objects
non-conceptually. What one cannot do without concepts, is perceive
something *as* something - that is recognise it. A child can see a tree
without a tree concept, can feel pain without a pain concept, etc., but
cannot see it *as* a tree without a tree concept, cannot perceive it
*as* pain without a pain concept.
>
> An infant puts his hand on a hot stove burner and immediately
> perceives Being - something out there that is asserting itself on his
> senses. But the infant has no clue what it is that is doing that to
> him. He recognizes Being, but has no concept of what it is.
You are compounding recognition with perception. The former is
conceptual whilst the latter need not be. It may be arguable (and I
would agree) that a child can *perceive* a hot burner without the
concept of hot burners. But that does not imply that a child can
*recognise* a hot burner (or anything else) without an appropriate concept.
Goober.
1Z
Citizen Bob wrote:
> On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 14:31:18 -0400, "gibbs"
> <gib...@fakedemailaddress.edu> wrote:
>
> >Hmmm..., Citizen Bob, probably "Concepts without objects are empty;
>
> Correct. They have no ontological content. They are not substances in
> the Aristotlean/Thomistic sense.
>
> >objects without concepts are not recognized!"
>
> I disagree. Being manifests itself directly to your awareness. There
> is no requirement for recognition of what the object is.
Small-b beings may manifest themselves, but without recognition,
you don't know what they are.
> An infant puts his hand on a hot stove burner and immediately
> perceives Being - something out there that is asserting itself on his
> senses. But the infant has no clue what it is that is doing that to
> him. He recognizes Being, but has no concept of what it is.
That is quite a stretch to the concept of recognition.
1Z
Robert Epstein wrote:
> where are you guys posting from?
> not from absfg, I am sure.
a.p
Goober
No. To be clear, from a realist perspective the *existence* of a
mind-independent world is not a consequence of our conceptual scheme. If
there is a mind-independent world, than our conceiving of such does not
bring it into being. What is true, however, is that if one distinguishes
the concepts of "mind" and "body" (as dualists do) and asserts the
existence of both (again, as dualists do), then one's conceptual scheme
entails a commitment to realism. Thus, anyone who endorses such a
dualism must also endorse realism.
but "mind", "body", "matter" and "world"
> are all concepts.
I'm with you on that. As a realist, I tend to believe that these terms
also refer to real kinds.
What I'm calling into question is the identification of
> the conceptual framework with "mind",
Well, I would not assert any such identification. So I'm still with you.
In my view, a conceptual framework is, at most, a part of the mental.
and the consequence of that move,
> namely the conclusion that the conceptual framework is a mere representation
> of a "more real" mind-independent world beyond it.
Well, firstly, the realist does not have to suppose that the
mind-independent world is *more* real than the mental world (or any part
of the mental world). Far from it. The dualist insists that both the
mental and the material are real (and ontologically distinct). A mental
representation is just as real as anything it represents. So the use of
"mere" is uncalled for, I think.
Secondly, I don't think the identification you mention strictly has that
consequence. That is, identifying mind with conceptual scheme, together
with the ontological distinction between mind and (mind-independent)
world, does not entail the view that the conceptual scheme represents
that *actual* mind-independent world. From such premises one is, at
most, committed to the claim that the mind (conceptual scheme) is a
representation of some *possible* world. One could, for example, be a
consistent dualist and global skeptic. In fact, I think that what you
are identifying as a conclusion might be an entirely separate claim.
Gosh - that takes me back! It's been a long time since I read that book.
I think I would have been about 14. But I digress. ...
By "thing" I do not mean "that which is being *conceptually*
represented." Because particular things are not *conceptually*
represented by proper names, on the view I'm defending.
However, I do mean by "thing" that which is represented by a proper
name, *if* that proper name refers at all.
The reason why this view does not entail indirect realism is that it
does not entail realism - period - unless the *additional* claim is made
that proper names *actually* refer to (mind-independent) things. Now
most people, I would think, assert the additional claim (and I do as
well), and that leads to an indirect realism. But I insist that it is
the additional claim - that proper names actually refer to things - that
introduces realism. Realism is not hte result of the claim that I
defend: that proper names don't refer to concepts, but - *if they refer
at all* - to things. Because that is a conditional claim, it does not
commit me to the existence of a mind-independent world.
>
> "It is of course implicit that what is thought about has an existence that
> is independent of the process of thought [...] Of course, the real thing has
> more in it than can ever be implied by the content of our thought about it,
> as can always be revealed by further observations. Moreover, our thought is
> not in general completely correct, so that the real thing may be expected
> ultimately to show behaviour or properties contradicting some of the
> implications of our thought about it. These are, indeed, among the main ways
> in which the real thing can demonstrate its basic independence from thought.
> The main indication of the relationship between thing and thought is, then,
> that when one thinks correctly about a certain thing, this thought can, at
> least up to a point, guide one's actions in relation to that thing to
> produce an overall situation that is harmonious and free of contradiction
> and confusion.
Here Bohm is apparently endorsing a pragmatic concption of truth.
> If the thing and the thought about it have their ground in the one
> undefinable and unknown totality of flux, then the attempt to explain their
> relationship by supposing that the thought is in reflective correspondence
> with the thing has no meaning, for both thought and thing are forms
> abstracted from the total process. The reason why these forms are related
> could only be in the ground from which they arise, but there can be no way
> of discussing reflective correspondence in this ground, because reflective
> correspondence implies knowledge, while the ground is beyond what can be
> assimilated in the content of knowledge." (pp54-5)
There's some big assumptions in here. Arguable ones. Broadly speaking,
it seems very Kantian to me. Where I would completely disagree is the
suggestion that "thought and thing are forms abstracted from the total
process". If there are thoughts and things, they are not *abstracted*
from anything. What *is* abstracted are the *concepts* of "thought" and
"thing".
>
> "What is required here, then, is not an _explanation_ that would give us
> some knowledge of the relationship of thought and thing, or of thought and
> 'reality as a whole'. Rather, what is needed is an _act of understanding_;
> in which we see the totality as an actual process that, when carried out
> properly, tends to bring about a harmonious and orderly overall action,
> incorporating both thought and what is thought about in a single movement,
> in which analysis into separate parts (e.g., thought and thing) has no
> meaning." (p56)
This is not an argument that stands up well without a *lot* of further
argumentation and clarification.
I disagree. For one thing, concepts are parts of thought, not the same
as thoughts.
> "Each act of conception results from our attention singling out some one
> part of the mass of matter for thought which the world presents, and holding
> fast to it, without confusion. Confusion occurs when we do not know whether
> a certain object proposed to us is the same with one of our meanings or not;
> so that the conceptual function requires, to be complete, that the thought
> should not only say 'I mean this,' but also say 'I don't mean that.'
> [...]
This is all too unclear to me to comment on.
> "Some conceptions are of things, some of events, some of qualities. Any
> fact, be it thing, event, or quality, may be conceived sufficiently for
> purposes of identification, if only it be singled out and marked so as to
> separate it from other things. Simply calling it 'this' or 'that' will
> suffice. To speak in technical language, a subject may be conceived by its
> denotation, with no connotation, or a very minimum of connotation, attached.
> The essential point is that it should be re-identified by us as that which
> the talk is about; and no full representation of it is necessary for this,
> even when it is a fully representable thing."
>
> -- William James, Principles of Psychology.
>
Gosh. No wonder I disagree if that is your source. You might want to
think about approaching the issue with a more up to date text on psychology.
Reference to some particular thing by a proper name is *associated* with
concepts, but the denotation of the proper name is not determined by the
conceptual associations (connotation). I can't make any sense of
"conceived by its denotation". And I do not see why denotation must be
"re-indentified by us as that which the talk is about". We cannot
"re-identify" Aristotle, and one can certainly refer to him without
having the capacity to (re-)identify him.
James is right to distinguish denotation (reference) from connotation
(sense), but the point is that for proper names denotation is not
determined by connotation. This can be seen from the fact that I can
denote something even when my connotations are mistaken.
If you get a chance, I highly recommend you read Saul Kripke's "Naming
and Necessity" (Blackwell, 1972). My arguments for the reference of
proper names not being determined by concepts stems from his work.
Goober
1Z
andy-k wrote:
> "Craig Franck" wrote:
> > "andy-k" wrote
> >> "Craig Franck" wrote:
> >>> All you're doing is cataloguing framework concepts,
> >>> which actually explains nothing.
> >>
> >> No, I'm not cataloguing them -- I'm just saying that they are there and
> >> that they bear relations with each other. Furthermore, that explanation
> >> amounts to finding a more encompassing system of relations. And finally,
> >> that there can be no explanation for the most encompassing system of
> >> relations -- the conceptual framework as far as it extends.
> >
> > I have no problem with the basic idea of a system of relations,
> > since that is essentially how I conceive of nature. The conceptual
> > problem I have is realism seems to have a justification for itself
> > built right in to the ontology, and not just in some question
> > begging way. An external brain running a mind which runs a
> > framework can explain why the framework looks the way it does
> > (All this may come down to a bias on my part.)
>
> That's the very point I was making -- the question "why does the
> framework look the way it does?" seems reasonable enough because
> it's reasonable to ask "why does it look like that?" of any *part* of the
> framework. But explanation consists in finding a more encompassing view,
You are assuming coherentist explanation -- that concepts
can only be related to other concepts. But concepts
can also be realted to the world through percepts.
> which is possible for any *part* of the framework, but not for the framework
> in its entirety.
The question (1) of what it means for a conceptual framework
as a whole to model the world can be understood without
"stepping outside" in in any sense. It can be understood
by using analogies like "modelling" and "mapping".
The fact that these are still "within" the framework
does not matter because they are only
being used as metaphors.
The question (2) of confirming that a framework
*does* correctly model the world, up to a point,
can be answered peicemeal by using the framework to
make predictions which are then confirmed or disconfirmed.
Again, that does not involve any kind of "stepping outside".
There are a number of confusions here: confusing the
"what is it to mode?l" question with the "does it mode?l"
question, and assuming both must be answered at once,
or not at all, and assuming questions about a conceptual
framework as a whole must be answered in one giant leap,
or not at all.
Citizen Bob
>The cat itself may or may not exist, but it is not a cat in and of itself.
What does "in and of itself" mean?
You are touting Idealism, pure and simple. Plato did the same thing
4000 years ago.
> It exists as a concept in those that perceive the object of the "cat".
>Its a reference, the actual item is not a cat per se - but it is
>called "cat". Cat is a reference label.
>It may seem like a trivial distinction but it is a vital and valid one
>which we cannot ever ignore.
Realists reject this epistemological/psychological double speak.
Next thing I know you will be claiming that there is a half-alive,
half-dead cat in the box and that the Moon really does disappear when
you stop looking at it. That's lunatic.
Citizen Bob
>Yes there is.
>For instance there is a contradiction between your
>
>"Its a reference, the actual item is not a cat per se"
>
>and your
>
>"It is what it is".
This is the primary reason I am a Realist. Idealists never make any
sense.
Citizen Bob
>> >objects without concepts are not recognized!"
>> I disagree. Being manifests itself directly to your awareness. There
>> is no requirement for recognition of what the object is.
>Small-b beings may manifest themselves, but without recognition,
>you don't know what they are.
I don't care to know what they are when I am discussing Being. All I
am interested in is that the do exist and I know it because my senses
inform me that something is out there. Never mind what it is - that is
covered by essence. But essence and existence are separate principles
- that was the contribution of Aquinas to Aristotle.
>> An infant puts his hand on a hot stove burner and immediately
>> perceives Being - something out there that is asserting itself on his
>> senses. But the infant has no clue what it is that is doing that to
>> him. He recognizes Being, but has no concept of what it is.
>
>That is quite a stretch to the concept of recognition.
I am not addressing recognition. I do not have the word in my
vocabulary because it is part of a idealist subjective
epistemological/psychological vague theory.
In order to understand substance, all you need to understand is
essence and existence, which are realist objective ontological
principles. All the rest is subjective and therefore fantasy.
1Z
Citizen Bob wrote:
> On 18 Oct 2006 04:54:49 -0700, "1Z" <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >> >objects without concepts are not recognized!"
>
> >> I disagree. Being manifests itself directly to your awareness. There
> >> is no requirement for recognition of what the object is.
>
> >Small-b beings may manifest themselves, but without recognition,
> >you don't know what they are.
>
> I don't care to know what they are when I am discussing Being.
You *should* be discussing is recongnition.
> All I
> am interested in is that the do exist and I know it because my senses
> inform me that something is out there. Never mind what it is - that is
> covered by essence. But essence and existence are separate principles
> - that was the contribution of Aquinas to Aristotle.
Likewise, recognition is affditional to perception.
> >> An infant puts his hand on a hot stove burner and immediately
> >> perceives Being - something out there that is asserting itself on his
> >> senses. But the infant has no clue what it is that is doing that to
> >> him. He recognizes Being, but has no concept of what it is.
> >
> >That is quite a stretch to the concept of recognition.
>
> I am not addressing recognition.
"He recognizes Being"
> I do not have the word in my
> vocabulary because it is part of a idealist subjective
> epistemological/psychological vague theory.
Yo just used it!
Go, go, go, said the bird
andy-k wrote:
>I reject the substantivalist idea of
> "events-in-themselves", the eternally
> unchanging naked bearers of the attributes
> of events. Were that the case then
> events-in-themselves would exist in
> splendid isolation, eternally bearing no
> relations with each other, and therefore
> bearing no *temporal* relations with each
> other.
I believe that there has to be a primal level where everything is
inter-connected, rather being objects (either micro or macro) separated
from each other by space. But the appearance of isolation does emerge
from that underlying relational network (for instance, I don't
experience the private dynamics in other people's minds or have global
experience of the Totality). I no longer cotton much to radical
reductionism --where, in this case, only the integrated monism of
elemental relations would be real and the individuated systems that
seem to arise from them are merely ineffectual illusion. Within systems
such as ourselves, the appearance of isolation --of being events or
sequences of evolving events in themselves-- results in unique
behaviors or patterns being added to the Whole.
#
Citizen Bob
>> I don't care to know what they are when I am discussing Being.
>You *should* be discussing is recongnition.
Not when I am discussing Being.
>> I am not addressing recognition.
>"He recognizes Being"
That is a misuse of the term. What you want to say is "He perceives
Being." Recognition requires a knowledge of the essence of an entity.
Perception of Being does not.
>> I do not have the word in my
>> vocabulary because it is part of a idealist subjective
>> epistemological/psychological vague theory.
>You just used it!
Quit being silly.
chazwin
Plenty of use. Most of knowledge has proceded when the participants
were far from certain about the outcome or source of their knowledge.
You really are a complete light weight thinker.
Duh!!! Black and white boy!
MG
chazwin
1Z wrote:
> chazwin wrote:
> > 1Z wrote:
> > > chazwin wrote:
> > > > Citizen Bob wrote:
> > > > > On 16 Oct 2006 11:04:37 -0700, "1Z" <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > >So "cat" means "concept"
> > > > >
> > > > > It does not mean the actual cat. It is a reference to the actual cat.
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > This is not a pipe.
> > > > Cat does not MEAN concept. "Cat" is an example of a concept.
> > > > The word cat is a concept.
> > > > The cat itself may or may not exist, but it is not a cat in and of
> > > > itself.
> > >
> > > What is it, then?
> >
> > THis question cannot be answered without introducing more metaphors,
> > such as animal, furry thing, quadraped etc.
>
> There is nothing *metaphorical* about describing
> a cat as a furry quadruped animal. That is a very
> literal truth.
All nouns are metphors as they are not the thing they represent.
Language is metaphorical.
>
> > "cats" existed before the
> > English language, before humans could speak.
>
> So cats are not concepts.
All preception requires that we conceive the object of out perception.
Are you trying to say that the cat exists without your brain? It may or
may not do - the cat could exist, it might be a fictional cat, but in
order for you to have ANY evidence of it it must be conceptualised.
>
> > It is what it is and we
> > call it a cat. In order tha we perceive it, we concieve it.
> >
> > >
> > > > It exists as a concept in those that perceive the object of the "cat".
> > >
> > > "In those". How liteally do I take that? Do I (literally)
> > > have a cat in my head when I look at a cat?
> >
> > No you have the idea of a cat. You have sensory data via your eyes, you
> > perceive the object and you label it "cat". The thing may exist
> > whether or not you perceive it, but in perceiving it you reference the
> > concept "cat"
>
>
> In perceiving it, it becomes the reference of the
> concpet cat.
yes
>
> > > > Its a reference, the actual item is not a cat per se
> > >
> > > What is it, then?
> >
> > It is what it is.
>
> What it is...is a cat. Per se.
No! "cat" is just a label. Its existence is a fact regardless of the
label. But so that we have evidence of the cat we make it conceptual.
>
> > If you were French it would not be a "cat" but a
> > "chat", if German a Katze, if Portugese a Gato.
>
>
> It would not be *called* a cat. It would
> still *be* (what we call) a "cat" (which the french call "chat", etc,
> etc).
I'm not saying that it would not exist. I am saying that it is not a
cat, but it is that which we call a cat. I think the diffficulty with
which your last sentence was written should give you a clue to what I
am saying.
>
> > > > - but it is
> > > > called "cat". Cat is a reference label.
> > > > It may seem like a trivial distinction but it is a vital and valid one
> > > > which we cannot ever ignore.
> > >
> > > It is you who are muddling the distinction.
> >
> > There is no muddle here!
>
> Yes there is.
> For instance there is a contradiction between your
>
> "Its a reference, the actual item is not a cat per se"
>
> and your
>
> "It is what it is".
In what way?
I am happy that the object called a cat exists, but I am not confused
into believing that the word "cat" is anything more than a label. A
labal which exists through nothing more than convention. If 100,000,000
million people call the thing called cat a "dog" then we would have to
accept that label. But the thing called cats were around long before
humans are were not know by any name at all.
Take a look at this!
http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T340/TreasonOfImagesShadow.jpg
Rene Magritte declares that his painting of a pipe is not a pipe. Think
about it!
'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it
means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'
'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many
different things.'
'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's
all.'
In declaring a cat is a cat you are making the word your master. But
words are just tools, metaphorical devices that are used to label
things for our convenience.
What are the limits of cat?