Lew Rockwell interviews me on today’s LRC podcast, on the subject of anarchism. (Actually the interview took place last September; there’s a bit of a podcast backlog.) I tried to avoid too much duplication with my previous LRC podcast on the same subject from two years earlier. (I vaguely remember now that we also did one on taxation two years ago but I don’t think that one ever aired.)
P.:
Do you think dogs make perceptual judgement?
Of course.
Any animal, including Man, must evaluate sensory data before it can see it as something.
“Any animal, including Man, must evaluate sensory data before it can see it as something”
Geez… now my analogy won’t work, I guess.
What I was trying to say is that you can’t even count as seeing something if you’re not “seeing-as”.
Do you agree with that?
Let’s try another way:
Have you read about the disjunctivist view? Do you agree with it? Why (not)?
P.:
Sense-experience is the result of your interpretation of sense-data, as in seeing a line as a duck shape, a rabbit or even if you just see it as a squiggly line.
No. What I said implies just the opposite:
The only thing that we know absolutely is that our consciousness exists. Yet, to learn anything about the world, we must make the leap of faith that our perceptions represent things in the external world. It’s possible that this faith is an inherited instinct, but in Man, especially, instinct is overwritten by acquired beliefs to form new instincts. When people really do believe the philosophy that the world is a dream, then they really do need a conscious leap of faith to believe in the external world, but considering how brutal the world is to those who ignore it, then maybe not such a big leap.
The world around us has evolving form and structure. E.g., we can classify certain groups of animals according to species; we can classify them as a species from a particular land mass; we can call some animal groups birds and some other animal groups mammals or we can combine both groups, calling them warm- blooded animals.
Concepts don’t exist in the world separate from the mind, but are the tool required by the mind to enable it to understand its, otherwise, hidden structure.
I’m saying the opposite. “Duck” is an abstraction, not an ideal.
As long as you’re not equating experience with data, then yes, otherwise, then no, judgment is dependent on data.
The underlying structure is hidden in the data and is teased out using judgment, it doesn’t come with labels.
You’re putting on your “conceptual goggles” – the pattern recognition abilities of your mind – to see whether it fits into some existing group or categories and whether it’s helpful to create further categories to define it. That’s the “head on view”.
You’re telling a metaphysical story: sense-data is basic. Why do you make this assumption? — Your answer will inevitably be a story about your experience. — You do realize that you’re justifying the fundamental existence of sense-data by your experience of sense-data? If your mind was the only mind in the world, then I’d be cool with this move. But hey! P. has a mind too! So why should I accept your personal sense-data as the justification for non-personal sense-data-as-basic?
And please, try justifying sense-data-as-basic without an appeal to your personal sense-data…
“Sense-experience is the result of your interpretation of sense-data, as in seeing a line as a duck shape, a rabbit”
Interpretation of what?! Of something “non-conceptual”? But what could POSSIBLY be this “raw, non-conceptual sense-data”?
When you try to describe it, you already appeal to our concepts. You say “seeing a line as a duck shape”. But if sense-data is “seeing lines”, then you’re already “seeing-as lines” before you “see as a rabbit”. You can’t describe what this “sense-data” is without appealing to some kind of sense-experience, which already involves the “seeing-as”.
Then, you admit this. You say:
“…or even if you just see it as a squiggly line.”
Ok. Now you have agreed with me that even lines are already an instance of sense-experience. But now that you admit this, you have left your concept of “sense-data” completely EMPTY.
You haven’t said a single word about what this “sense-data” could possibly be.. and every time you make such an attempt, you already appeal to sense-experience.
“As long as you’re not equating experience with data, then yes, otherwise, then no, judgment is dependent on data.”
This is the Myth of the Given. You think that there must be a Given, which doesn’t already involve mental activity. But, as McDowell has shown… such a thing is incoherent.
Read McDowell’s Mind and World.
Maybe later I’ll answer the rest of your posts… I was out for some time, so I’ll have to catch up to the discussion later.
P.:
No, I don’t.
“Sense-experience” or “seeing-as” is our subjective experience. While it’s true that we cannot escape having subjective experience, it’s not correct to conclude that we cannot decipher the real underlying process and it’s even less correct to elevate subjective beliefs to the status of fact.
When we look at something, what we see is not the thing, but the patterns of light reflected off some small part of it. Except for an 8 degree field, the world is, visually, an indecipherable blur. Our eyes scan the thing, be it an object or a group of objects, and our brain puts together all the little pieces of sense-data to appear as a sharp image which it automatically attempts to name in parts or in whole.
To find out what we really see is easy: just fix your eyes on one place and the world, except for a small point of focus, dissolves into a blur.
If you’ve ever drawn or painted realistically, remember how you had to break down the subjective illusion of vision into its small components to represent the image.
I haven’t, but I looked up information about it. I haven’t had time to get into the details of all the conflicting versions of it, but my general impression is that I can understand how my point that the only thing we can know absolutely is that our consciousness exists; that all else is the leap of faith that we are conscious of something external to our consciousness, which we can then empirically confirm would make you think of it.
“To find out what we really see is easy: just fix your eyes on one place and the world, except for a small point of focus, dissolves into a blur”
Again, this just amounts to: “We see the world as a blur”. The “seeing-as” is irreducible… and if you already accept it, there is no reason to suppose that this description is the real one underlying all the others.
“When we look at something, what we see is not the thing, but the patterns of light reflected off some small part of it.”
False. This is a physicalistic account. And sense-experience is not reducible to such a physicalist language.
This is interesting: http://praxeology.net/unblog11-04.htm#17
A distinction between enabling and constitutive conditions. The physicalistic account you propose is just the enabling conditions… not the constitutive.
About the discjunctivist view… Actually, that’s my view. The disjunctivist view denys this intermediation of a “sense-data” between us and the world. That’s why it would be interesting for you to read about it…
Hey P., what do you think of the view that we ought to accept epistemological disjunctivism without accepting metaphysical disjunctivism?
I don’t know that view. Please, explain it.
Both forms of disjunctivism claim that correct perception is — literally — in direct contact with the world, while hallucinations/illusions are not in contact with the world. Metaphysical disjunctivism claims that mental states are necessarily in contact with the world and so necessarily correct perceptions. Hallucinations/illusions therefore are not only not in contact with the world, but they aren’t even mental states. Nothing whatsoever holds in common between mental states and hallucinations/illusions. Epistemological disjunctivism claims that only correct perception is in contact with the world, but hallucinations/illusions still have something in common with mental states — even if they aren’t in contact with the world.
This guy is the only person I know of who explicitly says we should take the epistemological version without the metaphysical version. If I understand Roderick correctly — and hopefully he’ll chime in — he thinks that the epistemological version combined with grammatical investigations into our use of words like ‘thought’ and ‘mental state’, compel us to accept the metaphysical version as well. So, if I’m right, then on Roderick’s view, we only properly arrive at the metaphysical version by way of the epistemological version plus grammatical investigations.
P., funny that you would link to this piece by Roderick. I read that in 2004 and it’s stuck with me since. One of the best blogs of all times… anywhere… by anyone.
MBH:
My position is is based on cognitive science, not subjective experience.
My use of introspection is to illustrate how it’s possible to overcome subjectivity, or to be objective, while retaining an intuitive sense of the rightness of your conclusions, i.e., as a confirmation of abstraction at the perceptual level.
And cognitive science is based on information-as-basic. Sense-data is a subset of information, so you use sense-data-as-basic because the discipline you pre-suppose as the truth allows this move. I could analogously pre-suppose that creationism is the truth and then say that I’m justified in God-as-basic because “my position is based on creation science.” Philosophy doesn’t allow moves like this — science is rooted in philosophy; philosophy isn’t rooted in science.
How are you overcoming subjectivity? You start with your personal sense-data — the “science” that you interpret through your personal sense-data — and you end with abstractions from personal sense-data. Even if those abstractions say that we’re all One, your foundation for that belief is complete subjectivity. How can you be said to overcome subjectivity if all your beliefs filter through subjectivity? At what point do you recognize that you need to be rid of that filter? And when you do reach that realization, why wouldn’t you place sense-data-as-basic into the toilet?
MBH:
You’re mistaken; philosophy and scientific information are comprised of theories that have been derived from the empirical verification of our interpretation of subjective experience, which is, in turn, derived from our mental interpretation of sense-data. Sense-data is not a concept or any kind of theory; it’s just the raw information that’s picked up by our senses before it’s interpreted and experienced as something.
The preceding proposition is a logical theory; a falsifiable product of reasoning that has been verified empirically; the basis of cognitive science. On the other hand Creationism is not logical, reasonable, empirical or even falsifiable. Its “logic” and “evidence” consist of rationalizations of dogma. There is no comparison between the two.
By subjecting my beliefs to empirical evidence.
Because we have sense organs that collect sense data and they are our only connection to the outer world. Also: We have the capacity to ignore preconceptions and see sensory-data without assigning it external meaning, e.g., you can repeat a word until you hear it as a meaningless sound or stare at a place until the image dissolves into meaningless shape and color.
Do you know of the existence of anything other than your sense-data?
MBH:
It depends on your sense of the word “know”. The existence of sense-data is an epistemological proposition and also a scientific proposition; that at this level, not just cognitive science, but all science, reaches deep into its epistemological roots.
The word “knowledge”, in its absolute sense, is limited to the knowledge that, for each person, his consciousness exists. All other forms of “knowledge” refer to the high degree of certainty of a theory that’s not only been empirically verified, but, as enumerated by Ed Hatch in “LIGO: Prelude to Revolution”, is agreed to by those presumed to be most knowledgeable; is consistent, i.e., is harmonious or without internal contradiction; has logical strength and scope of connection; is convergent with other well accepted theories; is clear and understandable; has logical, mathematical and intuitive concreteness, i.e., is tangible, is compelling or beautifully attractive.
In the absolute sense, are you equating consciousness with knowing about sense-data?
I don’t understand your question. Can you restate it?
In the absolute sense of knowledge, what does the knowing? Is it sense-data itself or something else?
All non-absolute forms of knowledge depend on interpretation – a theory – and so are theoretical.
The only thing that we experience directly, i.e., its existence requires no interpretation; is self evident, is the raw material of all indirect experience or consciousness itself.
It’s not that we cannot also have a theory of what consciousness is and/or where it comes from, i.e., seeing consciousness as something and/or its cause, but regardless of which, if any, belief is true, whatever it is and whatever its source, it’s existence is axiomatic.
I asked about the absolute sense of knowledge. Why did you spout your take on non-absolute knowledge?
No… you asked me about sensory-data and I explained why it’s not knowledge, absolute or otherwise. Then I told you what was the only absolute knowledge.
Before you ask further questions or make comments, try re-reading what I answered and implied.
So we experience consciousness itself. Fine. But that implies that we’re conscious of consciousness. So what thinks about consciousness? So far, you’ve said that there’s thought. Well, what thinks?
If you’re saying that the existence of consciousness is axiomatic, then I’m saying its capacity to be thought about is also axiomatic. What you’re claiming is analogous to “Only objects exist.” And I’m saying that the concept ‘object’ presupposes the concept ‘subject’, so the claim “Only objects exist” is senseless.
Again: if your axiom is the existence of consciousness, then the burden rests with you to say why your idea of consciousness excludes its capacity to be thought about.
MBH:
The minds of people philosophically inclined to do so.
It’s the brain that has both conscious and unconscious thoughts.
That sounds reasonable, as we experience being conscious and the subject of thought is experience, so consciousness can be the subject of thought. To deduce this is so simple that, in a sense, it could be thought of as self-evident, i.e., axiomatic.
Is this leading somewhere?
Which claim is analogous to “Only objects exist.” and in what way is it analogous?
Where have I said or implied this?
If my axiom is the existence of consciousness, then I’m obviously thinking of it or have thought about it
So only philosophers can think about what they perceive? What about a baseball player that thinks he’s seeing a curve ball?
So the brain — itself — is sense-data and the source of sense-data?
MBH:
How could “hallucinations/illusions” not be mental states?
If they aren’t mental states… what are they?
The same way illogical “thoughts” aren’t thoughts. Grammatically, when we use the word ‘thought’ we necessarily imply the concept logical. So the adjective ‘illogical’ cannot coherently modify the noun ‘thought’. Same would go for disconnected-from-the-world ‘mental states’. Grammatically, when we use the phrase ‘mental state’ we necessarily imply contact with the world. Since hallucinations and illusions are disconnected from the world, and to be a mental state there must be connection to the world, hallucinations and illusions cannot coherently reference a subset of ‘mental states’.
I’d call it standpointlessness.
I’m not convinced.
If, right now, I imagine that I’m in a beach instead of my bedroom, would you say this is not a mental state, because it is disconnected from the world?
“Grammatically, when we use the phrase ‘mental state’ we necessarily imply contact with the world.”
Why? Wouldn’t it be more realistic to say that this is a matter of logical preponderance instead of “all-or-nothing”?
Not at all. That’s not a hallucination or an illusion. It would only not count as a mental state if you believed you were at the beach.
I don’t see why it can’t be both. I mean, to say that “mental state” cannot reference from within standpointlessness amounts to saying that the phrase is not allowed in a private language.
My first response is sort-of ambiguous. I would could imagination as a mental state. It only wouldn’t count as a mental state if the imaginer lost track of it as imagination.
The second response could be misinterpreted too.
(1) Private language games have no sense.
(2) “Mental state” used from standpointlessness is part of a private language.
(3) “Mental state” used from standpointlessness has no sense.
What is standpointlessness?
A “point” of view that one believes is coherent but is not.
But isn’t a belief a kind of mental state?
“Grammatically, when we use the phrase ‘mental state’ we necessarily imply contact with the world.”
I’d like a better explanation for this. Why ‘mental state’ *necessarily* imply contact with the world?
You’re right: to avoid confusion I should use quotation marks on belief as I did for point.
For the same reason Descartes’ question “Am I dreaming?”–in actuality–holds only illusory weight. The question presupposes language. Language presupposes a culture/interaction/public exchange/etc. A question that presupposes its own negation is nonsense. We’re dealing with propositions of the form: “This sentence is false.”
‘Mental state’ necessarily implies contact with the world because to question otherwise is to make a proposition that presupposes its own negation. The phrase ‘mental state’ derives from a culture/interaction/public exchange/etc. A culture/interaction/public exchange/etc. necessarily implies contact with the world. Therefore, “Could ‘mental state’ reference something not in contact with the world?” presupposes its own negation–meaning that the question is senseless.
How’s that?
a dialectic paradigm of narrative that includes language as a mythopoetical totality, interpolated into a neocultural sublimation that includes language as a precultural conceptual theory to analyse society.
No that would be the standpoint of standpointlessness. 🙂
MBH:
You asked “So what thinks about consciousness? “; a different kind of question.
BTW: I said “the philosophically inclined”, not “philosophers”.
He thinks he sees a curved ball. What of it?
Certainly not. How does that follow what I wrote?
So you consider baseball players who see a pitch as a curve ball necessarily philosophically inclined?
What does the seeing? Sense-data? I though sense-data is what’s seen. Are you cool with lumping what’s seen and what sees into the same essence?
MBH:
You’re not being logical; how is “seeing a pitch as a curve-ball” an example of “thinking about consciousness”?
The brain.
1. The sense organs perceive by detecting stimuli, e.g., the eyes “see” light reflected off of or emanating from something, converting it into sense-data that they send to the brain’s visual cortex.
2. The visual cortex “sees” an image that it constructs to correspond to the sense-data.
3. The brain interprets the image, allowing it to “see” it as something.
Notice the word “see” has a different meaning in each of the three steps:
1. to scan or view
2. to construct a mental image of
3. to interpret; categorize; conceptualize
Failure to distinguish between meanings is one of the main causes of your confusion.
Coming from the evangelist of metaphysical materialism who feels no need to defend his doctrine — only the need to push it.
I’m sorry. You’ll have to pardon my use of your meanings to help you out of the bottle (or the toilet). You’d agree that seeing a pitch as a curve-ball is thinking about sense-data, I’d assume. And you imply — whether you’re aware of it or not — that sense-data is the content of consciousness when you say this:
Now, time to read what P. recommends, to read how Roderick destroys Rand, and to admit that you’re identifying sense-data with the content of consciousness. Go.
P.:
Losing the ability to see the mental illusion of a focused world, doesn’t mean we will “see the world as a blur”, i.e., “interpret the world as actually being blurry” unless one is unusually simple-minded.
In the same way, seeing objects in the distance as smaller than the same objects in the foreground doesn’t mean that we will see them as shrinking, the more distant that they are, unless one is, again, unusually simple-minded.
Our minds learn to interpret what we see. Then, if our interpretation changes, we see it as something different.
Sense-experience is the interpretation of what we perceive. Our sense-experience changes as our understanding of what we perceive changes. You are switching between different meanings of the word “perceive”, causing yourself unnecessary confusion.
Sense-data – “perceiving” – is what enables the brain’s interpretation of it – “perceiving as something”, i.e., “perceiving” in the sense of “understanding to be something”,
The brain is a physical organ, so “seeing as” is a physical activity that enables the subjective experience that we call consciousness, which although associated with certain brain activity, remains a mystery.
I don’t want to step in front of P, I hope s/he will still respond.
You still haven’t said to what ‘mind’ refers. Is it sense-data? Is it a function? You cannot compartmentalize in metaphysics. What is mind? Do you think it’s identical to the brain?
What’s mysterious is the never-ending cycle of death-blows dealt to materialism that materialists ignore (“lalalalala” with eyes closed and a finger in each ear). So consciousness is not identical to brain activity? Then what is it? You can’t do metaphysics unless you identify the essence of everything! That’s what metaphysics is. Materialism is a metaphysics. And you act like you’re defending it by doubting it! Look dude, if up is hot dog and gravity is purple, then you’re 100% right.
MBH:
This definition seems reasonable:
“Mind is the aspect of intellect and consciousness experienced as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, will, and imagination, including all unconscious cognitive processes. The term is often used to refer, by implication, to the thought processes of reason. Mind manifests itself subjectively as a stream of consciousness.”
Since the mind consists of the mental activities of the brain, which we subjectively experience as consciousness, it would be convenient to say that consciousness is identical to certain types of brain activity, but, while I can’t know anyone else’s experience, except as a theory, I know that I’m conscious and that subjective experience is inexplicable to me in terms of purely physical activity.
To say consciousness is an illusion has no meaning unless one could explain “illusion” without reference to consciousness.
Your belief that everything is of one essence seems simplistic and naive.
Since you reject the physical, I suppose you’re some form of idealist. My metaphysics rejects both extremes, even if you say I’m not allowed to do that. Philosophy itself is a kind of empirical science; we cannot simply disregard evidence that we do not understand.
Coming from the guy who thinks everything is material. Dude, if you can’t understand the position that rejects materialism and immaterialism, then you should probably stop trying to attack it until you understand it.
No I don’t. I reject physicalism — not “the physical.”
Here’s a hint: check out my avatar’s work. Specifically, pay close attention to how he dismisses both materialism and idealism as both dogmatic.
God damnit man. You reject the head-on view. And only the head-on view rejects both extremes. Quit pissing on our collective leg and calling it rain. Please.
Well, at least you’re willing to put out there that you have no idea what philosophy is. Philosophy is a conceptual science. You just snapped your limb.
MBH:
You’re the one who attacks any reference to the physical world as materialism. You come across as an idealist. I’m the one who consistently rejects both physicalism and idealism.
I’ve always agreed with “the head-on view”. I just think its graphical depiction as such was simplistic and doesn’t really help to explain it.
Everything we believe is based on the knowledge that we are conscious and the assumption that consciousness requires something, other than itself, of which to be conscious.
This is consistent with the “head on view”.
All science is conceptual, but ideas that are internally consistent, but cannot be tested, then cannot be falsified; they’re just dogma.
By appealing to sense-data. That’s like saying “I’m the one who advocates evolution on our 8,000 year old planet.”
MBH:
There you go again with your automatic hostility toward any arguments that reference the physical world. It’s no wonder that you seem, to me, to come off as an idealist. .
What is it that you think I’m appealing to sense-data for that makes you so upset with me?
How can we even discuss the mind as a whole, in both its physical and non-physical functions, without reference to its purpose: to interpret the external world? And how can interpret the world independently of our senses?
How Mark makes one feel.
You treat sense-data as the essence of the world.
Jared Loughner, please calm down. “To interpret the external world” is not coherent because it assumes a literal split between the “internal universe” and the “external universe.” The last guy making that distinction in public ended up shooting a congresswoman.
How can you think of senses that aren’t shaped by concepts?!?!
“In the same way, seeing objects in the distance as smaller than the same objects in the foreground doesn’t mean that we will see them as shrinking,”
Of course not. We will see them “as more distant”.
You still haven’t successfully answered my criticisms…. you’re talking past me. What I said is: “We can’t make sense of sense-experience which doesn’t involve ‘seeing-as’, so that, when you try to give an account of sense-data you always end up appealing to some kind of ‘seeing-as'”
And your blur example is just another of the same kind. You tried to say that sense-data = when the world dissolves into a blur. And I said: “that’s the same as ‘we see the world as a blur'”.
You can’t coherently describe what this supposed sense-data is without appealing to sense-experience.
BTW, it’s not that “I interpret the world to be blurry”.. it’s just that, in your example, I SEE the world “as blurry”.
“Sense-experience is the interpretation of what we perceive.”
No. Sense-experience is the “perceiving” itself. It’s just that we can’t perceive without already employing mental activity.
“You are switching between different meanings of the word “perceive”, causing yourself unnecessary confusion.”
Nope. And you didn’t address my accusation that you’re talking like a physicalistic reductionist.
“Sense-data – “perceiving” – is what enables the brain’s interpretation of it – “perceiving as something”, i.e., “perceiving” in the sense of “understanding to be something”,”
1- Did you read the text about enabling and constitutive conditions?
2- The enabling conditions of sense-experience is the whole talk about “how we can have a sense-experience”. That’s what you were doing when you talked about “light reflecting in such and such a way, blablabla”.
3- But those enabling conditions don’t say WHAT is sense-experience. Your attempt to reduce the constitutive to the enabling condition is illogical.
4- There is no perceiving without perceiving-as. If you remove all the descriptions under which you might perceive something, you end up with a completely empty account. That’s what I’ve been trying to show you.
When you saw you couldn’t give a meaningful account of what sense-data is, you started giving an account of the enabling conditions of sense-experience… that’s why I wanted you to read the text about enabling vs constitutive conditions.
“The brain is a physical organ, so “seeing as” is a physical activity that enables the subjective experience that we call consciousness, which although associated with certain brain activity, remains a mystery.”
Wrong again. Read these:
http://praxeology.net/unblog03-05.htm#05
http://praxeology.net/unblog03-05.htm#06
http://praxeology.net/unblog03-05.htm#07
http://praxeology.net/unblog04-05.htm#05
http://praxeology.net/unblog05-05.htm#02
P.:
That’s because we learn how to interpret what we see. A very young child, not understanding the illusion of receding size with increasing distance, may ask,”Why do things get smaller when they move away from us?”
“Making sense of sense-experience” or “giving an account” of the image you construct from sense-data is the interpretation or “seeing as” I’m speaking of, so in that sense we’re in agreement.
You’re missing the point: I was showing how visual sense-data must be constructed into an image in our brain that has nothing to do with concepts. Concepts are only involved in the interpretation of the image.
Sense-data is the signals sent from sensory organs to the brain that the brain uses to construct an image; a sound; a physical feeling; a smell; a taste, which is then interpreted as a sense-experience.
Again…you are denying that there is more than one meaning for “perceiving”. This is at the root of your misconceptions.
Are you saying that any belief in physical existence is equivalent to physical reductionism?
Are you a monist?
It’s a very interesting debate, but, because of some problems with terminology, I’m sure I have some misconceptions about the positions they were arguing.
Are the following statements that I made to MBH so divergent from Roderick’s position? Maybe you can explain how.
“Since the mind consists of the mental activities of the brain, which we subjectively experience as consciousness, it would be convenient to say that consciousness is identical to certain types of brain activity, but, while I can’t know anyone else’s experience, except as a theory, I know that I’m conscious and that subjective experience is inexplicable to me in terms of purely physical activity.
To say consciousness is an illusion has no meaning unless one could explain “illusion” without reference to consciousness.”
and:
“Since you reject the physical, I suppose you’re some form of idealist. My metaphysics rejects both extremes, even if you say I’m not allowed to do that. Philosophy itself is a kind of empirical science; we cannot simply disregard evidence that we do not understand.”
At least you finally agree that to “see as” requires interpretation.
If to see as “more distant” first requires an interpretation to “see as” smaller, then “to see” as more distant requires a two step interpretation, or double the amount of interpreting.
I gave an account of sense-data as an enabling condition of perception because that’s what it is. I didn’t imply anything further by it.
No. Sense-data enables the construction of an image in the brain that we see, then we interpret the image so that we see it as “something”, then we can interpret that “something” so that we see it as a “more general something”, and so on.
How is “equating sense-data with the enabling conditions of sense-experience” saying what sense-experience is? But your understanding is wrong:
1. In one sense I did say what a sense-experience is: It’s the experience of perceiving a perception as something (abstract perception or concept); we have a perception, but after interpretation we perceive it differently.
2. But in the other sense I didn’t say what perception is; only how a perception becomes, by means of interpretation, a conceptual perception or “perceiving as”
I’m just defining “perceiving-as” or “sense-experience” in terms of perception.
How would I know which of the meanings you were using? I assigned “see” the only meaning that made sense or I would otherwise be disagreeing with something I might actually agree with.
Why not???
I suppose I could have the same point without reference to the brain, but your comment only shows me that my intuition, that I should make references to the enabling conditions of perception, was correct. You seem to be implying that we can see without eyes or brains.
Trying to describe what it’s like is part of the process of guessing what it might be; like when you look at a cloud and try to find resemblances to things, until you come up with something, it’s just a cloud; until you come up with something, a perceived image is just colors, shades and shape and assuming you’re familiar with the concepts “color”, “shade” and “shape”, that’s all you see them as.
The question of whether perception can have physical enabling conditions is of no interest to philosophy?
Look at the definition of “perceive” or “see”. Many of the definitions are associated with different mental activities.
That’s only true if your first use of “perceived” denotes a higher level of abstract perception than your second use of “perceived”.
That quote seems to align with my perspective, but I’m sure you’ll say that I’m not getting it.
“At least you finally agree that to “see as” requires interpretation.”
No. That’s why I said “as little, actually”.
“If to see as “more distant” first requires an interpretation to “see as” smaller, then “to see” as more distant requires a two step interpretation, or double the amount of interpreting”
It’s not that it “requires an interpretation”. It is that there is NO sense-experience without mental activity.
And no, you don’t need a “double-step” interpretation to see something “as more distant”. And I’m not sure that’s a more abstract concept than “as smaller”.
You suppose that first we see it “as smaller”, and then we interpret it to be more distant. This I deny. We see it “as more distant”, period. If we don’t see it “as more distant” we still don’t have that concept, so it doesn’t even make sense to say we interpret it to be “more distant”.
“No. Sense-data enables the construction of an image in the brain that we see, then we interpret the image so that we see it as “something”, then we can interpret that “something” so that we see it as a “more general something”, and so on.”
Actually you were vacillating between “sense-data as enabling conditions of sense-experience” and “sense-data as a non-conceptual image”. Now you have officially adopted “sense-data as enabling condition”.
I don’t know what you’re going to call the “non-conceptual image” now, but that’s what is relevant here, not the enabling conditions. I don’t deny that there are enabling conditions for sense-experience… I just don’t see how they are relevant to this debate.
So, what you said is: “We interpret the non-conceptual image so that we see it as something”, but DUDE, this is just the sideways-on view all over again.
How are you going to interpret something that is non-conceptual? How can you meaningfully talk about a “non-conceptual something”?
You’re just saying: “There’s an image in my head that is a formless chaos, which then I interpret so that I’m able to make sense of it”
But this is just incoherent. You can’t describe what this formless chaos is supposed to be, so you can’t meaningfully talk about it.
You’re trying to give an account of conceptual thought from an “external standpoint”… but that’s just incoherent!
“Trying to describe what it’s like is part of the process of guessing what it might be;”
Exactly! You can’t make sense of “it” while “it” is not interpreted. But that’s the same as saying “We can’t make sense of it”.
Well, if we can’t make sense of “it”, there is NO “it”. It’s senseless to talk about this “non-conceptual image”.
“like when you look at a cloud and try to find resemblances to things, until you come up with something, it’s just a cloud;”
But that’s not a valid point.
1- You are already capable of describing what a cloud is. You’re just looking for different shapes of clouds.
2- You can’t find resemblances to things of which you don’t yet have the concept! We are able to do that with clouds exactly because we already have the concepts of the shapes a cloud can take.
3- The supposed “non-conceptual image” doesn’t work the same way. It’s a non-describable thing. A “formless chaos” which must be interpreted in order do be thought about at all.
Well, you’re trying to think what is beyond thought. That, my friend, is illogical.
“We cannot think what we cannot think. Therefore we cannot say what we cannot think.”
“until you come up with something, a perceived image is just colors, shades and shape and assuming you’re familiar with the concepts “color”, “shade” and “shape”, that’s all you see them as”
You, sir, are a formless chaos…. Now you changed your position. No longer you’re holding the “non-conceptual image”…
You have just adopted the “perceptual judgement within sense-experience” view I’m talking about.
The problem is that now you wanna postulate descriptions of “colors, shades an shapes” as basic, which then must be interpreted to be other stuff.
But now that you have already accepted that sense-experience is descriptive, I don’t see how you can say that one description “is more real” than another. That only “these concepts” are active in sense-experience, and not “those concepts”. That’s incoherent. That amounts to postulating the “sideways-on view” to most of our concepts, and the “head-on view” only to a few concepts.
As I said, when we see an apple, we see it “as an apple”, not “as a round and red object”.
Unless you’re saying the concepts of “color, shade and shape” are basic in the sense of being logically pressupposed by all the other concepts. But I don’t see how that would be true. Instead, the concepts of “color, shade and shape” are the ones which depend on more basic concepts… for example, the concept of “concrete particular” which HAS the “color, shape and shade”.
“1. In one sense I did say what a sense-experience is: It’s the experience of perceiving a perception as something (abstract perception or concept);”
Perceiving a perception? Really?
Thing is: I have already addressed this argument of a non-conceptual perception. We cannot make sense of such a thing.
“But in the other sense I didn’t say what perception is; only how a perception becomes, by means of interpretation, a conceptual perception or “perceiving as””
Of course you didn’t say what it is. How are you going to say what a senseless thing is? It is senseless.
“’There is no non-conceptual image to be interpreted. That just doesn’t make any sense.’
Why not???”
Because to talk about a “non-conceptual” something presupposes you can think about “what you cannot think”. Presupposes you can take off your “conceptual goggles” and see what it is like without them.
Indeed, you still haven’t understood the “head-on view” Roderick talks about.
“You seem to be implying that we can see without eyes or brains.”
No, I’m not. I adopt the hylemorphic view… same as Roderick. It’s just that what we were discussing was “what is sense-experience”, not what “enables sense-experience”.
“The question of whether perception can have physical enabling conditions is of no interest to philosophy?”
THAT question is philosophical. The question that is not philosophical is: “What are the enabling conditions of perception?”.
“That’s only true if your first use of “perceived” denotes a higher level of abstract perception than your second use of “perceived”.”
I can’t make sense of this.
P.:
Yes, where “see” means “interpret” the image of”.
Giving an account of the image your brain constructs out of sense-data appeals only to consciousness of the image, not to seeing the image as representing something external to consciousness, that’s a different mental process.
No… it’s to show that when the brain constructs an image out of sense-data, the image has no built in identifier; it requires interpretation and that interpretation is limited by the amount of information incorporated into it.
Didn’t you just say this a few lines back?
Yes, but there are different kinds of perception. There’s the perception of the brain’s constructed image and there’s the perception of the image as something.
Where have I said so?
Where have I attempted this?
I agree, but not all mental activities are the same.
Does that include a belief that your consciousness is all that exists? Mustn’t we first perceive before we can can assume that represents something in the external world, distinguishing self from non-self?
Even if your statement were true, wouldn’t there still be a process of interpretation involved in going from perceiving “something” to “something as a kind of thing” and then “a more specific kind of thing” and so on?
In that case, except when we have no idea of what something is, “perceiving as” would always involve interpretation of a perception; even deciding we can’t make anything of it, leaving us with the default option of “something”is a kind of interpretation.
I’ve read them. I had some trouble with unfamiliar terminology and references so I can’t make claim to a full understanding, but I believe most of Roderick’s arguments, as far as I understood them, made sense to me. Can you tell me how his views contradict my statement?
“That’s because we learn how to interpret what we see”
No. To see “as smaller” requires as much (as little, actually) interpretation as to see “as more distant”.
““giving an account” of the image you construct from sense-data”
Image you construct from WHAT?! What is this thing from which you construct an image?
If you say: “It’s the light that is reflected in such a way in our sensory organs, which then send a signal to the brain, etc.” well.. you have NOT succeeded in giving an account of sense-data, because all you did was talk about the enabling conditions of sense-experience.
“You’re missing the point: I was showing how visual sense-data must be constructed into an image in our brain that has nothing to do with concepts. Concepts are only involved in the interpretation of the image”
Good lord… I’m not missing the point. YOU are missing the point that I just showed to you it makes no sense to talk about this raw, non-conceptual sense-data. You tried to say sense-data is like when you have a blurry vision of the world… well, that’s still sense-experience.
“‘But those enabling conditions don’t say WHAT is sense-experience.’
Where have I said so?”
Here: “Sense-data is the signals sent from sensory organs to the brain that the brain uses to construct an image; a sound; a physical feeling; a smell; a taste, which is then interpreted as a sense-experience.”
Here you’re just equating sense-data with the enabling conditions of sense-experience.
By the way, there is no raw, non-conceptual “image; sound; physical feeling”, etc. These are already sense-experience.
“Again…you are denying that there is more than one meaning for “perceiving”. This is at the root of your misconceptions”
No. It is YOU that is trying to reinterpret the way I use the word “perceiving”. When I talk about perceiving, I’m not talking about some interpretation that is posterior to the visual experience. I’m saying that the conceptual perceiving occurs within the visual experience!
“Yes, where “see” means “interpret” the image of”.”
NO! Stop reinterpreting the meaning of the words I use.
There is no non-conceptual image to be interpreted. That just doesn’t make any sense.
“Giving an account of the image your brain constructs out of sense-data appeals only to consciousness of the image, not to seeing the image as representing something external to consciousness, that’s a different mental process.”
I can’t make any sense of this.
“No… it’s to show that when the brain constructs an image out of sense-data, the image has no built in identifier; it requires interpretation and that interpretation is limited by the amount of information incorporated into it.”
Again, I can’t make any sense of this. What a “built-in identifier” could possibly BE?!
“Yes, but there are different kinds of perception. There’s the perception of the brain’s constructed image and there’s the perception of the image as something”
1- Stop talking about “brain”. This makes you sound like a materialist.
2- There is no brain constructing images. When we are not having hallucinations, we perceive the world directly, there is no intermediation here. As I said, the “seeing-as” is irreducible. There is no NON-empty account of a NON-conceptual, raw image which we THEN interpret.
If you disagree, please describe what this image looks like.
3- Unless you’re talking about the enabling conditions of sense-experience. But this is philophy! There is no place to talk about enabling conditions here.
“I agree, but not all mental activities are the same.”
What are you talking about?
“signals from sensory organs from which the brain constructs an image, blablabla” is NOT an account of a mental activity. It’s an account of the enabling condition of a mental activity.
“Does that include a belief that your consciousness is all that exists?”
No. It is just the “head-on” view.
“Mustn’t we first perceive before we can can assume that represents something in the external world, distinguishing self from non-self?”
When you perceive, you’re already assuming the perceived.
“Even if your statement were true, wouldn’t there still be a process of interpretation involved in going from perceiving “something” to “something as a kind of thing” and then “a more specific kind of thing” and so on?”
The thing is: It’s not an interpretation.
Sure, we aren’t born with our conceptual framework. We acquire it, by perceiving and acting.
But this acquisition is not some kind of interpretation of some raw data.
We just can’t give an account of the acquisition of concepts from an external standpoint, and that’s not a problem at all. There’s no need for a foundation for our concepts. Concepts are basic.
“In that case, except when we have no idea of what something is, “perceiving as” would always involve interpretation of a perception; even deciding we can’t make anything of it, leaving us with the default option of “something”is a kind of interpretation”
Dude, this is the MAJOR problem with you. You still haven’t accepted my account that there is no interpretation of a perception. The “perceiving as” IS the perception.
It’s not that an analphabet “interprets this image differently while seeing the same thing”. The analphabet CAN’T SEE the words. He just sees a bunch of lines, drawings, etc.
I want to end this with a quote from Roderick:
“For reflectionism, “a priori knowledge is read off the world, reflecting the fact that certain structures in reality are intrinsically intelligible.” But for Wittgenstein we do not find conceptual truth in the world (as if we might, but for the world, have found something else); we bring it with us. It is the lens through which we view reality. Hence reflectionism is mistaken. But impositionism is unwarranted also; we cannot peek
around our lens at reality-in-itself to see that it deviates from what our lens shows us about it. What we know about reality just is what our lens shows us.”
P.S.: I know I’ve made a super giant boring post. But, to be honest, I think this will be my last one… If you still can’t get what I’m saying after this post, I’ll just give up.
P.:
I decided that my last response contained too many misunderstandings on my part. Even though I’m sure you’ll find the second version of it nearly as objectionable, if you reply, I hope you’ll skip the first version in favor of the second one when it comes out of moderation.
MBH:
You’re confused; sense-data is the input of raw data from which we tweeze out patterns and potential meaning, in order to formulate knowledge and understanding.
Now I understand your dogmatic approach. You think you’re God or receive all knowledge directly from him; anything that you believe must automatically be true; there is no split between reality and your subjective view; it’s one and the same; nothing is open to falsification, or re-evaluation of sensory-data, for concepts and truth arrive through your senses whole and perfect.
How can you think of concepts that aren’t shaped by our evaluation of the evidence of our senses?
We are just in the world; we are not the totality of the world. The world does not conform to our concepts; we should try to make our concepts align with the world.
It’s interesting that you should say that, since I’m the one that’s calm and you’re the one that thinks reality conforms to words and not the reverse. It’s clear that you’re projecting your fears about yourself on to me.
While I’ll be grateful to anyone who can correct me when I’m wrong, your obvious fear of being wrong doesn’t instill me with much confidence in your ability to do so; but, who knows, I’ve learned things from some of the most unlikely sources before. In the mean time, I’ll be reading essays from Roderick’s blog, which I find very educational and thought provoking.
You’re assuming some kind of filter that thinking moves through and then picks up information, only to bring it back to the source of thinking. Why are you warranted in assuming a metaphysical divide between your thinking and the source of your thoughts?
God doesn’t have a place in metaphysics. As the Jewish mystics say, “God is a verb.” God is a species of action. To be that species makes as much sense as saying “Walking is me.”
Well at least you’re trying epistemology. But truth is not in mere belief; truth lies instead in a certain species of belief: the kind that are justified and true.
A proper “inner” realm situates in the objective “outer” realm. To say otherwise is like saying the rim of a cup is physically detached from the rest of the cup.
You’re starting upside-down. Concepts don’t arrive through senses. Concepts determine senses.
How is evaluation not a conceptual process?
You don’t have a concept unless is contacts the world. You have turds in your hand.
Mark, I want to come back with a more fine brush on some of these points. Obviously, I’m frustrated by — what I see as — your habitual Randian thought, but I’ve been there before, so it’s not fair for me to be harsh. We really should have an institutionalized de-programming for Randroids — something Roderick has given spark to — and I’m not being helpful through impatience. I apologize.
You think that I’m saying,
I think that’s an inappropriate picture. “Through your senses” implies sense-data being absorbed by the skin or the eyes or something. That’s not how it works. Concepts never “arrive” — as if at some point they aren’t there. Concepts are always everywhere and nowhere. They don’t go anywhere. Sometimes, as human beings, we don’t register them. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Sometimes, we do register them. But that doesn’t mean that the registration happens in our head or our brain. Concepts aren’t in our head or in our brain. Gravity is not a pattern of neurotransmission. 2 + 2 = 4 (excluding non-mathematical meanings) is not a pattern of neurotransmission. Those concepts are ubiquitous and omnipresent. When we think of the location of the concepts, we can’t ask whether they’re internal or external. That very question presupposes that a concept — say 2 + 2 = 4 — can be true in one place and not true in another. But the nature of a concept is its universality. That means that even if you want to distinguish an “internal universe” from an “external universe,” you have to have already accessed concepts, and that rules out the distinction to begin with.
It’s true that the psychological is distinct from the logical. But that distinction is qualitative. It’s not just that you can’t explain one in terms of the other; it’s that one is not knowable at all! Knowledge is not something that applies to the psychological realm. It cannot be represented in terms of truth-value. It may act, but — in terms of what we can logically ascribe to it — it’s empty. When you talk about sense-data, you’re assuming a framework in which the psychological is inputing information. But that’s like talking about a king in chess that moves like a knight. Either we’re not talking about chess, we’re not talking about a king, or we’re not talking about the movement of a piece that starts at b1, g1, b8, or g8.
Think about the sentence, “I wonder who will discover the grand unifying theory.” It may be the case that no one has yet — satisfactorily — reconciled quantum physics with general relativity (I don’t think that’s true, but just suppose it is). When you think about that sentence, in some sense, you understand the reference; you can see its shape. You know that the concept G.U.T. is something that accounts for the measurements of quantum physicists and the measurements of relativity theorists. You know that G.U.T. is more comprehensive than either quantum physics by itself or relativity theory by itself. A proper synthesis, if it’s possible, of two theories with conflicting views that are both verified by empirical science will yield a concept. You don’t know everything about this concept. By no means could you be said to have this concept. However, you’d be hard-pressed to say that you aren’t thinking about — at least — the contours of the concept. Now that’s one side to your question. The other side is more straightforward.
The “evidence” of our senses only counts as evidence if our criterion for knowledge allows it. And the only way to generate a criterion for knowledge is either to conceptualize one or to accept someone else’s conceptualization. So what you’re really asking is “How can you think of concepts that aren’t shaped by concepts?”
I think the totality of the world is every concept and every way we fit their particulars together. Beyond that, we ought to remain silent.
You don’t count as having a concept unless it already aligns with the world. If you have an idea that you “think” is a “concept,” but it doesn’t align with the world, then by definition: your idea is not a concept.
I think that words conform to concepts.
No. I’m treating you as I wish someone would have treated my past self that believed then the things you believe now. Whether it feels like it or not, I intend this to be a gift.
Dude. I’ve been wrong so many times that to fear it would be like a fish fearing water. I tend to think I’ve evolved to the land, but if it turns out I’m still underwater, then I’ll be just fine. And I’ll be happy to recognize where I am. I think you might be projecting a little bit. Eh?
MBH:
I’m hardly a Randroid. They feel just as threatened by me as you do. I don’t believe in the need for the state; her exception for ethics during emergencies; in fact, I consider emergencies the true test of any moral system and I don’t believe the concept of “free will” has any meaning, unless it’s just an obfuscating way of expressing the concept of “will”. We have choices and make decisions, but they are an inevitable product of who we are in the context of what we face. We are free to choose; we are even free choose to change who we are, but we are not free to change the past or who we are at the moment of making those choices. The choices we make, though voluntarily made and mostly unpredictable, are nonetheless inevitable. I look forward to reading Roderick’s essay on “free will”, although with admitted skepticism and an ironic understanding that if I buy his arguments, I will become more Randian.
I’ve addressed this issue before in a reply to P.:
“The world around us has evolving form and structure. E.g., we can classify certain groups of animals according to species; we can classify them as a species from a particular land mass; we can call some animal groups birds and some other animal groups mammals or we can combine both groups, calling them warm-blooded animals.
Concepts don’t exist in the world separate from the mind, but are the tool required by the mind to enable it to understand its, otherwise, hidden structure.”
That would be an example of non-objective or dogmatic philosophy.
Yes, in the sense that except for the leap of faith that we are conscious of something, all concepts, be they mistaken or valid, are shaped by the application of thought to the tools and raw material of earlier concepts and sensory evidence.
The world consists of more than concepts about it. Concepts do not create the world, though they are in the world; and they hardly cover every aspect of it.
Knowledge, like liberty, can never be perfect nor complete, at best we can strive to move toward a closer approximation of what we seek.
Wrong…by definition, an idea is a concept. It’s unlikely that any idea, even including the most self-evident, will ever go completely undisputed or, at some point, not need modification to conform with new information and/or better interpretation. In fact, concepts that are not falsifiable have no objective philosophical value.
Yes, but you think that concepts create structure in the world, when actually they merely are elements of language (words) to describe selective structural relationships that we believe we discern.
In this comment, you have been civil so far. Don’t ruin it by trying to rationalise what you have already apologized for. It’s analogous to abusive parents apologizing for their behaviour while insisting it was nonetheless a beneficial experience for their child to undergo. Just say that you had good intentions gone astray.
Not at all. Personal attacks and irrational anger are a sure sign of the fear of losing an argument. I’ve engaged in none of those feelings or behaviors and even went out of my way to overlook your behavior, until it became too severe to continue further communication. Although I didn’t expect anything to come from pointing this out to you, except an escalation, to your credit, you calmed down and became civil.
(a) I don’t know you so it can’t be personal. (b) You’ve already lost the argument several times; you just don’t recognize it yet.
What you “perceive” as fear is my intent to shame beliefs where the holder should feel shame. Not about yourself, but about the baggage you should drop off.
I’m OK with that, but the question is: where does the mind stop? Where is what Aristotle called the agent intellect not?
So you equate what’s not objective with dogma. Funny ’cause the only non-dogmatic take rejects both the subjective and objective stories.
This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding. A concept is not about the world. Thinking is about the world. Concepts are ontologically basic: they form the ground on which you walk and the air from which you breathe. Tell me: if concepts aren’t basic, what are your chances of survival in a “world” where the concept ‘Oxygen’ does not bond with a second concept of ‘Oxygen’?
I tend to listen to the guy who created predicate calculus and symbolic logic, who says that ideas are presentations and psychological; concepts are the content of logic and sharply separate from the psychological. Ideas can aim at concepts, as they’re supposed to… hint, hint.
I think we’d be fucked if the concept ‘dioxygen’ is on the same level as ‘mathematically: 2 + 2 = 7’.
Happy suffocation.
MBH:
So what you’re really saying is that the main difference between your views and mine are an artificial distinction created by arbitrarily changing the meaning of “concept” from “idea” to “universal principle”? This new definition only makes some of your past statements even stranger.
Why would anyone use words this way? and why, if they do so, wouldn’t they preface their statements with a proviso? Something smells fishy.
No Mark. The difference between “my” view and yours is that “I” keep the psychological sharply separate from the logical. You blend them. “I” think that the psychological is — in itself — empty. You think it’s substantial. “I” think it’s merely the function of bare attention — of aiming. You think there’s something in it. “I” think the psychological is a point of view. You think the psychological is the view. “My” view couldn’t be further from your “view”.
I can’t say for sure, but I would imagine that Frege wanted to create the instrumentation that wouldn’t allow for vagueness.
I actually slipped in the last statement: ideas cannot aim away from concepts. An “idea” that doesn’t aim at a concept(s), is not an idea; it’s standpointlessness — I’ve heard Hubert Dreyfus call it “de-worlded”. I hope a McDowell reader will chime in here ’cause epistemological disjunctivism allows for “ideas” that don’t aim at concepts and McDowell — according to this — is an epistemological disjunctivist, not a metaphysical disjunctivist. Is that page wrong or does McDowell open himself to a grammatical attack?
Just as a quick reminder to all concerned, Frege never wrote anything about “ideas” or “concepts.” He neither authoritatively established, nor arbitrarily changed the definitions of either; for the simple reason that he never mentioned either; what he did mention were Vorstellungen and Begriffe.
English words like “idea” and “concept” are words that Frege’s translators (for example, J. L. Austin) supplied in translating his work into English. These terms are certainly not perfect translations of Frege’s meaning (these kind of words are notoriously hard to translate); maybe they are at least adequate, or maybe they aren’t even that. But in any case if you want to figure out whether Frege had good reasons for making the sharp distinction that he does between Vorstellungen and Begriffe, or whether he was just arbitrarily redrawing the language — then it’s probably best to take a look at the use that Frege makes of the distinction and the reasons he gives for making it — in, for example, the introduction to the Grundlagen der Arithmetik/Foundations of Arithmetic. It’s certainly not going to be useful to speculate about whether his distinction is lining up with or not lining up with your precise understanding of the definitions of English terms that he never used.
Very helpful. Thanks Charles.
Rad Geek:
Thanks for explaining where this insane idea of using the word “concept” to mean something existing independently of the mind comes from.
I was actually going to ask why an honest person would go out of his way to cause confusion by redefining a word to mean its near opposite, when creating a new word or using an existing word with a related, but somewhat different, meaning would allow understanding.
It’s nearly as crazy as referring to “voluntary government” as “anarchy”, its opposite. I wonder if there’s a similar kind of story to explain the origins of this mistake too.
Mark Uzick:
Well, if you have a better word to translate what Frege meant by Begriff you’re welcome to suggest it. Otherwise, it seems to me like it’s probably more interesting, and intellectually more fruitful, to look at what Frege was trying to do with his distinction between Begriffe and Vorstellungen, by trying to suss out the meanings of these words from context, rather than to worry about the sanity or in-sanity of using certain imperfectly-suited English words in the translation, or the discussion of the argument being translated.
You might also keep in mind that this is linguistically slippery ground and has been for thousands of years. For example, does “idea” refer to a private mental presentation or a public, mind-independent logical structure? Well, if you’re reading English-language philosophy or psychology since about the time of Locke, it’s usually the former. That’s why Austin chose the word “idea” to translate Vorstellung, which Frege says are private and representational. But the word originally entered English, via Latin, from the Greek ????, which may be familiar to you if you have read Plato, which certainly doesn’t have anything to do with any of the things that happen in your head. Related terms like “ideal” still preserve some of this meaning (to describe a golf club as ideal for this shot is not to say that it exists only in your mind; it’s to say that it lives up to an objectively specifiable set of features that a club ought to have given the situation). Of course, you could react to this kind of thing by raging against the fact that language shifts or that words end up with many shades of meaning — sometimes even ending up with meanings that fall on opposite sides of some important distinction. “Sanction” means to approve or allow, and “sanction” also means to forbid or penalize; how ever do we survive?
Or you could back up and look at what your interlocutor is trying to say — what the point of their verbal choices might be, even if those choices are different from the choices you would have made. (*) If the only explanations you have ready to hand is that your interlocutor is (a) crazy, (b) dishonest, (c) aiming to confuse, or (d) philosophically ignorant, then probably your philosophical conversations aren’t going to get very far.
(*) How can you try to get the point when you don’t even agree on the meaning of a key term? Well, the same way you get an understanding of any unfamiliar usage — bracket the word for a moment, read closely, and try to glean something from the context.
Charles, I see that J. L. Austin calls Wittgenstein a “charlatan.” Would you agree that the proper word for Wittgenstein is “mumpsimus?”
Where?
In any case, if that was Austin’s assessment of Wittgenstein, I don’t agree with it.
No.
On Austin’s Wikipedia page. It says “citation needed” and it gives a citation that says he was “actively hostile to [Wittgenstein’s ideas].”
Wikipedia pulled this same business with McDowell a while back. The second or third sentence said something like “Chomsky thinks he’s a charlatan.”
Well, I meant to ask where Austin called Wittgenstein that, not where you saw that he had. I was already aware of Wikipedia:J. L. Austin too — I am in fact the one who added that “[citation needed]” between the quote and the footnote. (Because the footnote doesn’t substantiate the quotation it is placed next to.) Certainly it’s possible that Austin called him that; if so, he wouldn’t have been the first. But for the moment, I still don’t know where or when.
MBH:
If, by “the psychological”, you mean consciousness, I haven’t yet given an opinion as to whether consciousness is involved in the thinking process or if thinking is purely physical, with subjective experience analogous to the role of a passive observer. I haven’t given a view for you to agree or disagree with.
Which you’ve used to create confusion. As a rule, anytime you stray from non-standard use, you must first define your terms.
So all words that refer to a thing or class of things must aim at universal principles?
On second thought, you could be saying that concepts are ideas that are true, but then you’d flirting with dogmatism, because, if a concept was falsifiable, it would just be an idea.
I agree.
I did.
All words within a specific context, yes.
MBH:
I don’t see a definition. Try again; give me your definition of “concept”.
‘Concept’ is the blanket.
MBH:
Explain why you think the correct word for “the blanket” is “concept” (“concepts”?) instead of “existence”.
The blanket is the totality of concepts. If existence is there being a state of affairs, then concepts are the state of affairs’ content.
Is the total content of a thing equal to the thing?
If so, then “the totality of concepts” means “existence”,i.e., “the blanket”.
If so, then “concept” means “thing” if “totality of concepts” means “existence”, i.e., “totality of things”
Just replace “concept” with “thing” and you can go back to using comprehensible English, where “concept” is a mental construct, i.e., an idea.
You’re right to equate concept with thing. And that is most certainly comprehensible. But it’s by no means standard English. It would be to English as high German is to low German.
May I propose that we consider English that equates concept with thing as high English?
That will be the day.
Wittgenstein’s voice,
I’m equating your concept of “concept” to thing, which, if you can’t give a compelling reason to do so, is an incomprehensible perversion of language.
Translated into any language or dialect of language, changing the meaning of a synonym of “idea”, “concept”, to “thing” doesn’t seem to have any rational basis, except to promote one’s self as a “deep thinker” though the use of artificially cryptic or mystifying language. It’s just “smoke and mirrors” either for self promotion, to get away with something or both.
Dude. P. and I have given you about 500 reasons. You are a mumpsimus. That’s not our fault.
Why don’t you think the blanket is a thing? You’re either an idealist or a materialist if you deny that the blanket (or what it references) is a thing. And we’ve already established that idealism and materialism are both dogmatic.
I mean, I’ve even started referring to it as “my” view and what “I” think — using quotations to suggest that I’m merely coloring in things I’ve learned from the Auburn Philosophy Department.
“Smoke and mirrors” — coming from the guy that looks to Glenn Beck for information — holds very little purchase.
MBH:
No… you used the word improperly, without defining what you meant. How could you give any reason for doing something that you never even acknowledged doing in the first place?
It’s easier to say you did something than to actually do it. Why don’t you just do it already, if you think you can?
You’re projecting again.
Why do you always assume untruths? Show where I wrote or implied that.
Whole religious and philosophical movements have centered their dogma around cryptic, nonsensical language that cannot bear rational scrutiny. I wasn’t implying that you were at the center of its origins, but you are certainly willing to promote yourself as an “enlightened disciple”.
(1) Causality describes relationships between phenomena and phenomena.
(2) Relationships between the phenomenal world — as a whole — and anything other than its contents qua phenomenal contents, is beyond causality’s jurisdiction.
(3) Materialism, Idealism, and Solipsism explain the relationship between the phenomenal world — as a whole — and its contents qua not necessarily phenomenal contents. (e.g. substance is the cause of/behind everything we see, ideas are behind everything we see, ‘I’ am behind everything we see)
(4) Materialism, Idealism, and Solipsism describe a relationship that is necessarily beyond causality’s jurisdiction. [from (2) and (3)]
(5) Materialism, Idealism, and Solipsism describe the cause(s) of the relationship between the phenomenal world — as a whole — and its contents qua not necessarily phenomenal contents.
(6) Materialism, Idealism, and Solipsism rest on causal explanations where only non-causal descriptions are appropriate. [from (4) and (5)]
(7) Causal explanations that describe a non-causal field are senseless. [by definition]
(8) Materialism, Idealism, and Solipsism are all senseless. [from (6) and (7)]
(9) Sense-data is a derivative of materialism. [by definition]
(10) Sense-data is senseless. [from (8) and (9)]
(11) The reference of ‘senseless’ cannot be conceptualized. [by definition]
(12) “Sense-data” cannot be conceptualized. [from (10) and (11)]
Before I go further, I’ll pause to see if you’re with me.
Or I want a better world and I think its foundation depends on this view.
If the subjective world, consciousness, exists, then how can it be excluded from causality? Are you saying that subjective experience is random: that the color blue is experienced independently from the nerves that can be activated by a certain wavelength range of light stimulating the retina? (Don’t bring up dreams, interocular pressure or memories; that’s why I refer to the nerves; not the light that can indirectly affect them.)
Are you also saying that consciousness has no effect on the physical nervous system?
See my questions about (1).
They simply view “phenomenal contents” as either not existing independently of the mind or, in the case of the physicalist, they believe that the conscious aspect of the mind doesn’t exist, but they do believe that the phenomenal world has phenomenal contents.
They also see causality as “cause and effect”, but with different existential causes.
See my comment on (3).
That’s your definition, not mine. Only an idealist or a physicalist would claim that the belief in the existence of physical sense organs implies that one is a physicalist.
This question is senseless. Phenomenal content — according to Occam’s Razor — is not subjective. It’s phenomenal! We aren’t looking for its source! We just accept that there is phenomena! If you want to honor Occam’s Razor, then you cannot assume that the phenomena comes from you. Your antecedent violates Occam’s Razor. If you think that’s an OK move to make, then the argument is over: “my” view doesn’t violate Occam’s Razor; yours does. Now go find people who will accept a “view” that violates Occam’s Razor. I can guarantee you won’t find them here. The rest of your questions rest on this senselessness.
On an unrelated note: Auburn University has literally been victimized by a terrorist.
Phenomenal content — in my opinion as well — is not subjective, nor did I make that claim.
You assume a lot of things about what I assume, even when there’s no basis to do so. It’s called a “straw man argument”
.
Yes, Mark. Yes you did. You asked this,
You’re equating the “subjective world” with “consciousness.” You may say that you’re just asking a hypothetical question, but that assumes the question can be asked in the first place — that it has any sense. You fail to recognize that the reference of ‘subjective world’ IS NOT THERE!
The AZ shooter — Jared Loughner — makes the same mistake. He says this,
But this assumes that such a distinction exists in the first place! You’re also making that assumption!
By “subjective world” I mean the qualia that accompany perceptions, ideas and thoughts that exist in the mind. That’s also what I mean by consciousness, although I understand that there’s are necessary physical processes involved in perception, ideas and thought that enable consciousness, as opposed to the physicalist’s view that the physical processes are all that there is to consciousness.
If consciousness exists, then phenomenal content is not a sub-set of consciousness, as you keep claiming, but consciousness is a sub-set of phenomenal content.
Do you believe in qualia? If not, then how would you distinguish yourself from a physicalist?
My subjective experience causes me to feel that consciousness is more than just a physical process, but reason causes me to think that if a physical process can effect my subjective experience and that my subjective experience can, in turn, effect my thinking and actions that subjective experience must be some sort of physical phenomena for this interaction to occur; even if it’s qualitatively different from other physical processes. Of course, I have difficulties with either position.
Occam’s Razor will not allow a distinction between phenomena and consciousness. Neither is a subset of the other.
I do believe in it but I don’t believe it’s concealed from the world.
Here is the form of that proposition. It assumes that qualia is concealed and that you can take some action to open it.
I doubt that his mental problem is a symptom of his philosophy; it’s likely that his philosophy is a symptom of his mental problem.
His mistake is in trying to find himself by means of the phenomenal world when he was right at the center of his subjective world all along; it’s the external world that is discovered through empirical observation, experiment and interpretation of the outer world’s effect on subjective experience. This self-alienation may not have been a mistake, but an effect of his illness instead. It would also explain his lack of empathy.
The physiology plays a role. No question. But philosophy directs physiology. Other people with different physiologies and the same philosophy might injure themselves instead of others. “If I can’t locate the external universe then it’s my fault,” instead of Loughner’s “I can’t locate the external universe because of the government,” or “I can’t locate the external universe because of this or that person or group.” The point is that if he comprehends that qualia is not concealed, then he automatically immerses himself in this world. The question of internal vs. external never arises.
Only if you’re an idealist. Then your statement would be consistent with “Existence is the content of consciousness.”.
And it would also be consistent with “Things are concepts.”. Are you sure this is where you want to go?
If they are identical, then yes.
Is it just your consciousness that encompasses all that exists, or is it the sum total of the consciousness of all animals that you speak of?
What does it mean to be “concealed from the world”?
No. On the metaphysical level, no philosophical propositions can possibly arise. If you’re 100% true to Occam’s Razor, then “you” are in the Quantum Field.
On the metaphysical level, no positive philosophical propositions can arise. So you’re right to say that an absolute equation of things and concepts can be misleading, but it cannot be said at all on the metaphysical level.
You can’t assign consciousness an owner or a location on the metaphysical level.
On the metaphysical level, it’s senseless. That’s why I negate it. In everyday language it means something like “experience that’s 100% private.”
You need to explain what you’re getting at, but it sure seems like you’re saying that at the metaphysical level only solipsism applies.
I answered my own question in the next comment and explained why my view differs.
Solipsism implies an owner. I just told you that at the metaphysical level, consciousness has no owner. Also, explanation implies missing information. At the metaphysical level, nothing is missing. No explanation is needed.
This must be what you mean by, “I do believe in it but I don’t believe it’s concealed from the world.”
Where I differ is that I would say, “Through self-awareness he could begin to discover the world.”
Qualia is not concealed from the self if one is self-aware. If by the “world” you mean “other conscious beings”, then one’s qualia are hidden from the world’s direct view; the world must infer their existence.
As long as you get what ‘self’ references.
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
P.:
I didn’t see your last comment until now. Here’s my response:
P.:
That’s my point! Could we be saying something similar, but without mutual understanding?
Then how would we know that it wasn’t actually smaller? We need to make an interpretive judgment that only experience can enable us to make. And even so: We can still be mistaken.
Of course we can have that concept, matching an observation to a concept, using interpretive judgment, does not negate our familiarity with the concept. Alternatively, even if we don’t yet have the concept, that doesn’t rule out learning it from experience or instruction.
(I hope you’re not using MBH’s definition of “concept” as “thing”. That might explain my difficulty understanding you.)
Several comments back, I was conflating “sense-data” with the “image constructed in the brain”, speaking of them as a single step. Even the image doesn’t count as the “experience of seeing” or qualia, which is why I said, “an image in the brain that we see”, where the sense-data is the enabling condition of the constructed image and the brain image is the enabling condition of the non-abstract sense-experience or perception.
Both earlier and now, I didn’t conflate sense-data or physical brain activity with sense-experience.
I admit though, that I don’t dogmatically reject physicalism. It’s hard to accept that something effected by physical activities, which, in turn, can effect physical activities, is not, itself, some form of physical phenomenon. OTOH, it’s also hard to think of subjective experience – qualia – as physical phenomena. If it is, then it would seem that the range of properties that can be thought of as “physical” are more than what I can easily or intuitively grasp.
Consciousness as a physical phenomenon might imply that it exists as a ubiquitous property of all physical entities in some dormant or potential state, awakening in entities that process information about their surroundings in the same way that it awakens in the comma patient, when his sense interpreting brain activity awakes.
It has two components: 1. The neurochemical configuration. 2. The non-abstract sense-experience or qualia.
My use of the terms “sense-data” and “brain-image” are what you started debating with me about.
With a blend of curiosity, imagination and practical trial and error, i.e., we come up with tentative concepts and thoughts about it and see how well they work for us. To do these things is an instinctive drive.
That’s the “sideways-on view”. We can’t experience it as something until we first experience it. All concepts about something are subsequent to our experience. That the interpretation, especially of the familiar, can seem almost instantaneous may be contributing to this illusion you have.
In the general sense that I’m talking about it: The world has evolving structure within the constraints of universal rules. The image that we experience isn’t random chaos; it has a relationship to the outer world.
For the person who has the experience: He talks about it only after interpreting it as something; even if only to say, “What’s that?”
When I give an account of conceptual thought to myself, it’s from an internal standpoint, in the sense that it (the theory) feels right to me.
When I give an account of it to you, I cannot get inside your subjective mind, so it must, by definition, be an external standpoint from your perspective.
All theories and speculations must be presented to others external to their standpoint, e.g., my proposition that you are a conscious being with feelings like my own is a belief that have through my interpretation of the behavior of other people, but I can only present you with this from a standpoint that is external to your perspective. It’s up to you to confirm from your internal standpoint that I’m right.
Can you make a metaphysical proposition from my head-on view? I don’t think so, but please give me an example, if you think I’m misunderstanding the concept.
No. It’s the same as saying, “We can’t make sense of it yet.”
We can always make sense of it, if nothing more than to say it’s an image of something, but, logically speaking, you must first see it before you can think about it. Thinking is a process; it’s not instantaneous, even if it often feels that way.
It wasn’t meant to be an exact analogy; it’s just to show that we can interpret images.
But we might see an interesting shape we haven’t seen before; we name it as representing some new idea it provoked, creating a new concept.
Just the opposite. Most of the time, like a cloud, it will have patterns to which you’ll find resemblances to things in your memory, only they’ll usually be real things that will require much less imaginative interpretation.
It’s amazing to me that anyone would find the subject of “seeing first and then interpreting” mysterious or confusing.
You’re right. That was poorly worded; a sure sign that fatigue was setting in. It should have been:
“until you come up with something, a non-conceptual perceived image is just colors, shades and shape. Assuming you’re familiar with the concepts “color”, “shade” and “shape”, you can at least interpret it as that.
I’m sorry I caused you to think you needed to explain it in such detail. It must have made your head hurt.
Perceive can also mean: “to understand”, e.g., “to understand what you see” or “I opened my eyes and perceived an image, but I couldn’t make sense of it. Then I perceived that it was an upside down painting of my garden.”
I’m not speaking of a particular “non-conceptual image”. I understand that once I think or talk about it, it becomes an image of something.
I’m speaking of the
of a “non-conceptual image” or the image we see first before we interpret. We cannot think about or interpret it until we see it. You are trying to violate causality.
Dude. It’s a little more complicated than that. I’m using that as what Kelly Jolley calls ladder language (patent nonsense that must be negated in a very precise way in order to move beyond it); I’m not trying to make that equation absolute. On the metaphysical level, ‘concept’ and ‘thing’ cannot be combined. It would be more precise to say that the reference of ‘concept’ is to be seen as the reference of ‘thing’. The problem with “thing” as the definition of “concept” is that words are things, and not all words are concepts. For instance, ‘sense-data’ is not a concept (except maybe in the language game where it’s shown to be patently senseless).
“I’m not speaking of a particular “non-conceptual image”. I understand that once I think or talk about it, it becomes an image of something.”
1- How can you think about something without using your concepts? And how can you use your CONCEPTS to talk about something that is NON-CONCEPTUAL?!
2- If there’s no instance of a concept that you can identify, you don’t possess the supposed “concept”. If you can’t identify a particular “non-conceptual image”, then that’s not a concept at all.
“I’m speaking of the concept of a “non-conceptual image” or the image we see first before we interpret. We cannot think about or interpret it until we see it. You are trying to violate causality.”
The CONCEPT of a NON-CONCEPTUAL something?! Really?!
If we cannot think about it until it is conceptual… then we cannot think about “it” at all! There’s no “it”!
How am I trying to violate causality? I’m just exposing your nonsenses.
“I opened my eyes and perceived an image, but I couldn’t make sense of it.”
If you perceived an image, you’re still employing your concepts to describe what a “non-conceptual” something is supposed to be, i.e., nonsense.
“until you come up with something, a non-conceptual perceived image is just colors, shades and shape. Assuming you’re familiar with the concepts “color”, “shade” and “shape”, you can at least interpret it as that.”
You’re still using your concepts (“colors, shades and shape”) to describe the supposed “non-conceptual image”. Just calling it “non-conceptual” doesn’t make it “non-conceptual”… if you’re still using your concepts, it is “conceptual” (*).
* This just means: “It is not outside conceptual thought”… I’m not saying that it is, somehow, “intrinsically conceptual”… that doesn’t make sense either, because it presupposes the question about a “non-conceptual” something can be meaningfully asked.
“It’s amazing to me that anyone would find the subject of “seeing first and then interpreting” mysterious or confusing.”
You evaded my point: “You cannot think what is beyond thought”.
Do you disagree?
“Just the opposite. Most of the time, like a cloud, it will have patterns to which you’ll find resemblances to things in your memory, only they’ll usually be real things that will require much less imaginative interpretation.”
“Just the opposite” how? You deny it is indescribable?
Find resemblances to what if you don’t have the concept of the “thing” to which you want to find resemblances?
BTW, this whole thing about the cloud presupposes there is a “it” to be asked questions about. I already showed there is no meaningful talk about “non-conceptual” stuff.
“But we might see an interesting shape we haven’t seen before; we name it as representing some new idea it provoked, creating a new concept.”
If you see it as an interesting shape, then it is already available to thought… You’re “seeing-as”. It’s already a concept! To see the interesting shape is to have the concept of that interesting shape. And that makes your “next steps” meaningless.
“It wasn’t meant to be an exact analogy; it’s just to show that we can interpret images.”
The point is: There is no meaninful analogy here to be made. If you make an analogy, you are employing your concepts to do so. But you can’t employ your concepts if you wish to talk about something to which your concepts don’t apply.
“We can always make sense of it, if nothing more than to say it’s an image of something”
No. Actually, you can’t employ your concepts to talk about “something” that is “non-conceptual” (that’s why I use the quotation marks), so there’s no meaningful “non-conceptual” image. It is the “non-conceptual” part that we cannot make sense of.
“No. It’s the same as saying, “We can’t make sense of it yet.””
The problem is that the “yet” just means: “While our concepts are not applied to ‘it'”.
If “we can’t make sense of ‘it’ while our concepts are not applied to ‘it'”, then there is NO “it”! How is there going to be “something” that is “non-conceptual” if you can’t make sense of “it” without using your concepts?
There’s no meaningful talk about a “non-conceptual” something exactly because any meaningful “it” requires that we are already using our concepts.
“but, logically speaking, you must first see it before you can think about it. Thinking is a process; it’s not instantaneous, even if it often feels that way.”
“To see it” is to make it available for thought. That’s why “seeing-as” is irreducible. There’s no intermediation between perceptual experience and perceptual judgement. “To see it as something” is to make that same judgement.
Thinking is a process, sure, but you cannot give an external account of that process.
“When I give an account of conceptual thought to myself, it’s from an internal standpoint, in the sense that it (the theory) feels right to me.”
What?
When I said that we “cannot give an account of conceptual thought from an ‘external standpoint’” I was just saying that there is no meaningful talk about a “point of view outside of our conceptual thought”. “external standpoint” = “sideways-on view”.
Again: “What we cannot think, that we cannot think: therefore we cannot say what we cannot think.”
“When I give an account of it to you, I cannot get inside your subjective mind, so it must, by definition, be an external standpoint from your perspective.”
No. This is confusing the First Realm with the Third Realm.*
Although your presentation is distinct from mine, the content of our presentations are the same when we are thinking the same thing.
If you think “This object is red” and I think “This object is red”, the content of the thought doesn’t change.
So, although it is external from the psychological perspective, it is internal from the logical perspective.
* http://praxeology.net/RTL-WittPraxToronto.doc
“All theories and speculations must be presented to others external to their standpoint, e.g., my proposition that you are a conscious being with feelings like my own is a belief that have through my interpretation of the behavior of other people”
This sounds so much like behaviorism. Like: “What we see are just physical movements, which then we interpret to be actions”. No, when you see people acting, you see people acting, not bare “physical movements”.
If you see me “as a person”, ipso facto, you see me “as a conscious being with feelings like your own”, not ”as a physical quantity of mass”.
Anyway, that doesn’t address the “external standpoint”.
“Can you make a metaphysical proposition from my head-on view? I don’t think so, but please give me an example, if you think I’m misunderstanding the concept”
The “head-on view” is a logical point. There’s no “your” head-on view, or “mine” head-on view in the logical sense… only in the psychological sense.
“I admit though, that I don’t dogmatically reject physicalism.”
It’s not dogmatism. It is coherence. The physicalist view is incoherent. Read the blogposts from Roderick on the subject again.
“Of course we can have that concept, matching an observation to a concept, using interpretive judgment, does not negate our familiarity with the concept.”
To be able to “match the observation to a concept” you would have to be able to think without your concepts… the “sideways-on view” is incoherent… you cannot do that. You can’t “peek behind your concepts” in the “non-conceptual image itself” to see if it matches with your concepts.
Remember the example I used and you ignored, of the analphabet. His vision is not the same as yours when you are seeing this text. You don’t see it as a bunch of lines and drawings which then you interpret to be words. You just see it “as words”. You and the analphabet don’t have the same sense-experience in this case.
“Then how would we know that it wasn’t actually smaller?”
This question goes both ways. If you’re seeing something “as smaller”, how would you know it wasn’t actually more distant?
Well, I never said sense-experience is infallible… I don’t know where you get that. If there is someone who thinks sense-experience is infallible it is Ayn Rand, because she denies perceptual experience involves perceptual judgement. For her, perceptual experience is infallible, it is only perceptual judgement that is fallible.
Well, in my view, the very perceptual experience is fallible. “To see” is “to judge” in my view. The seeing part already involves a judgement. So, even the seeing part is defeasible.
“In the general sense that I’m talking about it: The world has evolving structure within the constraints of universal rules. The image that we experience isn’t random chaos; it has a relationship to the outer world.”
So.. you’re saying that the world is conceptually structured in itself and that makes the “non-conceptual image” become…. conceptual?! Now you are adopting the “Hegelian” view.
I’m sure you don’t mean that… but that’s the only interpretation I managed to come up with.
An advice:
Read all Roderick’s blogposts again and again… because I really think you didn’t get it.
I know I may sound petulant saying this.. but you have to agree this debate seems to be leading nowhere.
Hey P., I’m with you so far. But I think we have to see whether there’s a head-on view that takes perceptual judgment as infallible — without adopting the Hegelian view. I mean, in the same way a grammatical investigations yields the impossibility of ‘illogical’ ‘thought’ and thought-as-logical, we might say that a grammatical investigation yields that ‘judgment’ implies judgment-as-evaluation-of-concepts-in-proper-context. Concepts are infallible, but can be fallible if we try to apply them in the wrong context. But if the meaning of ‘judgment’ just is the evaluation of concepts in the proper context, then judgment is going to be correct. ‘Incorrect’ “judgment” is not judgment at all, but instead an unjustified assumption that one is seeing the correct context. That’s still head-on because we aren’t saying what the world is or isn’t. And it may be that such a view will indirectly yield metaphysical disjunctivism, but it doesn’t do so by using a sideways-on view, it only uses the head-on view and a grammatical investigation into the use of ‘judgment’.
I argue that if you want to say judgment can be right or wrong, then you’re talking about peaking outside concepts. I think the proper way is to stay within concepts and analyze concepts within different contexts. That way, ‘judgment’ only applies to ‘concepts-within-proper-context’, and those are necessarily correct. That would give us metaphysical disjunctivism without needing the sideways-on view. I’ll be interested in your feedback. I’m by no means stuck on metaphysical disjunctivism as opposed to epistemological disjunctivism. I’m willing to give up metaphysical disjunctivism, but I need to see why a grammatical investigation into the correct uses of ‘judgment’ makes it anything other than judgment-as-evaluation-of-concepts-in-proper-context. I don’t see why judgment should be seen as anything else. And if it shouldn’t, then why would judgment be any more fallible than a sense-of-concepts?
If I say “I believe there are people inside that house” and you say the opposite.. then one of these judgements is necessarily meaningless by your account… even though we haven’t confirmed whether “there are people inside that house” or not.
One of these is not a judgement at all. Right?
Well, that sounds absurd.
Hey P.,
You’re making two different claims here. If you say “I believe there are people inside that house,” and I say “I believe there aren’t people inside that house,” then on your account:
and
I would accept (2) but deny (1). One sentence is a judgment and one sentence is a thought. Both are meaningful. If there are people in the house, then when I say “I believe there aren’t people in the house,” I’m expressing a thought — it’s a logical proposition even if it doesn’t pan out — if, say, I saw someone walk in the front door, but didn’t notice that they walked out the back (and you did).
Only if you commit yourself to the view that all thoughts necessarily double as judgments. That’s absurd. What’s the purpose of ‘judgment’ if we can just supplant it with ‘thought’ in every single context? And worse, don’t we judge thoughts? I agree that judgment is active in perception, but so is thought. Shouldn’t we sharply separate ‘judgment’ from ‘thought’ as Frege separates ‘concept’ from ‘object’?
The above should read
Not “aren’t.” You’ll have to switch the hypothetical to me claiming people are inside (which is incorrect, but still logical), and you claiming that people aren’t inside (which is incorrect, and so also counts as a judgment).
I look forward to a rebuttal.
Wow. I’m on a roll. Should read:
Oops.
What’s the purpose of judgement if every thought is a judgement?
Well, I’m not sure. Maybe we could call it the logical form of thought. Thought doesn’t relate only to its logical form, it also relates to the psychological, i.e., to its presentation by someone.
But what I really find absurd is to say the we can never err in judging, since “judging” seems to already imply that you are not sure if you’re right or wrong.
That may work, but I don’t know if it’s the best way — it smells Hegelian. To borrow from Kelly Jolley here: a thought is a proposition. And a proposition p is already an argument for its own truth-function. To negate the truth-function yields — what you’re calling — the form of the proposition: ~( ). Namely, the unsaturated “space” in parentheses. But I don’t think it’s right to call that “space” — what’s inside the place-holder, philosophy’s zero — a judgment. It may be the space from which a judgment functions, but you can recognize the “space” and the content without “judging” one way or the other. Say you just want to see both sides of a thought before you make a judgment. I don’t really see how suspending judgment would work on this account. And if this can’t account for it, then you’ll fall into a skepticism from which only analytic a posteriori accounts of specific words will bring you back (for instance, how we would both agree that ‘sense-data’ should only be used in language-games where its truth-function is negated). Note: if we say that only the unsaturated truth-function of ‘sense-data’ has a sense, then we’re also saying that ‘sense-data’ in any other context is senseless and should be thrown out altogether. But as you’ve said to Mark, the latter — the saturated ‘sense-data’ — can’t even be said: true or false. It starts to look like we’d be a whole lot more clear headed — collectively — if we red-flagged the word itself and sound alarms alongside the saturated version. And that may go for every single word by itself.
If you’re saying that by ‘judgment’ you mean only the unsaturated use, then you’re only speaking about one aspect of a thought — “the truth-argument of the the truth-function of [its] negation” (Jolley, 2011). But if we want to judge that p is true, then we’ll need an intermediate step: removing ~( ). And I don’t mean removing it absolutely, because you have to see p as unsaturated before it’s legal to remove ~( ). Once that’s done you have the truth-argument (see-as): ‘It is true that [unsaturated] p’. But you can think the truth-argument of an act of negation without accepting it. Thinking might be the word you’re looking for. And we’d both agree that thinking is active in perception. But judgment, I argue, is analogous to affirming or denying the content of unsaturated thinking about thought in particular contexts. And if the criteria here is whether a concept makes sense in a given context, then it can only be admissible if it makes sense in a given context — if it is the case. (And now I understand Roderick’s post here. {sigh} and I’m sorry.)
So, going back to your example. If I recognize the possibility that, even though I saw someone walk in the front door, that person might have walked out the back door, then I can only think that “A person is in the house.” To make a judgment, I’d have to inspect the house. If I didn’t recognize the possibility of the person walking out the back door, then “A person is in the house” is a thought, but not thinking. So, the logical form of thought is thinking. The logical form of accepting or rejecting “‘thinking that p’ in context x” is the logical form of judgment.
It depends on the criteria for an action to count as judging. If it doesn’t count as judging unless I inspect the house, then it’s quite sensible to say, “I think a person is in the house, but I can’t make a judgment one way or another because of the possibility that X.” No? I really don’t see how that’s absurd.