I get that what you write must make sense to you, but to me--and not just this post, but your posts in general--it just seems like a long string of nonsequiturs, a bunch of words that don't have much to do with each other.

For example, your first sentence says, "All that has ever been witnessed in the world is the human drama, if you will."

And then your second sentence starts off with, "That is"--as if you're going to explain the first sentence in other words, but then what you say is, "even as the driest, most dispassionate observer records more facts to support other facts," and I don't see what that would have to do with "witnessing human drama." The two things just don't seem to go together. It seems like a wild leap from one thought to a completely different thought.

And then you say, "the actual event is within an 'aesthetic' context," which is even more mystifying, and then you write "i.e., experience," as if there's some connection between "events being within an 'aesthetic' context" and experience in general.

I just don't ever really know what you're on about, but I'm assuming it must make sense to you.

Terrapin Station wrote

I get that what you write must make sense to you, but to me--and not just this post, but your posts in general--it just seems like a long string of nonsequiturs, a bunch of words that don't have much to do with each other.

For example, your first sentence says, "All that has ever been witnessed in the world is the human drama, if you will."

And then your second sentence starts off with, "That is"--as if you're going to explain the first sentence in other words, but then what you say is, "even as the driest, most dispassionate observer records more facts to support other facts," and I don't see what that would have to do with "witnessing human drama." The two things just don't seem to go together. It seems like a wild leap from one thought to a completely different thought.

And then you say, "the actual event is within an 'aesthetic' context," which is even more mystifying, and then you write "i.e., experience," as if there's some connection between "events being within an 'aesthetic' context" and experience in general.

I just don't ever really know what you're on about, but I'm assuming it must make sense to you.

I consider this an improvement on the usual disparagement even if you are just being nice.

The inspiration for this comes from John Dewey's Art as Experience and his Experience and Nature. To see the thinking here, one has to put down the notion that the world is handed to us as it is. We make the meanings when we think about the world. It is our logic, our language, emotions, our experiential construction of past to future, our caring, pain, joys and everything you can name, or predicate a property to, all is within experience. Reality is experience,and whatever there is out there that "causes" us to have the experiences we have is given in experience and we have never stepped out of this to observe the world, for to do so would be to step out of the logic and language that makes thought even possible.
If I want to know what an object is, the actual event in which this curiosity occurs is a complex matrix of experiential content. The curiosity has a setting in which I am motivated, and this is attached to previous experiences which fill out my past and make for a prior, anticipatory field of interests in which my motivations originate. There is drive there, ambition in the background. The curiosity "event" is just as affective as it is cognitive as it is egoic as it is.. All these (and of course more) are part of a whole, they are "of a piece". It requires an act of abstraction from the whole to the "part" (though thinking in "parts" here rather violates the idea) to think about reality being any thing at all, for once anything is taken up in thought, the abstracting process that makes thinking possible is in place.

Of course, this does not mean we cannot think responsibly about what the world is. But it does pin responsible thinking to an inclusiveness that science is not interested in doing. Science does not do ontology. It does not take the structure of experience itself as an object of study. Rather, it presupposes (or does not think at all about) such structures in order for it to do its business. So: a scientist wants to study Jupiter's atmosphere. What would this entail? The point here is that it would require nothing of the experience, full and complex, in the object of inquiry. Inquiry would be specific, exclusive, formulaic.

This explains why science is so ill suited for philosophical thought.

I agree

Hereandnow wrote:...But philosophy, which is the most open field, has no business yielding to this any more than to knitting "science" or masonry. Philosophy is all inclusive theory, and the attempt to fit such a thing into a scientific paradigm is simply perverse.

Science: know your place! It is not philosophy.

To help the discussion, could you give an example in which philosophy has, in your view, mistakenly or incorrectly yielded to science? What would it actually mean for philosophy, or anything else, to yield to science? Science is a formalization of the simple process of observing the world, spotting patterns and regularities in those observations and trying to use those regularities to predict future observations. What would it mean to yield to that?

I tend to agree with TS's analysis that most of the passages you write seem to be strings of nonsequiturs - sets of sentences that, judging by their arrangement, look as though they're supposed to be constructing an argument in which each sentence builds on what was said in the previous ones, but they don't. They look to me as though they're written more for poetic value than to try to make any kind of argument. It looks to me as though you construct a sentence on the basis of whether it sounds nice, and then construct another one on the same basis, without attempting to link it to the previous one. So you get a sequence of nice sounding but disconnected thoughts.

Nothing wrong with poetry, of course. But poetry isn't generally used to support a proposition such as "science has hegemony and it shouldn't". Yet that appears to be what you're trying to do. You appear to want to propose something and then support that proposition with an argument. Do you?

Sample from your previous post:

Hereandnow wrote:Of course, this does not mean we cannot think responsibly about what the world is. But it does pin responsible thinking to an inclusiveness that science is not interested in doing. Science does not do ontology.

As we know, ontology is the study of how things are and what things exist, as opposed to, for example, the study of how we know things or how things appears to be or the study of our experiences. So, "thinking about what the world is" would be thinking about onotology, yes? So in the first sentence above are you saying that science involves "thinking about what the world is"? If so, the last sentence contradicts this doesn't it?

It does not take the structure of experience itself as an object of study.

This, coming after "Science does not do ontology" would appear to be intended to build on/expand on that statement. You appear to be equating "ontology" with "taking the structure of experience itself as an object of study" (and saying that science does neither). But ontology is not about studying "the structure of experience" is it? It's not entirely clear what you mean by "studying the structure of experience", but it doesn't sound like ontology.

Rather, it presupposes (or does not think at all about) such structures in order for it to do its business. So: a scientist wants to study Jupiter's atmosphere. What would this entail? The point here is that it would require nothing of the experience, full and complex, in the object of inquiry. Inquiry would be specific, exclusive, formulaic.

So you propose that science presupposes "the structure of experience"? Studying Jupiter's atmosphere would entail looking at Jupiter's atmosphere. How does stating that "inquiry would be specific, exclusive, formulaic." relate to this? Are you saying that in order to study the atmosphere of Jupiter we should look at something other than the atmosphere of Jupiter? Or perhaps look at everything? Do you apply this to all study? Can you see that you're not making any kind of coherent argument here? Do you want to?

This explains why science is so ill suited for philosophical thought.

Not to me. The above assertion may well be right, but you certainly haven't constructed an argument to demonstrate it.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

All that has ever been witnessed in the world is the human drama, if you will. That is, even as the driest, most dispassionate observer records more facts to support other facts, the actual event is within an "aesthetic" context, i.e., experience: there is the interest, the thrill of being a scientist, of discovery, of positive peer review and so forth. The actual pure science is an abstraction from this (see, btw, Dewey's Art as Experience for a nice take on this. NOT to agree with Dewey in all things). The whole from which this is abstracted is all there is, a world, and this world is in its essence, brimming with meaning, incalculable, intractable to the powers of the microscope. It is eternal, as all inquiry leads to openness, that is, you cannot pin down experience in propositional knowledge.

All this means that when science makes its moves to "say" what the world is, it is only right within the scope of its field. But philosophy, which is the most open field, has no business yielding to this any more than to knitting "science" or masonry. Philosophy is all inclusive theory, and the attempt to fit such a thing into a scientific paradigm is simply perverse.

Science: know your place! It is not philosophy.

You have not demonstrated that our hegemony is based on science.
You seem to imply, totally wrongly that science is absurd. Again, you have done nothing to support this.
Then you have implied that science does not know its place. Again, nothing but a bold assertion back up with nothing.
If I were to characterise our current hegemony in this arena I would point to the absurd hegemony of anti-science and pseudo-science which seem to infect socail media like a virus.

You vast claims for philosophy ignore the many occaisons where philosphy has had to bow down to the discoveries of science and modify its ways.

Your response to me makes a lot more sense to me than your initial post did, but it has way too much stuff to address. Seriously, there's enough material there for probably 100 different lengthy discussion threads.

Let's take just one claim:

by 🐉 Hereandnow

to do so would be to step out of the logic and language that makes thought even possible.

People say such things often, but it always seems very curious to me. It seems like there must be people who only think linguistically--because otherwise why would they make claims like "language is necessary to make thought even possible," but not everyone only thinks linguistically. Now, if there are people who only think linguistically, they probably won't believe that this is not the case for everyone, and there's probably not much we can do about that aside from working on getting them to realize that it wouldn't have to be the case that all thinking is the same for all entities that can think. This is easier said than done, though, because there seems to be a common personality/disposition that has a hard time with the notion that not everyone is essentially the same.

Also, the notion that we can't observe or perceive things without actively thinking about them, a la applying concepts, applying meanings, having a linguistic internal commentary about them, etc. would need to be supported, but I don't know how we'd support that aside from simply brute-force, stomping-our-foot-down-and-not-budging claiming it. It's a lot like the claim that all thought is linguistic. Maybe some people's minds work so that they can't simply perceive things without applying concepts/meanings, etc., and again, they're just not going to believe that not everyone's mental experience is just like theirs.

But at any rate, I don't see how we can claim such things without needing pretty good supports of them over the contradictory claims (that not all thought is linguistic (and/or logical) and that not all perception is theory-laden, or accompanied by thoughts a la concepts, meanings, etc.)

Certainly claiming such things without good support and then just poetically, kind of stream-of-consciously transitioning to other obliquely-related ideas, also without good support, and then others and others and others, all linked with as many prepositional phrases as possible, all while avoiding periods for as long as possible, doesn't really work as philosophy in my opinion. 😃

HAN

All this means that when science makes its moves to "say" what the world is, it is only right within the scope of its field. But philosophy, which is the most open field, has no business yielding to this any more than to knitting "science" or masonry. Philosophy is all inclusive theory, and the attempt to fit such a thing into a scientific paradigm is simply perverse.

Maybe.

What the scientific method relies on is that there is a real world of stuff which our mental experience relates to, and we can know something about that stuff. Not perfectly or comprehensively, but well enough to pass the tests of inter-subjective agreement and predictability.

And that has given us an incredibly complex, coherent and useful working model of a material world we share.

But you're right to say science doesn't know how to go about explaining mental experience - which all its claims are based in. Bit of a paradox that one. And imo suggests the fundamental nature of the universe is uncertain. Philosophy of mind is coming up with all kinds of speculations about the mind-body problem, but they remain inaccessible to testing - unless you have a surefire method?

Materialism has its own untestable philosophical hypotheses about how mental experience might be reducible to material processes, including philosophical thinking. If you think you have a better philosophical case, can you lay it out as simply and clearly as poss? (Serious request)

Because it's easy to spot the flaws with the all the hypotheses, not so easy to conclusively argue which one should be accepted as correct.

This is for everyone who has these issues, which is many of our posters with a continental bent (and I should probably make this a separate thread): it could be an issue of reading and thinking a great deal about this stuff, and your mind has a tendency to "race." That could easily lead to rambling writing that seems disconnected to readers.

You'd not want to change anything when writing your first draft, but when reading it back to yourself before posting (which hopefully everyone is doing), you need to take a deep breath, slow down, and remember that people aren't already "in your mind." They may not have read everything you've read. They certainly won't have had the same thoughts about it even if they did read it. They're not going to already know all of the interconnections you're thinking. And you need to be careful when it comes to interconnections, background assumptions, etc. that are second-nature to you--again, other people are not already in your mind, so these things probably won't be second-nature to them.

A good stance to assume is something like "Imagine that I'm addressing reasonably intelligent high school students who have no special background in what I'm talking about. If I put myself in their place while reading back what I wrote, would they be able to understand it and follow me? Am I presenting an argument that would seem plausible to them?" Your audience might have a much more extensive background in the subject matter than this, but it doesn't hurt to assume that they do not.

It's a bit similar to the idea of needing to "show your work" in mathematics class. The teacher already knows how to work out the problem, and they'll often know that you know how to work it out, too, but there's value, including for your own thinking, in setting a requirement to spell out just how you're arriving at the conclusions you're arriving at. That can seem laborious, perhaps, but if you're really saying something that would be worthwhile for other people to read and think about, isn't it worth putting the work in?

Gertie wrote:What the scientific method relies on is that there is a real world of stuff which our mental experience relates to, and we can know something about that stuff. Not perfectly or comprehensively, but well enough to pass the tests of inter-subjective agreement and predictability.

It doesn't even really rely on that. Obviously we believe, for perfectly sensible reasons, that it is true that there is this real world of stuff. But the scientific method doesn't rely on its existence. All it relies on is the existence of patterns in our observations. That the existence of those patterns is a result of the fact that the observations are of objectively existing things may be true, but I wouldn't say it's relied on as such. The scientific method can study anything with a pattern.

by Steve3007

It doesn't even really rely on that. Obviously we believe, for perfectly sensible reasons, that it is true that there is this real world of stuff. But the scientific method doesn't rely on its existence. All it relies on is the existence of patterns in our observations.

What we should say there is "all it relies on is the existence of patterns in my observations." As soon as we posit other people that we can interact with, and that we can know we can interact with, we're positing a real world of (some sort of) stuff.

Terrapin Station wrote:What we should say there is "all it relies on is the existence of patterns in my observations." As soon as we posit other people that we can interact with, and that we can know we can interact with, we're positing a real world of (some sort of) stuff.

True.

by Steve3007

Terrapin Station wrote:What we should say there is "all it relies on is the existence of patterns in my observations." As soon as we posit other people that we can interact with, and that we can know we can interact with, we're positing a real world of (some sort of) stuff.

True.

OK, I'll go with that.

Steve3007 wrote

To help the discussion, could you give an example in which philosophy has, in your view, mistakenly or incorrectly yielded to science? What would it actually mean for philosophy, or anything else, to yield to science? Science is a formalization of the simple process of observing the world, spotting patterns and regularities in those observations and trying to use those regularities to predict future observations. What would it mean to yield to that?

First, it's not about the scientific method, which I use to put on my shoes in the morning. This kind of thinking we associate with science has its basis in everyday life and there is no escaping this unless one breaks with living itself. It is the hypothetical deductive method and it is distinctively tied to a pragmatic structure of experience. It is future looking, just as experience is inherently future looking (in our Heraclitean world)

Empirical reductive thinking is what I have in mind. By this I mean a dismissiveness of what cannot be confirmed in "observation" (keeping in mind that the term observation is not in itself this prohibitive). Philosophy is apriori, not empirical, and so it takes the world as it is given in empirical science and elsewhere (observations of mental events) and asks, what is required in order for this to be the case? For experience has structure, there are questions about the origin of experience, paradoxes that arise on the assumption that empirical observation is the foundation of knowledge such as: From whence comes knowledge of the world? Observation. What IS this? Brain activity (keeping it short). So when you observe a brain it is brain activity doing the observing? Yes. Then what confirms the brain activity that produces the conclusion that it is brain activity that produces empirical observations. Brain activity. A brain is confirmable as an observation based entity, and that makes it just as empirical as everything else. It is contingent, therefore, in need of something else to confirm IT. That is, it has no foundation, nothing beneath it, and to ignore this is simply to take a wrong turn.
Science cannot discuss ethics. Of course, the scientific method is always in place, and one can produce a hedonic calculator to determine utility, but ethics is not a demonstrable science for value is not empirical. The WHAT is ethics?, of course, is what I am talking about. Not the what to do about it.
Science as a touchstone of what is Real systematically leaves out finitude/eternity, transcendence, metaphysics, ontology, the inevitable foundationlessness of all enterprises: the reason why these sound so alien to your common sense is not because they have no presence in the world or inherent fascination bearing content. Rather, it is because these have been systematically put out of relevance, utterly side lined by the technological success and the endless, unquestioning business it produces. We are, as a science infatuated culture, endlessly distracted, and meaning has become trivialized in this. We just assume there is nothing to see because the meanings I am talking about are not empirical.
And my complaint goes on. As to who, I suppose it would be the Daniel Dennetts, the Richard Dawkins', the analytic tradition that rests with the assumption that parallels that of empirical science: to know is to know MORE. and more is parasitical on empirical science.

My take is that philosophy is already done. It has shown us that there is no progress to make empirically. The finale: science presupposes value. Why bother with ANYthing? The answer we seek in philosophy is not cognitive, but affective. Not more, but more penetrating. What we seek in all our endeavors is not distraction but consummation of what we are, and this rests with value, not propositional knowledge, but affect, meaning.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Philosophy is apriori, not empirical,

As we suddenly dismiss a huge percentage of philosophers, haha.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

All this means that when science makes its moves to "say" what the world is, it is only right within the scope of its field. But philosophy, which is the most open field, has no business yielding to this any more than to knitting "science" or masonry. Philosophy is all inclusive theory, and the attempt to fit such a thing into a scientific paradigm is simply perverse.

Science: know your place! It is not philosophy.

I can't disagree with you, but I fear the analytical/science/objective crew will object. They don't like it when anyone even implies that there are areas of knowledge that science cannot address. I wish you luck! 🙂

What an a priori approach can tell you about is how the philosopher in question happens to think. The mental dispositions they have. It makes it like autobiographical psychological analysis.

by Sculptor1

you have implied that science does not know its place.

It's not "science" that has done this, it's its practitioners and followers. Science has achieved a huge amount. This can be empirically verified, and I see no need to justify it further. It has been (and remains) so successful that it is often applied when it is not the appropriate tool for the job. This is not the fault of science. And when politicians claim they're 'following the science', as they have done recently, this is often another misapplication of science.

Science is a great invention, and it has proved its worth time after time. Science is, IMO, a Good Thing. But it is not universally applicable. I think this topic is attempting to address the misapplication of science, not to attack science of itself. This topic stands in direct opposition to those who claim that science is the only acceptable tool to investigate and understand life, the universe, and everything. [Yes, there are such people.]

Just my two pennyworth. 🙂

Steve3007 wrote
As we know, ontology is the study of how things are and what things exist, as opposed to, for example, the study of how we know things or how things appears to be or the study of our experiences. So, "thinking about what the world is" would be thinking about onotology, yes? So in the first sentence above are you saying that science involves "thinking about what the world is"? If so, the last sentence contradicts this doesn't it?

I defend a phenomenologist's definition of ontology: what IS, is a process (one way to put it). To even bring up a thing as existing is to do so in a process of thought, experience and to think beyond this, to some affirmation of what Really is, is bad metaphysics; an empty spinning of wheels.
Ontology is a term that reminds me of Kuhn's "paradigm": taken up everywhere once achieved popularity. These days, marketers, education theorists, everyone talks about an ontology of this or that, and by this they mean what something is foundationally in their field. But philosophical ontology is tricky. In my thinking (always, already derivative) ontology is a study of the structures of experience. It is reductive talk about everything, and a scientist's reductive talk would be physicalism or materialism, mine is process: for materialism presupposes the process of thought that produces the very idea. ALL things presuppose this, and this is why process thinking (Heraclitus' world) is AS reductive as one can get. It is the bottom line of analysis just prior to going religious.

This, coming after "Science does not do ontology" would appear to be intended to build on/expand on that statement. You appear to be equating "ontology" with "taking the structure of experience itself as an object of study" (and saying that science does neither). But ontology is not about studying "the structure of experience" is it? It's not entirely clear what you mean by "studying the structure of experience", but it doesn't sound like ontology

The assumption is, one cannot step outside of experience; the very thought is absurd. And experience is not a thing. Things appear before us, IN experience, but thingness presupposes experience. What IS foundational, is not a thing, but the process in which things are recognized as things. I think we live in interpretation of things, and this interpretation is also what things essentially are.

So you propose that science presupposes "the structure of experience"? Studying Jupiter's atmosphere would entail looking at Jupiter's atmosphere. How does stating that "inquiry would be specific, exclusive, formulaic." relate to this? Are you saying that in order to study the atmosphere of Jupiter we should look at something other than the atmosphere of Jupiter? Or perhaps look at everything? Do you apply this to all study? Can you see that you're not making any kind of coherent argument here? Do you want to?

All thinking is about something. If we are looking for what philosophy should be about, we find that empirical science is too exclusive of the body of what the world is. Philosophy needs to be about the most general, inclusive perspective. To get to this level, one has to put aside the incidentals, the tokens, if you will, of what the world is, and physics, biology and the rest becomes tokens of the broader inclusiveness.

Not to me. The above assertion may well be right, but you certainly haven't constructed an argument to demonstrate it.

The only way to do that would be to address all of your issues on the matter. That takes time.

by Pattern-chaser

by Sculptor1

you have implied that science does not know its place.

It's not "science" that has done this, it's its practitioners and followers. Science has achieved a huge amount. This can be empirically verified, and I see no need to justify it further. It has been (and remains) so successful that it is often applied when it is not the appropriate tool for the job. This is not the fault of science. And when politicians claim they're 'following the science', as they have done recently, this is often another misapplication of science.

Science is a great invention, and it has proved its worth time after time. Science is, IMO, a Good Thing. But it is not universally applicable. I think this topic is attempting to address the misapplication of science, not to attack science of itself. This topic stands in direct opposition to those who claim that science is the only acceptable tool to investigate and understand life, the universe, and everything. [Yes, there are such people.]

Just my two pennyworth. 🙂

I wouldn't say it's the only applicable tool (heck, I wouldn't have studied philosophy otherwise), but I'd say that science, just like philosophy, is applicable to everything. The differences are in the methodologies, not in what are apt or inapt focuses for those methodologies.

by Terrapin Station

by Pattern-chaser

Science is a great invention, and it has proved its worth time after time. Science is, IMO, a Good Thing. But it is not universally applicable. I think this topic is attempting to address the misapplication of science, not to attack science of itself. This topic stands in direct opposition to those who claim that science is the only acceptable tool to investigate and understand life, the universe, and everything. [Yes, there are such people.]

I wouldn't say it's the only applicable tool (heck, I wouldn't have studied philosophy otherwise), but I'd say that science, just like philosophy, is applicable to everything. The differences are in the methodologies, not in what are apt or inapt focuses for those methodologies.

Yes and no. 🙂 Science is not applicable to metaphysics, morality or religion, for a start. That's not a shortcoming of science. No tool can address every task.

Sculptor1 wrote
You have not demonstrated that our hegemony is based on science.
You seem to imply, totally wrongly that science is absurd. Again, you have done nothing to support this.
Then you have implied that science does not know its place. Again, nothing but a bold assertion back up with nothing.
If I were to characterise our current hegemony in this arena I would point to the absurd hegemony of anti-science and pseudo-science which seem to infect socail media like a virus.

You vast claims for philosophy ignore the many occaisons where philosphy has had to bow down to the discoveries of science and modify its ways.

I would ask you to read more closely and dispassionately. I never even hinted that science was absurd. The bold assertions may have issues. I wonder, what are they?
Social media? Look, you have others matters bearing on this that I have no part in. If you want to raise another related problem, then I am pretty much open to anything. I come here to argue; I like thinking and writing. So argue a case. My thinking is overreaching because....; empirical science odes provide adequate paradigms for philosophical matters because....

Hereandnow wrote:To even bring up a thing as existing is to do so in a process of thought

Ontology, as conventionally understood, is the study of what exists. Obviously being "the study" means that "the study of Ontology" is a process of thought. That doesn't mean that Ontology is about thought. That would be like saying that woodwork is not about working wood. It's about thinking about woodwork.

The assumption is, one cannot step outside of experience

The assumption of what? Of science? That would be like saying that the assumption of woodwork is that one cannot step outside of wood. Science, by definition, is largely about sensory experiences in the sense that it is empirical. That doesn't mean you can't "step outside". If you want to try to do that in some way you're free to do so. You just won't be doing science then. There's no law saying that you have to.

All thinking is about something. If we are looking for what philosophy should be about, we find that empirical science is too exclusive of the body of what the world is. Philosophy needs to be about the most general, inclusive perspective. To get to this level, one has to put aside the incidentals, the tokens, if you will, of what the world is, and physics, biology and the rest becomes tokens of the broader inclusiveness.

You're talking as if somebody has told you that philosophy has to be all about science. Obviously it doesn't. But obviously it makes sense for it to be informed by science's findings for the same reason that it makes sense for it to be informed by any other findings.

So I still don't see what the point of the OP is. Its title seems to suggest that it's a defense of the proposition "Science has hegemony and that's absurd". But maybe it isn't. I'm none the wiser!

I never even hinted that science was absurd.

But its hegemony is, yes?

Terrapin Station wrote
Your response to me makes a lot more sense to me than your initial post did, but it has way too much stuff to address. Seriously, there's enough material there for probably 100 different lengthy discussion threads.

Sure, but it is, if you pardon the locution, thematically limited. There are specific claims and specific ideas.

Let's take just one claim:
Hereandnow wrote: ↑Yesterday, 9:45 pm
to do so would be to step out of the logic and language that makes thought even possible.
People say such things often, but it always seems very curious to me. It seems like there must be people who only think linguistically--because otherwise why would they make claims like "language is necessary to make thought even possible," but not everyone only thinks linguistically. Now, if there are people who only think linguistically, they probably won't believe that this is not the case for everyone, and there's probably not much we can do about that aside from working on getting them to realize that it wouldn't have to be the case that all thinking is the same for all entities that can think. This is easier said than done, though, because there seems to be a common personality/disposition that has a hard time with the notion that not everyone is essentially the same.

In order for me to make sense of this, you would have to make sense of thought without logic or language. Thinking is defined by what we find in the world. There is instinct, motor habits, reflexes, what a feral child might possess, true. The feral child would be the most interesting.

At any rate, it is not so much the explicit use of logic and language that is being argued here, but the structure of experience itself: Get up in the morning, see the time in the clock on the wall, anticipate your affairs for the day, and so on. All of this has the structure of rational organization. Unspoken "knowledge" is implicit assertions, conditionals, negations and so on. And this rests with what is already there, in memory that constitutes one's familiarity with the world. Memory, recollection, repetition, recognition, habit, these are experiential matters that are descriptive of the cow in the meadow, not making any thought, part of the experiential "world".

Also, the notion that we can't observe or perceive things without actively thinking about them, a la applying concepts, applying meanings, having a linguistic internal commentary about them, etc. would need to be supported, but I don't know how we'd support that aside from simply brute-force, stomping-our-foot-down-and-not-budging claiming it. It's a lot like the claim that all thought is linguistic. Maybe some people's minds work so that they can't simply perceive things without applying concepts/meanings, etc., and again, they're just not going to believe that not everyone's mental experience is just like theirs.

That IS an interesting point. I would argue that one cannot perceive without apperceiving. When an infant lies in the crib, there is already, as soon as synaptic connections are completed and events in the womb recorded, an apperceptive presence, hence, a person, albeit a thinly constructed one. But what makes the whole affair recognizable, a case of experiencing reality is the combination of the familiarity of appreception and the essential features of the mind, which are cognitive, affective and so on. It is exactly the opposite of what I argue to say that there are "faculties" of reason as if the whole possessed this rational machinery. Rather, it is a stream that can be analyzed, and the analysis yields an abstraction from the whole.
If there is no presence of logic, does this precludes assertions and the rest? Even a non symbolic mentality, as with that of a cow, has a proto rationality: it looks up from a worn patch of ground for greener places, associates green with food; and the other typical behavior. It could be argued that in all this prelinguistic behavior, the "knowing" cow is in possession of a kind of protologic.
But this doesn't really go to the matter about experience as the final ground for reductive attempts.

But at any rate, I don't see how we can claim such things without needing pretty good supports of them over the contradictory claims (that not all thought is linguistic (and/or logical) and that not all perception is theory-laden, or accompanied by thoughts a la concepts, meanings, etc.)

I would argue all thought is theory laden. One only has to first define theory as a forward looking interpretative position, and then, simply examine non problematic examples of thought. After all, it is from this examination that we even have a discipline called logic at all. Logic is inferred from experience.

Terrapin Station wrote


Certainly claiming such things without good support and then just poetically, kind of stream-of-consciously transitioning to other obliquely-related ideas, also without good support, and then others and others and others, all linked with as many prepositional phrases as possible, all while avoiding periods for as long as possible, doesn't really work as philosophy in my opinion. 😃

It is method of analysis, and the "good support" you seek lies in the argument itself. What is there, in our midst as experiencing people, is taken up and looked at to see what sense can be made of it. This is why logic is a philosophical discipline: the proof lies in the thought constructions about the way we think. It is a step backwards, asking, well, what does this presuppose if it is true?
it is not at all unlike other thinking in that we analyze all the time, only here, it is basic questions, basic assumptions.

by Pattern-chaser

by Sculptor1

you have implied that science does not know its place.

It's not "science" that has done this, it's its practitioners and followers. Science has achieved a huge amount. This can be empirically verified, and I see no need to justify it further. It has been (and remains) so successful that it is often applied when it is not the appropriate tool for the job. This is not the fault of science. And when politicians claim they're 'following the science', as they have done recently, this is often another misapplication of science.

Science is a great invention, and it has proved its worth time after time. Science is, IMO, a Good Thing. But it is not universally applicable. I think this topic is attempting to address the misapplication of science, not to attack science of itself. This topic stands in direct opposition to those who claim that science is the only acceptable tool to investigate and understand life, the universe, and everything. [Yes, there are such people.]

Just my two pennyworth. 🙂

I think you might want to direct that to the person who opened the thread.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

In my thinking (always, already derivative) ontology is a study of the structures of experience.

Depends what you mean by that. Technically, experience has no actual structure, just as the outside world has no actual structure. (Probably.) Our own mind/thinking is/creates that apparent structure, but it's not set in stone, for example I frequently change the structure of my experiences using various techniques.

Avoiding such traps is one reason why philosophy shouldn't be purely a priori.

Sadly science has no hegemony.
Take a look at Trump's administration. He still thinks he's running The Apprentice", as he fired the most knowledgable man in the field of infectious diseases.
He can't read a graph and the people seem to honour him for his willful stupidity and anti-science on a range of topics.

by Pattern-chaser

Yes and no. 🙂 Science is not applicable to metaphysics, morality or religion, for a start. That's not a shortcoming of science. No tool can address every task.

On my view metaphysics is the same thing as ontology, and ontology is simply about the nature of what exists--that's certainly what science does, it just uses a different methodology than philosophy.

Morality and religion are about certain types of human beliefs, dispositions and behavior. We can definitely study those things scientifically, too.

Pattern-chaser wrote:Science is not applicable to metaphysics, morality or religion, for a start.

You could perhaps say that it's not applicable to the practice of morality and religion, at least, but it could be applicable to the study of them if they exhibit any kinds of patterns that might be used to construct descriptive and/or predictive theories. So, for example, if we noticed that various people tend to hold similar moral views we could create theories to try to predict what moral views some other people might hold and perhaps propose underlying causes for them holding those views. i.e. we could do sociology or anthropology.

There are some scientists who have opined that a similar relationship applies between philosophy and science. i.e. that philosophy is no use to the practice of science:

Richard Feynman wrote:Philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds

But of course ornithology is still useful. Just not to birds.

by Steve3007

Pattern-chaser wrote:Science is not applicable to metaphysics, morality or religion, for a start.

You could perhaps say that it's not applicable to the practice of morality and religion, at least, but it could be applicable to the study of them if they exhibit any kinds of patterns that might be used to construct descriptive and/or predictive theories. So, for example, if we noticed that various people tend to hold similar moral views we could create theories to try to predict what moral views some other people might hold and perhaps propose underlying causes for them holding those views. i.e. we could do sociology or anthropology.

There are some scientists who have opined that a similar relationship applies between philosophy and science. i.e. that philosophy is no use to the practice of science:

Richard Feynman wrote:Philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds

But of course ornithology is still useful. Just not to birds.

Here's one quote of Feynman I do not agree with.
Any bird who understood ornithology would rule the skies.

by Steve3007

Pattern-chaser wrote:Science is not applicable to metaphysics, morality or religion, for a start.

You could perhaps say that it's not applicable to the practice of morality and religion, at least, but it could be applicable to the study of them if they exhibit any kinds of patterns that might be used to construct descriptive and/or predictive theories. So, for example, if we noticed that various people tend to hold similar moral views we could create theories to try to predict what moral views some other people might hold and perhaps propose underlying causes for them holding those views. i.e. we could do sociology or anthropology.

There are some scientists who have opined that a similar relationship applies between philosophy and science. i.e. that philosophy is no use to the practice of science:

Richard Feynman wrote:Philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds

But of course ornithology is still useful. Just not to birds.

Yeah, science is obviously not identical to every activity, but science can study everything and anything that exists, just like philosophy can.

Gertie wrote
What the scientific method relies on is that there is a real world of stuff which our mental experience relates to, and we can know something about that stuff. Not perfectly or comprehensively, but well enough to pass the tests of inter-subjective agreement and predictability.

And that has given us an incredibly complex, coherent and useful working model of a material world we share.

But you're right to say science doesn't know how to go about explaining mental experience - which all its claims are based in. Bit of a paradox that one. And imo suggests the fundamental nature of the universe is uncertain. Philosophy of mind is coming up with all kinds of speculations about the mind-body problem, but they remain inaccessible to testing - unless you have a surefire method?

Materialism has its own untestable philosophical hypotheses about how mental experience might be reducible to material processes, including philosophical thinking. If you think you have a better philosophical case, can you lay it out as simply and clearly as poss? (Serious request)

Because it's easy to spot the flaws with the all the hypotheses, not so easy to conclusively argue which one should be accepted as correct.

It is not about testing and verification and reliability and the like. These are fundamental to all we do (put your socks on. How did you do that? A repeatedly confirmed theory about the way physical things behave, about moving the arm and hands in this way to produce a specific event. The method of science is unassailable and is simply the method of living and breathing.

And to the waste bin with mind body matters. This is a false ontological problem because it can only make sense if you can say what mind and body are such that they would be different things ontologically--but the very nature of an ontological question goes to a question of Being, what IS, and here, there are no properties to distinguish. In existence there are many different things, states, all distinguished by what we can say about them. We don't believe these differences constitute differences OF Being, just differences IN Being.

Regarding the serious request:

To establish a truly foundational ontology, one has to look where things that assume a foundation have there implicit assumptions. All science is a construct of language and logic before it is ever even gets to constructing tests tubes and telescopes, so the question then is, what is language and logic? the OP says these belong to experience, and experience has a structure, and this structure is one of time. Past, present future. Thought and its "method" has a temporal structure, the anticipating of results when specified conditions are in place (hence, the success in repeatedly tying my shoes properly). Science is, technically speaking, all about what-will-happen if there is this, or that in place, or if one does this or that. Science doesn't have a problem; we ARE the scientific method in a very real way, in every anticipation of our lives there is a history of a learned associations between what we do and what will happen. This is what cognition is.

Time is the foundation of Being, but it is not Einstein's time (an empirical concept based on observation) but structural time, the structure of Being itself in the experience that produces existence, OUR existence, that is, which is a temporal one. time that structures our experience is not beyond experience and Einstein conceived of relativity in the temporally structured world of experience. Outside of this structure this time does not exist (unless it is in some other such experientially structured time, as with God, but this is an arbitrary idea).

Science's failure to be sufficient for philosophical thinking is not in the method, but in the content. I mean, even if I went full subjective into the deep recesses of my interiority and actually found God and the soul, this would be IN time, in an ability to anticipate the next moment, bring up memories, see that the usual is not the case here in order to have a contextual setting that I can recognize God as God. The rub lies with science's paradigms that are exclusively specialized and empirical and ignore the phenomenon of experience as it is. It takes parts of experience and reifies them into being-foundations. To me this is akin to taking knitting, a specialized "part" as well, and defining the existence in terms of the yarn and needle.

Philosophy is supposed to take the most basic and inclusive perspective in which one has pulled away from the "parts" and attempts to be about the whole, and the whole is experience structured in time, and then the matter turns to WHAT is there. Everything. Nothing excluded: love affairs, hatreds, our anxieties, our ethics, tragedies, and so on: all conceived structurally in time and as the WHAT of existence. All is, to use a strange term, equiprimorlial, meaning no one is reducible to any other. Our affairs are not reducible to physical realities, but physical realities belong to a specialized language scientists use, or we all use in a casual way. Evolution is not in any way held suspect, to give an example. It is a very compelling theory. But other actualities are not reducible to this, do not have their explanatory basis in this.

It is science's hegemony that leads us to a position that denies the world's "parts" their rightful ontological status. And if any hegemony should rise, it should be based on what it IS, its "presence" as an irreducible actuality. Of course, this is the presence of affectivity (affect), the very essence of meaning itself.

Terrapin Station wrote

As we suddenly dismiss a huge percentage of philosophers, haha.

It's only to say that philosophers don't sit in labs studying empirical data. Remember, Richard Dawkins is not a philosopher, not that I disagree with what that he says; I'm just saying what he does say is not philosophy. This does, I am aware, make the question of what philosophy is an issue. Oh well.

Pattern-chaser wrote

I can't disagree with you, but I fear the analytical/science/objective crew will object. They don't like it when anyone even implies that there are areas of knowledge that science cannot address. I wish you luck! 🙂

I don't disagree with the power of the scienctific method. I told Gertie this is not something one can dismiss. It is their theoretical paradigms are absurdly overreaching.

Terrapin Station wrote
What an a priori approach can tell you about is how the philosopher in question happens to think. The mental dispositions they have. It makes it like autobiographical psychological analysis.

Oh, no, no. Logic itself is apriori inferred from experience and judgment.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

All science is a construct of language and logic before it is ever even gets to constructing tests tubes and telescopes

How would we provisionally verify versus falsify a claim like that?

by Sculptor1

I think you might want to direct that to the person who opened the thread.

I thought the OP aimed at the way science is practised, not at science itself, as you suggested. I responded to you.

by Terrapin Station

by 🐉 Hereandnow

All science is a construct of language and logic before it is ever even gets to constructing tests tubes and telescopes

How would we provisionally verify versus falsify a claim like that?

If we were being constructive, maybe we wouldn't bother trying to prove it right or prove it wrong, but simply discuss the claim made. Is it a useful cvlaim? Does it advance the discussion? And so on.

Just a thought.

by Pattern-chaser

by Terrapin Station

How would we provisionally verify versus falsify a claim like that?

If we were being constructive, maybe we wouldn't bother trying to prove it right or prove it wrong, but simply discuss the claim made. Is it a useful cvlaim? Does it advance the discussion? And so on.

Just a thought.

As always, it's not about proof, because we can't prove any empirical claim period. It's about why we'd believe it rather than alternatives. It's possible that All science is a construct of language and logic before it is ever even gets to constructing tests tubes and telescopes, and it's possible that NOT all science is a construct of language and logic before it is ever even gets to constructing tests tubes and telescopes. So then the question is "Why would we believe one of those claims over the other?" And then what's the answer to that? That's what I'm looking for. That's the sort of thing we should be doing if we're doing philosophy. Not just making claims with no support. We should be supporting them by talking about the reasons that we'd believe a claim over the contradictory claim.

I should add that the reason I'm interested in this is that when I read something like, "All science is a construct of language and logic before it is ever even gets to constructing tests tubes and telescopes," I think, "Hmm . . . that doesn't seem to be very clearly the case. So why would I believe it?" I'm certainly not going to believe that it's the case just because someone is saying that it is. They need to have better reasons to believe the claim than that.

If I didn't think this way, I'd have zero interest in philosophy in the first place.

by Pattern-chaser

by Sculptor1

I think you might want to direct that to the person who opened the thread.

I thought the OP aimed at the way science is practised, not at science itself, as you suggested. I responded to you.

I think it would be worthwhile for him to respond to your points, which I am basically in agreement with.
As far as your distinction; not sure there is one since science is a practice, its practice defines what it is.
My basic objection is that it in no way forms an hegenomy; would that it did.
We would have a more rational world being based on verifuable truth rather than rumour or faith.

Steve3007 wrote

Ontology, as conventionally understood, is the study of what exists. Obviously being "the study" means that "the study of Ontology" is a process of thought. That doesn't mean that Ontology is about thought. That would be like saying that woodwork is not about working wood. It's about thinking about woodwork.

The question of ontology asks us to look at what IS, but when the question is asked, the what IS is already conceived in the asking as an idea, recollected language, logical construction and an already existing sense of what there is that needs inquiry. You don't go into the matter ex nihilo, nor does any possible response arise this way. This "isness" or Being you seek an accounting of must be there in experience beforehand, for the asking, but then, what is "there"? The idea here, in part, is that we cannot conceive of what that could be without the attendant ideas that make conception possible. Once you drop thought, in other words, you drop understanding, and this makes things "as they are", beyond the scope of language, utterly ineffable, transcendental. If you take this kind of thing seriously, transcendence, you step into another, very odd and interesting, if you ask me, world. The fact that you can ask the question about such non linguistic apprehensions of the what IS that is not a nonsense question opens a very strange door in philosophy that is beyond the scope of this discussion.


The point I want to make does touch on this, though: the rational grasp of something delimits that thing, brings it to heel, removes the thing from what would otherwise be without understanding altogether because unconditioned by thought. This, one might say, is one aspect of a rationalized world and it is part of empirical science's hegemonic bias, given that science wants this above all: logical clarity. But while logical clarity does work in the affairs of science where things are quantitatively conceived, it is a very rough go regarding the entire theater of human affairs where a standard of clarity applying to our horrors, joys, loves, fears, the very things that stand out to inquiry in need of understanding is absurd. Hence a movement in philosophy called existentialism.

The assumption of what? Of science? That would be like saying that the assumption of woodwork is that one cannot step outside of wood. Science, by definition, is largely about sensory experiences in the sense that it is empirical. That doesn't mean you can't "step outside". If you want to try to do that in some way you're free to do so. You just won't be doing science then. There's no law saying that you have to.

No. I'm saying one cannot step out of experience because sense cannot be made of such a thing. To step outside of something implies that where one is stepping makes sense to be stepped into. I can make sense of stepping out of woodwork, but I cannot make sense of stepping out of experience fir that would be stepping out of making sense itself.

You're talking as if somebody has told you that philosophy has to be all about science. Obviously it doesn't. But obviously it makes sense for it to be informed by science's findings for the same reason that it makes sense for it to be informed by any other findings.

So I still don't see what the point of the OP is. Its title seems to suggest that it's a defense of the proposition "Science has hegemony and that's absurd". But maybe it isn't. I'm none the wiser!

Someone told me? Well, not personally. I read.

Maybe? I mean, look at the arguments. What do you think about its specific issues. This is just being dismissive.

Atla wrote

Depends what you mean by that. Technically, experience has no actual structure, just as the outside world has no actual structure. (Probably.) Our own mind/thinking is/creates that apparent structure, but it's not set in stone, for example I frequently change the structure of my experiences using various techniques.

Avoiding such traps is one reason why philosophy shouldn't be purely a priori.

But you don't change the having of motivations, grief, anxiety, logic, engagements, and so on; you can ignore these, become a monk and they can all just fall away from experience, but then, are you still human? People who actually do this kind of thing talk in terms alien to existence.

As to philosophy being apriori, it is no more than looking at presuppositions OF what you might find in science. A scientist looks at data regarding, say, plate tectonics to study movements of the earth's crust. Looking at data: what is this? What is in the looking, studying, analyzing, comparing, and so forth? There is reason. What is this? How is this evidenced to be posited? It is in the very form of a given judgment: logical form. Can one separate logic from what logic in observation tells you about the world? After all, logic is a matter of apriority, so how can this be about an object when knowledge of objects is all posteriori knowledge?

Now you're deep into an apriori analysis of an empirical claim. It is not second guessed by the empirical claim, but is altogether a different kind of question about a different kind of issue.

Terrapin Station wrote

How would we provisionally verify versus falsify a claim like that?

One would simply observe the nature of language and logic. This is done by taking the various propositional forms and analyzing them, and determining what they are, as in assertions, denials, conditionals and the rest. You cannot say, Eureka, there is life on Mars! unless you can make a statement in the form of an assertion.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

But you don't change the having of motivations, grief, anxiety, logic, engagements, and so on; you can ignore these, become a monk and they can all just fall away from experience, but then, are you still human? People who actually do this kind of thing talk in terms alien to existence.

Whose existence? Shouldn't philosophy cover all of existence, including the various kinds of not fully human humans?

As to philosophy being apriori, it is no more than looking at presuppositions OF what you might find in science. A scientist looks at data regarding, say, plate tectonics to study movements of the earth's crust. Looking at data: what is this? What is in the looking, studying, analyzing, comparing, and so forth? There is reason. What is this? How is this evidenced to be posited? It is in the very form of a given judgment: logical form. Can one separate logic from what logic in observation tells you about the world? After all, logic is a matter of apriority, so how can this be about an object when knowledge of objects is all posteriori knowledge?

Now you're deep into an apriori analysis of an empirical claim. It is not second guessed by the empirical claim, but is altogether a different kind of question about a different kind of issue.

How do you know that logic is a matter of apriority? So far, the entire known universe seem to behave in a way that's consistent/compatible with human classical logic. Maybe apriori human logic evolved to reflect how the universe around us behaves.

Atla wrote
Whose existence? Shouldn't philosophy cover all of existence, including the various kinds of not fully human humans?

Of course. Would like to include stones, animals, spiders? Yes,they are included. But in doing this, have you made any alteration in the argument? Living things like us are considered only to the extent a characterization is warranted. A stone: One can only say what one observes and there is no interior to a stone that can be accessed. An animal? We are not as dogs and cats and the rest are animals, so the best we can do infer what it would be like from what we are, given a similarity in observable constitutions but this is the best we can do. As to other people, we also infer from what we experience to others, and are right about a lot of things for observations seem to match up. But then, even with animals and other people, we cannot see into their interiors, so we infer what they are like.

How do you know that logic is a matter of apriority? So far, the entire known universe seem to behave in a way that's consistent/compatible with human classical logic. Maybe apriori human logic evolved to reflect how the universe around us behaves.

But to even speculate about such a thing requires you to employ your reason. Keep in mind that if the universe were to behave in odd ways, it would not be apriority that was threatened, but simply our observations and the consistency they have thus far yielded. To imagine a world where logic itself is upended is to imagine world beyond logical possibility, modus ponens doesn't really work. Such a thing is beyond imagination. Important is that logic is IN the structure of the thoughts you use to construct your suspicions about logic. There really is no way out of meaningful discussions requiring apriori logical form.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Of course. Would like to include stones, animals, spiders? Yes,they are included. But in doing this, have you made any alteration in the argument? Living things like us are considered only to the extent a characterization is warranted. A stone: One can only say what one observes and there is no interior to a stone that can be accessed. An animal? We are not as dogs and cats and the rest are animals, so the best we can do infer what it would be like from what we are, given a similarity in observable constitutions but this is the best we can do. As to other people, we also infer from what we experience to others, and are right about a lot of things for observations seem to match up. But then, even with animals and other people, we cannot see into their interiors, so we infer what they are like.

Alteration in what argument?

But to even speculate about such a thing requires you to employ your reason. Keep in mind that if the universe were to behave in odd ways, it would not be apriority that was threatened, but simply our observations and the consistency they have thus far yielded. To imagine a world where logic itself is upended is to imagine world beyond logical possibility, modus ponens doesn't really work. Such a thing is beyond imagination. Important is that logic is IN the structure of the thoughts you use to construct your suspicions about logic. There really is no way out of meaningful discussions requiring apriori logical form.

Well, sure.

(I don't know what your point is.)

by 🐉 Hereandnow

One would simply observe the nature of language and logic.

??? But "All science is a construct of language and logic before it is ever even gets to constructing tests tubes and telescopes " is a claim about science, it's not a claim about language and logic.

If we said, "All dogs are black," and someone said, "How would we provisionally verify versus falsify that claim," we wouldn't respond by saying, "One would simply observe the nature of black"! We have to observe dogs, and check whether they're all black or not, because it's a claim about the properties of dogs, not the properties of colors. Likewise, you made a claim about the properties of science, not the properties of language and logic.

This is done by taking the various propositional forms and analyzing them, and determining what they are, as in assertions, denials, conditionals and the rest. You cannot say, Eureka, there is life on Mars! unless you can make a statement in the form of an assertion.

Of course you can not say something without using language. But that's aside from the issue of whether all science is a construct of language and logic. Would you be suggesting that we can not do science without saying something? Could a person who can't speak, write (or sign, etc.) be incapable of doing science? How would we provisionally verify versus falsify that claim?

(And note by the way that the claim, "is a construct of" is different than if we were simply to say, "is done with the aid of.")

Terrapin Station wrote
??? But "All science is a construct of language and logic before it is ever even gets to constructing tests tubes and telescopes " is a claim about science, it's not a claim about language and logic.

If we said, "All dogs are black," and someone said, "How would we provisionally verify versus falsify that claim," we wouldn't respond by saying, "One would simply observe the nature of black"! We have to observe dogs, and check whether they're all black or not, because it's a claim about the properties of dogs, not the properties of colors. Likewise, you made a claim about the properties of science, not the properties of language and logic.

I am saying language and logic is foundational for science; it is presupposed by it. The verification or falsification of whether a dog is black would certianly require empirical confirmation, but then, the question here would go to the verification of the empirical claim itself, qua empirical claim. This brings one to, not another observation of an empirical nature, but an analysis of what it is for something to be empirical at all (hence, the apriori nature of philosophy: what is assumed, presupposed by X).

Of course you can not say something without using language. But that's aside from the issue of whether all science is a construct of language and logic. Would you be suggesting that we can not do science without saying something? Could a person who can't speak, write (or sign, etc.) be incapable of doing science? How would we provisionally verify versus falsify that claim?

(And note by the way that the claim, "is a construct of" is different than if we were simply to say, "is done with the aid of.")

You can tie your shoes without language, but it would be closer to what a cow does when it looks for greener pasture. Science is symbolic work, and yes, you cannot do this without language. Science is a body of factual propositions, and propositions are inherently linguistic.
You could verify versus falsify this by asking how physics could be possible without language and logic. You would have to demonstrate this: give examples of science and show how these are free,or can be, of language.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Terrapin Station wrote
??? But "All science is a construct of language and logic before it is ever even gets to constructing tests tubes and telescopes " is a claim about science, it's not a claim about language and logic.

If we said, "All dogs are black," and someone said, "How would we provisionally verify versus falsify that claim," we wouldn't respond by saying, "One would simply observe the nature of black"! We have to observe dogs, and check whether they're all black or not, because it's a claim about the properties of dogs, not the properties of colors. Likewise, you made a claim about the properties of science, not the properties of language and logic.

I am saying language and logic is foundational for science; it is presupposed by it. The verification or falsification of whether a dog is black would certianly require empirical confirmation, but then, the question here would go to the verification of the empirical claim itself, qua empirical claim. This brings one to, not another observation of an empirical nature, but an analysis of what it is for something to be empirical at all (hence, the apriori nature of philosophy: what is assumed, presupposed by X).

Of course you can not say something without using language. But that's aside from the issue of whether all science is a construct of language and logic. Would you be suggesting that we can not do science without saying something? Could a person who can't speak, write (or sign, etc.) be incapable of doing science? How would we provisionally verify versus falsify that claim?

(And note by the way that the claim, "is a construct of" is different than if we were simply to say, "is done with the aid of.")

You can tie your shoes without language, but it would be closer to what a cow does when it looks for greener pasture. Science is symbolic work, and yes, you cannot do this without language. Science is a body of factual propositions, and propositions are inherently linguistic.
You could verify versus falsify this by asking how physics could be possible without language and logic. You would have to demonstrate this: give examples of science and show how these are free,or can be, of language.

So if you were trying to figure out how to best hunt an animal, say, and you did that by observing its behavior--where it goes at different times of the day, how it reacts to sounds and so on, so that you can make predictions about the best way to hunt it, you wouldn't call that a scientific approach? Because you could do that without language, and certainly language (or logic) wouldn't be "constructing" it.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Science does not do ontology.

QUOTE>
"A physical theory should clearly and forthrightly address two fundamental questions: what there is, and what it does. The answer to the first question is provided by the ontology of the theory, and the answer to the second by its dynamics. The ontology should have a sharp mathematical description, and the dynamics should be implemented by precise equations describing how the ontology will, or might, evolve."

(Maudlin, Tim. Philosophy of Physics: Quantum Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019. p. xi)

"(I)f 'ontology' just means 'the study of what exists' or 'the study of things', as opposed to the study of knowledge, don't the sciences qualify for that label? Doesn't the physicist study the existing things of the physical world? And similarly for all the other sciences: don't they all study a certain class of existing things—biology, astronomy, psychology, and so on? There are various entities in reality and the various sciences study the nature of those entities—planets, organisms, subjects of consciousness, and so on. Isn't a scientist by definition an ontologist? The answer must surely be yes: the scientist studies the order of being, or a certain category of beings. He or she wants to know what kinds of being exist, how they should be classified, how they work, what laws or principles govern them. Science is therefore a kind of ontology—a systematic study of what is, why it is, and what it is. Science is the study of being (not the study of nonbeing). But, then, granted the synonymy of 'ontology' and 'metaphysics' (as that term is now understood), science is also metaphysics. There is no contrast between science and metaphysics; science is a special case of metaphysics. The physicist is a metaphysician (= ontologist), quite literally, even when his concerns are thoroughly of this world. Theories of motion, say, are metaphysical theories—because they are ontological theories (not epistemological theories). Darwin had a metaphysical theory of life on Earth. There are metaphysical facts, like the rotation of the Earth or the boiling point of water. Philosophers also do metaphysics, of course, but they do so in the company of scientists: we are all practicing metaphysicians, for we all study being. We all do what Aristotle was doing in the book he wrote after writing the Physics. We study objective reality in a rigorous and systematic way, aiming to produce a general picture of things, seeking to keep bias and human idiosyncrasy out of it.
…
This is not to deny any distinction between the kind of metaphysics (ontology) that philosophers do and the kind that scientists do. There are all sorts of distinctions between the kinds of metaphysics the various students of the world engage in—physicists or biologists, chemists or philosophers. No doubt every field differs from all the others in some way. There are many ways to be an ontologist, i.e. metaphysician, though that is what we all are. It is a matter of controversy what constitutes the philosophical kind of ontologist—especially what kind of methodology he or she adopts. Some see themselves as continuous with the scientific ontologists, perhaps arranging their several results into a big perspicuous ontological map. Some rely on the method of conceptual analysis to further their ontological goals. Others appeal to a special faculty of ontological intuition (they tend to be frowned upon by their tougher-minded laboratory-centered ontological colleagues). Aristotle understands his enterprise as differing from that of other ontologists merely in respect of generality. Where the physicist investigates substances of one kind—physical substances—the philosophical ontologist investigates the general category or substance. Where the chemist looks for the cause of particular chemical reactions, the philosopher looks at the nature of causation in general. These restricted ontologists want to know the nature of particular physical and chemical substances and causes; the philosophical ontologist wants to know the nature of substances and causation in general. They are both studying the same thing—being, reality—but they study it at different levels of generality. Thus philosophical metaphysics is fundamentally the same kind of enterprise as scientific metaphysics—though, of course, there are differences of method and scope. All are correctly classified as metaphysics (not epistemology or axiology). That is the right descriptive nomenclature to adopt."

(McGinn, Colin. "Science as Metaphysics." In Philosophical Provocations: 55 Short Essays, 215–218. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017. pp. 216-7)
<QUOTE

by Consul

QUOTE>
"A physical theory should clearly and forthrightly address two fundamental questions: what there is, and what it does. The answer to the first question is provided by the ontology of the theory, and the answer to the second by its dynamics. The ontology should have a sharp mathematical description, and the dynamics should be implemented by precise equations describing how the ontology will, or might, evolve."

(Maudlin, Tim. Philosophy of Physics: Quantum Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019. p. xi)
<QUOTE

Footnote:
The noun "ontology" is used both as a count noun referring to what exists according to a theory (= those entities to which it is ontologically committed) and as a noncount noun referring to the theoretical discipline called "ontology".

Consul wrote

Footnote:
The noun "ontology" is used both as a count noun referring to what exists according to a theory (= those entities to which it is ontologically committed) and as a noncount noun referring to the theoretical discipline called "ontology".

Read through those quotes. One thing I do not say in these posts, and this is because I am explicitly trying to avoid the off putting name dropping, is that I hold the position that Heidegger's (and other derivative views) phenomenological ontology is the only one that satisfies the condition of at once encompassing all that "is" and avoiding the tedious, what Rorty might call, hypostatization of language. Heidegger considers all non phenomenological ontologies as merely ontic, or pre ontological, and here, in the everydayness of science and daily affairs, one can use the term at will, but it will not be authentic philosophical ontology. I try to put Rorty and Heidegger together: what IS, is a ready hand, pragmatic field of possibilities and choice. I cannot even begin to understand what materialism is about outside of the pragmatic meaning it has in the, to borrow from Heidegger, primordial grounding.

Of course, to oppose this view is to argue its explanatory deficits.

ready to hand

Terrapin Station wrote

So if you were trying to figure out how to best hunt an animal, say, and you did that by observing its behavior--where it goes at different times of the day, how it reacts to sounds and so on, so that you can make predictions about the best way to hunt it, you wouldn't call that a scientific approach? Because you could do that without language, and certainly language (or logic) wouldn't be "constructing" it.

Making predictions without an understanding of a logical conditional? It is not the formal study of symbolic logic that is part of the hunter's knowledge, but the logical form of thought that allows assertions, negations, conditionals, and the rest. Remember, logic and all of its forms is derived from judgments we make every day. As children, it is modeled by everyone around us from a very early age. Of course, there is the feral child and it makes interesting speculation to ask how one like this might anticipate a storm, say, or know there is danger. the way this is approached is to say that we are given as part of our hard wiring the a logical ability, evidenced in the way we think and make judgments, but it takes experience to bring this out. Otherwise, it remains in latency.
You could buy the pragmatist epistemology that says all thought is essentially grounded hypothetical deductive method, which simply means you walk into a given circumstance, and the reason you know what to do is the ready to hand activation of a memory. Before you actually arrive at the mailbox, you are already prepared to engage, putting the fingers to the latch, pulling just so, and the rest. The situation is the present actuality of something familiar. Hard to put this is the small space of a post, but all language is like this, and all logical forms that eventually manifest are inherently anticipatory. To be conscious at all, is to anticipate. The excpetion to this, you might say, would be in meditation yoga, but here, of course, the whole idea is the termination of the self and its language.

At any rate, my idea here is that it is not logic and language so much as the whole of experience itself that needs to be recognized and theorized about in philosophy.

by Sculptor1

As far as your distinction; not sure there is one since science is a practice, its practice defines what it is.

Science is also a reservoir of learning, and I think it reasonable to compare this reservoir with the practitioners who use it (or claim to).

by Sculptor1

My basic objection is that it in no way forms an hegemony; would that it did.
We would have a more rational world being based on verifiable truth rather than rumour or faith.

As for the hegemony, the facts are there in our socieities and our world, to be observed. We could argue about matters of degree, but to what point? 🙄

We would have a more rational world, but would it be a world that is more acceptable to us humans, to live in? 🤔 Or would we prefer a world more in accord with our emotional and irrational needs? 🤔🙄 For myself, I would not wish to live in a world where Spock and Mr Data are considered role models.

by Pattern-chaser

by Sculptor1

As far as your distinction; not sure there is one since science is a practice, its practice defines what it is.

Science is also a reservoir of learning, and I think it reasonable to compare this reservoir with the practitioners who use it (or claim to).

by Sculptor1

My basic objection is that it in no way forms an hegemony; would that it did.
We would have a more rational world being based on verifiable truth rather than rumour or faith.

As for the hegemony, the facts are there in our socieities and our world, to be observed. We could argue about matters of degree, but to what point? 🙄

We would have a more rational world, but would it be a world that is more acceptable to us humans, to live in? 🤔 Or would we prefer a world more in accord with our emotional and irrational needs? 🤔🙄 For myself, I would not wish to live in a world where Spock and Mr Data are considered role models.

Strawman.
Spock and Data are fictional.

I'd prefer, say, that Trump listened to the US's expert on infectious diseases, rather than give him the sack for telling inconvenient truths.
I'd also prefer that the rational fact of GW were on the table rather than the to and fro political wrangling that goes on concerning carbon footprints and carbon credits, and the irrational hysteria on both sides.
Suffice it to say, given the thread topic - science does not have the hegemony.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Terrapin Station wrote

So if you were trying to figure out how to best hunt an animal, say, and you did that by observing its behavior--where it goes at different times of the day, how it reacts to sounds and so on, so that you can make predictions about the best way to hunt it, you wouldn't call that a scientific approach? Because you could do that without language, and certainly language (or logic) wouldn't be "constructing" it.

Making predictions without an understanding of a logical conditional? It is not the formal study of symbolic logic that is part of the hunter's knowledge, but the logical form of thought that allows assertions, negations, conditionals, and the rest. Remember, logic and all of its forms is derived from judgments we make every day. As children, it is modeled by everyone around us from a very early age. Of course, there is the feral child and it makes interesting speculation to ask how one like this might anticipate a storm, say, or know there is danger. the way this is approached is to say that we are given as part of our hard wiring the a logical ability, evidenced in the way we think and make judgments, but it takes experience to bring this out. Otherwise, it remains in latency.
You could buy the pragmatist epistemology that says all thought is essentially grounded hypothetical deductive method, which simply means you walk into a given circumstance, and the reason you know what to do is the ready to hand activation of a memory. Before you actually arrive at the mailbox, you are already prepared to engage, putting the fingers to the latch, pulling just so, and the rest. The situation is the present actuality of something familiar. Hard to put this is the small space of a post, but all language is like this, and all logical forms that eventually manifest are inherently anticipatory. To be conscious at all, is to anticipate. The excpetion to this, you might say, would be in meditation yoga, but here, of course, the whole idea is the termination of the self and its language.

At any rate, my idea here is that it is not logic and language so much as the whole of experience itself that needs to be recognized and theorized about in philosophy.

You're not really addressing anything I brought up though.

First I was wondering if you were saying what I described would count as science or not. You didn't address that.

Secondly, do you not buy that what I was describing could be accomplished where the person has no language? If you don't buy that, why not?

Third, I said that there was a difference between "is a construct of" and "is done with the aid of." You never addressed that when I first brought it up, but as I noted above, in the hunting scenario, even if logic is used in the observations, that's different than saying that the process is a construct of logic. You didn't address that here.

Terrapin Station wrote
First I was wondering if you were saying what I described would count as science or not. You didn't address that.
Secondly, do you not buy that what I was describing could be accomplished where the person has no language? If you don't buy that, why not?

Your question was about whether one could hunt and not take a scientific approach in doing so, and if science presupposes language, and hunting is a kind of science and hunting can be conceived as a nonlinguistic activity, then such thing would be a counterexample to language being presupposed by science.

This is what I took you to be saying. You mentioned making predictions specifically. A prediction is a logical conditional: you predict based on what you have observed in the past, and make an inference based on this about what will happen in the future. This has the logical form of a conditional proposition: If..., then....; so, if the rabbit ran that way, then it will encounter a lake and will have clear alternatives....Such a prediction pulls out memories about likes, rabbits, and all, what they have been like in the past, plus knowledge that rabbits don't swim, and everything else, then projects them onto the given situation.

Now, all of this has an obvious logical form in the description I gave(I hope this is clear) for conditionals' logical form of if..., then,...is the very form of modus ponens itself (though not exhaustively so). But in the actual practice, is this logic and language essential? What about spontaneous, nondiscursive "doing", carrying out something. I did bring this up in the example pf the feral child/person, the cow lifting its head looking for greener pastures, but not explicitly saying to itself anything of a logical nature at all. So, if it can be shown that what these kinds of entities are doing is both scientific in nature and nonlinguistic/alogical, then this would counter the idea that science presupposes language and logic.

Can one make a non logical affirmation that the rabbit could go this way and not that? First, there is a contradiction built into this, for assertions are inherently logical. So, it would not be an assertion at all. We say a cow is an instinctual creature, but instinct is not really an analytic term, that is, it doesn't really describe what happens in the event, the anticipating, the alternatives understood; it comes to the oint that in questions as tto whether such an affair is sans logic, that the description it self requires an ascription of logic to the hunter. the hunter must "understand" but what is this if not either an underlying but very clear logical presence, or, in the case of a feral mentality, a nascent logicality. This is why I brought up the idea of latency.

I bring in my comments about the hypothetical deductive (HD) method, which is essentially, the scientific method. HD is a method, and the reason I say a mere post cannot possible cover this is because its complicated. Logic is the form of thought, but so is time. To explicitly NOT put too fine a point on this: experience (my OP baseline of what a true ontology must really be about) is alwasy in time, has time as an inherent structure, and this means experience has a conditional a its core, If...,then,... The point I'm making is that in science, this too, and even, especially this, is presupposed by science, yet not part of the way science conceives the world.

Third, I said that there was a difference between "is a construct of" and "is done with the aid of." You never addressed that when I first brought it up, but as I noted above, in the hunting scenario, even if logic is used in the observations, that's different than saying that the process is a construct of logic. You didn't address that here.

See the above. "With the aid of" and "a construct of" are both logical, linguistic, experiential affairs.

Sculptor1 wrote


Strawman.
Spock and Data are fictional.

I'd prefer, say, that Trump listened to the US's expert on infectious diseases, rather than give him the sack for telling inconvenient truths.
I'd also prefer that the rational fact of GW were on the table rather than the to and fro political wrangling that goes on concerning carbon footprints and carbon credits, and the irrational hysteria on both sides.
Suffice it to say, given the thread topic - science does not have the hegemony.

That is, in philosophical thinking, science does not have hegemony. In the world of practical matters, science reigns over all. Further, even in philosophical matters, the scientific method is doubted. Such a thing would be impossible.

As to your comments about Trump, go ahead, speak your mind. See if things hold up. Inconvenient truths?

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Read through those quotes. One thing I do not say in these posts, and this is because I am explicitly trying to avoid the off putting name dropping, is that I hold the position that Heidegger's (and other derivative views) phenomenological ontology is the only one that satisfies the condition of at once encompassing all that "is" and avoiding the tedious, what Rorty might call, hypostatization of language. Heidegger considers all non phenomenological ontologies as merely ontic, or pre ontological, and here, in the everydayness of science and daily affairs, one can use the term at will, but it will not be authentic philosophical ontology. I try to put Rorty and Heidegger together: what IS, is a ready hand, pragmatic field of possibilities and choice. I cannot even begin to understand what materialism is about outside of the pragmatic meaning it has in the, to borrow from Heidegger, primordial grounding.
Of course, to oppose this view is to argue its explanatory deficits.

Husserl distinguishes between formal ontology, which deals with being (existence/reality) as a whole, and material/regional ontology or ontologies, which deal with particular parts of being. The ontologies of the sciences are regional or local or special ontologies, as opposed to universal or global or general or basic/fundamental ontology.

QUOTE>
"According to Heidegger, the question of the meaning of Being, and thus Being as such, has been forgotten by ‘the tradition’ (roughly, Western philosophy from Plato onwards). Heidegger means by this that the history of Western thought has failed to heed the ontological difference, and so has articulated Being precisely as a kind of ultimate being, as evidenced by a series of namings of Being, for example as idea, energeia, substance, monad or will to power. In this way Being as such has been forgotten. So Heidegger sets himself the task of recovering the question of the meaning of Being. In this context he draws two distinctions between different kinds of inquiry. The first, which is just another way of expressing the ontological difference, is between the ontical and the ontological, where the former is concerned with facts about entities and the latter is concerned with the meaning of Being, with how entities are intelligible as entities. Using this technical language, we can put the point about the forgetting of Being as such by saying that the history of Western thought is characterized by an ‘onticization’ of Being (by the practice of treating Being as a being). However, as Heidegger explains, here in the words of Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, “an ontic knowledge can never alone direct itself ‘to’ the objects, because without the ontological… it can have no possible Whereto” (translation taken from Overgaard 2002, p.76, note 7). The second distinction between different kinds of inquiry, drawn within the category of the ontological, is between regional ontology and fundamental ontology, where the former is concerned with the ontologies of particular domains, say biology or banking, and the latter is concerned with the a priori, transcendental conditions that make possible particular modes of Being (i.e., particular regional ontologies). For Heidegger, the ontical presupposes the regional-ontological, which in turn presupposes the fundamental-ontological."

Martin Heidegger: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/
<QUOTE

First of all, there is no being (Sein) qua existence (Dasein) or essence (Sosein) which isn't the being of any being(s) (Seiendem). There is no Being behind or beyond the totality of entities.

What I don't like about his (phenomenological) ontology is its anthropocentrism. His concept of Dasein is the concept of (subjective) human existence; and with his Frage nach dem Sinn von Sein (question of the meaning of being) he's doing either linguistics/semiology—what is the meaning of "being"?—or ethics/axiology—what does being mean to me/us? / what is the value of being?—, so he's no longer doing ontology in Aristotle's sense.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Sculptor1 wrote


Strawman.
Spock and Data are fictional.

I'd prefer, say, that Trump listened to the US's expert on infectious diseases, rather than give him the sack for telling inconvenient truths.
I'd also prefer that the rational fact of GW were on the table rather than the to and fro political wrangling that goes on concerning carbon footprints and carbon credits, and the irrational hysteria on both sides.
Suffice it to say, given the thread topic - science does not have the hegemony.

That is, in philosophical thinking, science does not have hegemony. In the world of practical matters, science reigns over all. Further, even in philosophical matters, the scientific method is doubted. Such a thing would be impossible.

As to your comments about Trump, go ahead, speak your mind. See if things hold up. Inconvenient truths?

Where is your hegemony of science please?

by Steve3007

Richard Feynman wrote:Philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds

But of course ornithology is still useful. Just not to birds.

Ornithology is useful to birds because ornithological knowledge is useful to bird conservation.

by Consul

by Steve3007

But of course ornithology is still useful. Just not to birds.

Ornithology is useful to birds because ornithological knowledge is useful to bird conservation.

Anthropology is useful to people. Scientists should know what the basis of their statements mean, and some of the history of epistemology and empiricism. They would do well to be versed in Popper's work and Kuhn too.
Feyman was a smart guy. This statement is BS.
Like I said above. Any bird that understood ornithology would rule the skies.
Feyman was just dead wrong.

Consul Wrote
First of all, there is no being (Sein) qua existence (Dasein) or essence (Sosein) which isn't the being of any being(s) (Seiendem). There is no Being behind or beyond the totality of entities.

If you could make any sense of what beings are without an analytic of being, what substance is, what materiality is; I mean, if substance, for example, as a functioning ontological concept is supposed be the furthest one can go in the search for an explanatory foundation for all things, an authentic comprehensive philosophical ontology, then there should be no meaningful questions begged, yet we know that logically prior to this is the system of meaning making, human dasein, an analyzable basis of all concepts and experience; that is, one cannot even think of substance without thinking of the concept of substance. What is this? Such a thing, as with all concepts, was abstracted from experience.

What I don't like about his (phenomenological) ontology is its anthropocentrism. His concept of Dasein is the concept of (subjective) human existence; and with his Frage nach dem Sinn von Sein (question of the meaning of being) he's doing either linguistics/semiology—what is the meaning of "being"?—or ethics/axiology—what does being mean to me/us? / what is the value of being?—, so he's no longer doing ontology in Aristotle's sense.

But it's not anthropocentric. That would be a "regional" term belonging to the way we generally think of things, to use his language, proximally and for the most part; ontic, not ontology at all. The question in my mind is simple: what logically presupposes what? Only hermeneutics can say this. There is no foundation of the Aristotelian kind at the level of ontology. Analytic philosophers don't like to hear this, but Kant was never refuted, only ignored.

Sculptor1 wrote
Where is your hegemony of science please?

My complaint is that no science can provide an explanatory basis for things in general, but people think like this all the time. They think the world is what science says it is and beyond this, there is only what the pending "paradigmatic scientific revolutions" will eventually yield.

This kind of thinking doesn't even provide the proper starting place for a true explanatory basis of the world. One has to ignore what science says, that is, suspend this (epoche) and look to what science presupposes in order to get to a foundation. And what one finds in this approach is that all things properly analyzed presuppose something they are not; they are endlessly deferential. I say cat and you ask me what this is, and I have other ideas int he waiting, and for those I have other ideas, and this never stops. foundations all are deferential, so there are no foundations. Science's world of empirical concepts are the same.

The only true foundation is the endless deferential nature of all knowledge claims, and instead of substance or materiality, we have no archemedian point to "leverage" meaning. The advantage this brings to the understanding is it undoes this blind confidence in scientific thinking at the foundational level (certainly not regarding how to send people to Mars or make a better cell phone). the upshot is the encouragement of an all inclusiveness of ontological priorities: there is no longer any privilege given to traditional ontologies, keeping in mind that privileging of this kind forces interpretations of our affairs to be "of" or "issue from" the privileged idea. The mysteries and the affectivity and all the things that human experience IS, are restored to a nonreductive place.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

My complaint is that no science can provide an explanatory basis for things in general, but people think like this all the time. They think the world is what science says it is and beyond this, there is only what the pending "paradigmatic scientific revolutions" will eventually yield.

Can you articulate so much as one practical disadvantage or hurt that is caused by thinking this way?

by 🐉 Hereandnow

This kind of thinking doesn't even provide the proper starting place for a true explanatory basis of the world.

Can you point out so much as one "proper" starting place for a "true explanatory basis of the world" that has successfully satisfied basic human curiosity and basic human needs to the degree than science has?

by 🐉 Hereandnow

And what one finds in this approach is that all things properly analyzed presuppose something they are not; they are endlessly deferential.

So what? Why should anyone care?

by 🐉 Hereandnow

The advantage this brings to the understanding is it undoes this blind confidence in scientific thinking at the foundational level (certainly not regarding how to send people to Mars or make a better cell phone).

How is this an advantage? Can you articulate so much a single improvement to anyone's life that follows from suddenly lacking this "confidence"?

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Sculptor1 wrote
Where is your hegemony of science please?

My complaint is that no science can provide an explanatory basis for things in general, but people think like this all the time. They think the world is what science says it is and beyond this, there is only what the pending "paradigmatic scientific revolutions" will eventually yield.

Science only describes the world and in that description explanations emerge.
But what else is there?
There is no explanation for things in general what ever that means.
WHy are "THEY" to whom you refer? Without some sort of evidence you are just trying to caricature "some people", unspecified.
At least science extropolates from evidence. That is maybe something you could take from science?

This kind of thinking doesn't even provide the proper starting place for a true explanatory basis of the world.

A bold statement, with nothing behind it.

One has to ignore what science says, that is, suspend this (epoche) and look to what science presupposes in order to get to a foundation. And what one finds in this approach is that all things properly analyzed presuppose something they are not; they are endlessly deferential. I say cat and you ask me what this is, and I have other ideas int he waiting, and for those I have other ideas, and this never stops. foundations all are deferential, so there are no foundations. Science's world of empirical concepts are the same.

You seem to be struggling here.

The only true foundation is the endless deferential nature of all knowledge claims, and instead of substance or materiality, we have no archemedian point to "leverage" meaning.

It's amusing to me that you think you know "the only true foundation", but have failed to demonstrate what that is, and why it might be better than verifiablity and falsification.

The advantage this brings to the understanding is it undoes this blind confidence in scientific thinking at the foundational level (certainly not regarding how to send people to Mars or make a better cell phone). the upshot is the encouragement of an all inclusiveness of ontological priorities: there is no longer any privilege given to traditional ontologies, keeping in mind that privileging of this kind forces interpretations of our affairs to be "of" or "issue from" the privileged idea. The mysteries and the affectivity and all the things that human experience IS, are restored to a nonreductive place.

A bit of a word salad here. You start this passage with an "it", without a clear idea of what this "it" is. I assume you mean " endless deferential nature of all knowledge claims". What about "American IS great again"? What about "vaccines are evil"? What about "there is no global warming"; "the ozone layer is fine"; "CFCs are harmless"; " polio, typhoid, typhus, measles, AIDS, scrofula, and plague are the works of the devil and evil spirits"?
"ALL" is a very big category!

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Terrapin Station wrote
First I was wondering if you were saying what I described would count as science or not. You didn't address that.
Secondly, do you not buy that what I was describing could be accomplished where the person has no language? If you don't buy that, why not?

Your question was about whether one could hunt and not take a scientific approach in doing so, and if science presupposes language, and hunting is a kind of science and hunting can be conceived as a nonlinguistic activity, then such thing would be a counterexample to language being presupposed by science.

This is what I took you to be saying. You mentioned making predictions specifically. A prediction is a logical conditional:

Stop there for a moment. What does this have to do with language?

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Gertie wrote
What the scientific method relies on is that there is a real world of stuff which our mental experience relates to, and we can know something about that stuff. Not perfectly or comprehensively, but well enough to pass the tests of inter-subjective agreement and predictability.

And that has given us an incredibly complex, coherent and useful working model of a material world we share.

But you're right to say science doesn't know how to go about explaining mental experience - which all its claims are based in. Bit of a paradox that one. And imo suggests the fundamental nature of the universe is uncertain. Philosophy of mind is coming up with all kinds of speculations about the mind-body problem, but they remain inaccessible to testing - unless you have a surefire method?

Materialism has its own untestable philosophical hypotheses about how mental experience might be reducible to material processes, including philosophical thinking. If you think you have a better philosophical case, can you lay it out as simply and clearly as poss? (Serious request)

Because it's easy to spot the flaws with the all the hypotheses, not so easy to conclusively argue which one should be accepted as correct.

It is not about testing and verification and reliability and the like. These are fundamental to all we do (put your socks on. How did you do that? A repeatedly confirmed theory about the way physical things behave, about moving the arm and hands in this way to produce a specific event. The method of science is unassailable and is simply the method of living and breathing.

And to the waste bin with mind body matters. This is a false ontological problem because it can only make sense if you can say what mind and body are such that they would be different things ontologically--but the very nature of an ontological question goes to a question of Being, what IS, and here, there are no properties to distinguish. In existence there are many different things, states, all distinguished by what we can say about them. We don't believe these differences constitute differences OF Being, just differences IN Being.

Regarding the serious request:

To establish a truly foundational ontology, one has to look where things that assume a foundation have there implicit assumptions. All science is a construct of language and logic before it is ever even gets to constructing tests tubes and telescopes, so the question then is, what is language and logic? the OP says these belong to experience, and experience has a structure, and this structure is one of time. Past, present future. Thought and its "method" has a temporal structure, the anticipating of results when specified conditions are in place (hence, the success in repeatedly tying my shoes properly). Science is, technically speaking, all about what-will-happen if there is this, or that in place, or if one does this or that. Science doesn't have a problem; we ARE the scientific method in a very real way, in every anticipation of our lives there is a history of a learned associations between what we do and what will happen. This is what cognition is.

Time is the foundation of Being, but it is not Einstein's time (an empirical concept based on observation) but structural time, the structure of Being itself in the experience that produces existence, OUR existence, that is, which is a temporal one. time that structures our experience is not beyond experience and Einstein conceived of relativity in the temporally structured world of experience. Outside of this structure this time does not exist (unless it is in some other such experientially structured time, as with God, but this is an arbitrary idea).

Science's failure to be sufficient for philosophical thinking is not in the method, but in the content. I mean, even if I went full subjective into the deep recesses of my interiority and actually found God and the soul, this would be IN time, in an ability to anticipate the next moment, bring up memories, see that the usual is not the case here in order to have a contextual setting that I can recognize God as God. The rub lies with science's paradigms that are exclusively specialized and empirical and ignore the phenomenon of experience as it is. It takes parts of experience and reifies them into being-foundations. To me this is akin to taking knitting, a specialized "part" as well, and defining the existence in terms of the yarn and needle.

Philosophy is supposed to take the most basic and inclusive perspective in which one has pulled away from the "parts" and attempts to be about the whole, and the whole is experience structured in time, and then the matter turns to WHAT is there. Everything. Nothing excluded: love affairs, hatreds, our anxieties, our ethics, tragedies, and so on: all conceived structurally in time and as the WHAT of existence. All is, to use a strange term, equiprimorlial, meaning no one is reducible to any other. Our affairs are not reducible to physical realities, but physical realities belong to a specialized language scientists use, or we all use in a casual way. Evolution is not in any way held suspect, to give an example. It is a very compelling theory. But other actualities are not reducible to this, do not have their explanatory basis in this.

It is science's hegemony that leads us to a position that denies the world's "parts" their rightful ontological status. And if any hegemony should rise, it should be based on what it IS, its "presence" as an irreducible actuality. Of course, this is the presence of affectivity (affect), the very essence of meaning itself.

Thank you.

I struggled a bit forming a (to me) coherent clear idea of your basic claim and supporting arguments. Rather than pick over the whole thing, it's perhaps simplest to focus on this part which is where you seem to end up -

and the whole is experience structured in time, and then the matter turns to WHAT is there. Everything. Nothing excluded: love affairs, hatreds, our anxieties, our ethics, tragedies, and so on: all conceived structurally in time and as the WHAT of existence. All is, to use a strange term, equiprimorlial, meaning no one is reducible to any other. Our affairs are not reducible to physical realities, but physical realities belong to a specialized language scientists use

,


OK this I think I understand, and hopefully is the gist of your position. I'm taking this to be your claim re the actual ontological state of affairs.

But I would call this monist idealism. Only experience (structured in time) exists. The universe does not independently exist as a thing in itself, only as an experiential state. It's not just a claim that we experiencing beings can only KNOW about the universe in the form of experience, the claim is that only experience exists. Yes?


If so, how do you escape solipsism - or don't you?

If not, if your ontology includes what we call bodies an brains and trees and rocks, then further justification is required. If that is the case, can you clearly and concisely spell that justification out?

Faustus5 wrote
Can you articulate so much as one practical disadvantage or hurt that is caused by thinking this way?

Take a look at the end of my post to Sculptor1 above. Science is, like all disciplines, pardigmatically fixed, certainly open to research, but research rests with precedent. As we all know, this is a good thing, the scientific process, the hypothetical deductive method (note the deductive part indicating that prior to any research whatever, one is already equipped with interpretative assumptions. Only nothing comes from nothing) and it is certainly not method that is being called into question, if this is what you mean by "thinking this way". The disadvantage lies in, first, the plain fact that ontology simply goes deeper than empirical analysis and the point is to try to find what this bottom line really is in ontology, and second, science as a foundational ontology creates, as all such ideas, an interpretative bias toward what science says in all things. One may say, well, science has this matter of the nature of thought, affectivity, ethics, knowledge well in hand, but within such a claim is a general dimissal of things that are there, in the fabric of the world, metaethical questions,existential questions, religious questions, and the like. Science cannot discuss anything with prefixed by "meta" for such things are by definitions, beyond observation, yet they are also undeniable. Our "genuine" foundation in all things is not fixed,but open, and this openness IS the right ontology.

Can you point out so much as one "proper" starting place for a "true explanatory basis of the world" that has successfully satisfied basic human curiosity and basic human needs to the degree than science has?

If it were a matter of solving problems science has set for itself, then there is no doubt that science has no competition. Step out of these scientific themes and move into ethics, religion, existential crises, care, anxiety, mystery, (keep in mind that while Wittgenstein would not about foundational mysteries, metavalue, he certainly put these unspeakables in his thesis) structures of experience, and so on, and there is a new sense of revelation. Such, to use borrowed language, thematizing of the world is not within the purview of empirical science at all, for philosophy is an apriori affair.

So what? Why should anyone care?

Because the world is infinitely more interesting than anyone can imagine if all there is is what would call the implicit nihilism of scientific theory in forming a philosophical ontology.

How is this an advantage? Can you articulate so much a single improvement to anyone's life that follows from suddenly lacking this "confidence"?

I would turn the question back to you: If you disagree with the above, then you must think that science IS a proper source (not method, for method is not in question here) for the kind of foundational thinking I have been talking about. I would ask you to tell me how its paradigms address the expanse and depth of being human.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

The disadvantage lies in, first, the plain fact that ontology simply goes deeper than empirical analysis and the point is to try to find what this bottom line really is in ontology, and second, science as a foundational ontology creates, as all such ideas, an interpretative bias toward what science says in all things.

You still haven't shown any sort of disadvantage to giving science a preferred status when the goal is understanding the nature of the universe. I see a lot of hand-waving, but nothing concrete.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

One may say, well, science has this matter of the nature of thought, affectivity, ethics, knowledge well in hand, but within such a claim is a general dimissal of things that are there, in the fabric of the world, metaethical questions,existential questions, religious questions, and the like.

Nobody literally dismisses those issues. Smart folks just realize that discussing them rationally sometimes requires tools that aren't in the scientific toolbox. This is not a a big deal.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

If it were a matter of solving problems science has set for itself, then there is no doubt that science has no competition. Step out of these scientific themes and move into ethics, religion, existential crises, care, anxiety, mystery, (keep in mind that while Wittgenstein would not about foundational mysteries, metavalue, he certainly put these unspeakables in his thesis) structures of experience, and so on, and there is a new sense of revelation.

You could have been less lofty and vague and just written that "Step out of these scientific themes and you need different tools."

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Because the world is infinitely more interesting than anyone can imagine if all there is is what would call the implicit nihilism of scientific theory in forming a philosophical ontology.

A. So your entire point appears to be subjective and aesthetic. Many of the rest of us just have different aesthetic values.

B. Scientific theory is not nihilistic.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

I would turn the question back to you: If you disagree with the above, then you must think that science IS a proper source (not method, for method is not in question here) for the kind of foundational thinking I have been talking about.

I don't think anything is the proper source of the kind of foundational thinking you have been talking about, because the questions you are asking and answers you are seeking seem to be vaguely defined, by design, and therefore utterly beyond hope. Any kind of philosophical discussion that ventures into ill defined, vague territory without any hope of solving genuine, real problems for actual human beings means nothing to me, so science is foundation enough.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

I would ask you to tell me how its paradigms address the expanse and depth of being human.

They don't. They aren't supposed to.

pre-scientific view of the universe.
https://minmaxsunt.files.wordpress.com/ ... _small.gif

What science gives us
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/VXoYEq8mSPM/hqdefault.jpg
https://www.space.com/images/i/000/009/ ... 1306819474
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hWiHgj1yhJ4/maxresdefault.jpg

Obviously the world is so much more interesting than science can portray

Sculptor1 wrote

Science only describes the world and in that description explanations emerge.
But what else is there?
There is no explanation for things in general what ever that means.
WHy are "THEY" to whom you refer? Without some sort of evidence you are just trying to caricature "some people", unspecified.
At least science extropolates from evidence. That is maybe something you could take from science?

There used to be such explanations. They were called religions, and everyone assumed there was a metaphysical foundation to all things, even if they couldn't spell the word; it was there, always already there: a meaning to meaning, if you will. We are cut loose now, many or most, but the religious dimension of our existence which made public religions necessary in the first place cannot be dismissed. This cutting loose is a very good thing, no doubt, but what are we cut loose into? If the science that gave rise to the collective disillusionment were to be carried to its explanatory conclusion, then nihilism ensues--- epistemological, ethical, and across the board.

My argument is that this only comes about in the error that comes out of turning science into a foundational ontology.

A lot of your comments would find their responses in the my post to Faustus5 just prior to this one. You mean WHO are they? It is an assumption based on reading what people say and observing the bias in their thoughts, a bias they don't even know they have. And I don't think it is wrong at all to say in this post modern age where religion and tradition is slipping away, there is nothing to fill that space. See Simon Critchley's Very Little..Almost Nothing for a more complete examination of this.

A bold statement, with nothing behind it.

As a rule, it is a good idea to read an entire post before commenting. Questions like this are often answered further on.

You seem to be struggling here.

It is unfamiliar to you, I know. This kind of thinking has a massive background, granted, BUT: If you follow the ideas as they are stated and give them their "due diligence" if you will, you will find they make sense. If you make an observation in the world, what IS an observation as such? I mean, a scientist does not ask such a question, yet there the question is. This is an ontological question, for it asks one to look closely at the structure of experience itself, an apriori investigation.
Religion, theology have taken a serious back seat to human understanding in our "age (or post age)of reason" and science is a bit like a deer in headlights staring into the abyss. All it can do (and should do) is turn its back to foundational matters, and the job is left to philosophy (the one true religion). If philosophy is conceived as still grounded in science, it spectacularly misses the point. The point is to recover the ground left open by religion an a way of sound logical thinking. Unfortunately, soundness depends on premises being true, and this kind of truth gets unclear, problematic in existential matters. But so what? A positivist's clarity is simply a residuum of science's need for precision. This is one part of my complaint, and a big one: our world gets very interesting, even revelatory, beneath the skin of science's assumptions.

It's amusing to me that you think you know "the only true foundation", but have failed to demonstrate what that is, and why it might be better than verifiablity and falsification.

No problem, keep in mind that the very brief ideas put forth here so far are in themselves compelling, but it does take some interpretative reach. Here is my painfully concise response to Gertie. There are flaws, one or two. E.g., the irreducibility of ANY notion is really another issue, and veyr hard to talk about.

Regarding the serious request:

To establish a truly foundational ontology, one has to look where things that assume a foundation have there implicit assumptions. All science is a construct of language and logic before it is ever even gets to constructing tests tubes and telescopes, so the question then is, what is language and logic? the OP says these belong to experience, and experience has a structure, and this structure is one of time. Past, present future. Thought and its "method" has a temporal structure, the anticipating of results when specified conditions are in place (hence, the success in repeatedly tying my shoes properly). Science is, technically speaking, all about what-will-happen if there is this, or that in place, or if one does this or that. Science doesn't have a problem; we ARE the scientific method in a very real way, in every anticipation of our lives there is a history of a learned associations between what we do and what will happen. This is what cognition is.

Time is the foundation of Being, but it is not Einstein's time (an empirical concept based on observation) but structural time, the structure of Being itself in the experience that produces existence, OUR existence, that is, which is a temporal one. time that structures our experience is not beyond experience and Einstein conceived of relativity in the temporally structured world of experience. Outside of this structure this time does not exist (unless it is in some other such experientially structured time, as with God, but this is an arbitrary idea).

Science's failure to be sufficient for philosophical thinking is not in the method, but in the content. I mean, even if I went full subjective into the deep recesses of my interiority and actually found God and the soul, this would be IN time, in an ability to anticipate the next moment, bring up memories, see that the usual is not the case here in order to have a contextual setting that I can recognize God as God. The rub lies with science's paradigms that are exclusively specialized and empirical and ignore the phenomenon of experience as it is. It takes parts of experience and reifies them into being-foundations. To me this is akin to taking knitting, a specialized "part" as well, and defining the existence in terms of the yarn and needle.

Philosophy is supposed to take the most basic and inclusive perspective in which one has pulled away from the "parts" and attempts to be about the whole, and the whole is experience structured in time, and then the matter turns to WHAT is there. Everything. Nothing excluded: love affairs, hatreds, our anxieties, our ethics, tragedies, and so on: all conceived structurally in time and as the WHAT of existence. All is, to use a strange term, equiprimorlial, meaning no one is reducible to any other. Our affairs are not reducible to physical realities, but physical realities belong to a specialized language scientists use, or we all use in a casual way. Evolution is not in any way held suspect, to give an example. It is a very compelling theory. But other actualities are not reducible to this, do not have their explanatory basis in this.

It is science's hegemony that leads us to a position that denies the world's "parts" their rightful ontological status. And if any hegemony should rise, it should be based on what it IS, its "presence" as an irreducible actuality. Of course, this is the presence of affectivity (affect), the very essence of meaning itself.

Faustus5 wrote
Nobody literally dismisses those issues. Smart folks just realize that discussing them rationally sometimes requires tools that aren't in the scientific toolbox. This is not a a big deal.

Then I am glad i ran into a smart folk like you. Tell me, how do smart folks deal with such things? Not a tough question for you since it is, after all, not a big deal.

You could have been less lofty and vague and just written that "Step out of these scientific themes and you need different tools."

I had to look back at what I wrote. THAT is lofty and vague??? Look, it's not. I write the way I write.

A. So your entire point appears to be subjective and aesthetic. Many of the rest of us just have different aesthetic values.

B. Scientific theory is not nihilistic.

Again, I am glad you brought this forward. How is scientific theory not nihilistic? That is, what is there in the empirical examination of the world that generates a metaethics? For nihilism IS a metaphysical thesis. It goes to the meaning of meaning, the value of value. At the more mundane level of thinking, there is meaning and knowledge and free wielding engagement. but the matters being raised here have to with taking such affairs AS ontologically foundational.

No, it's not about irreconcilable differences, as when someone likes one thing while another does not, at all. It is a claim that goes to what it is to be culturally led astray. This philosophy forum reeks of positivism. It is an error that needs correcting.
I don't think anything is the proper source of the kind of foundational thinking you have been talking about, because the questions you are asking and answers you are seeking seem to be vaguely defined, by design, and therefore utterly beyond hope. Any kind of philosophical discussion that ventures into ill defined, vague territory without any hope of solving genuine, real problems for actual human beings means nothing to me, so science is foundation enough.


No, no, no. There is a LOT out there. You are just dismissive because your education is philosophically, ontologically rudderless, and this is because you don't read beyond science into science's and experience's underpinnings. Read Kant, Kierkegaard, Hegel (of whom I know less than others), Husserl, Fink, Levinas, Blanchot, Henry, Nancy (the French are extraordinary) Heidegger, Husserl, even Derrida, and others. THIS is where philosophy gets interesting.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

This kind of thinking doesn't even provide the proper starting place for a true explanatory basis of the world. One has to ignore what science says, that is, suspend this (epoche) and look to what science presupposes in order to get to a foundation.

plain fact that ontology simply goes deeper than empirical analysis and the point is to try to find what this bottom line really is in ontology

But ontology has no bottom line, there is no foundation. We just wish there was one. All human explanation is deep down inherently circular and descriptive.

We can merely come up with more and more accurate circular descriptions of the known existence. And the scientific process, though pretty one-sided and instrumentalist, has helped tremendously to see more clearly.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Then I am glad i ran into a smart folk like you. Tell me, how do smart folks deal with such things? Not a tough question for you since it is, after all, not a big deal.

You already know the answer, don't play coy. On this we both agree--science has, at best, a very limited contribution to make when the issues being discussed involve ethical, political, or aesthetic values.

Just about everyone knows this, so you are wasting time and space pretending there is a huge problem here.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Again, I am glad you brought this forward. How is scientific theory not nihilistic?

Nihilism is a specific conclusion that can only be drawn within non-scientific kinds of discourse. I don't know what kinds of points you think you are scoring by playing these kinds of games.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

That is, what is there in the empirical examination of the world that generates a metaethics?

Nothing. Time to move on.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

This philosophy forum reeks of positivism. It is an error that needs correcting.

If you were actually talking about positivism, that would be something, but you aren't.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

You are just dismissive because your education is philosophically, ontologically rudderless. . .

No, I just have very different rudders than you.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

THIS is where philosophy gets interesting.

I have no interest at all in any of those folks. None whatsoever.

Gertie wrote
I struggled a bit forming a (to me) coherent clear idea of your basic claim and supporting arguments. Rather than pick over the whole thing, it's perhaps simplest to focus on this part which is where you seem to end up -

All I can say beyond this is, why not do what I did several years back? Get a nice readable copy of Heidegger's Being and Time (Macquarrie's translation the one I know), set a side significant time, and just decide you are going to read this and understand what he is saying. The internet is a wealth of helpful commentary. If you like, I can send you many pdf papers, books. Once you are IN IT, and you start to understand Heidegger's phenomenology, you will see what these ideas are really about. You will have to read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, too, though. Then Husserl, then so many.

I am by no means a scholar on this. I read, I write with pretty good understanding, and this is all I want. See Lev Shestov's All Things Are Possible: philosophy should be a real engagement that begins with a wonder and bewilderment and anxiety about what it means to be here at all, thrown into a world. See Kierkegaard's poor sap in Repetition. One of my favorites:

I stick my finger into the world—it has no
smell. Where am I? What does it mean to say: the world?
What is the meaning of that word? Who tricked me into this
whole thing and leaves me standing here? Who am I? How
did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it, why
was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust
into the ranks as if I had been bought from a peddling
shanghaier21 of human beings? How did I get involved in
this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to
be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say
about this.

It is not a world of science we are thrown into, but a world of nightmares, loves, powerful with meaning. Philosophy is the pursuit of meaning, not propositional knowledge.

OK this I think I understand, and hopefully is the gist of your position. I'm taking this to be your claim re the actual ontological state of affairs.

But I would call this monist idealism. Only experience (structured in time) exists. The universe does not independently exist as a thing in itself, only as an experiential state. It's not just a claim that we experiencing beings can only KNOW about the universe in the form of experience, the claim is that only experience exists. Yes?


If so, how do you escape solipsism - or don't you?

If not, if your ontology includes what we call bodies an brains and trees and rocks, then further justification is required. If that is the case, can you clearly and concisely spell that justification out?

It is very clear that experience is put together with an in and an out. There is that over there, and I am here. Heidegger, I remember, says, in effect: what is space? It is under the couch, over the mountain, round the house, just beyond that hill, next the car, and so on. Our language is, at the level of ontology, interpretative, meaning is what language does, and beyond this, there is only an openness, the ability of language to create further disclosure possibilities. To speak of things that are not qualified in any way by what words, history, culture can say is impossible. This is whywe have terms like ineffability or transcendence. when you look at an object, it is always, already laden with interpretation; that's what it means to be an object. But there is this openness, this frontier where language seeks, makes metaphors and poeticizes the world. Heidegger thought that through history, metaphysics has undone this primordial intimacy with our being here. He is all about this alienation from something the Greeks perhaps in part had. Others after Heidegger, take up this extraordinary ability we have to encounter the world ontologically, a stepping OUT of the normal range of meaning making, and beholding the world in wonder and anxiety.

I don't have all of this perfectly right, but so what? A lot of it is, and is you take up reading existentialism, we can talk about it. I am reading Being and Time for the second time right now.

As to solipsism, the world is hermeneutically conceived. All terms are to be understood as part of a work in progress of human dasein. There are no absolutes, but in our system of thought and judgment and meaning, there is that which is not me, there are others, other people, other things; we are surrounded by others. What is otherness? the meaning lies the language about others, which is interpretative in nature. I say you,over there, where is the other one you were with? We have massive language orientation for talking about others, but the foundational ontology is interpretative, not subjective. All of this otherness around us is there as otherness, and this is contained in the interpretative possibilities.

The old fashioned way to think about the world, the dualisms, the competing ontologies, all yield to a phenomenological, hermeneutical, ontology. In themselves, things all around us are unspeakable. BUT, and this is the BIG and fascinating thing about how works, and it is not Heidegger, but Levinas and other post Heideggerians: In this interpretative field before us, what is intimated non linguisitically (though we do understand that linguistics is, as all terms, an interpretative affair) is, to use Kiekegaard's term, actuality, and while we cannot say what this really is (which would be a like looking into the rational mind of God) we experience it qualitatively, and these qualities are affective in nature, the caring, loving, valuing and so on. this is a dimension of Being that looks beyond. to see how this goes, see Levinas' totality and Infinity. A tough read by any standard, but totally worth it.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

...
All this means that when science makes its moves to "say" what the world is, it is only right within the scope of its field. But philosophy, which is the most open field, has no business yielding to this any more than to knitting "science" or masonry. Philosophy is all inclusive theory, and the attempt to fit such a thing into a scientific paradigm is simply perverse.

Science: know your place! It is not philosophy.

This has been an outstanding thread in every respect: topic, theme, thesis, discussion. Kudos to all involved.
Philosophical laurels to Hereandnow not only for his formidable defense of philosophy but also for his maintenance of the high level of discussion.

I believe the following paper is on point.
I post it for the enjoyment of my fellow members.

Natural philosophy redux
The great split between science and philosophy must be repaired. Only then can we answer the urgent, fundamental problems

There are decisive grounds for holding that we need to bring about a revolution in philosophy, a revolution in science, and then put the two together again to create a modern version of natural philosophy.

Once upon a time, it was not just that philosophy was a part of science; rather, science was a branch of philosophy. We need to remember that modern science began as natural philosophy – a development of philosophy, an admixture of philosophy and science. Today, we think of Galileo, Johannes Kepler, William Harvey, Robert Boyle, Christiaan Huygens, Robert Hooke, Edmond Halley and, of course, Isaac Newton as trailblazing scientists, while we think of Francis Bacon, René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz as philosophers. That division is, however, something we impose on the past. It is profoundly anachronistic.

At the time, they would all have thought of themselves as natural philosophers.

Read more here:
https://aeon.co/essays/bring-back-scien ... philosophy

Consul wrote:Ornithology is useful to birds because ornithological knowledge is useful to bird conservation.

Fair point. By the way, I don't personally agree with Feynman on that.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Gertie wrote
I struggled a bit forming a (to me) coherent clear idea of your basic claim and supporting arguments. Rather than pick over the whole thing, it's perhaps simplest to focus on this part which is where you seem to end up -

All I can say beyond this is, why not do what I did several years back? Get a nice readable copy of Heidegger's Being and Time (Macquarrie's translation the one I know), set a side significant time, and just decide you are going to read this and understand what he is saying. The internet is a wealth of helpful commentary. If you like, I can send you many pdf papers, books. Once you are IN IT, and you start to understand Heidegger's phenomenology, you will see what these ideas are really about. You will have to read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, too, though. Then Husserl, then so many.

I am by no means a scholar on this. I read, I write with pretty good understanding, and this is all I want. See Lev Shestov's All Things Are Possible: philosophy should be a real engagement that begins with a wonder and bewilderment and anxiety about what it means to be here at all, thrown into a world. See Kierkegaard's poor sap in Repetition. One of my favorites:

I stick my finger into the world—it has no
smell. Where am I? What does it mean to say: the world?
What is the meaning of that word? Who tricked me into this
whole thing and leaves me standing here? Who am I? How
did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it, why
was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust
into the ranks as if I had been bought from a peddling
shanghaier21 of human beings? How did I get involved in
this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to
be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say
about this.

It is not a world of science we are thrown into, but a world of nightmares, loves, powerful with meaning. Philosophy is the pursuit of meaning, not propositional knowledge.

OK this I think I understand, and hopefully is the gist of your position. I'm taking this to be your claim re the actual ontological state of affairs.

But I would call this monist idealism. Only experience (structured in time) exists. The universe does not independently exist as a thing in itself, only as an experiential state. It's not just a claim that we experiencing beings can only KNOW about the universe in the form of experience, the claim is that only experience exists. Yes?


If so, how do you escape solipsism - or don't you?

If not, if your ontology includes what we call bodies an brains and trees and rocks, then further justification is required. If that is the case, can you clearly and concisely spell that justification out?

It is very clear that experience is put together with an in and an out. There is that over there, and I am here. Heidegger, I remember, says, in effect: what is space? It is under the couch, over the mountain, round the house, just beyond that hill, next the car, and so on. Our language is, at the level of ontology, interpretative, meaning is what language does, and beyond this, there is only an openness, the ability of language to create further disclosure possibilities. To speak of things that are not qualified in any way by what words, history, culture can say is impossible. This is whywe have terms like ineffability or transcendence. when you look at an object, it is always, already laden with interpretation; that's what it means to be an object. But there is this openness, this frontier where language seeks, makes metaphors and poeticizes the world. Heidegger thought that through history, metaphysics has undone this primordial intimacy with our being here. He is all about this alienation from something the Greeks perhaps in part had. Others after Heidegger, take up this extraordinary ability we have to encounter the world ontologically, a stepping OUT of the normal range of meaning making, and beholding the world in wonder and anxiety.

I don't have all of this perfectly right, but so what? A lot of it is, and is you take up reading existentialism, we can talk about it. I am reading Being and Time for the second time right now.

As to solipsism, the world is hermeneutically conceived. All terms are to be understood as part of a work in progress of human dasein. There are no absolutes, but in our system of thought and judgment and meaning, there is that which is not me, there are others, other people, other things; we are surrounded by others. What is otherness? the meaning lies the language about others, which is interpretative in nature. I say you,over there, where is the other one you were with? We have massive language orientation for talking about others, but the foundational ontology is interpretative, not subjective. All of this otherness around us is there as otherness, and this is contained in the interpretative possibilities.

The old fashioned way to think about the world, the dualisms, the competing ontologies, all yield to a phenomenological, hermeneutical, ontology. In themselves, things all around us are unspeakable. BUT, and this is the BIG and fascinating thing about how works, and it is not Heidegger, but Levinas and other post Heideggerians: In this interpretative field before us, what is intimated non linguisitically (though we do understand that linguistics is, as all terms, an interpretative affair) is, to use Kiekegaard's term, actuality, and while we cannot say what this really is (which would be a like looking into the rational mind of God) we experience it qualitatively, and these qualities are affective in nature, the caring, loving, valuing and so on. this is a dimension of Being that looks beyond. to see how this goes, see Levinas' totality and Infinity. A tough read by any standard, but totally worth it.

I like the notion of stripping away assumptions and trying to approach the nature of experience afresh, and I agree that this is all that is directly known, the experience itself. The nature of of what the experience is 'about', the 'external other', can not be known in that first person way.

So science has to rely on different criteria to create working models of what our experience is about, what the contents of experience refer to, where meaning and mattering fit in. And the place where it gets stuck - how phenomenal experience it might arise. Which leaves open the possibility that experience is fundamental . (Tho physicalists - not physics which has no place for experience in its model - have a preference for material stuff as fundamental and experience as reducible, being somehow an emergent or other property of material stuff).

I don't think this is, or need be, difficult to understand, or particularly controversial. Even the scientific findings themselves suggest our methods of attributing qualities (like material stuff, gravity or whatever) come from a way of experiencing those things which is rooted in evolutionary utility from a limited first person pov, not an all knowing god's eye point of view.

But a phenomenological methodology only reliant on internal introspection about the nature of experience has problems too. It is open to solipsism (any talk of 'we experience...' is an unfounded assumption), the problem of blurring knowledge with the actual state of affairs, and the blindingly obvious problem of bias. So a methodology which assumes experience is a perfect god's eye access to all that is actual/real/exists is also unwarranted.

So while each methodology, internal reflection and external modelling based on the contents of our perceptions, reasoning, etc, can potentially each 'contain' the other, neither has clear justification to do so or claim primacy. Which is a bit whacky. But to me, that's not necessarily beyond explanation. But it certainly requires an ontological explanation. That's the ontological dilemma I think we're in.

by Sculptor1

Science only describes the world and in that description explanations emerge.

Science describes the physical world, yes.

by Sculptor1

But what else is there?

To us, there is a mental world, which is perhaps most clearly seen as our social world. The world of news, politics, fashion, drama, entertainment and the internet; the world in which we all seem to live our lives. The physical world is almost a mute backdrop to the world of Justin Bieber, #BlackLivesMatter and JK Rowling. This may not be accurate from many perspectives, but it is the reality of life for most of us (those who are not too poor to be part of it). That's 'what else there is'.

As regards the general hegemony of science, here are links to a couple of articles that illustrate, in the particular case of CoViD-19, how there is a lot more to it than just science. A claim to be 'following the science' is absurd. Medical science has much to contribute, agreed, but so has economics, politics, media-pressure, and the immense difficulty of putting plans into practice in the real world. Here are the links.

scientists-criticise-uk-government-over-following-the-science

following-the-science-in-the-covid-19-pandemic

This is just one example of science not being the whole answer to a particular problem. There are many more. Because of the spectacular success of science, I assume, science is regularly applied in situations where it is neither relevant or helpful. This detracts unfairly from science, and impacts unfairly on all of us. The hegemony of science is perhaps most obvious in philosophy forums, where it is touted by objectivists/sciencists as the only acceptable tool for the investigation of life, the universe and everything. There is nothing at all wrong with science, but it is not the one and only universal means of learning. I believe that's what this thread is trying to illustrate. But I've been wrong before.... 😉

by Pattern-chaser

by Sculptor1

Science only describes the world and in that description explanations emerge.

Science describes the physical world, yes.

by Sculptor1

But what else is there?

To us, there is a mental world, which is perhaps most clearly seen as our social world. The world of news, politics, fashion, drama, entertainment and the internet; the world in which we all seem to live our lives. The physical world is almost a mute backdrop to the world of Justin Bieber, #BlackLivesMatter and JK Rowling. This may not be accurate from many perspectives, but it is the reality of life for most of us (those who are not too poor to be part of it). That's 'what else there is'.

That's your internal world which is not examinable except by your persistence to keep on about it. Science if it has hegemony or not does not stop you nor does it interfere with you doing that.
So nothing else to examine the actual world.

We might do better discussion the absurd hegemony of Social media and fake news that plagues the world

by Angel Trismegistus

I believe the following paper is on point.
I post it for the enjoyment of my fellow members.

Natural philosophy redux
The great split between science and philosophy must be repaired. Only then can we answer the urgent, fundamental problems

There are decisive grounds for holding that we need to bring about a revolution in philosophy, a revolution in science, and then put the two together again to create a modern version of natural philosophy.

Once upon a time, it was not just that philosophy was a part of science; rather, science was a branch of philosophy. We need to remember that modern science began as natural philosophy – a development of philosophy, an admixture of philosophy and science. Today, we think of Galileo, Johannes Kepler, William Harvey, Robert Boyle, Christiaan Huygens, Robert Hooke, Edmond Halley and, of course, Isaac Newton as trailblazing scientists, while we think of Francis Bacon, René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Baruch Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz as philosophers. That division is, however, something we impose on the past. It is profoundly anachronistic.

At the time, they would all have thought of themselves as natural philosophers.

Read more here:
https://aeon.co/essays/bring-back-scien ... philosophy

Maybe this is just my view, but how can anyone, who hasn't already re-unified 'science' and 'philosophy', be taken seriously to begin with?

by Atla

by Angel Trismegistus

I believe the following paper is on point.
I post it for the enjoyment of my fellow members.

Natural philosophy redux
The great split between science and philosophy must be repaired. Only then can we answer the urgent, fundamental problems


Read more here:
https://aeon.co/essays/bring-back-scien ... philosophy

Maybe this is just my view, but how can anyone, who hasn't already re-unified 'science' and 'philosophy', be taken seriously to begin with?

Isn't that precisely what Maxwell does in his paper? He argues for unity of science and philosophy by way of aim-oriented empiricism and aim-oriented rationality in science on the one hand, and on the other Critical Fundamentalism in philosophy. Granted, the unity is purely discursive, i.e., an argument, but what else could it be? His paper is a call for revolution in both spheres, a revolution that would in effect bring about a return to Natural Philosophy.

Sculptor1 wrote

We might do better discussion the absurd hegemony of Social media and fake news that plagues the world

If you could just give more analysis to this kind of talk, who knows, I might even agree with you.

Gertie wrote
But a phenomenological methodology only reliant on internal introspection about the nature of experience has problems too. It is open to solipsism (any talk of 'we experience...' is an unfounded assumption), the problem of blurring knowledge with the actual state of affairs, and the blindingly obvious problem of bias. So a methodology which assumes experience is a perfect god's eye access to all that is actual/real/exists is also unwarranted.

So while each methodology, internal reflection and external modelling based on the contents of our perceptions, reasoning, etc, can potentially each 'contain' the other, neither has clear justification to do so or claim primacy. Which is a bit whacky. But to me, that's not necessarily beyond explanation. But it certainly requires an ontological explanation. That's the ontological dilemma I think we're in.

Not sure what you mean about blurring knowledge with actual states of affairs. You mean,without the assumption of actual states of affairs? But such a thing is just what is in question.

The blinding problem of bias seems to be this: If one were to take the notion of interpretation as one that implicitly endorses all competitors, and thereby endorses none, leaving things to the ugly ambitions of the worst and most powerful of us. Like the Nazis. Genghis Khan was told by god to go out and conquer just as Gandhi was a devout Hindu and King a Christian. It seems to leave matters "open" in a perverse way. This is, of course, the charge of moral (or otherwise?) relativism.

If you say that the "we experience" is unfounded, you will have to go through the matter properly. See Quine's theory of the indeterminacy of translation for a respectable response that has nothing to do with Continental philosophy. Before we ever get to the abuses and unwelcome consequences of such an idea as interpretation and its relativism, we have to get through the genuine, descriptive account itself. I mean, if something is true, if it is the best descriptive account, then we are rather stuck with it and there is no looking back.

Phenomenology is the most "authentic" view. It is the most sustainable because does not fall apart in the powerful objections of question begging that apply to all other traditional ontologies. Ask what physicalism is regarding its core concept, "the physical," and you find instantly that all that you would say leads you back to the saying itself, the matrix of ideas that from which the term issues FIRST, before it gets discussed at all. Taken to its logical conclusion, one finds oneself in Derrida's world: no structure, no foundation, no privilege given to anything; even the idea of interpretation itself, which is to be the new foundation, is interpretative in nature. You are in the postmodern world! Even on the analytic side, there is no confirmation possible. This is why analytic philosophers follow Wittgenstein. One must move through the institutions (Quine, I believe, was a devout Catholic!) we have for meaning and grounding as they are the only wheels that roll, and there is no confirmation outside of these; there is only transcendence and ineffability "out there". Hence, they follow science, a wheel that rolls very well!

It sounds like you are asking, why not go analytic? which is a good question, but the answers are troubling. Philosophy wants truth, and truth is grounded in affairs that are imposed upon us. we may have invented government, but we did not invent the need for government. The need is a "given". Cancer is a given, but the question is begged (the one standard that says something is amiss is the presence of a begged question): what is wrong with cancer, or any other disease? I mean in the actual lived event, what is a proper analysis of the "wrongness" of cancer? IN the difficulty breathing or the poisoned blood, not in themselves bad, there is something else that is beyond the observable phenomenon! It is the "badness" of the experience of these. Moore calls this kind of badness a "non natural property". I have argued this elsewhere: Put a match to your finger and observe. There is a VERY mysterious presence in this event that we do not have vocabulary for, save the usual talk aof good and bad and this gets confused with the contingent good and bad. This is a matter I leave to you if you want further discussion. It is, in my thoughts, THE philosophical question. Phenomenology allows this question, that of ethics and reality, to rise to conscious thought without the drag of

Now, the point I want to make about this is, IF science (in keeping with the OP) is the guiding star for analysis of a finger on fire, then the ethical "badness" is all but dismissed, for science is thematically not equipped to talk about such things. This is religion's world, not science's. Religion has always been our meta-moral compass (the reason why Quine was a Christian is because religion continues to be THE rolling wheel of metaethics, that is, the metaphysics of ethics), and the consequence of this is with the fall of religion's ethical dominance( thank god for that!) there is a space, an expansive abyss, really, left OPEN; that of metaethics, metavalue. Analytic philosophers, like John Mackie, simply say, metaethics is just nonsense, too "queer" to be intelligible, and this is what happens when philosophy leans so strongly toward the strict standards of clarity and evidence we find in science. But our post religion "religious situation" is simply not like this in observed affairs, for it is this unobservable. Metaethics is like causality: intuitively insisting, but NOT discursively arrived at.

Anyway, like I said, it is a very big issue. But ethics (or, the philosophical ontology of ethics) is clearly what human affairs is about, and empirical science cannot begin to discuss it. It is apriori, philosophy's true calling.

As to "god's eye access" I believe that ethics is IN the fabric of things. We do not invent that which is at the core of ethics, which is value (e.g., that burning sensation). It is there, like the color yellow is there. Now, calling yellow a color is an interpretative event, and if you remove the interpretation, that is, the discussion, theory, context, and so forth, all that is left is unintelligible presence. But that flame on the our finger TELLS us something about presence qua presence: we call this ethical realist badness. It is about as close to a burning bush or a tablet from a Mount Sinai as you can get.

You second paragraph is unclear to me. Perhaps you could give a bit more?

Angel Trismegistus wrote:

https://aeon.co/essays/bring-back-scien ... philosophy

I am reading through this article and I'll make comments as I go:

here is a quote:
One attempted solution was Continental philosophy, conducted mainly in Europe: it could ignore science, ignore reason, and plunge into a celebration of bombast and incoherence.

Of course, is a rather nonspecific way of dismissal. Heidegger was neither bombastic nor incoherent. Nor was Kierkegaard, nor Jaspers, nor....; nor did they ignore reason. Kant was a rationalist!

For example, if the accepted theory is Newton’s law of gravitation, one rival, up till now just as empirically successful as Newton’s theory, might assert: everything occurs as Newton’s theory predicts until 2050, when gravitation abruptly becomes a repulsive force.


I have heard this before. It was in Hillary Putnams's Many Faces of Realism. Can't remember why it was plausible, though. Obviously, Science's paradigm's are anticipatory (and even inherently so), and the repulsive force theory has no anticipatory grounding. It is a possibility at best. I also remember reading about the lottery paradox: favor one theory has over its competitors lies with familiarity with a very limited base, only an infinitesimal representative sampling of the world. This reduces favor to a factor of an infinitely diminishing validity. True...But it is, as they say, the only wheel that rolls. The decision to trust science is pragmatic.


science has already established that the cosmos is physically comprehensible aim-oriented empiricism

But this limits science to only empirical claims. Even if, as Wittgenstein put it, you had access to the great book of all facts, you would not find one value fact in the lot of it. Science cannot study this, the most important dimension of being human. Also, empirical claims are all delivered to us via experience. Science cannot examine experience for experience is presupposed in the examination. It is the ethical (valuative) and foundational problems that cannot be addressed by science, as well as the interpretative bias a value-free conception can only give that makes science singularly ineffectual for philosophy.

Read through the rest. It is a thoroughly biased thesis: what to do with science to address its problems with unity and how to give lip service to metaphysics. It just assumes things about Husserl, Heidegger and the rest as being out of consideration. Perhaps this works for science to have a better grasp on what IT does, but for philosophy, it, this theory, has no place.

Level 8, missing, is where phenomenology comes in and philosophy begins. Any philosophical work done prior to the missing level 8 is speculative science.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Angel Trismegistus wrote:

https://aeon.co/essays/bring-back-scien ... philosophy

I am reading through this article and I'll make comments as I go:

here is a quote:
One attempted solution was Continental philosophy, conducted mainly in Europe: it could ignore science, ignore reason, and plunge into a celebration of bombast and incoherence.

Of course, is a rather nonspecific way of dismissal. Heidegger was neither bombastic nor incoherent. Nor was Kierkegaard, nor Jaspers, nor....; nor did they ignore reason. Kant was a rationalist!

For example, if the accepted theory is Newton’s law of gravitation, one rival, up till now just as empirically successful as Newton’s theory, might assert: everything occurs as Newton’s theory predicts until 2050, when gravitation abruptly becomes a repulsive force.


I have heard this before. It was in Hillary Putnams's Many Faces of Realism. Can't remember why it was plausible, though. Obviously, Science's paradigm's are anticipatory (and even inherently so), and the repulsive force theory has no anticipatory grounding. It is a possibility at best. I also remember reading about the lottery paradox: favor one theory has over its competitors lies with familiarity with a very limited base, only an infinitesimal representative sampling of the world. This reduces favor to a factor of an infinitely diminishing validity. True...But it is, as they say, the only wheel that rolls. The decision to trust science is pragmatic.


science has already established that the cosmos is physically comprehensible aim-oriented empiricism

But this limits science to only empirical claims. Even if, as Wittgenstein put it, you had access to the great book of all facts, you would not find one value fact in the lot of it. Science cannot study this, the most important dimension of being human. Also, empirical claims are all delivered to us via experience. Science cannot examine experience for experience is presupposed in the examination. It is the ethical (valuative) and foundational problems that cannot be addressed by science, as well as the interpretative bias a value-free conception can only give that makes science singularly ineffectual for philosophy.

Read through the rest. It is a thoroughly biased thesis: what to do with science to address its problems with unity and how to give lip service to metaphysics. It just assumes things about Husserl, Heidegger and the rest as being out of consideration. Perhaps this works for science to have a better grasp on what IT does, but for philosophy, it, this theory, has no place.

Level 8, missing, is where phenomenology comes in and philosophy begins. Any philosophical work done prior to the missing level 8 is speculative science.

Yes, I found his dismissal of Continental philosophy cringe-worthy, but liked the overall theme of a renascence of Natural Philosophy congenial.
Not at all surprised you caught him out.

It seems to me that you strongly generalize the word philosophy.
After all, science, as for me, is also a part of philosophy. We can look at this or that case through the prism of science. And in turn, there are many trends in philosophy that people with a subjective position may not like.

HAN

Not sure what you mean about blurring knowledge with actual states of affairs. You mean,without the assumption of actual states of affairs? But such a thing is just what is in question.


If you say that the "we experience" is unfounded, you will have to go through the matter properly.

OK, my ontology is something like this -


I claim my own experience exists. I claim to know this actual state of affairs for certain.

There is also an actual state of affairs re whether an 'external world' exists. It does or doesn't. (This isn't a language issue.) .

I claim this is unknowable. It requires a leap of faith.


I claim that if I take this leap of faith, and assume my experience refers to a real world 'out there', I can know things about that world - in a flawed and limited way.


One of the things I can then know about the world is that I share it with other people, much like me. And we can then compare notes and create a working model of the world we share - this is the basis for the scientific model of the world. Which is inevitably flawed and incomplete, because within that shared world of shared notes, the ability of humans to know things seems to be flawed and incomplete (we have an evolved-for-utility first person pov, not a perfect god's eye pov)


So my claim is that the only thing I know for certain is my experience.


And terms like ''we experience...'' only relate to the assumed external world the contents of my experience refer to, where other people exist. There is a distinct epistemological jump from certain experience, to an assumed external world. And once I make that jump, I can start building a working model of that world with other people. Recognising the model isn't perfect and doesn't answer all questions. Including the nature of the relationship between experience and material stuff.




I can't get a handle on your ontological claims, it looks blurryover these types of questions - Do you claim experience exists for certain? Do you claim the external world that experience refers to exists? If so, what aspects of that world do you include in your ontology as reliably known? If you include other people's reported experience, do you include other people's (and your) bodies too? Trees and rocks and computers? Do you claim bodies, trees and rocks are made of the same stuff as experience? Or something different?

And where do you draw your lines of what's knowable in terms of the external world? And what criteria do you use?

>/ like ''we experience...''. But you don't bridge the gap between me examining my own experience, to arrive at the ontological conclusion that other people (part of an external world) exist.

If other people are only recognised as existing as part of my experience/''interpretative field'', then their reported experience isn't something I can rely on in a way to slide from ''my interpretive field'' to broader ''we'' claims about the 'external world'. You either say you don't know, OR place them ontologically as part of the experience, OR as independantly existing fellow experiencers. If it's the latter, then you've made an assumption that an external world exists, independant of your experience, which you can know something about.


If you've covered all this specifically I've missed it. I'd really like to get your ontological position clear in my mind. Like I say, this much should be simple to lay out clearly.


What do you claim exists?


What do you think is knowable/unknowable? Where do you draw your lines?


And briefly the reasons why.

There is a VERY mysterious presence in this event that we do not have vocabulary for, save the usual talk aof good and bad and this gets confused with the contingent good and bad. This is a matter I leave to you if you want further discussion. It is, in my thoughts, THE philosophical question. Phenomenology allows this question, that of ethics and reality, to rise to conscious thought without the drag of

I think this is vital too, and imo morality is in need of a new philosophical paradigm in light of scientific discoveries which frame it in terms of evolutionary utility. I have my own thoughts and would be happy to discuss it further, if I can get the basics of your ontological position locked down.

HowardWow1997

It seems to me that you strongly generalize the word philosophy.
After all, science, as for me, is also a part of philosophy. We can look at this or that case through the prism of science. And in turn, there are many trends in philosophy that people with a subjective position may not like.

I wonder if you could expand on that a bit: how is science part of philosophy? In what way do you mean the term 'science'?

by HowardWow1997

It seems to me that you strongly generalize the word philosophy.
After all, science, as for me, is also a part of philosophy. We can look at this or that case through the prism of science. And in turn, there are many trends in philosophy that people with a subjective position may not like.

Hi HowardWow1997, and welcome to our dance!

I agree that science is part of philosophy, but there are those who will not. And I can certainly sympathise with the view that science long ago grew up and left home (philosophy), since when it has established itself as an allied but different discipline. Still, this topic concerns the mis-application of science. Although we can choose to look at any case "through the prism of science", I think it's fair to observe that is some cases, we will find that science is an inappropiate tool for the job, yes? 🤔

Gertie wrote
I claim my own experience exists. I claim to know this actual state of affairs for certain.

There is also an actual state of affairs re whether an 'external world' exists. It does or doesn't. (This isn't a language issue.) .

I claim this is unknowable. It requires a leap of faith.


I claim that if I take this leap of faith, and assume my experience refers to a real world 'out there', I can know things about that world - in a flawed and limited way.

First I would not call it a leap of faith (not some Kierkegaardian leap out of principled ethical thinking) but more an entirely justified and well grounded belief. I believe this to be true as does everyone else. But this has not yet begun to be ontological; merely ontic, to use Heidegger's language. Ontology, for him, is another order of thinking entirely. It doesn't look at how reliable empirical science is at all. It looks at the very form of exprience itself that is presupposed by empirical science. Make an observation about the sun's composition or axonal networks of the brain, and you assume a foundation of what is means to BE. This needs to analyzed. Empirical science simply ignores this, and this makes it philosophically/ontologically preanalytic. This is philosophy's job, to go deeper to unrecognized (or willfully ignored) underpinnings of things. It is not,. for example, an analysis of Trump's rise to power and the tension and friction it causes, but an examination of what the legitimacy of government is at all. The point is to stand back from the empirical events that fills out lives, and analyze at the most fundamental level to get to something that is not reducible to something else (which is not possible; or is it?. So: you say, "I can know things about that world," and I ask, "what do you mean by knowing, that world, flawed and limited?? Up until these questions are posited, I am in full agreement with you.

How can anything NOT be a language issue when you use language, thought and logic to think what a thing is? All meaningful terms have their meaning in their analysis. What is a banker? If no one has anything to say, then I assume the term without meaning. Actuality? Existence? State of affairs? These are all terms with serious questions; I mean, how can one inquire about ontology, and then just assume what the term existence is? Patently question begging.

One of the things I can then know about the world is that I share it with other people, much like me. And we can then compare notes and create a working model of the world we share - this is the basis for the scientific model of the world. Which is inevitably flawed and incomplete, because within that shared world of shared notes, the ability of humans to know things seems to be flawed and incomplete (we have an evolved-for-utility first person pov, not a perfect god's eye pov)

Just as with the above, there are other people, other things, but then there is the ontology of other people and other things. Obviously there are other people. But what is this otherness? Other than what? Myself? What is a self, and what is it such that others can be other than me? to ignore such questions, I say to almost everyone in this forum, is just perverse. This is not how responsible thinking goes. We do not simply ignore quantum physics because it is at present counterintuitive, disruptive. Evidence requires a paradigm shift, to use Kuhn's words (a Kantian, btw).

So my claim is that the only thing I know for certain is my experience.


And terms like ''we experience...'' only relate to the assumed external world the contents of my experience refer to, where other people exist. There is a distinct epistemological jump from certain experience, to an assumed external world. And once I make that jump, I can start building a working model of that world with other people. Recognising the model isn't perfect and doesn't answer all questions. Including the nature of the relationship between experience and material stuff.

The same as above. I am entirely in your corner. That is, until questions of ontology step in. Then, I do not leave your corner at all. I do stop playing this game and move on to another, but when I come back to this game, I am still in your corner.

Ontological questions: what IS material stuff? I mean, define it. Look at what you said: "we have an evolved-for-utility first person pov, not a perfect god's eye povat." Now you are closing in on Heidegger, though talk about evolution lies elsewhere. Utility? Are you saying our language has its essence in utility, and that to know something is to know how it works, and only in the contexts of what works and does not, and, perhaps the knowledge we assume to have of the meaning of terms like existence and actuality is really an underlying "sense" of the utility of language and pragmatics that is there, waiting when you approach a hammer, a telescope, a social situation; perhaps what reality IS, is this body of successful anticipations that has emerged out of a lifetime problems solved, and ontologies of substance, material, physicality, God's creation, are all just the way language has been set up in various cultural and scientific contexts such that these contexts have dictated the value and meaning of these terms. So when you insist the world is substance, you are really working within a context of language use established by an historical/pragmatic settings, that are handed to you in THIS setting. When you come into the world, whether it is ancient Rome or a19th Zulu tribe, the terms of what IS are handed to you and you simply absorb them. This absorption is the foundation for your life, and every thought you have will be always already an issue of this.

In thinking like this, the measure of right, wrong, good, bad, is what works. But this by no means reduces all meaning to this pragmatic standard. Obviously, the world is also GIVEN. We invented ice cream, but we did not invent pleasure, nor anxiety, hate, love, pain, and so on. The separation of parts here, where the given ends and the utility begins in a knowledge encounter in the world is a very interesting issue in philosophy. See Caputo's Radical Hermeneutics (but read Kierkegaard, Husserl, Heidegger first. I'm still working on Derrida. A tough go, but interesting. I know all this reading is off putting).

I can't get a handle on your ontological claims, it looks blurryover these types of questions - Do you claim experience exists for certain? Do you claim the external world that experience refers to exists? If so, what aspects of that world do you include in your ontology as reliably known? If you include other people's reported experience, do you include other people's (and your) bodies too? Trees and rocks and computers? Do you claim bodies, trees and rocks are made of the same stuff as experience? Or something different?

And where do you draw your lines of what's knowable in terms of the external world? And what criteria do you use?

It's an odd affair. For me, it is realizing the terms like "external" and the rest are do not put forth meaning that is about what is independent of the pragmatic structures of experience. As Rorty put it, there is no truth out there; truth is propositional, and propositions are not out there. Truth is made, not discovered, he writes. We make truth out of our experiential conditions, and to talk about what there would be independent of experience is like talking about what our sun would is without nuclear fusion: no fusion, no sun; no experience, no external, internal, or anything else. These terms' meanings are OF experience.

Does this mean there is nothing independent of experience? Wittgenstein (from the Tractatus), in his own words, would say such talk is nonsense. It is a performative contradiction to SAY there are things beyond the saying, for to posit such a thing requires the saying. Take away the saying, and there is nothing to, well, say. One has to respect this and have ability to entertain the idea that our experience only delivers understanding through logic and language.

But for me the game changer is ethics and value.

If other people are only recognised as existing as part of my experience/''interpretative field'', then their reported experience isn't something I can rely on in a way to slide from ''my interpretive field'' to broader ''we'' claims about the 'external world'. You either say you don't know, OR place them ontologically as part of the experience, OR as independantly existing fellow experiencers. If it's the latter, then you've made an assumption that an external world exists, independant of your experience, which you can know something about.

Or that externality appears before us and we have to analyze this phenomenologically. Here I am with my "I" and "mine" stamped on all that is my experience. A stone sits there before me: my knowledge of the stone is mine and the interpretative meanings that go out to it are what I give it. I say it is an igneous rock, I say it is heavy or not, and I note the irregular surface and all the rest. Not you, but me. You have your similar interpretative events (remembering that knowing something is an event, not some inertial thereness. One sees the stone, brings up recollections in waiting for "stone" encounters, like those geology courses you took, and applies them as the occasion allows) but they are not mine. We, as you say, share, agree, disagree; but are distinctly separate. This is simply evident in the structure of the relationship. Now, for me to talk of a stone as independent of me, no sharing (stones do not share),no agreeing or disagreeing, puts the stone itself entirely within my interpretative affairs. But consider: these affairs are inherently social for language, thought is social. Such a claim as this takes the matter further.

One has to resist the infamous theory of psychological egoism, that says egoic systems are epistemically closed. Such IS the conclusion only if one considers a human self as a biological system. Here, biology is only one of many interpretative systems. Dasein is no more biological than it is knitting. The other is rather taken up phenomenologically: the other appears before me and is to be analyzed in the conditions of their appearing. They are not like stones in that they seem to have an interiority like mine, hence all the agreeing, disagreeing and sharing. All this intra subjective activity is what makes language possible. But this is another matter.

What do you claim exists?


What do you think is knowable/unknowable? Where do you draw your lines?


And briefly the reasons why.

see the above.

Gertie wrote
I think this is vital too, and imo morality is in need of a new philosophical paradigm in light of scientific discoveries which frame it in terms of evolutionary utility. I have my own thoughts and would be happy to discuss it further, if I can get the basics of your ontological position locked down.

I think knowing things are interpretative events that are inherently pragmatic. I know this is a couch because when young I was exposed to conversation about couches, learned to make the association between the appearance and the word sound, began sitting on couches, watched others do this and so forth; all this is what the word couch means. Without the language, the words, there would be no shared experiences. I would know the comfort and the weight, but I would not take the couch AS a couch. It is in the taking something AS a symbol together with others of the same language community that makes language work at all.

All of this would allow for the reduction of meaning to "taking as" events, for the world taken as a world of facts, states of affairs, one fact is, as a fact, the same as any other fact. The sun is a hot place, the moon is smaller than the sun, etc. This is Wittgenstein's world; but in this world there is something that is not factual (says W. See his lecture on ethics, online, I think; I disagree) and this is ethics. My thinking is that ethics is ethics because of the existential affairs that make it so: value. Value is simply the feeling, the hungers, the passions, the moods, the appetites and so on--IN the actuality. Once spoken, it becomes a decriptive fact: the flowers are red, I was tortured by the Nazis, it was terrible. Facts. Language makes actuality into facts. It makes us comfortable, it familiarizes, reduces actuality to facts (Kierkegaard). But actualities, heh, heh, are NOT facts at all! (Kierkegaard, again).

Who cares? The color red doesn't care at all. Makes no difference, for facts have no meaning beyond language and logic, and the color red is, qua a color, nothing at all. color qua color matters not at all. But value is very different! And value saturates experience. Therefore, experience is beyond the factual because experience matters in ways beyond what facts can say; beyond dictionary "facts". It is a transcendental presence (beyond factual), this loving, hating, pain, joy, delight, misery of what we are. Of course, what redness is, outside of language, is transcendental, too. But who cares? Metaethics is a Real, that is beyond the saying, but has a palpable presence that, if you will, speaks: pain is "bad", and joy is "good"; although these are terms of a language, thus, the saying/thinking of metaethical good and bad is interpretative. What makes this matter so earth shattering is that value has meaning that is NOT made. It is meaning that is GIVEN.

As a nondualist, this phenomenology business comes across rather bizarre to me. Do we analyze experience, trying to find its underpinnings and such? However, what we are analyzing experience with is also experience. And everything being experience, it also has no underpinnings, so what are we actually doing?

Sure, science in general is even worse off in this regard, it avoids the issue of experience entirely, pretends that it doesn't even exist (if they venture beyond instrumentalism). Even though all of science and everything science studies, is also happening in experience.

Atla wrote
As a nondualist, this phenomenology business comes across rather bizarre to me. Do we analyze experience, trying to find its underpinnings and such? However, what we are analyzing experience with is also experience. And everything being experience, it also has no underpinnings, so what are we actually doing?

Sure, science in general is even worse off in this regard, it avoids the issue of experience entirely, pretends that it doesn't even exist (if they venture beyond instrumentalism). Even though all of science and everything science studies, is also happening in experience.

By my lights, that is pretty insightful. Professional philosophers (analytic ones) know this, they just are so convinced by Wittgenstein that it is folly to discuss what is not discussable. That whole Tractatus is nonsense, says Wittgenstein himslef, and he was only trying to point the way out of speaking nonsense, which philosophical traditions are so full of. Metaphysics is not, not true; rather, it speaks nonsense, no sense at all, as in, the present kind of France is bald (I think that one is Russell): not true, not false. Just nonsense.

Wittgenstein says things like, logic is transcendental, value is transcendental. What does he mean? It's that one cannot conceive of logic without using logic; it can never get "behind" itself to "see" itself. This is a devastating idea for metaphysics (of course, Kant said the same thing 200 years ago); and value simply is not observable. Take all the descriptive, logically formed facts, states of affairs of the world,and there will be no value; there will be "yums" and "ughs" of course, but nothing in the facts that makes a yum "good". But there is no denying that a yum or an ugh has something beyond the merely factual. It is the source of all of our ethical shoulds and shounldn'ts, but since this good and bad never make an OBSERVABLE appearance (outside of us being IN it, tortured by Nazis, eating Haagen dazs, say), that makes it off limits to inquiry and argument. W notoriously turned his back (literally turned his chair around) when the discussion turned to ethics.

Philosophers in the Us and GB have taken this to heart, and their discussions are very rigorous and very clear, but because they observe this strict line between sense and nonsense, they have become like Wittgenstein and turn their chairs around when it comes to talk of Being, existence, reality, metavalue, transcendence, or any other lofty theme that steps over that line. Our caring, our moods, and the entire irrational dimension of our existence becomes reducible to what is clear and scientifically affirmable, like neuronal activity and C fibers firing. They want propositional clarity! And not the vague talk about things unclear.

The trouble with this is impossible to calculate. It constitutes a dismissal of the powerful realities that make us human, and it turns wisdom into a cerebral game. Phenomenology, on the other hand, goes where philosophy is well, designed to go: to the threshold; it is a nonreductive embracing of what lies before us as it presents itself. It does not deny science at all; it simply says science is not proper philosophy. For this, one has be honest and allow the world to be duly represented as it is. It takes seriously what has been marginalized by rigid, conservative analytic thought: to love, hate, have passion, seek beyond the formulaic. In this thinking, it is science that is marginalized, yielding to the broader ground of experience-in-the-world.

Unfortunately, to see this as a compelling idea, one has to be drawn to it in the first place. One has to look at the world and ask seriously, in a non academic way, what it means to exist, be thrown into a world to suffer, love and die. Matters like this have always been religion's prerogative. Now religion is all but undone among thinking people, but these matters, these profound matters that have driven cultures and beliefs for centuries are OPEN to philosophy without the drag of religious dogma.

I speak of it as if phenomenology were a kind of philosophy of religion, and to me, it is, for it allows the exposure of religious themes to appear as they are, as part of the structure of experience. "Throwness" is a Heidegerian term. But then, Heiedgger was, in the end, no religious thinker, nor was Sartre. One has to go into this to dig out of it one's own place.

If the matter turns to underpinnings, the question would be, underpinnings to what? How about the underpinnings, the "white whale" underpinnings, of suffering? Ahab was not after a whale, but the reality that put the whale forth--this is what is responsible for taking the leg, not an animal. Or, the underpinnings of P, as in S knows P. well, as a friend of mine said, you're never going to get that tart to your dessert plate. Just ask Wittgenstein. He was right: all that lies out there is just transcendence, for to posit is to do so in logic.

That outthereness gets really interesting though. It is born out of in-hereness, for it is in here that we acknowledge it. If W were entirely right, this would be nonsense, but it isn't, our being thrown into existence without a grounding, a reason, a Truth. It's not nonsense at all. Transcendence is PART of immanence. But this takes some thinking. Ethics, instead of being a chair turning issue, becomes front and center. The self, the world, our being in the world, as well. See,m if you ever find your self curious, Husserl's Cartesian Meditations and his epoche, the phenomenological reduction. But like I said, one has to drawn to this. One has to have a kind of passion to go beyond the play of logic.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Atla wrote
As a nondualist, this phenomenology business comes across rather bizarre to me. Do we analyze experience, trying to find its underpinnings and such? However, what we are analyzing experience with is also experience. And everything being experience, it also has no underpinnings, so what are we actually doing?

Sure, science in general is even worse off in this regard, it avoids the issue of experience entirely, pretends that it doesn't even exist (if they venture beyond instrumentalism). Even though all of science and everything science studies, is also happening in experience.

By my lights, that is pretty insightful. Professional philosophers (analytic ones) know this, they just are so convinced by Wittgenstein that it is folly to discuss what is not discussable. That whole Tractatus is nonsense, says Wittgenstein himslef, and he was only trying to point the way out of speaking nonsense, which philosophical traditions are so full of. Metaphysics is not, not true; rather, it speaks nonsense, no sense at all, as in, the present kind of France is bald (I think that one is Russell): not true, not false. Just nonsense.

Wittgenstein says things like, logic is transcendental, value is transcendental. What does he mean? It's that one cannot conceive of logic without using logic; it can never get "behind" itself to "see" itself. This is a devastating idea for metaphysics (of course, Kant said the same thing 200 years ago); and value simply is not observable. Take all the descriptive, logically formed facts, states of affairs of the world,and there will be no value; there will be "yums" and "ughs" of course, but nothing in the facts that makes a yum "good". But there is no denying that a yum or an ugh has something beyond the merely factual. It is the source of all of our ethical shoulds and shounldn'ts, but since this good and bad never make an OBSERVABLE appearance (outside of us being IN it, tortured by Nazis, eating Haagen dazs, say), that makes it off limits to inquiry and argument. W notoriously turned his back (literally turned his chair around) when the discussion turned to ethics.

Philosophers in the Us and GB have taken this to heart, and their discussions are very rigorous and very clear, but because they observe this strict line between sense and nonsense, they have become like Wittgenstein and turn their chairs around when it comes to talk of Being, existence, reality, metavalue, transcendence, or any other lofty theme that steps over that line. Our caring, our moods, and the entire irrational dimension of our existence becomes reducible to what is clear and scientifically affirmable, like neuronal activity and C fibers firing. They want propositional clarity! And not the vague talk about things unclear.

The trouble with this is impossible to calculate. It constitutes a dismissal of the powerful realities that make us human, and it turns wisdom into a cerebral game. Phenomenology, on the other hand, goes where philosophy is well, designed to go: to the threshold; it is a nonreductive embracing of what lies before us as it presents itself. It does not deny science at all; it simply says science is not proper philosophy. For this, one has be honest and allow the world to be duly represented as it is. It takes seriously what has been marginalized by rigid, conservative analytic thought: to love, hate, have passion, seek beyond the formulaic. In this thinking, it is science that is marginalized, yielding to the broader ground of experience-in-the-world.

Unfortunately, to see this as a compelling idea, one has to be drawn to it in the first place. One has to look at the world and ask seriously, in a non academic way, what it means to exist, be thrown into a world to suffer, love and die. Matters like this have always been religion's prerogative. Now religion is all but undone among thinking people, but these matters, these profound matters that have driven cultures and beliefs for centuries are OPEN to philosophy without the drag of religious dogma.

I speak of it as if phenomenology were a kind of philosophy of religion, and to me, it is, for it allows the exposure of religious themes to appear as they are, as part of the structure of experience. "Throwness" is a Heidegerian term. But then, Heiedgger was, in the end, no religious thinker, nor was Sartre. One has to go into this to dig out of it one's own place.

If the matter turns to underpinnings, the question would be, underpinnings to what? How about the underpinnings, the "white whale" underpinnings, of suffering? Ahab was not after a whale, but the reality that put the whale forth--this is what is responsible for taking the leg, not an animal. Or, the underpinnings of P, as in S knows P. well, as a friend of mine said, you're never going to get that tart to your dessert plate. Just ask Wittgenstein. He was right: all that lies out there is just transcendence, for to posit is to do so in logic.

That outthereness gets really interesting though. It is born out of in-hereness, for it is in here that we acknowledge it. If W were entirely right, this would be nonsense, but it isn't, our being thrown into existence without a grounding, a reason, a Truth. It's not nonsense at all. Transcendence is PART of immanence. But this takes some thinking. Ethics, instead of being a chair turning issue, becomes front and center. The self, the world, our being in the world, as well. See,m if you ever find your self curious, Husserl's Cartesian Meditations and his epoche, the phenomenological reduction. But like I said, one has to drawn to this. One has to have a kind of passion to go beyond the play of logic.

This is sort of an argumentative forum, so I'll say that actually there is nothing divine about experience, well none that I'm aware of anyway. It's simply what existence is like. And the contents of the male human mind are easier studied via psychology. I don't understand this obsession with phenomena at all.

Atla wrote
This is sort of an argumentative forum, so I'll say that actually there is nothing divine about experience, well none that I'm aware of anyway. It's simply what existence is like. And the contents of the male human mind are easier studied via psychology. I don't understand this obsession with phenomena at all.

Well then look at it like this: If your interest is strictly to arrive at an understanding of what the world is at the level of basic questions, aka, philosophy, and you realize that experience is not a "mirror of nature" as Rorty put it, but an opaque processing plant that manufactures meaning, logic, propositions and their truth values, appetites, ethics/value, affect, and all the rest, then you are obliged to read philosophy that reflects this. It's like in the study of rocks and minerals and not being satisfied with the mere spectacle of what they do in the world, but wanting to look at the structures that underlie what they do, the crystalline structures and their molecular composition, and the particle physics behind this, and the geological age that provided the compression, and so forth. This is exactly the kind of thing phenomenology does with experience, the manufacturing plant that makes the world, the world.

Read Heidegger, just the first few pages just to see the kind of thinking that goes into this. You will find the language off putting as you go, but then, this is true for all serious work.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Atla wrote
This is sort of an argumentative forum, so I'll say that actually there is nothing divine about experience, well none that I'm aware of anyway. It's simply what existence is like. And the contents of the male human mind are easier studied via psychology. I don't understand this obsession with phenomena at all.

Well then look at it like this: If your interest is strictly to arrive at an understanding of what the world is at the level of basic questions, aka, philosophy, and you realize that experience is not a "mirror of nature" as Rorty put it, but an opaque processing plant that manufactures meaning, logic, propositions and their truth values, appetites, ethics/value, affect, and all the rest, then you are obliged to read philosophy that reflects this. It's like in the study of rocks and minerals and not being satisfied with the mere spectacle of what they do in the world, but wanting to look at the structures that underlie what they do, the crystalline structures and their molecular composition, and the particle physics behind this, and the geological age that provided the compression, and so forth. This is exactly the kind of thing phenomenology does with experience, the manufacturing plant that makes the world, the world.

Read Heidegger, just the first few pages just to see the kind of thinking that goes into this. You will find the language off putting as you go, but then, this is true for all serious work.

I tried reading Being and time, but unfortunately such writings usually make me physically nauseous after a few pages, I can't continue.
I may have misunderstood, but he seemed to be doing the exact of opposite of what is required to understand Being: he seemed to be addressing the question of the Being of entities. Being can't be understood as long we don't realize that in the real world, there are no entities at all.

HAN

If other people are only recognised as existing as part of my experience/''interpretative field'', then their reported experience isn't something I can rely on in a way to slide from ''my interpretive field'' to broader ''we'' claims about the 'external world'. You either say you don't know, OR place them ontologically as part of the experience, OR as independantly existing fellow experiencers. If it's the latter, then you've made an assumption that an external world exists, independant of your experience, which you can know something about.

Or that externality appears before us and we have to analyze this phenomenologically.

Sorry that's not good enough. As far as I'm concerned you lose any warrant to make claims about ''we'' and ''us'', if you don't even assume I exist as anything beyond your experience of me.

That is why you should distinguish between knowledge claims and ontological state of affairs claims. You can't slide between the two or ignore the difference. You can't buffer your own interpretation of your experience with what I say about mine, and still place me as just another part of your experience.

Atla wrote
I tried reading Being and time, but unfortunately such writings usually make me physically nauseous after a few pages, I can't continue.
I may have misunderstood, but he seemed to be doing the exact of opposite of what is required to understand Being: he seemed to be addressing the question of the Being of entities. Being can't be understood as long we don't realize that in the real world, there are no entities at all.

Well, dasein IS an entity. It is not, however, a present at hand entity, a thing. One has to stick with it and read through the difficulties. In the beginning he is simply throwing the reader into his terminological world, but later, all the things he runs through so quickly, he goes into in detail.

One has to study this. It is not readable in the usual sense. Pretend you have an exam to take, or a lecture to give. You will find you can actually do it.

But then, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is the true foundation for German Idealism, and Heidegger is following Kant. Read Kant first, and Heidegger will be easier. One does need the Copernican Revolution Kant talks about to begin this properly.

Anyway, if you want to read this, or Kant and would like to talk about it, let me know.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Atla wrote
I tried reading Being and time, but unfortunately such writings usually make me physically nauseous after a few pages, I can't continue.
I may have misunderstood, but he seemed to be doing the exact of opposite of what is required to understand Being: he seemed to be addressing the question of the Being of entities. Being can't be understood as long we don't realize that in the real world, there are no entities at all.

Well, dasein IS an entity. It is not, however, a present at hand entity, a thing. One has to stick with it and read through the difficulties. In the beginning he is simply throwing the reader into his terminological world, but later, all the things he runs through so quickly, he goes into in detail.

One has to study this. It is not readable in the usual sense. Pretend you have an exam to take, or a lecture to give. You will find you can actually do it.

But then, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is the true foundation for German Idealism, and Heidegger is following Kant. Read Kant first, and Heidegger will be easier. One does need the Copernican Revolution Kant talks about to begin this properly.

Anyway, if you want to read this, or Kant and would like to talk about it, let me know.

Well I will read them if anyone can show me a valid insight of theirs I didn't already consider. I'm coming from a scientific angle, and am only interested in finding the optimal basic philosophy for my theory of everything. Nondual philosophy is both simpler and deeper than any Western idealism I've seen, and it resolves the questions of being in general, and human being, perfectly.

Atla wrote
Well I will read them if anyone can show me a valid insight of theirs I didn't already consider. I'm coming from a scientific angle, and am only interested in finding the optimal basic philosophy for my theory of everything. Nondual philosophy is both simpler and deeper than any Western idealism I've seen, and it resolves the questions of being in general, and human being, perfectly.

Just keep in mind that "any Western idealism I've seen" has very limited content given that all Heidegger is to you is nausea. To encounter the best ideas takes work, a tearing down of assumptions that everyday thinking imposes on thought. Common sense is simply common.
A last world on Heidegger. Here is a website that is short and sweet and gives an account how two of his basic ideas work: http://compendium.kosawese.net/term/pre ... -zuhanden/

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Atla wrote
Well I will read them if anyone can show me a valid insight of theirs I didn't already consider. I'm coming from a scientific angle, and am only interested in finding the optimal basic philosophy for my theory of everything. Nondual philosophy is both simpler and deeper than any Western idealism I've seen, and it resolves the questions of being in general, and human being, perfectly.

Just keep in mind that "any Western idealism I've seen" has very limited content given that all Heidegger is to you is nausea. To encounter the best ideas takes work, a tearing down of assumptions that everyday thinking imposes on thought. Common sense is simply common.
A last world on Heidegger. Here is a website that is short and sweet and gives an account how two of his basic ideas work: http://compendium.kosawese.net/term/pre ... -zuhanden/

Thanks, yeah I guess I'll have to pass. When it comes to what I consider to be ontology, one thing we have to realize is that in the real world, there are no separate systems, entites, interactions. THAT is what happens when we properly tear down the assumptions of every human thinking.

Heidegger seems to do the opposite, he takes the everyday convention of such separate interacting things, and then perverts it into his different modes of being. I mean this is all fine, but why call it ontology. It's just male human psychology.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

To encounter the best ideas takes work, a tearing down of assumptions that everyday thinking imposes on thought.

When those assumptions enable human beings to solve real problems and answer real question, tearing down those assumptions seems to me a pointless academic exercise that produces nothing of value. Exactly the kind of thing that rightfully gives philosophy a bad reputation.

Gertie wrote
Sorry that's not good enough. As far as I'm concerned you lose any warrant to make claims about ''we'' and ''us'', if you don't even assume I exist as anything beyond your experience of me.

That is why you should distinguish between knowledge claims and ontological state of affairs claims. You can't slide between the two or ignore the difference. You can't buffer your own interpretation of your experience with what I say about mine, and still place me as just another part of your experience.

But this concern about my experience of you is not a point of concern regarding phenomenology. It is a given that there are other people, other things, for this is the way the world presents itself. The matter of showing what this is about, explaining "otherness" is not one that cancels out otherness, it is about explaining it.

If you have a hard time regarding the assumption that others exist at all, the problem you are dealing with is not the phenomenologist's, but the analytic philosopher's! Read Quine's theory of Radical translation and the indeterminacy of language. there is this paper written by David Golumbia that puts Quine and Derrida (the infamous denier of objective knowledge) on fairly equal footing regarding knowing others and other things. This issue rises up across the board and it has never, nor will it ever be resolved. Read Wittgenstein's Tractatus: It is simply absurd to think, he says, that you can extract knowledge claims' content from the logic that is used to construct it. Rorty, the same. Dewey, the same. All Kantian on this simple matter: talking about "out there" is simply nonsense. (Of course, in the post Heideggerian world, there is extraordinary work with this idea).

Phenomenology, Heiedegger's and others', simply accepts that there are others, trees, chairs, people, for this is what is presented to us in the world. It does get a bit odd, but it goes like this: I know there is a world around me, and there are things and people that are there, and not me, but "me" here is defined phenomenologically, that is, as an entity that puts the stamp of "mine" and "me" on things that are contained within the "my" of being. Other things, people, are other, and I take them in through my dasein, personal human agency of in-the-worldness. You are clearly there and you have an agency like mine, an in the worldness. In fact, a big complaint about Heidegger is that his views of others are so strongly averse to what others do to one's own dasein: they keep questions at bay while encouraging dogmatic conformity to "the they". H thematizes the inauthenticity of existing this way, this going along with others, being blindly led and never realizing the freedom of one's authentic existence: standing before the future, unmade, and bringing forth existence out of the endless possibilities that lie in waiting out of one's personal and cultural history.

Matters of solipsism and idealism don't come up but objects are simply there, forged out of experience (see Dewey's Art as Experience and Experience and Nature), and the idea and the sense impressions are of-a piece. things are not "out there", as some metaphysical assumed things, and discovered; rather their meanings are made when we take them up. We are passive and inauthentic if we simply move anonymously through affairs. But to be a creator and make one's own life from the stand point of freedom, the present, where choices are made. Another "petty" (like solipsism) issue is freedom: how to address determinism. Freedom does not hang on such a problem. It is there, in the affairs we encounter. I am not a tree or a stone; I make my own "essence" though choice (or, I become very tree-like if I just never raise questions. Sartre called this bad faith). Determinism contra freedom is pseudo problem; there is choice, which arises when questions are put to things. I can sit here and write or jump out the window. The fact that choice does not occur ex nihilo is obvious. Choice is defined phenomenologically, not in intuitive apriority (causality).

by 🐉 Hereandnow

I should probably ask you this in the thread on Being and Time, but re "tearing down assumptions," since you brought it up here, what would you say is what Heidegger is even trying to address with respect to being?

Heidegger says things like, "our aim in the following treatise is to work out the question of the sense of being" and that he's going to address "what determines beings as beings, that in terms of which beings are already understood." I've never been able to get much of a grasp on what he's even talking about. How would you explain it? (And please, if you can, give a relatively short answer that just explains what the heck he even has in mind with respect to any issue/confusion about "being.")

Faustus5 wrote
When those assumptions enable human beings to solve real problems and answer real question, tearing down those assumptions seems to me a pointless academic exercise that produces nothing of value. Exactly the kind of thing that rightfully gives philosophy a bad reputation.

Then by all means, get involved, start a union, work for Microsoft. But if it wasn't for tearing down assumptions, you and I would arguing about how to best please Yahweh.

Real questions, solving problems?: depends on the problems. Philosophy is about pursuing the truth, putting aside that this concept is an inherent problem, at the level of basic assumptions. This frees us from illusions, putting questions to assumptions to see what holds up and what does not. The world, it turns out, is a very alien place at this level and in a given cultural climate, such a thing is dangerous, threatening. Talk like Quine or Wittgenstein to a Old Testament sheep herder and you will probably be shunned or worse. Who cares: there is no Yahweh, nor walking on water, nor any of that nonsense.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Real questions, solving problems?: depends on the problems. Philosophy is about pursuing the truth, putting aside that this concept is an inherent problem, at the level of basic assumptions.

But if you are aiming at something that doesn't tell people to behave differently, doesn't make a difference in their lives, doesn't recommend some sort of tangible change in practice other than what words we use, then you aren't aspiring to anything that deserves to be called "truth". It just becomes meaningless babble that only philosophers care about, which means it has no value and is a waste of time and energy.

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Real questions, solving problems?: depends on the problems. Philosophy is about pursuing the truth, putting aside that this concept is an inherent problem, at the level of basic assumptions.

But if you are aiming at something that doesn't tell people to behave differently, doesn't make a difference in their lives, doesn't recommend some sort of tangible change in practice other than what words we use, then you aren't aspiring to anything that deserves to be called "truth". It just becomes meaningless babble that only philosophers care about, which means it has no value and is a waste of time and energy.

Of course "truth" sometimes turns out to have no value and makes no difference in people's lives. Sometimes it's even detrimental.

Some people like to collect stamps, some like to play football, some people like to try to solve the big questions of existence. Why are you surprised?

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by Atla

Some people like to collect stamps, some like to play football, some people like to try to solve the big questions of existence. Why are you surprised?

Actually, it is as if you read my mind, Atla!

I was thinking metaphorically that this approach to philosophy ends up making it a kind of game like D&D. Players might have a very involved language and a set of conventions about how to use that language, and some players are superbly excellent at mastering the language and commit an enormous volume of data about it to memory. But that language has zero importance and meaning outside of playing the game.

Philosophy, or at least any approach to philosophy that I'll take seriously, is supposed to aim for something higher than that. And especially if you are going to start a thread crying about the "hegemony" of one of humanity's most important intellectual achievements, your philosophical approach had damn well better be more substantial than the act of collecting stamps.

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

by Atla

Some people like to collect stamps, some like to play football, some people like to try to solve the big questions of existence. Why are you surprised?

Actually, it is as if you read my mind, Atla!

I was thinking metaphorically that this approach to philosophy ends up making it a kind of game like D&D. Players might have a very involved language and a set of conventions about how to use that language, and some players are superbly excellent at mastering the language and commit an enormous volume of data about it to memory. But that language has zero importance and meaning outside of playing the game.

Philosophy, or at least any approach to philosophy that I'll take seriously, is supposed to aim for something higher than that. And especially if you are going to start a thread crying about the "hegemony" of one of humanity's most important intellectual achievements, your philosophical approach had damn well better be more substantial than the act of collecting stamps.

There is something pretty narrow minded about this. No one yet actually knows what the 'ultimate truth' is, so they can't tell whether for example it holds the key to humanity's future, or maybe to its destruction, or maybe it won't really affect anything at all. In the unlikely scenario that we will ever figure out the 'ultimate truth', of course.

It's like you would expect people to know in advance what the answers will be, and then only start seeking those answers when they will be useful to us.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by Atla

No one yet actually knows what the 'ultimate truth' is, so they can't tell whether for example it holds the key to humanity's future, or maybe to its destruction, or maybe it won't really affect anything at all.

I don't even think the concept of "ultimate truth" is meaningful, so I'd suspect any philosopher who thought they were seeking it was either crazy or at least very self deluded.

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

by Atla

No one yet actually knows what the 'ultimate truth' is, so they can't tell whether for example it holds the key to humanity's future, or maybe to its destruction, or maybe it won't really affect anything at all.

I don't even think the concept of "ultimate truth" is meaningful, so I'd suspect any philosopher who thought they were seeking it was either crazy or at least very self deluded.

Well personally I think that people who aren't curious about existence, and don't ever seek the 'truth', are crazy.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by Atla

Well personally I think that people who aren't curious about existence, and don't ever seek the 'truth', are crazy.

There are coherent and intelligent ways to be curious about existence, which tend to produce useful and meaningful results, and there are incoherent and dumb ways to be curious about existence, which produce nothing.

I only pay attention to folks taking the former path. Unfortunately, philosophy as a discipline is too willing to tolerate and enable those wasting their time with the latter path, which is way philosophy is so rarely paid attention to by non-philosophers.

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

by Atla

Well personally I think that people who aren't curious about existence, and don't ever seek the 'truth', are crazy.

There are coherent and intelligent ways to be curious about existence, which tend to produce useful and meaningful results, and there are incoherent and dumb ways to be curious about existence, which produce nothing.

I only pay attention to folks taking the former path. Unfortunately, philosophy as a discipline is too willing to tolerate and enable those wasting their time with the latter path, which is way philosophy is so rarely paid attention to by non-philosophers.

Yeah well academic philosophy being a failure doesn't mean that restricting ourselves to a small box is any better.

Terrapin Station wrote
I should probably ask you this in the thread on Being and Time, but re "tearing down assumptions," since you brought it up here, what would you say is what Heidegger is even trying to address with respect to being?

Heidegger says things like, "our aim in the following treatise is to work out the question of the sense of being" and that he's going to address "what determines beings as beings, that in terms of which beings are already understood." I've never been able to get much of a grasp on what he's even talking about. How would you explain it? (And please, if you can, give a relatively short answer that just explains what the heck he even has in mind with respect to any issue/confusion about "being.")

The following IS a short answer, and is obscenely short. I tried.

Well, what IS being? To be? And then, to exist, be real? These terms fill our vocabulary, but Being: I AM sitting; the student IS next to the window, etc.; this term is taken by H to be foundational, after all, the metaphysics of Being has a name: ontology. But Heidegger wants to take the metaphysics OUT of ontology. Christian metaphysics has all but ruined thinking soundly about what it means to be, here, an existing entity, in-the-world. Metaphysics has reified (made into a real thing) this for us in terms of the soul, god; Plato reified this in terms of the making verbs and adjectives and abstractions into things: The Good, Justice, Virtue, and so on.

So forget being as a substance, material thingness, the mind of god (see Kant;s Transcendental Dialectic for a formal repudiation of metaphysics), soul or spirit. H's phenomenological pov is so irritatingly difficult because he wants to construct a new vocabulary that is free of this perverse history of metaphysics, and this requires allowing the world to prsent itself as it is, not through he traditional interpretative systems. Another off putting thing you will find in H is that he does not think as a modern scientist. He respects science, but does not make it he foundation.

So the assumptions he wants to tear down are these religious, philosophical and scientific paradigms that have always been the default answer to "what is Being?" And he wants to tear down a lifestyle of complacency to open doors to what he thinks is a lost grandeur, or lost "primordiality", something IN our structured experiences that has been pushed out of awareness by culture and popular religion and this pushing out has caused a crisis of identity (Nietzsche should comes to mind; see Heidegger's war on Christian and Platonic models of ontology), and we have become trivialized and lost (like Guy Debord says in the Society of the Spectacle). We are far greater than popular conceptions allow us to be, but this greatness is NOT int he theory, but the Being, the lived experience of Being, and this makes Heideggerian thought amenable to lots of extravagant, quasi mystical thinking he never endorsed, because mystics think there is something profound but lost about our Being here, too. But its not mystical, for H, it's alienation. Modern society has built for itself a condition of existential alienation through its technological culture and metaphysics.

That is the down and dirty on tearing down. He looks at individuals as either a kind of herd mentality, or enlightened and free. He, like Wittgenstein, is trying to show us the error of our ways, only for H, it has this existential dimension (which he got from Kierkegaard): a taking hold of our freedom to be the creators of our own fate as opposed to just letting it be decided for us by our sleepwalking through life. We need to take control of our own fate through our own freedom and freedom is the fleeting present moment (as the present moves in time into the future), and this brings the matter to the structure of dasein (me, being there)

As to the "in terms of which beings are already understood" you mention, he is a phenomenologist who wants to look plainly at the world free of tradition, theory (though, well, his is a theory), popular notions, presumptions of what IS. Where to look? One looks at the world. What is the world? It is our world, the everyday world of waiting for buses and paying taxes and doing physics. this world is not, of course, handed to us; we made it (always interesting to me is that our language is not designed to tell us what a thing IS, only what it does. Nouns are really verbs!). We made politics and General Motors. This world is an historical place, built out of the ages. Every thought I can think is manufactured in some social environment, and the history of such places go way, way back, AND, it is also very personal: my history started when I was born and I grew up assimilating language and ideas, acquired what E D Hirsch called cultural literacy.

So when we wake up in the morning, we speak, think, live and breath in one of these cultures, and this culture is not only what I have, but what I am, my dasein, and every utterance, a remembrance, is done in language and culture, and this is the CONTENT of dasein, of what I am. The FORM, or STRUCTURE of dasein is TIME. A very big deal. The structure of experience is time:past, present future. As I write now, the language rises up up, associated thoughts mingle to produce propositions, ideas, questions in thought and feeling, and these are projected into the unmade future ( a very important idea: the future is unmade, a blank, nothingness. Hmmm. What shall I do next? Whatever it is, it will be my doing, my creation).

All this (this structure of past, present future in which historically produced ideas,institutions are projected into the future in the creative act of an authentic or inauthentic dasein, that is, a self that is either asleep at the wheel and just rolls through life, or one that has awakened to freedom and possibilities) is presupposed by science, religion, by anything you can think of, and this is why a temporal ontology of dasein's production of existence is THE ontology that underlies all else.

I hope that is not too bizarre sounding. I have quite forgotten what sounds normal in discussions like this.

Faustus5 wrote
But if you are aiming at something that doesn't tell people to behave differently, doesn't make a difference in their lives, doesn't recommend some sort of tangible change in practice other than what words we use, then you aren't aspiring to anything that deserves to be called "truth". It just becomes meaningless babble that only philosophers care about, which means it has no value and is a waste of time and energy.

Grrrr. Meaningless babble is insulting. Philosophers don't care about meaningless babble. Here is what meaningless babble is: it is what is produced when opinion exceeds understanding.

Well, what IS being? To be? And then, to exist, be real? These terms fill our vocabulary, but Being: I AM sitting; the student IS next to the window, etc.; this term is taken by H to be foundational, after all, the metaphysics of Being has a name: ontology. But Heidegger wants to take the metaphysics OUT of ontology. Christian metaphysics has all but ruined thinking soundly about what it means to be, here, an existing entity, in-the-world. Metaphysics has reified (made into a real thing) this for us in terms of the soul, god; Plato reified this in terms of the making verbs and adjectives and abstractions into things: The Good, Justice, Virtue, and so on.

So forget being as a substance, material thingness, the mind of god (see Kant;s Transcendental Dialectic for a formal repudiation of metaphysics), soul or spirit. H's phenomenological pov is so irritatingly difficult because he wants to construct a new vocabulary that is free of this perverse history of metaphysics, and this requires allowing the world to prsent itself as it is, not through he traditional interpretative systems. Another off putting thing you will find in H is that he does not think as a modern scientist. He respects science, but does not make it he foundation.

So the assumptions he wants to tear down are these religious, philosophical and scientific paradigms that have always been the default answer to "what is Being?" And he wants to tear down a lifestyle of complacency to open doors to what he thinks is a lost grandeur, or lost "primordiality", something IN our structured experiences that has been pushed out of awareness by culture and popular religion and this pushing out has caused a crisis of identity (Nietzsche should comes to mind; see Heidegger's war on Christian and Platonic models of ontology), and we have become trivialized and lost (like Guy Debord says in the Society of the Spectacle). We are far greater than popular conceptions allow us to be, but this greatness is NOT int he theory, but the Being, the lived experience of Being, and this makes Heideggerian thought amenable to lots of extravagant, quasi mystical thinking he never endorsed, because mystics think there is something profound but lost about our Being here, too. But its not mystical, for H, it's alienation. Modern society has built for itself a condition of existential alienation through its technological culture and metaphysics.

That is the down and dirty on tearing down. He looks at individuals as either a kind of herd mentality, or enlightened and free. He, like Wittgenstein, is trying to show us the error of our ways, only for H, it has this existential dimension (which he got from Kierkegaard): a taking hold of our freedom to be the creators of our own fate as opposed to just letting it be decided for us by our sleepwalking through life. We need to take control of our own fate through our own freedom and freedom is the fleeting present moment (as the present moves in time into the future), and this brings the matter to the structure of dasein (me, being there)

As to the "in terms of which beings are already understood" you mention, he is a phenomenologist who wants to look plainly at the world free of tradition, theory (though, well, his is a theory), popular notions, presumptions of what IS. Where to look? One looks at the world. What is the world? It is our world, the everyday world of waiting for buses and paying taxes and doing physics. this world is not, of course, handed to us; we made it (always interesting to me is that our language is not designed to tell us what a thing IS, only what it does. Nouns are really verbs!). We made politics and General Motors. This world is an historical place, built out of the ages. Every thought I can think is manufactured in some social environment, and the history of such places go way, way back, AND, it is also very personal: my history started when I was born and I grew up assimilating language and ideas, acquired what E D Hirsch called cultural literacy.

So when we wake up in the morning, we speak, think, live and breath in one of these cultures, and this culture is not only what I have, but what I am, my dasein, and every utterance, a remembrance, is done in language and culture, and this is the CONTENT of dasein, of what I am. The FORM, or STRUCTURE of dasein is TIME. A very big deal. The structure of experience is time:past, present future. As I write now, the language rises up up, associated thoughts mingle to produce propositions, ideas, questions in thought and feeling, and these are projected into the unmade future ( a very important idea: the future is unmade, a blank, nothingness. Hmmm. What shall I do next? Whatever it is, it will be my doing, my creation).

All this (this structure of past, present future in which historically produced ideas,institutions are projected into the future in the creative act of an authentic or inauthentic dasein, that is, a self that is either asleep at the wheel and just rolls through life, or one that has awakened to freedom and possibilities) is presupposed by science, religion, by anything you can think of, and this is why a temporal ontology of dasein's production of existence is THE ontology that underlies all else.

I hope that is not too bizarre sounding. I have quite forgotten what sounds normal in discussions like this.

I can't really fathom why it's better to base 'ontology' on a certain male human psychological experience of being and acting through time (and get infatuated with it), instead of basing it on the entire natural world. And not even investigating what being is fundamentally, anyway.

Gertie wrote
Sorry that's not good enough. As far as I'm concerned you lose any warrant to make claims about ''we'' and ''us'', if you don't even assume I exist as anything beyond your experience of me.

That is why you should distinguish between knowledge claims and ontological state of affairs claims. You can't slide between the two or ignore the difference. You can't buffer your own interpretation of your experience with what I say about mine, and still place me as just another part of your experience.

But this concern about my experience of you is not a point of concern regarding phenomenology. It is a given that there are other people, other things, for this is the way the world presents itself. The matter of showing what this is about, explaining "otherness" is not one that cancels out otherness, it is about explaining it.

Alright!

(Although it seems to me to not to be about explaining human nature, but describing and re-framing it and offering life lessons from what I've seen so far. Or how does it explain the existence of consciousness?).

So - you make an ontological state of affairs assumption that there is a world which exists independently of your experience of it. Experience is therefore, amongst other things, a form of representation of that world.

A world which you share with other people, and compare notes about. And hence we have the inter-subjective basis of a working model of the world we share. A world where there are inedependently existing things and processes. We can't know about these other things and people from a first-hand pov, but we can agree on limited and flawed descriptions based in our shared observations and reasoning. And we end up with a (flawed and incomplete) scientific, materialist working model of the world.

Agree so far?

That model contains an evolutionary explanation of why we are the way we are, physically, and why we have certain types of experience. A limited, flawed explanation, which doesn't explain the source of experience (but then neither does phenomenology?). But does give a broad utility-based explanation for things like our caring, social pre-dispositions, our competetive and tribal instincts, why we like choclate and so on.

So what is your problem with that approach to human nature? Where do you draw the line on explanations which arise in the world we share, and why? Presumably you accept what we call gravity tells us something real about the world, and you accept evolution tells us something real about why our bodies are the way they are - so why draw the line at what evolution tells us about why we are the way we are mentally?

Phenomenology, Heiedegger's and others', simply accepts that there are others, trees, chairs, people, for this is what is presented to us in the world. It does get a bit odd, but it goes like this: I know there is a world around me, and there are things and people that are there, and not me, but "me" here is defined phenomenologically, that is, as an entity that puts the stamp of "mine" and "me" on things that are contained within the "my" of being.

OK, I'd just call that the first-person pov which is the nature of conscious experience, but I think we're saying the same thing.

Other things, people, are other, and I take them in through my dasein, personal human agency of in-the-worldness... You are clearly there and you have an agency like mine, an in the worldness.

You seem to be introducing Agency as something fundamental to being a conscious human here, not requiring explanation, but rather just contextualising it as part of our relationship with the world. OK, but it's another assumption isn't it?

Matters of solipsism and idealism don't come up

Only after you make the assumption a real world exists independently of your experience.

but objects are simply there, forged out of experience (see Dewey's Art as Experience and Experience and Nature), and the idea and the sense impressions are of-a piece. things are not "out there", as some metaphysical assumed things, and discovered; rather their meanings are made when we take them up.

If you're saying their meaning to us is created by us, that's fine. But you clarified that they are assumed to ontologically be there as the state of affairs, as somethings, to be discovered in a real world existing independently of anyone discovering them.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

But its not mystical, for H, it's alienation. Modern society has built for itself a condition of existential alienation through its technological culture and metaphysics.

H's philosophy is going to be absolutely powerless and utterly, even laughably feeble in addressing these kinds of issues. The way you get at alienation is by substantially changing the material conditions and power people have in their lives. It is political.

Babbling about ontology and metaphysics will only waste everyone's time and actually serves the interests of those for whom it is essential the rest of us stay alienated.

H's philosophy is going to be absolutely powerless and utterly, even laughably feeble in addressing these kinds of issues. The way you get at alienation is by substantially changing the material conditions and power people have in their lives. It is political.

Babbling about ontology and metaphysics will only waste everyone's time and actually serves the interests of those for whom it is essential the rest of us stay alienated.

Keep in mind that it was religion that put Trump in power, and reading Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Jaspers and the rest is is a philosophical response to religion that cancels out its crudity and silliness. The fact that others besides philosophers don't read it is beside the point (though keep in mind that the Bush administration hired followers of Leo Strauss, a confirmed Heideggerian); very few read physics either, and probably more read philosophy than physics, the latter being so prohibitively strong in mathematics.

Heidegger is part of an ongoing conversation humanity is having with itself (your man Rorty puts it, a huge fan of Heidegger), and it is not so much Heidegger's definitive thinking as his contribution to the project of humanity trying to figure out what it is all about at the level of basic questions.

Consider: powerless and the rest? Philosophy can have very powerful effects on human affairs. Marx? But Marx was putting Hegel to novel use, and Hegel was FAR more far flung than Heidegger. Marx's work overturned global affairs completely, you will remember. Heidegger was strongly influenced by Nietzsche, and N was very much an influence in the rise of Nazism. Husserl actually believed he had discovered the true calling of philosophy that would open doors to religious experience hitherto closed, unrealized. Was he right? Did Husserl "discover" the essence of religion? You would have to read him to find out.

Finally, the merit of a thing is not to weighed solely on the social changes it brings. Buddhism, a monumental presence in the evolution of societies, is all about a single human's interiority.

That part about keeping people alienated is so far removed from actuality it makes me wonder if you have read anything at all. One reason you find all of this so bothersome is that you don't read. This thinking screams rationalization: Too much work to understand it; must be worthless.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Terrapin Station wrote
I should probably ask you this in the thread on Being and Time, but re "tearing down assumptions," since you brought it up here, what would you say is what Heidegger is even trying to address with respect to being?

Heidegger says things like, "our aim in the following treatise is to work out the question of the sense of being" and that he's going to address "what determines beings as beings, that in terms of which beings are already understood." I've never been able to get much of a grasp on what he's even talking about. How would you explain it? (And please, if you can, give a relatively short answer that just explains what the heck he even has in mind with respect to any issue/confusion about "being.")

The following IS a short answer, and is obscenely short. I tried.

Well, what IS being? To be? And then, to exist, be real? These terms fill our vocabulary, but Being: I AM sitting; the student IS next to the window, etc.; this term is taken by H to be foundational, after all, the metaphysics of Being has a name: ontology. But Heidegger wants to take the metaphysics OUT of ontology. Christian metaphysics has all but ruined thinking soundly about what it means to be, here, an existing entity, in-the-world. Metaphysics has reified (made into a real thing) this for us in terms of the soul, god; Plato reified this in terms of the making verbs and adjectives and abstractions into things: The Good, Justice, Virtue, and so on.

So forget being as a substance, material thingness, the mind of god (see Kant;s Transcendental Dialectic for a formal repudiation of metaphysics), soul or spirit. H's phenomenological pov is so irritatingly difficult because he wants to construct a new vocabulary that is free of this perverse history of metaphysics, and this requires allowing the world to prsent itself as it is, not through he traditional interpretative systems. Another off putting thing you will find in H is that he does not think as a modern scientist. He respects science, but does not make it he foundation.

So the assumptions he wants to tear down are these religious, philosophical and scientific paradigms that have always been the default answer to "what is Being?" And he wants to tear down a lifestyle of complacency to open doors to what he thinks is a lost grandeur, or lost "primordiality", something IN our structured experiences that has been pushed out of awareness by culture and popular religion and this pushing out has caused a crisis of identity (Nietzsche should comes to mind; see Heidegger's war on Christian and Platonic models of ontology), and we have become trivialized and lost (like Guy Debord says in the Society of the Spectacle). We are far greater than popular conceptions allow us to be, but this greatness is NOT int he theory, but the Being, the lived experience of Being, and this makes Heideggerian thought amenable to lots of extravagant, quasi mystical thinking he never endorsed, because mystics think there is something profound but lost about our Being here, too. But its not mystical, for H, it's alienation. Modern society has built for itself a condition of existential alienation through its technological culture and metaphysics.

That is the down and dirty on tearing down. He looks at individuals as either a kind of herd mentality, or enlightened and free. He, like Wittgenstein, is trying to show us the error of our ways, only for H, it has this existential dimension (which he got from Kierkegaard): a taking hold of our freedom to be the creators of our own fate as opposed to just letting it be decided for us by our sleepwalking through life. We need to take control of our own fate through our own freedom and freedom is the fleeting present moment (as the present moves in time into the future), and this brings the matter to the structure of dasein (me, being there)

As to the "in terms of which beings are already understood" you mention, he is a phenomenologist who wants to look plainly at the world free of tradition, theory (though, well, his is a theory), popular notions, presumptions of what IS. Where to look? One looks at the world. What is the world? It is our world, the everyday world of waiting for buses and paying taxes and doing physics. this world is not, of course, handed to us; we made it (always interesting to me is that our language is not designed to tell us what a thing IS, only what it does. Nouns are really verbs!). We made politics and General Motors. This world is an historical place, built out of the ages. Every thought I can think is manufactured in some social environment, and the history of such places go way, way back, AND, it is also very personal: my history started when I was born and I grew up assimilating language and ideas, acquired what E D Hirsch called cultural literacy.

So when we wake up in the morning, we speak, think, live and breath in one of these cultures, and this culture is not only what I have, but what I am, my dasein, and every utterance, a remembrance, is done in language and culture, and this is the CONTENT of dasein, of what I am. The FORM, or STRUCTURE of dasein is TIME. A very big deal. The structure of experience is time:past, present future. As I write now, the language rises up up, associated thoughts mingle to produce propositions, ideas, questions in thought and feeling, and these are projected into the unmade future ( a very important idea: the future is unmade, a blank, nothingness. Hmmm. What shall I do next? Whatever it is, it will be my doing, my creation).

All this (this structure of past, present future in which historically produced ideas,institutions are projected into the future in the creative act of an authentic or inauthentic dasein, that is, a self that is either asleep at the wheel and just rolls through life, or one that has awakened to freedom and possibilities) is presupposed by science, religion, by anything you can think of, and this is why a temporal ontology of dasein's production of existence is THE ontology that underlies all else.

I hope that is not too bizarre sounding. I have quite forgotten what sounds normal in discussions like this.

It's not bizarre-sounding, but very flakey/flightly/unfocused-sounding--like we can't concentrate on something for more than a fleeting moment before we move on to something else. It's kind of stream-of-consciousness, which is only going to be pertinent to the consciousness of the person expressing it.

And it doesn't really address the issue I have with it. "Being" isn't something difficult to understand or address. "Being," or "to be," in one of its primary senses is to exist, occur, be present, be instantiated. Any of those terms will do if someone, for some reason, doesn't understand "being" on its own. It's opposed to, say, imagining something to exist, occur, etc. that doesn't actually exist or occur. So what is the big issue there?

"Being" in its other primary sense refers to entities, often reserved for biological entities--things that have metabolism, cell reproduction, etc.

So in two very short, simple paragraphs, I've solved "What is being," in the two most popular senses of the term.

There are a bunch of things you mention that we could address, such as "Heidegger wants to take the metaphysics OUT of ontology." The bulk of metaphysics IS ontology. That's primarily what metaphysics IS. So it doesn't make much sense to talk about "taking metaphysics out of ontology." It's like saying "We're going to take chemistry out of the study of molecular interactions."

If Heidegger was primarily addressing stuff like "Christian metaphysics" being wrapped up with "being," then that's a factor of both his historico-cultural milieu and his unique history (as the son of someone who worked for a church, etc.). "Christian metaphysics" isn't wrapped up with notions of being in general, and that certainly had nothing to do with my historico-cultural milieu or my familial experiences. So if that was part of what he was addressing, he probably should have made this more explicit.

Atla wrote

I can't really fathom why it's better to base 'ontology' on a certain male human psychological experience of being and acting through time (and get infatuated with it), instead of basing it on the entire natural world. And not even investigating what being is fundamentally, anyway.

That is THE anticipated response. It is a complete reversal of this kind of thinking that Heidegger (and Husserl) is looking for. to think of a discipline like psychology is the THINK and experience! Before talk about "a certain male human psychological experience" (male??) we need to ask, what is it to think at all? The structure of thought as thought is at issue. Natural world? Where did the term "natural" come from? You've got to ask THE major question: what is language? To talk about physics, psychology, or anything at all, as ruling the day, you have to see that you are talking, thinking. Kant asked the question, what is reason, logic, but Heidegger is saying that this is not sufficient for an analytic of our Being Here, which is filled with affect and analyzable structure.

I know this is odd to think like this, but to understand Heidegger you have to put aside scientific, empirical models altogether. I look out at the world and all before me is "understood". But all of my understanding rests with predication. one has to ask what is predication? there is a bird. the bird is black and sits on a branch. What is sitting? Before language was in place so solidly, and humans or protohumans were grunting and pointing, there was a lot of sitting, but no language until grunts became representational and symbolic. the noise "sitting" and its denotative value, actual sitting, has its its phonic and denotative values in this nebulous symbolic world of reference. BUT: once there is the word, and it is in place, has this whole affair become more than the mere constitutive function of a designated term? Has the world "revealed" itself? Or have people just found practical ways to deal with it?

Same goes with ALL words. They don't bring out something there already, they just impose a representational system upon what is there. Meaning is social in nature; physics is, at the level of ontology, a social affair for the language that is used to construct meaning in doing physics is essentially a social construct that has pragmatic utility; i.e., it WORKS.

Further analysis: Language is just an extension of a primordial alinguistic condition, which is reflected in t he conditional propositional form of if....then. What is sitting? It occurs in time. Sitting was not always so easy and infants fall over all the time. But the learning process, represented in language: If I move the leg just so, then stability fails, so this time a bit more, and then, no falling. Obviously infants do not think like this at all, but to think like this is language's way to take this basic form of struggling to overcome a problem AS a linguistic form. this struggle to sit up straight is inherently pragmatic, and the meaning that settles in the understanding is the same. Now, what turns language's noises into symbols? Is it not the same as well? Listening to sounds, figuring out their referents, finally associating sounds with things, all by trial and error, and the residua of all this in later life is, "pass the salt," and "what a fine day" and "philosophy is babbling nonsense".

This is a pragmatist's view (obliquely Heideggerian) of meaning and language.

The point of all this is to take the matter to foundations, try to get to the ontological rock bottom of what being in the world is. Physics is not at all wrong, to take an example, but it is analyzable in more fundamental terms.

Of course, when one talks like this, one is talking, thinking, and the same critique applies to this, rendering talk about foundational ontology no better than anything else. This may be difficult to get, but Heidegger's principle thesis is hermeneutics, interpretation. The reason why Heidegger is right is because he does not give his ontology any status what works in the given milieu of the questions being addressed. IF you want to talk about foundatonal ontology, THEN this is the most descriptive and error free. All language is contingent and its aboutness is linked directly to utility, and NOT what is independent of experience. To even SAY such a thing, is, says Wittgenstein, nonsense.

Btw, some of the above is not from H. But close.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

we need to ask, what is it to think at all?

Why would that be mysterious to anyone? It's simply brain processes that amount to having ideas, thinking of concepts, reasoning, daydreaming--all sorts of things. What's the mystery supposed to be?

The structure of thought as thought is at issue.

It's not clear what "the structure of thought as thought" is supposed to refer to. Are we saying that thought could be structured as something other than thought? That seems like it would be contradictory.

You've got to ask THE major question: what is language?

Again, it's no big mystery what language is. We could even just look up the term in any dictionary.

Heidegger is saying that this is not sufficient for an analytic of our Being Here

But what the heck is even the idea of "an analytic of 'our Being Here'"? It's not at all clear what the question or issue even is. What are we wondering about? What's the mystery to be solved there?

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Atla wrote

I can't really fathom why it's better to base 'ontology' on a certain male human psychological experience of being and acting through time (and get infatuated with it), instead of basing it on the entire natural world. And not even investigating what being is fundamentally, anyway.

That is THE anticipated response. It is a complete reversal of this kind of thinking that Heidegger (and Husserl) is looking for. to think of a discipline like psychology is the THINK and experience! Before talk about "a certain male human psychological experience" (male??) we need to ask, what is it to think at all? The structure of thought as thought is at issue. Natural world? Where did the term "natural" come from? You've got to ask THE major question: what is language? To talk about physics, psychology, or anything at all, as ruling the day, you have to see that you are talking, thinking. Kant asked the question, what is reason, logic, but Heidegger is saying that this is not sufficient for an analytic of our Being Here, which is filled with affect and analyzable structure.

I know this is odd to think like this, but to understand Heidegger you have to put aside scientific, empirical models altogether. I look out at the world and all before me is "understood". But all of my understanding rests with predication. one has to ask what is predication? there is a bird. the bird is black and sits on a branch. What is sitting? Before language was in place so solidly, and humans or protohumans were grunting and pointing, there was a lot of sitting, but no language until grunts became representational and symbolic. the noise "sitting" and its denotative value, actual sitting, has its its phonic and denotative values in this nebulous symbolic world of reference. BUT: once there is the word, and it is in place, has this whole affair become more than the mere constitutive function of a designated term? Has the world "revealed" itself? Or have people just found practical ways to deal with it?

Same goes with ALL words. They don't bring out something there already, they just impose a representational system upon what is there. Meaning is social in nature; physics is, at the level of ontology, a social affair for the language that is used to construct meaning in doing physics is essentially a social construct that has pragmatic utility; i.e., it WORKS.

Further analysis: Language is just an extension of a primordial alinguistic condition, which is reflected in t he conditional propositional form of if....then. What is sitting? It occurs in time. Sitting was not always so easy and infants fall over all the time. But the learning process, represented in language: If I move the leg just so, then stability fails, so this time a bit more, and then, no falling. Obviously infants do not think like this at all, but to think like this is language's way to take this basic form of struggling to overcome a problem AS a linguistic form. this struggle to sit up straight is inherently pragmatic, and the meaning that settles in the understanding is the same. Now, what turns language's noises into symbols? Is it not the same as well? Listening to sounds, figuring out their referents, finally associating sounds with things, all by trial and error, and the residua of all this in later life is, "pass the salt," and "what a fine day" and "philosophy is babbling nonsense".

This is a pragmatist's view (obliquely Heideggerian) of meaning and language.

The point of all this is to take the matter to foundations, try to get to the ontological rock bottom of what being in the world is. Physics is not at all wrong, to take an example, but it is analyzable in more fundamental terms.

Of course, when one talks like this, one is talking, thinking, and the same critique applies to this, rendering talk about foundational ontology no better than anything else. This may be difficult to get, but Heidegger's principle thesis is hermeneutics, interpretation. The reason why Heidegger is right is because he does not give his ontology any status what works in the given milieu of the questions being addressed. IF you want to talk about foundatonal ontology, THEN this is the most descriptive and error free. All language is contingent and its aboutness is linked directly to utility, and NOT what is independent of experience. To even SAY such a thing, is, says Wittgenstein, nonsense.

Btw, some of the above is not from H. But close.

I honestly can't believe that this is all there is to it.

Yes, first we just examine the outside world etc.
Yes, the second step is that then we reverse the whole thing, and get into a long exploration about how human thinking etc. even works. And yes this is all distinctly male thinking.

So where is the third step after this, where we return to placing ontology into the entire natural world, but this time we do it properly?

by Atla

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Before talk about "a certain male human psychological experience" (male??)
...

And yes this is all distinctly male thinking.
...

Just an example for this side-issue btw, from the link you gave me:

Once one has learned to use it, the mouse, in a sense, ‘disappears’ from conscious attention. One acts (‘im-mediately’) through the mouse as an extension of one’s hand as one selects objects, operates menus, navigates pages, and so on. The mouse is, in Heidegger’s terms, ready-to-hand, i.e. it fits (‘seamlessly’) into a meaningful network of actions, purposes and functions. In being part of one’s action, it becomes part of ‘oneself’, ‘one’s body’, part of a domain of ‘ownness’ or ‘mineness’.

And similarly when a man is driving a car, the car sort of becomes part of the man's body, extension, 'oneself'. As far as I know this doesn't happen for women though, when a woman is driving a car, then the car is what the woman is in.

by Atla

by Atla

And yes this is all distinctly male thinking.
...

Just an example for this side-issue btw, from the link you gave me:

Once one has learned to use it, the mouse, in a sense, ‘disappears’ from conscious attention. One acts (‘im-mediately’) through the mouse as an extension of one’s hand as one selects objects, operates menus, navigates pages, and so on. The mouse is, in Heidegger’s terms, ready-to-hand, i.e. it fits (‘seamlessly’) into a meaningful network of actions, purposes and functions. In being part of one’s action, it becomes part of ‘oneself’, ‘one’s body’, part of a domain of ‘ownness’ or ‘mineness’.

And similarly when a man is driving a car, the car sort of becomes part of the man's body, extension, 'oneself'. As far as I know this doesn't happen for women though, when a woman is driving a car, then the car is what the woman is in.

I sometimes wonder if it was an ancestral new mother who first pondered in some way about the nature of self and the other. Imagine having something inexplicably pop out of you, and gradually become an independent person much like you. Freaky ****. Probably the male shaman who got to make up some story about it and what it all means.

by Gertie

by Atla

Just an example for this side-issue btw, from the link you gave me:


And similarly when a man is driving a car, the car sort of becomes part of the man's body, extension, 'oneself'. As far as I know this doesn't happen for women though, when a woman is driving a car, then the car is what the woman is in.

I sometimes wonder if it was an ancestral new mother who first pondered in some way about the nature of self and the other. Imagine having something inexplicably pop out of you, and gradually become an independent person much like you. Freaky ****. Probably the male shaman who got to make up some story about it and what it all means.

I guess I'd rather doubt that.. the female 'sense of being' seems to be wildly different from the male one. I'd say the male sense of being is sort of a 'strong singular presence', and the female sense of being is sort of a 'weaker plural presence that is somehow both several voices/beings and one being at the same time, without a strong center'. I tried asking women a few times what it's like to be.. well.. being sort of distributed across space, and being.. sort of a coming together of 'several'.. that's pretty unimaginable to a man. Likewise women can't really grasp that men are genuinely singular like that, I think they might be freaked out by it.

Apparently they literally think in parallel threads, parallel windows most of time, like 3-4-5. One of them said that her mind is automatically jumping so fast between them, that this jumping becomes unnoticable, and what remains is the parallelity.

Well anyway thanks to these things, women seem to be closer to nature and less prone to be abstract, they have a weaker sense of distinct self. And mentally healthy women naturally percieve their offspring as a part, extension of themselves (so it's tough when that offspring then grows up and starts to rebel), and they are of course also genetically wired to anticipate something popping out of them.

Also, women have much more interconnected hemispheres. They don't seem to tend to have this 'internal discourse' between the two hemispheres, that men are sometimes prone to, especially when affected by certain mental problems. Maybe this internal discourse is what really kickstarted the sense of self?

Also, well, men's brains are bigger. There is this mysterious phenomenon of raw self-awareness that seems to occur in a few species, and is essential to humanity. Hard to say where it comes from, as it doesn't seem to be connected to any particular brain region, personally I think that it's related to sheer neural numbers are well. I've come to think that on average, men have a somewhat stronger natural self-awareness than women.

Etc. there are a lot more cognitive differences. The Buddha, Kant, Heidegger etc. these guys did in-depth investigations of the workings of the male mind. Doing these invastigation is crucial, but why we would base ontology on the male mind, I don't understand that one.

by Atla

Also, women have much more interconnected hemispheres. They don't seem to tend to have this 'internal discourse' between the two hemispheres, that men are sometimes prone to, especially when affected by certain mental problems. Maybe this internal discourse is what really kickstarted the sense of self?

Sorry, I couldn't resist typing the below fantasy. 😊 Feel free to skip it. 😊

There might be a strange missing piece of the puzzle by the way, when it comes to the birth of the sense of self. Something no philosopher could have guessed, here once again we need the aid of science. Now this is of course highly speculative, but there seems to be growing evidence that around 12000-13000 years ago, our Sun went through a much more violent phase.

Plasma eruptions frequently may have hit the Earth back then, which even forced some people to live underground. Radiation levels may have increased, and maybe one such massive eruption is what ended the Ice Age overnight as well, scorching the Earth.

My current hypothesis here is that these increased radiation levels might have thrust people into semi-psychotic states. And so they had to literally fight a mental war inside, in order to not go insane and die, to remain functional. Psychotic states can also amplify the internal dialogue between the two hemispheres. Those who managed to keep it together (arguably they were more intelligent on average), may have emerged with a much stronger sense of self, due to this struggle, having to keep oneself together. The lingering self-awareness of the Ice Age human got shaped into a 'self', an 'entity'.

That was the 'me', and they looked up the sky and maybe they saw 'others' as well, huge sometimes anthromorphic figures in the sky, like maybe supernatural, godlike beings. There literally might have been huge human-like shapes hanging in the sky, caused by plasma eruptions hitting the atmosphere. Apparently, petroglyphs depicting these shapes were found all over the planet.

So then we got places like Tell Qaramel and Göbekli Tepe, some of the first expressions of the self. Later humanity recessed, going through a great flood and such that lasted for millennia, but the sense of self already may have taken shape by then. Or maybe it even got lost in some places, who knows. When the Harappan and Sumerian civs emerged, they already seemed to have a self.

by Atla

by Atla

Also, women have much more interconnected hemispheres. They don't seem to tend to have this 'internal discourse' between the two hemispheres, that men are sometimes prone to, especially when affected by certain mental problems. Maybe this internal discourse is what really kickstarted the sense of self?

Sorry, I couldn't resist typing the below fantasy. 😊 Feel free to skip it. 😊

There might be a strange missing piece of the puzzle by the way, when it comes to the birth of the sense of self. Something no philosopher could have guessed, here once again we need the aid of science. Now this is of course highly speculative, but there seems to be growing evidence that around 12000-13000 years ago, our Sun went through a much more violent phase.

Plasma eruptions frequently may have hit the Earth back then, which even forced some people to live underground. Radiation levels may have increased, and maybe one such massive eruption is what ended the Ice Age overnight as well, scorching the Earth.

My current hypothesis here is that these increased radiation levels might have thrust people into semi-psychotic states. And so they had to literally fight a mental war inside, in order to not go insane and die, to remain functional. Psychotic states can also amplify the internal dialogue between the two hemispheres. Those who managed to keep it together (arguably they were more intelligent on average), may have emerged with a much stronger sense of self, due to this struggle, having to keep oneself together. The lingering self-awareness of the Ice Age human got shaped into a 'self', an 'entity'.

That was the 'me', and they looked up the sky and maybe they saw 'others' as well, huge sometimes anthromorphic figures in the sky, like maybe supernatural, godlike beings. There literally might have been huge human-like shapes hanging in the sky, caused by plasma eruptions hitting the atmosphere. Apparently, petroglyphs depicting these shapes were found all over the planet.

So then we got places like Tell Qaramel and Göbekli Tepe, some of the first expressions of the self. Later humanity recessed, going through a great flood and such that lasted for millennia, but the sense of self already may have taken shape by then. Or maybe it even got lost in some places, who knows. When the Harappan and Sumerian civs emerged, they already seemed to have a self.

Later, maybe around the Bronze Age, may have come the last step, when this rather passive self that humans had, coalesced into the autonomous ego, the ego took on a life of its own. The world got turned inside out, and now we were the ego itself, that came into this world.

Then in the East, they relatively quickly figured out that wait a second, that's not actually how things are 'supposed to be', they learned to see through the ego. In the West this never happened though, so even today all of our philosophy and culture is based on the ego, no matter how subtle the issue is. Now even science is telling us that there isn't really any autonomous ego to be found anywhere.

Yikes re thinking that there's a "male way of thinking" versus a "female way of thinking" that are more different than any two arbitrary males are to each other, or any two arbitrary females are to each other.

Terrapin Station wrote
It's not bizarre-sounding, but very flakey/flightly/unfocused-sounding--like we can't concentrate on something for more than a fleeting moment before we move on to something else. It's kind of stream-of-consciousness, which is only going to be pertinent to the consciousness of the person expressing it.

Unfamiliar ideas thrown out there. I see.

And it doesn't really address the issue I have with it. "Being" isn't something difficult to understand or address. "Being," or "to be," in one of its primary senses is to exist, occur, be present, be instantiated. Any of those terms will do if someone, for some reason, doesn't understand "being" on its own. It's opposed to, say, imagining something to exist, occur, etc. that doesn't actually exist or occur. So what is the big issue there?

You don't see why talk about Being is an issue. This is indeed a problem and there is little I can do to correct it. It a bit like Philosophers come in various kinds. Some are just geeks who love to tinker with logic and arguments. They could have been anything. Rorty talks like this in his part biographical Social Hope saying he was good and logic, could have studied history, and in the end, he abandoned philosophy to teach literature, infamously claiming the field had come to its end. Philosophers like this, brilliant, many of them, are very different from the other kind, those who have an almost religious zeal (or even categorically religious, Kierkegaard, Buber, Levinas, and others) to know what it means to be here. Then there are those who straddle the fence, like Wittgenstein and Heidegger and Husserl.Wittgenstein was very passionate about the human condition, both he and Russell, yet he helped define the epistemic basis for positivism. Being for Wittgenstein is a nonsense term, and the best one can do is follow science.

The ideas I put out here are, obviously, derived from what I've read. After going through quite a bit, I have determined Witt types to be intuitively deficient. Read some of his biographical papers and this guy is deeply concerned about human suffering, but he is so strong in the rigor of thinking, he draws an uncrossable line between sense and nonsense (btw, His Philosophical Investigations I have not read much of. Soon) and in doing so he does not see that there is no line. Philosophy at its best is not line driven but OPEN, a place of many lines, and this is Heidegger. But Heidegger was NOT a transcendentalist. Like W, he keeps a firm eye out on keeping metaphysical thinking at bay. I follow Heidegger much more than I do W because he emphasizes openness, the present and the future. It is the PAST that binds us, though, the history of our culture and language that determines our possibilities.

Among these, I find favor with the Levinasians and Buberians and the rest. Strong of openness, emphasis on the ethical dimension of human existence.

Perhaps you are more like Rorty, who, as I say of Wittgenstein, is just not able to see how Being is more than an intellectual notion, a vacuous puzzle piece. Quine, I read, was a devout Catholic. A profoundly gifted intellectual philosopher...a Catholic??? But he was likely with Wittgenstein: religion and ethics is of dire importance in thinking at the basic level, it looms large as the most conspicuous thing there is (remember, I am speculating reasonably, not saying what he said exactly). One simply cannot talk about it philosophically. Of course, I beg to differ: Many "talk" about it and make sense.

I guess you are what you read. Quine never read Heidegger, nor Heidegger Quine.

There are a bunch of things you mention that we could address, such as "Heidegger wants to take the metaphysics OUT of ontology." The bulk of metaphysics IS ontology. That's primarily what metaphysics IS. So it doesn't make much sense to talk about "taking metaphysics out of ontology." It's like saying "We're going to take chemistry out of the study of molecular interactions."

There is a gleam of insight in this. But read again: All of those traditional default ontologies that have filled history are senseless. Read Heidegger's Introduction: The Necessity, Structure and Priority of the Question of Being. I mean, just read the first pages. It is NOT technical; not yet. He talks about being, the indefinable, universal, the all too familiar but then the furthest from understanding (the more familiar you feel it to be, the further away you are, the problem lying in large part IN the unquestioning familiarity. IF, and I think this of utmost importance, you are going to investigate something, the grounds for the investigation are already at hand. This is what Kant did with reason. Look to what is THERE in the world that makes ontology a meaningful concept to begin with; and do not simply start with given concepts, all of which do nothing but make far flung, unjustifiable claims. Surely you see: Taking the metaphysics out of ontology is like taking the metaphysics out of God: Forget all that fatuous talk about a powerful man in the sky. what is there IN the world that gives rise to the such a thing?; what is there, in the structure of our existence that is inherently religious and is not instantly dismissable (atheism generally attacks theism taken AS this clumsy historical idea, making such atheism just as fatuous). (One the matter of religion, this could be taken up in another thread. It is an issue in and of itself.)

This is Heidegger's project: this term Being is at the heart of philosophy, for all endeavors of thought expire at this one terminus: ontology; it is where language MEETS the end of meaningful language.
Heidegger's answer: a hermeneutic ontology.

If Heidegger was primarily addressing stuff like "Christian metaphysics" being wrapped up with "being," then that's a factor of both his historico-cultural milieu and his unique history (as the son of someone who worked for a church, etc.). "Christian metaphysics" isn't wrapped up with notions of being in general, and that certainly had nothing to do with my historico-cultural milieu or my familial experiences. So if that was part of what he was addressing, he probably should have made this more explicit.

The "historico-cultural milieu" as it is endowed with specific content is incidental. You could have been born in BCE India, with Vedic hymns filling your world. Bad metaphysical thinking per se is what is on the chopping block, and Heidegger happens to be born into Western philosophical culture. (Interesting to note, however, that H did think Buddhism possessed the possibility of a new language that could open up experience.)

by 🐉 Hereandnow

those who have an almost religious zeal (or even categorically religious, Kierkegaard, Buber, Levinas, and others) to know what it means to be here.

"What it means to be here," on my view, is a rather juvenile/pre-analytical-to-nonsensical question. There is no general/universal "meaning" or "purpose" in that sense. Meaning/purpose only exist insofar as an individual thinks about anything in that way. This should be obvious with even the slightest philosophical or scientific exploration of the world.

Perhaps you are more like Rorty, who, as I say of Wittgenstein, is just not able to see how Being is more than an intellectual notion, a vacuous puzzle piece.

If the puzzle is "what it means to be here," then the puzzle is due to a misunderstanding of what things like meaning, purpose, etc. are.

Religion on my view is something that we'll be far better off without, once we can get enough people to see how absolutely silly it is, and ethics is something we do best with once we realize that it's simple ways that people (as individuals, influenced by their cultures) feel/dispositions they have towards interpersonal behavior.

Look to what is THERE in the world that makes ontology a meaningful concept to begin with; and do not simply start with given concepts, all of which do nothing but make far flung, unjustifiable claims.

Meaning and concepts are something that individuals do. They're not something that exists independently of anyone. So the sentence above reflects a serious misunderstanding of these things that's going to lead to a lot of errors in one's philosophizing.

Oops, that should have read "ethics is something we do best with once we realize that it's simply ways that people (as individuals, influenced by their cultures) feel/dispositions they have towards interpersonal behavior.

by Terrapin Station

This is for everyone who has these issues, which is many of our posters with a continental bent (and I should probably make this a separate thread): it could be an issue of reading and thinking a great deal about this stuff, and your mind has a tendency to "race." That could easily lead to rambling writing that seems disconnected to readers.

You'd not want to change anything when writing your first draft, but when reading it back to yourself before posting (which hopefully everyone is doing), you need to take a deep breath, slow down, and remember that people aren't already "in your mind." They may not have read everything you've read. They certainly won't have had the same thoughts about it even if they did read it. They're not going to already know all of the interconnections you're thinking. And you need to be careful when it comes to interconnections, background assumptions, etc. that are second-nature to you--again, other people are not already in your mind, so these things probably won't be second-nature to them.

A good stance to assume is something like "Imagine that I'm addressing reasonably intelligent high school students who have no special background in what I'm talking about. If I put myself in their place while reading back what I wrote, would they be able to understand it and follow me? Am I presenting an argument that would seem plausible to them?" Your audience might have a much more extensive background in the subject matter than this, but it doesn't hurt to assume that they do not.

It's a bit similar to the idea of needing to "show your work" in mathematics class. The teacher already knows how to work out the problem, and they'll often know that you know how to work it out, too, but there's value, including for your own thinking, in setting a requirement to spell out just how you're arriving at the conclusions you're arriving at. That can seem laborious, perhaps, but if you're really saying something that would be worthwhile for other people to read and think about, isn't it worth putting the work in?

Good thoughts there, TP. :-)

Gertie wrote


(Although it seems to me to not to be about explaining human nature, but describing and re-framing it and offering life lessons from what I've seen so far. Or how does it explain the existence of consciousness?).

By my lights, it doesn't explain the existence of consciousness. I do not abide by all Heidegger concludes. I use Heidegger and the rest to keep my thoughts structured and competent, well guided. In the end there is still me and the world and this utterly profound mystery. Heidegger would say, mystery? Absolutely, this mystery, anxiety of being thrown into a world; something is wrong here. He is inspired by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche regarding some grandeur that is lost to us. N thought we are too much degraded by resentment while K thought we are alienated from God. Both thought that there needs to be a cure for this socially constructed alienation, which H defines as "das man", everydayness caught up in the unconscious involvement. Interesting: Buddhists and Hindus (sans the metaphysics) say the same thing. What ails us is this engagement day to day, from which we need to be liberated. What we REALLY are is something else, something better, extraordinary, transcendental (Buddhists differ, as perhaps you know. Mahayana Buddhism is filled with speculative content).

So - you make an ontological state of affairs assumption that there is a world which exists independently of your experience of it. Experience is therefore, amongst other things, a form of representation of that world.

If you want to talk like that, but it would be a retreat from what phenomenology is trying to do. Husserl, e.g., is NOT like Kant: there is a world of "unknown X" that we cannot experience. Same with Heidegger. Just take it as it presents itself; what it is. Here is a candle. The candle, says Husserl, has its basic analysis in terms of an eidetic predicatively formed affair. This IS like Kant saying concepts without inttuitions are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind. The object IS the conceptual/intuitive (sensorily) construction and this is just a descriptive account. There are assumptions of what the things is, but without the concpetual/predicative end of this, without the eidetic dimension, you are not describing what the thing is. What appears before IS idea and intuition, of-a-piece. You can separate them only in the abstract. Talk about sensory intuition as such is nonsense; you are, after all, IN eidetic contexts, or you are simply not thinking at all.

Now, if you have an interest as I do, you might side with Husserl over Heidegger: Husserl believed that in what he calls the phenomenological reduction, a suspension of imposing interpretative thought that is always already there when you open your eyes in the morning, this sort of thing takes a quasi mystical turn: it is the suspension of all ready assumptions, presuppositions that are already in place, what Heidegger later calls "proximal" thinking, as in, the basic furniture of our lived affairs of grocery shopping and quantum physics (to the extent these apply. Deep forested tribes untouched by modernity hardy go shopping in our sense of the term). It is, I think, what a meditating yogic does with great rigor. Husserl says that if you do this, often, it creates a distance between you and, ala Heidegger, Being-in-the-world, and HERE, there is a possible religious ...errr, encountering the world of novel insight. See, if you have a mind, Anthony Steinbach's Phenomenology and Mysticism. Also see Phenomenology and Religion, New Frontiers, an anthology of post Heidegerian thought.

I have these texts pdf if you want them.

A world which you share with other people, and compare notes about. And hence we have the inter-subjective basis of a working model of the world we share. A world where there are inedependently existing things and processes. We can't know about these other things and people from a first-hand pov, but we can agree on limited and flawed descriptions based in our shared observations and reasoning. And we end up with a (flawed and incomplete) scientific, materialist working model of the world.

Agree so far?

Absolutely.

That model contains an evolutionary explanation of why we are the way we are, physically, and why we have certain types of experience. A limited, flawed explanation, which doesn't explain the source of experience (but then neither does phenomenology?). But does give a broad utility-based explanation for things like our caring, social pre-dispositions, our competetive and tribal instincts, why we like choclate and so on.

Absolutely.

So what is your problem with that approach to human nature? Where do you draw the line on explanations which arise in the world we share, and why? Presumably you accept what we call gravity tells us something real about the world, and you accept evolution tells us something real about why our bodies are the way they are - so why draw the line at what evolution tells us about why we are the way we are mentally?

Simple. Empirical scientific thinking is NOT foundational ontology. That "what is" of the world at the level of basic assumptions is not addressed at all. Even if you have an a sound empirical theory about the nature of conscious thought, a neurologist's or a psychologist's, you are still not examining the nature of thought itself. A first step in this direction sees with perfect clarity that such an examination presupposes thought IN the empirical examination. This clear insight is at the heart of a LOT of philosophy. Thought examining thought is, by nature, impossible (Wittgenstein) for you would need yet another systematic symbolic pov/standard to stand apart from the thought perspective that is doing the examining; and this would yet require another to examine it! An infinite regress.

Heidegger sees exactly this, and responds: hermeneutics! Circularity IS what IS at the level of basic assumptions. He is right about this. He has opened the door, however, to possibilities, interpretative possiblities, and this is why I value his philosophy: the world is OPEN at the very foundation of meaning making itself. Scientific paradigms are in abeyance, as are all, even that of phenomenology.

Now I can anticipate your objection: This is exactly what science IS, a theoretical openness, founding paradigms questioned, revolutions in the structure of science itself, and so on. Heidegger says YES! the method of phenomenology is not at all a repudiation of science. But it is not working with THOSE paradigms. It works apriori, what is presupposed by empirical paradigms. It is another order of thought entirely, embracing science, religion, sociology, anthropology, and all the rest under one single paradigm, that of hermeneutics.

In order to see the importance of this, one has to work through the literature.





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Terrapin Station

"What it means to be here," on my view, is a rather juvenile/pre-analytical-to-nonsensical question. There is no general/universal "meaning" or "purpose" in that sense. Meaning/purpose only exist insofar as an individual thinks about anything in that way. This should be obvious with even the slightest philosophical or scientific exploration of the world.

Then you would not be on Kierkegaard, Buber, Levinas, and others' Xmas list. The obviousness of it, though, is forwarded without examination. I once thought it nonsense as well. But I then read with a desire to understand what they were about, not with prejudice, but with openness. If you go into philosophical matters without openness, you are bound to orthodoxy, dogma, the opposite of philosophy.

I do understand the unwillingness to be open to counterintuitive thinking. But you have to be careful not to end up like that Tea Party lunatic Paul Collins Broun a who said, "evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell." I ask, what IS this man's problem? Part of the answer is simple: he refuses to read with an open mind about the things he so passionately attacks.

If the puzzle is "what it means to be here," then the puzzle is due to a misunderstanding of what things like meaning, purpose, etc. are.

Religion on my view is something that we'll be far better off without, once we can get enough people to see how absolutely silly it is, and ethics is something we do best with once we realize that it's simple ways that people (as individuals, influenced by their cultures) feel/dispositions they have towards interpersonal behavior.

On religion, absolutely! That is, public religions and their idiotic beliefs that cause otherwise sane people to spend their lives trying to make the world conform to the bible, or the koran, or whatever other foolishness. Such religious devotion annihilates any progressive ethical interpretation of the world.

But then there is the existential analysis of human religiosity. An entirely different matter. I would say, pls be careful swinging that bat on this matter, lest you end up like Paul Broun.

As to ethics, this is a thorny issue. to me, our feelings, dispositions beg the question: Feelings about what? Disposition about what? I could be from a culture where belief entanglement includes a confidence that after 50, people should simply walk away, off into he forest to die. This confidence is underwritten by a religion that guarantees the soul's redemption. From another perspective, this rationalizes a kind of systematic homicide (the way caste systems in India have traditionally rationalized treating the Dalit so badly, picking up the Brahmin's feces, e.g.) But all of this leaves out the "given" of ethics, which is the metaethical. If this term makes no sense to you, I refer you to Moores Principia Ethica; see his "non natural property"; also see Mackie's Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong; then Wittgenstein's Lecture on Ethics. These are the three I choose to make my case.

To talk about this without you reading these, at least, would be me throwing out the unfamiliar again and you understandably don't appreciate this.

Meaning and concepts are something that individuals do. They're not something that exists independently of anyone. So the sentence above reflects a serious misunderstanding of these things that's going to lead to a lot of errors in one's philosophizing.

But you are in Heidegger's world in saying this. Cows and corn fields exist independently of me, they are "not me" in the world. If one wants to understand Being, what IS, one has to take such a thing as "what is the case" as true propositionally, and propositions are expressions in and of language, and are, again, something people DO. Heidegger says this DOING (leaning way back to Heraclitus) has an analytic! To say, X is a physical thing, and this is foundational, is not to say, X is has a nature of DOING built into its ontology. To say such a thing is entirely a different ontology.

Welcome to Heidegger's Being-in-the-World!

Guess science won this round by a landslide..

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Then you would not be on Kierkegaard, Buber, Levinas, and others' Xmas list. The obviousness of it, though, is forwarded without examination. I once thought it nonsense as well. But I then read with a desire to understand what they were about, not with prejudice, but with openness. If you go into philosophical matters without openness, you are bound to orthodoxy, dogma, the opposite of philosophy.

I do understand the unwillingness to be open to counterintuitive thinking. But you have to be careful not to end up like that Tea Party lunatic Paul Collins Broun a who said, "evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell." I ask, what IS this man's problem? Part of the answer is simple: he refuses to read with an open mind about the things he so passionately attacks.

Here's the way I'm open to it: show any good reason to believe that meaning/purpose in the relevant sense could occur outside of something we do, in the sense of a way that we think about things. Show any good reason to believe that meaning/purpose exist external to us (or that any real abstract exists--that is, any abstract as an existent external to us/to a way that we, as individuals, think).

As to ethics, this is a thorny issue. to me, our feelings, dispositions beg the question: Feelings about what? Disposition about what?

Again, about interpersonal behavior that we consider to be more significant than etiquette. In other words, how humans behave towards each other, the actions they take towards each other, etc.

I could be from a culture where belief entanglement includes a confidence that after 50, people should simply walk away, off into he forest to die. This confidence is underwritten by a religion that guarantees the soul's redemption. From another perspective, this rationalizes a kind of systematic homicide (the way caste systems in India have traditionally rationalized treating the Dalit so badly, picking up the Brahmin's feces, e.g.) But all of this leaves out the "given" of ethics, which is the metaethical. If this term makes no sense to you, I refer you to Moores Principia Ethica; see his "non natural property"; also see Mackie's Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong; then Wittgenstein's Lecture on Ethics. These are the three I choose to make my case.

Moral stances are subjective. They can vary not only from culture to culture but from individual to individual. There are no (objectively) correct or incorrect, true or false, etc. moral stances. Moral stances are ways that people feel about behavior--whether they feel that it's acceptable behavior to engage in systemic homicide, etc. There are no correct/incorrect answers there. There are just different ways that different people feel about such things.

To talk about this without you reading these, at least, would be me throwing out the unfamiliar again and you understandably don't appreciate this.

I've read all of that stuff. I've read Heidegger, too, for that matter. I just don't have a very positive opinion of Heidegger. I have an extensive academic background in philosophy, and I even taught a bit.

I've read through most of this thread, but the following couple of paragraphs raise most of the points for which I have questions/comments (I also tried to read Hussserl decades ago, and dismissed it at the time as fatuous gibberish).

by 🐉 Hereandnow

If you want to talk like that, but it would be a retreat from what phenomenology is trying to do.

What phenomenology is trying to do, as far as I can see, is discover and characterize the ding an sich, Kant's noumena, which he argues (convincingly, to my mind) is impossible. Is that a fair characterization of the aim of phenomenology? If it is, then phenomenology is a fool's errand.

Husserl, e.g., is NOT like Kant: there is a world of "unknown X" that we cannot experience.

Not clear there whether you're attributing that view to Kant or Husserl, but that is precisely Kant's claim . . . correction --- Kant does not CLAIM there is an external world forever out of our reach, but that there is one is an assumption we can't do without.

Same with Heidegger. Just take it as it presents itself; what it is. Here is a candle. The candle, says Husserl, has its basic analysis in terms of an eidetic predicatively formed affair. This IS like Kant saying concepts without inttuitions are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind. The object IS the conceptual/intuitive (sensorily) construction and this is just a descriptive account. There are assumptions of what the things is, but without the concpetual/predicative end of this, without the eidetic dimension, you are not describing what the thing is. What appears before IS idea and intuition, of-a-piece. You can separate them only in the abstract. Talk about sensory intuition as such is nonsense; you are, after all, IN eidetic contexts, or you are simply not thinking at all.

Are you using "intuitions" in Kant's sense? Here is a decent summary of that sense:

http://www.askphilosophers.org/question ... perception).

What you are calling an eidetic perception or dimension looks to me to be identical with Kant's sensory intuitions. If you see some difference, can you articulate it? When those intuitions are combined with concepts (the "unity of apperception") we know as much about the thing before us as we will ever know. Asking what the thing "really" is, which assumes that there is something more to be learned or understood about the thing is an idle question, the fool's errand mentioned above.

Now, if you have an interest as I do, you might side with Husserl over Heidegger: Husserl believed that in what he calls the phenomenological reduction, a suspension of imposing interpretative thought that is always already there when you open your eyes in the morning, this sort of thing takes a quasi mystical turn: it is the suspension of all ready assumptions, presuppositions that are already in place . . .

A mystical turn indeed. There can be no suspension "of all ready assumptions." You may be able to recognize and suspend some particular assumption, but only by relying upon other assumptions. The only way to suspend all assumptions is to lapse into unconsciousness, or die. Typically those alternative assumptions involve some sort of non-cognitive mysticism.

Simple. Empirical scientific thinking is NOT foundational ontology. That "what is" of the world at the level of basic assumptions is not addressed at all.

It is addressed to the extent that it is rationally, cogently, testably addressible. A proffered ontology which does not rest on empirical evidence and testable theories is mysticism, with no explanatory power or practical application.

Even if you have an a sound empirical theory about the nature of conscious thought, a neurologist's or a psychologist's, you are still not examining the nature of thought itself. A first step in this direction sees with perfect clarity that such an examination presupposes thought IN the empirical examination. This clear insight is at the heart of a LOT of philosophy. Thought examining thought is, by nature, impossible (Wittgenstein) for you would need yet another systematic symbolic pov/standard to stand apart from the thought perspective that is doing the examining; and this would yet require another to examine it! An infinite regress.

I agree. But you don't seem to appreciate the implications of that, i.e., that those empirical observations and theories about thought are the best we can ever do. (Which does not rule out replacing current theory with a better one).

GE Morton wrote
What phenomenology is trying to do, as far as I can see, is discover and characterize the ding an sich, Kant's noumena, which he argues (convincingly, to my mind) is impossible. Is that a fair characterization of the aim of phenomenology? If it is, then phenomenology is a fool's errand.

This comment, and what follows in your response, is, by my thinking, the most interesting there is in philosophy. Husserl wanted little to do with Kant's noumena. His "thing itself" is not Kant's "thing in itself." This latter is strictly prohibited for meaningful thought...yet he thinks about it because he feels he simply has to say something. It's out of time and space (our intuition of these) and no sense can be made, lest one fall into a dialectic illusion. No, Husserl is not about this. He is about the presence before one when one does the phenomenological reduction. The "thing itself" rises before one out once what is truly there is distilled out of the clutter of knowledge claims. To "observe" the world phenomenologically, one encounters what is there, REALLY there, apart from the divergent and presuppositions that would otherwise own it.

Phenomenology is a broad field of divergent thought itself, regardless of Husserl's claim. There is a long list of thinking and I certainly have not read them all. I like Levinas, Henry, Blanchot, Nancy; I like the French. I like Derida, too, given the little I've read. I like him because he takes Heidegger to a radical and logical conclusion. Heidegger rejects Husserl's strong claim ( a great book on just this is Caputo's Radical Hermeneutics) claiming the latter is like walking on water in the interpretative settledness, and Husserl ends up defeating himself": for it is he who talks on about how laden phenomena are with eidetic content, and, as you say, there is no way out of this to make any claim about the Real beyond idea.

There is another paper that defends Husserl: Husserl's thing itself is not meant as an absolute, but is just a measure of what belongs to the object as an object rather than extraneous theory. I'd have to look for it.

As to a fools' errand, not sure why. Philosophy is what it is.

Not clear there whether you're attributing that view to Kant or Husserl, but that is precisely Kant's claim . . . correction --- Kant does not CLAIM there is an external world forever out of our reach, but that there is one is an assumption we can't do without.

Phenomenologists are all post Kantians in that they take very seriously the idea that thought and intuitions (very difficult to say, but intuitions in my thinking are what ever an analysis yields when the eidetic part is removed. to me, this is a challenging part of te distinctions between phnomenologists themselves. But this is for another discussion) constitute an object, whether it is talk about intentionality or totality (Levinas) or presence at hand (Heidegger) or pragmatics (Dewey, Rorty, close to Heidegger, I think, on this. BUT: Rorty is explicitly NOT a phenomenologist, because he refutes it in The Mirror of Nature. On the other hand, his is clearly in Wittgenstein and Heidegger's world).

As to the external world, noumena, there is a lot about this regarding his idealism and the way he was taken up in subsequent philosophy. They say, those that went the way of phenomenology emphasized the ideality of things; and those who went to analytic philosophy emphasized the prohibition on meaningful talk beyond empirical (and analytic? there is that paper by Quine, the Two Dogmas that attacks the distinction. I'd have to read it again).

Of course, read the Transcendental Dialectic and it is plain to see the explicit prohibition on such talk. Externality of this kind is nonsense. Again, on the other hand, there are those who say this is misleading: really briefly: this world is existentially imbued with transcendence. As with all ideas, we certainly DID invent the language to conceive it, but prior to language's hold or reduction to language, it has a "presence" that is not invented. This kind of thinking is behind a lot of objections to the attempt to confine meaningful talk to science and empiricism.

What you are calling an eidetic perception or dimension looks to me to be identical with Kant's sensory intuitions. If you see some difference, can you articulate it? When those intuitions are combined with concepts (the "unity of apperception") we know as much about the thing before us as we will ever know. Asking what the thing "really" is, which assumes that there is something more to be learned or understood about the thing is an idle question, the fool's errand mentioned above.

It's not me, of course, but Husserl, paraphrased from his Ideas I. to see the difference between, say Husserl and Kant, you would have to look at his lengthy dissertation on noesis, noema, hyle, the eidetic reduction; I have a paper, Husserl’s Reductions and the Role They Play in His Phenomenology by DAGFINN FØLLESDA, which lays this out with clarity that helps with Ideas. But you read Ideas I and you see clear as day, this is Kant behind this. Obviously. And if you read Heidegger or Sartre you see clear as day, this is Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety! They are ALL connected.

But the fool's errand? Is Being and Time a fool's errand? Was Kant's Critique? Or Levinas' Totality and Infinity? You could say yes, but then, we would have a lot to talk about.

But to speak generally, it is one of the most extraordinary insights one can have, when the structure of experience is laid bare, and one takes the matter as far as one can (see Fink's Sixth Cartesian Meditation), to see that there is no foundation to our Being-in-the-world of the kind so sought after and frankly assumed. This taking the rug out from under basic assumptions OPENS assumptive space foundationally. The familiar idea of science and its authority presiding over the basic meaning of all things becomes undone, if one has the mentality to see it.

A mystical turn indeed. There can be no suspension "of all ready assumptions." You may be able to recognize and suspend some particular assumption, but only by relying upon other assumptions. The only way to suspend all assumptions is to lapse into unconsciousness, or die. Typically those alternative assumptions involve some sort of non-cognitive mysticism.

That IS the issue! The charge against Husserl has been that there is no innocent eye (this belongs to Goodman, the myth of the innocent eye), and it's all interpretation. In the ever deferential world of Derrida, wandering through Kafka's Castle is the best it ever gets! Kant said as much in his account of imagination in the Transcendental Deduction, Husserl said in his Ideas (see specifically his predelineation in the analysis of intentionality) and elsewhere (he thereby defeats himself, says Derrida). Of course, Heidegger is all over this.

But then there is Kierkegaard and his progeny. This takes a special focus on rather abstruse thinking. I will only explore it if you're interested.

It is addressed to the extent that it is rationally, cogently, testably addressible. A proffered ontology which does not rest on empirical evidence and testable theories is mysticism, with no explanatory power or practical application.

Philosophy is apriori analysis, no explanatory power begs the question, cogency certainly applies to phenomenology without question, "testable" begs the question (Consider that thought itself is in the operation of thinking nothing short of testable theories about the world confirmed or denied). Kant was not an empirical theorist at all. He acknowledge thought, judgment, analyzed these for their structure in form, logic, apriority. All of what he said was apriori analysis: taking what is given and looking to what is presupposed by it, what must be the case given that we have experiences of such and such kind. Heidegger the same.

I agree. But you don't seem to appreciate the implications of that, i.e., that those empirical observations and theories about thought are the best we can ever do. (Which does not rule out replacing current theory with a better one).

No, not EMPIRICAL observations and theories. The matter goes to how we conceive of a human being at the most basic level. This is NOT empirical science, for as Heidegger and others have shown us, empirical thought is just one part of human dasein, and a foundational account is to be about all there is in the horizon of experience; empirical science is actually a minor part of this, a useful part, like tying my shoes properly, though often on a larger scale. What steps forward is not Wittgensteinian facts or states of affairs at all! It is the affect of your existence, the caring, the meaning the ethics/metaethics, value/metavalue matters, the dramatic unfolding of human tragedies and blisses. Logic, Wittgenstein told us int he Tractatus, is the framework of thought. As facts, the world possesses nothing at all of the ethical, the aesthetic. One needs to look very closely at this: what is there in the facts, empirical or otherwise that makes them at all important? Nothing. to take empirical science as a foundational view is patently absurd.
Our Being here is a factual presence in that it can be put into propositional form, truth value assigned. But just because propositional form encompasses all knowledge possibilities, it does not thereby reduce us to that. This is the rationalist's fallacy.

by Terrapin Station

Moral stances are subjective. They can vary not only from culture to culture but from individual to individual.

Yes indeed. Vernacular moralities are, for the most part, indeed expressions of feelings and dispositions --- largely culturally induced --- are idiosyncratic and subjective.

There are no (objectively) correct or incorrect, true or false, etc. moral stances.

Well, that is a non sequitur, and false. 1000 years ago everyone's beliefs about the structure of the universe, the causes of diseases, the origins of species, etc., were similarly idiosyncratic, culturally conditioned, and subjective. But it wasn't true then that there were no objectively correct explanations for those phenomena, and it isn't true now of morality.

Moral stances are ways that people feel about behavior--whether they feel that it's acceptable behavior to engage in systemic homicide, etc. There are no correct/incorrect answers there. There are just different ways that different people feel about such things.

There are certainly different ways people feel about things. But how people feel has nothing to do with whether a moral theory, principle, or judgment is sound and rationally defensible, any more than feelings have anything to do with the soundness of the theory of relativity.

by GE Morton

But it wasn't true then that there were no objectively correct explanations for those phenomena, and it isn't true now of morality.

Explanations aren't the issue. There are no mind-independent moral principles, stances, etc.

There are certainly different ways people feel about things. But how people feel has nothing to do with whether a moral theory, principle, or judgment is sound

They can't be sound in the standard logical sense because moral premises can't be true.

and rationally defensible

That's simply a matter of mind-dependent persuasion, due to sharing dispositions, etc.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

The familiar idea of science and its authority presiding over the basic meaning of all things becomes undone, if one has the mentality to see it.

Don't you mean that back in the early 20th century, the mechanistic, dead, clockwork universe, which was supposed to be observer-independent in every concievable way, was the only worldview that was to be taken seriously!
Because almost no one takes the above picture too seriously anymore, some of it was refuted by science itself, and there was a big retreat towards mere instrumentalism. Maybe that's why I don't understand your critique.

Hello,

First post here, after taking a few moments to skim this thread. I recently saw a picture which showed an interesting juxtaposition of past scientific thinkers and (famous) recent ones. I realize that these are cherry-picked, but it could make for an interesting start on the historiography of philosophy in science.

Anecdotally speaking, I worked a trade job for a few years in which I was able to listen to audiobooks all day. I discovered LibriVox, a site where volunteers read public domain books and upload their readings as MP3s which can be downloaded for free. Writing styles change over decades and centuries, but, after having listened to so many public domain books (as well as reading quite a few), I'm absolutely convinced that historians, philosophers, and theologians of the past were much deeper thinkers than those of today, with the most precipitous decline in deep thought depth coming after WWII.

Anyway, I decided to post the quotes in the picture I mentioned because posting the picture seemed, somehow, gauche. Here they are:

Past:

Heisenberg

I think that modern physics has definitely decided in favor of Plato. In fact the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.

“My mind was formed by studying philosophy, Plato and that sort of thing.”

Einstein

I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today, and even professional scientists, seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge f the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insights is, in my opinion, the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth

Schrödinger

The plurality that we perceive is only an appearance; it is not real. Vedantic philosophy... has sought to clarify it by a number of analogies, one of the most attractive being the many-faceted crystal which, while showing hundreds of little pictures of what is in reality a single existent object, does not really multiply that object.

Bohr

I consider those developments in physics during the last decades which have shown how problematical such concepts as objective and subjective are, a great liberation of thought.

There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature.

Modern

Dawkins

“I mean it as a compliment when I say that you could almost define a philosopher as someone who won't take common sense for an answer.”

'By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.'

Lawrence Krauss

Philosophy is a field that, unfortunately, reminds me of that old Woody Allen joke, ‘those that can’t do, teach, and those that can’t teach, teach gym.’ And the worst part of philosophy is the philosophy of science; the only people, as far as I can tell, that read work by philosophers of science are the other philosophers of science. It has no impact on physics what so ever. They have every right to feel threatened, because science progresses and philosophy doesn’t.

Bill Nye

The idea that reality is not real, or that what you sense and feel is not authentic… is something I'm very skeptical of”

Neil Degrasse Tyson

(Philosophy) can really mess you up.

My concern here is that the philosophers believe they are actually asking deep questions about nature. And to the scientist it’s, what are you doing? Why are you concerning yourself with the meaning of meaning?

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

The familiar idea of science and its authority presiding over the basic meaning of all things becomes undone, if one has the mentality to see it.

There is nothing to be "undone" as no serious thinker has ever, in the entire history of Western philosophy, claimed that science presides over the basic meaning of all things.

Your entire thread is based upon an absurd straw man.

HAN

Thanks for clarifying some areas of agreement in your reply. We can put those basics aside now, and hopefully you'll continue bear with me as I plod through this.

So what is your problem with that approach to human nature? Where do you draw the line on explanations which arise in the world we share, and why? Presumably you accept what we call gravity tells us something real about the world, and you accept evolution tells us something real about why our bodies are the way they are - so why draw the line at what evolution tells us about why we are the way we are mentally?

Simple. Empirical scientific thinking is NOT foundational ontology... Even if you have an a sound empirical theory about the nature of conscious thought, a neurologist's or a psychologist's, you are still not examining the nature of thought itself.

Well we can describe the ''nature of conscious thought'' itself in different ways. Lets go through some.


I agree scientific materialism doesn't explain the existence of phenomenal experience, but neither does phenomenology.


Scientific materialism doesn't describe what the ''stuff of phenomenal experience'' is. Does phenomenology?


Scientific materialism doesn't describe Laws of phenomenal experience. Does phenomenology?


Scientific materialism doesn't explain Agency. Does phenomenology?


Scientific materialism doesn't explain what makes the experience of seeing red, different to seeing blue, or remembering or imagining red, or thinking about red with our internal narrative voice. Nor the differences of the other types of sensory perceptions, different types of sensations, emotions, etc. Does phenomenology?


Scientific materialism notes a correlation between experiential states and certain physical processes ('the neural correlatrs of consciousness'), but can't explain the mind-body relationship. Does phenomenology?


Are there other things the methodology of phenomenology tells us which scientific materialism doesn't?

That "what is" of the world at the level of basic assumptions is not addressed at all.

The material ''what is '' of the world we are located within is addressed in incredible detail by science, based on the assumption that a world exists independently of humans experiencing it, which we can roughly know things about via our experience of it. However it's a model which is limited and flawed, because we are limited and flawed. We don't have a perfect god's-eye view, we have an evolved-for-utility first person pov, and can only compare notes with each other. The same problem applies to phenomenology.


The ''what is'' of phenomenal experience is addressed in one aspect - by evolution. This gives us a story about the utility basis of human phenomenal experience developing in the way it has. Why we care about ourselves, and find evolutionarily useful behaviours pleasant, and dangerous/harmful behaviours unpleasant. Why as a social species we care about others (the foundation of morality). Why we create useful models of our self and the world - in order to navigate the world safely and achieve goals, remember past experiences and predict consequences, etc. It can even explain some of our flaws and limitations in observing, reasoning and predicting. That's a bloody impressive account of human experience imo.


What does phenomenology offer which undermines this approach in your opinion?


And what does phenomenology add?

A first step in this direction sees with perfect clarity that such an examination presupposes thought IN the empirical examination. This clear insight is at the heart of a LOT of philosophy. Thought examining thought is, by nature, impossible (Wittgenstein) for you would need yet another systematic symbolic pov/standard to stand apart from the thought perspective that is doing the examining; and this would yet require another to examine it! An infinite regress.


Heidegger sees exactly this, and responds: hermeneutics! Circularity IS what IS at the level of basic assumptions. He is right about this. He has opened the door, however, to possibilities, interpretative possiblities, and this is why I value his philosophy: the world is OPEN at the very foundation of meaning making itself. Scientific paradigms are in abeyance, as are all, even that of phenomenology.

Now I can anticipate your objection: This is exactly what science IS, a theoretical openness, founding paradigms questioned, revolutions in the structure of science itself, and so on. Heidegger says YES! the method of phenomenology is not at all a repudiation of science. But it is not working with THOSE paradigms. It works apriori, what is presupposed by empirical paradigms. It is another order of thought entirely, embracing science, religion, sociology, anthropology, and all the rest under one single paradigm, that of hermeneutics.

What are you saying here which goes beyond acknowledging that we are flawed and limited observers and reasoners who can only create models congruent with our capabilities, of whatever lies beyond our own directly known experience?

Faustus5 wrote
There is nothing to be "undone" as no serious thinker has ever, in the entire history of Western philosophy, claimed that science presides over the basic meaning of all things.

Your entire thread is based upon an absurd straw man.

I do love those pithy remarks, but the pith is often without reflection.

What is the common sense authority of what is the case in modern society? What is the essence of the age of reason, of modernity? What comes to mind generally when a serious question is asked about the nature of all things? What has been the general response to all of my claims here about science and hegemony? Explanations go to evolution, anthropology, sociology; hope goes to medical science, politics and governement(political science; and yes, these guys decide our fate).

Are you suggesting science does NOT have hegemony in the present age, not just among philosophers, but circulating in the minds of anyone who has given such mattes a second look? No one reads philosophy much, but if you ask the person on the street about a philosophical matter, (and you are not a bible belt or the like) you will find default thinking goes to science. Analytic philosophy IS an implicit endorsement of scientific paradigms to address all questions, and as religion yields more and more to disillusionment, a trend impossible to stop (one reason we see the desperation in current politics on the Christian right: they know their days are numbered)

It is the positivism, the Wittgensteinian (btw, Witt was a huge fan of Kierkegaard, this tells us ...interesting things about the line he draws) and Kantian (reason has insight (Einsicht) only into what it itself produces (hervorbringt) according to its own design (Entwurfe)) drawn line that has led to a resignation to the unintelligibility of anything but empirical science that binds US and British philosophy to science. It is the success of science in our material affairs that establishes its hegemony in culture.

Religion used reign in philosophy and in cultures around the world, but the new god is science. It is where we go for foundational understanding of the world. No straw in this.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Religion used [to] reign in philosophy and in cultures around the world, but the new god is science. It is where we go for foundational understanding of the world. No straw in this.

No, I see no straw man either. But this (your text, above) is what this topic is concerned with. Not to disparage science, but to observe that our new God is often prayed-to for intervention that the God cannot offer. The New God is not omniscient, oddly enough, but is concerned with only with a subset of what we humans perceive as 'reality'. Sometimes, the New God is misapplied. That's what this topic says, yes?

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

What is the common sense authority of what is the case in modern society?

You know the answer to this question already—just look at what normal, sane people actually do. When they want to know what is the case about a disease, they turn to a medical professional. When they want to know what is the case about their car not running, they go to a car mechanic. When they want to know what is the case about the natural world, they ask an appropriate scientist.

Things are more complicated when it comes to ethical or aesthetic issues, because those by their very nature are not always things about which we can form a consensus and turn to reliable experts. But that’s okay. The vast majority of us get by just fine.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

What comes to mind generally when a serious question is asked about the nature of all things?

There can never be a serious question asked about the “nature of all things” because that question is hopelessly vague to the point of being utterly meaningless. The best response is that there is literally no such thing as the “nature of all things”. Serious questions depend on specificity.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Are you suggesting science does NOT have hegemony in the present age, not just among philosophers, but circulating in the minds of anyone who has given such mattes a second look?

Science dominates all discourse about the natural world, and this is how it should be. Philosophy stopped having a meaningful contribution to such discourse long before we were born.

I suppose you could say science should and does have something to say about moral or aesthetic issues, but pretty much all philosophers understand that its contributions are very limited there, though of course folks debate about where the borders should be.

My point is that people are smart enough to know when science is the right tool to use to solve or discuss a problem, and when it is inappropriate. There is no problem of science having an unjustified hegemony over issues where it has nothing valid to say. Your entire thread is premised on a made up issue.

By the way, I would never deny that some scientists or philosophers have gone too far in thinking they could apply scientific reasoning or techniques to subjects, or that they have mistakenly denied that philosophy had something to contribute when in fact it does. We'd have to look at this issue by issue. All I am denying is that there is a widespread problem of people doing this. There is not.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

No one reads philosophy much, but if you ask the person on the street about a philosophical matter, (and you are not a bible belt or the like) you will find default thinking goes to science.

You love keeping things vague, don’t you? What specific philosophical questions do you think the average person defaults to science on, when asked? And why would they be wrong, on those specific questions?

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Analytic philosophy IS an implicit endorsement of scientific paradigms to address all questions. . .

You are making things up. No serious, respected thinker in the entire history of Western philosophy has ever claimed something so silly.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

It is the success of science in our material affairs that establishes its hegemony in culture.

And this material success has justifiably lead to science dominating in all the aspects of culture that it ought to dominate. You haven’t provided a specific example of any particular issue or subject where its domination is harmful or unjustified.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Religion used reign in philosophy and in cultures around the world, but the new god is science. It is where we go for foundational understanding of the world. No straw in this.

We turn to science when we want “foundational understanding” of the natural world. There is no sense in which a philosophical exercise conducted from the safety of the armchair is going to provide something deeper than this, though philosophers like to fool themselves into thinking otherwise. That’s why no one pays attention to them.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Husserl wanted little to do with Kant's noumena. His "thing itself" is not Kant's "thing in itself." This latter is strictly prohibited for meaningful thought...yet he thinks about it because he feels he simply has to say something. It's out of time and space (our intuition of these) and no sense can be made, lest one fall into a dialectic illusion. No, Husserl is not about this. He is about the presence before one when one does the phenomenological reduction. The "thing itself" rises before one out once what is truly there is distilled out of the clutter of knowledge claims. To "observe" the world phenomenologically, one encounters what is there, REALLY there, apart from the divergent and presuppositions that would otherwise own it.

Like most idealist (and mystical) ontologists you regularly invoke such phrases as "what is REALLY there," what is truly there," etc. But offer no criterion or explanation for the adjectives "really" and "truly," or for the basis of the implied distinction between what is "really" there and what merely appears to be there. And certainly no explanation of how you gained knowledge of what is "really" there.

I agree we can set aside ("distill out") some of the conceptual superstructure we have learned to overlay upon what we perceive, i.e., perceive it eidetically (as a neonate would), without understanding it. Or at least imagine that we can. That is Kant's "sensible intuition." But without understanding it is gratuitous, and contrary to common usage, to call that edetic percept "real" or "true." Those percepts, when embedded in the best conceptual framework we're able to devise, is the only "reality" we're ever going to have. Phenomenologists, like mystics, seem to imagine that if they stare at something long enough, "clear their minds" (perhaps with the aid of fasting, sleep deprivation, or LSD) they will perceive some "reality" that has escaped everyone else's notice.

As to the external world, noumena, there is a lot about this regarding his idealism and the way he was taken up in subsequent philosophy. They say, those that went the way of phenomenology emphasized the ideality of things; and those who went to analytic philosophy emphasized the prohibition on meaningful talk beyond empirical (and analytic? there is that paper by Quine, the Two Dogmas that attacks the distinction. I'd have to read it again).

One of Quine's "Two Dogmas" dealt with the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions, not between idealism and empiricism (the other dealt with reductionism).

Of course, read the Transcendental Dialectic and it is plain to see the explicit prohibition on such talk. Externality of this kind is nonsense. Again, on the other hand, there are those who say this is misleading: really briefly: this world is existentially imbued with transcendence. As with all ideas, we certainly DID invent the language to conceive it, but prior to language's hold or reduction to language, it has a "presence" that is not invented. This kind of thinking is behind a lot of objections to the attempt to confine meaningful talk to science and empiricism.

That the world has a "presence" we did not invent is itself an epistemological assumption, albeit one that we are forced to make (according to Kant). But the most we can confidently claim is that we did not intentionally, consciously, invent it. There are compelling arguments that that entire "eidetic" world which supplies the foundation for our conceptual understanding of "reality" is an artifact of the structure and functioning of our brains and nervous systems. It is a "virtual model," built of bricks, sticks, glue, and paints concocted by our brains from whole cloth --- from nothing --- of an external "reality" which we must postulate but of of which we can never gain any direct knowledge.

But why call this eidetic "presence" "transcendental"? It certainly doesn't transcend us, its authors, any more than a writers' novel transcends him, except in the sense that we, like the novel, postulate an external world behind it all --- that postulate itself being a construct of our own.

But to speak generally, it is one of the most extraordinary insights one can have, when the structure of experience is laid bare, and one takes the matter as far as one can (see Fink's Sixth Cartesian Meditation), to see that there is no foundation to our Being-in-the-world of the kind so sought after and frankly assumed. This taking the rug out from under basic assumptions OPENS assumptive space foundationally. The familiar idea of science and its authority presiding over the basic meaning of all things becomes undone, if one has the mentality to see it.

As Faustus5 recently pointed out here, science doesn't claim to define or explain the meanings "of all things;" but only those things within the realm of common experience about which information can be communicated via objective propositions. It reports what is publicly observable and attempts to expain it, i.e., supply causes for observed effects, via theories with predictive power. If science holds a "hegemony" over those explanations it is only because it is the only methodology known which produces communicable and actionable information. Yes, we can set that methodology aside, apprehend some experiential phenomenon eidetically, and ponder other assumptions. But unless those assumptions generate predictions that are publicly confirmable and actionable they will be vacuous; "mental masturbation."

It is addressed to the extent that it is rationally, cogently, testably addressible. A proffered ontology which does not rest on empirical evidence and testable theories is mysticism, with no explanatory power or practical application.

Philosophy is apriori analysis, no explanatory power begs the question, cogency certainly applies to phenomenology without question, "testable" begs the question (Consider that thought itself is in the operation of thinking nothing short of testable theories about the world confirmed or denied). Kant was not an empirical theorist at all. He acknowledge thought, judgment, analyzed these for their structure in form, logic, apriority. All of what he said was apriori analysis: taking what is given and looking to what is presupposed by it, what must be the case given that we have experiences of such and such kind. Heidegger the same.

Well, we disagree there. Philosophy is not --- or ought not be --- "a priori analysis." Indeed, that term is meaningless. Before you can analyze anything there must be something to analyze; some raw material you're seeking to breakdown and understand. No analysis is possible of the contents of an empty beaker. For epistemology and ontology that raw material is experience, percepts. For Kant what was a priori were some of the tools we use to conduct that analysis, the "categories," which are a priori only in the sense that they are "built-in" to our brains and cannot be ignored or overridden. That is, of course, a theory, that may or may not be the best we can do in explaining our own thought processes.

We can postulate properties of our own thought processes and theorize that we apply them a priori to the analysis of other phenomena. We do, after all, have some direct knowledge of those processes. But we have no direct knowledge of anything presumed to be external to us, and never will. Any properties we predicate of them a priori will be arbitrary, vacuous, and frivolous.

No, not EMPIRICAL observations and theories. The matter goes to how we conceive of a human being at the most basic level. This is NOT empirical science, for as Heidegger and others have shown us, empirical thought is just one part of human dasein, and a foundational account is to be about all there is in the horizon of experience; empirical science is actually a minor part of this, a useful part, like tying my shoes properly, though often on a larger scale.

I'd agree that empirical science is only a part of human experience, but quibble over whether it is a "minor" part. If we measure according to the portions of our waking hours we devote to acting in and upon the empirical world --- the world described by science --- I'd guess it would constitute the dominant part. But a scientific explanation of how and why the sun shines does not purport to be an account of the human dasein, or of the entire "horizon of experience." That criticism is gratuitous.

What steps forward is not Wittgensteinian facts or states of affairs at all! It is the affect of your existence, the caring, the meaning the ethics/metaethics, value/metavalue matters, the dramatic unfolding of human tragedies and blisses.

I agree that all those are important and present many interesting philosophical problems of their own. But why do you have a problem with breaking down distinguishable elements of that complex --- the "horizon of experience" as a whole --- into separate problems that can be analyzed separately? Isn't that the way we approach most complex problems?

by Terrapin Station

Explanations aren't the issue. There are no mind-independent moral principles, stances, etc.

Of course not. No principles, theories, judgments, or propositions are mind-independent, in morality or in physics. They are all constructs of the human brain. That doesn't entail, however, that none of them can be sound, valid, objective, or true.

They can't be sound in the standard logical sense because moral premises can't be true.

A proposition is true if the state of affairs it asserts exists. It is objective if that state of affairs is publicly confirmable. If those conditions are satisfied by a moral premise then it is true.

and rationally defensible

That's simply a matter of mind-dependent persuasion, due to sharing dispositions, etc.

Huh? Are you claiming that "rational" is a subjective matter? An argument is rational if its premises are supported by evidence (or are self-evident) and any conclusions drawn from them follow therefrom. Whether anyone is persuaded by it is irrelevant.

Terrapin Station wrote
Here's the way I'm open to it: show any good reason to believe that meaning/purpose in the relevant sense could occur outside of something we do, in the sense of a way that we think about things. Show any good reason to believe that meaning/purpose exist external to us (or that any real abstract exists--that is, any abstract as an existent external to us/to a way that we, as individuals, think).

External?? I don't know what you have in mind given all that has been said. Meaning purpose external to us...US? How are you thinking about such things?

Again, about interpersonal behavior that we consider to be more significant than etiquette. In other words, how humans behave towards each other, the actions they take towards each other, etc.

The begged question goes to the matter of the essence of ethics, the metaethical or metavaluative. Ethics is ABOUT our entanglements regarding what. Not facts, for facts are value neutral; even though one can describe a valuative situation, the description possesses nothing of the ethical dimension. Such a thing is beyond speaking, which, I think I noted, Wittgenstein would never talk about it. See his Lecture on Ethics.

Moral stances are subjective. They can vary not only from culture to culture but from individual to individual. There are no (objectively) correct or incorrect, true or false, etc. moral stances. Moral stances are ways that people feel about behavior--whether they feel that it's acceptable behavior to engage in systemic homicide, etc. There are no correct/incorrect answers there. There are just different ways that different people feel about such things.

It is not about he different way we are entangled in the world, which gives rise to differences in attitudes, decision making; it is about what value is independently of these entanglements. In discussions about ethics we usually are asking questions about decision making, and there are the usual suspects, utility and deontology, Mill and Kant, and there are various accounts that attempt to say what such decision making ism in it nature. But these look to the subject, as if the affective (valuative) dimension of our experiences were all a matter of taste, and thus infamously unable to pin down. I am a moral realist and I think ethics is really quite simple to pin down. As with reason, one can infer from judgment and the incidentals of judgment, the particular facts of a given case, are dismissed in order to get to what reason is itself. We get Aristotle's substance, quality, quantity and the rest (Kant would refine this latter). For ethics, forget the incidentals as well, the "subjective" facts that confuse talk about ethics, and look exclusively at the ethical qua ethical, that is, the value as such. Here, you find little disagreement as to what is right and wrong, or, disagreement would rest solely with an objective evaluation of value at hand that is in question. Instead of wondering if there is sufficient utility one way or another in a situation of competing obligations, one drops the confusing entanglements to see what it IS that is at risk or in play. It is some joy, some misery, something delicious, perhaps, or something disgusting. Here, we have the, if you will, material grounding of ethics, and it speaks as an aesthesis, as valuative given logically prior to any ethical situation at all. Prior because it is presupposed: an absence of this material grounding, and an absence of ethics altogether.

This, no correct/incorrect answer, you say, and I agree. But it has to understood that the indeterminacy lies not with the value itself, but with the value-arbitrary entanglements. Hitler enjoyed a good cigar as he signed the order to gas thousands. This context of the good cigar makes us cringe, but: the goodness of the cigar is not effected at all OUT of this context, and it is this material goodness that is the kind of thing ethics is "made of," taken as it is itself.

It is an analysis just like Kant's Critique via a vis reason. this isn't Heidegger at all. But to see ethics in this light, one has to be free of interpretative biases that will try to reduce phenomena to something else. Phenomenology allows the world to be what it is.

Since you have read all that stuff, I can trust you understand the issue and not complain that I am being needlessly obscure.

Atla wrote
Don't you mean that back in the early 20th century, the mechanistic, dead, clockwork universe, which was supposed to be observer-independent in every concievable way, was the only worldview that was to be taken seriously!
Because almost no one takes the above picture too seriously anymore, some of it was refuted by science itself, and there was a big retreat towards mere instrumentalism. Maybe that's why I don't understand your critique.

No Atla, not that. Although if you mean by clockwise universe you are referring to causality itself, you would have to get past the apriority of the principle of sufficient cause. But no, it is not about any particular science and its standing in contemporary thinking. It is about the standard of establishing a foundation for a philosophical ontology. Read what I wrote elsewhere in these posts, for all I would do here is repeat that. I though my response to G E Morton was adequate.

Tecolote wrote
My concern here is that the philosophers believe they are actually asking deep questions about nature. And to the scientist it’s, what are you doing? Why are you concerning yourself with the meaning of meaning?

This by Neil Degrasse Tyson is exactly to the point here. It is simply not among the prerogatives of empirical science to think like a philosopher. Philosophical thinking is apriori, it's about what is presupposed BY science. Philosophy cares nothing for the mass of Neptune's rings and the planetary physicist cares nothing for the temporal structure of meaning itself.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Again, about interpersonal behavior that we consider to be more significant than etiquette. In other words, how humans behave towards each other, the actions they take towards each other, etc.

The begged question goes to the matter of the essence of ethics, the metaethical or metavaluative. Ethics is ABOUT our entanglements regarding what. Not facts, for facts are value neutral; even though one can describe a valuative situation, the description possesses nothing of the ethical dimension. Such a thing is beyond speaking, which, I think I noted, Wittgenstein would never talk about it. See his Lecture on Ethics.

Methinks you're confounding deontology (the theory of moral principles and rules), with axiology (the theory of value). But you may be excused, since "ethics" has confounded them regularly throughout the history of philosophy. But they are quite distinct subject matters and should be kept strictly separate. Deontology presumes that moral agents have values, but does not prescribe any. Morality, as TP suggests above, is mainly concerned with principles and rules governing interactions between moral agents in a social setting (a "moral field").

Pattern-chaser wrote

No, I see no straw man either. But this (your text, above) is what this topic is concerned with. Not to disparage science, but to observe that our new God is often prayed-to for intervention that the God cannot offer. The New God is not omniscient, oddly enough, but is concerned with only with a subset of what we humans perceive as 'reality'. Sometimes, the New God is misapplied. That's what this topic says, yes?

The God of science? To me, it establishes a false idea about what it means to be human, it misrepresents the matter, puts biases place that divert attention away from a more genuine analysis, closes inquiry where inquiry should flourish. Misapplied you say? Yes.

But I would say science is much better at "intervening" than religion ever was, and without all the bad thinking. It is simply not a proper foundational view.

GE Morton wrote

Methinks you're confounding deontology (the theory of moral principles and rules), with axiology (the theory of value). But you may be excused, since "ethics" has confounded them regularly throughout the history of philosophy. But they are quite distinct subject matters and should be kept strictly separate. Deontology presumes that moral agents have values, but does not prescribe any. Morality, as TP suggests above, is mainly concerned with principles and rules governing interactions between moral agents in a social setting (a "moral field").

It was a response to TP's There are no correct/incorrect answers there. There are just different ways that different people feel about such things.
True, he wasn't referring to the matter of metaethics, or axiomatic ethics if you like. But I did take this kind of thinking as is usually the case, that there is nothing aprioi about ethics. I am very sure I was right on this assumption. Not to forget, TP was responding to my explicit reference to a metaethical issue. I had written:
I could be from a culture where belief entanglement includes a confidence that after 50, people should simply walk away, off into he forest to die. This confidence is underwritten by a religion that guarantees the soul's redemption. From another perspective, this rationalizes a kind of systematic homicide (the way caste systems in India have traditionally rationalized treating the Dalit so badly, picking up the Brahmin's feces, e.g.) But all of this leaves out the "given" of ethics, which is the metaethical. If this term makes no sense to you, I refer you to Moores Principia Ethica; see his "non natural property"; also see Mackie's Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong; then Wittgenstein's Lecture on Ethics. These are the three I choose to make my case.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Atla wrote
Don't you mean that back in the early 20th century, the mechanistic, dead, clockwork universe, which was supposed to be observer-independent in every concievable way, was the only worldview that was to be taken seriously!
Because almost no one takes the above picture too seriously anymore, some of it was refuted by science itself, and there was a big retreat towards mere instrumentalism. Maybe that's why I don't understand your critique.

No Atla, not that. Although if you mean by clockwise universe you are referring to causality itself, you would have to get past the apriority of the principle of sufficient cause. But no, it is not about any particular science and its standing in contemporary thinking. It is about the standard of establishing a foundation for a philosophical ontology. Read what I wrote elsewhere in these posts, for all I would do here is repeat that. I though my response to G E Morton was adequate.

But the average person never cared much for foundational ontology, they simply believe what they are told. So they believed very simple things that religion told them + what people in power wanted them to believe. Nowadays people believe in a bit less simple scientific insights + what people in power want them to believe. That's still a huge amount of improvement over religion.

But Western philosophy as a foundational ontology has always been sidelined as mental masturbation, it's a 2400 years old failed experiment. And since Western philosophers still won't let it die, and won't let a genuine natural philosophy emerge in its place, science will continue to be dominant. I'd say it's 'hegemony' is the opposite of absurd.

by Terrapin Station

I get that what you write must make sense to you, but to me--and not just this post, but your posts in general--it just seems like a long string of nonsequiturs, a bunch of words that don't have much to do with each other.

For example, your first sentence says, "All that has ever been witnessed in the world is the human drama, if you will."

And then your second sentence starts off with, "That is"--as if you're going to explain the first sentence in other words, but then what you say is, "even as the driest, most dispassionate observer records more facts to support other facts," and I don't see what that would have to do with "witnessing human drama." The two things just don't seem to go together. It seems like a wild leap from one thought to a completely different thought.

And then you say, "the actual event is within an 'aesthetic' context," which is even more mystifying, and then you write "i.e., experience," as if there's some connection between "events being within an 'aesthetic' context" and experience in general.

I just don't ever really know what you're on about, but I'm assuming it must make sense to you.

Did it ever occur to you to just ask a CLARIFYING QUESTION?

Or, are you REALLY not that interested in BETTER UNDERSTANDING the "other's" view/s here?

by evolution

by Terrapin Station

I get that what you write must make sense to you, but to me--and not just this post, but your posts in general--it just seems like a long string of nonsequiturs, a bunch of words that don't have much to do with each other.

For example, your first sentence says, "All that has ever been witnessed in the world is the human drama, if you will."

And then your second sentence starts off with, "That is"--as if you're going to explain the first sentence in other words, but then what you say is, "even as the driest, most dispassionate observer records more facts to support other facts," and I don't see what that would have to do with "witnessing human drama." The two things just don't seem to go together. It seems like a wild leap from one thought to a completely different thought.

And then you say, "the actual event is within an 'aesthetic' context," which is even more mystifying, and then you write "i.e., experience," as if there's some connection between "events being within an 'aesthetic' context" and experience in general.

I just don't ever really know what you're on about, but I'm assuming it must make sense to you.

Did it ever occur to you to just ask a CLARIFYING QUESTION?

Or, are you REALLY not that interested in BETTER UNDERSTANDING the "other's" view/s here?

Aside from the fact that I'm describing that the person's writing usually makes little sense in my opinion, a reasonable response to what I wrote would be to clarify and better flesh out/connect the bits I quoted in light of the criticism.

by Terrapin Station

by evolution

Did it ever occur to you to just ask a CLARIFYING QUESTION?

Or, are you REALLY not that interested in BETTER UNDERSTANDING the "other's" view/s here?

Aside from the fact that I'm describing that the person's writing usually makes little sense in my opinion, a reasonable response to what I wrote would be to clarify and better flesh out/connect the bits I quoted in light of the criticism.

If a 'reasonable response' to what you wrote WOULD BE to 'clarify', then what do you think my two CLARIFYING QUESTIONS were EXACTLY, if they were NOT done 'to clarify'?

by evolution

by Terrapin Station

Aside from the fact that I'm describing that the person's writing usually makes little sense in my opinion, a reasonable response to what I wrote would be to clarify and better flesh out/connect the bits I quoted in light of the criticism.

If a 'reasonable response' to what you wrote WOULD BE to 'clarify', then what do you think my two CLARIFYING QUESTIONS were EXACTLY, if they were NOT done 'to clarify'?

The remark wasn't a criticism of your response immediately above. It was an explanation why my remark was fine as is, in light of what you would have preferred my remark to be.

Gertie wrote
I agree scientific materialism doesn't explain the existence of phenomenal experience, but neither does phenomenology.

The meaning of words like this are systematically reassigned, and you would have read what is done with them to see this. The existence of phenomenal experience? Sartre put it, existence precedes essence, which means unlike fence posts and coffee cups, we have choices to be what we are, but notice the painful term "are". In general science, "are" is, in the final analysis, substance or physicality or material, and while in certain quarters there may be distinctions (I don't know of any, and I care not, really) between these terms, they are not given analysis at all as to distinctions in meaning, for they don't really mean anything at all. It's like a a stopping place where meaning runs out and empirical science has to stay within its prerogatives. One does not "observe" substance. One observes phenomena.

Onewya to look at the complaint I am pursuing here is to see this terminus as entirely reconceived. Existence is not a general term for bodies in space and time independent of the perception. The existence of phenomenal experience is divided, if you look to Heidegger. Existential refers to basic ontology, describing the structure of dasein (dasein is his term for human existence), where "existentiell"refers to the existence we make of ourselves in life, a teacher, a husband, a human rights activist and so on. This is our facticity. Facts, on the other hand are, as I understand his term, what science deals with, the moon having a certain mass and the like, predicatively formed actualities, Husserl called them.

You might notice that this kind of thinking puts terms like substance out of the terminal position. What now has this position is hermeneutics, which comes from an "existential" analysis human dasein.

Scientific materialism doesn't describe what the ''stuff of phenomenal experience'' is. Does phenomenology?

See above. The term "stuff" is, I suspect, a vernacular term equivalent to material substance and the rest, right? Or, does it refer to Heideggerian Being? You see, H's bottom line is what he calls a equiprimoridality: phenomena are not reducible to anything, do not have a revealed foundation; in fact, you could say the foundation is that there is no foundation, thereby lifting UP to their proper place the irrational dimensions of our existence; all are equal against a standard of phenomenological ontology. BUT, he thinks some things are more primordial than others (??). For a working out of this contradiction you would have to read more deeply into the texts. Derrida comes along and says Heidegger is in violation of his own equiprimordiality, while Heidegger's issue with Husserl was similar: the Hermeneutic (remember the god Hermes, a messenger of the gods bringing word from beyond) foundation for all knowledge claims does not yield to some "intuition" about being. Hermes is all about circulation within Being-in-the-world. this is a closed system, given what history, culture, personal can contribute, but an open system given the freedom one has standing at the precipice of future possibilities.

Scientific materialism doesn't describe Laws of phenomenal experience. Does phenomenology?

Laws? Ontologically, the term is an historically constructed interpretation is brought to bear on cetain contexts of human dasein's being in the world. Language is the house of Being

Scientific materialism doesn't explain Agency. Does phenomenology?

Of course scientific materialism explains Agency. It's just a bad explanation.

This is an actively debated issue. You know, Sartre infamously held that we are an agency of nothingness. He is derivative of Heidegger, who is derivative of Kierkegaard, who believed this was where the soul and God stand in a structure of positing spirit. Heidegger stays close to phenomenological prerogatives: what is there, before me. Me and mine are apperceptive concepts as with all concepts. He does not, though, give any reified designation to the egoic center. there is no transcendental ego for Heidegger, nor is there transcendence, a meaningful reaching beyond language. There is me an mine, the stamp dasein's ownness. He gets this no doubt from Kant Transcendental Unity of Apperception, the "I" that is inherent in what makes experiences mine, not yours.

Scientific materialism doesn't explain what makes the experience of seeing red, different to seeing blue, or remembering or imagining red, or thinking about red with our internal narrative voice. Nor the differences of the other types of sensory perceptions, different types of sensations, emotions, etc. Does phenomenology?

Doesn't it? Science tells us light is disbursed in a spectrum of wavelengths, which are

But as to qualia, the "what it is like to taste a specific apple, this particular apple now," the given, there is no way out of this: it is hermeneutically conceived. It is particle of language that was born in contexts of historical problem solving. No chicken, no egg; chickens and eggs are the same derivative structured concepts. When we use this term to conceive of a languageless presence, we do so in language. Even Being is such a term, bound to constructed meanings worked out in history.

Scientific materialism notes a correlation between experiential states and certain physical processes ('the neural correlatrs of consciousness'), but can't explain the mind-body relationship. Does phenomenology?

Phenomenology recognizes such debates, and if they are confined to empirical discussions, wishes them well. Obviously. brains are associated with experience and only a fool would deny it. But mind and body are hermeneutically meaningful only. Someone like Rorty causes a lot of friction in his claim that truth conditions are essentially and without exception pragmatic will say, yes, science rules on this, and he is a monist, a materialist, but beneath such claims is Wittgenstein: such utterances are confined to rational structures of thought and these are never about what is beyond these structures. A very closed system.

Are there other things the methodology of phenomenology tells us which scientific materialism doesn't?

You would have to start reading. For me, it liberates our conception about what it means to be human, for, and this varies among continental philosophers, the irrational parts that have been discounted as that which confounds reason and its categories, discounted in the spirit of clarity of thought, are released from the dogmatic hold science would place on them. Science is factual, reality is not reducible to what is factual. Reality is OPEN, and in this openness, there is a kind of truth that is NOT propositional (though there is no avoiding this in conceiving it), but revelatory.

Faustus5 wrote
You know the answer to this question already—just look at what normal, sane people actually do. When they want to know what is the case about a disease, they turn to a medical professional. When they want to know what is the case about their car not running, they go to a car mechanic. When they want to know what is the case about the natural world, they ask an appropriate scientist.

Things are more complicated when it comes to ethical or aesthetic issues, because those by their very nature are not always things about which we can form a consensus and turn to reliable experts. But that’s okay. The vast majority of us get by just fine.

Of course, if you're read anything I wrote, you will see that I agree with every word you say here. I would simply add, if you want to know about a philosophical issue, go to a continental philosopher. You know, I just wrote Gertie a few paragraphs on the way I see things and perhaps you could give it a glance.

The "natural world" is not the issue and I leave that to science entirely.

There can never be a serious question asked about the “nature of all things” because that question is hopelessly vague to the point of being utterly meaningless. The best response is that there is literally no such thing as the “nature of all things”. Serious questions depend on specificity.

Ahh, but you are so close. Hopelessly vague? Well, if one's idea of what the final ontology would be issues from a naturalistic view, then will find that vagueness is somehow built into the very conditions observation and problem solving that underlie observations of nature. It is not nature but the business of taking IN nature, that bottom line description of the, if you will, manufacturing plant that produces perceptual possibilities to even have perceptions at all. It is NOT as if this is untouchable analytically. Exactly the opposite is true. the specificity you are looking for lies in Being and Time, And totality and Infinity, and Being and Nothingness, and on and on. Now, you may find these titles off putting, understandably, but so what?

There is a very good reason Rorty thought Heidegger to be one of the three greatest philosophers of the 20th century. They are, in important ways, cut from the same cloth.

Science dominates all discourse about the natural world, and this is how it should be. Philosophy stopped having a meaningful contribution to such discourse long before we were born.

I suppose you could say science should and does have something to say about moral or aesthetic issues, but pretty much all philosophers understand that its contributions are very limited there, though of course folks debate about where the borders should be.

My point is that people are smart enough to know when science is the right tool to use to solve or discuss a problem, and when it is inappropriate. There is no problem of science having an unjustified hegemony over issues where it has nothing valid to say. Your entire thread is premised on a made up issue.

By the way, I would never deny that some scientists or philosophers have gone too far in thinking they could apply scientific reasoning or techniques to subjects, or that they have mistakenly denied that philosophy had something to contribute when in fact it does. We'd have to look at this issue by issue. All I am denying is that there is a widespread problem of people doing this. There is not.

Several things. One is that the natural world is not the issue here, at all, unless, that is, you want to reassign the term "natural". As to ethics, the matter comes down to the essence of ethics, that is, what makes ethics, ethics! this too is analyzable philosophically, apriori. This is THE philosophical issue for me, the way value, the essence, or an essential part of, ethics, is at once, embedded in experience, all experience (I follow Dewey on this, in a limited way) and unavailable for scientific inspection. I am referring to metaethics, metavalue, the irrational part of our being in the world that is the material basis for the meaning in things; not the dictionary meanings, but "value" meaning, the importance of importance, if you will. Or, as Neil DeGrasse Tyson put it, I think disparagingly, the meaning of meaning. This is not Heidegger's interpretative dawin but the "aesthesis" of living and breathing.

Look, the issue I have put on the table is more fundamental than you describe it. This is certainly by no means something that "people" are smart enough about. They are in fact so ignorant about phenomenological ontology that they don't even know it exists. They've never read or heard of Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger. They have been processed through a public education system that provides knowledge in basic sciences and are told implicitly or explicitly that this is what human knowledge IS, and beyond this, there is only religious faith, which is explained by the church which has a long history of really bad metaphysics, which, again, implicitly or explicity works its way into people's thinking. God the father, son and holy spirit? What IS that? People are thoughtless sheep when it comes to thinking about such things, or anything, for that matter, at the basic level, so please, do not place the validity of a philosophical perspective in the hands of people. The idea is patently absurd.

With regard to the "widespread problem" I am referring to the absence of serious consideration of any talk at all about the foundation of knowledge, the meaning of meaning, and the philosophical issues of phenomenology due to a lack of this alternative in people's basic vocabularies. They don't know, or concern themselves, that there has been a monumental paradigm shift in the process of religion's demise, and where not at all long ago, science was tempered by a implicit religious faith, now there is a rising NOTHING to give the irrational part of our existence interpretative meaning at the level of basic questions. This is overwhelmingly evident in your and other responses in the thread. And analytic philosophy merely encourages this, treating metaethics, metavalue as a curiosity easily dismissable.

Public religions are dangerous things. But this has nothing to do with the existential religiousness as a part of the structure of experience itself. to understand what this means, you would have to read about it. No reading, no understanding. to dismiss it, well, from afar, outside the reading is just perverse. Alas, high schools don't teach phenomenology, they teach physics, not phenomenology. And you think there are no scientific prejudices built into the person on the street's thinking??

You are making things up. No serious, respected thinker in the entire history of Western philosophy has ever claimed something so silly.

You have not read Wittgenstein or Kant. You have not read Rorty. You have not read analytic philosophy if you say this. Scientific models fill these philosophical worlds!! What are they saying? They say, we must confine ourselves in making discoveries about the world to empirical science. Beyond this there is no sense to be made! the philosophy of mind: talk about C fibers firing; epistemology: establishing causal connections between the knower and the known (see Gettier); the philosophy of language: see Quine and radical translation, which has been interpreted by some as behavioristic; Quine was very clear about his devotion to empirical science.

Prove me wrong.

We turn to science when we want “foundational understanding” of the natural world. There is no sense in which a philosophical exercise conducted from the safety of the armchair is going to provide something deeper than this, though philosophers like to fool themselves into thinking otherwise. That’s why no one pays attention to them.

Well, clearly YOU don't pay attention to them, read them, that is.

Is that what WE do? Oh, you mean philosophers with the right view, the ones you just said have no truck with the idea that "Analytic philosophy IS an implicit endorsement of scientific paradigms to address all questions."

????????????????????????

The more I read about Heidegger, the less I get it. He thinks that philosophy is merely about our individual experience of being and what follows from it, and that's it? By itself, I wouldn't even file that under philosophy.

My impression of Heidegger is that it's important to understand that:

(a) supposedly the first philosophy book he read as a kid, and it had a big impact on him, was Franz Brentano's On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle
and
(b) he was a student of Husserl and initially was very strongly influenced by him

I think the Brentano book led to him thinking "I'm going to sort out the 'correct sense of 'being'' once and for all," where he was shooting for something more pragmatic, but he had a very convoluted way of going about that, and his eventual break from Husserl's influence came by way of rejecting what he saw as some of the idealistic implications of Husserl's phenomenological method . . . and then he conflated the two into one project.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Well, if one's idea of what the final ontology would be issues from a naturalistic view, then will find that vagueness is somehow built into the very conditions observation and problem solving that underlie observations of nature.

The only “final ontology” I have any respect for or interest in is what we get from physics and cosmology. I deny that there is anything any philosopher can provide that is somehow deeper or more profound.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Exactly the opposite is true. the specificity you are looking for lies in Being and Time, And totality and Infinity, and Being and Nothingness, and on and on. Now, you may find these titles off putting, understandably, but so what?

I submit to you that no philosophical discourse of any sort that trucks in “Being and Time, totality and infinity, Being and Nothingness” will produce a single thing that is of genuine usefulness to anyone other than people who like to play those kinds of word games and fool themselves into thinking they are actually saying something.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

There is a very good reason Rorty thought Heidegger to be one of the three greatest philosophers of the 20th century. They are, in important ways, cut from the same cloth.

Well I’ll take Rorty over Heidegger any day of the week. At least Rorty didn’t have to invent goofy, esoteric word games to make his points. His philosophy was always grounded in ordinary reality described in plain, understandable language.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

They don't know, or concern themselves, that there has been a monumental paradigm shift in the process of religion's demise, and where not at all long ago, science was tempered by a implicit religious faith, now there is a rising NOTHING to give the irrational part of our existence interpretative meaning at the level of basic questions.

Probably because there is literally no need for it. You’re inventing a problem that just doesn’t exist for the rest of us.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Alas, high schools don't teach phenomenology, they teach physics, not phenomenology.

And I approve of this. I wouldn’t want high schools teaching a highly questionable and obscure doctrine of philosophy when they could be teach something of value.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

You have not read Wittgenstein or Kant. You have not read Rorty.

Excuse me, cupcake, but Wittgenstein (post-Tractatus, anyway) and Rorty are two of my favorite philosophers. I’ve actually read every book Rorty wrote at least twice (excepting the one or two that were strictly about politics). They have profoundly shaped my views.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Prove me wrong.

Burden of proof is on you: find me any respected Western philosopher who has ever said that science can solve “all questions”.

We both know you never will, so why did you make up something so completely ridiculous?

by Terrapin Station

by evolution

If a 'reasonable response' to what you wrote WOULD BE to 'clarify', then what do you think my two CLARIFYING QUESTIONS were EXACTLY, if they were NOT done 'to clarify'?

The remark wasn't a criticism of your response immediately above. It was an explanation why my remark was fine as is, in light of what you would have preferred my remark to be.

Okay. But what is 'fine' and what is a 'reasonable response' is relative. Anyone, therefore, could very easily and very simply say that 'a reasonable response' is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you think is, and the one which you have come up with here.

For example, to some, your response was NOT 'to clarify' at all. And, this would be a VERY 'reasonable' perception, and response, indeed, especially considering what you did ACTUALLY write and say.

Besides this, all I was pointing out was that you NEVER actually asked a clarifying question at all in that post, which can be CLEARLY SEEN. Although you made the remark that you do not ever really know what that person is on about, from my perspective you do not actually WANT TO KNOW. As I have suggested previously that if you really do want to know what another person is on about, then just them some CLARIFYING QUESTION. It really is just that SIMPLE.

To me, you were NOT trying to clarify NOR better flesh out/connect the bits you quoted at all, as evidenced by what you wrote. From my perspective, all you were doing was just expressing your OWN views. Again, I suggest that if you are Truly interested in learning and knowing what another is really 'on about', then just ask them some clarifying questions.

by evolution

Okay. But what is 'fine' and what is a 'reasonable response' is relative. Anyone, therefore, could very easily and very simply say that 'a reasonable response' is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you think is, and the one which you have come up with here.

Sure. Whenever we're dealing with subjective stuff someone can have an alternative assessment. Is there a reason we'd need to point out something so obvious?

by Terrapin Station

by evolution

Okay. But what is 'fine' and what is a 'reasonable response' is relative. Anyone, therefore, could very easily and very simply say that 'a reasonable response' is the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you think is, and the one which you have come up with here.

Sure. Whenever we're dealing with subjective stuff someone can have an alternative assessment.

Great, this is the first time I have seen you admit this.

Now, when we are dealing with words, which is just about ALL of the time in discussions, will you now OPENLY admit that words, themselves, can have 'an alternative assessment'?

If yes, then great.

But if no, then the exact same issue remains when discussing, with 'you'. That is; you remain BELIEVING that 'your' assessment of words and what they mean is the one and only actual meaning.

by Terrapin Station

Is there a reason we'd need to point out something so obvious?

Yes. The reason I needed to point out that what you claimed was a "reasonable response" was in fact NOT a 'reasonable claim' to make at all was to highlight the tendency you have to BELIEVE that your OWN assessment of things is the only actual True and Right one.

From my perspective, a Truly 'reasoned' response to what you wrote was: You were NOT trying "to clarify and better flesh out/connect the bits" you quoted, from that person at all.

This can be EVIDENCED and PROVEN by the way you used the words you used, from my perspective of things. That was all.

by evolution

Great, this is the first time I have seen you admit this.

Now, when we are dealing with words, which is just about ALL of the time in discussions, will you now OPENLY admit that words, themselves, can have 'an alternative assessment'?

If yes, then great.

But if no, then the exact same issue remains when discussing, with 'you'. That is; you remain BELIEVING that 'your' assessment of words and what they mean is the one and only actual meaning.

How in the world can you have interacted with me as much as you have, and in general seen my posts as much as you have, while thinking that I'd say anything in the vein of "one and only actual meaning"?

I'm the "meaning (and ethics and aesthetics and truth and on and on) is subjective" guy. How have you not noticed that yet?

by Terrapin Station

Is there a reason we'd need to point out something so obvious?

Yes. The reason I needed to point out that what you claimed was a "reasonable response" was in fact NOT a 'reasonable claim' to make at all

It is in my view obviously. But such things are subjective. There aren't correct answers. People will give their subjective view. Duh.

by Terrapin Station

by evolution

Great, this is the first time I have seen you admit this.

Now, when we are dealing with words, which is just about ALL of the time in discussions, will you now OPENLY admit that words, themselves, can have 'an alternative assessment'?

If yes, then great.

But if no, then the exact same issue remains when discussing, with 'you'. That is; you remain BELIEVING that 'your' assessment of words and what they mean is the one and only actual meaning.

How in the world can you have interacted with me as much as you have, and in general seen my posts as much as you have, while thinking that I'd say anything in the vein of "one and only actual meaning"?

How?

Through the actual words that you use.

For example, your words; "Yet" would make no sense if the "synonymous with 'eternal'" connotation were being used. Reveals that you are NOT open to ANY thing, which could make sense.

From your OWN words you have said that the use of the word, "Yet", in the place that it was in, in that scenario, would "make NO sense". Therefore, if it would "make NO sense", to you, then there is absolutely NOTHING I nor ANY one else could say to show you otherwise, correct?

by Terrapin Station

I'm the "meaning (and ethics and aesthetics and truth and on and on) is subjective" guy. How have you not noticed that yet?

I have seen you say this, but I have not seen you, always, follow through with this.

From my perspective, you appear to quite often say things could NOT make sense, because of the words being used.

Whereas, if you were really an actual "definitions and meanings are Truly subjective, guy", then you would appear far MORE OPEN to, at least, trying to understand and make sense of what others are saying, AND meaning, well from my perspective anyway.

by Terrapin Station

Yes. The reason I needed to point out that what you claimed was a "reasonable response" was in fact NOT a 'reasonable claim' to make at all

It is in my view obviously. But such things are subjective. There aren't correct answers. People will give their subjective view. Duh.

So, when you say things like; "A reasonable response to what I wrote would be ...", then, what you are now suggesting is that what you just referred to as being a 'reasonable response' is in fact NOT an actual 'reasonable response' at all, but just a 'reasonable response', from your SUBJECTIVE view, only?


By the way, you informing others of what a 'reasonable response' IS, in regards to what you have previously written, could be expressed far more pleasantly as, "What I was actually meaning was ...", instead.

SEE, readers do NOT have the ability to look at and see things in your writings, from the 'reasoned' perspective that obviously you are thee only ONE is privy to.

By the way I find all of these diversionary tactics completely unnecessary, especially considering how easy it would have been to just answer Honestly these two very simple and very straightforward OPEN clarifying questions I asked you:

Did it ever occur to you to just ask a CLARIFYING QUESTION?

Or, are you REALLY not that interested in BETTER UNDERSTANDING the "other's" view/s here?

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Gertie wrote
I agree scientific materialism doesn't explain the existence of phenomenal experience, but neither does phenomenology.

The meaning of words like this are systematically reassigned, and you would have read what is done with them to see this. The existence of phenomenal experience? Sartre put it, existence precedes essence, which means unlike fence posts and coffee cups, we have choices to be what we are, but notice the painful term "are". In general science, "are" is, in the final analysis, substance or physicality or material, and while in certain quarters there may be distinctions (I don't know of any, and I care not, really) between these terms, they are not given analysis at all as to distinctions in meaning, for they don't really mean anything at all. It's like a a stopping place where meaning runs out and empirical science has to stay within its prerogatives. One does not "observe" substance. One observes phenomena.

Onewya to look at the complaint I am pursuing here is to see this terminus as entirely reconceived. Existence is not a general term for bodies in space and time independent of the perception. The existence of phenomenal experience is divided, if you look to Heidegger. Existential refers to basic ontology, describing the structure of dasein (dasein is his term for human existence), where "existentiell"refers to the existence we make of ourselves in life, a teacher, a husband, a human rights activist and so on. This is our facticity. Facts, on the other hand are, as I understand his term, what science deals with, the moon having a certain mass and the like, predicatively formed actualities, Husserl called them.

You might notice that this kind of thinking puts terms like substance out of the terminal position. What now has this position is hermeneutics, which comes from an "existential" analysis human dasein.

Scientific materialism doesn't describe what the ''stuff of phenomenal experience'' is. Does phenomenology?

See above. The term "stuff" is, I suspect, a vernacular term equivalent to material substance and the rest, right? Or, does it refer to Heideggerian Being? You see, H's bottom line is what he calls a equiprimoridality: phenomena are not reducible to anything, do not have a revealed foundation; in fact, you could say the foundation is that there is no foundation, thereby lifting UP to their proper place the irrational dimensions of our existence; all are equal against a standard of phenomenological ontology. BUT, he thinks some things are more primordial than others (??). For a working out of this contradiction you would have to read more deeply into the texts. Derrida comes along and says Heidegger is in violation of his own equiprimordiality, while Heidegger's issue with Husserl was similar: the Hermeneutic (remember the god Hermes, a messenger of the gods bringing word from beyond) foundation for all knowledge claims does not yield to some "intuition" about being. Hermes is all about circulation within Being-in-the-world. this is a closed system, given what history, culture, personal can contribute, but an open system given the freedom one has standing at the precipice of future possibilities.

Scientific materialism doesn't describe Laws of phenomenal experience. Does phenomenology?

Laws? Ontologically, the term is an historically constructed interpretation is brought to bear on cetain contexts of human dasein's being in the world. Language is the house of Being

Scientific materialism doesn't explain Agency. Does phenomenology?

Of course scientific materialism explains Agency. It's just a bad explanation.

This is an actively debated issue. You know, Sartre infamously held that we are an agency of nothingness. He is derivative of Heidegger, who is derivative of Kierkegaard, who believed this was where the soul and God stand in a structure of positing spirit. Heidegger stays close to phenomenological prerogatives: what is there, before me. Me and mine are apperceptive concepts as with all concepts. He does not, though, give any reified designation to the egoic center. there is no transcendental ego for Heidegger, nor is there transcendence, a meaningful reaching beyond language. There is me an mine, the stamp dasein's ownness. He gets this no doubt from Kant Transcendental Unity of Apperception, the "I" that is inherent in what makes experiences mine, not yours.

Scientific materialism doesn't explain what makes the experience of seeing red, different to seeing blue, or remembering or imagining red, or thinking about red with our internal narrative voice. Nor the differences of the other types of sensory perceptions, different types of sensations, emotions, etc. Does phenomenology?

Doesn't it? Science tells us light is disbursed in a spectrum of wavelengths, which are

But as to qualia, the "what it is like to taste a specific apple, this particular apple now," the given, there is no way out of this: it is hermeneutically conceived. It is particle of language that was born in contexts of historical problem solving. No chicken, no egg; chickens and eggs are the same derivative structured concepts. When we use this term to conceive of a languageless presence, we do so in language. Even Being is such a term, bound to constructed meanings worked out in history.

Scientific materialism notes a correlation between experiential states and certain physical processes ('the neural correlatrs of consciousness'), but can't explain the mind-body relationship. Does phenomenology?

Phenomenology recognizes such debates, and if they are confined to empirical discussions, wishes them well. Obviously. brains are associated with experience and only a fool would deny it. But mind and body are hermeneutically meaningful only. Someone like Rorty causes a lot of friction in his claim that truth conditions are essentially and without exception pragmatic will say, yes, science rules on this, and he is a monist, a materialist, but beneath such claims is Wittgenstein: such utterances are confined to rational structures of thought and these are never about what is beyond these structures. A very closed system.

Are there other things the methodology of phenomenology tells us which scientific materialism doesn't?

You would have to start reading. For me, it liberates our conception about what it means to be human, for, and this varies among continental philosophers, the irrational parts that have been discounted as that which confounds reason and its categories, discounted in the spirit of clarity of thought, are released from the dogmatic hold science would place on them. Science is factual, reality is not reducible to what is factual. Reality is OPEN, and in this openness, there is a kind of truth that is NOT propositional (though there is no avoiding this in conceiving it), but revelatory.

Would it be fair to characterise phenomenology as the study of what it is like to be a human?

And sees the project of trying to know what anything else is, as inevitably interpretive and therefore dependent on how humans interpret?

by evolution

How?

Through the actual words that you use . . .

Yikes. That x is subjective doesn't imply that S has no stance or opinion on x. And it doesn't imply that S doesn't very strongly feel however they do on x. You're making the same error that objectivists make in attempting to understand subjectivism, yet you're supposed to be a subjectivist.

if it would "make NO sense", to you, then there is absolutely NOTHING I nor ANY one else could say to show you otherwise, correct?

No, that's not correct. You could explain how it makes sense to you, and I might be convinced that it could make sense. You'd have to do the heavy lifting there, of course.

by Terrapin Station

I'm the "meaning (and ethics and aesthetics and truth and on and on) is subjective" guy. How have you not noticed that yet?

I have seen you say this, but I have not seen you, always, follow through with this.

You apparently misunderstand the implications of it, akin to an objectivist, which is curious.

So, when you say things like; "A reasonable response to what I wrote would be ...", then, what you are now suggesting is that what you just referred to as being a 'reasonable response' is in fact NOT an actual 'reasonable response' at all, but just a 'reasonable response', from your SUBJECTIVE view, only?I

If you think there's an "in fact 'reasonable response'" and not just such a thing in someone's subjective view, then you're no subjectivist.

"There's an 'in fact 'reasonable response''" is objectivism.

by Gertie

by 🐉 Hereandnow

The meaning of words like this are systematically reassigned, and you would have read what is done with them to see this. The existence of phenomenal experience? Sartre put it, existence precedes essence, which means unlike fence posts and coffee cups, we have choices to be what we are, but notice the painful term "are". In general science, "are" is, in the final analysis, substance or physicality or material, and while in certain quarters there may be distinctions (I don't know of any, and I care not, really) between these terms, they are not given analysis at all as to distinctions in meaning, for they don't really mean anything at all. It's like a a stopping place where meaning runs out and empirical science has to stay within its prerogatives. One does not "observe" substance. One observes phenomena.

Onewya to look at the complaint I am pursuing here is to see this terminus as entirely reconceived. Existence is not a general term for bodies in space and time independent of the perception. The existence of phenomenal experience is divided, if you look to Heidegger. Existential refers to basic ontology, describing the structure of dasein (dasein is his term for human existence), where "existentiell"refers to the existence we make of ourselves in life, a teacher, a husband, a human rights activist and so on. This is our facticity. Facts, on the other hand are, as I understand his term, what science deals with, the moon having a certain mass and the like, predicatively formed actualities, Husserl called them.

You might notice that this kind of thinking puts terms like substance out of the terminal position. What now has this position is hermeneutics, which comes from an "existential" analysis human dasein.



See above. The term "stuff" is, I suspect, a vernacular term equivalent to material substance and the rest, right? Or, does it refer to Heideggerian Being? You see, H's bottom line is what he calls a equiprimoridality: phenomena are not reducible to anything, do not have a revealed foundation; in fact, you could say the foundation is that there is no foundation, thereby lifting UP to their proper place the irrational dimensions of our existence; all are equal against a standard of phenomenological ontology. BUT, he thinks some things are more primordial than others (??). For a working out of this contradiction you would have to read more deeply into the texts. Derrida comes along and says Heidegger is in violation of his own equiprimordiality, while Heidegger's issue with Husserl was similar: the Hermeneutic (remember the god Hermes, a messenger of the gods bringing word from beyond) foundation for all knowledge claims does not yield to some "intuition" about being. Hermes is all about circulation within Being-in-the-world. this is a closed system, given what history, culture, personal can contribute, but an open system given the freedom one has standing at the precipice of future possibilities.

Laws? Ontologically, the term is an historically constructed interpretation is brought to bear on cetain contexts of human dasein's being in the world. Language is the house of Being


Of course scientific materialism explains Agency. It's just a bad explanation.

This is an actively debated issue. You know, Sartre infamously held that we are an agency of nothingness. He is derivative of Heidegger, who is derivative of Kierkegaard, who believed this was where the soul and God stand in a structure of positing spirit. Heidegger stays close to phenomenological prerogatives: what is there, before me. Me and mine are apperceptive concepts as with all concepts. He does not, though, give any reified designation to the egoic center. there is no transcendental ego for Heidegger, nor is there transcendence, a meaningful reaching beyond language. There is me an mine, the stamp dasein's ownness. He gets this no doubt from Kant Transcendental Unity of Apperception, the "I" that is inherent in what makes experiences mine, not yours.



Doesn't it? Science tells us light is disbursed in a spectrum of wavelengths, which are

But as to qualia, the "what it is like to taste a specific apple, this particular apple now," the given, there is no way out of this: it is hermeneutically conceived. It is particle of language that was born in contexts of historical problem solving. No chicken, no egg; chickens and eggs are the same derivative structured concepts. When we use this term to conceive of a languageless presence, we do so in language. Even Being is such a term, bound to constructed meanings worked out in history.



Phenomenology recognizes such debates, and if they are confined to empirical discussions, wishes them well. Obviously. brains are associated with experience and only a fool would deny it. But mind and body are hermeneutically meaningful only. Someone like Rorty causes a lot of friction in his claim that truth conditions are essentially and without exception pragmatic will say, yes, science rules on this, and he is a monist, a materialist, but beneath such claims is Wittgenstein: such utterances are confined to rational structures of thought and these are never about what is beyond these structures. A very closed system.




You would have to start reading. For me, it liberates our conception about what it means to be human, for, and this varies among continental philosophers, the irrational parts that have been discounted as that which confounds reason and its categories, discounted in the spirit of clarity of thought, are released from the dogmatic hold science would place on them. Science is factual, reality is not reducible to what is factual. Reality is OPEN, and in this openness, there is a kind of truth that is NOT propositional (though there is no avoiding this in conceiving it), but revelatory.

Would it be fair to characterise phenomenology as the study of what it is like to be a human?

And sees the project of trying to know what anything else is, as inevitably interpretive and therefore dependent on how humans interpret?

And if so, can you briefly list the main conclusions this methodology comes to.

by Terrapin Station

by evolution

How?

Through the actual words that you use . . .

Yikes. That x is subjective doesn't imply that S has no stance or opinion on x. And it doesn't imply that S doesn't very strongly feel however they do on x. You're making the same error that objectivists make in attempting to understand subjectivism, yet you're supposed to be a subjectivist.

Or, could I be writing in a way to make you ASSUME and/or BELIEVE some things.

See, I specifically and purposely used those very words, because, if you EVER began asking me CLARIFYING QUESTIONS I could and would back them up with supporting evidence AND proof.

But knowing that you would just make ASSUMPTIONS instead of ASKING CLARIFYING QUESTIONS FIRST, I can now suggest to you that instead of making ASSUMPTIONS, which are CLEARLY OBVIOUSLY WRONG, you just ask me clarifying question first.

That way you can NOT be as WRONG as you have been continually SHOWING you actually ARE.

by Terrapin Station

if it would "make NO sense", to you, then there is absolutely NOTHING I nor ANY one else could say to show you otherwise, correct?

No, that's not correct. You could explain how it makes sense to you,

I COULD explain how it makes sense to me. But you CLEARLY WROTE that it "would make NO sense", anyway. I have find that if it WOULD make NO sense, to you, as you say it WOULD, then there is NO use in explaining it, to you.

by Terrapin Station

and I might be convinced that it could make sense.

When you use words that do NOT convey that you are SO CLOSED, then I might consider explaining things, to you. Until then I have NO real interest.

by Terrapin Station

You'd have to do the heavy lifting there, of course.

What is this meant to mean or imply?

I am, literally, just using words, which, literally, weigh absolutely NOTHING AT ALL.

Also, unlike you, EVERY thing I say, and mean, can be backed up and supported with actual EVIDENCE and PROOF.

by Terrapin Station

I have seen you say this, but I have not seen you, always, follow through with this.

You apparently misunderstand the implications of it, akin to an objectivist, which is curious.

WHY have you turned this into an 'ist' thing?

You are completely and utterly incapable of defining and clearing up what you actually mean, in a way that could be agreed with by "others", so WHY go down this path?

By the way, you say 'this' "is curious", but STILL you can NOT bring yourself to ask just even ONE clarifying question here.

by Terrapin Station

So, when you say things like; "A reasonable response to what I wrote would be ...", then, what you are now suggesting is that what you just referred to as being a 'reasonable response' is in fact NOT an actual 'reasonable response' at all, but just a 'reasonable response', from your SUBJECTIVE view, only?I

If you think there's an "in fact 'reasonable response'" and not just such a thing in someone's subjective view, then you're no subjectivist.

I have NEVER even implied that I was, let alone said that I was.

These are just MORE EXAMPLES of you making ASSUMPTIONS, which, AGAIN, just end up being totally, completely and utterly WRONG.

by Terrapin Station

"There's an 'in fact 'reasonable response''" is objectivism.

Are you even slightly AWARE that all I was doing was just HIGHLIGHTING and POINTING OUT that it is 'you' who has the tendency to write in a, "this is the fact" way.

This is backed up and supported by the CLEARLY WRITTEN WORDS above.

by evolution

I COULD explain how it makes sense to me. But you CLEARLY WROTE that it "would make NO sense", anyway. I have find that if it WOULD make NO sense, to you, as you say it WOULD, then there is NO use in explaining it, to you.

Forget about making assumptions. I just explicitly explained to you that the above is not the case (that there would be no use in explaining it), yet you're persisting in the misconception.

I'm not encouraging your tendency to post increasingly longer rants, so that's it for this one.

by Terrapin Station

by evolution

I COULD explain how it makes sense to me. But you CLEARLY WROTE that it "would make NO sense", anyway. I have find that if it WOULD make NO sense, to you, as you say it WOULD, then there is NO use in explaining it, to you.

Forget about making assumptions. I just explicitly explained to you that the above is not the case (that there would be no use in explaining it), yet you're persisting in the misconception.

Is what you wrote here what you REALLY meant?

by Terrapin Station

I'm not encouraging your tendency to post increasingly longer rants, so that's it for this one.

You have a GREAT tendency to use diversionary tactics and/or just leave when what I am saying is REVEALING just to much, about 'you', for your liking.

by evolution

by Terrapin Station

Forget about making assumptions. I just explicitly explained to you that the above is not the case (that there would be no use in explaining it), yet you're persisting in the misconception.

Is what you wrote here what you REALLY meant?

Yes. Maybe the "not the case . . . no use" phrasing wasn't clear to you? Some people have trouble parsing multiple "negatives."

You have a GREAT tendency to use diversionary tactics and/or just leave when what I am saying is REVEALING just to much, about 'you', for your liking.

I hate and have always hated when people start to type increasingly longer posts each round, where they tend to launch into lecturing, etc. rather than back and forths with an aim of being productive and settling things. I've explained this many times. The longer your posts get, the bigger the percentage of them that will be ignored by me, whatever they say (I don't know, because I don't actually read increasingly long posts). That there's a tendency for people to do this on message boards is one of the worst things about the format in my opinion.

by Terrapin Station

by evolution

Is what you wrote here what you REALLY meant?

Yes. Maybe the "not the case . . . no use" phrasing wasn't clear to you?

And, maybe that part was ABSOLUTELY CLEAR.

by Terrapin Station

Some people have trouble parsing multiple "negatives."

And, some people, some times, do NOT.

Now, so if that is what you REALLY meant, then what you "explicitly explain" and what you 'actually do' and are 'actually capable of doing' can be two completely very different things. As PROVEN by what you have written, and claim, and by the way you can and can NOT comprehend things.

Also, if what you wrote is REALLY what you meant, then you agree with me (that there would be no use in explaining it). So, that ends that.

by Terrapin Station

You have a GREAT tendency to use diversionary tactics and/or just leave when what I am saying is REVEALING just to much, about 'you', for your liking.

I hate and have always hated when people start to type increasingly longer posts each round, where they tend to launch into lecturing, etc. rather than back and forths with an aim of being productive and settling things.

Well, I suggest to help to decrease what you HATE, then STOP doing what 'you', "your" 'self', HATE.

If instead of writing as though what you say and write is the absolutely TRUTH, and you wrote, and spoke, in a far more OPEN and INQUIRING way, of at least trying to understand what the other is saying and makes sense to them, then this would actual be productive in actually settling things.

Have you EVER considered that what it is that you HATE so much, is actually the VERY THING that 'you', "yourself", do?

What will be found is that whenever any one gets angry or hates what the "other" is doing, then it is ALWAYS because of what thy 'self' is actually doing.

But, you are still a long, long way off from learning about, and understanding, this.

By the way, if you want to be listened to FULLY, then you have to speak thee actual Truth of things, and NOT do what you have just done here.

Further to this, if you are REALLY serious about being productive and settling things, (which is just your way of saying, "You are NOT agreeing with me and my views", so it is YOU who is NOT being productive and not settling things), then just say, what NEEDS to be settled. And, would I be wrong that what NEEDS to be settled here, from your perspective, is that the respondents end up agreeing with your claims about what is true, right, and correct?

If no, then what does actually NEED to be settled here?

by Terrapin Station

I've explained this many times.

And so what?

Are you expecting others to bow down to you, because you "hate" what they do?

by Terrapin Station

The longer your posts get, the bigger the percentage of them that will be ignored by me, whatever they say (I don't know, because I don't actually read increasingly long posts).

I ABSOLUTELY CERTAINLY DO NOT CARE.

This is because of the VERY REASON that I am writing for.

Also, this is one great EXCUSE for when you do NOT want to ACKNOWLEDGE when you have been SHOWN TO BE WRONG, nor when you do NOT want to CLARIFY what you actually mean, because if you were to do this, then that would contradict your original claim.

by Terrapin Station

[That there's a tendency for people to do this on message boards is one of the worst things about the format in my opinion.

Okay. Some would say your insistence that what you say and claim is irrefutable and/or immovable is one of the worst things human beings can do, in message boards like this one. Some also HATE when people like 'you' do this. So, does this mean that you are going to change your ways at all?

Some also hate the fact that some people consider it their right to talk about absolutely ANY thing in threads, which have absolutely NOTHING AT ALL to do with the original post. But each to their own, others will say.

by evolution

If instead of writing as though what you say and write is the absolutely TRUTH, and you wrote, and spoke, in a far more OPEN and INQUIRING way,

If it's something subjective, I'm going to write what I feel, what my subjective disposition is. I often have little doubt re how I feel or what my subjective disposition is.

If about something objective, I'm usually not going to say something if I'm not pretty sure I know what the deal is with it (otherwise I'll just read and think more about it instead). For some objective things, I have no doubt about them. That doesn't mean that I couldn't be led to doubt them, but that would require some work, because if I have no doubt about it, I've already done a lot of work on it myself.

by Terrapin Station

by evolution

If instead of writing as though what you say and write is the absolutely TRUTH, and you wrote, and spoke, in a far more OPEN and INQUIRING way,

If it's something subjective, I'm going to write what I feel, what my subjective disposition is.

Most people, in philosophy forums, write what they think, as what they feel has NO actual bearing on the truth nor falsehoods of what theirs or others views and claims.

by Terrapin Station

I often have little doubt re how I feel or what my subjective disposition is.

I would hope that you have NO doubt at all re how you feel nor about what your own subjective disposition is.

If you have some doubt, then I would start wondering WHY? if 'I' was 'you'.

by Terrapin Station

If about something objective, I'm usually not going to say something if I'm not pretty sure I know what the deal is with it (otherwise I'll just read and think more about it instead).

But you write considerable amounts as though you KNOW about things objectively.

This has been one point I have been trying to get you to recognize, SEE, and UNDERSTAND.

by Terrapin Station

For some objective things, I have no doubt about them. That doesn't mean that I couldn't be led to doubt them, but that would require some work, because if I have no doubt about it, I've already done a lot of work on it myself.

If you say so.

by evolution

But you write considerable amounts as though you KNOW about things objectively.

Sure, as if I know what the deal is about a lot of objective things. And indeed that's the case. What's the issue?

GE Morton wrote

Like most idealist (and mystical) ontologists you regularly invoke such phrases as "what is REALLY there," what is truly there," etc. But offer no criterion or explanation for the adjectives "really" and "truly," or for the basis of the implied distinction between what is "really" there and what merely appears to be there. And certainly no explanation of how you gained knowledge of what is "really" there.

I agree we can set aside ("distill out") some of the conceptual superstructure we have learned to overlay upon what we perceive, i.e., perceive it eidetically (as a neonate would), without understanding it. Or at least imagine that we can. That is Kant's "sensible intuition." But without understanding it is gratuitous, and contrary to common usage, to call that edetic percept "real" or "true." Those percepts, when embedded in the best conceptual framework we're able to devise, is the only "reality" we're ever going to have. Phenomenologists, like mystics, seem to imagine that if they stare at something long enough, "clear their minds" (perhaps with the aid of fasting, sleep deprivation, or LSD) they will perceive some "reality" that has escaped everyone else's notice.

That conceptual superstructure isn't Kan'ts sensible intuition. It's, in its foundation given the analysis of the structure of logic in judgment, the pure forms reason. Sensible intuitions are the irrational parts of experience, sensation. For Kant, what is true is true propositions; what is real is empirical reality, and concepts without intuitions are empty, and intuitions without concepts are blind. Heidegger is working in this structure: to speak about intuitions sans concepts must be an abstraction, for to speak in the first place requires the understanding.

First, it has to be clear that not all phenomenologists think alike. I can defend my derivative position, with my own bent, a composite of what I've read.
As to "what is really there", the question is not without meaning; it is the answer where things gets interesting. Should we forget Husserl's extravagance? There are essays on this that reveal his claims regarding "things themselves' to merely a reference to what one might call "proximal" to thought. I see a bird, and instantly I think, acknowledge, the thing as a bird, replete with its eidetic content. Husserl wanted to capture this unit of presence as it is, once removed from all the phenomenologically arbitrary contextual interference, things there in the presuppositions that clutter the field. He found, says he, that when you do this phenomenological reduction, with practice, there comes out of this something Other than mere theoretical clarity. What this IS would be what many, Husserl included, take as the quasi-mystical. Of course, this makes for bad philosophy (?), But if one actually does this, faithfully...does something come of it? The account goes:

In another
letter from 1919, (Husserl) even confesses that his own move from mathematics
to philosophy ran parallel to and was inspired by his conversion from
Judaism to Christianity, and in private conversations he is to have said
that he saw his philosophical work as a path toward God. The God
mentioned in his philosophical writings is often a philosopher’s God,
a metonym for absolute rationality and intelligibility, as well as a name
for a radical transcendence. But he saw the possibility of a renewed
understanding of religion not in the construction of a rational
theology, but rather in a radicalized exploration of interiority, through
a return to the “inner life

There is a LOT written on this.

This radical exploration of interiority, I find, interesting, and then some. You may not, but just to be clear, the way I see it, it is not a denial of the reason and content that goes into the immediacy of the percept that determines beforehand what can be meaningfully said, but a method of clearing perception to allow other values to step forward, affective value, even transcendental value. But here,we have clearly stepped beyond given possibilities of existing thought in the general philosophical contexts of our culture. But then again, they say Tibetan Buddhist adepts have a language that simply assumes what those navigating through interiority as they do can confirm.

Dismissing this kind of thing out of hand is understandable. One thing a appreciate about phenomenology is that ideas like this can at least be allowed to stand own their own merit. I mean, it removes that interpretative gravity that pulls all meaningful thought toward empirical science.

One of Quine's "Two Dogmas" dealt with the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions, not between idealism and empiricism (the other dealt with reductionism).

But it did have an impact on Kant's claim of synthetic apriori judgment, as with those in geometry and mathematics. Kant was attmpting to show that space and time are apriori forms of intuition, and therefore our empirical playing field must be conceived as the mind's contribution to experience, and his argument looked specifically to the apriority of space and time, the formal intuitive conditions for experience. If Quine were right, and apriority is not qualitatively distinct from the aposteriority judgments we make about gravity, and the rest through induction, then the ground for idealizing space and time is undermined.

I've never written a paper on this, but I think the above right.

That the world has a "presence" we did not invent is itself an epistemological assumption, albeit one that we are forced to make (according to Kant). But the most we can confidently claim is that we did not intentionally, consciously, invent it. There are compelling arguments that that entire "eidetic" world which supplies the foundation for our conceptual understanding of "reality" is an artifact of the structure and functioning of our brains and nervous systems. It is a "virtual model," built of bricks, sticks, glue, and paints concocted by our brains from whole cloth --- from nothing --- of an external "reality" which we must postulate but of of which we can never gain any direct knowledge.

But why call this eidetic "presence" "transcendental"? It certainly doesn't transcend us, its authors, any more than a writers' novel transcends him, except in the sense that we, like the novel, postulate an external world behind it all --- that postulate itself being a construct of our own.

As to the reference to brains and nervous systems, you already know the response to this: In the analysis into what a brain is, we are saddled with the issue of presuppositions: talk bout physical objects, or anything, presupposes language. A language analytic is therefore, the true foundational level of discussion.

Also, someone like Heidegger has no truck with talk about transcendental presence (I read in Caputo's Radical Hermeneutics that Heidegger thought such talk was like "walking on water." Language is the house of Being, and presence is an interpretatively bound idea. But this does not close the door to novel experiences at all, as I see it. In fact, Heidegger thought we, as a thinking culture, have lost something that causes us to be alienated, "not at home" in this world (straight from Kierkegaard, the "religious writer, H called him). Such a thing would appear quite novel if restored to a mundane mentality.

The transcendental talk I have found in Fink, Levinas, MIchel Henry, and others. These are not mystics, but phenomenologists who see (as Wittgenstein did) that the-impossible-to-make-sense-of about our being here is IN immanence. This is why Wittgenstein both felt the need to bring up transcendental/mystical matters and then dismiss them as nonsense. One can reasonably ask, if it is nonsense, then, it is so in a way that the world exceeds language (sense being bound to what language can say, and this is derivative of Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety), or, in a way that both exceeds language AND cannot be denied at once! THIS is how transcendence finds its way into discussion, (and Husserl had introduced a method that makes theory into some partially realized revelatory event).

And if one bothers to give the East some input, and I think this reasonable, there is a lot of testimony to underscore all of this. What Husserl called epoche, a Hindu would call jnana yoga, an exercise in theory that leads to enlightenment, where enlightenment is what happens in a kind of erasure of what names and quantifies the world, making it ordinary, mundane, familiar (interesting to note: how our "sense" of the real anything but reified familiarity?)

So, it is certainly NOT Kant's claim about "something" beyond the limits of empirical reality, for this takes the idea as a pure, impassible boundary, only conceived in the abstract. It is about immanence, what lies there before you minus the imposition of an imposing predelineating interpretation that interferes with a kind of simplcity that is always there already (as a Buddhist speaks of the Buddha nature).

As Faustus5 recently pointed out here, science doesn't claim to define or explain the meanings "of all things;" but only those things within the realm of common experience about which information can be communicated via objective propositions. It reports what is publicly observable and attempts to expain it, i.e., supply causes for observed effects, via theories with predictive power. If science holds a "hegemony" over those explanations it is only because it is the only methodology known which produces communicable and actionable information. Yes, we can set that methodology aside, apprehend some experiential phenomenon eidetically, and ponder other assumptions. But unless those assumptions generate predictions that are publicly confirmable and actionable they will be vacuous; "mental masturbation."

Emphasis on, "If science holds a "hegemony" over those explanations it is only because it is the only methodology known which produces communicable and actionable information."

Well, that IS the point: empirical methods DO work very well in communicable and actionable information, IF the matter at hand is of an empirical scientific nature. Not philosophy. Not sure why this is not clear yet. Analytic philosophy is a slave to empirical assumptions. Phenomenology is not, reflects the openness of interpretation, which IS at the foundation of that is "there" before us.

I get several telling me the point is mute, but then all they have to say about anything whatever in all issues great and small regarding foundational thinking is grounded in empirical science. All such responses are a form of performative contradiction and my only guess is that they dont' know what they're saying. And you say, we CAN set methodology aside, but this doesn't work out, implicitly affirming that science IS the default carrier of all basic understanding of the world. "Of all things": whatever do you mean by this if not all things as scientifically analyzable things. Do you have something else in mind? Something not scientifically analyzable? Are you a mystic?

To me, to say one is unaware of the dominance of science as the accepted definitive analysis of all things (among reasonable people and not the lunatic fringe of religious zeal) is either disingenuousness or...?

Well, we disagree there. Philosophy is not --- or ought not be --- "a priori analysis." Indeed, that term is meaningless. Before you can analyze anything there must be something to analyze; some raw material you're seeking to breakdown and understand. No analysis is possible of the contents of an empty beaker. For epistemology and ontology that raw material is experience, percepts. For Kant what was a priori were some of the tools we use to conduct that analysis, the "categories," which are a priori only in the sense that they are "built-in" to our brains and cannot be ignored or overridden. That is, of course, a theory, that may or may not be the best we can do in explaining our own thought processes.

We can postulate properties of our own thought processes and theorize that we apply them a priori to the analysis of other phenomena. We do, after all, have some direct knowledge of those processes. But we have no direct knowledge of anything presumed to be external to us, and never will. Any properties we predicate of them a priori will be arbitrary, vacuous, and frivolous.

Put is this way, when Kant draws on observations in speaking and meaning making, then abstracts from this the structures that must be in place in order for such speaking to be possible, adn then proceeds discuss time, space, and the pure form of reason, all of which are NOT empirical concepts, that one does not empirically observe time, then such things are apriori, logically prior to experience. If you want to argue that analysis reveals that apriority, on analysis, can be shown to be aposteriori, then I would say you might be right, but not in the terms of their analyses: philosophers study the structure of what is given, not what is given. If you say you know X, philosophy asks, what is the structure of knowing? And structures are not empirical things. Granted, priority in this way is what a speculative scientist does, is it not? No one has ever seen a Big Bang, but it is inferred from the trajectory of stars, a spectral analysis of their light, and so on. BUT, the Big Bang itself is an explicit empirical construct: an exploding thing on a grand scale. That makes it a piece of (well grounded) scientific speculation, not philosophical. Philosophy draws from wht is empirical (as Kant did) but discusses what is NOT empirical. Philosophy is not an empirical field of analysis, but a presuppositional study, a one of the study of logical presupposition of what what is given: given X, what has to be the case as an analysis yields of X?

The term is not meaningless at all.

You have to drop entirely this Kantian notion of some impossible externality. Phenomenologists do not deal int his kind of thing. They only deal in what is there.
I don't know what you mean by "direct knowledge of thought processes"? Direct? Did you not above berate Husserlians for their mysterious notion of presence? Direct knowledge is an extraordinary claim. Far more extraordinary than apriority.

I'd agree that empirical science is only a part of human experience, but quibble over whether it is a "minor" part. If we measure according to the portions of our waking hours we devote to acting in and upon the empirical world --- the world described by science --- I'd guess it would constitute the dominant part. But a scientific explanation of how and why the sun shines does not purport to be an account of the human dasein, or of the entire "horizon of experience." That criticism is gratuitous.

Sorry, but did you write that you, "agree that empirical science is only a part of human experience"? What would you say is not conditioned by empirical science? What is it that lies outside the field that empirical observation cannot say, but is sufficient to warrant such a deference to it in this utterance?
As to my calling it a minor part, consider (it is not a quibbling matter at all) the reason I called into discussion the issue of metaethics. I am quite aware that no one takes this as an affair of much importance, but then, these are they who know nothing of the issue at all; they know less about metaethics than they know about phenomenology. It is not so much a field abundant in theory and jargon, but an insight, apparently difficult to understand, for reasons I do not understand: Science is about facts, and their are an infinite number of facts, and if you take Wittgenstein's great book of all facts (taken from a position of omniscience) you would not find a single fact of value, for value is not observable, nor is it inherent in logic's tautologies. One cannot speak it. It would be like speaking the color yellow, speaking is aboutness, it is the taking something "as" a construction of language, as Heidegger would put it. When we speak we are taking the world as a token of language.

But value, not the contingent statement's value, as in, this is a fine couch, such that the couch can be discussed for its virtues and failings, but value as such, the kind Wittgenstein will not discuss, because it is not contextual, not therefore contingent but absolute.

One has to keep in mind that Wittgenstein was among those, a particularly influential one, who denied empirical science access to value conditions, for apart from the contingency of circumstances, value and aesthetics cannot be expressed in language at all. That is, the GOOD of the feeling, or the bad of it, when considered abstracted from contingency and context (not unlike the way Kant abstracted reason's form from judgment), appears as, well, non contingently good and bad. Take a spear and run it through my kidney: the pain AS SUCH (again, think Kant's pure reason is reason as such) is a badness that exceeds language and is therefore transcendental.

The point i am making out of this is that science's "small part" is due to its nature as factual merely, and therefore in the final ontology (the OP is about this) stands outside, if you can stand the cliche, the very meaning of life itself. If empirical science is taken as bottom line for any foundational analysis, it necessarily ignores meta value, this transcendence of our affairs that makes everything meaningful.

Religion, as an addendum, has traditionally handled the grounding of value, the metaphysics of value, and done so obliquely, mixing contingencies with absolutes. Philosophy's job, its most authentic purpose, I would say, is to bring this back into primacy. Phenomenology allows for this. Read Levinas.

" color yellow, speaking is aboutness" should be " color yellow; speaking is aboutness'

Atla wrote
The more I read about Heidegger, the less I get it. He thinks that philosophy is merely about our individual experience of being and what follows from it, and that's it? By itself, I wouldn't even file that under philosophy.

There is a single philosopher who changed the way things were done for a hundred years, and more. A hundred years this philosopher was either at the very center of philosophical thought, or somehow responsible for whatever was being discussed. If you read him seriously, with the intention to understand, then and only then can you take existentialism seriously, hence the reason why no one here relates at all to phenomenology.

They have not done a formal study of Immanuel Kant. I have only done a rather slipshod study, but I have read the Critique of Pure Reason cover to cover and read essays. You would, to be frank, need to do this to understand phenomenology. It is an acquired understanding, and my attempt was to make this prima facie motivating to read about this philosophy, but alas, it requires Kant to be taken seriously. Existentialism both is made possible by Kant, but is an opposition to his rationalism.

I am about done with posting for a while. My plan is to sit down with Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit for the next several months. I know this is what it takes, that this is the ticket price to get access to his world and this is just the way it is. I'll have to read essays (many online) as I go; I will have to reread, and reread again; it will require reading through impossible parts, but I know they will be clearer later. It always works like this.

If you don't have this kind of interest to drive you to understand the Kierkegaard, Hegel, Husserl, Sartre, Heidegger, and others, then you won't ever get them. All I can say is when you understand Heidegger (and I speak, of course, as an amateur philosopher) he will radically change your philosophical thinking, and your thinking about the world.

Terrapin Station wrote
My impression of Heidegger is that it's important to understand that:

(a) supposedly the first philosophy book he read as a kid, and it had a big impact on him, was Franz Brentano's On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle
and
(b) he was a student of Husserl and initially was very strongly influenced by him

I think the Brentano book led to him thinking "I'm going to sort out the 'correct sense of 'being'' once and for all," where he was shooting for something more pragmatic, but he had a very convoluted way of going about that, and his eventual break from Husserl's influence came by way of rejecting what he saw as some of the idealistic implications of Husserl's phenomenological method . . . and then he conflated the two into one project.

THAT is your impression of Heidegger???? What about presence at hand? His thoughts on instrumentality and ready to hand? His comments of Kant's transcendental aesthetic, and space and time? What about his thoughts on geworfenheit, das man, Time, freedom and human existence, and truth and alethea, logos, existential anxiety, ontic and ontological modes of being-in-the-world, and on and on???

Not to nag, but to even have an impression of Heidegger you would have raise that which would actually GIVE an impression.

Excuse me, cupcake, but Wittgenstein (post-Tractatus, anyway) and Rorty are two of my favorite philosophers. I’ve actually read every book Rorty wrote at least twice (excepting the one or two that were strictly about politics). They have profoundly shaped my views.

Burden of proof is on you: find me any respected Western philosopher who has ever said that science can solve “all questions”.

We both know you never will, so why did you make up something so completely ridiculous?

Excuse me, pussycat, but there is absolutely no evidence whatever in your conversation of any of this. If you have an idea in mind, then put is put there. Credentials? You're giving me credentials?

Argue your case, bring in ideas, tell me what you think.

Look sweetheart, honey bunch, punkin: review what you actually do. You complain. You don't think, philosophize, you complain. That's easy!
Lay it out for me sweety. Give me YOUR philosophy, your "profoundly shaped views"?

by 🐉 Hereandnow

There is a single philosopher who changed the way things were done for a hundred years, and more. A hundred years this philosopher was either at the very center of philosophical thought, or somehow responsible for whatever was being discussed.

I assume you're speaking of Kant.

If you read him seriously, with the intention to understand, then and only then can you take existentialism seriously, hence the reason why no one here relates at all to phenomenology.

Failure to have read and understand Kant is hardly the reason most (non-continental) Western philosophers don't take phenomenology seriously. Nearly all of them have read Kant, and understood him, despite disagreements as to the soundness or implications of some of his arguments. They don't take phenomenology seriously because it is laden with undefined terms and non-cognitive propositions, and thus conveys no knowledge (I take knowledge to be information that enables someone to do something).

Serious philosophy, like science, is at bottom pragmatic --- it aims to improve our understanding of ourselves and the universe in which we find ourselves, so that we can better deal with the challenges it throws at us and make our stay in it more enjoyable. Whereas science aims to uncover and characterize features of the natural world and their relationships to one another, philosophers seek to clarify and strengthen the conceptual framework into which that information is fitted. Philosophical sidetracks which don't contribute to that aim attract little interest.

Phenomenologists seem to be spellbound with awe at the "miracle," and absurdity, of human existence --- the absurdity arising from the incongruous presence of creatures who demand understanding, who are driven to seek it, in a universe forever beyond their understanding. All thoughtful persons are awed by that primal fact. But they are not spellbound by it, and they don't imagine that retreating to a pre-conceptual, neonatal state and obsessing over it will somehow allow them to penetrate that impossibility and deliver them enlightenment, any more than stripping naked and gazing for hours at one's reflection in a mirror will reveal a whole lot of information about the workings of one's body.

I am about done with posting for a while.

Does that mean I shouldn't bother replying to your last reply to me?

If you don't have this kind of interest to drive you to understand the Kierkegaard, Hegel, Husserl, Sartre, Heidegger, and others, then you won't ever get them.

If that is true it is the only subject matter of which it is. For any other the key points and theses can be summarized succinctly and capture the gist well enough to induce readers to pursue them further. The only person who might undertake a months long reading program without some prior inkling of the contents and practical value thereof would be someone with no other demands on his time --- perhaps a prisoner locked in a cell with nothing but a sleeping mat and a stack of phenomenology books.

GE Morton wrote
Failure to have read and understand Kant is hardly the reason most (non-continental) Western philosophers don't take phenomenology seriously. Nearly all of them have read Kant, and understood him, despite disagreements as to the soundness or implications of some of his arguments. They don't take phenomenology seriously because it is laden with undefined terms and non-cognitive propositions, and thus conveys no knowledge (I take knowledge to be information that enables someone to do something).

Professional philosophers?? Obviously. Read the post more carefully. But it's true, a person that doesn't have a kind of "Copernican Revolution" is not going to understand how this change in perspective works.

Serious philosophy, like science, is at bottom pragmatic --- it aims to improve our understanding of ourselves and the universe in which we find ourselves, so that we can better deal with the challenges it throws at us and make our stay in it more enjoyable. Whereas science aims to uncover and characterize features of the natural world and their relationships to one another, philosophers seek to clarify and strengthen the conceptual framework into which that information is fitted. Philosophical sidetracks which don't contribute to that aim attract little interest.

Serious philosophy is pragmatic? Or is it pragmatism? There is a difference. The latter is close to Heidegger, actually.

Phenomenologists seem to be spellbound with awe at the "miracle," and absurdity, of human existence --- the absurdity arising from the incongruous presence of creatures who demand understanding, who are driven to seek it, in a universe forever beyond their understanding. All thoughtful persons are awed by that primal fact. But they are not spellbound by it, and they don't imagine that retreating to a pre-conceptual, neonatal state and obsessing over it will somehow allow them to penetrate that impossibility and deliver them enlightenment, any more than stripping naked and gazing for hours at one's reflection in a mirror will reveal a whole lot of information about the workings of one's body.

Well, at least you write in paragraphs, even if you do speak imperfectly about what these philosophers think. What phenomenologists did you have in mind?
You might consider that the reason you have so little appreciation for such thinking is that relative to empirical science, you have had precious little exposure to it. This is true for everyone, for science begins in grammar school, phenomenology begins, well, it doesn't, really, for anyone, nearly. This si why I say it is an acquired understanding: one has to explicitly acquire it. Also, the trouble with analytic professional philosophers is that they don't read it either. Kant is somethign of a core requirement for a phd in the history of philosophy, but read (I have it on PDF) Robert Hanna's Kant and the Foundations of Analytic Philosophy for a nice account of how he is treated with contempt after Russell. They don't think about Kant at all. They are into Frege, Strawson, Grice, Davidson, and so on. I have read papers they've written, and some I find useful. But mostly they simply tinker in very rigorous ways with the analysis of ideas. They mostly go nowhere. Phenomenologists are the only ones who know how to take the world up AS the world. Michel Henry's on The Power of Affectivity in Heidegger, for example. This brief work puts focus on the affectivity built into dasein's self realization, to put it one way. You can read this, put it down, then you will find yourself puzzling the experienced world in very intriguing ways, not simply working our an argument, the end of which is just ot publish. I know these people and their conception of philosophy is the very reason why it is free fall.

If that is true it is the only subject matter of which it is. For any other the key points and theses can be summarized succinctly and capture the gist well enough to induce readers to pursue them further. The only person who might undertake a months long reading program without some prior inkling of the contents and practical value thereof would be someone with no other demands on his time --- perhaps a prisoner locked in a cell with nothing but a sleeping mat and a stack of phenomenology books.

Not sure what there is to object to here. Who is talking about key points? "Can ...capture ...to induce": why yes, that's what I said, one can, but one has to be motivated. ???

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Atla wrote
The more I read about Heidegger, the less I get it. He thinks that philosophy is merely about our individual experience of being and what follows from it, and that's it? By itself, I wouldn't even file that under philosophy.

There is a single philosopher who changed the way things were done for a hundred years, and more. A hundred years this philosopher was either at the very center of philosophical thought, or somehow responsible for whatever was being discussed. If you read him seriously, with the intention to understand, then and only then can you take existentialism seriously, hence the reason why no one here relates at all to phenomenology.

They have not done a formal study of Immanuel Kant. I have only done a rather slipshod study, but I have read the Critique of Pure Reason cover to cover and read essays. You would, to be frank, need to do this to understand phenomenology. It is an acquired understanding, and my attempt was to make this prima facie motivating to read about this philosophy, but alas, it requires Kant to be taken seriously. Existentialism both is made possible by Kant, but is an opposition to his rationalism.

I am about done with posting for a while. My plan is to sit down with Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit for the next several months. I know this is what it takes, that this is the ticket price to get access to his world and this is just the way it is. I'll have to read essays (many online) as I go; I will have to reread, and reread again; it will require reading through impossible parts, but I know they will be clearer later. It always works like this.

If you don't have this kind of interest to drive you to understand the Kierkegaard, Hegel, Husserl, Sartre, Heidegger, and others, then you won't ever get them. All I can say is when you understand Heidegger (and I speak, of course, as an amateur philosopher) he will radically change your philosophical thinking, and your thinking about the world.

You know what, maybe you are just full of yourself, maybe not deliberately, but you definitely seem to be fooling yourself. You keep telling me to read this and that and how they will change my thinking of the world. Well maybe you are the one lacking context.

I'm a nondualist, everything I have seen so far during these last few years on philosophy boards indicates that I've already gone beyond Kant and his followers a decade ago. There is a certain depth, a certain insight they never reached. And also I know quite a lot about human psychology, and about how many different forms the human sense of being can take, especially when it comes to gender differences. I can't even take it seriously, when these philosophers believe that THEIR rather typical-for-them, rather specific sense of being is THE sense of being. Talk about getting lost in your own mind, and being full of yourself. That's not even philosophy to me, philosophy is about the big questions.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Terrapin Station wrote
My impression of Heidegger is that it's important to understand that:

(a) supposedly the first philosophy book he read as a kid, and it had a big impact on him, was Franz Brentano's On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle
and
(b) he was a student of Husserl and initially was very strongly influenced by him

I think the Brentano book led to him thinking "I'm going to sort out the 'correct sense of 'being'' once and for all," where he was shooting for something more pragmatic, but he had a very convoluted way of going about that, and his eventual break from Husserl's influence came by way of rejecting what he saw as some of the idealistic implications of Husserl's phenomenological method . . . and then he conflated the two into one project.

THAT is your impression of Heidegger???? What about presence at hand? His thoughts on instrumentality and ready to hand? His comments of Kant's transcendental aesthetic, and space and time? What about his thoughts on geworfenheit, das man, Time, freedom and human existence, and truth and alethea, logos, existential anxiety, ontic and ontological modes of being-in-the-world, and on and on???

Not to nag, but to even have an impression of Heidegger you would have raise that which would actually GIVE an impression.

Well that's certainly an odd way to read my post.

Isn't it obvious that I'm talking about motivations, a la personal historical catalysts, for his overall "project", and that I'm not saying what I'm mentioning is exhaustive in even that? And again, from an angle of trying to understand what he was on about and why, with his odd obsession with "being" as a concept; his odd notion that there's something perplexing about it that needs to be sorted out, and over the course of a book that was supposed to be three times as long as the already-bloated Being and Time no less. A book full of "speaking in tongues" neologisms and tortured prose like "Nothing itself nothings" and "sense is that onto which projection projects, in terms of which something becomes intelligible as something." My aim obviously wasn't to give an outline of the project itself.

It's such a shame that science has no hegemony in modern society.
There is so much fakery out there.
Misused statistics.
False claims
Flat earthers
Ignored scientists such as Einstein and Oppenheimer; Lovelock and Semel Weiss throughout history.
Anti vaxers.
Religion.
On and on it goes

Another howler of tortured prose is "the quest for the being of beings in its difference from being." LOL

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Atla wrote
The more I read about Heidegger, the less I get it. He thinks that philosophy is merely about our individual experience of being and what follows from it, and that's it? By itself, I wouldn't even file that under philosophy.

There is a single philosopher who changed the way things were done for a hundred years, and more. A hundred years this philosopher was either at the very center of philosophical thought, or somehow responsible for whatever was being discussed. If you read him seriously, with the intention to understand, then and only then can you take existentialism seriously, hence the reason why no one here relates at all to phenomenology.

They have not done a formal study of Immanuel Kant. I have only done a rather slipshod study, but I have read the Critique of Pure Reason cover to cover and read essays. You would, to be frank, need to do this to understand phenomenology. It is an acquired understanding, and my attempt was to make this prima facie motivating to read about this philosophy, but alas, it requires Kant to be taken seriously. Existentialism both is made possible by Kant, but is an opposition to his rationalism.

I am about done with posting for a while. My plan is to sit down with Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit for the next several months. I know this is what it takes, that this is the ticket price to get access to his world and this is just the way it is. I'll have to read essays (many online) as I go; I will have to reread, and reread again; it will require reading through impossible parts, but I know they will be clearer later. It always works like this.

If you don't have this kind of interest to drive you to understand the Kierkegaard, Hegel, Husserl, Sartre, Heidegger, and others, then you won't ever get them. All I can say is when you understand Heidegger (and I speak, of course, as an amateur philosopher) he will radically change your philosophical thinking, and your thinking about the world.

Though you're correct that most people don't even make it to the stage of the inner investigations, including a few people in this topic. They are just spouting clueless platitudes nothing more.

by Sculptor1

It's such a shame that science has no hegemony in modern society.
There is so much fakery out there.
Misused statistics.
False claims
Flat earthers
Ignored scientists such as Einstein and Oppenheimer; Lovelock and Semel Weiss throughout history.
Anti vaxers.
Religion.
On and on it goes

And yet there are examples like the UK government's oft-repeated claims to be "following the science" when their actions and decisions are political ones. In this case, the government are simply trying to justify their incompetence by claiming the backing of science in a scenario where science has no relevance. And we can also look at philosophy forums, where many contributors recommend science as the only means of investigating life, the universe and everything. Subjects like metaphysics are ridiculed and dismissed because they are outside the purview of science.

I agree with you to the extent that sometimes my take on this is reversed: there are circumstances when science is the most useful and appropriate tool to address a particular issue, but it is not employed. But science is also, and often, misapplied, and this is the hegemony of science that the OP refers to. IMO, of course.

by Pattern-chaser

by Sculptor1

It's such a shame that science has no hegemony in modern society.
There is so much fakery out there.
Misused statistics.
False claims
Flat earthers
Ignored scientists such as Einstein and Oppenheimer; Lovelock and Semel Weiss throughout history.
Anti vaxers.
Religion.
On and on it goes

And yet there are examples like the UK government's oft-repeated claims to be "following the science" when their actions and decisions are political ones.

You make my point for me. The government as using "science" as a sound bite. Science does not suggest what you do in a crisis, it only supplies the evidence.
And exactly, whilst claiming to "follow the science" they have basically ignored it.

In this case, the government are simply trying to justify their incompetence by claiming the backing of science in a scenario where science has no relevance. And we can also look at philosophy forums, where many contributors recommend science as the only means of investigating life, the universe and everything.

Pointless trying to argue with a strawman. Where's your evidence?

Subjects like metaphysics are ridiculed and dismissed because they are outside the purview of science.

Pointless trying to argue with a strawman. Where's your evidence?

Scientific claims of laws and definitions are all metaphysics.
The science works whether you know that or not.

I agree with you to the extent that sometimes my take on this is reversed: there are circumstances when science is the most useful and appropriate tool to address a particular issue, but it is not employed. But science is also, and often, misapplied, and this is the hegemony of science that the OP refers to. IMO, of course.

There is no hegemony of science. All situations can benefit from science, but at the end of the day its what you do with the information that science can provide.

Science might be able to demonstrate that blond haired, blues eyed children do better in IQ tests than black skinned ones; but that does not validate nazism. It might just as well suggest that blacked skinned children suffer from prejudice in the school system, and might suggest ways to reform, giving people better chances.
But were science to have hegemony the evidence would be front and centre, rather than manipulated or ignored as it most generally is.

by Pattern-chaser

In this case, the government are simply trying to justify their incompetence by claiming the backing of science in a scenario where science has no relevance. And we can also look at philosophy forums, where many contributors recommend science as the only means of investigating life, the universe and everything.

by Sculptor1

Pointless trying to argue with a strawman. Where's your evidence?

by Pattern-chaser

Subjects like metaphysics are ridiculed and dismissed because they are outside the purview of science.

by Sculptor1

Pointless trying to argue with a strawman. Where's your evidence?

In both cases, you have been here in this forum, and participated in enough discussions, to see that what I describe sometimes happens here. I'm not going trawling for specifics, when we both know well what is posted here.

by GE Morton

by 🐉 Hereandnow

There is a single philosopher who changed the way things were done for a hundred years, and more. A hundred years this philosopher was either at the very center of philosophical thought, or somehow responsible for whatever was being discussed.

I assume you're speaking of Kant.

If you read him seriously, with the intention to understand, then and only then can you take existentialism seriously, hence the reason why no one here relates at all to phenomenology.

Failure to have read and understand Kant is hardly the reason most (non-continental) Western philosophers don't take phenomenology seriously. Nearly all of them have read Kant, and understood him, despite disagreements as to the soundness or implications of some of his arguments. They don't take phenomenology seriously because it is laden with undefined terms and non-cognitive propositions, and thus conveys no knowledge (I take knowledge to be information that enables someone to do something).

Serious philosophy, like science, is at bottom pragmatic --- it aims to improve our understanding of ourselves and the universe in which we find ourselves, so that we can better deal with the challenges it throws at us and make our stay in it more enjoyable. Whereas science aims to uncover and characterize features of the natural world and their relationships to one another, philosophers seek to clarify and strengthen the conceptual framework into which that information is fitted. Philosophical sidetracks which don't contribute to that aim attract little interest.

Phenomenologists seem to be spellbound with awe at the "miracle," and absurdity, of human existence --- the absurdity arising from the incongruous presence of creatures who demand understanding, who are driven to seek it, in a universe forever beyond their understanding. All thoughtful persons are awed by that primal fact. But they are not spellbound by it, and they don't imagine that retreating to a pre-conceptual, neonatal state and obsessing over it will somehow allow them to penetrate that impossibility and deliver them enlightenment, any more than stripping naked and gazing for hours at one's reflection in a mirror will reveal a whole lot of information about the workings of one's body.

I am about done with posting for a while.

Does that mean I shouldn't bother replying to your last reply to me?

If you don't have this kind of interest to drive you to understand the Kierkegaard, Hegel, Husserl, Sartre, Heidegger, and others, then you won't ever get them.

If that is true it is the only subject matter of which it is. For any other the key points and theses can be summarized succinctly and capture the gist well enough to induce readers to pursue them further. The only person who might undertake a months long reading program without some prior inkling of the contents and practical value thereof would be someone with no other demands on his time --- perhaps a prisoner locked in a cell with nothing but a sleeping mat and a stack of phenomenology books.

As someone with no education in philosophy (except some theology) and interested in ideas not who said them, I think you make some fair points here.

I appreciate HAN's willingness to give extensive answers to all-comers, but it shouldn't be this hard to get some concrete idea of the key insights or knowledge phenomenology claims to offer.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Excuse me, pussycat, but there is absolutely no evidence whatever in your conversation of any of this.

The following is a direct cut and paste from what you wrote on September 3 2020, time stamp 8:19 AM:

Analytic philosophy IS an implicit endorsement of scientific paradigms to address all questions. . .

This claim is a view no mainstream analytic philosopher has ever espoused, not even implicitly. So stop playing games.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Argue your case, bring in ideas, tell me what you think.

I think that when science was created by philosophers and broke off to become its own disciple, this was Western philosophy finally figuring out the right way to do foundational ontology. And since then, philosophy has had almost nothing worthwhile to say on the subject. Now, this is not the same thing as saying all philosophy related to science is worthless. Whether scientists admit it or not, philosophers still have valid contributions to make in biology, cosmology, and especially consciousness studies.

But I think it is extraordinarily unlikely, approaching the impossible, that any of those contributions is ever going to flow from works in phenomenology.

by Pattern-chaser

by Pattern-chaser

In this case, the government are simply trying to justify their incompetence by claiming the backing of science in a scenario where science has no relevance. And we can also look at philosophy forums, where many contributors recommend science as the only means of investigating life, the universe and everything.

by Sculptor1

Pointless trying to argue with a strawman. Where's your evidence?

by Pattern-chaser

Subjects like metaphysics are ridiculed and dismissed because they are outside the purview of science.

by Sculptor1

Pointless trying to argue with a strawman. Where's your evidence?

In both cases, you have been here in this forum, and participated in enough discussions, to see that what I describe sometimes happens here. I'm not going trawling for specifics, when we both know well what is posted here.

All I see is one caricature heaped upon another.
Science, good science, is worthy of trust where most other disciplines rely on Persuasion and Guile. If that is what you mean, I see no problem. But what I do not see is general optimism in science, nor do I see any kind of hegemony.
On the contrary, in my life time I have seen science systematically denigrated and generally blamed for things that science, as such, as no responsibility to bear.
If Oppenheimer had been listened to the world would not be dangerously over burdened with nuclear weapons. Yet science gets blamed.
If the findings of science had been taken more seriously there might be no pandemic, the incidence of deaths due to malaria would be less; climate change would be under control; pollution less.
What I see is scientists shouting warnings and the rest of the world treating them like Casandra at the gates of Troy.

by Sculptor1

In my life time I have seen science systematically denigrated and generally blamed for things that science, as such, as no responsibility to bear.
If Oppenheimer had been listened to the world would not be dangerously over burdened with nuclear weapons. Yet science gets blamed.
If the findings of science had been taken more seriously there might be no pandemic, the incidence of deaths due to malaria would be less; climate change would be under control; pollution less.
What I see is scientists shouting warnings and the rest of the world treating them like Casandra at the gates of Troy.

I don't quarrel with any of that.



Nevertheless, it is also the case that science is often misapplied, which is the "hegemony" we are discussing here. As I said:

by Pattern-chaser

I agree with you to the extent that sometimes my take on this is reversed: there are circumstances when science is the most useful and appropriate tool to address a particular issue, but it is not employed. But science is also, and often, misapplied, and this is the hegemony of science that the OP refers to. IMO, of course.

I have acknowledged and accepted the points you remade already. Do you not see that science is also often misapplied?

Terrapin Station wrote
Another howler of tortured prose is "the quest for the being of beings in its difference from being." LOL

Here, TP, is another great howler:

Bosonic string theory, however, is not a realistic theory. It predicts states of negative mass called tachyons, which lead to the instability and decay of D-branes. More importantly, it does not contain fermions, which differ from bosons in that fermions are particles of half-integer spin while bosons have integer spin. LOL

Context is everything.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Professional philosophers?? Obviously. Read the post more carefully. But it's true, a person that doesn't have a kind of "Copernican Revolution" is not going to understand how this change in perspective works.

The Copernican Revolution was prompted by observational evidence. Phenomenology has yet to produce or cite an iota of that.

Serious philosophy is pragmatic? Or is it pragmatism? There is a difference. The latter is close to Heidegger, actually.

Pragmatism is a particular philosophical school. But the discipline as a whole is pragmatic in the vernacular sense --- it aims to improve our understanding of ourselves and the universe in which we live, in order that we may make better use of it and reduce the dangers it poses. Phenomenology offers nothing that advances those ends, as far as most Western philosophers can see.

You might consider that the reason you have so little appreciation for such thinking is that relative to empirical science, you have had precious little exposure to it. This is true for everyone, for science begins in grammar school, phenomenology begins, well, it doesn't, really, for anyone, nearly.

That is true. Neither have many students been exposed to, say, animism, witchcraft, astrology, scientology, etc., at least in common schools. For the same reason.

Phenomenologists are the only ones who know how to take the world up AS the world.

All philosophers, and scientists, "take up" the world "as a world." What else would they take it up as? But once taken up it must be broken down, the distinguishable parts/aspects isolated and broken down further. That is what analysis means.

Not sure what there is to object to here. Who is talking about key points? "Can ...capture ...to induce": why yes, that's what I said, one can, but one has to be motivated. ???

Motivation follows stimulus, not the other way around. No one makes an investment in a venture that exhibits no prospects for a return.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Terrapin Station wrote
Another howler of tortured prose is "the quest for the being of beings in its difference from being." LOL

Here, TP, is another great howler:

Bosonic string theory, however, is not a realistic theory. It predicts states of negative mass called tachyons, which lead to the instability and decay of D-branes. More importantly, it does not contain fermions, which differ from bosons in that fermions are particles of half-integer spin while bosons have integer spin. LOL

Context is everything.

All of the terms in your quote are well-defined in the theories in which they are used. There are many problems with that theory, but it is at least coherent. The sentence TP quoted is meaningless. "Being" seems to be used with three different senses, none of them the everyday sense, and none of them are defined. It is gobbledygook.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Terrapin Station wrote
Another howler of tortured prose is "the quest for the being of beings in its difference from being." LOL

Here, TP, is another great howler:

Bosonic string theory, however, is not a realistic theory. It predicts states of negative mass called tachyons, which lead to the instability and decay of D-branes. More importantly, it does not contain fermions, which differ from bosons in that fermions are particles of half-integer spin while bosons have integer spin. LOL

Context is everything.

Good thing that I'm not endorsing whoever wrote that.

by Pattern-chaser

by Sculptor1

In my life time I have seen science systematically denigrated and generally blamed for things that science, as such, as no responsibility to bear.
If Oppenheimer had been listened to the world would not be dangerously over burdened with nuclear weapons. Yet science gets blamed.
If the findings of science had been taken more seriously there might be no pandemic, the incidence of deaths due to malaria would be less; climate change would be under control; pollution less.
What I see is scientists shouting warnings and the rest of the world treating them like Casandra at the gates of Troy.

I don't quarrel with any of that.



Nevertheless, it is also the case that science is often misapplied, which is the "hegemony" we are discussing here. As I said:

by Pattern-chaser

I agree with you to the extent that sometimes my take on this is reversed: there are circumstances when science is the most useful and appropriate tool to address a particular issue, but it is not employed. But science is also, and often, misapplied, and this is the hegemony of science that the OP refers to. IMO, of course.

I have acknowledged and accepted the points you remade already. Do you not see that science is also often misapplied?

"Science misapplied" is not Science.

It's not a "hegemony OF science." But just the usual hegemony of twits, corporations, the rich, the idle and the greedy.

Faustus5 wrote

This claim is a view no mainstream analytic philosopher has ever espoused, not even implicitly. So stop playing games.

Yes, they have. It's just that the empirical premise is simply implied. I]ll tell you what, you name any analytic phislopher, of your choosing, and I will shoe how this philosopher's conception of the world at the level of basic assumptions is empirical. I mean, there is a reason why Dennett tries to reduce consciousness to "layered computer programs running on the hardware of the brain" and when Mackie discusses ethics his argument from queerness goes to standards of intelligible thought produced by empirical science; there is a reason why Quine and many analytic philosophers' have been described as defending a kind of behaviorism.

Just name him/her, and I will do a bit of reading and explain (but frankly, I think the point should be clear by now. You should be looking for a philosopher to proclaim: I begin my thoughts on the matter with an explicit endorsement of empirical science! Robert Hanna says the post-Quinean (after his two Dogmas paper) analytic world is in awful shape, and "good riddance" because

.....of the dogmatic obsession of post-Quinean, post-classical Analytic
philosophy with scientific naturalism since 1950, and above all

by 🐉 Hereandnow

For one, how is "the empirical premise" the same thing as "the scientific paradigm"?

GE Morton wrote
All of the terms in your quote are well-defined in the theories in which they are used. There are many problems with that theory, but it is at least coherent. The sentence TP quoted is meaningless. "Being" seems to be used with three different senses, none of them the everyday sense, and none of them are defined. It is gobbledygook.

"The quest for the being of beings in its difference from being": "from being" takes the quoate out of context and I would have to read the fuller text. His question is about being in the most foundational sense, not particular beings, as a chair or an eidtic entity like a set of numbers, but the question of being as such, when the predicative designations is put aside. Entities come replete predicatively bundled, so to speak, and there is no sense in the ideas of it being otherwise. But since philosophy's purpose is to provide an analytic at themost foundational level possible, and Being as such is this level, he begins here, but it is not with an eye to elucidate Being, the eternal essence of all things (why is there something rather than nothing, sort of thing), but rather to use this term to establish how far down the rabbit hole analysis can go and what this terminal place is.

So the quote SOUNDS absurd to anyone who has read nothing. It is always like this. Rorty calls those who talk like this (he thought Heidegger was among the three greatest philosophers of the 20th century) know nothings.

Terrapin Station wrote
For one, how is "the empirical premise" the same thing as "the scientific paradigm"?

How is it not? Ask yourself, What is a premise? What is a paradigm? What is a theory? What is a proposition?

this is elementary

Sculptor1 wrote

It's such a shame that science has no hegemony in modern society.
There is so much fakery out there.
Misused statistics.
False claims
Flat earthers
Ignored scientists such as Einstein and Oppenheimer; Lovelock and Semel Weiss throughout history.
Anti vaxers.
Religion.
On and on it goes

For crying out loud Sculptor 1, the issue on the table is not at all about how science is being discredited by right wing propaganda. It is a much broader issue. It is about how science is unfit for a foundational philosophical ontology.

I mean, seriously??

by 🐉 Hereandnow

but the question of being as such, when the predicative designations is put aside. Entities come replete predicatively bundled, so to speak, and there is no sense in the ideas of it being otherwise.

That doesn't help, because the idea of that is nonsensical. You can't have existents of any sort without properties.

But since philosophy's purpose is to provide an analytic at themost foundational level possible, and Being as such is this level, he begins here, but it is not with an eye to elucidate Being, the eternal essence of all things (why is there something rather than nothing, sort of thing),

"Essences" only exist as rigid requirements in an individual's concepts. No essence as such would be "eternal." "Why is there something" is a rather silly question. There's no reason there should be nothing instead, so that it would be a mystery that there is something, and the question usually has a connotation almost of there being an intelligent reason behind the brute fact that things exist, which is also nonsense.

Phenomenalists like Heidegger find fundamental stuff within their own minds that's simply not there. Qualia eliminitavists like Dennett do away with experience altogether, even though it's simply always there.

Sigh.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by Atla

Phenomenalists like Heidegger find fundamental stuff within their own minds that's simply not there. Qualia eliminitavists like Dennett do away with experience altogether, even though it's simply always there.

Sigh.

No, Dennett just thinks experiences don't have all the qualities that believers in qualia insist they do. He's more of a deflationist than an eliminativist.

Terrapin Station wrote
That doesn't help, because the idea of that is nonsensical. You can't have existents of any sort without properties.

That's what Heidegger said (as well as Husserl. A thing is an "predicatively formed affair of actuality"). He takes Being as such as a badly misunderstood concept. These mysterious intuitions, he said, one might have of Being are what he is trying to give some articulation to. He thinks we have to to understand Being as a foundational concept in an analytic of Time: I approach a thing, it IS there. What is it that constitutes this awareness of the thing before me? It is not some pure intimation of Being, for, as you say above, no sense can be made of this. He sees that before I even approach the thing, I am equipped with the ability to acknowledge it AS something, some reference to language, a foreknowledge of what couches and chairs ARE before we can analyze what it means that things ARE. The areness, if you will, is bound, in every case, always, already, bound to the pre understanding, so the question of what it means for something to be is analyzable to the temporal conditions that are in place in order for a "there is" or a "I am" to occur at all. this is why Heidegger's ontology is as foundational as it can get: wher a scientific account is about planets and chromosomes, the phenomenological ontology is about what it is for a thing to be at all, so that when you approach the microscope, there is a constitution, if you like, a paradigmatically informed apperceptive constitution that makes encounters at all maningful, and thus,the scientist's work meaningful.

Heidegger says at root, it is all interpretation. Now, his analysis of what an interpretative act IS requires looking into his thinkiing.

"Essences" only exist as rigid requirements in an individual's concepts. No essence as such would be "eternal." "Why is there something" is a rather silly question. There's no reason there should be nothing instead, so that it would be a mystery that there is something, and the question usually has a connotation almost of there being an intelligent reason behind the brute fact that things exist, which is also nonsense.

Right. Now I do recall saying to someone that phenomenologists are all different. There are those who take phenomenology another direction. When attention is placed on the interpretative act that engages the world, it brings philosophical attention to what is there, in the phenomenal act of recognition. This is why science plays no part in phenomenological analyses: Attention is on the act of perception, or apperception, itself. Studying the structure of time, the present and the literal "making" of our existence (hence Sartre's existence precedes essence: we make what we are in the fleeting "nothingness" of the present moment moving into the future) by freely choosing among the possibilities our history provides. We are, therefore, determined insofar as our past is made of the stuff of culture and language, a body of possibilities, but free in that the future is nothing, unmade.
One thing I like about this, is that it allows a good liberal like myself to look to social conditions as the cause of poverty and ignorance, after all, it is our history that determines our possibilities, but at the same time, does not undo the dignity of freedom (Skinner's term), for there is in this a clear recognition of what it is to stand at the precipice of the future and choose one direction or another.

It does get interesting, believe it or not. Perhaps you can see why phenomenologists take special note of that moment what one stops simply acting as a kind of automaton, just doing this and that, getting a job, buying a house, and on and on, and wakes up to ask the question regarding Being: what does it mean to be here" Why am I here at all? Why are we born to suffer and die? And so on. Questions get quite poignant if you are among those born into nothing but suffering. Why IS it that things are like this? Heidegger thinks when you get to this juncture, you begin to realize your own freedom, as you stand apart from history that would otherwise simply move you along unconsciously. Only now are you free. Freedom requires one to step away from unconscious behavior. When you do this, you witness possibilities, as when I stop typing, look up and consider all things and why they are.

Then you find Jaspers' The Encompassing, Henry's Affectivity, Kierkegaard's existential Anxiety, Levinas' Infinity, and so forth. All terms alien to analytic philosophy's lexicon. Of course, derision is easy with kind of thing. It all does sound very weird. But this subsides with reading.

HAN

You should be looking for a philosopher to proclaim: I begin my thoughts on the matter with an explicit endorsement of empirical science!

The thing is HAN, I think you have a similar problem. As soon as you make a ''we...'' statement, you implicitly assume you and I share a world we are located in which we can agree we know things about. Science draws its lines at what can be known inter-subjectively, and so do you. But your lines seem to shift depending on what question is put. Which gives me the impression that all the difficult to parse terminology might be masking a basic ontological problem.


You should be able to clearly lay out the implicit ontological assumptions your phenomenological methodology relies on.

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

by Atla

Phenomenalists like Heidegger find fundamental stuff within their own minds that's simply not there. Qualia eliminitavists like Dennett do away with experience altogether, even though it's simply always there.

Sigh.

No, Dennett just thinks experiences don't have all the qualities that believers in qualia insist they do. He's more of a deflationist than an eliminativist.

We've been over this already. First thing anyone with some sense does, is use a deflated meaning of qualia. But that deflated qualia still has to be part of one's worldview, if one claims to have explained consciousness. Dennett just seems to deflate it into nonexistence, eliminate it.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Sculptor1 wrote

It's such a shame that science has no hegemony in modern society.
There is so much fakery out there.
Misused statistics.
False claims
Flat earthers
Ignored scientists such as Einstein and Oppenheimer; Lovelock and Semel Weiss throughout history.
Anti vaxers.
Religion.
On and on it goes

For crying out loud Sculptor 1, the issue on the table is not at all about how science is being discredited by right wing propaganda. It is a much broader issue. It is about how science is unfit for a foundational philosophical ontology.

I mean, seriously??

But science is perfectly fit for the foundation of all knowledge; Just ask Locke Hume, and Newton, among many others.
I mean seriously. How can you claim to know anything without the empiric paradigm. It is the basis of all things.
There can be no ontology without the evidence that drives it.
Unless you want to sit in a dark cave and imagine the world you prefer to live in, you are basically stuck with EVIDENCE.

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

by Atla

Phenomenalists like Heidegger find fundamental stuff within their own minds that's simply not there. Qualia eliminitavists like Dennett do away with experience altogether, even though it's simply always there.

Sigh.

No, Dennett just thinks experiences don't have all the qualities that believers in qualia insist they do. He's more of a deflationist than an eliminativist.

What qualities does Dennett 'deflate' qualia to?

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by Atla

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

No, Dennett just thinks experiences don't have all the qualities that believers in qualia insist they do. He's more of a deflationist than an eliminativist.

We've been over this already. First thing anyone with some sense does, is use a deflated meaning of qualia. But that deflated qualia still has to be part of one's worldview, if one claims to have explained consciousness. Dennett just seems to deflate it into nonexistence, eliminate it.

You can't find him doing this in his own words, which right away should ring alarm bells if you have any intellectual honesty and think accurately representing views you disagree with is essential to being a good scholar.

I mean, common sense alone should dictate that if he squabbles with people who openly call themselves eliminativists over their eliminativism, it's kind of stupid to call him one.

Faustus5 wrote
Well, I know Dennett's work more than any philosopher on earth, probably better than anyone you've ever met, and his theory of consciousness is explicitly anti-reductionist, so you're kind of getting things backwards right from the start. But I suppose if you've only encountered his ideas third or fourth hand, that sound bite is what a person might come away with.

At any rate, you get the details wrong, but your larger point remains correct in this particular case: Dennett's approach to consciousness is scientific and empirical to the core. Hell, the bibliography for Consciousness Explained cites scientists far more than philosophers.

Details?? I don't recall one.

The anti reductionism you are talking about is the resistance to a hasty reduction dismissing complexity.Of course, his objections are all grounded in empirical thought and analyses. I am not at all sure why you think I get things backwards right from the start. I do note that I asked you for one philosopher you could think of as a counter example to my claim that empirical science had hegemony in analytic philosophy, and you give me dennett, who you say is, "empirical to the core." Interesting strategy.

Now, can you please articulate why treating consciousness as a evolved biological phenomena is somehow wrong? This should be rich.

And can you please articulate why the other philosophers you mention are misguided in using empirical methods?

Let me stress again that I do think some scientists and some philosophers can be found guilty of scientific over-reach (and I should add that their peers tend to be pretty good at slapping them down for it), but you have to take it case by case and examine the particular merits of the arguments they make instead of making unfounded generalizations about the entire field. I just deny that there is some sort of over-arching problem where science is constantly and routinely abused and used to solve problems where it is an inappropriate tool.

You sound exactly like a person who has never in his entire life come within a parsec of phenomenology. So full of opinion, and NO reading at all. Astounding, really. Do you handle all your affairs like this?
Read what i wrote to TS just now.

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

by Atla

We've been over this already. First thing anyone with some sense does, is use a deflated meaning of qualia. But that deflated qualia still has to be part of one's worldview, if one claims to have explained consciousness. Dennett just seems to deflate it into nonexistence, eliminate it.

You can't find him doing this in his own words, which right away should ring alarm bells if you have any intellectual honesty and think accurately representing views you disagree with is essential to being a good scholar.

I mean, common sense alone should dictate that if he squabbles with people who openly call themselves eliminativists over their eliminativism, it's kind of stupid to call him one.

Where did Dennett ever address what qualia actually is? The issue is not what he said, it's what he what didn't say. And there are different kinds of eliminativisms. Try some of that common sense.

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

by Atla

We've been over this already. First thing anyone with some sense does, is use a deflated meaning of qualia. But that deflated qualia still has to be part of one's worldview, if one claims to have explained consciousness. Dennett just seems to deflate it into nonexistence, eliminate it.

You can't find him doing this in his own words, which right away should ring alarm bells if you have any intellectual honesty and think accurately representing views you disagree with is essential to being a good scholar.

I mean, common sense alone should dictate that if he squabbles with people who openly call themselves eliminativists over their eliminativism, it's kind of stupid to call him one.

It doesn't help either that Dennett sometimes says things like: ‘Far better, tactically, to declare that there simply are no qualia at all’.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Terrapin Station wrote
That doesn't help, because the idea of that is nonsensical. You can't have existents of any sort without properties.

That's what Heidegger said (as well as Husserl. A thing is an "predicatively formed affair of actuality").

It sure isn't what you just said.

He takes Being as such as a badly misunderstood concept. These mysterious intuitions, he said, one might have of Being are what he is trying to give some articulation to. He thinks we have to to understand Being as a foundational concept in an analytic of Time: I approach a thing, it IS there. What is it that constitutes this awareness of the thing before me? It is not some pure intimation of Being, for, as you say above, no sense can be made of this.

Ontology isn't epistemology. "What is it that constitutes this awareness of the thing before me? It is not some pure intimation of Being" --this is epistemology.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Yes, they have. It's just that the empirical premise is simply implied. I]ll tell you what, you name any analytic phislopher, of your choosing, and I will shoe how this philosopher's conception of the world at the level of basic assumptions is empirical.

Well, yes. Information acquired empirically, via the senses, is indeed the raw material from which all concepts concerning things outside ourselves are forged, in the view of most modern philosophers. What additional sources of information do you imagine we have? Are you a Platonist? If your basic assumptions include some such source please set it forth, outline the ontology you have built upon it and demonstrate its explanatory power.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

"The quest for the being of beings in its difference from being": "from being" takes the quoate out of context and I would have to read the fuller text. His question is about being in the most foundational sense, not particular beings, as a chair or an eidtic entity like a set of numbers, but the question of being as such, when the predicative designations is put aside. Entities come replete predicatively bundled, so to speak, and there is no sense in the ideas of it being otherwise. But since philosophy's purpose is to provide an analytic at themost foundational level possible, and Being as such is this level, he begins here, but it is not with an eye to elucidate Being, the eternal essence of all things (why is there something rather than nothing, sort of thing), but rather to use this term to establish how far down the rabbit hole analysis can go and what this terminal place is.

Well, that response illustrates the problem. Phrases such as "being in the foundational sense," "being as such," and "eternal essences of all things" are meaningless phrases. The word "being" has two uses in English --- it is a noun denoting an existent, especially a living creature, and as a verb, the present participle of to be (to exist). There is no sense to "being as such" --- the term is only meaningful with reference to some particular existent. It does not denote some inchoate, mystical substance, some "essence," that permeates all tangible, perceptible things. Nor can any such mystical substances supply a foundation for any useful ontology. Speaking of "being" in that way does not constitute some revolutionary insight; it is merely a linguistic corruption contrived in an attempt to describe an incoherent idea.

So the quote SOUNDS absurd to anyone who has read nothing. It is always like this. Rorty calls those who talk like this (he thought Heidegger was among the three greatest philosophers of the 20th century) know nothings.

Scientists and analytic philosophers are "know-nothings"? Yikes.

GE Morton
Well, that response illustrates the problem. Phrases such as "being in the foundational sense," "being as such," and "eternal essences of all things" are meaningless phrases. The word "being" has two uses in English --- it is a noun denoting an existent, especially a living creature, and as a verb, the present participle of to be (to exist). There is no sense to "being as such" --- the term is only meaningful with reference to some particular existent. It does not denote some inchoate, mystical substance, some "essence," that permeates all tangible, perceptible things. Nor can any such mystical substances supply a foundation for any useful ontology. Speaking of "being" in that way does not constitute some revolutionary insight; it is merely a linguistic corruption contrived in an attempt to describe an incoherent idea.

Read this to clarify (intended for TS)

Well, that response illustrates the problem. Phrases such as "being in the foundational sense," "being as such," and "eternal essences of all things" are meaningless phrases. The word "being" has two uses in English --- it is a noun denoting an existent, especially a living creature, and as a verb, the present participle of to be (to exist). There is no sense to "being as such" --- the term is only meaningful with reference to some particular existent. It does not denote some inchoate, mystical substance, some "essence," that permeates all tangible, perceptible things. Nor can any such mystical substances supply a foundation for any useful ontology. Speaking of "being" in that way does not constitute some revolutionary insight; it is merely a linguistic corruption contrived in an attempt to describe an incoherent idea.


That's what Heidegger said (as well as Husserl. A thing is an "predicatively formed affair of actuality"). He takes Being as such as a badly misunderstood concept. These mysterious intuitions, he said, one might have of Being are what he is trying to give some articulation to. He thinks we have to to understand Being as a foundational concept in an analytic of Time: I approach a thing, it IS there. What is it that constitutes this awareness of the thing before me? It is not some pure intimation of Being, for, as you say above, no sense can be made of this. He sees that before I even approach the thing, I am equipped with the ability to acknowledge it AS something, some reference to language, a foreknowledge of what couches and chairs ARE before we can analyze what it means that things ARE. The areness, if you will, is bound, in every case, always, already, bound to the pre understanding, so the question of what it means for something to be is analyzable to the temporal conditions that are in place in order for a "there is" or a "I am" to occur at all. this is why Heidegger's ontology is as foundational as it can get: wher a scientific account is about planets and chromosomes, the phenomenological ontology is about what it is for a thing to be at all, so that when you approach the microscope, there is a constitution, if you like, a paradigmatically informed apperceptive constitution that makes encounters at all maningful, and thus,the scientist's work meaningful.

Heidegger says at root, it is all interpretation. Now, his analysis of what an interpretative act IS requires looking into his thinkiing.
"Essences" only exist as rigid requirements in an individual's concepts. No essence as such would be "eternal." "Why is there something" is a rather silly question. There's no reason there should be nothing instead, so that it would be a mystery that there is something, and the question usually has a connotation almost of there being an intelligent reason behind the brute fact that things exist, which is also nonsense.
Right. Now I do recall saying to someone that phenomenologists are all different. There are those who take phenomenology another direction. When attention is placed on the interpretative act that engages the world, it brings philosophical attention to what is there, in the phenomenal act of recognition. This is why science plays no part in phenomenological analyses: Attention is on the act of perception, or apperception, itself. Studying the structure of time, the present and the literal "making" of our existence (hence Sartre's existence precedes essence: we make what we are in the fleeting "nothingness" of the present moment moving into the future) by freely choosing among the possibilities our history provides. We are, therefore, determined insofar as our past is made of the stuff of culture and language, a body of possibilities, but free in that the future is nothing, unmade.
One thing I like about this, is that it allows a good liberal like myself to look to social conditions as the cause of poverty and ignorance, after all, it is our history that determines our possibilities, but at the same time, does not undo the dignity of freedom (Skinner's term), for there is in this a clear recognition of what it is to stand at the precipice of the future and choose one direction or another.

It does get interesting, believe it or not. Perhaps you can see why phenomenologists take special note of that moment what one stops simply acting as a kind of automaton, just doing this and that, getting a job, buying a house, and on and on, and wakes up to ask the question regarding Being: what does it mean to be here" Why am I here at all? Why are we born to suffer and die? And so on. Questions get quite poignant if you are among those born into nothing but suffering. Why IS it that things are like this? Heidegger thinks when you get to this juncture, you begin to realize your own freedom, as you stand apart from history that would otherwise simply move you along unconsciously. Only now are you free. Freedom requires one to step away from unconscious behavior. When you do this, you witness possibilities, as when I stop typing, look up and consider all things and why they are.

Then you find Jaspers' The Encompassing, Henry's Affectivity, Kierkegaard's existential Anxiety, Levinas' Infinity, and so forth. All terms alien to analytic philosophy's lexicon. Of course, derision is easy with kind of thing. It all does sound very weird. But this subsides with reading.

Scientists and analytic philosophers are "know-nothings"? Yikes.

Yikes is right. By no nothing, Rorty was referring to critics who never read Derrida and others yet were terrified of his conclusions. Not, heh, heh, critics of science.
But then, analytic philosophers really are barking up the wrong tree. This philosophy goes nowhere at all.

Terrapin Station wrote

Ontology isn't epistemology.

NOW might be getting it. Ontology IS epistemology. This is Heraclitus' world, not Parmenedes'.

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

You can't find him doing this in his own words, which right away should ring alarm bells if you have any intellectual honesty and think accurately representing views you disagree with is essential to being a good scholar.

I mean, common sense alone should dictate that if he squabbles with people who openly call themselves eliminativists over their eliminativism, it's kind of stupid to call him one.

If anyone cares to read Dennet's "Quining Qualia" it is here:

https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/p ... inqual.htm

Sculptor1 wrote

But science is perfectly fit for the foundation of all knowledge; Just ask Locke Hume, and Newton, among many others.
I mean seriously. How can you claim to know anything without the empiric paradigm. It is the basis of all things.
There can be no ontology without the evidence that drives it.
Unless you want to sit in a dark cave and imagine the world you prefer to live in, you are basically stuck with EVIDENCE.

Just to be clear, I believe in the power of science over all things, with no exceptions save philosophical ontology. I will grant you that such a thing does require experience, but then, what IS experience? Does it have "parts" that can be abstracted and understood, like reason? It does, and so it is possible for a more basic level of analysis than empirical theory can provide.

One can have one's cake (say, evolution or climatology) and eat it, too (that is, keep it at bay for a more foundational ontology).

Wonder how a phenomenologist would deal with a severe psychosis, where for example he sees and hears things that aren't actually happening, and feels a rather overwhelming internal presence of some form of being that wasn't there previously, and so on.. is this also ontology?

by GE Morton

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

You can't find him doing this in his own words, which right away should ring alarm bells if you have any intellectual honesty and think accurately representing views you disagree with is essential to being a good scholar.

I mean, common sense alone should dictate that if he squabbles with people who openly call themselves eliminativists over their eliminativism, it's kind of stupid to call him one.

If anyone cares to read Dennet's "Quining Qualia" it is here:

https://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/dennett/p ... inqual.htm

I've tried reading that before, the experience proved pain exists.

It seems like your new tactic is that whatever our criticism is, you respond with "That's what Heidegger said!"

We could write, "Look, Heidegger was wrong. He simply didn't know what he was talking about, and he was a horrible writer." You'd respond with, "That's what Heidegger said!"

It's apparently the new "That's what she said."

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by Gertie

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

No, Dennett just thinks experiences don't have all the qualities that believers in qualia insist they do. He's more of a deflationist than an eliminativist.

What qualities does Dennett 'deflate' qualia to?

The soundbite would be "representational states of the nervous system".

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

The anti reductionism you are talking about is the resistance to a hasty reduction dismissing complexity.

No, he is literally anti-reductionist when it comes to mental states. I'm talking about "reductionsim" in the strict technical sense, the only sense that really matters in philosophy of science.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

I do note that I asked you for one philosopher you could think of as a counter example to my claim that empirical science had hegemony in analytic philosophy, and you give me dennett, who you say is, "empirical to the core." Interesting strategy.

I do note that the burden of proving your ridiculous claim was on you, to find a mainstream analytic philosopher who made the outrageous claim you attribute to analytic philosophy. You'll never be able to do this, so of course you try to change the subject.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by Atla

The issue is not what he said, it's what he what didn't say.

When he says in plain English that he's not denying the existence of conscious experience, you don't get to claim that he denies conscious experience. End of story.

This is not rocket science.

Faustus5 wrote
No, he is literally anti-reductionist when it comes to mental states. I'm talking about "reductionsim" in the strict technical sense, the only sense that really matters in philosophy of science.

I good start. Now, SPEAK! What is your aversion to explicative language? You should, by now, have at least SOME sense of the issue at hand, and you appear to have a thought or two about reductionist talk, so put the two together and make an idea.

Try this:
Different accounts of scientific reduction have shaped debates about diverse topics including scientific unification, the relation between (folk-)psychology and neuroscience, the metaphysics of the mind, the status of biology vis à vis chemistry, and the relation between allegedly teleological explanations and causal explanations. Understanding the relevant notions is thus a prerequisite for understanding key issues in contemporary analytic philosophy

Now, where do YOU stand on this issue of, as you say, "the strict technical sense the only sense that really matters in philosophy of science" reductionism vis a vis the argument here you seem to have such an abundant of critical thinking on?

I just think you don't like to be called out on matters to defend your thinking. That's not good. If you can't defend an idea, then perhaps you should review whether it is justified for belief.

Surely someone who has read The Mirror of Nature twice and memorized Dennett can say more than, oh, that's nonsense.

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

by Atla

The issue is not what he said, it's what he what didn't say.

When he says in plain English that he's not denying the existence of conscious experience, you don't get to claim that he denies conscious experience. End of story.

This is not rocket science.

I said that he eliminated qualia, because that's what he did. You are bending the issue by calling it conscious experience, which can be interpreted more broadly.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Now, where do YOU stand on this issue of, as you say, "the strict technical sense the only sense that really matters in philosophy of science" reductionism vis a vis the argument here you seem to have such an abundant of critical thinking on?

Reductionism is the attempt to reconcile and link two separate vocabularies or language-games which address some phenomenon in the natural world. In sound-bite form, reduction requires that you be able to transform one vocabulary into the other either through some sort of logical deduction or through systematic application of scientific “bridge” laws.

If you cannot do this, then while you can certainly claim (if the evidence supports it) that one vocabulary is talking about the same thing as the other but at a different level of analysis, you cannot claim that one reduces to the other. The two vocabularies have a sort of autonomy from one another.

That's reductionism. Dennett does not believe that mental states can be reduced in this way to brain states.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by Atla

I said that he eliminated qualia, because that's what he did. You are bending the issue by calling it conscious experience, which can be interpreted more broadly.

You wrote yesterday that Dennett "does away with experience". That's what I was responding to, so if dragging "experience" into the discussion is "bending the issue", maybe you shouldn't have used that phrase in the first place.

Of course I agree that he does away with qualia. Where I believe we differ is that I see this as a wise move because qualia is philosophical BS.

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

by Gertie

What qualities does Dennett 'deflate' qualia to?

The soundbite would be "representational states of the nervous system".

And are these representational states of the nervous system phenomenally experienced by the nervous system, or are they themselves the phenomenal experience, or...?

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

by Atla

I said that he eliminated qualia, because that's what he did. You are bending the issue by calling it conscious experience, which can be interpreted more broadly.

You wrote yesterday that Dennett "does away with experience". That's what I was responding to, so if dragging "experience" into the discussion is "bending the issue", maybe you shouldn't have used that phrase in the first place.

Of course I agree that he does away with qualia. Where I believe we differ is that I see this as a wise move because qualia is philosophical BS.

Thanks for admitting it. Too bad that the existence of qualia can't be doubted.
At this point I usually ask you eliminativists, to explain what magenta is, and how science detects it, or infers its existence from the behaviour of other things. After all, if science can't do that, then magenta is made-up, right, or some sort of 'illusion'? Would be too much off topic though so maybe we'll have that fun another time.

by Atla

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

You wrote yesterday that Dennett "does away with experience". That's what I was responding to, so if dragging "experience" into the discussion is "bending the issue", maybe you shouldn't have used that phrase in the first place.

Of course I agree that he does away with qualia. Where I believe we differ is that I see this as a wise move because qualia is philosophical BS.

Thanks for admitting it. Too bad that the existence of qualia can't be doubted.
At this point I usually ask you eliminativists, to explain what magenta is, and how science detects it, or infers its existence from the behaviour of other things. After all, if science can't do that, then magenta is made-up, right, or some sort of 'illusion'? Would be too much off topic though so maybe we'll have that fun another time.

Neither of you seem to appreciate what is meant by qualia. And of you think Dennett has dismissed the idea then he is also clueless.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by Gertie

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

The soundbite would be "representational states of the nervous system".

And are these representational states of the nervous system phenomenally experienced by the nervous system, or are they themselves the phenomenal experience, or...?

B.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by Atla

Thanks for admitting it. Too bad that the existence of qualia can't be doubted.[/quote]
If that were actually true, then you wouldn't have smart, well studied philosophers doubting that qualia exist. The existence of qualia appears to me to be a matter of religious faith among philosophers. And like "god" it apparently is so incoherent that even true believers can't seem to agree on what exactly they mean by using the term.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by Atla

Too bad that the existence of qualia can't be doubted.

Okay, I'll try this again. Really wish this forum had the ability to edit or delete posts when I make stupid formatting mistakes.

The fact of the matter is that there have been smart thinkers who have denied qualia in some form or another for decades, so this claim of yours is just wrong as matter of absolute fact. You may be correct in the end that qualia exist, but that position is still being actively debated and you're in denial if you don't admit this.

The existence of qualia seems to be to be a sort of religious article of faith among some in the philosophical community. As with "God", even the true believers can't seem to agree with one another one what the term is supposed to mean.

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

Of course I agree that he does away with qualia. Where I believe we differ is that I see this as a wise move because qualia is philosophical BS.

by Atla

At this point I usually ask you eliminativists, to explain what magenta is, and how science detects it, or infers its existence from the behaviour of other things. After all, if science can't do that, then magenta is made-up, right, or some sort of 'illusion'? Would be too much off topic though so maybe we'll have that fun another time.

That qualia is not reducible to brain states or otherwise explicable in scientific terms does not relegate it to "philosophical BS." The term is reasonably well-defined and descriptively useful. But the existence of qualia doesn't imply dualism either. The challenge is to explain WHY it is not reducible. (Good explanation of reductionism earlier, Faustus).

There is no explanation of "what magenta is" to be had, Alta, via science or any other methodology. But since we can use that and other qualia terms to communicate actionable information it exists --- which is the only criterion for the existence of anything.

by Atla

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

You wrote yesterday that Dennett "does away with experience". That's what I was responding to, so if dragging "experience" into the discussion is "bending the issue", maybe you shouldn't have used that phrase in the first place.

Of course I agree that he does away with qualia. Where I believe we differ is that I see this as a wise move because qualia is philosophical BS.

Thanks for admitting it. Too bad that the existence of qualia can't be doubted.
At this point I usually ask you eliminativists, to explain what magenta is, and how science detects it, or infers its existence from the behaviour of other things. After all, if science can't do that, then magenta is made-up, right, or some sort of 'illusion'? Would be too much off topic though so maybe we'll have that fun another time.

But I already explained how we explain what magenta is and how we detect it. It's no big mystery. Your objection was that it was somehow illegitimate to talk about something that's not a "single" phenomenon--in other words, magenta obtains via a combination of EM wavelengths (or we could talk about combinations of pigments that give off the combination of wavelengths, etc.)

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

Thanks for admitting it. Too bad that the existence of qualia can't be doubted.
At this point I usually ask you eliminativists, to explain what magenta is, and how science detects it, or infers its existence from the behaviour of other things. After all, if science can't do that, then magenta is made-up, right, or some sort of 'illusion'? Would be too much off topic though so maybe we'll have that fun another time.

But I already explained how we explain what magenta is and how we detect it. It's no big mystery. Your objection was that it was somehow illegitimate to talk about something that's not a "single" phenomenon--in other words, magenta obtains via a combination of EM wavelengths (or we could talk about combinations of pigments that give off the combination of wavelengths, etc.)

And I told you to prove your idea via science, which of course you couldn't.

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

by Atla

Too bad that the existence of qualia can't be doubted.

Okay, I'll try this again. Really wish this forum had the ability to edit or delete posts when I make stupid formatting mistakes.

The fact of the matter is that there have been smart thinkers who have denied qualia in some form or another for decades, so this claim of yours is just wrong as matter of absolute fact. You may be correct in the end that qualia exist, but that position is still being actively debated and you're in denial if you don't admit this.

The existence of qualia seems to be to be a sort of religious article of faith among some in the philosophical community. As with "God", even the true believers can't seem to agree with one another one what the term is supposed to mean.

I don't know if we talked about this before. I buy that there are qualia, and I've always found the rejection of qualia curious. There's nothing mysterious about qualia. Qualia are simply the qualitative properties of mental brain states, from the perspective of those mental brain states. When the brain states are perceptual states, there's often no good reason to believe that the qualitative properties of the correlative brain states are much different, qualitatively, than the qualitative properties of the objective materials/relations/processes that we're perceiving. (Sometimes there are reasons to believe that there would be a difference, but we need good evidence for that, and it requires that we're able to tell what the externals are really like contra the perceptual content.)

All materials/relations/processes "have" qualities, of course--qualities simply being properties or characteristics of existents (including in whatever dynamic or relational state they're in). "Qualia" is simply the term for these properties when we're talking about mental brain states, from the perspective of those mental brain states. It wouldn't make any sense to say that mental brain states (or anything else for that matter) have no properties.

by Atla

by Terrapin Station

But I already explained how we explain what magenta is and how we detect it. It's no big mystery. Your objection was that it was somehow illegitimate to talk about something that's not a "single" phenomenon--in other words, magenta obtains via a combination of EM wavelengths (or we could talk about combinations of pigments that give off the combination of wavelengths, etc.)

And I told you to prove your idea via science, which of course you couldn't.

No empirical claim is provable. If you want reasons to believe it, which is different than a proof, then that's simple enough. Reasons to believe it include (a) the definition of "magenta," (b) knowledge that colors obtain via wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation (and subjectively, what the perception of those wavelengths is like from the perspective of being the brain states in question), (c) knowledge that some colors are the result of additive properties of electromagnetic waves, sometimes at different intensities, etc., (d) knowledge of how materials reflect electromagnetic radiation--materials such as pigments in paints or pixels on a computer screen, etc. What's supposed to be the big mystery there?

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

And I told you to prove your idea via science, which of course you couldn't.

No empirical claim is provable. If you want reasons to believe it, which is different than a proof, then that's simple enough. Reasons to believe it include (a) the definition of "magenta," (b) knowledge that colors obtain via wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation (and subjectively, what the perception of those wavelengths is like from the perspective of being the brain states in question), (c) knowledge that some colors are the result of additive properties of electromagnetic waves, sometimes at different intensities, etc., (d) knowledge of how materials reflect electromagnetic radiation--materials such as pigments in paints or pixels on a computer screen, etc. What's supposed to be the big mystery there?

The mistery here is why you are so ignorant about both science and philosohy. You don't even understand the problem. Again, (b) and (c) are your guesses but you can't show them via science. That's why I told you to prove them if you can.

(Evasion tactics about how you can't interpret 'proof' in a scientific context, does not solve the issue by the way.)

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

by Gertie

And are these representational states of the nervous system phenomenally experienced by the nervous system, or are they themselves the phenomenal experience, or...?

B.

So the claim is that that qualia are phenomenal experience, and a property of brain processes? That's a pretty mainstream idea.

Isn't the reduction then simply a framing which says it's not qualia doing the representing of a blue sky, it's the configurations of and interactions of the nervous system in response to external stimuli? And the phenomenal experience is just a property of how those particular processes manifest?

I don't see that as reduction, or particularly significant, more a shift in identifying where the representational function in the process happens.

I don't see how it makes qualia somehow illusory either?

by 🐉 Hereandnow

Read this to clarify (intended for TS)

Well, that response illustrates the problem. Phrases such as "being in the foundational sense," "being as such," and "eternal essences of all things" are meaningless phrases. The word "being" has two uses in English --- it is a noun denoting an existent, especially a living creature, and as a verb, the present participle of to be (to exist). There is no sense to "being as such" --- the term is only meaningful with reference to some particular existent. It does not denote some inchoate, mystical substance, some "essence," that permeates all tangible, perceptible things. Nor can any such mystical substances supply a foundation for any useful ontology. Speaking of "being" in that way does not constitute some revolutionary insight; it is merely a linguistic corruption contrived in an attempt to describe an incoherent idea.

That's what Heidegger said (as well as Husserl. A thing is an "predicatively formed affair of actuality"). He takes Being as such as a badly misunderstood concept. These mysterious intuitions, he said, one might have of Being are what he is trying to give some articulation to. He thinks we have to to understand Being as a foundational concept in an analytic of Time: I approach a thing, it IS there. What is it that constitutes this awareness of the thing before me? It is not some pure intimation of Being, for, as you say above, no sense can be made of this. He sees that before I even approach the thing, I am equipped with the ability to acknowledge it AS something, some reference to language, a foreknowledge of what couches and chairs ARE before we can analyze what it means that things ARE. The areness, if you will, is bound, in every case, always, already, bound to the pre understanding, so the question of what it means for something to be is analyzable to the temporal conditions that are in place in order for a "there is" or a "I am" to occur at all. this is why Heidegger's ontology is as foundational as it can get: wher a scientific account is about planets and chromosomes, the phenomenological ontology is about what it is for a thing to be at all, so that when you approach the microscope, there is a constitution, if you like, a paradigmatically informed apperceptive constitution that makes encounters at all maningful, and thus,the scientist's work meaningful.

That is supposed to "clarify" the meaning of "Being as such"? You seem to be agreeing that "no sense can be made" of that, then proceed to divert to a discussion of the ability we have to perceive or recognize things --- neither of which has anything to do with "being," as that term is normally understood. From there we get:

"The areness, if you will, is bound, in every case, always, already, bound to the pre understanding, so the question of what it means for something to be is analyzable to the temporal conditions that are in place in order for a "there is" or a "I am" to occur at all."

"Areness"? Is that some sort of synonym for "being as such"? You're just piling more gobbledygook on top of the previous gobbledygook. What it "means to be" is not "analyzable" at all; no analysis of that concept is necessary. It is a simple term, used to distinguish perceptible, tangible, cognizable denotata of terms from imaginary, fictitious, hypothetical, etc., ones. It is among the simplest, least problematic terms in the English lexicon.

"Analyzable to the temporal conditions that are in place"? Are you stating or implying that whatever exists, exists in some time and place? That is not true. Many things exist which have no spatio-temporal coordinates, e.g., numbers, love, beauty --- the things denoted by most other abstract terms. They exist if the terms denoting them have descriptive, explanatory, communicative utility.

You're trying to "reify" a verb used to mark a simple distinction into some sort of ethereal, mysterious substance --- conjuring up a problem where there is none.

by Atla

by Terrapin Station

No empirical claim is provable. If you want reasons to believe it, which is different than a proof, then that's simple enough. Reasons to believe it include (a) the definition of "magenta," (b) knowledge that colors obtain via wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation (and subjectively, what the perception of those wavelengths is like from the perspective of being the brain states in question), (c) knowledge that some colors are the result of additive properties of electromagnetic waves, sometimes at different intensities, etc., (d) knowledge of how materials reflect electromagnetic radiation--materials such as pigments in paints or pixels on a computer screen, etc. What's supposed to be the big mystery there?

The mistery here is why you are so ignorant about both science and philosohy. You don't even understand the problem. Again, (b) and (c) are your guesses but you can't show them via science. That's why I told you to prove them if you can.

(Evasion tactics about how you can't interpret 'proof' in a scientific context, does not solve the issue by the way.)

Again (and again and again and again . . . ) no one can prove any empirical claim, period. For any empirical claim, the contradictory empirical claim is always a possibility. What you should focus on instead are reasons to believe one possibility over another.

(b) is very easy to show re having a good reason to believe it. For one, we can produce different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation, expose people to them, and very predictably receive responses about what color the person is being exposed to.

Re (c) we do this all the time when we mix paints, for example. We can easily use a spectrometer to show what EM frequencies a particular paint blob is giving off. We can easily see what color the paint blob is. And then we very reliably know what colors we'll get when we mix different paints, and we can use spectrometers on those too.

It's ridiculous that I have to explain any of this to you, and it's typical that rather than offer any sorts of counterargument whatsoever, rather than attempting to explain what's supposed to be so mysterious about something like magenta, you resort to stupid insults. That's all you're really capable of. Because you're an insecure moron.

by Atla

Re magenta, by the way, what the hell are you even thinking? That it's just some random quale that people have that's otherwise inexplicable? Are you not thinking that it's reliably in response to objective facts? That it's not a reliable perception of objective properties? How would you explain being able to reliably print things (for example) that people perceive as magenta? Seriously, it seems like I'd be talking to a retard to have to even explain this.

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

The mistery here is why you are so ignorant about both science and philosohy. You don't even understand the problem. Again, (b) and (c) are your guesses but you can't show them via science. That's why I told you to prove them if you can.

(Evasion tactics about how you can't interpret 'proof' in a scientific context, does not solve the issue by the way.)

Again (and again and again and again . . . ) no one can prove any empirical claim, period. For any empirical claim, the contradictory empirical claim is always a possibility. What you should focus on instead are reasons to believe one possibility over another.

(b) is very easy to show re having a good reason to believe it. For one, we can produce different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation, expose people to them, and very predictably receive responses about what color the person is being exposed to.

Re (c) we do this all the time when we mix paints, for example. We can easily use a spectrometer to show what EM frequencies a particular paint blob is giving off. We can easily see what color the paint blob is. And then we very reliably know what colors we'll get when we mix different paints, and we can use spectrometers on those too.

It's ridiculous that I have to explain any of this to you, and it's typical that rather than offer any sorts of counterargument whatsoever, rather than attempting to explain what's supposed to be so mysterious about something like magenta, you resort to stupid insults. That's all you're really capable of. Because you're an insecure moron.

Scientific proof doesn't work via 'what people say', it works by objective observation, measurement. As a physicalist, have you never heard of physics before?

by Gertie

So the claim is that that qualia are phenomenal experience, and a property of brain processes? That's a pretty mainstream idea.

That would be misleading. Qualia are not properties of brain processes, but products of brain processes.

Isn't the reduction then simply a framing which says it's not qualia doing the representing of a blue sky, it's the configurations of and interactions of the nervous system in response to external stimuli? And the phenomenal experience is just a property of how those particular processes manifest?

That is, in my view, the proper way to conceive of qualia --- as the mode by which the brain presents to consciousness information about the wavelengths of light the senses are delivering to it. A quale is an experiential "tag" that allows us to distinguish (say) red light from light with different wavelengths. Each one represents some experiential differertia. We can think of those tags as arbitrary; they bear no predictable or necessary logical or structural relationship to the physical processes that produce them (just as words for things are arbitrary, having no structural or other physical relationships to the things they name). Qualia terms are also unanalyzable and thus ineffable --- they are linguistic primitives, with no simpler parts or distinguishable properties. Hence they cannot be described (description consists in listing the properties of things). They are also intrinsically subjective --- there is no way for me to know whether the sensation you experience when seeing red is the same as mine --- that question doesn't even make sense.

In Frank Jackson's "Mary" thought experiment, Jackson asks whether Mary, who has lived her life in a black-and-white room and never perceived color, but knows all the science there is to know about light, learns anything new when she perceives a red rose for the first time. Yes, she does --- not anything new about the world, but how her brain presents that wavelength information to her consciousness.

Every conscious creature knows that qualia are "real" enough. We just have to accept that, for the reasons above, they are unanalyzable, and, more importantly, that there is no need to analyze them.

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

Re magenta, by the way, what the hell are you even thinking? That it's just some random quale that people have that's otherwise inexplicable? Are you not thinking that it's reliably in response to objective facts? That it's not a reliable perception of objective properties? How would you explain being able to reliably print things (for example) that people perceive as magenta? Seriously, it seems like I'd be talking to a retard to have to even explain this.

Maybe you can answer this.
I'm watching this Dennett video. At 12:40 minutes they get on to "qualia".
To versions of colour perception are set on for blue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSaEjLZIDqc

1 Having a phenomenal quality of blue instantiated in my brain.
and
2 The quality of blue is represented by my brain.

Dennett claims that 1 is wrong and that 2 is correct.

For my money the idea of a qualia seems right. Others on this Forum page have claimed that Dennett has ejected the notion as crap.
SO I have two problems. What is the actual difference between 1 and 2, and does Dennett's acceptance of 2 invalidate the idea of qualia. If so why?

by GE Morton

That is, in my view, the proper way to conceive of qualia --- as the mode by which the brain presents to consciousness information about the wavelengths of light the senses are delivering to it. A quale is an experiential "tag" that allows us to distinguish (say) red light from light with different wavelengths. Each one represents some experiential differertia. We can think of those tags as arbitrary; they bear no predictable or necessary logical or structural relationship to the physical processes that produce them (just as words for things are arbitrary, having no structural or other physical relationships to the things they name). Qualia terms are also unanalyzable and thus ineffable --- they are linguistic primitives, with no simpler parts or distinguishable properties. Hence they cannot be described (description consists in listing the properties of things). They are also intrinsically subjective --- there is no way for me to know whether the sensation you experience when seeing red is the same as mine --- that question doesn't even make sense.

In Frank Jackson's "Mary" thought experiment, Jackson asks whether Mary, who has lived her life in a black-and-white room and never perceived color, but knows all the science there is to know about light, learns anything new when she perceives a red rose for the first time. Yes, she does --- not anything new about the world, but how her brain presents that wavelength information to her consciousness.

Every conscious creature knows that qualia are "real" enough. We just have to accept that, for the reasons above, they are unanalyzable, and, more importantly, that there is no need to analyze them.

That's not good enough. If 'magenta' occurs inside brains, then it should occur outside brains as well.

by GE Morton

In Frank Jackson's "Mary" thought experiment, Jackson asks whether Mary, who has lived her life in a black-and-white room and never perceived color, but knows all the science there is to know about light, learns anything new when she perceives a red rose for the first time. Yes, she does --- not anything new about the world, but how her brain presents that wavelength information to her consciousness.

Every conscious creature knows that qualia are "real" enough. We just have to accept that, for the reasons above, they are unanalyzable, and, more importantly, that there is no need to analyze them.

Clearly when Mary emerges from her monochrome existence and apprehends a collection of colourful children's building blocks there is no way by basic perception that she has any way of knowing which colour is which. Whatever her brain now "sees" or "produces" in the perceived representation of the colours she now sees for the first time; they are wholly unknowable until someone nominates those colours for her.
It is this new knowledge where the "qualia" exist.
So is there any argument against this?

by Atla

by GE Morton

That is, in my view, the proper way to conceive of qualia --- as the mode by which the brain presents to consciousness information about the wavelengths of light the senses are delivering to it. A quale is an experiential "tag" that allows us to distinguish (say) red light from light with different wavelengths. Each one represents some experiential differertia. We can think of those tags as arbitrary; they bear no predictable or necessary logical or structural relationship to the physical processes that produce them (just as words for things are arbitrary, having no structural or other physical relationships to the things they name). Qualia terms are also unanalyzable and thus ineffable --- they are linguistic primitives, with no simpler parts or distinguishable properties. Hence they cannot be described (description consists in listing the properties of things). They are also intrinsically subjective --- there is no way for me to know whether the sensation you experience when seeing red is the same as mine --- that question doesn't even make sense.

In Frank Jackson's "Mary" thought experiment, Jackson asks whether Mary, who has lived her life in a black-and-white room and never perceived color, but knows all the science there is to know about light, learns anything new when she perceives a red rose for the first time. Yes, she does --- not anything new about the world, but how her brain presents that wavelength information to her consciousness.

Every conscious creature knows that qualia are "real" enough. We just have to accept that, for the reasons above, they are unanalyzable, and, more importantly, that there is no need to analyze them.

That's not good enough. If 'magenta' occurs inside brains, then it should occur outside brains as well.

No.
To a person in the Monochrome room magenta is defined as what happens when you mix pure blue and pure red light. (unlike paint which is subtractive, adding light together is additive).
Unless she has previously seen magenta, the light emitted from a object of that wavelength is just that - light emitted from a wavelength.
Magenta can only happen in representations in the perception.
If you don't understand where this is coming from then you need to look at the thought experiment in detail.

by Atla

That's not good enough. If 'magenta' occurs inside brains, then it should occur outside brains as well.

Magenta (the color) does indeed exist outside brains. But the unique phenomenal experience you have when perceiving it exists only in your brain. The term "qualia" refers to that experience, not a color.

by GE Morton

by Atla

That's not good enough. If 'magenta' occurs inside brains, then it should occur outside brains as well.

Magenta (the color) does indeed exist outside brains. But the unique phenomenal experience you have when perceiving it exists only in your brain. The term "qualia" refers to that experience, not a color.

Colour is only meaningful to and of the subject.
It's like you know the Mary experiment and have not learned its lesson.

by Sculptor1

Clearly when Mary emerges from her monochrome existence and apprehends a collection of colourful children's building blocks there is no way by basic perception that she has any way of knowing which colour is which. Whatever her brain now "sees" or "produces" in the perceived representation of the colours she now sees for the first time; they are wholly unknowable until someone nominates those colours for her.

I agree. She will not know what terms are used for which colors until someone tells her.

by GE Morton

by Atla

That's not good enough. If 'magenta' occurs inside brains, then it should occur outside brains as well.

Magenta (the color) does indeed exist outside brains. But the unique phenomenal experience you have when perceiving it exists only in your brain. The term "qualia" refers to that experience, not a color.

Magenta itself is a qualia too. And science can't detect it for two different reasons, that's why I like to use this example. And the standard view is that if you can't detect it, it doesn't exist.

by Sculptor1

1 Having a phenomenal quality of blue instantiated in my brain.
and
2 The quality of blue is represented by my brain.

Dennett claims that 1 is wrong and that 2 is correct.

For my money the idea of a qualia seems right. Others on this Forum page have claimed that Dennett has ejected the notion as crap.
SO I have two problems. What is the actual difference between 1 and 2, and does Dennett's acceptance of 2 invalidate the idea of qualia. If so why?

#1 seems to presume that there is a "phenomenal quality of blueness" that is somehow independent of the perceiving subject (a la Chalmers).

What Dennett rejects is that understanding of "qualia."

by Atla

Magenta itself is a qualia too.

No, it isn't. "magenta" is a name for a range of wavelengths that produce specific qualia in perceiving subjects.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by GE Morton

78 user_id=48013]

The term is reasonably well-defined and descriptively useful.

Is it, though?

I remember one hilarious talk Dennett gave where he illustrated change blindness to an audience. (Two images which appear to be identical are flashed repeatedly over and over. There is a change from one to the other but it takes several repetitions before a subject will consciously perceive it. He proceeded until everyone verified they had noticed the change from one slide to the other.)

He asked the audience what (to me, anyway) should have been a simple question for which the answer should be obvious and unanimously reached: "Were your qualia changing during the experiment?" Some people raised their hands, some people didn't.

Seems to me that if qualia were really well defined there should have been no disagreement. I mean after all, if qualia really exist and are the most obvious thing in the world, how could some people think their qualia were changing and others not? This disagreement and confusion pretty clearly indicate to me that qualia are a thoroughly theoretical construct.

by GE Morton

78 user_id=48013]The challenge is to explain WHY it is not reducible. (Good explanation of reductionism earlier, Faustus).

Thanks, and I think I have an answer. With reference to the definition of reduction I gave earlier, you can't take the vocabulary of mental state talk and transform its terms into the vocabulary of neurology talk, neither through logical deduction nor through scientific "bridge laws".

This is no big deal and does not call for metaphysical extravagance where we think we need to add phenomenal properties to the list of physical properties found in the natural world.

by GE Morton

by Atla

Magenta itself is a qualia too.

No, it isn't. "magenta" is a name for a range of wavelengths that produce specific qualia in perceiving subjects.

So is this:



just a name?

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by Gertie

So the claim is that that qualia are phenomenal experience, and a property of brain processes? That's a pretty mainstream idea.

Well, I don't want to talk about qualia at all. I want to say that there are brain processes and brain properties and that's it. When we talk about what they are like we use a set of language games that involve reference to mental and phenomenal states when ultimately what we are talking about are brain states, although until recently we didn't know that's what we were doing.

I'm sure almost no one here agrees with me, I'm just outlining the position you get to if you agree with the model of consciousness Dennett has been championing since Consciousness Explained, which I thoroughly do on most points.

One of these days I'm going to start a thread about his concept of heterophenomenology, which I think is in chapter three or four. It's supposed to lay out a supposedly neutral starting point where everyone, believers in qualia or not, should be able to agree upon when gathering the data a theory of consciousness is supposed to explain.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by Sculptor1

SO I have two problems. What is the actual difference between 1 and 2, and does Dennett's acceptance of 2 invalidate the idea of qualia. If so why?

I haven't seen that video in a long time (if I saw it at all), but given what he's said in the past during other presentations which involved the ontology of after-images, if there is no blue colored thing anywhere in your brain, but just a brain state representing the color and shape of a blue object, there is nothing fitting the concept of #1 that exists.

Qualia as many understand them would be in addition to the brain state, something which somehow mysteriously exists, but even though non-physical is still not supposed to suggest dualism.

Another way I like to think about qualia is that if you think a David Chalmers zombie makes sense in any form, what it has are qualia, and if you don't, you don't believe in qualia.

GE

Thank you for taking the time to do this.

I have questions!

So the claim is that that qualia are phenomenal experience, and a property of brain processes? That's a pretty mainstream idea.

That would be misleading. Qualia are not properties of brain processes, but products of brain processes.

Could you clarify how the difference works here?

Isn't the reduction then simply a framing which says it's not qualia doing the representing of a blue sky, it's the configurations of and interactions of the nervous system in response to external stimuli? And the phenomenal experience is just a property of how those particular processes manifest?

That is, in my view, the proper way to conceive of qualia --- as the mode by which the brain presents to consciousness information about the wavelengths of light the senses are delivering to it.

Just to agree some terms - would you go with qualia are akin to units of certain types phenomenal experience like sensory perceptions, emotions and sensations? Or all 'what it's like' experience?

And what do you mean by 'consciousness' here, which the brain ''presents phenomenal experience'' to? Other types of experiential states, a self which is something different to experiential states, or something else?

My own view is a conscious Self is no more than a feature of the way experiential states (qualia, intentional states, whatever) manifest in complex conscious beings - hence the question

A quale is an experiential "tag" that allows us to distinguish (say) red light from light with different wavelengths.

Again, what is the ''us'' or Me here doing the distinguishing?

Each one represents some experiential differertia. We can think of those tags as arbitrary; they bear no predictable or necessary logical or structural relationship to the physical processes that produce them (just as words for things are arbitrary, having no structural or other physical relationships to the things they name).

If I'm reading you correctly, you're saying Dennett believes it's arbitrary that sticking my hand in a fire feels bad, and and eating when I'm low on calories feels good? It could just as easily be the other way round? Because our reward system looks a lot like it's tuned by evolution.

Qualia terms are also unanalyzable and thus ineffable --- they are linguistic primitives, with no simpler parts or distinguishable properties. Hence they cannot be described (description consists in listing the properties of things).

Umm OK. I'd thought Dennett disputed their inneffability.

They are also intrinsically subjective --- there is no way for me to know whether the sensation you experience when seeing red is the same as mine --- that question doesn't even make sense.

Right it is unknowable, but the claim the question doesn't make sense implies a whole lot more.

In Frank Jackson's "Mary" thought experiment, Jackson asks whether Mary, who has lived her life in a black-and-white room and never perceived color, but knows all the science there is to know about light, learns anything new when she perceives a red rose for the first time. Yes, she does --- not anything new about the world, but how her brain presents that wavelength information to her consciousness.

I recall Dennett disputing Jackson's knowledge argument, but all I remember now is a banana - and that might not have been him lol. That makes sense I guess, if you think consciousness consists of something other than experiential states manifesting in different ways.

Every conscious creature knows that qualia are "real" enough. We just have to accept that, for the reasons above, they are unanalyzable, and, more importantly, that there is no need to analyze them.

Heh.

by Atla

by Terrapin Station

Again (and again and again and again . . . ) no one can prove any empirical claim, period. For any empirical claim, the contradictory empirical claim is always a possibility. What you should focus on instead are reasons to believe one possibility over another.

(b) is very easy to show re having a good reason to believe it. For one, we can produce different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation, expose people to them, and very predictably receive responses about what color the person is being exposed to.

Re (c) we do this all the time when we mix paints, for example. We can easily use a spectrometer to show what EM frequencies a particular paint blob is giving off. We can easily see what color the paint blob is. And then we very reliably know what colors we'll get when we mix different paints, and we can use spectrometers on those too.

It's ridiculous that I have to explain any of this to you, and it's typical that rather than offer any sorts of counterargument whatsoever, rather than attempting to explain what's supposed to be so mysterious about something like magenta, you resort to stupid insults. That's all you're really capable of. Because you're an insecure moron.

Scientific proof doesn't work via 'what people say', it works by objective observation, measurement. As a physicalist, have you never heard of physics before?

Science doesn't prove anything. It provisionally verifies them in lieu of falsification. Have you never heard of science methodology or philosophy of science before?

by Sculptor1

by Terrapin Station

Re magenta, by the way, what the hell are you even thinking? That it's just some random quale that people have that's otherwise inexplicable? Are you not thinking that it's reliably in response to objective facts? That it's not a reliable perception of objective properties? How would you explain being able to reliably print things (for example) that people perceive as magenta? Seriously, it seems like I'd be talking to a retard to have to even explain this.

Maybe you can answer this.
I'm watching this Dennett video. At 12:40 minutes they get on to "qualia".
To versions of colour perception are set on for blue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSaEjLZIDqc

1 Having a phenomenal quality of blue instantiated in my brain.
and
2 The quality of blue is represented by my brain.

Dennett claims that 1 is wrong and that 2 is correct.

For my money the idea of a qualia seems right. Others on this Forum page have claimed that Dennett has ejected the notion as crap.
SO I have two problems. What is the actual difference between 1 and 2, and does Dennett's acceptance of 2 invalidate the idea of qualia. If so why?

Dennett simply means that there's no literal instantiation of blue in your brain, and no literal door. In other words, the color blue won't literally be found in your brain and neither will a door. You rather have a "representation" of blue and the door in your brain. It's kind of like how the color blue isn't literally in the word "blue," but the word (at least with semantic aspects "attached") is a representation of the color.

by Atla

by GE Morton

No, it isn't. "magenta" is a name for a range of wavelengths that produce specific qualia in perceiving subjects.

So is this:



just a name?

He wrote that it's a name for a range of wavelengths. He didn't write that it's just a name <stop>

That would be misleading. Qualia are not properties of brain processes, but products of brain processes.

I don't agree with that. Qualia are properties of mental brain states. They're not something different than mental brain states that the brain only produces.

That is, in my view, the proper way to conceive of qualia --- as the mode by which the brain presents to consciousness

As if brains and consciousness are something different. They're not.

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

Scientific proof doesn't work via 'what people say', it works by objective observation, measurement. As a physicalist, have you never heard of physics before?

Science doesn't prove anything. It provisionally verifies them in lieu of falsification. Have you never heard of science methodology or philosophy of science before?

Empirical proof is a commonly used term, I already told you like 5 times that I'm not interested in the childish evasion tactics where you pretend to not understand what it means.

Although I suppose it's possible that you really don't know what it means. After all, you also didn't know that science deals with objective measurement. And we've also established prior that you missed like the entirety of 20th century scientific development, that was relevant to philosophy.

In short, you have an almost Flat-Earther level understanding of the physicalism you think you subscribe to. That would explain why you are so confused, but think that others are confused.

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

So is this:



just a name?

He wrote that it's a name for a range of wavelengths. He didn't write that it's just a name <stop>

Maybe, maybe not. Magenta doesn't even have a known wavelength btw.

This post is made by a pseudonym of well-known philosophy professor Daniel C. Dennett, author of best sellers such as Darwin's Dangerous Idea and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. 🧐 Evidence here.

by Terrapin Station

It's kind of like how the color blue isn't literally in the word "blue," but the word (at least with semantic aspects "attached") is a representation of the color.

That is a great way of putting it!

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

Seems to me that if qualia were really well defined there should have been no disagreement. I mean after all, if qualia really exist and are the most obvious thing in the world, how could some people think their qualia were changing and others not? This disagreement and confusion pretty clearly indicate to me that qualia are a thoroughly theoretical construct.

One issue here would be if people believe that they can have unconscious mental content, and whether unconscious mental content have qualia.

So, for example, they might think, "I have unconscious mental content, but I understand the 'what it's like' idea to refer to something I'm necessarily aware of, so I'm not sure how to answer."

Or in my case, I don't agree that there's any good reason to buy that there is unconscious mental content.

But then someone else might think that they have unconscious mental content and that their unconscious mental content necessarily have qualia, too.

So the problem wouldn't be that qualia are necessarily unclear. It could be that people have different views about and/or aren't sure about unconscious mental content or its relation to qualia.

by Atla

by Terrapin Station

He wrote that it's a name for a range of wavelengths. He didn't write that it's just a name <stop>

Maybe, maybe not. Magenta doesn't even have a known wavelength btw.

It's not a "single wavelength." It's a combo of wavelengths. Why would a combo be illegitimate?

You might as well say that there's no scientific account of musical harmony or a chord. Musical harmony/chords are by definition not just one pitch. They're a combination of pitches. Is it illegitimate to talk about a combination of musical pitches? Why would it be illegitimate to talk about combinations of EM frequencies?

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

Maybe, maybe not. Magenta doesn't even have a known wavelength btw.

It's not a "single wavelength." It's a combo of wavelengths. Why would a combo be illegitimate?

You might as well say that there's no scientific account of musical harmony or a chord. Musical harmony/chords are by definition not just one pitch. They're a combination of pitches. Is it illegitimate to talk about a combination of musical pitches? Why would it be illegitimate to talk about combinations of EM frequencies?

Again, I don't care about the new physics you keep inventing, where two different things are identical to a third single thing. Prove it.

by Sculptor1

by Terrapin Station

Re magenta, by the way, what the hell are you even thinking? That it's just some random quale that people have that's otherwise inexplicable? Are you not thinking that it's reliably in response to objective facts? That it's not a reliable perception of objective properties? How would you explain being able to reliably print things (for example) that people perceive as magenta? Seriously, it seems like I'd be talking to a retard to have to even explain this.

Maybe you can answer this.
I'm watching this Dennett video. At 12:40 minutes they get on to "qualia".
To versions of colour perception are set on for blue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSaEjLZIDqc

1 Having a phenomenal quality of blue instantiated in my brain.
and
2 The quality of blue is represented by my brain.

Dennett claims that 1 is wrong and that 2 is correct.

For my money the idea of a qualia seems right. Others on this Forum page have claimed that Dennett has ejected the notion as crap.
SO I have two problems. What is the actual difference between 1 and 2, and does Dennett's acceptance of 2 invalidate the idea of qualia. If so why?

When Dennett says blue is represented by my brain, all I think he's saying is that the the neural interactions resulting from patterns of photons (which we call blue) are the ''representation'' of blue.

So blue is represented by different neurons firing to those that fire for red, or an itchy toe, etc.

I think he's just saying the physical processes are what's doing the ''representaion'' function.

He's not talking about the experience of seeing blue, only to say he doesn't label the experiencing part the representational part (as some do). He labels the physical processes the functional representation process.

It's not saying much imo. And the interviewer didn't help clarify that. But I could have misunderstood.

by Atla

by Terrapin Station

It's not a "single wavelength." It's a combo of wavelengths. Why would a combo be illegitimate?

You might as well say that there's no scientific account of musical harmony or a chord. Musical harmony/chords are by definition not just one pitch. They're a combination of pitches. Is it illegitimate to talk about a combination of musical pitches? Why would it be illegitimate to talk about combinations of EM frequencies?

Again, I don't care about the new physics you keep inventing, where two different things are identical to a third single thing. Prove it.

Wait--you don't buy that chords consist of multiple pitches? hahahaha

by Atla

by GE Morton

No, it isn't. "magenta" is a name for a range of wavelengths that produce specific qualia in perceiving subjects.

So is this:



just a name?

No. That is a magenta square. "Magenta" is the name for the wavelengths of light reflected or emitted by that square. The qualia is whatever distinctive experiential state is induced in your mind when your nervous system detects light of those wavelengths, that informs you that light of those wavelengths is now stimulating your nervous system.

by Faustus5 (Dennett)

by GE Morton

78 user_id=48013]

The term is reasonably well-defined and descriptively useful.

Is it, though?

I remember one hilarious talk Dennett gave where he illustrated change blindness to an audience. (Two images which appear to be identical are flashed repeatedly over and over. There is a change from one to the other but it takes several repetitions before a subject will consciously perceive it. He proceeded until everyone verified they had noticed the change from one slide to the other.)

He asked the audience what (to me, anyway) should have been a simple question for which the answer should be obvious and unanimously reached: "Were your qualia changing during the experiment?" Some people raised their hands, some people didn't.

Seems to me that if qualia were really well defined there should have been no disagreement. I mean after all, if qualia really exist and are the most obvious thing in the world, how could some people think their qualia were changing and others not? This disagreement and confusion pretty clearly indicate to me that qualia are a thoroughly theoretical construct.

Ooops, mistake. "Qualia" is well-defined --- they are the specific, distinctive, phenomenal states you experience when presented with various stimuli (via internal or external sensors). But no particular quale is well-defined --- they are not definable at all. We may fairly assume everyone experiences qualia, as above defined, else they would not be able to distinguish red from blue, or the smell of ammonia from the smell of cinnamon. But we have no idea what the quale for ammonia is, or is like, for anyone but ourselves, and we will only know what it is for ourselves by experiencing it --- no one can tell us in advance.

The Dennett problem you pose, BTW, is confounded by the problem of attention. We often judge two slightly different things to be the same, on first glance. The problem is not that the quales for those two things changed; it is that the small differences between them were ignored (at first glance). If the two things are perceptibly different, after "careful inspection," then their quales were always different too --- the difference just wasn't noticed, or attended to.

Thanks, and I think I have an answer. With reference to the definition of reduction I gave earlier, you can't take the vocabulary of mental state talk and transform its terms into the vocabulary of neurology talk, neither through logical deduction nor through scientific "bridge laws".

I agree.

This is no big deal and does not call for metaphysical extravagance where we think we need to add phenomenal properties to the list of physical properties found in the natural world.

I agree there too. There are no "phenomenal properties." A quale is the brain's mode of representing a particular physical property to itself.

by Terrapin Station

I don't agree with that. Qualia are properties of mental brain states. They're not something different than mental brain states that the brain only produces.

With "mental brain states" you're confusing two vocabularies. There are no "mental brain states." There are brain states and mental states. Brain states (arguably) produce mental states, including qualia.

As if brains and consciousness are something different. They're not.

Yes, they are different. Consciousness is a product of brains, an ongoing activity of brains, just as a motion picture is an ongoing activity of a movie projector.

by GE Morton

Yes, they are different. Consciousness is a product of brains, an ongoing activity of brains, just as a motion picture is an ongoing activity of a movie projector.

More specifically, like a movie projector running a reel of film. Consciousness is a product produced by brains processing internal and external signals.

by GE Morton

by Terrapin Station

I don't agree with that. Qualia are properties of mental brain states. They're not something different than mental brain states that the brain only produces.

With "mental brain states" you're confusing two vocabularies. There are no "mental brain states." There are brain states and mental states. Brain states (arguably) produce mental states, including qualia.

Mental states are identical to a subset of brain states. They're not something different than brain states.

Yes, they are different. Consciousness is a product of brains, an ongoing activity of brains, just as a motion picture is an ongoing activity of a movie projector.

Wrong.

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

Again, I don't care about the new physics you keep inventing, where two different things are identical to a third single thing. Prove it.

Wait--you don't buy that chords consist of multiple pitches? hahahaha

Multiple pitches are multiple pitches, they are different and they are occuring at the same time, according to physics. Calling different things a harmony doesn't turn it into one thing. Did I really have to explain that?

by GE Morton

No. That is a magenta square. "Magenta" is the name for the wavelengths of light reflected or emitted by that square. The qualia is whatever distinctive experiential state is induced in your mind when your nervous system detects light of those wavelengths, that informs you that light of those wavelengths is now stimulating your nervous system.

Ah okay. So we have magenta wavelengths (red and blue wavelengths), and the magenta qualia of the square. People usually don't realize that these are two different things, and what's actually directly appearing, the qualia, can't be detected by science.

by Gertie

That would be misleading. Qualia are not properties of brain processes, but products of brain processes.

Could you clarify how the difference works here?

I'd think that difference was pretty obvious. The product of a process is not a property of the processor. E.g., "Guernica" is a product of Picasso, but not a property of him. Cotton (the fabric) is a product of a textile mill, but not a property of the mill. Honey is a product of bees, but not a property of them. Though, we could say the ability to make honey is a property of bees --- and the ability of some brains to produce consciousness is a property of those brains.

Just to agree some terms - would you go with qualia are akin to units of certain types phenomenal experience like sensory perceptions, emotions and sensations? Or all 'what it's like' experience?

Yes. Qualia are the brain's mode of representing all the various internal and external states it can detect to itself.

And what do you mean by 'consciousness' here, which the brain ''presents phenomenal experience'' to? Other types of experiential states, a self which is something different to experiential states, or something else?

That is a tough one, because the term "conscious" has two different senses in ordinary speech --- it is contrasted with "unconscious," e.g., asleep or in a coma, etc., and "non-conscious," assumed of plants, rocks, etc. So (living) humans are conscious in the second sense even when asleep. We can then define "consciousness" as the state of being conscious in the first sense. But that still doesn't tell us what consciousness is. My own (currently) preferred analysis, gaining favor among some neurophysiolgists and AI researchers, is, a system is conscious when it has the means to gather a wide variety of information about its own internal states and external environment, an ability to store information about past states of itself and the environment, can use that data to generate a dynamic, virtual model of itself and its surroundings, run "what-if" scenarios in the model, drawing upon memories of past actions and the results thereof, and direct its actions based on the ouput of that processing. I think we'd be willing to call any system that could do those things "conscious." It would pass the Turing test. Our subjective "conscious experience" is the ongoing operation of that virtual model.

Again, what is the ''us'' or Me here doing the distinguishing?

The "me" is the system as a whole, as represented in the virtual model --- the virtual "me." The brain generates that model, not unlike the way a computer and its program generates virtual world for a video game, except that the raw data for the brain's model is drawn from environment in real time.

If I'm reading you correctly, you're saying Dennett believes it's arbitrary that sticking my hand in a fire feels bad, and and eating when I'm low on calories feels good?

Oh, no. Dennett wouldn't say anything like that. The tags --- qualia --- applied to mark various distinguishable inputs are arbitrary, in the sense of being unpredictable, but the evaluation of some of the the information they convey is surely pre-programmed (via evolution, as you say).

Umm OK. I'd thought Dennett disputed their inneffability.

He doesn't dispute it; he dismisses it, as an unnecessary feature of an unnecessary concept (qualia).

They are also intrinsically subjective --- there is no way for me to know whether the sensation you experience when seeing red is the same as mine --- that question doesn't even make sense.

Right it is unknowable, but the claim the question doesn't make sense implies a whole lot more.

It makes no sense in the same way that "The universe and everything in it is doubling in size every minute" makes no sense. It is a question impossible in principle to answer, as the latter is a proposition impossible in principle to verify. It is an idle question.

by Terrapin Station

by Sculptor1

Maybe you can answer this.
I'm watching this Dennett video. At 12:40 minutes they get on to "qualia".
To versions of colour perception are set on for blue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSaEjLZIDqc

1 Having a phenomenal quality of blue instantiated in my brain.
and
2 The quality of blue is represented by my brain.

Dennett claims that 1 is wrong and that 2 is correct.

For my money the idea of a qualia seems right. Others on this Forum page have claimed that Dennett has ejected the notion as crap.
SO I have two problems. What is the actual difference between 1 and 2, and does Dennett's acceptance of 2 invalidate the idea of qualia. If so why?

Dennett simply means that there's no literal instantiation of blue in your brain, and no literal door. In other words, the color blue won't literally be found in your brain and neither will a door. You rather have a "representation" of blue and the door in your brain. It's kind of like how the color blue isn't literally in the word "blue," but the word (at least with semantic aspects "attached") is a representation of the color.

But surely isn't a "phenomenal quality" the same as a representation?

That aside, how does this statement invalidate the idea of qualia as some on the thread claim is Dennett's belief?
I'd agree that our perceptions represent the outside world. No problem. But my experience of colour and pain are not simple representations of the world. They are only to be understood by the experiencing of them, and may be different for each of us.

by Gertie

by Sculptor1

Maybe you can answer this.
I'm watching this Dennett video. At 12:40 minutes they get on to "qualia".
To versions of colour perception are set on for blue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSaEjLZIDqc

1 Having a phenomenal quality of blue instantiated in my brain.
and
2 The quality of blue is represented by my brain.

Dennett claims that 1 is wrong and that 2 is correct.

For my money the idea of a qualia seems right. Others on this Forum page have claimed that Dennett has ejected the notion as crap.
SO I have two problems. What is the actual difference between 1 and 2, and does Dennett's acceptance of 2 invalidate the idea of qualia. If so why?

When Dennett says blue is represented by my brain, all I think he's saying is that the the neural interactions resulting from patterns of photons (which we call blue) are the ''representation'' of blue.

So blue is represented by different neurons firing to those that fire for red, or an itchy toe, etc.

I think he's just saying the physical processes are what's doing the ''representaion'' function.

He's not talking about the experience of seeing blue, only to say he doesn't label the experiencing part the representational part (as some do). He labels the physical processes the functional representation process.

It's not saying much imo. And the interviewer didn't help clarify that. But I could have misunderstood.

Thank you - that is pretty much what TerSta said too.
So I shall also present you with the same follow up.


That aside, how does this statement invalidate the idea of qualia as some on the thread claim is Dennett's belief?
I'd agree that our perceptions represent the outside world. No problem. But my experience of colour and pain are not simple representations of the world. They are only to be understood by the experiencing of them, and may be different for each of us.

by Sculptor1

by Terrapin Station

Dennett simply means that there's no literal instantiation of blue in your brain, and no literal door. In other words, the color blue won't literally be found in your brain and neither will a door. You rather have a "representation" of blue and the door in your brain. It's kind of like how the color blue isn't literally in the word "blue," but the word (at least with semantic aspects "attached") is a representation of the color.

But surely isn't a "phenomenal quality" the same as a representation?

That aside, how does this statement invalidate the idea of qualia as some on the thread claim is Dennett's belief?
I'd agree that our perceptions represent the outside world. No problem. But my experience of colour and pain are not simple representations of the world. They are only to be understood by the experiencing of them, and may be different for each of us.

If you haven't already, or if it's been awhile, you really should (re)read Dennett's "Quining Qualia." It's available online here: http://cogprints.org/254/1/quinqual.htm

Dennett isn't a fan of "phenomenal" talk, either, as he explains in "Quining Qualia."

I don't agree with Dennett's view on this overall, but he's primarily (a) criticizing many common things said about qualia that he thinks don't hold water or don't make much sense, and (b) suggesting that qualia talk is so burdened with things that don't hold water or make sense, and is otherwise so ambiguous, that it's best to just drop qualia talk altogether. The analogy he makes here is to "élan vital." As he notes, one might have some passably mundane and clear thing one has in mind by élan vital, such as DNA, but it's probably best not to call it élan vital.

by Atla

by Terrapin Station

Wait--you don't buy that chords consist of multiple pitches? hahahaha

Multiple pitches are multiple pitches, they are different and they are occuring at the same time, according to physics. Calling different things a harmony doesn't turn it into one thing. Did I really have to explain that?

How is a pitch "one thing" on your view? Sound waves obtain via vibrations in some medium, but the medium is many different things. For example, if the medium is atmosphere, we're talking about atoms of nitrogen and so on. And for that matter, how is an atom of nitrogen "one thing" on your view? It has seven protons, seven neutrons and seven electrons. For that matter, how is a single proton "one thing" on your view? Protons are composed of three valence quarks. Etc.

You need to explain your criteria for "one thing" and why it matters whether any x is "one thing" or not.

by Atla

by GE Morton

No. That is a magenta square. "Magenta" is the name for the wavelengths of light reflected or emitted by that square. The qualia is whatever distinctive experiential state is induced in your mind when your nervous system detects light of those wavelengths, that informs you that light of those wavelengths is now stimulating your nervous system.

Ah okay. So we have magenta wavelengths (red and blue wavelengths), and the magenta qualia of the square. People usually don't realize that these are two different things, and what's actually directly appearing, the qualia, can't be detected by science.

Qualia are just the properties of mental (conscious) brain states, from the perspective of those brain states. That's different than properties of things that aren't brain states, obviously, but that doesn't imply that objective properties don't exist just as well. And science can't tell us the properties of anything from the perspective of being that thing. That's not limited to brain states. Science can only tell us properties from observational perspectives. Properties from observational perspectives are different than properties from the perspective of being whatever "item" in question.

"Perspective" above, by the way, doesn't imply consciousness, it rather amounts to a spatiotemporal frame or point of reference.

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

Multiple pitches are multiple pitches, they are different and they are occuring at the same time, according to physics. Calling different things a harmony doesn't turn it into one thing. Did I really have to explain that?

How is a pitch "one thing" on your view? Sound waves obtain via vibrations in some medium, but the medium is many different things. For example, if the medium is atmosphere, we're talking about atoms of nitrogen and so on. And for that matter, how is an atom of nitrogen "one thing" on your view? It has seven protons, seven neutrons and seven electrons. For that matter, how is a single proton "one thing" on your view? Protons are composed of three valence quarks. Etc.

You need to explain your criteria for "one thing" and why it matters whether any x is "one thing" or not.

What does this have to do with my views ffs?

In physics, it just doesn't work like: 'Well here is thing A and here is thing B, and together they are identical to thing C. Even though all three things are different as far as we can tell. Oh, and according to our theories and measurements, C doesn't exist at all by the way.'

Maybe you think that if 'zoom out' from red and blue qualia, then we get magenta qualia, and vica versa? If so then as I said, this is new physics, prove it.

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

Ah okay. So we have magenta wavelengths (red and blue wavelengths), and the magenta qualia of the square. People usually don't realize that these are two different things, and what's actually directly appearing, the qualia, can't be detected by science.

Qualia are just the properties of mental (conscious) brain states, from the perspective of those brain states. That's different than properties of things that aren't brain states, obviously, but that doesn't imply that objective properties don't exist just as well. And science can't tell us the properties of anything from the perspective of being that thing. That's not limited to brain states. Science can only tell us properties from observational perspectives. Properties from observational perspectives are different than properties from the perspective of being whatever "item" in question.

"Perspective" above, by the way, doesn't imply consciousness, it rather amounts to a spatiotemporal frame or point of reference.

Utter nonsense. The laws of physics are universal or quasi-universal, so the spatiotemporal reference isn't supposed to make such a difference.

by Terrapin Station

by Sculptor1

But surely isn't a "phenomenal quality" the same as a representation?

That aside, how does this statement invalidate the idea of qualia as some on the thread claim is Dennett's belief?
I'd agree that our perceptions represent the outside world. No problem. But my experience of colour and pain are not simple representations of the world. They are only to be understood by the experiencing of them, and may be different for each of us.

If you haven't already, or if it's been awhile, you really should (re)read Dennett's "Quining Qualia." It's available online here: http://cogprints.org/254/1/quinqual.htm

Dennett isn't a fan of "phenomenal" talk, either, as he explains in "Quining Qualia."

I don't agree with Dennett's view on this overall, but he's primarily (a) criticizing many common things said about qualia that he thinks don't hold water or don't make much sense, and (b) suggesting that qualia talk is so burdened with things that don't hold water or make sense, and is otherwise so ambiguous, that it's best to just drop qualia talk altogether. The analogy he makes here is to "élan vital." As he notes, one might have some passably mundane and clear thing one has in mind by élan vital, such as DNA, but it's probably best not to call it élan vital.

It looks like Dennett is just deciding to jettison a good idea, because of the accretion the idea has attracted, and that the idea seems not to add anything to describe consciousness. I'll have to read it through though.
I'll get back to this one.

by Atla

by Terrapin Station

Qualia are just the properties of mental (conscious) brain states, from the perspective of those brain states. That's different than properties of things that aren't brain states, obviously, but that doesn't imply that objective properties don't exist just as well. And science can't tell us the properties of anything from the perspective of being that thing. That's not limited to brain states. Science can only tell us properties from observational perspectives. Properties from observational perspectives are different than properties from the perspective of being whatever "item" in question.

"Perspective" above, by the way, doesn't imply consciousness, it rather amounts to a spatiotemporal frame or point of reference.

Utter nonsense. The laws of physics are universal or quasi-universal, so the spatiotemporal reference isn't supposed to make such a difference.

Of course it makes a difference, regardless of the universality of physical law. In fact the universality of physical law demands that a point of view gets different results.
You are just confused. Looking at a thing is not the same as a thing.
No one but me can say how much my headache hurts me. You will never know how much I mentally head-slap every time I read your posts. My internal dialogue and experience cannot be known by another. Being universal that means that nothing science can look at can be the same as the thing in itself.

by Atla

What does this have to do with my views ffs?

You keep bringing up whether an x is "one thing," as if that's well-defined, factual (aside from facts re how an individual thinks about it), and important for anything.

In physics, it just doesn't work like: 'Well here is thing A and here is thing B, and together they are identical to thing C.

Aside from why we'd be talking about what the conventions of physics are, are you saying that physics doesn't work like the above, or were the sentences after this necessary for how physics doesn't work according to you?

Do you mean to claim that physics doesn't say that a nitrogen atom is identical to seven protons, neutrons and electrons in particular dynamic relations?

Even though all three things are different as far as we can tell.

Every numerically distinct thing is different. But aside from that, even for a type realist, protons, neutrons and electrons are different.

Oh, and according to our theories and measurements, C doesn't exist at all by the way.'

We at least agree that physics doesn't work by saying that compound entities don't exist, but who suggested anything like this?

Maybe you think that if 'zoom out' from red and blue qualia, then we get magenta qualia, and vica versa? If so then as I said, this is new physics, prove it.

Did you really mean to type "qualia" there? The discussion was about objective magenta. That's not going to have anything to do with qualia. "Qualia" is a term reserved for subjective properties.

by Sculptor1

by Atla

Utter nonsense. The laws of physics are universal or quasi-universal, so the spatiotemporal reference isn't supposed to make such a difference.

Of course it makes a difference, regardless of the universality of physical law. In fact the universality of physical law demands that a point of view gets different results.
You are just confused. Looking at a thing is not the same as a thing.
No one but me can say how much my headache hurts me. You will never know how much I mentally head-slap every time I read your posts. My internal dialogue and experience cannot be known by another. Being universal that means that nothing science can look at can be the same as the thing in itself.

Ffs, quote the part of the Standard Model then which explains the difference between physical properties and qualia properties.

by Atla

by Terrapin Station

Qualia are just the properties of mental (conscious) brain states, from the perspective of those brain states. That's different than properties of things that aren't brain states, obviously, but that doesn't imply that objective properties don't exist just as well. And science can't tell us the properties of anything from the perspective of being that thing. That's not limited to brain states. Science can only tell us properties from observational perspectives. Properties from observational perspectives are different than properties from the perspective of being whatever "item" in question.

"Perspective" above, by the way, doesn't imply consciousness, it rather amounts to a spatiotemporal frame or point of reference.

Utter nonsense. The laws of physics are universal or quasi-universal, so the spatiotemporal reference isn't supposed to make such a difference.

Realism on physical laws, and where for some odd reason we're pretending that special and general relativity didn't happen, wouldn't in any way suggest that the properties of any x aren't different from different spatiotemporal points or frames. That would only be the case of there were a physical law that said that properties are necessarily spatiotemporal-invariant. Of course, there would be no way to know this, so it's a good thing that there's no such law.

Of course, I'm not a realist on physical laws, but that makes no difference to the above.

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

What does this have to do with my views ffs?

You keep bringing up whether an x is "one thing," as if that's well-defined, factual (aside from facts re how an individual thinks about it), and important for anything.

In physics, it just doesn't work like: 'Well here is thing A and here is thing B, and together they are identical to thing C.

Aside from why we'd be talking about what the conventions of physics are, are you saying that physics doesn't work like the above, or were the sentences after this necessary for how physics doesn't work according to you?

Do you mean to claim that physics doesn't say that a nitrogen atom is identical to seven protons, neutrons and electrons in particular dynamic relations?

Even though all three things are different as far as we can tell.

Every numerically distinct thing is different. But aside from that, even for a type realist, protons, neutrons and electrons are different.

If we are talking about protons, neutrons etc. then 'nitrogen' is just how we call them together. But they are still a group different things.

If you think that magenta qualia is also made of two different things then

PROVE IT

by Atla

by Terrapin Station

You keep bringing up whether an x is "one thing," as if that's well-defined, factual (aside from facts re how an individual thinks about it), and important for anything.



Aside from why we'd be talking about what the conventions of physics are, are you saying that physics doesn't work like the above, or were the sentences after this necessary for how physics doesn't work according to you?

Do you mean to claim that physics doesn't say that a nitrogen atom is identical to seven protons, neutrons and electrons in particular dynamic relations?



Every numerically distinct thing is different. But aside from that, even for a type realist, protons, neutrons and electrons are different.

If we are talking about protons, neutrons etc. then 'nitrogen' is just how we call them together. But they are still a group different things.

If you think that magenta qualia is also made of two different things then

PROVE IT

What magenta is is no mystery, lol. Why not simply read the Wikipedia page? It explains that magenta is a combo of red and blue/violet light. Seriously, how did you get it into your mind that there's something mysterious about magenta? What was the source of this for you? Maybe I can make some sense of your source.

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

Utter nonsense. The laws of physics are universal or quasi-universal, so the spatiotemporal reference isn't supposed to make such a difference.

Realism on physical laws, and where for some odd reason we're pretending that special and general relativity didn't happen, wouldn't in any way suggest that the properties of any x aren't different from different spatiotemporal points or frames. That would only be the case of there were a physical law that said that properties are necessarily spatiotemporal-invariant. Of course, there would be no way to know this, so it's a good thing that there's no such law.

Of course, I'm not a realist on physical laws, but that makes no difference to the above.

Okay quote the part of the Standard Model then which explains the difference between physical properties and qualia properties, and how and why we have to switch between them depending on spatiotemporal reference.

by Atla

by Terrapin Station

Realism on physical laws, and where for some odd reason we're pretending that special and general relativity didn't happen, wouldn't in any way suggest that the properties of any x aren't different from different spatiotemporal points or frames. That would only be the case of there were a physical law that said that properties are necessarily spatiotemporal-invariant. Of course, there would be no way to know this, so it's a good thing that there's no such law.

Of course, I'm not a realist on physical laws, but that makes no difference to the above.

Okay quote the part of the Standard Model then which explains the difference between physical properties and qualia properties, and how and why we have to switch between them depending on spatiotemporal reference.

The relevance of the standard model here would be?

by Terrapin Station

What magenta is is no mystery, lol. Why not simply read the Wikipedia page? It explains that magenta is a combo of red and blue/violet light. Seriously, how did you get it into your mind that there's something mysterious about magenta? What was the source of this for you? Maybe I can make some sense of your source.

If you can't read a Wikipedia page, I'll help: it doesn't say that magenta is a combo of red and blue/violet light.

And it's not mysterious to me, I use this example to try to get people who don't understand the physics/qualia problem, to think. However even grasping the problem is beyond your abilities, let alone trying to solve it.

Atla, I picture you frequently acting like this when you post here:

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

Okay quote the part of the Standard Model then which explains the difference between physical properties and qualia properties, and how and why we have to switch between them depending on spatiotemporal reference.

The relevance of the standard model here would be?

You're the one who claims to be a physicalist, and that everything nonphysical is incoherent.

If you subscribe to physicalism as a philophy, maybe you should have some vague idea about what it actually is.

by Atla

If you can't read a Wikipedia page, I'll help: it doesn't say that magenta is a combo of red and blue/violet light.

Good example: "Magenta is associated with perception of spectral power distributions concentrated mostly in longer wavelength reddish components and shorter wavelength blueish components."

And it's not mysterious to me, I use this example to try to get people who don't understand the physics/qualia problem, to think. However even grasping the problem is beyond your abilities, let alone trying to solve it.

There's no problem to be had.

Oops I tried to type "For example" but my kindle changed it.

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

If you can't read a Wikipedia page, I'll help: it doesn't say that magenta is a combo of red and blue/violet light.

Good example: "Magenta is associated with perception of spectral power distributions concentrated mostly in longer wavelength reddish components and shorter wavelength blueish components."

And it's not mysterious to me, I use this example to try to get people who don't understand the physics/qualia problem, to think. However even grasping the problem is beyond your abilities, let alone trying to solve it.

There's no problem to be had.

Indeed a good example. People who CAN read and think, understand the difference between 'is' and 'associated with'.

by Atla

by Terrapin Station

The relevance of the standard model here would be?

You're the one who claims to be a physicalist, and that everything nonphysical is incoherent.

If you subscribe to physicalism as a philophy, maybe you should have some vague idea about what it actually is.

What if definitely is NOT is being a cheerleader for (the conventional wisdom of) physics.

So the relevance is your ridiculous misunderstanding of what physicalism is.

by Atla

by Terrapin Station

Good example: "Magenta is associated with perception of spectral power distributions concentrated mostly in longer wavelength reddish components and shorter wavelength blueish components."



There's no problem to be had.

Indeed a good example. People who CAN read and think, understand the difference between 'is' and 'associated with'.

Associated with rather than is because you could be colorblind, for example.

We're not going to say that something is the perception of x regardless of what you perceive, because various things can affect or go wrong with perception.

I just want to know the fat man's back-story, leading to that point, now. Tiny insights into people's lives can be very frustrating.

by Terrapin Station

Atla, I picture you frequently acting like this when you post here:

Hehe well I'm just here for fun, I'm not taking it seriously, as you imagine. But it's true that the depth of stupidity I encounter sometimes surprises me.

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

You're the one who claims to be a physicalist, and that everything nonphysical is incoherent.

If you subscribe to physicalism as a philophy, maybe you should have some vague idea about what it actually is.

What if definitely is NOT is being a cheerleader for (the conventional wisdom of) physics.

So the relevance is your ridiculous misunderstanding of what physicalism is.

So you're a physicalist, just minus the physics part. Got it.

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

Indeed a good example. People who CAN read and think, understand the difference between 'is' and 'associated with'.

Associated with rather than is because you could be colorblind, for example.

We're not going to say that something is the perception of x regardless of what you perceive, because various things can affect or go wrong with perception.

See, now you are again making up a random story, after being called out on your latest lie.

Well this one's got nothing to do with 'special cases' like color blindness, and if you had read Wikipedia pages before, you would know that.

by Atla

by Terrapin Station

What if definitely is NOT is being a cheerleader for (the conventional wisdom of) physics.

So the relevance is your ridiculous misunderstanding of what physicalism is.

So you're a physicalist, just minus the physics part. Got it.

It has nothing to do with being devoted to, subservient to, etc. physics. Thinking that is as ridiculous as thinking that a musician is going to believe in muses, or thinking that a concierge is probably a prison warden.

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

So you're a physicalist, just minus the physics part. Got it.

It has nothing to do with being devoted to, subservient to, etc. physics. Thinking that is as ridiculous as thinking that a musician is going to believe in muses, or thinking that a concierge is probably a prison warden.

Subservience lol okay whatever you say. I'll leave you to it.

by Atla

by Terrapin Station

Associated with rather than is because you could be colorblind, for example.

We're not going to say that something is the perception of x regardless of what you perceive, because various things can affect or go wrong with perception.

See, now you are again making up a random story, after being called out on your latest lie.

Well this one's got nothing to do with 'special cases' like color blindness, and if you had read Wikipedia pages before, you would know that.

Here he goes knocking the table over again . . .

You're thinking that "associated with" rather than "is" is an allusion to qualia where qualia are supposedly something different than a property of (perceptual) brain states?

If so, what are you using as textual support of that conclusion?

Here's another simple explanation of how to get magenta light:

https://maggiesscienceconnection.weebly ... color.html

by Atla

by Sculptor1

Of course it makes a difference, regardless of the universality of physical law. In fact the universality of physical law demands that a point of view gets different results.
You are just confused. Looking at a thing is not the same as a thing.
No one but me can say how much my headache hurts me. You will never know how much I mentally head-slap every time I read your posts. My internal dialogue and experience cannot be known by another. Being universal that means that nothing science can look at can be the same as the thing in itself.

Ffs, quote the part of the Standard Model then which explains the difference between physical properties and qualia properties.

Why?
Don't you know?

Quote the part of the standard model which explains swimming pool maintenance.

by Terrapin Station

Here's another simple explanation of how to get magenta light:

https://maggiesscienceconnection.weebly ... color.html

Surprising, isn't it, that at times some of us feel it necessary to offer high school explanations to people who do not understand the basics.

The two elements of colour mixing were explained to me by the time I was 14. The subtractive by the art teacher, and the additive by the physics teacher, both knew the theory of the other.
What they both understood is that colour only happens inside the brain; the physics teacher thought this was really interesting the art teacher not so much.

Why is this simple set of ideas so poorly understood?

I bet these people don't even know that if we "average" the wavelengths of red and blue light, we get green wavelength light.

And that's just one of the two issues. No matter. You can't argue with stupid.

by Sculptor1

by Gertie

When Dennett says blue is represented by my brain, all I think he's saying is that the the neural interactions resulting from patterns of photons (which we call blue) are the ''representation'' of blue.

So blue is represented by different neurons firing to those that fire for red, or an itchy toe, etc.

I think he's just saying the physical processes are what's doing the ''representaion'' function.

He's not talking about the experience of seeing blue, only to say he doesn't label the experiencing part the representational part (as some do). He labels the physical processes the functional representation process.

It's not saying much imo. And the interviewer didn't help clarify that. But I could have misunderstood.

Thank you - that is pretty much what TerSta said too.
So I shall also present you with the same follow up.


That aside, how does this statement invalidate the idea of qualia as some on the thread claim is Dennett's belief?
I'd agree that our perceptions represent the outside world. No problem. But my experience of colour and pain are not simple representations of the world. They are only to be understood by the experiencing of them, and may be different for each of us.

I haven't gotten to the bottom of Dennett's view of qualia myself, it's confusing. But this specific point about the representational function occuring as a physical process rather than an experiential mental one doesn't specifically address the existence of the experience of seeing blue (qualia ) either way imo.

But the interviewer then asked what he called ''the big question'' - how do you get from the physical brain processes to the experience of seeing the blue door? (This is what Levine calls the Explanatory Gap, because there is no apparent physical explanation for how physical processes result in mental experience. Significantly not just how physics explains it, how it even could explain it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explanatory_gap ).

Dennett doesn't directly answer. He said you have to address this functionally. He ended up saying science will one day be able to give a full third person (objective, observable) account of You, explain everything about you functionally in terms specific brain processes.

This account won't include first person mental experience (qualia), the 'what it's like' to see a blue door, , the ''what it's like'' aspect of being You at all. Qualia don't need to exist in that functional account of your life - what you do, say and why can all be explained by physical processes. Mental sensory perceptions, their meaning to you, desires, reasoned decisions, etc, are irrelevant from that functional third person perspective. (Effectively dismissing free will).

Then he says - And qualia don't exist in any other way either. (around 17.30) Ie if the brain is doing all the third person person observable functional work, not only is free will an illusion, but the existence of phenomenal experience is an illusion.

That's my take.

But at other times he will say phenomenal mental experience does exist, and the illusion is that it isn't what we think it is. If we take into account what he says here, then the implication (well my guess) is it only exists as physical brain processes. What that would actually mean to him, I can't make out.

by Sculptor1

That aside, how does this statement invalidate the idea of qualia as some on the thread claim is Dennett's belief?
I'd agree that our perceptions represent the outside world. No problem. But my experience of colour and pain are not simple representations of the world. They are only to be understood by the experiencing of them, and may be different for each of us.

It's important to keep in mind that a representation doesn't imply a resemblance. Anything can represent anything else. All that is needed is some understood or accepted correlation between them. E.g., the capital letter C can represent the speed of light, but it bears no resemblance to that physical constant. A dot on map can represent a town, but it bears no resemblance to that town.

A quale represents, in the conscious mind, a brain state, but does not resemble it. That brain state, in turn, represents some (presumed) external state of affairs, but --- probably --- does not resemble it.

by GE Morton

by Sculptor1

That aside, how does this statement invalidate the idea of qualia as some on the thread claim is Dennett's belief?
I'd agree that our perceptions represent the outside world. No problem. But my experience of colour and pain are not simple representations of the world. They are only to be understood by the experiencing of them, and may be different for each of us.

It's important to keep in mind that a representation doesn't imply a resemblance. Anything can represent anything else. All that is needed is some understood or accepted correlation between them. E.g., the capital letter C can represent the speed of light, but it bears no resemblance to that physical constant. A dot on map can represent a town, but it bears no resemblance to that town.

A quale represents, in the conscious mind, a brain state, but does not resemble it. That brain state, in turn, represents some (presumed) external state of affairs, but --- probably --- does not resemble it.

That being the case. Nothing of our perception resembles what is in the objective world.
Instead we live with a series of representations which approximate the world in ways effective enough to be physically logical.
Is this what you mean?
Or are you drawing too many distinctions. If you say that the quale is a state which in turn represents surely you are just adding another unnecessary layer here? Surely the quale is the experience of the sensory input.

by Terrapin Station

Mental states are identical to a subset of brain states. They're not something different than brain states.

Oh, my. Apparently you don't know the meanings of "mental state" or "brain state" or perhaps either. We determine the state of someone's brain by doing a EKG or CAT scan, perhaps a biopsy, and if we want all the gory details, by measuring nerve cell membrane permeability, ion exchange rates and electrical pulses between cells, noting cell pathologies, etc. On the other hand, we infer someone else's mental state from his observable behavior, and our own by introspection and reflection on our own behavior. Those two methodologies could hardly be more different. There is certainly a correlation between brain states and mental states, but they are hardly identical. Nor is one reducible to the other.

Yes, they are different. Consciousness is a product of brains, an ongoing activity of brains, just as a motion picture is an ongoing activity of a movie projector.

Wrong.

My, how illuminating. Such insight!

by GE Morton

Those two methodologies could hardly be more different.

Apparently you're unable to understand that this in no way implies that the two are not identical.

by Atla

I bet these people don't even know that if we "average" the wavelengths of red and blue light, we get green wavelength light.

And that's just one of the two issues. No matter. You can't argue with stupid.

Which would explain why you're incapable of effectively arguing with anyone.

Why are you averaging wavelengths, by the way? Is this like one of those "1 = 2" arguments?

by GE Morton

Oh, my. Apparently you don't know the meanings of "mental state" or "brain state" or perhaps either. We determine the state of someone's brain by doing a EKG or CAT scan, perhaps a biopsy, and if we want all the gory details, by measuring nerve cell membrane permeability, ion exchange rates and electrical pulses between cells, noting cell pathologies, etc.

This is a poor analogy.
A photo or video is not the same thing as the subject they depict, and a lump of brain tissue from a biopsy or a scan image is not the same as a brain state or mental state.
They are simple representations.

On the other hand, we infer someone else's mental state from his observable behavior, and our own by introspection and reflection on our own behavior. Those two methodologies could hardly be more different. There is certainly a correlation between brain states and mental states, but they are hardly identical. Nor is one reducible to the other.

It seems you want to mystify the facts, that there is ultimately some other state beyond the physical. Why?
Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. If you want to know what a mental state looks like then use a scanner. You are going to see a partial representation, but you have no warrant to suggest there is something mystical behind the curtain.

by Terrapin Station

by Atla

I bet these people don't even know that if we "average" the wavelengths of red and blue light, we get green wavelength light.

And that's just one of the two issues. No matter. You can't argue with stupid.

Which would explain why you're incapable of effectively arguing with anyone.

Why are you averaging wavelengths, by the way? Is this like one of those "1 = 2" arguments?

And now you don't even understand why it was your last 'argument'.

It's crystal clear by now, your mental faculties don't reach that of the average teenager. That's why you can never understand anything, never argue anything.

by Terrapin Station

by GE Morton

Those two methodologies could hardly be more different.

Apparently you're unable to understand that this in no way implies that the two are not identical.

Er, yes, it does. Two things are identical IFF there are no discernible features, properties, by which they can be distinguished. Even then, since by hypothesis there are two things, they cannot be numerically identical.

GE

Thank you. I have issues! (I'm told this a lot).

Dennett sometimes says things which don't seem to tally with what I think you're saying. But maybe I'm not putting it together right. See what you think.

Could you clarify how the difference works here?

I'd think that difference was pretty obvious. The product of a process is not a property of the processor. E.g., "Guernica" is a product of Picasso, but not a property of him. Cotton (the fabric) is a product of a textile mill, but not a property of the mill. Honey is a product of bees, but not a property of them. Though, we could say the ability to make honey is a property of bees --- and the ability of some brains to produce consciousness is a property of those brains.

Just to agree some terms - would you go with qualia are akin to units of certain types phenomenal experience like sensory perceptions, emotions and sensations? Or all 'what it's like' experience?

Yes. Qualia are the brain's mode of representing all the various internal and external states it can detect to itself.

And what do you mean by 'consciousness' here, which the brain ''presents phenomenal experience'' to? Other types of experiential states, a self which is something different to experiential states, or something else?

That is a tough one, because the term "conscious" has two different senses in ordinary speech --- it is contrasted with "unconscious," e.g., asleep or in a coma, etc., and "non-conscious," assumed of plants, rocks, etc. So (living) humans are conscious in the second sense even when asleep. We can then define "consciousness" as the state of being conscious in the first sense. But that still doesn't tell us what consciousness is. My own (currently) preferred analysis, gaining favor among some neurophysiolgists and AI researchers, is, a system is conscious when it has the means to gather a wide variety of information about its own internal states and external environment, an ability to store information about past states of itself and the environment, can use that data to generate a dynamic, virtual model of itself and its surroundings, run "what-if" scenarios in the model, drawing upon memories of past actions and the results thereof, and direct its actions based on the ouput of that processing. I think we'd be willing to call any system that could do those things "conscious." It would pass the Turing test. Our subjective "conscious experience" is the ongoing operation of that virtual model.

Again, what is the ''us'' or Me here doing the distinguishing?

The "me" is the system as a whole, as represented in the virtual model --- the virtual "me." The brain generates that model, not unlike the way a computer and its program generates virtual world for a video game, except that the raw data for the brain's model is drawn from environment in real time.

To briefly summarise how I'm interpreting you -


Brain processes create a product, in the way a steam train creates steam.

This product consists of experiential ''what it's like'' states.

The content of these experiential states comprise a dynamic 'virtual model' of a material world and myself as an embodied agent within it.

The function of this experiential model of the world is to direct actions.

The brain then 'presents the experiential model to itself' - by which you mean presents the experiential model to the ''consciousness system/body as a whole''.




I can make sense of that up to the last sentence. And I don't think it's saying anything radical or challenging about the notion of qualia up to that point. So I'm thinking I'm missing something? But I don't understand what the last sentence would actually mean - can you unpack that?