Anyway....if all this is generally understood already, somebody should tell me so I don’t butt in where I don’t contribute anything. — Mww

I think it's an excellent clarification.

I may have a look. If you haven't solved the problem once and for all I'll be sorely disappointed.

@fdrake wrote a monster post about all this in our last debate, and I rudely didn't respond. Maybe I'll go back to it, because I don't like the feeling that I'm going around in circles, always finally unable to break out into the Real.

It's a fair point, but note that for Kant, empirical objects are not merely "in the mind".

I have. Yes, it's consistent with my views but I believe illogical in calling itself "direct". That there are signals in the environment, already meaningful, and that the perceiver notices them, that is true. But that doesn't make the noticing direct, precisely because of the Kantian issue. — Olivier5

All right, let's look at things in a Kantian way for a few moments. There is no question of a perceiver perceiving noumena directly, because noumena are not the kind of things that are perceived. Any apprehension of the noumena would be an intellectual intuition, not a sensible one, i.e., it wouldn't be perception at all.

Since, however, such a type of intuition, intellectual intuition, forms no part whatsoever of our faculty of knowledge, it follows that the employment of the categories can never extend further than to the objects of experience. Doubtless, indeed, there are intelligible entities corresponding to the sensible entities; there may also be intelligible entities to which our sensible faculty of intuition has no relation whatsoever; but our concepts of understanding, being mere forms of thought for our sensible intuition, could not in the least apply to them. That, therefore, which we entitle 'noumenon' must be understood as being such only in a negative sense. — Kant, B309

So given that the perception of noumena is not even on the cards, indeed hardly even makes sense (it's probably a category mistake), then we are left in the realm of empirical objects. With the posited ideal directness discarded, against what are you opposing the supposed indirectness of perception? If seeing in the way that we see is the only way we can ever expect to see, then how is it indirect?

I like this way of setting out the commitments of naive realism, that I found in the paper I mentioned (PDF):

Naïve realist theories of perception ... come in a variety of different forms, however they commonly embody a commitment to some or all of the following theoretical claims. First, perceptual experiences are essentially relational, in the sense that they are constituted in part by those things in the perceiver’s environment that they are experiences of. Second, the relational nature of perceptual experience cannot be explained in terms of perceptual experiences having representational content that is veridical if the things in the subject’s environment are as they are represented as being, and nonveridical otherwise. Third, the claim that perceptual experiences are essentially relational articulates the distinctive phenomenological character of perceptual experience, or ‘what it is like’ for a subject to have an experience. Fourth, given that veridical perceptual experiences are essentially relational, they differ in kind to non-veridical experiences such as hallucinations. Fifth, perceptual experiences are relations to specifically mind-independent objects, properties, and relations: things whose nature and existence are constitutively independent of the psychological responses of perceiving subjects. — Allen

That could be a good place to start a big discussion of naive realism.

Well, have a look at that book on direct perception and you might see that the concept is consistent with your view (aside from the Kantian issue).

The difficulty in trying to put MP in one or other realist camp, either direct or indirect, naive or non-naive, is that his approach, which we see from Gibson too, is quite different:

For the player in action the football field is not an “object,” that is, the ideal term which can give rise to an indefinite multiplicity of perspectival views and remain equivalent under its apparent transformations. It is pervaded with lines of force (the “yard lines”; those which demarcate the “penalty area”) and articulated in sectors (for example, the “openings” between the adversaries) which call for a certain mode of action and which initiate and guide the action as if the player were unaware of it. The field itself is not given to him, but present as the immanent term of his practical intentions; the player becomes one with it and feels the direction of the “goal,” for example, just as immediately as the vertical and the horizontal planes of his own body. It would not be sufficient to say that consciousness inhabits this milieu. At this moment consciousness is nothing other than the dialectic of milieu and action. Each maneuver undertaken by the player modifies the character of the field and establishes in it new lines of force in which the action in turn unfolds and is accomplished, again altering the phenomenal field. — Merleau-Ponty, The structure of behavior

Consider him a non-naïve realist. — Olivier5

I think it's not so easy to decide this one way or the other. It could make for an interesting discussion. It's unfortunate that my copy of PoP is a thousand kolimetres away and under lockdown.

But I just found a paper online called "Merleau-Ponty and Naïve Realism" by Keith Allen. Might be interesting.

Incidentally, I got to know Gibson's theory of direct perception by reading this book, available online as a PDF: Direct Perception, Claire F Michaels, Claudia Carello. It's very clear, and has a nice chapter on the philosophical implications.

Cool, I'm into MP too.

traveling beyond the absurd — Hippyhead

I like it. If I could do that, maybe I wouldn't be here.

The failure of so many members of this philosophy forum to grasp the overwhelmingly obvious difference between such good guys and bad guys is truly pathetic. It makes me embarrassed to have invested so much time in such a juvenile operation. — Hippyhead

You couldn't stay away though, could you? :rofl:

But you managed it for a week, which is more than I can do, so well done. Now see if you can manage a month, or even a year! I for one will be praying for your success, and I'm not even religious.

Ciao, and good luck!

I have insisted on understanding the biological sense of the situation, as the correct basis for any further meaning. There are important reasons why the apple is red and why we can see it as such: so that we can eat it. — Olivier5

I'm back. Yes, I'm quite drawn to the idea of affordances.

Sorry, this debate is making me feel nauseous, so I'm gonna duck out. Nothing personal.

In the final analysis, we cannot understand perception by throwing away the perceived and/or the perceiver. So whether you call us people or brains or minds makes no significant difference to the problem. — Olivier5

I think it makes a big difference, but if you can accept that people see apples and that apples are red, then we're close enough to agreement for me.

Because of the menagerie of fantastic creatures that populates this site, and that must come from some old medieval treatise on exotic beasts with two heads and one leg or something... I mean, you could mean zombies, or automatons, or winged rabbits — Olivier5

...or brains in vats, or rational animals, or vehicles for genes, or eternal souls...

Yeh, it makes you dizzy.

If you say to me "this block of wood is solid", and i cut it open to find a hollow in the centre, I'd be liable to say "no, this is not solid". When the scientist 'cuts open' the wood even smaller and find no less of a hollow you want to deny him recourse to the same language to describe his findings. — Isaac

You appear to be under the impression that scientists claim that what we call solid objects are not actually solid. This isn't true. Ever heard of the states of matter, or solid-state physics?

Same for neuroscientists.

But if you just mean that they should be allowed to say, speaking loosely, "tables are not really solid", and "we don't really see apples", then I guess it's a way of getting their point across. It seems far too misleading to me, and I've only seen it from bad popularizations.

People, I suppose. Why do you ask?

By this token, eyes don't see, because eyes don't have eyes — Olivier5

According to the most relevant sense of "see", I agree that our eyes don't see, that it's better here to say that we see by means of our eyes. We can use words in different ways, and in philosophy we have to be careful not to use two senses of a word without realizing it.

Why not? — Banno

Maybe it's just me that disagrees then. Minds don't see, not least because minds don't have eyes.

I don't really see the problem, at least as you've described it. Physicists have no problem using "solid", and it's consistent with one of the main ways we use it in everyday life. Tables and walls and rocks are solid, and the scientist explains what a solid is down at the atomic level etc.

One of the challenges to direct perception is that if the object appears differently in some ways to us than it is, then we're directly aware of a mental object, and only indirectly the physical cause. — Marchesk

So...when I'm looking at the the moon I can cover it with my hand, but the moon is too big to be covered by my hand, therefore I'm not seeing the moon, but just a mental object. Is that about right?

It being mostly empty space held together by electromagnetic bonds would have blown their minds. — Marchesk

It would have blown their minds that this is what solidity is, yes. Turns out, for a neutrino, the table doesn't feel anything like the same as it does for us.

I think they're only spooked when people claim that minds, rather than people or animals, see apples--and other such confusions. But I'll leave it to Banno to respond.

I think our disagreement, as ever, comes down to this:

You think that our scientific investigations have revealed that apples are not actually red.

I think that this is as confused as saying that solid things are not actually solid. Following unenlightened, I think that our scientific investigations, rather than being a substitute for seeing, explain it, i.e., explain how we see red apples.

we have direct access via perceptual sensations? — Marchesk

I think that's true.

seeing color is what makes us visually aware of objects? — Marchesk

Well, seeing things normally involves seeing their colour, of course, but one can see (be visually aware of) things without seeing their colour.

I don't know what we're talking about here.

there is mind seeing the apple — Olivier5

:rofl: Somehow I doubt that Banno's going to agree with that.

I may have used Kantian terms, but that wasn't the substance. Also, I haven't mentioned Dennett here and I'm not talking about qualia.

We could ask where the colors live instead. — Marchesk

I thought you were on the way to recovery after our last debate, but it looks like you've had a relapse. :wink:

I liked that too. Sums it up nicely.

Incidentally, one could argue that he doesn't live in the world either. He lives in, perhaps, a house, and in England, and near Wales, and in the Milky Way, and in the lap of luxury, but to say he lives in the world is to unjustifiably posit a great big container object, or else is to say no more than that he lives.

But that's a topic for another discussion: "Where do you live?"

I didn't say "perception occurs on the forum" (I don't know what that means). I was responding to Olivier's apparent surprise that unenlightened lives in the world and not in his mind.

The way you're using the word "perception" looks different from how I use it. Anyway, the brain and eyeballs both have important roles to play in perception. What's your point?

I can't make sense of the question.

it's the first time I meet with an out-of-minder — Olivier5

Did you meet him on this forum, or in your mind?

Yep, and Chuck wasn't complacent about the killing of civilians, recognizing that both sides committed atrocities.

Well the subject of this thread is "liberal imperialism". Is that classified as an attempted replacement and do you think it works well? — Paul Edwards

I'm not sure if it could be classed as a replacement. Traditional imperialism, with settler colonialism and all that, was still fundamentally tied to the nation-state, and perhaps it's the same now. In any case no, I don't think it works well. See my various posts in this discussion.

As for the Philippines, I'm confused as to what your point is. Its history doesn't seem to be a good advert for American interference.

Yes, we've seen the trouble with a world divided into nation-states, but none of the attempted replacements so far seem to work very well, and in some cases they're worse, e.g., internationalist Islamism vs nationalist Kurds. As for NATO and the "free world", I don't think I want to address that directly at the moment, even though it's more on-topic than all this stuff about bombing Germans.

I think a comprehensive response to 9/11 will involve getting people to think of themselves as individuals rather than as a member of some race/religion/sex/nationality or any other form of aggregation. — Paul Edwards

Says the person with the NATO flag avatar.

This illustrates the fact that some kinds of aggregation can be in opposition to others. One of the most interesting examples is Islamism vs nation-states, which is one of the fundamental dimensions of what some call the Islamic civil war (the other main one is Sunni vs Shia).

But isn't it always a matter of degree of responsibility that the citizens have for their leader's actions as opposed to offering the citizens full absolution? — Hanover

Well, what does that scale look like in the case of these bombings? Does it go by age and ability, with infants and the mentally disabled being the least responsible, and capable adults being the most responsible? Maybe it's intersectional, such that we can use social class as well: the industrial working class were down at the bottom end of the scale (because they were overwhelmingly anti-Nazi), and Protestant small-businessmen and farmers were at the top (the Nazis' support base)? Even if this were a reasonable scheme for the apportioning of responsibility, the bombings made no such distinctions (although I'm pretty sure they didn't bomb many farmers).

The sense in which some civilians in a war might be regarded as to some degree responsible for the actions of their government is, I suppose, that some of them fully approve of its aims and actions. But, even aside from the presumption of civilian innocence enshrined in international law, in Germany, most of them did not. It was a totalitarian regime that had seized power through a combination of minority support, terrorizing the electorate, and destroying the massively popular anti-Nazi parties and their unions. After the seizure of power, the scope for resistance shrunk to nothing, if one discounts those actions that were suicidal.

I'm really having some amount of difficulty hearing the cries of the German citizens over the cries of those who were executed by their government. — Hanover

But you don't have to choose between them. They are not competing for your sympathy unless you see every civilian victim merely as a representative of the Nazis, on one side, or of the victims of Nazism on the other. To hear the cries of the Germans is not to sympathise with Nazis or belittle their victims. Quite the opposite.

So yes, I do think you're entirely wrongheaded.