I'm saying he didn't believe there was an Evil Demon, nor did he believe had no hands, eyes, etc. Do you think he believed in the Demon, and that he had no hands, or eyes and all else he said was entailed by the Demon's illusion? — Ciceronianus

Descartes believed in God , and what’s more, he believed in a god that placed the faculty of perfect reason in our heads, via the pineal gland. Now, if one can believe in a god with such powers, one must also entertain the possibility ( which is quite different than pretending, since we’re not talking about a fantasy, but about a scenario that in Descartes’ mind could not be ruled out) that such an all powerful Being could manipulate those faculties to deceive us. In fact, isnt the god’s very placement of faculties of perfect reason already a manipulation? Is what you’re
really trying to argue here that the belief in a god who tells us how to think must be considered ‘pretend’?

For me, this merely shows how clumsy, how awkward, how incoherent we become when we try to make explain the ineffable in words, as philosophy. — Ciceronianus

To me this shows what happens when we go on first impressions rather than bothering to read the background material.

. I happen to agree with him. And with Peirce that what he calls "self-deception" on the part of Descartes shouldn't be indulged in. — Ciceronianus

I dont think so. I think you’re directly contradicting Peirce. From the quote you citied, Peirce is suggesting Descartes sincerely believed in his method of radical doubt, and that his was an unintentional self-deception This is the opposite of what you’re claiming, which is that it was a deliberate self-deception, in the same way that Kant’s categorical imperative may be a self-deception. . Never does Pierce suggest that deliberate “pretending” is involved in the hypothetical of the Evil demon , which is the core of the OP.

Husserl, the originator of modern phenomenology, was quite determinate on knowledge claims. The only apodictically certain science is transcendental phenomenology. All other scientific results are contingent and relative.
— Joshs
In what way is "apodictic certainty" applicable to any modern science? What does a (like Kant, unsound) 'transcendental' deduction of "the essential structure of consciousness" from "apodicity" have to do with hypothetico-deductive explanations of nature or history? — 180 Proof

If you remember from Husserl’s work, Crisis of European Sciences, the hypothetico-deductive method as originally expounded by Bacon was expected to lead to adodictic certainties. This was before Humean skepticism or Kant’s unattainable thing-in-itself.

“ the true idea of rationality, and in connection with that the true idea of universal science, was not yet attained in ancient philosophy—such was the con­viction of the founders of the modern age. The new ideal was possible only according to the model of the newly formed mathe­matics and natural science. It proved its possibility in the inspir­ing pace of its realization. What is the universal science of this new idea but—thought of as ideally completed—omniscience?
This, then, is for philosophy truly a realizable, though infinitely distant, goal—not for the individual or a given community of re­searchers but certainly for the infinite progression of the gener­ations and their systematic researches. The world is in itself a rational systematic unity—this is thought to be a matter of apo­dictic insight—in which each and every singular detail must be rationally determined. Its systematic form (the universal struc­ture of its essence) can be attained, is indeed known and ready
for us in advance, at least insofar as it is purely mathematical. Only its particularity remains to be determined; and unfortu­nately this is possible only through induction. This is the path— infinite, to be sure—to omniscience. Thus one lives in the happy certainty of a path leading forth from the near to the distant, from the more or less known into the unknown, as an infallible
method of broadening knowledge, through which truly all of the totality of what is will be known as it is 'ln-itself"—in an infinite progression.”(Crisis of the European Sciences)

For me, I don't have a pro's detailed understanding, but I like to read Heidegger more than Husserl because the former really takes one on a trip, like an intellectual's adventure, a radically new way to conceive the world. — Astrophel

I was profoundly impressed by Being and Time, but I think Husserl took the more radical leap, relative to what was being thought before him. Yes, he had Brentano, Hegel and Kant as reference points, but phenomenology was a sharp departure from Brentano. Heidegger, on the other hand, had Husserl.

I question whether first-person experience is 'a phenomenon' or among phenomena. Phenomena are 'that which appears'. And first-person consciousness does not appear - my consciousness of myself is not appearance. Rather, one of the fundamental attributes of consciousness is that it knows that it is. — Wayfarer

This is indeed Zahavi’s stance, but I don’t believe it is Husserl’s, and it certainly isn’t Merleau-Ponty’s or Heidegger’s. Zahavi believes that the subjective dimension of the subject-object interaction is not contingently but transcendentally self-identical, non-horizontal and non­ecstatic. In other words, I know that I am because there is an identical feeling of self that accompanies all of my intentional experiences of objects.

I, along with a number of other interpreters of Husserl, don’t believe that such a self-identical feeling of self exists for him. Instead, Husserl argues that “As pure Ego it does not harbor any hidden inner richness; it is absolutely simple and it lies there absolutely clear. All richness lies in the cogito and in the mode of the function which can be adequately grasped therein.”(Ideas II). Husserl describes this pure ego pole as non-perceivable, non-graspable and anonymous. This suggests that for Husserl, the pure ego may function as nothing but an empty zero point or center of activity rather than a consciously sensed feeling of any kind.

A coherently unified sense of self for Husserl is an intentional accomplishment, not an a priori. A pre-given sense of self would not be phenomenology, but neo-Kantianism. Thus, one of the fundamental attributes of consciousness is not that it knows that it is , but that what it is is what it does.

I almost feel tempted to let science win whatever argument it wants to have with philosophy. If science wants to claim it’s the only sound or reliable way of producing knowledge systematically — sure, you can have that; philosophy can produce something else, understanding maybe.

(In this context, I always thought it odd that the new biologically sophisticated version of psychology ends up being called “cognitive science”, as if knowledge is the only mental phenomenon that matters.) — Srap Tasmaner

It may be a bit simplistic to distinguish science as a single unified enterprise from philosophy in general or phenomenology in particular. Husserl argued that psychological sciences incorporating Brentano’s intentional stance , like gestalt theory, were forms of phenomenological investigation, only lacking the transcendental element.

I might add that first generation cognitivism ignored the biological body, but embodied cognitivism treats the whole body with its affectivity inputs as part and parcel of cognition. In many of these accounts , affectivity matters more than cognition.

Indeed. It’s interesting that Dreyfus’ reading of Merleau-Pony is also getting picked apart by embodied cognitive writers like Alva Noe.

It's not clear whether you were implying that Dreyfus also misunderstood Heidegger. — Janus

Oh yeah, big time. Dreyfus wanted to turn heidegger into Kierkegaard. I think Heidegger makes some good points against Husserl , but they are much more subtle than it might first appear.

I guess it is not hard to see how phenomenology might be difficult to 'read' if even Thompson has had to radically reconsider his understanding of it (with help). — Tom Storm

I was thinking the same thing. It shows, among others things , the gap between Anglo-American and continental styles of philosophical thinking, and how only in recent years have we begun to be able to ‘read’ the continental authors.

say about Searle I can understand, but I'm also interested to know hear your criticism of Dreyfus' understanding of phenomenology. — Janus

I’m going to be lazy and quote Evan Thompson from his recent book:

READERS FAMILIAR WITH MY EARLIER BOOK, The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch 1991), might be surprised by the importance I give to Husserlian phe-nomenology here, given the cridcal attitude toward Husserl that book expressed. What accounts for this change of atdtude? The purpose of this Appendix is to clarify this matter.

In The Embodied Mind, we asserted (i) that Husserl was a method-ological solipsist (p. 16); (ii) that his theory ignored "both the consen-sual aspect and the direct embodied aspect of experience" (p. 17); (iii) that his theory of intentionality was a representational theory (p. 68); (iv) that his theory' of the life-world was reductionistic and representa-tionalist (that he tried to analyze the life-world "into a more funda-mental set of constituents" (p. 117) consisting of beliefs understood as mental representations (p. 18)); and (v) that his phenomenology was a purely abstract, theoretical project lacking a pragmatic dimension (pp. 19,117). We concluded that the Husserlian project was a "failure" (p. 19) and even wrote about the "breakdown of phenomenology" more generally (p. 19). This assessment then motivated our turn to the tradition of Buddhist philosophy and mindfulness-awareness medita-tion as a more promising phenomenological partner for cognitive sci-ence.

As Chapter 2 indicates, however, I no longer subscribe to this assess-ment of Husserlian phenomenology. Our earlier interpretation of Husserl was mistaken. Husserlian phenomenology has far more re sources than we realized for productive cross-fertilization with both the sciences of mind (Petitot et al. 1999; Varela 1996) and Buddhist thought (Thompson 2005; Varela 2000b; Varela and Depraz 2003). In particular, I now believe (i) that Husserl was not a methodological solipsist; (ii) that he was greatly concerned with the intersubjective and embodied aspects of experience; (iii) diat his theory of intentionality was not a representational theory; and (iv) that his theory of the life-world was not reductionistic and representationalist. Furthermore, al-though I think phenomenology has tended to overemphasize theoret-ical discussion in the form of textual interpretation (to the neglect of phenomenological pragmatics as well as original phenomenological analyses and philosophical argumentation), I think it is too facile to say simply that phenomenology is a purely abstract, theoretical project lacking a pragmatic dimension. It follows that I would now not charac-terize Husserlian phenomenology as a "failure." Nor would I assert that phenomenology suffered a "breakdown" owing to its neglect of phenomenological pragmatics.

My viewpoint has changed for two reasons. The first is that when Varela and I were writing The Embodied Mind (during 1986-1989; Eleanor Rosen joined the project near the end of 1989) our knowl-edge of Husserl was limited. We were familiar with the main published works in English translation (Logical Investigations, Ideas I, Cartesian Meditations, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenome-nology) but had not studied them carefully enough, and we did not know about Husserl's writings on passive synthesis (then untranslated) and intersubjectivity (still untranslated). We were both more familiar with Heidegger and were influenced by his (largely uncharitable) reading of Husserl. We also had little knowledge of other phenomeno-logical thinkers who were deeply influenced by Husserl (Merleau-Ponty excepted), and we had studied only a litde of the secondary lit-erature on Husserl.

The second reason is that we accepted Hubert Dreyfus's (1982) in-fluential interpretation of Husserl as a representationalist and pro-tocognitivist philosopher, as well as his Heideggerian critique of Husserl thus interpreted. Dreyfus has been a pioneer in bringing the phenomenological tradition into the heardand of the cognitive sci-ences through his important critique of artificial intelligence (Dreyfus 1972, 1992) and his groundbreaking studies on skillful knowledge and action (Dreyfus 2002; Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1986). Yet his work is also marked by a peculiar interpretation of Husserl. Dreyfus presents Husserl's phenomenology as a form of representationalism that antici-pates cognitivist and computational theories of mind. He then re-hearses Heidegger's criticisms of Husserl thus understood and deploys them against cognitivism and artificial intelligence. Dreyfus reads Husserl largely through a combination of Heidegger's interpretation and a particular analytic (Fregean) reconstruction of one aspect of Husserl's thought—Husserl's notion of the noema. Thus the Husserl Dreyfus presents to cognitive science and analytic philosophy of mind is a problematic interpretive construct and should not be taken at face value.

For a while Dreyfus's interpretation functioned as a received view in the cognitive science community of Husserl's thought and its relation-ship to cognitive science. This interpretation has since been seriously challenged by a number of Husserl scholars and philosophers. 1 This is not the place to review these conuoversies at length. Suffice it to say that I take these studies to have demonstrated the following points:

1. Husserl does not subscribe to a representational theory of mind, and certainly not a representational theory of the sort Dreyfus wishes to criticize. Intentional experiences do not acquire their directedness in virtue of "a special realm of representational entities" (Dreyfus 1982, p. 1). Rather, the intentional openness of consciousness is an in-tegral part of its being (Zahavi 2003a, p. 21). 2

2. Husserl is not a methodological solipsist. The transcendental phe-nomenological reduction is not a way of trying to characterize the con-tents of consciousness purely internally, apart from their relation to the world. It is a way of characterizing the world, namely, at the phe-nomenal level at which it is experienced, and of studying the relation of the world so characterized to our subjectivity.

3. Husserl does not assimilate all intentionality to object-directed in-tentionality; he does not "claim that all mental life, even our awareness of practical activity and our sense of existing in a shared world, must be a form of object-directedness" (Dreyfus 1982, p. 9; see also Dreyfus 1988). On the contrary, as the above discussion of passive synthesis in-dicates, die notion of a precognitive and non-object-directed "opera-tive intentionality" is central to the subject matter of Husserl's phe-nomenology in its genetic register.

Anyway, never listen to a scientist turned philosopher. All they produce is dogmatic reassurances that everything is okay and w — Astrophel

I put Searle in a similar category to Dennett concerning his understanding of phenomenology, and unfortunately Hubert Dreyfus also. I say unfortunately because he influenced a whole generation of Husserl and Heidegger scholars.

Phenomenology is indeterminate on the issue of foundational knowledge claims, — Astrophel

Depend on whose phenomenology you have in mind. Husserl, the originator of modern phenomenology, was quite determinate on knowledge claims. The only apodictically certain science is transcendental phenomenology. All other scientific results are contingent and relative.

The true philosopher wants to know the truth. So the real philosophers are journalists and scientists. So every student in philosophy should study science, journalism, and the truths they have found first. — AgentTangarine

I guess you don’t consider the phenomenologists, Wittgenstein, Heidegger or Nietzsche to be true philosophers then.

When I talk about mind or consciousness I use words like "feeling," "thought," "memory," or "imagination." When I talk about biology and neurology, I use words like "neuron," "neurotransmitter," or "synapse." To say this use of different language shows that the two phenomena are not the same thing is not to deny that they are intimately related. — Agent Smith

Yes, but the question that phenomenology asks is whether we need to recognize that talking about biology or neurology is not departing from the grounding phenomenological structures that makes taking about mind or consciousness possible.

Does phenomenology necessarily lead to existentialist? — Gregory

Sartre considered himself a phenomenologist but was callled an existentialist by many. There are no clear-cut boundaries between the two since there is no single agreed upon definition of either. I tend to think of existentialism as a precursor to phenomenology, not just historically but also in terms of content.

There are knowledges that outsiders, even if they study the insider accounts of insiders, cannot have. Unless they themselves become insiders, members of the specific epistemic community. — baker

Does it help to know the secret handshake?

Normally, when people communicate, the implicit assumption is that the person who holds a position of more power is objective, while the one in the position of power is not objective. For example, when your boss reviews your work, he does it in a language of providing an objective image of your work performance, as opposed to just his opinion of your work. — baker

Husserl says that we can passively give in to group
consensus assumptions concerning the relative legimacy of an individual’s authority. Or we can take our own position on the matter.


“What comes from others and is "taken over" by me, and is more external or less so, can be characterized as issuing from the other subject, first of all as a tendency proceeding from him and addressed to me, as a demand, to which I perhaps yield passively, perhaps reluctantly, but by which I am still overpowered. Alternatively, I might annex it on my own accord, and then it becomes part of me. In that case it no longer has the character of a mere demand to which I yield and which determines me from the outside; it has become a position-taking that issues from my own Ego and is not merely a stimulus coming from the outside and retaining the character of a borrowing of something that came forth from another Ego, of something that has its primal instauration in him.”(Ideas II, p.281))“

A novel use of a tool to perform a novel task is not, itself, "a gross misunderstanding". Mere ad hominem at best, a projection of your "gross misunderstanding" of Dennettian heterophenomenology otherwise.

... demonstrating that the third person perspective is parasitic on the first personal stance.
If the basis (host of) ... is only a "first person stance", then it is necessarily undemonstrable (i.e. not publically accessible or corroborable). Idealist incoherence (e.g. transcendental ego). — 180 Proof

Matthew Ratcliffe writes:

Dennett, in describing his own conception of phenomenology, appeals to the Sellarsian contrast
between scientific and manifest images, and proposes that:

What phenomenology should do is adumbrate each individual subject‟s manifest image of what‟s going on with them. The ontology is the manifest ontology of that subject. It can be contrasted with the ontology that is devised by the cognitive scientist in an effort to devise
models of the underlying cognitive processes. (2007, p.250)

However, each subject‟s experience is not simply „subjective‟ but involves being part of a shared experiential world. A subjective manifest image is not to be contrasted with the manifest image. The „manifest ontology of a subject‟ includes a sense of its not just being an ontology for the subject but a world shared with other subjects. Consciousness was never a matter of some idiosyncratic, subjective view of the world, estranged from all other such views and from the objective world as described by science. Consciousness is not just a matter of having a subjective perspective within the world; it also includes the sense of occupying a contingent position in a shared world. From within this experiential world, we manage to conceive of the world scientifically, in such a way that it fails to accommodate the manner in which we find ourselves in it. Hence the real problem of consciousness is that of reconciling the world as we find ourselves in it with the objective world of inanimate matter that is revealed by empirical science. It should not simply be assumed from the outset that a solution to the problem will incorporate the view that science reigns supreme.”

To my knowledge, phenomenology isn't as much about the subjectivity-objectivity distinction as it is about what I have described as tier/level-specific/restricted phenomena. — Agent Smith

Could you elaborate a bit? I do t see phenomenology as restricting itself to some special category of experience( subjective vs objective). On the contrary, it claims to
ground all forms of experiencing.

Dennett repurposes "phenomenology" for analysis of (folk)concepts used in cognitive neuroscience, which is not any more of a "misunderstanding" than e.g. Heidegger or Levinas, Merleau-Ponty or Derrida misunderstood Husserl. — 180 Proof

It is a gross misunderstanding of Husserlian phenomenology, an error that neither Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty nor Derrida ever made.

Yeah, formal descriptions of percepts. But to what end? — 180 Proof

There are many important implications for psychology of demonstrating that the third person perspective is parasitic on the first personal stance.

Objective truth can interfere with subjective truth when the latter is faith. Does it matter if all is material when faith can lead to states that don't seem physical? Does phenomenology imply faith? — Gregory

There are religious approaches within phenomenology , but both these and the non-religious versions avoid splitting apart the subjective and the objective.

The mind world has its own thing going on, quite distinct from physics & chemsitry. — Agent Smith

Except claiming the subjective as ‘quite distinct’ from the objective is precisely what phenomenology is arguing against.

It may be useful in some sense to pretend to doubt for a particular purpose, just as it may be useful in some sense to pretend to be or do something we aren't or don't do for a particular purpose. But we should know we're pretending in that case, and I think the purposes for which we pretend would be fairly limited. — Ciceronianus

Which is why Descartes wasn’t pretending, any more than researchers are pretending when they use what they learn from pathological conditions to shed legitimate doubt on capacities they previously thought to be unquestionable.

Well, we shouldn't entirely disregard the fact that in that case, they're considering the effects of a disease or condition they don't doubt exists on an actual person they don't doubt exists. — Ciceronianus

As a good phenomenologist I begin by doubting the unquestioned existence of the world , including other persons.

“The epoche creates a unique sort of philosophical solitude which is the fundamental methodical requirement for a truly radical philosophy. In this solitude I am not a single individual who has somehow willfully cut himself off from the society of mankind, perhaps even for theoretical reasons, or who is cut off by accident, as in a shipwreck, but who nevertheless knows that he still belongs to that society. I am not an ego, who still has his you, his we, his total community of co-subjects in natural validity. All of mankind, and the whole distinction and ordering of the personal pronouns, has become a phenomenon within my epoche; and so has the privilege of I-the- man among other men. “(Husserl, Crisis, p.184)

if we in doing philosophy claim to doubt what we do, and are, and think, and believe, and confirm every day of our lives, we're pretending to do so, as as our own conduct, our own lives, establish that we don't doubt that at all. — Ciceronianus

If we are good philosophers, we should doubt those things, because there are many brain conditions that show us what we at one time thought to be indubitable are merely relative , contingent constructions of mind. Phenomenologist talk about the naive attitude we normally use to encounter the world, in which it’s assumed certainly is not doubted. There point is that if anything is ‘pretend’ it is the assumption of the certainty of the world, not the doubting of it. If you don’t doubt it , then you are deceiving yourself. Or more precisely, you are confusing a relative and contingent construction of mind with a certainty.

I shall consider that the heavens, the earth, colours, figures, sound, and all other external things are nought but the illusions and dreams of which this genius has availed himself in order to lay traps for my credulity; I shall consider myself as having no hands, no eyes, no flesh, no blood, nor any senses, yet falsely believing myself to possess all these things" I guess he was pretending, then — Ciceronianus

No more than philosophers of mind are pretending when they invoke derangements of cognitions such as schizophrenia and then ask if there is anything left of the sense of self that the deranged mind can rely on. Schizophrenics offers lose their sense of boo derives between their body and the world outside of it. They literally lose their hands, eyes, flesh, etc and believe themselves inanimate or indefinable, and may imagine this to be the result of an evil power.

These prejudices are not to be dispelled by a maxim, for they are things which it does not occur to us can be questioned. Hence this initial skepticism will be a mere self-deception, and not real doubt; and no one who follows the Cartesian method will ever be satisfied until he has formally recovered all those beliefs which in form he has given up.(Peirce). — Ciceronianus

The self-deception that Peirce had in mind is akin to, and indebted to, the self-deception that Kant revealed the Cartesian certainty to rest on. Every new philosophical system that comes down the pike defines itself via its critical relation to a philosophy that came before it. Put differently, the new philosophy exposes as self-deception what had been take to be indubitable within the older view. This is not unlike the way newer scientific theories falsify older ones. Which doesn’t mean the older theories were pretending.

Has anyone here ever wondered if there is anything more real than this life? Maybe even thought that there had to be something more real? — TiredThinker

Reality isn’t a product you’ll find in a drugstore, a neuropsychology lab, or on netflix. From a psychological point of view , the feeling of reality is a function of meaningfulness , which is connected with significance and relevance. The more interconnected we make the elements of our experience the more real they will seem, which means ‘ultimate realty’ is as much about active invention as passive observation.

I can't walk about walking BUT I can think about thinking. — Agent Smith

This distinction relies on the assumption that thinking is an exclusively subjective activity that can point at objects or point at its own subjectivity. Walking , by contrast, is assumed as an objective activity, and so doesn’t ‘point’ at anything to begin with. But we only know we’re walking becuase we are conscious of it. We can shift our awareness from what we are walking on ( the sidewalk) or where we are walking to( the store) to the act of walking itself, for instance, when we are afraid we might stumble , or we are recovering from a stroke. Being self-consciously aware of any physical activity is a meta-aboutness.

On the fundamental level of matter, space, and time, the world has proved to be extremely regular. Our best theories about these fundamental entities (QM and GR) make astoundingly precise predictions, — Asphodelus

I agree with you in general concerning the regularity of the world , but I think that the kind of regularity that is implied by your use of ‘extreme’ and ‘precise’ to refer to mathematical descriptions is in fact a less useful notion of precision and exactitude than it might seem. The same models that rely on fixed lawfulness and numeric description to the nth decimal place depend equally on notions of randomness The universe these models depict is one part numerically exact and one part utterly random.
The way forward beyond the randomness science ascribes to aspects of the rendered world requires a shift from the reliance on calculative exactitude.

“…the ontological presuppositions of historiographical knowledge transcend in principle the idea of rigor of the most exact sciences. Math­ematics is not more exact than historiographical, but only narrower with regard to the scope of the existential foundations relevant to it.” (Heidegger, Being and Time)

Regarding a pertinent hypothetical, I think this is more apt: "Doctor, assume an Evil Demon has caused you to think the plaintiff exists, and is your patient, and that you have treated him, but all this is but an illusion. In that case, would it be your opinion the plaintiff has sustained a permanent injury?" — Ciceronianus

Of course, Descartes isnt trying to find out if a person who is mentally deranged can perform a cognitive task(like determining if someone has suffered a permanent injury ) , when the derangement would
precisely preclude such a performance. Descartes isnt stupid, so why are you trying to make him sound stupid? Let’s elevate the ‘cognitive’ level of this discussion a bit, and update Descartes’ hypothetical. Schizophrenics, like perhaps the doctor in your example, often hear voices in their heads telling them to do things or making assertions of fact. One could say that such derangement is in some
respect what Descartes had in mind with his evil genius hypothetical. The question for Descartes is how deep such derangement runs. Is there nothing indubitable for the Schizophrenic, not even their sense of self? Research has shown that people can distinguish between a sense of agency and a sense of ownership of thoughts. That is , voice hearers may recognize that a voice is coming from their own head, but not believe that they willed the voice.
Some philosophers interpret this to mean that the sense of self is constructed and not indubitable. Others claim that even in the case of voice hearers there is an indubitable minimal feeling of self-consciousness. Something like this is what Descartes was after, a core notion self in the form of the ‘I think’ that could be considered immune to doubt.

If Descartes had used the modern example of a schizophrenic instead of a person deranged by an evil genius would you have no longer considered his example ‘pretend’?

The world is rich enough to exhibit multiple regularities, depending on how you look at it, and those regularities can be modeled in multiple ways. Still, when you get into the nitty-gritty of said modeling, you will quickly discover just how tightly nature constrains our efforts - ask any working scientist! For better or for worse, scientists aren't free to make any moves they wish. — SophistiCat

I agree that with the above, but that does t necessarily mean the below follows from it.

mathematics fits the world so well because the world just is "mathematical." — SophistiCat

Saying the world is mathematical is like saying that it consists of propositional statements. We would first have to remind ourselves that it is our relation to it that is mathematical. We certainly do render it that way empirically , with very useful results, but it has been asserted by a number of philosophers that the predicational logic underlying mathematics is not irreducible. There may be more ‘precise’ ways to render
the world than via a mathematical language.

I'm not saying there won't be anything in the future, but that when there is something it will be the present. — Janus

According to the phenomenologists, the very structure of the present itself is such that it intends, anticipates beyond itself. And the present is the fulfillment of a previous moment’s anticipating beyond itself. So one could say that to be in the moment is to experience a particular degree of intimacy with respect to one’s past and future. For the depressed person the present moment will appear as a disappointment of prior expectations as well as an anticipating of further disappointment.

For illustrating the emic-etic distinction, how come you're using only examples of people giving up on an insider status?

You completely ignore examples such a tribe membership, membership in a language community, membership in a professional community. Ie. the type of examples that are usually used to illustrate the emic-etic distinction. — baker

Such social memberships are based on shared understandings underlying shared practices.

I might generalize from this and suggest that enlightenment is nothing other than the endless progression in which one moves being encased within a worldview to seeing it as a mere step ion the path to a richer perspective.

The "endless progression"? Do you believe in rebirth/reincarnation? — baker

No more so than the scientist who supports Popper’s view of scientific inquiry as oriented teleologically toward an asymptotic approach of truth.

How could it be that mathematics formulated in a priori necessity in the armchairs and heads of mathematicians, applies to the messy, far-off, contingent, natural world? — Asphodelus

Because a large part of our empirical models of the messy, far-off, contingent, natural world are also formulated in the armchairs and heads of scientists.
Modern science was crystallized in conjunction with that of mathematics and formal logic, on the basis of the mathematizable object. As a result , the world is carved into units that presuppose the mathematical.

I've always thought that a large part of philosophy is a speculative and imaginative activity in order to challenge assumptions. This even includes banal thought experiments. I wonder if it's too limiting or ungenerous to dub this 'let's pretend'? — Tom Storm

I wouldnt know how to distinguish philosophical speculations and imaginings from scientific models in any categorical sense. I think the essential connection between the two disciplines becomes clearer with the mention of such empirical entities as phlogiston and the ether. Of course, the fact that for so many years the sciences could claim to wall off the domain of the empirical from the subjective side of consciousness meant that they have been oblivious to the essential role
of the imaginative and the speculative in not only the generating of theory but also in the the coherence of scientific facts.

Perhaps it's unfair to characterize the discussion of some traditional philosophical discussions as mere "play." Perhaps it's kinder and more accurate to consider it to be a mental exercise. — Ciceronianus

There are dozens of philosophers whose ideas
I find extremely valuable. I can’t think of a single one of them whose questions fit your category of a mere mental exercise.

Your choice to speak in generalities gives you the luxury of levelling accusations without having to back them up with an argument. Could you give an example of a question from a specific philosopher, and either show that they don’t answer it, or that their answer is either pretense or ‘distanced from life’? Quotes would be welcome.

You think taking failed insiders, who are therefore not insiders (anymore) at all, are the best source of insider knowledge??

That's like saying that college drop-outs are the best sources on what college is like and what it is supposed to be like. — baker

Or it’s like saying that if I grow up in a homophobic household where such views are connected to a fundamentalist religious belief system, and I emancipate myself from those homophobic beliefs, I have a choice that the other members of my household don’t. I can live within the insular and narrow view that is their only option (they being stuck ‘inside’ that narrow framework) , or I can shift to a decentered thinking in which I subsume their parochial view within a more flexible framework. Thus I can shift back and forth between empathizing with their perspective and freeing myself from their cage.

I might generalize from this and suggest that enlightenment is nothing other than the endless progression in which one moves being encased within a worldview to seeing it as a mere step ion the path to a richer perspective.

“… yesterday's alarming impulse becomes today's enlivening insight, tomorrow's repressive doctrine, and after that subsides into a petty superstition.”(George Kelly).

You think you can have insider knowledge without being an insider? — baker

I think you can have better than insider knowledge by subsuming insider thinking within a more encompassing framework that transcends its limitations. Lapsed Catholics , former cult members and reformed drug addicts are examples.