It's simply the world. — Olivier5

Presumably, but that's ambiguous. Are electrons part of the map of tuna fish sandwiches and promises and itches ? Are electrons real and promises not ? Or the reverse ? Or ?

The word 'horse' is not a real horse and will never be a real horse. — Olivier5

In this analogy, you have two objects, but what is the territory corresponding to scientific maps like ? If all we ever have of it is maps ? To me, electrons are part of the map, for example. At least within the map/territory as you seem to understand it ?

such as the examples I am writing about right now? — Olivier5

Of course I know what you are getting at, but then here we are in language trying to gesture beyond it.
My point was coming from a perspective influenced by Popper and Sellars. When we reason, it's all just discussing claims. Even 'experience' only enters in as premises which aren't the conclusions of inferences, such as Popper's basic statements...those we tentatively take without justification.

And the product of this process is still a representation, i.e. something different from the actual world. The map is not the territory. — Olivier5

I was thinking of this on my bikeride this morning. 'The map is not the territory.' But what do we make of this ? At the moment, I think it's just the (grammatical) gap between a warranted belief and true belief. In other words, it expresses our caution, our finitude, our willingness to edit our governing beliefs.

That's a substantial step back from 'solipsism is wrong because the self needs the Other for the sake of rationality and language.' — Tate

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you aren't quoting me there, just paraphrasing.

Here's what I said yesterdayish:

I will say that our social situation is logically primary, simply because saying otherwise is incoherent. If we aren't in some underspecified sense in the same world with the same concepts, then rational conversation is impossible.

We debate claims about our world. Any beginning 'less' than that seems to be nonsense, though we can and do endlessly explicate what we mean by these keywords.

We might say the self has two others, one being the target of claims (the world) and the other being those in the community, sharing a language, subject to the same norms. One could present the self-others dynamic as part of the self-world dynamic, I suppose.

I don't see how binding claims (the conclusions of sound arguments, for instance) make sense apart from this minimal situation (hence the thread I started.) One person claims that the others are bound to acknowledge that a belief about their shared world is warranted or true.

Could you provide an example of words representing nonwords ?

The solipsist tries to reason with his fictional friends. It's fun. — Tate

Perhaps I've found the issue. Let me emphasize that I don't deny that a madman can believe he's all alone in a dream. I could even be a dream right now.

Here's my primary target:

In epistemology, epistemological solipsism is the claim that one can only be sure of the existence of one's mind.The existence of other minds and the external world is not necessarily rejected but one can not be sure of its existence.

This 'one' is implicitly universal. A rational person ought to recognize that the existence of something other than the mind (like other minds) cannot be certainty established.

In other words, the epistemological solipsist claims that it's wrong or irrational to assume that there's something one can be wrong or irrational about.

In the same way, solipsism can't attack externalism. The externalist can just say, "Yes, I use the word 'private', it's such a great word, but nothing beyond that." — Tate

I find this leap so problematic that it's hard for me to believe you see where I'm coming from. You keep mentioning externalism, but that's not quite it (and not my word.) I'm interested in the cluster of the following concepts : the subject among subjects, the target of claims, and community norms that bind those subjects govern concept application and inferences. I contend that the epistemological solipsist makes a claim about community norms, invoking that which transcends him in order to deny it.

For some reason you're evading my point. — Tate

Not intentionally !

The solipsist says, "The word 'public' has a use in my language. — Tate

To whom ? Himself ? For what else is there ? To what norms could he refer ? About what world could he be wrong or right ? You basically put a world in a vat, pretend a community shares a language, but make that community a mirage at the end.

Consider the difference between 'I'm not sure if I'm dreaming right now' and 'we ought not assume that we're not dreaming.' The second is a claim about norms that apply to all rational agents.

Another way to say the same thing is: truth requires a language, and a language requires several human subjects speaking it. — Olivier5

FWIW, I think you are both right. Take 'objective' in its pure sense as unbiased, and science's goal is to objectively settle what a community ought to believe about the world. I say 'ought' because a warranted belief may not be true. I take this to be a point about grammar and/or the concept of truth.

Truth is generally defined as an accurate representation of some state of affairs. — Olivier5

This is an issue that I like to wrestle with. How can words be understood to represent nonwords ? That's like paint trying to be music. I think this is why Wittgenstein wrote that the world is all that is the case, a system of true statements. This seems less wrong than many alternatives.

One more piece might be helpful.

Rejecting the myth of the given is not yet a positive epistemology. Sellars can abandon the myth of the given only if he gives us a positive theory of non-inferential knowledge to replace it. (There must be non-inferential knowledge, that is, knowledge that is not acquired by inference, even if its epistemic status depends on its inferential connections to other knowledge.)

The paradigm cases of non-inferential knowledge are introspection, perception, and memory [IPM] beliefs (see MGEC). According to Sellars, such beliefs have epistemic status because, given the processes by which language and beliefs are acquired, they are likely to be true. IPM beliefs are reliable indicators, like the temperature readings on a thermometer. This is a reliablist or externalist condition on such knowledge. A chain of empirical justification can properly start with IPM beliefs because they are noninferential reliable indicators of the truth of their contents.

We can trust Jerry's claim that Martha was wearing a red dress at the funeral because Jerry has never failed us. The boy knows his colors ! But Tim is colorblind and Jethro's a liar. Individuals exist and matter.

On the inferential/abstract level, we might notice that Billy is shit at logic, albeit otherwise honest. So we are more inclined to trust his premises than his conclusions, even before following the argument itself. Then Karen makes a big deal out of everything. So we translate her claims into their less surprising versions.

There is no sociality without privacy. There is no 'we' without 'me'. You're doing the same thing solipsism is doing: you're saying yes to the two-sided coin, but then declaring one side to be illusive. — Tate

'Privacy' is a public concept, else you could not make a point about it (could not be right or wrong.) I don't claim that privacy is illusion, just to be clear. It has a use in our language ('don't make private phone calls on company time.')

On the 'I' or 'me' issue, do you not recall our previous conversation ? The self does indeed play an important role. You and I as individuals are 'tracked' and evaluated for logical consistency, for instance. I am responsible for defending the implications of my claims but not yours. We both ought to keep our story straight, not call the same thing white and black, public and private, etc.

I quote again:

There will indeed be cases in which only the agent can say whether she is pondering, imagining, dreaming, letting her mind wander, calculating, solving, planning, or rehearsing. But the sort of privacy in which only she can say whether she was doing any of these or other particular things is not the sort of privacy that gives rise to philosophical conundrums like the problem of other minds and the problem of necessarily private languages.

The 'sane' or 'ordinary' concept of mind does not exclude it from the explanatory nexus that includes sense organs and electrons and arguments. The metaphysical version features the ghost/mind on another plane entirely, so that even the scientists in 6098 couldn't predict a sneeze.

The following brings home meaning as use, in my view.

For Brandom, sentient beings, such as the cardinals, react differentially to their environments. But they do not count as sapient because they are incapable of the kind of responsibility and authority for their acts that is characteristic of being obliged, prohibited, and permitted, (and being committed to a certain course of action or entitled to something), and which, on his view, is necessary if an agent’s inferences are to be appropriately appraisable. The cardinals’ behavior amounts to an implicit categorization of the features of their environment, but this behavior does not depend upon the birds performing inferences to or from the applicability of those categorizations. It is his distinctive analysis of the nature of inference and of the practice of drawing and evaluating inferences that forms the core of Brandom’s understanding of rationality. An agent is rational in Brandom’s preferred sense just in case she draws inferences in a way that is evaluable according to the inferential role of the concepts involved in those inferences, where the inferential role of a concept is specified in terms of the conditions under which an agent would be entitled to apply, or prohibited from applying, that concept, together with what else an agent would be entitled or committed to by the appropriate application of the concept. This articulation of the content of concepts in terms of the inferential role of those concepts, and the specification of those roles in terms of proprieties of inference, is combined with a distinctive brand of pragmatism. Instead of the content of a concept providing an independent guide or rule that governs which inferences are appropriate, it is the actual practices of inferring carried out in a community of agents who assess themselves and each other for the propriety of their inferences that explains the content of the concepts.

So 'private' would get its meaning from the inferences involving it that we (in an ideal sense, a community making its own new rules in terms of the old) license and forbid.

That's true it can happen a scenario where Aristotle's "first principles" don't work. In this context, the paper I read yesterday, shows diverse solutions according to different philosophers., for example: — javi2541997

Nice summary/narration. On this topic, I like to think of a community trying to rationally settle what they ought to believe. The issue seems to be what they'll use for premises. I think they'll only let one another get away with choosing (relatively) uncontroversial statements. In my vision, their logic is not going to be as exact and reliable as a proof in mathematics, and they also don't have to take any particular relatively uncontroversial statements as definitely true. They'll just generally establish more complex and doubtful claims by working from those that are less so, without need perfect certainty about any claim but certainty sufficient for practical purposes ( from murder trials to bridgebuilding.)

Whether we think of the diamond as "soft until touched" or "always hard" before our experience, therefore, is irrelevant. Under both theories the diamond feels the same, and can be used in the same way. However, the first theory is far more difficult to work with, so of less value. — Richard B

:up:

Peirce is great.

The notion that phenomenalism is central to physics is flawed. — Banno

I agree, but it's tempting to those who think from the sense-data model. "All the scientist ever 'really sees' is some immaterial stuff he calls 'red.' " This is why Popper's move is good. Avoid ghost talk. Especially at the (apparent?) foundation(s).

The act of knowing is not a private matter, which is what this quote implies. — Sam26

Yes. I tried to present a version of a picture that holds many philosophers captive even now. I understand Sellars to have shown that even sensation words, used often in noninferential reports, still get their meaning from claims linked to those reports inferentially. For instance, I might explain running the red light in terms of thinking the light was green. I might explain Joe's reports of flashes of white light by the pressure he's putting on his eyes with his finger.

I also agree that knowing involves understanding how 'know' ought to be applied. A thermometer can reliably 'answer' a simple question, but it's not making a claim in the space of reasons.

When someone sees me as a stereotype or representative of a group, they ignore my unique individuality, so I become isolated. — Yohan

I dislike being misunderstood myself. This issue reminds me of Sartre. To be a mere object for the other is the essence of shame.

He said that Schopenhauer carried on Kant's examination of the unknowable thing-in-itself, nomena. — T Clark

Yes, indeed. I think Schop called it an X and decided it was Will (if memory serves.) I liked Schop for lots of his scaffolding, not so much for this particular theory, except as poetry or myth perhaps.

This 'veil of ideas' has proved to be a seductive metaphor indeed.

Ideas are among the most important items in Descartes’ philosophy. They serve to unify his ontology and epistemology. As he says in a letter to Guillaume Gibieuf (1583–1650), dated 19 January 1642, “I am certain that I can have no knowledge of what is outside me except by means of the ideas I have within me.”

I take the metaphor to be that we look through lens, never at reality directly. Taken in a limited sense, this is not problematic. The nearsighted person sees the tree differently than the eagle. But taken absolutely, we cast an unspeakable void behind the lens...and then find ourselves debating if we can be sure that other people aren't p-zombies or illusions...

It's not a matter of details.

Note the meaning of "sociality". Like left and right, north and south, it only means something relative to it's opposite. — Tate

But consider, sir, you are reasoning with me. Am I bound to regard your logic ? If so, why ? And do I not (mostly) understand your words ? I agree that 'sociality' is caught in a network of differences. Is this not a claim about norms for concept application that apply to both of us ? Was it not inferred implicitly through the examples you offered of North and South ?

Philosophizing in an orderly way reduces our minimal epistemic commitment to.....granting that for which the negation is impossible. Which, ironically enough, gets us right back to Descartes’ philosophy that everybody hates. — Mww

Your view is so close to mine. Do you not see that ?

I'm bothering to fix Descartes because I think he was almost saying the right thing. He didn't emphasize what was implicit...that reason and language (norms for applying concepts) transcend his little ghost driving his little machine from up in its pineal gland. They must. Or the whole thing's ghost babble.

....that ol’ Rene intended it to be understood cogito relates to individuals, even if speaking in general regarding all individuals. So...it is “I think”, not “we think”. You know.....philosophizing in an orderly way.
———- — Mww

This is what needs 'fixing.' We rational ones ought not care at all what lil' Rene smarty pants figures out just for himself.

I persist, sir. It's 'we think' or you and I babble.

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I do so appeal, but only insofar as it is at least counterproductive, and at most utterly absurd, to suppose we are not of the same intellectual character. — Mww

That's one the main points I've been making, friend ! Reason is one and universal or we are just babbling here.

1) The things we see are not present in the mind. What we see are representations. The problem of judgment arises because we cannot compare these representations to the things themselves in order to determine whether the representation is true to what it represents. — Fooloso4

This is the 'veil of ideas' I had in mind. It only becomes plausible in the first place from because one person can sees the eyes of another point at an object, weaving both into a single explanatory/causal nexus. Then the trick happens. The sense organs are implicitly made their own product as we pretend we can start intelligibly behind this veil.

Funny you mention that. I was thinking about the edge case of the last survivor of a nuclear war. But then it's just a contingent fact that other minds don't exist. We're not in the original situation of worrying about apparent minds that might be p-zombie or fantasies.

Another point: I'm guessing that some people imagine the solipsist as living in a world like ours that 'may' be just his fantasy, and they imagine him (problematically, in my view ) being able to make claims that are wrong or right about this fantasy world.

And? If there is the Christian God then he is a dick. The statement is about the very God that might not exist. What's the problem? The existence of something is entailed by there being some true claim about it. — Michael

To me that's a misleading analogy. If I claim there is a God, I'm saying that for both us there is a God. It's a fact about our world in common that there's a God in it. Maybe I'm wrong. The world is there, and maybe God isn't in it, despite my claim.

If I say, on the other hand, that it's a fact about our world together that we might not have a world together, that's different. I'm not making sense. Let's try this : It's a fact about our world that there might not be facts about our world. Still doesn't work.

Simpler: it's a fact that there are no facts. Or it's fact that there might not be facts.

I get that. For me, this is one of many views. I understand it, but I also know it's 'language on holiday'. — Tate

Fair enough, but I'd argue that it's incoherent to deny the sociality of reason. To be sure, the details are endlessly debatable, but it's absurd to deny the debate within the debate, no?

es. What's wrong with that? — Michael

"Other minds cannot know there are other minds." They are describing an essential feature of the thing they simultaneously doubt.

We can try to repair this: "If there are other minds, then those minds can't know there are other minds." But this is a statement about the very minds that might not exist. At the very least it's a claim about shared conceptual space. The public concept of mind is in play, even if there's purported doubt about its appropriate application.

.

nothing about saying that only one's mind and mental phenomena exists entails that no claims are truth-apt. — Michael

If the solipsist is arguing a thesis as a philosopher, he's implicitly describing our shared situation, if only minimally in what assumptions or inferences are appropriate for all members of the rational community.

They just claim that we can't know that there are other minds — Michael

Consider though : their claim is about other minds. 'Other minds can't know whether there are other minds.' The keyword is we. They make assertions about norms, about whether it's reasonable or not (in this case not) for other minds to assume or assert without justification that there are other minds.

Again, you're trying to deploy externalism against it. That's only satisfying until you realize you are your world, as Witt states. — Tate

It'll help me if you spell out your general view. I don't think 'I am my world.' My position is that we humans are radically-primordially social, that 'I' is a token in a game that transcends the individual meat that utters it (but not the community as a whole.)

Epistemological solipsists only say that we can't know that there are other minds and ontological solipsists say that "there are other minds" is false. — Michael

So epistemological solipsists say that we might be wrong to think that there's something we could be wrong about ?

I'm trying to dig to the gist of the appearance / reality distinction, which seems tied in to the concept of the self.

Who makes such a claim? — Michael

It's a satirical translation of solipsism.

If you're going to embrace any kind of ontology, you'll have to give solipsism it's due. — Tate

I confess that it's a toy issue, but I maintain that solipsism, asserted philosophical/rationally, is incoherent.

But this goes for realism and every other type of ontology. — Tate

Wait a minute. Are we on the same page ?

Anyone who makes claims about our world-in-common (such as what's in it or claiming 'it's all water' ) presumably aims at getting something right about it.

Which of these are you saying is incoherent? — Michael

This one. "There's nothing that we can be right or wrong about."

I put it this way, just to sharpen the point : "It's wrong to think there's something we can be wrong about."

And even though the rich imagery of the poetic mind cannot be spoken about, other than to signal its existence and importance, — Janus

But people can and do talk about their dreams and fantasies, and not only about the importance thereof. "I thought I saw a putty cat" is a great example of how the explanatory nexus includes the imagination (as well as sensation in emotion.) It might explain flight or approach. 'I thought the light was green, officer.' Or colorblindness might be used to explain failing a certain test.

This is more thoroughly explained by Schopenhauer, but Wittgenstein shows how it's nonsense (not to be confused with false, it's not false). — Tate

I agree. It's better to say confused than false.

The solipsist claims that it's wrong to think there's something we can be wrong about.
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Affirming cogito, while not doing much to “fix” it. — Mww

I think you miss the point. It's not 'I think' but 'we think.' Or is it just you who thinks I haven't fixed it ? But why should I be bound by such idiosyncratic babble ? Unless of course it's not just babble...and you appeal to a reason or logic that binds us both...

More cart-before-the-horse metaphysics..... — Mww

That's what I might say about any approach that starts with an isolated subject.

I hope it's not rude if I request that you use complete sentences. This stuff is complicated enough already.

It makes perfect sense, for us, taken as a community of identical intelligences. — Mww

Please clarify. Do you claim that it makes sense to argue against the force of logic ?