Actually I share that preference. I just understand it (as you seem to ) as a preference. To say that I see the tree and not an image of the tree is (to me) mostly a statement about how we do or ought to talk. I think we agree that it's not a 'deep' theory. "Really, we grasp reality directly."

I only know Davidson indirectly (Rorty uses him often enough.) I'll add the disclaimer that I don't follow Rorty on everything, but he's got some good lines.

I'm talking about the perceived Newtonian physics. According to my reading, folks tended to understand it deterministically, including Kant. But how then could our wills be free, if our bodies were part of that same nature governed by Newton's laws?

How could a God cast some into Hell, unless they had a genuine choice? And even without God, some might find it challenging to synthesize traditions of praise and blame (and prison systems) with a relatively new thinking that understood human actions as determined by initial conditions for which they could not reasonably be held responsible. (I think we have no choice but to use praise and blame and the notion of responsibility while knowing on some other level that people are basically determined by their environments.)

You only own property if we say you do. — Banno

:up:

It seems to be trying to solve problems that are no longer problematic. Hence, not high on my reading list. — Banno

Sure. I can relate. It might be better to read Dostoevsky or Darwin. I liked Ryle, but I had the gist from Wittgenstein already. Diminishing returns.

In one of Rorty's last interviews, he seemed to regret spending so much time on rather 'fussy' issues.

Aye! I never understood dualism! — Agent Smith

My theory is that it was an attempt to protect God from Newton (free will from a world that began to look determined.) Kant also hid his own magic stuff in the thing-in-itself.

:up:
The thing that made me care about Sellars was the idea of the space of reasons. We don't reason from sense-data. We reason from less controversial statements to more controversial statements. But it's all 'in' language.

Popper makes similar points maybe about basic/observation statements. I guess the idea is to correct/fix an empiricism that got a little tripped on up on the sense-data idea and its idealistic-solipsistic implications, though their hearts were in the right place.

There's a logical impossibility at the heart of solipsism & idealism. — Agent Smith

:up:

No self without other nor illusion without the real.

Also I've found this book good so far : https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/wilfrid-sellars-naturalism-with-a-normative-turn/

You mentioned the 'many worlds' interpretation. To me there's a semantic gap between the math of physics and the norms for using concepts within the 'system' of physics and what I'm supposed to make of them in ordinary life. I understand spacetime as a mathematical system. No problem. But I live in stupid people's time. Anyway, I feel bound to acknowledge evidence-supported regularities, expressed perhaps in exotic mathematical syntax, but not to adopt metaphysical baggage that physicists may like to drag along with such models. I agree with Popper that such 'prescience' can ripen into science, and maybe the boundary is not exact...but the distinction is useful nevertheless.

I'll add a Derrrida quote here (from Of Grammatology) that complements the point by Sellars.

If, for Aristotle, for example, "spoken words are the symbols of mental experience, and written words are the symbols of spoken words," it is because the voice, producer of the first symbols, has a relationship of essential and immediate proximity with the mind...

The feelings of the mind, expressing things naturally, constitute a sort of universal language which can then efface itself. It is the stage of transparence. ... In every case, the voice is closest to the signified, whether it is determined strictly as sense ( thought or lived ) or more loosely as thing. All signifiers, and first and foremost the written signifier, are derivative with regard to what would wed the voice indissolubly to the mind or to the thought of the signified sense, indeed to the thing itself ( whether it is done in the Aristotelian manner that we have just indicated or in the manner of medieval theology, determining the res as a thing created from its eidos, from its sense thought in the logos or in the infinite understanding of God) . The written signifier is always technical and representative. It has no constitutive meaning. This derivation is the very origin of the notion of the "signifier."...
...
But to these metaphysico-theological roots many other hidden sediments cling. The semiological or, more specifically, linguistic "science" cannot therefore hold on to the difference between signifier and signified-the very idea of the sign-without the difference between sensible and intelligible, certainly, but also not without retaining, more profoundly and more implicitly, and by the same token the reference to a signified able to "take place" in its intelligibility, before its "fall," before any expulsion into the exteriority of the sensible here below. As the face of pure intelligibility, it refers to an absolute logos to which it is immediately united. This absolute logos was an infinite creative subjectivity in medieval theology : the intelligible face of the sign remains turned toward the word and the face of God. Of course, it is not a question of "rejecting" these notions; they are necessary and, at least at present, nothing is conceivable for us without them. — Derrida

It seems to me that our theory of the 'internal' (of mindstuff) (along with the 'seems operator') developed historically as a technology useful to groups for coordinating their behavior. But certain philosophers would like to construct the world from this quasi-fictional or at least arguably secondary mindstuff. Kant even claimed that time and space were unreal, if I understand him correctly. (I suspect that he was trying to say that Newtonian physics was just the laws of dreaming, but that's less clear. )

Some of these people are fucking insane. — Michael

:up:

Sample and link:

Sellars begins the myth by having us imagine a group of beings who can talk and act just like we do, but who lack any vocabulary of the inner. They have no concepts or notions of thoughts, sensations, feelings, wants, desires, though their language is otherwise rich and complete, even having the resources for (proto)scientific theorizing. We now introduce the hero of the story, Jones, who himself proposes a theory. Importantly, like many theories designed to explain, this one posits the existence of a new class of entities. In this instance, Jones seeks to explain some of the behavior of his peers, and relying on an analogy with the method of postulation in physics (from our perspective), the entities Jones’ theory postulates of are, initially, unobservable. (To anticipate the end of the story, the entities Jones introduces, first thoughts, then sensations, are not in principle unobservable. His peers will eventually be able to have direct, non-inferential knowledge of many of them).

What behavior, then, is Jones seeking to explain by the postulation of something he calls, “thoughts” and “thinking”? Namely that people sometimes engage in purposive, intelligent behavior when silent. Sometimes, that is, people engage in what we call, “thinking out loud,” where they speak about the intelligent behavior they are engaged in. But sometimes the behavior itself is present, with no accompanying verbal commentary, as it were. (Imagine someone changing the faucet in their kitchen, with instructions before them, sometimes reading aloud the instructions, sometimes declaring an intention to do something next, followed by periods of silence). What exactly, Jones wonders, is going on when people engage in such intelligent behavior when they are completely silent?

According to his theory, during all these occasions of intelligent behavior there is something going on “inside” people, in their heads if you like, some of which gets verbalized, some of which doesn’t. The way to explain such intelligent behavior is to see it as the culmination of a silent, inner type of reasoning, an “inner speaking” going on inside of people. Jones reasons that this intelligent behavior involves the occurrence of hidden episodes which are similar to the activity of talking. Jones says, in essence, “Let’s call it ‘thinking,’ and though it is like talking, it is silent, or covert inner speech. Thinking is what is going on in us, which lies behind and explains our intelligent behavior and our intelligent talking.”

Importantly, the episodes Jones postulates may turn out to be neuro-physiological events, but Jones’ theory is noncommittal on this point, and doesn’t require a specification of their intrinsic nature. The salient point is that episodes of thinking are modeled on a public language, and an understanding of these inner episodes will involve the use of categories that are in the first instance applicable to a public language.

https://iep.utm.edu/sellars/#H4

Derrida quotes Aristotle.

Spoken words are the symbols of mental experience and written words are the symbols of spoken words. Just as all men have not the same writing, so all men have not the same speech sounds, but the mental experiences, which these directly symbolize, are the same for all, as also are those things of which our experiences are the images.

Ryle doesn't name his targets, but here's a terse version of the ghost theory, way before Descartes.

Have you looked into Sellars' idea of the genius Jones ? Pretty clever, and I just bumped into it recently. In short, we can imagine a theory of 'thoughts' as if a theory of electrons or other invisible, counterintuitive entities. (All this in a society with speech but not yet a concept of unspoken thoughts.) Such a theory might explain why a person silently moves to a shorter checkout line at the grocery store.

Oh yes, we agree about where the path leads (mind is what we do.) As I see it, lots of paths are equally good, and I tend to find them complementary. Understanding one makes it easy to understand the next.

That is, he takes showing as more important than saying. — Banno

I guess I'm not clear on the showing/saying distinction. I relate more easily to the later work, tho I like the TLP.

What I like about Derrida is his direct attack on the idea that 'meaning stuff' is 'directly present' to (or for, or identical with ) some immaterial 'mind-stuff.'

I'd also like to add that the so-called "New Age" and "Atheism" are not perpendicular to each other. I'm of the opinion that magick should be taught in public schools. — Bret Bernhoft

I recognize your freedom to say so, of course, but in my view 'magick' is in the same family of ways of thinking that the Enlightenment reacted against. Anything esoteric is suspect.

It'd be fine to teach about all religions in public schools, but I don't think it'd be wise or proper to teach it as binding or true. I suspect you wouldn't want bible-thumpers teaching biology, for similar reasons.

Of course you can say that the truth does not depend on there being a true statement, but then the idealist can say the same. — Michael

I see myself as suggesting that certain theses aren't sufficiently meaningful to be worth taking a position on. In the usual practical sense, the world is as it is whether I'm aware of it or not. Cells existed before microscopes, and earth was here before carbon dating. An idealist can 'abuse' (or play upon the flexibility of) ordinary language and say otherwise. To me it's not so much that they are wrong or right. It's just not that exciting. It's something like a tautology presented as an empirical discovery.

True - so let me rephrase...in my solipsistic world, all I can see is sense-data, including sense date of talking things and a communication method that could be gibberish. — GLEN willows

Are the sense-organs their own product then ? Are noses and eyes real ?

Are you sure we have brains in skulls ? Do you trust your eyes to tell you the truth about some brain 'behind' sensation?

I'm concerned that if we can't soon find some basis for disagreement, ours is going to be a monotonous conversation. — Banno

I like Derrida's critique of phonocentrism (his early stuff), and I think it fits in with Wittgenstein and Ryle. Not saying I love the style or all of the work, but he adds something to the Rylean attack on the ghost myth.

I mention this because it's maybe a point of difference ?

Language not just on vacation, but on acid. — Banno

Nice!

I actually think Pie's point is more apt to de-solipsise me. — GLEN willows

:up:

I'll keep trying to pull you out of the K-hole.

Anything beyond a T-sentence is wrong. — Banno

Yeah, that's pretty much what I think too. Or, if 'wrong' is too strong a word, 'not advised' or 'worth the trouble so far.'

It could be a sophisticated drug. Or an extended dream. — GLEN willows

This assumes something like 'real' human bodies reacting in a law-like fashion to molecules, or asleep somewhere in 'real' beds.

Could an entire language system be imagined? — GLEN willows

The imagination itself would be imagined. The contrastive force of real/imagined vanishes.

Peirce, not so much. His notion of truth approached asymptotically is as bad as anything in idealism. — Banno

What's good about it though is that truths are sentences, so it's close to Wittgenstein. An objection might be that it still says too much about truth. Grammatically/conceptually, we can imagine an entire society having more and more warranted beliefs that were yet not true.

For a statement to be true there must be a statement. — Michael

Indeed, but if this is what certain claims boil down to, then those claims aren't so exciting anymore.

What if certain 'discoveries' turn out to be mere tautologies ?

Yes! Reason is public. — Banno

Indeed, and to deny it is absurd. "I will now prove/argue that we are not bound by a universal reason..."

Maybe there's a little wiggle-room on the 'universal' aspect, because a single community's norms are enough for debate. Still, this would be pre-philosophical, for surely we fancy ourselves cosmopolitans.

Therefore there are computers that are not simulations. Unless one posits an infinite regress of simulations... — Banno

And at this point the concept of 'simulation' has lost its contrastive force. (Saussure comes to mind, with meanings of words to be found in a system of differences without positive elements.)

I wouldn't say Rogan is "celebrated," he's just a fairly open guy who talks to anyone — Xtrix

:up:

Bill Hicks and Joe Rogan both spoke (at one point or another) about the importance of manifesting one's mind through the use of pragmatism, tools and self-reflection. — Bret Bernhoft

Hicks is often great. Rogan is...OK, I guess. But even Hicks does not appeal to me much as a philosopher. I do love comedians for their honesty. The good ones tell us nasty truth about ourselves, someone allowing us to confess and forgive together (not saying this is all they do, of course.)

Berkeley"s table only existing when you're looking at it. — GLEN willows

I love the table that only exists when we look at it. It's a great target for pragmatism's insight. What practical difference does it make ? I'm a monkey exploiting regularities in the world. If the table is reliably there when it's time for lunch, I don't mind if it takes a little break from existing when no one is around.

Solipsism may seem incoherent to you, but "multiple minds theory" seems incoherent to me. Can we agree on that? — GLEN willows

I ask you, friend, reflect on the bolded pronouns. How can we debate the multiple minds theory ? The notion of debate (and the notion of truth?) presupposes more than one player.

So it's not just idealism you see as problematic. It's realism as well. — Tate

Metaphysical realism is relatively harmless. But then so is idealism that grants the existence of other people.

Here's my metaphysical foundation: the only thing that philosophers can't doubt is the philosophical situation itself. This means that they must be in a world of some kind together, holding themselves and others as subject to the force of the better reason (norms of rationality.) To drop this is to descend into superstition, which many do of course. If I am not responsible for making a case for my beliefs, then I'm not a philosopher, just the usual sloppy believer in whatever I was told as a child, whatever peer pressure determines,... (I'm not saying any of us is ever completely pure of irrational influences, but some of us explicitly try.)

What serves as your stable foundation? — Tate

Practical skill, the manifest image, ordinary life. Of course, as mentioned, I embrace secular rationality, reject superstition. The Western Enlightenment is the big move. The rest is footnotes.

And there are good reasons to think that language must involve other folk - that there can be no private languages. — Banno

Including perhaps the very notion of the good reasons which a solipsist might claim to have for his its solipsism.) A good reason ought to bind others as well as myself. To make a (rational) case for this or that is to embrace/manifest self-transcending norms.

There's part of me that identifies with this. — GLEN willows

:up:

Let me add that I think the human situation is pretty weird. We do have individual nervous systems, so I understand the temptation of the 'enclosure' theory, but it's unstable as a foundation. Once we drag the implicit assumptions into the light, we find surprising incoherence.

Can you not imagine any situation wherein a person is living a life within his mind, seeing only a pre-set program, and is not aware of it. — GLEN willows

I can imagine it, yes, but the program has to be situated within some reality that's deeper or realer than the dream or illusion. The evil God or the vat has to be 'real.' You need contrast. The theory assumes the very notion of the true and the real that it tries to wipe away. A round square. Let 1 = 0, then [all else follows, and no one cares, for everything being true is as good as nothing being true.]

Again - in my opinion, we can agree a round square is impossible, but disagree that a virtual reality world that we are unaware of is "absurd" or "incoherent."

It may never happen, but that doesn't mean it isn't LOGICALLY POSSIBLE, correct? — GLEN willows

I can relate to the intuitions you invoke. I've seen The Matrix and other excellent sci-fi. It seems to me that all such fictions depend 'grammatically' on some actual world existing. There's no left without right or true without false or illusion without reality. If you fear or speculate that you are living in an illusion, this seems to imply that you already embrace some notion of the real, some contrast to your current experience. How does it make sense to care about whether one has the truth or not without already assuming there is a truth to be had ? "Is there such a thing as the truth?" already implies something that is the case or not, something worth establishing.

You and I are samesayers, it seems. :wink: — Banno

Our positions seem close. I also think we agree that there's not much to be said about truth, though it is useful to talk about what makes assertions warranted or not.

Isn't the job of philosophy PROVING something exists? Or did I miss something in my modest university courses? — GLEN willows

The job of philosophy is continually modified and debated by philosophers. We should also consider that philosophy wasn't always professionalized. Hobbes, for instance, was basically an anti-philosopher, who mostly wanted to sweep nonsense from the path of science.

In my view, the key development is secular rationality, escape from superstition. The details of an epistemology freed from theology are comparatively minor. Ideas that there is no world and therefore no truth in the first place are basically absurd curiosities, an opportunity for play. I take serious doubts about the existence others to be mental illness...so I don't want to be cruel about that here.)