If the rules of a language game make rational numbers intelligible, then isnt it a new set of rules that make irrationals intelligible? In other words, don’t we have to invent irrationals as well as rationals? — Joshs

The Pythagoreans denied their existence for a long time

It's a fiction that meaning arises from rule-following. There's no fact of the matter regarding what rules you've followed up til now. — frank

The Private Language argument indicates that there's no way for you to know what rules you've been following up till now. Check out Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language by Saul Kripke. — frank

It is only the philosopher who doesn't see this as a form of understanding, among all the various other ways people do, in fact, really communicate with one another without passing through being or one of its properties. — Moliere

Men are really united only by the spirit; light alone brings them together, intellectualia et rationalia omnia congregans, et indestructibilia faciens.

This reads as a version of what the monastics are trying to claim when they say their way of life is better than the dancer's. In one way, it's only natural to feel that one's own way of life is better than any other and it may well be better for those who pursue it. But I don't think it is therefore necessarily better for everyone, nor that there is no possibility of communication between those who pursue different ways of life. We're all human beings, after all. Surely that is sufficient ground for at least recognizing each other.

It seems likely to me that "passing through being or one of its properties" is only really comprehensible in a specific philosophical framework, which, it seems, neither of us share with the author. My way of understanding at least some of this is this:-

Whenever I am occupied with even the tiniest logistical problem, e.g. trying to find the shortest axiom of the implicational calculus, I have the impression that I am confronted with a mighty construction of indescribably complexity and immeasureable rigidity. This construction has the effect on me of a concrete tangible object, fashioned from the hardest of materials, a hundred times stronger than concrete or steel. I cannot change anything in it; by intense labour, I merely find in it ever new details, and attain unshakable and eternal truths. Where and what is this ideal construction? A Catholic philosopher would say: it is in God, it is God’s thought. — J. Lukasiewicz, quoted in 'A Wittgenstein Workbook'

This seems to me to describe a way of thinking as a phenomenon without committing to a whole philosophical framework.

This is a fascinating story involving the transcription of Babylonian abacus results. — frank

I was fascinated by this, but I couldn't find anything specifically on it, although there are many versions available. On the other hand, this version does refer to accountancy, which does seem to me a practical application that is bound to trip over both 0 and negative numbers. (Both are needed to represent the critical difference between debit and credit and neither.)
Scientific American - Zero

This suggests that infinity is an artificial problem of our numbering system. Perhaps a different numbering system would avoid the problem of infinity altogether. — RussellA

I can see your point. but the ancient Greeks did not need the decimal system to prove that the square root of 2 or pi is irrational.
But, more fundamentally, if you define the numbers by reference to the operation "n+1", you already have infinity. Similarly "divide by 2" will also produce an infinite series, no matter what number system you have.

How did that happen? If it's based on counting, how did it give rise to things that can't be counted? — frank

I can't see an alternative to saying that the numbers are based on counting (apart from some platonic story about how they always already exist, though not in this world).

How did we get zero? How did we get negative numbers from natural numbers? How did we get rational numbers from integers? How did we get real numbers from rational numbers? How did we get complex numbers from real numbers? Humans invented them. — T Clark

But I don't think that "invent" is the appropriate description. The story of the irrationals shows that when we set up the rules of a language-game (and that description of numbers is also an idealization), we may find that there are situations (applications of the rules) that surprise us. Hence it is more appropriate to say that we discover these. When these situations arise, we have to decide what to do, in the relevant context - note that there can be no rules, in the normal sense, about what decision we should make, so I would classify these decisions, not as arbtrary or irrational, but as pragmatic and so rational in that sense.

Certainly, the eventual decision to simply incorporate the irrational numbers into the system of real numbers (I may not have expressed this quite correctly) was, in some sense, perfectly reasonable. In one way, order was restored in the world. In another way, the problem was simply labelled, rather than restored.

There is not one answer to your questions. We just need to pay attention to the actual, historical processes in each case, and give a more detailed description of what went on.

Would it shock you to learn that I find Hume's aesthetics to be horrifically deflationary as well? :rofl: — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's not particularly shocking. Why would it be? I'm well aware that there are people who think that.

I really do think dominant theories of aesthetics affect art too. The Romantic period is full of great art. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Of course how people think of, and approach, the art they create affects what they create. What's noteworthy is that they all seem to manage to produce beautiful works of art. Which makes one wonder how relevant those theories are. But of course they are, because they set the criteria by which we can appreciate their beauty. We have to learn that; it doesn't just appear automatically.

There is much to like too in the more cosmic view of Beauty found in the likes of Saint Maximus the Confessor, or in the Romantics, in Schelling, Goethe, Schiller, etc., or in Morrison or Kundera in more recent times. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Liking sounds remarkably like something Hume would approce of. Are you in pursuit of Beauty? or Truth? Here's my problem. How do you know you have found those good things, and are they Good? I find myself so much in awe of their transcendent magnificence that I feel it would be arrogant to think that I have. I've seen the disastrous cruelties that people who think that they know what they are can commit to feel that my attitude is more reasonable.

You will, I hope excuse me if I admit that I have not read those 100 pages, though I will add them to my reading list. From the sample you provide, I can see, and like, the appeal of his rhetoric (for I do not find any arguments there). Does that "reduce" what Maritain is claiming? Sadly, I find myself deeply suspicious of those feelings, because I find truth and goodness and beauty in my everyday life and do not fully grasp the significance of those transcendent magnificences that Maritain conjures up. So I think I will stay with what I know.

Here's the problem. We can present our positions to each other. We can acknowledge that our positions are different and, perhaps, respect them. But that's all there is!

How can we find common ground for a discussion, in which we both make our positions vulnerable in order to achieve a common understanding? Not by writing in the way that Maritain does in that passage - or by writing in the way I've written this reply.

The range of industry partnerships that can be achieved within EU could just cut any trading of these things towards the US. If we also organize trade deals with Canada, essentially free trade, we gain access to a massive set of resources. If the EU establish these things we can cut off the US entirely without much setbacks to the economy, but it would tank large parts of the US economy, especially if the trade moves from being between Canada and the US to Canada to the EU. — Christoffer

Well, that seems like a good idea - and the markets didn't like Trump's Tariffs on Canada. But it may not be possible and even if it is, there'll be a lot of disturbance and lost business. So it's a serious upset.

But anyway — it wasn’t “planned.” The resentment was right below the surface, and Vance broke the glass. Zelensky did himself no favors by getting frustrated at reporters not letting him talk and Vance’s comments about diplomacy. But in his defense, he’s really not holding many cards — Trump’s right about that. That can be very irritating. — Mikie

You may be right. Trump often does have a point. What's irritating is the way he sets about dealing with it. Zelemsky also has a point. Their proposed deal buys the Russians off in the short term and leaves Ukraine wide open to phase 2 of the special operation whenever Putin is ready. No doubt what Trump and Vance meant about him having no cards was that they could pull the plug on their aid and throw him to the Russians. So that's what they've done. They may have miscalculated, but it'll be a very close thing. And in the light of that, I find it hard to believe that it wasn't planned. (Nevertheless, I would have signed the deal on the basis that it gave me time to work out how to manage without the US. When that is sorted out, the minng contract becomes a mere piece of paper.

Backstabbing long-standing allies then means no more trust. — jorndoe

Yes. But it doesn't just affect Trump. No matter who's the next President, we will all know that any deals could be upset by whoever is the next President. The fracture in NATO is very likely permanent. Geopolitics re-shaped in 40 days.

I think Trump is acting spontaneously out of his admiration of Putin. He wants the power Putin has to destroy enemies and have journalists killed. Putin represents Trump’s idealized vision of a strong man, the man that Trump can never be but aspires to be. But Putin is not actually that strong, he’s the cunning and lucky thug that Yeltsin passed the torch to, so even in that Trump is wrong. — Wayfarer

Your first two sentences make complete sense to me but your answer to your own question doesn't. I don't buy for a minute Trump has a geopolitical agenda - he's never shown any inclination to understanding international relations or find a country on a map. Whatever motivates him has to be much nearer in time, benefit and probably more personal, considering his obvious narcissism. — Benkei

Well, there's lots of room for speculation and different opinions. But bear in mind that he has people around him as advisers/colleagues - notably Musk and Vance. They are very different people.

Trump is acting according to "art of the deal". ....... As such, other nations cannot act on diplomacy as usual, they need to adopt the dealmaking behavior of Trump. And if they do it correctly, they will put him in his place. — Christoffer

I get the impression that all the European Governments have recognized that and are working hard to adjust. They'll likely work out what they can do and how to do it before long. Whether they can "put him in his place" is another matter. There'll be a lot of damage that can't be repaired - ever.

I don’t think Putin or Russia did anything to cultivate Trump as an asset, but that nevertheless that is what he has become, much to Russia’s surprise and delight. It’s beyond their wildest dreams, something they could never have engineered. — Wayfarer

True, they never could have engineered it. But what Trump is doing was planned in advance in the US. The details are not public, of course, but the direction of travel is well documented. It is hard to believe that Putin was not aware of the possibility. It may even have been what he was waiting for.

Thanks for that. That post is quite right. Nothing can undo the damage that has been done. Outside the US, it's a case of taking a deep breath and adjusting.

It will absolutely "work out" in the end, for better or worse. I don't know whether bad resolution will come about or not, or how bad "bad" might be. — BC

That's true. For me "work out" meant something like "resolve" without a world war and with some sort of rational world order.

It has already set in, and not just in the last few weeks. We have seen drift towards authoritarianism in various parts of our culture. — BC

Every country has a history and every history has events to be ashamed of. The relationship between authoritarianism and freedom is complicated and difficult. I think they go together - dark side and light side.

The Founders did not figure on a Legislative Branch no longer jealous of their power. — Paine

They hadn't come across the tactic of institutional capture. It scrambles all that natural responses to a coup. I believe that Musk and Thiel are from South Africa. Perhaps they learnt it there.

I am grateful that I am old and may die of natural causes before I am asked to make dreadful choices. On the other hand, I might not die quite quick enough. — BC

Same here. Not a thought that I'm proud of, though.

Thanks for this post. The bit about the struggle session was interesting. It was obviously a set-up, and stopping the aid so abruptly today was the obvious follow-up. Europe cannot make that good in a hurry. But I don't buy the idea that Trump is simply an agent of Putin.

If true, then treason. — jorndoe

Trump's relationships are transactional. What's he getting out of it? I think part of the answer is that he's clearing his desk in order to attend to China and another part is that he's trying to peel Russia away from China. Ideally, he would like Putin as an ally, but making him neutral would help too. It's quite likely that he sees Putin as a better ally than Europe.

Well, the National Guard is there, along with other parts of the civil and military establishment constituting the government, but it is part of the executive branch of government, which is the branch which might be presently willing to flout the judicial branch. — BC

I get that. But do I remember right that when the South Korean President tried to go unconstitutional, the Army just refused to obey his orders? Thus avoiding a heap of anguish and likely bloodshed. But I guess they know from personal experience what authoritarian rule means.

Court decisions in these matters will be appealed to higher courts, on up to the top. — BC

Quite so. If it was just a question of time, it would be OK. Sort of. But we are talking about wholesale institutional capture here, so a long-drawn-out process risks being frustrated. Do you think it will work otu in the end?

Point is: focussed resistance takes years to achieve success. Had anti-Trumpist organizing began in 2015 and continued, we'd be farther ahead in the game. Instead, a lot of us figured Trump was a one-off aberration who was finished well and good in 2020. Alas... — BC

Well, I hope there are some people who are thinking long-term about this.

No, I mean that if a real authoritarianism sets in, there will be no way to overturn it by democratic means. Remember Trump said during the campaign if you voted for him this time you wouldn’t have to vote again in the future. — Wayfarer

In hindsight, there was a wonderful ambiguity about that. Did he mean that he couldn't run again? Or something else? It could bear a quite different interpretation now. Though Trump still has plausible deniability.

Doesn't the history of the USA show that democracy may need to be set up by non-democratic means? Other democratic countries have more complicated stories, but I'm pretty sure that none of them established democracy by democratic means. Even Gandhi's non-violent campaign had to face violence.
There are paradoxes around this, to be sure. But it is clear, isn't it, that if authoritarianism sets in, there will be some dreadful decisions to be made by each citizen?

Revolution, even by force, does not have to be bloody. The force can also be not to comply with what the enforcers of the people in power inflict on them. Just look at Gandhi's revolution. — Christoffer

I'm hoping something like that will happen. Non-violent civil disobedience. As you say, it can be a powerful force.

Apathetic people deserve any abuse that people in power inflict on them as their apathy rolled out the carpet for this abuse. — Christoffer

They may change their minds. But it needs organization. Perhaps it's happening somewhere - quietly.

I hadn't realized that the SCOTUS' authority was backed by the executive branch. So the SCOTUS actually has no power over the executive. That means we were never too far from dictatorship. All it takes is an executive with the will to ignore the SCOTUS, and a legislative branch that's behind the executive. Voila. — frank

It looks as if there's a flaw in the Constitution!

Nothing is next. There is no next. That’s the point! — Wayfarer

Do you mean that I'm caricaturing the situation and there are good reasons for saying that things are not so simple as I represent them? I wouldn't argue with that. But things do seem to be heading that way.
Do you mean that there is no alternative to using legal and democratic means to remove such a Government? I devoutly hope that such means will work. But they don't seem to be working yet.

If the law doesn't have any effect on people abusing their power against the citizens and nation, and no one who's on the side of enforcing the law does anything to uphold the law; the only action left is to remove the power abusers by force.
It's either that, or accept being ruled by these abusers. This is a pretty binary choice for the people. The French at the end of the 18th century could have just accepted the status quo... or not. — Christoffer

Yes, that's the choice. Though there's good reason to think that the French were too disunited to make a collectivve decision and it was more a matter of who won the war. That's the nightmare waiting at the bottom of the cliff. Perhaps the law will get there in the end.

If an executive at the federal or state level decides to carry out unconstitutional acts, a court can not summon the army to force them to cease and desist. The court has federal Marshalls, and possibly local police, and sheriffs. True, there are sanctions, contempt of court declarations, and so on but these substantially depend on willing cooperation. — BC

Let's face it. Law that cannot be enforced is dead letter. Government that does not respect the law is tyranny. What next?

I wondered if it was because he was a noble that these were his prejudices -- but reading the wikipedia page on his life it looks like he's more of an elitist because he was just that smart: — Moliere

Oh, I think there was more than that to it - not that he wasn't smart! But you are right that it's people like himself that he thinks can make "critics" worthy of the name. But "people like himself" did not necessarily include the nobility. (Actually, his father was a professional lawyer, although both his parents had noble connections). But his older brother inherited most of the money, so he had to make a living. He rejected conventional careers as a lawyer or merchant in favour of a "literary" life. In his autobiography, he boasts that there were only two years in which his studies were interrupted - though they did give him just enough money to be independent (i.e. to live on the interest). He went on to make a real fortune (giving him an income of £1,000 a year) through his "History of England". So "people like himself", for him, meant people pursuing a "literary" life.

Philosophy is more than the study of the predicate "...is true", to put it into OLP terms. — Moliere

Truth, Goodness and Beauty would be usual list. One might expand it in various ways. But, because I was introduced to philosophy via Socrates, I've always thought that the activity is really the thing. Study is all very well, of course. But it is a mostly a solitary occupation. Dialogue (with others) is not merely desirable, but of the essence.

He requires it to give rules for "confirming one sentiment and condemning another." But it must also explain why some sentiments are better and some are worse (NOT true or false). He gives five criteria for identifying people who are capable of doing this - “Strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice ..." So the standard of taste is the consensus of those who are qualified to pass judgement. But such people are rare, and consensus over time is crucial to avoid mistakes. — Ludwig V

There is one problem here that I can't get past. Hume's account is right to say that it is not the case that everybody's opinion is of equal value (although everybody is entitled to an opinion) but his account of the standard of taste seems elitist (and I suspect was intended to be elitist in its application). I can't let that go. So my application of this account allows that anyone may acquire the qualfications simply from being interested and opinionated and talking to other interested and opinionated people about what they see and hear.

That's how I understand taste, too. — Moliere

It seemed rather odd to me, at first. Then, I realizes that I should have seen it all along. It's one of those switches in perception that happen from time to time. It seems very odd at first, but then one realizes that the writing off of taste as just arbitrary choices is completely inadequate.

That is, even if there are moral truths, it seems most human beings -- if they operate according to any kind of reasoned path at all -- operate in accord with a sort of aesthetics of morality. — Moliere

We are so used to thinking of reason as about truth, by definition, that it takes a jolt to realize that there could be varieties - domains that should be included in it. There's more to life than truth.

Passion isn't some nullification of morality or reason, but simply the answer to how human nature does it. — Moliere

Yes. My asking why philosophers are so dismissive of appetites left out the passions. The same question applies. Neither appetites nor passions are optional extras.

And it can be taken in either realist(naturalist) or anti-realist(phenomenology-as-ontology) ways -- I don't think he was clear on that because that's kind of an our-time question. He's dealing with an entirely different set of problems. — Moliere

That's fair enough. It seems to me another application of his approach to philosophy. Faced with scepticism, he simply refuses to argue, but points out that we will not really accept the conclusion. We will carry on believing in causation and so much the worse for the sceptics' reason. Here, he transforms the subjectivism that the new science imposes on morality and aesthetics into an account of how we do it. To adapt W, "this is what we do".

And, arguably, an entirely different set of problems from his time, since his Treatise was not well received in his time. — Moliere

Yes, it would be interesting to know why nobody liked it. People still seem to prefer the Enqiry but I'm not clear why.

Though the influence on Kant I think cements him as an important figure (and on that I tend to think of Kant and Hume as closer than often depicted) — Moliere

Yes. I don't think it is all that strange that they are close. One's philosophical enemies should, arguably, be kept even closer then one's friends. I believe that he cites Berkeley as well.

I've hesitated about posting this. But it shows Hume as more complicated than he is usually thought to be. He wrote his essay Of the Standard of Taste in haste as a filler for a book that needed more heft to qualify for publication. So it isn't something he was particularly proud of. It seems officially to be about art. But Hume understands taste to be wider than that. For him, “taste in morals, eloquence, or beauty” assigns either “approbation” or “disapprobation” (or some combination of both) to objects of taste. So what he has to say in this essay is relevant to understanding the basis for his ethics.

Hume's analysis of moral judgements as based on "sentiments" (feelings or emotions) is normally classified as subjectivist. But in developing the idea of a standard of taste, he seems to escape from that classification and to allow at least some objectivity to them. But his standard of taste is not really objectivist either. He requires it to give rules for "confirming one sentiment and condemning another." But it must also explain why some sentiments are better and some are worse (NOT true or false). He gives five criteria for identifying people who are capable of doing this - “Strong sense, united to delicate sentiment, improved by practice, perfected by comparison, and cleared of all prejudice ..." So the standard of taste is the consensus of those who are qualified to pass judgement. But such people are rare, and consensus over time is crucial to avoid mistakes.

SEP - Hume's Aesthetics has more details.

I'm not sure what to make of it. It has a certain realism to it, because we don't arrive in the world with our tastes settled, but develop them from what we encounter and what other people think. Despite Cicero's opinion that one cannot argue about tastes, we argue persistently about them and are sometimes persuaded to change our mind or reconsider our opinion. But this is not the same as arguing about tomorrow's weather.

Rational wish relates to the rational soul, but there are also desires of the sensible and vegetative soul. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ah! Well, that's a different kettle of fish. But then I'm not clear what we are talking about when we talk and "the will"! Why don't we just say that all three souls have the power to act.

Plato, for his part, actually seems to deny the possibility of weakness of will in a number of places, the Parmenides being the place where he discusses this at most length. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thanks for this. I hesitated about this, because I was sure that he recognizes akrasia but couldn't come up with a reference. (I sometimes pursue these questions when writing replies, but they often lead down a rabbit-hole and distract me.)

the intellect has been reduced to "the means by which one moves from premise to conclusion." In that case, Hume would be correct, reason can never motivate action. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It has always seemed odd to me that our conception of reason is so narrow. I've taken to using "reasonable" when talking about reason that doesn't fit the current definition.

Crucially, the will is also itself an intellectual power, part of the rational soul (Aristotle says "the will is in reason" (De Anima, III, 9), see also Aquinas Summa Theologiae, I, Q82. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thanks for the reference. I thought there must be one, but it is a long time since I read De Anima. But then, why do we talk about "the will" as different from "the intellect"?

For Plato, the rational part of the soul has its own desires, which can motivate us to action. Indeed, it is reason's desire to know truth, and to know what is truly good, as opposed to what merely appears to be good (appetites) or is said to be good by others (spirited part), that drives his entire psychology. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Here's another problem. What on earth is supposed to be wrong with hunger and thirst? Surely it is entirely rational and choiceworthy to want to eat and drink, even though it is not choiceworthy to do either to excess or to consume inappropriate solids or liquids. The trouble is, IMO, that we look for something that is guaranteed to be right and call it reason. We ought to be consistent and say that our intellect, like our appetites and emotions, is sometimes right, and sometimes wrong.

That's what the entire model of reflexive freedom and self-determination hinges on, the idea that we can shape our own appetites, that reason can (and ought be) the master of the passions and appetites. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Integration of the personality is certainly very desirable. But I'm not sure that the model of a charioteer is the only possibility. How about a partnership? That could achieve the same end.

This is obviously very different from modern views where "no desire is bad, only acts," — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree with that. Although, I would usually say that the mere desire to do something bad, is almost always bad, but not as bad as doing it.

We should not expect that ethics can be reduced to general maxims or any great deal of precision (Aristotle for his part warns against this at the outset of the Ethics). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree with that. One of many nails that A hits right on the head.

This doesn't save Hume though. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not necessarily aiming to save Hume. Understanding him would be sufficient.

However, if Hume is not to be an implicit anti-realist (or at least a skeptic) he is in the position of having to argue that we can know, as a fact, through reason, that "x is truly most choice-worthy," but must then turn around and claim that "x is most choice-worthy" does not ever imply "choose x," which is absurd. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Why can't Hume be an anti-realist?

My rejoinder would be that paralysis over fear of error can often be every bit as damaging as fear of error itself. There is what Hegel termed in the preface to the Phenomenology, "the fear of error become fear of truth." — Count Timothy von Icarus

True, very true. Both kinds of error are errors. I'm only recommending what Hume recommends - "judicious scepticism".

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. — Yeats - The Second Coming

I have little idea what Yeats had in mind and suspect that I wouldn't approve of it. Nonethless this, sadly, seems to be a suitable motto for our times.

Thanks very much for this. I may not agree with you, but at least I can see where I disagree. Which is definitely progress.

Right, the will is not the intellect, that's what the passage gets at. However, Aristotle has motivating desire coming from appetite, spirit, and rational wish, from the rational soul/intellect. Hume has it coming only from the appetites and passions because the intellect/nous has been deflated to just ratio. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Surely, the will is not intellect. But when you refer to "rational wish", you are referring to a problem, not a conclusion. If all wishes were rational, it would not be possible to act irrationally. That's what the classic puzzle about the practical syllogism is about. Is the conclusion words/thoughts? They are not action. Is the conclusion action? That has no place in a syllogism. Hume doesn't need to deflate anything. Plato recognized this problem in the form of what he called "akrasia" and we call "weakness of will", articulated as "how is it possible to know what is the better action and yet execute the worse one?"

Plato, on the other hand, does supply a bridge in his third element, thumos. Thumos differs from appetite in that it is capable of submitting to reason (or better, nous is capable of training thumos. When that doesn't work out, reason is incapable of controlling both "thumos" and appetite. That's why I prefer the translation "emotion" for "thumos", since emotions include a cognitive element and so can be seen to bridge the gap.

It's worth mentioning that Plato gives another account, (which, as it happens, I prefer) in the Phaedrus. There, Socrates explains to Phaedrus that it is eros that moves us to philosophy, and eros is something that arises between friends/lovers where one is already a philosopher and the other still a student. What's significant here is that he is positing that an appetite can be transformed (harnessed?) in the right environment.)

But perhaps more important is the idea that facts about what is good for beings, their telos, can be reasoned about from the nature of things, because the world isn't value free. "Food is good for man" or "water is good for plants" are accessible to theoretical reason as facts. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's true. If you add a criterion for what is good or bad to theoretical reason, you can derive practical syllogisms. Only it only applies to some things. It's in the nature of rocks that there is no good or bad for them, only what happens. In addition, what is good for the plague bacillus is bad for human beings. Finally, I accept that there are some things that are good for human beings as such. But it doesn't follow that there are not other things that are good for some human beings, but not for others. That even applies to some foods. In addition, there are some foods that become poisons in excessive amounts. When you try to implement the generalization, you very quickly get into trouble.

More seriously, that argument does enable one to work out what is good for some beings, at least. As it hapens, I'm content with that relativistic notion of good, but it may be that you are looking for something higher or deeper, such as "what is good?". I don't have any idea how to answer that question and doubt whether it has an answer. What's worse is that people often think they have an answer to that question when they do not, and that is the source of much evil. (I don't blame reason as such for that. I do blame the difficulty in being sure that one has not made a mistake.)

This is "scientific" only in the sense that proponents of this view tend to want to conflate it with "science" in order to give it legitimacy. And yet science cannot exist without distinctions of value, as between good evidence and bad evidence, good argument and bad argument, science and pseudoscience, good scientific habits and bad ones, etc. Notions that one ought not simply falsify one's data, or argue in bad faith for whatever is expedient is, or turn science into power politics, etc. are of course, value-laden. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, I like to distinguish between science and scientism. It's a complicated issue. There has been much over-reaching since the original battles. But the original battle was, IMO, about the over-reaching of theologians in claiming that the Bible was the ultimate authority on physics.
It is true that once you bring the scientist into your account of science, everything changes. Hence the more modest view that science represent our present understanding of the world, but is always provisional. That is, the most important change is a certain modesty, even humility, in what one claims - what Hume describes as "judicious scepticism".

I think the value-neutral view of the world has an important place. For one thing, it is what enables judgements of value (because values may not be realized) and establishes the difference between desire and it's realization (and yet also provides the means towards realizing desire). It is also where the unknown resides, something that scientists do well to understand.

did Hume discover something seemingly obvious and fundamental that millennia of past thinkers simply missed? Or does Hume start from different assumptions? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Aristotle didn't miss what Hume discovered - in fact it is not impossible that he derives his views in opposition to him (or his followers). That's a historical issue that I don't know enough to pronounce on.

From memory, Aristotle says (in from memory Nicomachaean Ethics VI). "Reason by itself moves nothing". He outlines the original concept of practical reason. It isn't a very clear concept, but outlines a quasi-syllogistic format that takes a value statement and a factual statement with an action as a conclusion. "1) Food is good. 2) This is food. 3) I should eat this food."

Hume's "Reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions" is a souped-up version of the same thought. He doesn't seem to acknowledge Aristotle's theoretical reason at all. Clearly, his analysis of cause and effect and in his description of "relations of ideas" are meant to replace it. I see his reduction of these to customs or habits as essentially his response to what he calls "Pyrrhonism" - radical scepticism. He accepts that he cannot refute it but that no-one will change their ways. The best cure for it is involvement in the affairs of ordinary people.

The is/ought distinction seems to me a souped-up version of what Aristotle says about practical reason, in that the major premiss is a value statement. In that context, a factual statement is needed to generate the action. Aristotle develops a hierarchy of values, based on the observation that chain of means and ends needs to end in something that is done "for it's own sake" and consequently thinks that there must be a Supreme Good, which everything seeks to attain. Hume's sentiments are less amibitious but have the same function.

One could see Hume as an impoverished version of Aristotle (or, presumably, Thomas Aquinas, & co), but others might feel that it is down to earth and realistic.

It seems to me that by citing different passages, one could show both that (1) Hume bases his ethics on sentiment, and (2) he bases his ethics on utility. the problem here of course may be confusion on my part. I would appreciate any attempt to clarify this issue. — Jedothek

I think this is a good question, but that it has an answer. Utility presents itself as something objective, but is just a posh way of talking about what people want. So it derives from sentiments.
However, there is a real issue about the is/ought distinction. The world does not present itself as neutral and value-free. Our sentiments are responses to the world, in the context of human desires and needs, and our understanding of the world is deeply influenced by them. Arguably, the "scientific" view of the world as value-neutral is a specialized stance, adopted in certain contexts, but abandoned completely when we return to ordinary life. I'm not at all clear how far that undermines the distinction.

Aha, I think it was something I wrote but must have not posted because it was both too vague and complicated a thought, and distracting from some point of a post. Just forgot I didn't post it. — Apustimelogist

I do that quite often. Sometimes a thought just doesn't survive being written down.

I think thats fair. — Apustimelogist

It's good to reach a consensus. Thanks for the discusssion.

What I would say is seeing the same marks differently is more to do with a different engagement with the information extractable from those markings; — Apustimelogist

I don't disagree.

but I agree that "see" is ambiguous, partly leading to my previous consideration of whether we see anything at all. — Apustimelogist

OK. The idea that we don't "see" anything at all is interesting. I must have missed it. (I'm assuming it's in this thread somewhere?)

I don't think this is relevant because I don't believe the distinction between the outside 3D world and what we see is relevant given the fact that our brain cannot access anything independently of 2D information. From my perspective, the patterns we see are 2D. Its our somato-motor engagement with the world that brings an additional dimension to what we "see", both in terms of our body and eyes. — Apustimelogist

I agree that the images on our retinas are 2D. But I would say that our brain has access to information about the 3D world through somato-motor engagement (with some reservation about hearing) and I think that affects how the brain interprets the 2D information and consequently how we see it. I think the distinction between our brain doing something and us doing something matters. But I admit that what conscious experience amounts to is not at all clear.

Yes, but what is different isn't the markings but your reactions to the markings. — Apustimelogist

In a way, that's true. But it is also true that there are three different kinds of markings, though it is true that they are distinguished by how I can engage with them.

The experience then is inextricably entwined with our ongoing engagement with the image, imo. — Apustimelogist

Quite so. There's an interactive process going on. The ambiguity of "see" strikes again, of course. I would want to say that I see the markings differently. You would not be wrong to say that we both see the same markings in a different way. I'm not sure that anything important hangs on the difference. I certainly hope not.
The case of writing is somewhat special, in that writing is 2D, and the writing in the image on my retina is exactly the same as the writing in the 3D book. So we shouldn't have a problem in agreeing that what I see is the writing (or the marks). What's going on with 3D is still unclear.
There are various considerations that might make you pause about saying that we see the image on our retina. I've mentioned already that, in a sense, we not see two images, but a single combination. There are other bits of editing that have gone on that differentiate what we are aware of and what is actually there. 1) There's a blind spot where the optic nerve joins the retina. Our brain fills that in by guess-work, which can go wrong and so we can become aware of that even though it is invisible to us. 2) There's a patch in the centre of the retian that is more densely populated with retinal cells than the margins. The sharp focus that we think we see at the edges of our visual field is the result of our constantly looking around us, so the fuzzy image at the edges of the field of vision is filled in with memories from the last time we looked. 3) I've mentioned the squinting that goes on to enable us to "range-find" objects out in the world.

You mentioned attention. When I look through a telescope or microscope, I do not attend to the image as such (unless I need to focus the lens, or clean it). So I think it is more accurate to say that I look at the ship in the distance through the telescope, that is, through the telescope's image. I would say the same for the retinal image. Most of the time, we are not aware of the retinal image unless there is a problem with it - dust floating on the surface of the lense causes spots to appear in what we see, failures in the lens make the image fuzzy or distorted.

Yes, but if you look at writing, you just see marks. You don't somehow see marks and the totality of its relations to other parts of the world. Those relations are only experienced in real time in specific behaviors or thoughts or reactions. — Apustimelogist

That's not quite right. If you look at marks, you may be looking at 1) meaningless (to you) marks, or you may be looking at 2) marks that you know are meaningful, but don't know the meaning of (scripts that you can't read), or you may be looking at 3) meaningful marks that you can read. In each case, your experience will be different. There are three different visual experiences involved.

Our interpretation of what we see affects our experience, or, better, the significance (or lack of significance) of what we see affects our experience of it. We literally see the difference.

You have probably encountered puzzle pictures, but here are two examples that illustrate what I mean.
The Duck-Rabbit Illusion
Rubin's vase

There's an illusion here, that there is a "neutral" - uninterpreted - description of the pictures in terms of the patterns presented. But there's nothing special about this way of seeing the picture - it's just another interpretation.

The trompe l'oeil pictures are another example of this phenomenon.

This is another part of our discussion about the ambiguity of "see". There is a very influential discussion of this in Wittgenstein Philosophy of Psychology - A Fragment, [previously known as ‘Part II’ of the Philosophical Investigations] Section xi, para. 118

Rather, apparent differences in belief, and therefore apparent conceptual differences, are in the main differences in expression. Suitable re-expressions, reinterpretations, may be able to make this apparent. — Banno

That's much better. It seems to allow a much more flexible idea of what translation involves than I thought. But then, it seems to leave open the possibility of failure. I'm not sure that's really compatible with what he wants to demonstrate - unless he envisages the possibility of a pragmatic accomodation or even the possibility of the relevant beliefs changing as a result of the encounter - even if both sides stick to their own languages. Is that a possibility?
I looked again at the actual arguments and found it much harder going than I thought when I first read it. One reason is the dearth of actual examples, or, better, cases. His discussion of the yacht (p.18) is fine, though limited. Then he seems to want to extend the scope of this case very widely - even suggesting (though not stating) that this is how philosophy proceeds. Perhaps. Somtimes. And then one wants to say that if that method could resolve philosophical disagreements, philosophical debate would be much more fruitful than it actually is.
I'm still not happy about the slide from conceptual differences to beliefs. It would be tedious to complain that not all differences in beliefs are differences in concepts, so I won't bother with that. However, concepts (or, given the link he establishes between concepts and language) and conceptual schemes (language-games to me) aren't true or false. They are what enables us to establish truth and falsity. Some of the issues he deals with later on seem to me to be very much over-simplified. Yet, I find it hard not to agree with his last paragraph, except for the idea in the last sentence that "we .... reestablish unmediated touch with the familiar objects whose antics make our sentences and opinions true or false." Following his example, I ask what "mediated touch" would be; if that makes no sense, it would seem that "unmediated touch" also makes no sense.

No, I haven't. I would welcome enightenment from someone who has.

I have a question for you. Am I right to understand Davidson's thesis as being that conceptual differences come down to different beliefs, and that, at some point, the differences can be settled empirically?

What else is it? Anything else about it does not come from the writing itself but context and relationships those markings have to other things, including our engagement with them. Without those things, yes writing is just marks on paper; writing is nothing more than marks on paper and how those marks relate to other parts of the world. — Apustimelogist

I'm going to assume that "it" in the first sentence is the marks on paper. But then your second sentence should have read "Anything else about them does not come from the marks themelves, but from constext and relationships those markings have to other things." That's true, and in that context, one can refer to those marks as writing. So writing is more than marks on paper. It is marks on paper and how those marks relate to other parts of the world. The difference in vocabulary depends on and signals a difference in how we are to think about the phenomenon.

Which are not intelligible without experience of them! — Apustimelogist

So either we are in a hopelss circle or the two are inter-dependent.

I think both can be argued in different ways. I think the idea that we are directly aquainted with structure in the outside world is a coherent notion. But I am not someone inclined to say that there is some single, strong, absolute way of describing structure in the world, — Apustimelogist

Well, yes. "Direct" and "indirect" are applied in different ways, depending on the context. (So are "inside" and "outside".) So there is a bit of a morass there. You are also right that there is no single, strong, absolute way of describing structure in the world. It all depends on what we are trying to describe.

You could also argue indirectness though in the sense that we are still in some sense insulated from the outside world by our sensory states, the structure of the brain and its possible foibles, and in principle issues of chronic indeterminacy. — Apustimelogist

I've no objection to saying that our senses and cognitive capacities have their limitations. But, at the same time, they do work for many purposes, and we've been quite clever about working out ways of pushing the boundaries.

Which (sc. ship or a star) is just a pattern that I see; thats all I mean by image, without further distinctions or assumptions. — Apustimelogist

It's as if I were to say that I see an animal, "without further distinctions or assumptions". Do you not even recognize a distinction between the images that enable me to infer that some images are images of 3D objects? It's as if you were to say that all writing is just marks on paper etc., or that the body of my dead friend is just meat.

They aren't mutually exclusive. You only know something about your actions insofar that you have experiences about your actions. — Apustimelogist

.. and you only have experiences of your actions because you act.

The brain is the model, no infinite regress of observers required. — Apustimelogist

That's an interesting reply. But on reflection, since we remember things and there's evidence the memories are stored in the brain, I've decided not to pursue this line. "Model", these days, is flexible enough to cover almost any form of information storage.

I believe that all the images are just patterns and the significance is retained by way of what I said in the bit you quoted. — Apustimelogist

So an image plus affordances is not an image?

I wasn't using directly in the same sense ("inside the body") as earlier! — Apustimelogist

OK. Can you explain the new sense? I'm particularly interested in whether you think there is such a thing as indirect perception and what that might amount to.

On "conceptual schemes", I should add that there is quite a lot that Davidson says that I agree with. I think he is right to argue that there is not one single conceptual scheme that all human beings share. I do maintain, however, that our world includes many partially incommensurable schemes - partly shared and partly not. Further, the difference between scheme and content is not anything like as clear-cut as his argument requires. On the other hand, I accept that the differences in thinking can be expressed as beliefs. I think, for example, that belief in God is not a straightforwardly empirical scheme, but the anchor of a way of thinkng about the world that is conceptually different from the way an atheist or sceptic thinks about the world. But then, Davidson doesn't seem to recognize that there are different kinds of belief.

Well,

But as I say earlier, I think you could argue that joint positions don't actually directly convey 3D physical space without further integration of information (e.g. A finger joint typically cannot move through all degrees of freedom of 3D space). — Apustimelogist

Perhaps not. But a knuckle joint or a thumb or an arm or a spine can. — Ludwig V

Well, I think its at least debatable. I don't think those joints are anywhere near mobile enough, imo. — Apustimelogist

The main point is that we do have the information and it is integrated knowledge. So we agree. What matters here is that we don't have it via an image of any kind.

Well then the 2D image is how I am seeing a 3D car. I can't shake the awareness that my visual field is two-dimensional (except for the color dimension) even though I can distinguish distance. — Apustimelogist

Well, I agree that the 2D image is how you are seeing the 3D car. But it doesn't follow that you are seeing the image, except perhaps indirectly. When I look through a telescope or similar, what I see is the ship or star. I may be aware of the telescope indirectly because of my limited field of vision, but I do not see two images, the one in my eye and the one in the telescope.
When you refer to the 2D image, you are not seeing the image in your retina. That would mean seeing two images. What we see is one image at most.
It is very easy to fall in to thinking of the eye as some sort of camera or telescope, and in some ways it is. But the difference is that the camera focuses its image on an image-recording device, which an observer can access later, and a telescope has an observer at the eye-piece. But the eye does not have an observer (perhaps the brain) or an image-recording device.

The brain doesn't have any direct access to the outside world. It can never intelligibly compare things with some criterion that has come from the way things somehow are on the outside world. — Apustimelogist

Well, somehow we can work out when our eyes deceive us, so there must be some criterion that lets us know when those 2D images are wrong. Acting and moving with a 3D body in a 3D world is a rich source of correction. But that does depend on linking perception with action rather than experience.

All the brain can do is construct models which make predictions about what happens next, and that can fail and get re-adjusted. — Apustimelogist

If you suppose anything like an image or model in the brain, the question arises how the brain can access it in order to apply it to the incoming information. The answer is always an observer of some kind. But then, that observer will need to construct its own model or image and there will have to be a second observer inside the first one.... I'm sure you see the infinite regress that has begun. The brain is not an internal observer - unless you call it an observer of the outside world.

I see it in terms of just the direct patterns I see, and my reactions to those patterns in real time. Without those reactions, the idea that I am recognizing an object like a car is empty. I see the 2D patterns of the car and react to them in a way consistent with my recognition of it. — Apustimelogist

People sometimes talk about "affordances" in this context. (I seem to remember they were mentioned earlier in this thread). Of course they are important, because they are the significance of the objects that I see.
Some images are images of something, some are just patterns. If you treat them all as of the second kind, you have lost the significance of the image.

Sure, but I don't think the "real thing" can be transcend the 2D information accessible from the retina. — Apustimelogist

I don't understand what you mean here.

But you seem to just embrace the idea that you are directly acquainted with a 3D object. When I then ask what it means that I am acquainted with these 3D objects, it comes back to what I have said about 2D information and enactive processes. — Apustimelogist

If "directly" just means inside the body, then obviously I cannot be directly acquainted with objects outside my body. Not very interesting. The interesting an important question is whether I can be acquainted with objects outside my body. The answer has to be, yes. I would not use directly and indirectly in the the context of objects outside my body.

But I think the animal case is conceivably a disagreement about facts as opposed to classification. — Apustimelogist

Oh, it certainly could be a question of facts. But some people have insisted on describing the sounds emitted by an animal in pain from an experiment as "vocalizations" in the misguided belief that is more objective than "screaming". Such differences of classification prevent rational argument about the facts. So, classification needs to be agreed before the facts can be agreed, and if people are in the grip of the idea that animals are just machines, that agreement is not possible.

Another example:-

I think the difference in our perspective is that you just say you see the 3D car and stop there; while to me, my percepts can be deconstructed so I do see that my visual space is 2D (apart from the color) — Apustimelogist

We do agree pretty much on how the eye works, yet we describe the facts differently. Our disagreement is not about the facts, but about agreeing a coherent way of describing them, i.e. how to think about them, i.e. a coherent conceptual structure for understanding them. It's not a straightforward task.

But as I say earlier, I think you could argue that joint positions don't actually directly convey 3D physical space without further integration of information (e.g. A finger joint typically cannot move through all degrees of freedom of 3D space). — Apustimelogist

Perhaps not. But a knuckle joint or a thumb or an arm or a spine can. On the other hand, I would agree that our understanding of 3D space does depend on "holistic integration of the information of the senses". The result of that integration happens to be true. So what's wrong with it?

But what do you then mean when you say that you see your car? There is nothing more, imo, to seeing a car than this 2D information, your reactions to it, and your ability to make predictions about it and engage with it. — Apustimelogist

I mean that I see a 3D object, which I can walk round, get inside, drive around and take to pieces. None of those is true of images of the car, no matter how many you accumulate.

For me, we just use these distinctions to infer something about what would happen with regard to movement. — Apustimelogist

I wouldn't object to that. But what validates the inference? There must be some way that you can compare the image of a 3D object with the 3D object. But you seem to deny that we can. So the image of my car is no different from an image of starship Enterprise or a dragon - and even in those cases, we know what it would mean to see the real thing, even if it never happens.

If you have no body to re-orientate, what you hear when you "hear the location" could not possibly give you any spatial information - it would simply be a difference in the quality of sound in your ears. — Apustimelogist

Perhaps. But I do have a body to re-orient.

I guess my perspective also leads to the question - are you literally seeing anything? — Apustimelogist

It depends what you mean by "literally". For me, when I walk through my front door, I literally see my car. If I only see the image on my retina, then I don't see "literally" my car, but an image of it.

Yes, I think you are correct. But the 2D nature of the image on the retina is not ambiguous - so that is my anchor. — Apustimelogist

An image is always an image of something else, never the real thing. So my anchor is the real thing. That's what makes the image of a car an image as opposed to a complex array of coloured shapes.

I would say I am not necessarily saying that we don't see in 3D, but that this is nothing above information on a 2D retina and an enactive component regarding movement and prediction. — Apustimelogist

But the image on our retinas (we have two, remember) and our enactive lives are what enable us to see the 3D world. They do not prevent us from seeing it.

I would say that this question of evidence interpretation is a question of beliefs and so in that regard, Davdison would not consider it as something about conceptual schemes. — Apustimelogist

Suppose that someone died, and we are considering a suspect. There is good evidence that S caused the death, but also evidence that they did not intend to. I think that means that S is not guilty of murder. You think that means they are guilty of murder. Our disagreement is not about the facts, but about what counts as murder - that is, our concept of murder. Murder is part of a group of concepts under the heading of "crimes". So our disagreement is not about what happened, the facts of the case, but how we should clssify them. You can label that a disagreement about beliefs, if you like. But it is not the same as a disagreement about the facts and cannot be settled in the same way.

I think there are radical differences in how we are thinking about this. I'm not saying it is all just a question of words. But our different uses of words are not helping us.

They are different senses abput different things, one from directly inside the body, the other from outside. — Apustimelogist

The problem here is about the meaning of "direct" and "indirect". You seem to the saying that internal senses are direct and external senses are not? But we have pain and touch receptors connected to the brain and processed in the brain before we experience anything. If what we see is the image on our retina, how is that any different?
In any case, if the internal senses are direct, they give us 3D information directly.

I'm talking about what you see. Its a 2D image. — Apustimelogist

"What you see" is ambiguous. When I look at a normal 2D picture, I can say that I can see the picture and say that I see my car in the the picture. Presumably, the same applies to this 2D image. The iimage is more like a lens, by means of which I see my car.

You pointed out that the image on our retina is 2D. Fair enough. But I don't see that we ever see that image, because it is extensively processed, including the amalgamation of two images. Don't forget. that retinal image is broken up into what, presumably is an encoding that is quite different from any image.
I'm not sure whether to count the result of comparing two images or the extent to which our lens needs adjusting to produce a clear image a visual cue. It could go either way, I suppose.

But this (sc. 3D hearing) is not very different from the visual case in the sense that your learning about 3D space vicariously through cues. — Apustimelogist

I partly agree with that. But what is learning is not me, it is, let us say, my brain. I don't ever hear two sounds, one for each ear and then realize that I can deduce where the sound is from that. I hear one sound, located in space. The learning and the processing takes place way "below" consciousness and involves an encoding process that is nothing like a sound even though it is caused by sound.

For me, the question here is: what does it mean to say that you interpret 2D pictures as 3D? Does the 2D image magically turn into a 3D one? — Apustimelogist

I'm not sure whether you are aware of the phenomenon of trompe l'oeil painting. There are many examples in Wikipedia - Trompe l'oeil painting . I think that "Escaping Criticism" by Pere Borrell del Caso, 1874 is a particularly clear example - the pictured person is climbing out of the frame. (I would upload it if I could!)

The 3D spectacles that are used in 3D cinemas are a different technique for achieving similar effects. I would say that, in the case of trompe l'oeil it is the case that a 2D image is experienced as 3D. There's no magic involved. I realize that you may know about this already, but it is possible that you don't and I want to make sure that we are talking about the same phenomena.

I can be a bit relentless when I get stuck into a philosophical debate like this. Sometimes I annoy people. Please let me know if I am annoying you.

I just don't know what level of mutual comprehension occurs between humans and other animals - and presumably it dependa on the animal - and I was framing it in a way I would if I didn't know what the other person's perspective on that would be either. I think even people who think very little of animal cognition would agree there is a minimal level of intelligibility between humans and certain animals, even in an emotional sense. — Apustimelogist

Some people (Descartes' is the classic philosophical example) deny that any animals experienced anything and saw them as purely mechanical. This resulted in some of his followers concluding that dogs don't feel pain and cruelly mistreating them in order to prove the point. But the disagreement is not a question of evidence, but of interpretation of the evidence. So Davidson's thesis that we can abandon talk of conceptual schemes and return to beliefs and experiences seems to me to be false.
Most people are on the spectrum, but the issue is where a mechanical explanation is sufficient, (as with creatures like bacteria and fungi) and where it is appropriate to apply the kinds of explanation we use to explain (most of) the actions of human beings. Reason and purposes vs causes and evolution.
Which is not to claim that we do not learn the conceptual schemes that we apply to the world.

All the visual information about space is inherently 2D. — Apustimelogist

It is certainly true that all the visual information about space can be represented in 2D. It's called a picture, and you can walk around the world thinking of yourself as watching a movie. That's why I draw your attention to the other senses, since there is no equivalent in those contexts. You mention proprioception and body motion as possible 3D. But how could we have 3D bodies in a 2D world? BTW, you are forgetting that we have 3D hearing as well.

Well, yes it is 3D information in the sense that the objective world seems to be spatially 3D. I'm just saying that we can only navigate this visually, on a 2D space of the retina. — Apustimelogist

If we only had a 2D picture and no other information, I don't think we could even conceive of a 3D space, never mind navigate it. Our intepretation of that 2D image is conditioned by what we know from all our senses. Without that, I don't think we could even make sense of the possibility of a 3D space.

For me, 3D visual perception is not some direct perception of 3D information - you only ever have 2D visual information. — Apustimelogist

Well, as I said above, any 3D scene can be represented in 2D. We have learned to interpret 2D pictures as 3D scenes. If all we experienced were 2D, how could we even get the idea of 3D?
There is a real difference between a 2D and 3D visual image, but it is not simply based on 2D information, but on the fact that the two images our visual system works with are slightly different. In combination, they give a diferent experience. Call that an inference if you like, but the experience really is different.

What would non-minimalism be? — Apustimelogist

I was just picking up on what you said:-

I would say maybe there is something like intelligibility in common with non-human life. Maybe we can say humans an animals might share some vague sense of mutual intelligibility with regard to something like space or even emotions on some minimal level depending on the animal, but then animals may be incapable of many of the kinds of abstract predictions a human can. — Apustimelogist

A non-minimalist would have said "to a greater or lesser extent" and cut out all the "maybe" qualifications. I would have said that there is often mutual comprehension between animals and humans based on whatever interactions occur in each case. However, even though that looks like an empirical question, it depends how the facts are interpreted, so I'm pessimistic about the possibility of productive argument about that. That one of the reasons why I don't think that all disagreements can be settled on empirical grounds.

And we must include eye movement and lens focusing (i.e. ciliary muscle) in this too - your eye palpates the scene in its motion and focusing which is part of your distinct familiarity with 3D space. — Apustimelogist

Yes. In terms of focusing, there is also the "squinting" that aligns the eyes so that they can focus on the same objects. (Hold up a finger at arm's length in front of you. Move it gradually towards you. You will find that you have to adjust your eyes to follow it. If you don't, you'll find you see two images of the finger. Then there's the peculiarity of how one sees one's own nose.) But none of that is 2D information. The ears work differently. They apparently note the difference when a given sound arrives at each ear and compute the direction from that. How knowledge of my own body's position works - or our balance sense - I have no idea.
But it's also true that at greater distances, we rely on 2D information.
(I like the idea that my eye "palpates" the scene. My hands and feet also palpate my surroundings. In the second case, it is clearly not 2D information.)

I would say maybe there is something like intelligibility in common with non-human life. — Apustimelogist

It would seem you are a minimalist on this question. Let's not forget the differences between dogs and bacteria. There's not one answer for all non-human life. There's a spectrum. What complicates the issue even more is that, IMO, the relationship we can form with (the "higher" forms of life") actually affects, not only our judgement, but also how those creatures behave and consequently the practices that they and we can share. That shouldn't be a surprise. We learn to be human - what being human is - through our interactions with those around us.
But then, there also people with whom we do not share everything. As in the holocaust and other examples of inhuman or bestial treatment meted out by human beings - not to mention occasions when we find the behaviour of others unintelligible - there are examples all around us.

All visual cues trivially occur to us on a 2D field - the retina is a 2D structure. The use of two retinas does not change this fact. You are just using 2D cues in an interesting way to make inferences that guide action and predictions about the world. — Apustimelogist

I agree that we have to think of the senses as part of a sensori-motor system, which cuts out the distraction of "presentations" and "perceptions".

One can argue that vision is 2D in the eye, I suppose, and that there is an inference being made. But my ears don't have a 2D image. Nor do my touch or pain receptors. Yet we experience them in 3D. Our knowledge of body position is similar. We don't make the inference - the results of an inference made "unconsciously" are available (are reported) "directly". This, I suppose, is why Kant had to posit a priori understanding of space; similar points apply to time.

I think the point is that nothing humans do is in principle unintelligible (in regular contexts). — Apustimelogist

That fits with Wittgenstein's idea that human life and practices are the essential context for everything. It would seem that he did not see any similarities with non-human life. This is somewhat puzzling to me, though I would not automatically extend that understanding to all life. There is disagreement among human beings about that.
There is more to be said about how we deal with extreme - non-regular - contexts.

Davidson's point is that the idea of conceptual schemes becomes vacuous once mutual intelligibility is allowed — Apustimelogist

Yes. But that's a misunderstanding of what intelligibility is. Intellgibility is not black and white, but a spectrum. He seems to think that "conceptual schemes" are a tight logical structure which is either completely intelligible of completely unintelligible - which leads to his reductio. That fits with what appears to me a very naive view of translation as just a set of equivalences. That's seldom or never available.

There is though, I think, also an interpretation aspect in the sense that we can plausibly act or re-act in response to the same experiences in different ways - that is a sense of interpretation purely in the sense of acts, behavior, changes of attention, vocalization, prompted thought or even mental imagery, prediction, memory, etc ... — Apustimelogist

That's very close to what I would call a concept.

You seem

We use words like 'dog' in relation to a coherent structure of experiences that map to an outside world insofar as our biological machinery is coupled to an outside world. — Apustimelogist

Now it seems that you are substituting words for concepts.

I don't think we can do without some sort of idea like that of a concept or idea.

our ability to sense and engage with 3-dimensional depth in visual space can only be inferred indirectly from 2D visual cues and also information from our bodies — Apustimelogist

Not quite right. We have 3D stereoscopic vision because of our two eyes; it fails at larger distances, but it works well at smaller distances - as the 3D films show. Our ears manage to give us 3D hearing as well.

I did say "almost" a relief. Don't get me wrong. This stuff is really scary. Philosophy is a way of coping, given that there's nothing I can do about it.

Are you saying that Land's thesis is germane to the attempts of the present administration? — Paine

It was written in 2012. Call it deep background for philosophers. But it's not analytic philosophy. It's written in the context of post-modernism and articulates what was going on at the time in a dialectical framework. It's easier to follow than much stuff that goes under the label of post-modernism, but it's a wild ride nonetheless. No, I don't buy it, but I think I understand the issues better - and why Musk and Trump are behaving as they are.

You also need to get your head around accelerationism as well. Try Andy Beckett in the Guardian of 11 May 2017 or a Google search for "accelerationism.

It suggests the main game might be setting up "Government by AI"... Not at all concerning, that. All good. — Banno

Perhaps. But has links that suggest a more mundane motivation, and that's almost a relief.

I am not seeing a lot of references to Rousseau's or Land's actual statements In the comments as yet. Will this be forthcoming? — Paine

It is really important, if one wants to understand this, not to be hypnotized by what's going on now, but to get one's head around the background - Land, and then accelerationism. But it will take time and effort. Still, this is clearly not going to be a nine-day wonder, so it will likely be worth it.

Yes. The metaphor of a lens is much better. And, of course, the selection of what is to be noticed by reference to what is of interest or use makes perfect sense. We don't start with a clean sheet of paper, but as human beings thrown into the on-going social and material world. We start with where we are.
So we need to think of pragmatism, in some form, at the level of the conceptual scheme or paradigm or language (and this needs to be flexible, capable of adapting to changes and surprises. Then truth and falsity apply where the scheme applies. (The idea of truth that is independent of what enables us to articulate it and discover it seems like a desirable goal, but doesn't make any sense.)

All of that is very helpful - and confusing!

I realize that it would be helpful to identify specific remarks to back up what I say, but I have found it difficult to choose exactly the right quotations. Nonetheless, I think there is a basis in what you both have said for the following comments:-

It seems to me that Thompson and Davidson have much in common. But there seems to be a difference (though Thompson seems to say that Davidson points us towards it) in that, for Thompson there are sometimes (but, I notice, not too often) local differences of opinion that involve incommensurability. Davidson certainly rules out the "superholist" view and rejects the conventional realism/anti-realism dilemma. Yet he does seem to adopt an unconventional version of realism. But I don't think that he rules out local disagreements that involve incommensurablity. But nor does he rule them in.

One of the features of Kuhn's version of all this is that he broadens the scope of his paradigms beyond the purely linguistic, to include, for example, technology. I would have expected something similar from Thompson (embodiment, enactivism).

Davidson's view that the only issues are about our beliefs and whether they are true or not "in the world" is surprising, especially when he insists that there are no "raw" (i.e. uninterpreted) experiences, yet it seems to be the case that such facts about the world are the causes of our beliefs. (McDowell's objjection that causality is indifferent to justification seems correct to me.). On both grounds, the articulation of our beliefs is critically important, but the means to articulate them would, surely, be some form of conceptual structure or structures. In any case, it seems just obvious that there are many ways to insulate specific beliefs against empirical refutation. For example, "God always answers prayers. Sometimes the answer is no", "All's for the best in the best of all possible worlds", the concept of repression in psychoanalysis &c,

I hope, but am not sure, that at least some of this makes some sense.