So we don't agree on what concepts are or how they work. — Terrapin Station

If you say so.

My concept <apple> is not a thing to be constructed, it is just me thinking of apples. I do not see how a concept can apply to all apples if the next apple I encounter does not have the objective capacity to evoke the concept <apple>. That capacity is its intelligibility as an apple.

Also, I haven't the faintest what "find them latent in my sensory representation" or "actualize prior intelligibility" would refer to. To me that just sounds like words randomly strung together. — Terrapin Station

As I have said before, we can sense without awareness, responding to sensory inputs automatically while "lost in thought". Obviously, automatic response requires the reception and processing of adequate information for us to take appropriate action (e.g. staying in our lane while driving and not hitting anything). So specific information is present in sensation, but if we are thinking of something else, we do not actualize its capacity to be known, because we are not attending to it. That is present, but unactualized, intelligibility. Content that can be the object of awareness is latent in sense data prior to our thinking it.

If that does not make sense to you, please ask for a specific clarification.

Re "no basis for applying the concept in a consequent instance"--you construct the concept, and you have a memory. — Terrapin Station

Your theory provides no connection between concepts and things we may encounter. Instead, you are suggesting an entirely imagined world in which the subject can only know itself. An imagined/constructed world of this sort has no capacity for surprise, and so does not reflect the lived world -- which constantly surprises us. So, it is phenomenologically inadequate. Only a world that is intelligible before it is actually known can surprise us.

Now, you might say that I partially construct the concept, but then how do I come to the other part? — Dfpolis

"The other part"? I have no idea what that's referring to. — Terrapin Station

OK, you are not asserting partial construction. So, for you, we imagine everything but ourselves, and given that you have questioned the "I" in "I perceive," perhaps we even imagine ourselves. Of course, that is an ontological absurdity, as to imagine is an act and whatever acts exists. Further, it has an essence which enables it to imagine.

we could start in a scenario where there either are or are not other people (using language) in the environment, — Terrapin Station

No, we can't -- because on your theory we cannot know that there are infants, other people or languages.

Let's say that you already have a lot of concepts on hand--like beetles and wings and eyes and so on — Terrapin Station

Where would these concepts come from? Creatio ex nihilo?

You discover an odd individual insect — Terrapin Station

How can you tell it is an insect if it has no properties that can inform you it is -- no intelligibility? On my view the fact that it has an exoskeleton, six legs, etc. give it the objective power to evoke the concept <insect>. On your view, it has no such capacity.

You look for other single-winged, eye-goop-shooting beetles in the area — Terrapin Station

How can you know that they are single-winged, eye-goop-shooting beetles if they have no objective capacity (intelligibility) to evoke <single-winged>, <eye-goop-shooting> or <beetle>?

per your concept, you decide to call any beetle with more or less one wing, that flies, and that shoots colored goop out of its eyes a cmg. — Terrapin Station

Ah ha! Perhaps your issue is that you think I am some sort of essentialist -- maybe a neoplatonist. I am not. I am not saying that the intelligibility of the objects we encounter fullypredetermine our concepts. They do not. Different people can have different, but equally adequate, conceptual spaces. I might have a concept that extends over set A, and another that extends over set B. You might have one that extends over the union of A and B, their Intersection, or perhaps A minus the intersection of A and B. All of these concepts, different as they are, can have an adequate basis in reality -- an underlying intelligibility.

The reason for this is that concepts are not determined by intelligibility alone, but by the intelligibility we choose to fix upon. If I am interested in As that are not Bs, I will have a concept extending over As less the intersection of A and B, even if I don't name it.

My view is not nominalism because I see concepts not merely as the result of arbitrary choices, not mere constructs, but also as informed by objective features of what is conceptualized. If concepts are me thinking of things, what I think is determined jointly by what interests me and by what I find in reality in pursuing those interests -- by the objects I encounter and by what I choose to fix upon in encountering them. Thus, different people can have different, but equally respectable, conceptual spaces.

due to the fact these differences are at least logically irrelevant, insofar as no identifying property of an apple may ever be logically applied to the identity of a horse, we are permitted to disregard the totality of properties or attributes of objects of perception, and merely assign concepts to them a priori as understanding thinks belongs to them necessarily. — Mww

No. Type-defining properties (logical essences) are latent in sense data, not arrived at a priori. If they were not latent in experience, our experience of a new instance would not provide us with the data needed to categorize it as a previously known type.

"Accident" has two meanings. One is a property whose presence or absence does not affect our type-classification, e.g. hair color is irrelevant to whether a being is a human. Another is a property which inheres in a substance, not as a raisin in pudding, but as a an aspect that is distinguished from, but still part of the whole. An example would be having flesh. Some accidents in this second sense are essential (e.g. having bones) and others (e.g. skin color) are accidental in the first sense.

I think you mean we each understand what an object is by the way we associate extant experience to it, but those experiences are not seen as part of the core concept of the object. If that is correct, or at least close, then I would agree, because the “core concept” of an object would give to us the thing as it is in itself a posteriori, by presupposing apprehension of the unconditioned (assuming a “core concept” is some sort of ultimate cognitive reduction), which my philosophy will never allow. — Mww

I mean that because of individual experiences we have different associations with things. My mother almost rolled off a cliff at Nevada Falls in Yosemite, so I associate that experience with waterfalls. Others may have entirely positive experiences. None of these associations would lead us to define "waterfall" in a different way.

I am not sure what an "ultimate reduction" would be, but I tend to reject reductionism.

Are hallucinations real? — Galuchat

Yes. They are real experiences potentially informing us of the reality of some neurological disorder. — Dfpolis

I suppose, like synesthesia and phantom limbs perhaps.
That seems to converge on some sort of ordinary realism, surely not mental monism (idealism). — jorndoe

Yes, I am an Aristotelian-Thomistic moderate realist.

The latter being the unconscious or autonomic condition, the former being the conscious or attentive condition? — Mww

Yes

But you said some data is available to awareness but some data processing is not. Seems like this is two separate and distinct dynamics, only one of which would seem to have any continuity with the treatise on Realism and experience. What bearing does unavailable data processing have on the topic? — Mww

There are many examples that have to do with sensory processing. For example, the eye does edge enhancement. The brain converts ciliar motions in the cochlea into representations of tone, loudness and so on. These processes occur without any trace of awareness but are essential to the sensory representations presented to awareness.

I call an object’s modification of my neural state the appearance of an object; it is not yet represented by a synthesis of intuition and concept. So yes, we agree perceptual duality is a non-starter. — Mww

The same insights can be articulated in various ways.

Radiance of action....ok....just another theoretical tenet. — Mww

I'd say it is an empirical finding -- one taken from physics and which forms the basis of field theories.

Not clear about partial identity. What would be full identity? — Mww

It is partial because the subject is not identically the object. We are not the apple we perceive. The apple's action on our nervous system is only a small fraction of what an apple is capable of doing and our neural representation of the apple is only a minor part of us.

If the apple’s modification of a neural state is identically a representation of the apple, is that the same as saying the apple is experienced? — Mww

Yes, if you mean sensory experience. Awareness may subsequently convert sensory experience to knowledge (intellectual experience). Or, possibly, the sensation will be ignored or handled automatically.

Does this experience correlate one-to-one with knowledge? — Mww

There are different kinds of knowledge. First is knowledge as acquaintance, which begins with awareness of a sensory presentation. Once we are aware of an object, we nay fix on various aspects or notes of intelligibility, dividing it up mentally. Then, in judgement we recombine these notes to come to propositional knowledge.

There is correspondence, but it is not one-to-one. Some experiences are more fully elaborated than others -- yielding more concepts and more judgements.

Where did “apple” come from? Doesn’t look like this theory has any place for conceptual naming. — Mww

Where we see that many objects have the same intelligibility (evoke the same concept) we come to understand that the concept has universal extension, i.e, that it is potentially applicable to many particulars. (Applicability is based on the fact that each instance can properly evoke the applied concept.) If we wish to communicate this, we assign the concept <apple> a name such as "apple" or "pomme." In doing this we abstract from the kinds of differences you mention. Because of the irrelevance of such differences to the central concept, Aristotelians call them "accidents."

If one holds with the idea that any object of perception is nothing to us until we add our own elements to it, by means of synthesis, rather than take away from its totality those <8 thoughts you spoke about, there is no need for confusing the abstraction for the object. While there is still a chance for confusion, it arises from judgement alone, as an aspect of reason. — Mww

There is never a need for confusion. Still, it is all to common.

I agree that we have individual associations with objects, but I don't see them as part of the core concept. Also I agree that errors occur in judgements.

Does anyone here really understand one another? — Noah Te Stroete

I freely admit to having some difficulty understanding @Terrapin Station. I also have difficulty seeing any socially redeeming value in transcendental idealism.

I think Terrapin Station is saying that there is a real way something IS from a particular spatial temporal reference point, and how that thing is from that particular point is knowable by thinking about a theoretical model of that reference point in relation to the object. That doesn’t require a perceiver but a thought grounded in theory. Theory comes about from experience from perceiving and about thinking about the objects of perception, which have an actual way they are from a spatial temporal reference point. Is that right? — Noah Te Stroete

The problem with this account is that when you say, "That doesn’t require a perceiver but a thought grounded in theory," it makes theory prior to our encountering what we are theorizing about. Knowing is a subject-object relation. There can be no knowing without a known object and a knowing subject. So, while one can theorize about things one does not know to exist, to know a thing requires encountering it -- interacting with it. Our informative interactions with physical objects are called sensations or perceptions. So, unless we sense something (directly or indirectly) it makes no sense to theorize about it.

Of course we do view things from a certain perspective. That is one reason why all human knowledge is a projection (a dimensionally diminished map) of reality. Another reason is that our culture may incline us to attend to some aspects of experience in preference to others, and to project the results into a culturally-received conceptual space.

What exactly then is your position re Kant about what is inherent to the mind as laid out in Critique of Pure Reason? Is space and time at least partially constructed in the mind? Or are space and time inherent to the physical world ONLY? — Noah Te Stroete

I have grave difficulties with the notion of imposed "forms of reason." If we automatically imposed the forms of space and time, alternate views of space and time (at least with respect to empirical reality) would be literally unthinkable. The same applies to time-sequenced (aka accidental) causality, which many interpreters of quantum theory seriously question. I think Aristotle is dead on, and anticipates the special and general theories of relativity, when he defines time as "the measure of change according to before and after." Change is real, and time is a way of measuring change. So, time has a foundation in reality (change), but is also a way that humans interact with physical reality (by measuring it). Relativity shows us how the measuring process can affect our measures of time and space.

Okay, so first, you're applying a concept that you've constructed. Do you agree with that? It's not as if you're perceiving concepts or anything like that. A concept is something you do, personally, in response to things. — Terrapin Station

No, I do not construct concepts in experiencing and abstracting. I find them latent in my sensory representation. So, I actualize prior intelligibility, converting a potential concept into an actual concept. I do this by focusing on a particular aspect of what is presented. If I constructed concepts as you suggest, there would be no basis for applying the concept to its next instance.

Now, you might say that I partially construct the concept, but then how do I come to the other part? And, on what basis do I apply the construct to a new instance in which (on your view) it is not latent?

No, I do not perceive concepts, I perceive the content of concepts. A concept or an idea is not a thing, not something that can be sensed. It is an activity. The concept <duck> is me thinking of ducks. It is the thinking about something that converts sensory data about it into a concept. That is what it means for awareness to actualize prior intelligibility.

It is well-known that we can do complex tasks (driving, bicycling, playing music) automatically, without awareness. So there is a sensory level of interaction with reality in which intelligibility is never actualized because we act without awareness -- "lost in thought."

Secondly, you can perceive a duck and not think anything like the name "duck," or think of the concept of a duck, or any sort of mental content per se period, right? — Terrapin Station

That is what I just said. Still, when we focus awareness on this or that aspect of our sensory stream, that is actualizing its intelligibility, even it there is no naming of what we are attending to.

I don't see what that would have to do with the word "understand(ing)" or "intelligibility." Those seem like misleading words to use there. (At least relative to their conventional senses.) — Terrapin Station

I agree that "knowing" is better than "understanding," still they are related in an essential way. It is by examining the structure of what we are acquainted with that we come to understand it in the sense of making judgements about it. So, to understand requires that we first actualize the intelligibility of what we seek to understand, then parse it by fixing on its various aspects or notes of intelligibility, and then recombine what we have parsed out in judgements that yield propositional knowledge.

At no point did I suggest our experiences are presumed. Instead, what I said is that YOU are presuming our experiential mode of being is capable of grasping ultimate reality. — Arne

As I already said, I said nothing about ultimate reality. And the point of my experience remark is that what we mean by reality is what we experience.

Your underlying presumption is that our mode of being is capable of grasping ultimate reality and therefore our mode of being grasps ultimate reality. — Arne

First, I said nothing about "ultimate reality," whatever that may mean to you. Second, what we experience is known a posteriori, not presumed.

I hope you're not thinking that "Knowledge is awareness of present what-we-grasp-in-knowing" is any less gobbledygooky — Terrapin Station

It is not. Before we encounter a duck, it is a duck and capable of evoking the concept <duck>. That capability is its intelligibility as a duck. When we sense the duck, that intelligibility becomes present in us. When we attend to its sensory representation (become aware of it), we actualize that intelligibility and know the duck as a duck.

Objects can be "understood" in what sense? — Terrapin Station

We can become aware of specific properties. "Known" in the sense of "acquainted with" might be a better word.

You have to say things in a manner that's intelligible. (Ironically enough.) — Terrapin Station

I try very hard to do precisely that.

This is a false dichotomy. Ceasing to think is not a choice for a sentient being. Think about it even if you lack the experience (you cannot do otherwise)! — Arne

The dichotomy was rhetorical. Of course, we cannot stop thinking, but all the content we think about is rooted in experience. So, the alternative was an impossible counter factual.

Intelligibility is grasping. — Terrapin Station

No. Intelligibility is what we grasp in knowing.

Grasping is being aware. So Knowledge is awareness of present awareness basically. — Terrapin Station

That is not what I said. Objects can be understood. That means they are intelligible. When that intelligibility is actualized by awareness in experience they are known.

I'd like to have a conversation with you, but if you're just going to keep falling back on word salad/gobbledygook it's pointless. — Terrapin Station

Then you have to pay attention to what I actually say.

Are you using "knowledge" strictly in the "acquaintance" sense? — Terrapin Station

In the context of experience, I am. In other contexts, not necessarily.

Grasped in what sense? — Terrapin Station

In the sense that we are aware of it. Knowledge is awareness of present intelligibility

The content of an experience is the intelligibility actualized in it. — Dfpolis

What in the world is that supposed to refer to? It seems extremely gobbledygooky to me, probably because it's resting on theoretical views that I don't at all buy. — Terrapin Station

To be grasped, something has to be able to be grasped, i.e intelligible.

The content of an experience can be just a tree, but an experience is more than its content. — Dfpolis

What is that supposed to mean? It seems kind of nonsensical to me. What's the difference between "content of an experience" and "an experience"? — Terrapin Station

The content of an experience is the intelligibility actualized in it. The experience is the act (which happens to be that of a subject) actualizing that intelligibility. The act can be understood as an act without adding anything. When we do, we know more than the original content.

Appearances are what things are really like from some reference point, and there's always some reference point. — Terrapin Station

This seems reasonable. I would say that whatever the object does in presenting itself to me in these circumstances is something it can actually do in these circumstances.

So if experience is a species of thought, and experience is how we relate to reality, I'm not sure how it follows that thought does not exhaust our relation to reality. — StreetlightX

Because we can relate to reality in other ways than thinking. As I said before, you are ignoring the context of "experience is how we relate to reality," which is epistemological, not physical or metaphysical. So, you are to understand "experience is how we relate to reality epistemologically."

The tree as an independent existent being is ontologically prior, — Dfpolis

I don't know why this is so hard, but I'm not asking you anything about that. — Terrapin Station

I did not think you were. I was saying this was all that is "just a tree."

So your answer to "Isn't there (for you) sometimes just a tree phenomenally" is actually "No," it's not "Yes." — Terrapin Station

The content of an experience can be just a tree, but an experience is more than its content. By avoiding the term "experience," your question about "it" being just a tree is ambiguous.

For me, phenomenally, sometimes there's just a tree. There's no subject. — Terrapin Station

Then there is no appearance, and so, no phenomena.

So then the issue is why our phenomenal experience is so different. I can't imagine having a phenomenal sense of a subject 100% of the time. And it seems that you can't imagine sometimes NOT having the phenomenal sense of a subject. — Terrapin Station

Let us be clear. I am not saying that the intelligibility of the subject is always, or even usually, actualized. I'm saying that if there is no subject, there can be no appearance, and so the subject is always intelligible/implicit/latent in any phenomenon. As it is intelligible, it can be teased out by reflection without adding new content/intelligibility. The teasing-out is actualizing intelligibility we did not previously attend to.

Does thought then exhuast our 'relation' with the world? — StreetlightX

No, it does not. My statement was made in the context of the epistemological problem of realism. Taking out of that context is not helpful.

Or since experience seems anterior to thought in this topology, is there experience which is not subject to thought? — StreetlightX

No, it is not prior to thought. Experience is a species of thought.

If the former than you beg the question. If the latter then you've said very little, almost nothing, about experience. — StreetlightX

I was not trying to explicate experience, but to point out the difficulties involved in attacking realism.

So, we are done here. — Galuchat

As you wish.

But this is the very question I'm asking you. Isn't it ever just that there's the tree, and not the phenomenon of "the tree in relation to me." — Terrapin Station

The tree as an independent existent being is ontologically prior, but logically posterior, to our perceptual encounter (the phenomenal tree). The phenomenological encounters always involve a subject.

If I'm asking you if it's ever that there's JUST the tree, you can't say "Yes, that's sometimes the case" but add "it's always in relation to me"--because that latter part isn't JUST the tree, it's something else, too. — Terrapin Station

This is very confused. "Just a tree" describes a being, an intelligible object, not a phenomenon. To have a phenomenon, an appearance, there has to be a subject to which something appears. So, a subject is implicit in any phenomenon.

One can abstract the tree from the phenomenon as it is one of the relata, but an actual phenomena requires two relata: a subject and object.

Experience doesn’t amount to data unless it is interpreted. — Wayfarer

It can't be interpreted unless it is given -- and "datum" is just Latin for "something given."

Besides, ‘experience’ is too broad a word in the context to really mean anything. You could say that if you’re not conscious, then you are unconscious, although it’s a pretty trivial tautology. But different people can share experiences, and draw completely different conclusions from them, so there’s clearly more than ‘experience’ in play. — Wayfarer

You have not said why "experience" doesn't mean anything.

I did not make any tautological claims. If you think I did, quote them.

I did not claim to give an exhaustive account of experience, or of epistemology. So, I am happy to agree that there is more to be considered than experience.

Does one work with 'experience'? — StreetlightX

In thinking. If we had no experiential content, we would have no material to think about.

Is there some other thing that we could instead, in principle, might 'work with' besides 'experience'? — StreetlightX

No.

The OP says 'experience' is 'how one relates to the world'. Is it? I 'relate' to the road by walking on it. — StreetlightX

How do you know that you walk on the road, except by experiencing it? Note that I am not denying physical interaction. I am looking at the relation of thought and reality.

'Experience' tends to be a shadow word, a word that looks to do conceptual work but does not. It conjures phantoms. — StreetlightX

You will have to make a case for this as I do not see it.

“the process of considering something independently of its associations, attributes, or concrete accompaniments”. I submit that’s diametrically opposed to what we do when we think; all thought is associative, insofar as understanding is the synthesis of intuition with conception, the epitome of an a priori construct. That which is constructed, is the model of whatever object affects perception, better known as representation. — Mww

As humans can only represent a limited number of chunks of information (typically < 8) at any time, we necessarily focus on some notes of intelligibility to the exclusion of others. That is abstraction -- taking what interests us out of its larger context.

Of course, what we do focus on has associations, but associations are not judgements. We may think of them as suggestions for reflection, not logical commitments. An analytical thinker will not commit to <A is B> simply because the concept <A> is associated with <B>.

I am not suggesting that we either know anything a priori or make a priori commitments.

As a concrete example of a model, consider the mind. We know from experience that we are conscious, and that damage to the brain affects our capacity to process data (and other data on human data processing). Naturalists add the construct (which they do not know from experience and cannot deduce) that the brain produces consciousness by some unknown physical mechanism. So their model contains both known and constructed elements.

My model includes other experiential elements, derived from Aristotle and from mystical experience, but it also has a construct, namely that there is a physical basis for the fact that some data is available to awareness while other data processing is unavailable to awareness.

We do not construct the forms of representation (qualia) in the sense that we construct hypotheses. Rather they are, themselves, data -- part of what is given in experience. Red light makes its presence felt by evoking a response. If it did not evoke a response, we could not know it was present. The form of that response (the quale red) is contingent and quite unimportant. It is merely part of our biology in the large sense.

Do you agree empirical realism does not diminish the theory that the human cognitive system is representational? — Mww

I take it that "empirical realism" is a term of art. I do not know how it is defined, so I decline to comment.

I will say that I do not see neural representations, or any perceptual representations, as objects distinct from what is "represented." I see them as presentations, not re-presentations. My perception of an apple is an existential penetration of me by the apple. The apple's modification of my neural state is identically my neural representation of the apple. This identity precludes any separation of perception and perceived -- any perceptual duality.

The problem, once again, is Whitehead's fallacy of misplaced concreteness. We confuse our abstract notion of the object as contained within well-defined surfaces with the actuality of a core surrounded by a radiance of action. If an object's radiance of action were removed, the object would no longer act as it does -- would no longer be what it is. It is this radiance of action which penetrates the perceiving subject -- creating the partial identity of perceiver and perceived I described above.

A contrary phenomenological definition might be that we are perceiving when we think we are perceiving, that we cannot be mistaken about it, and under that definition, since we certainly seem to be perceiving when we dream, dreams would be counted as instances of perception. — Janus

Dreams have a different phenomenology than perception, so the resemblance is only superficial.

But perception is the result of something acting upon us, as well as us acting upon what acts upon us, and what we seem to perceive is not necessarily precisely the same as what is acting upon us. — Janus

This is because classification involves judgement, that may err, while experience does not. There is a many-to-one map from types of causes to types of experience. E.g., the experience of snakes might be due to reptiles or alcohol.

dimensionally diminished mapping. — Dfpolis

Can you explain this, though? — Noah Te Stroete

Carnap has a model in which the yes or no answers to logically independent questions define different dimensions in the vector space of knowledge. While I see problems with his model, I think it can be a useful analogy. (Also, it can be used in conjunction with Shannon's notion of information.)

So, when we look at the front of a house we have a projection that answers certain questions, and leaves others (e.g. those about the back of the house) unanswered. Thus, our experience spans fewer of Carnap's dimensions than exhaustive data on the house would.

Are hallucinations real? — Galuchat

Yes. They are real experiences potentially informing us of the reality of some neurological disorder. — Dfpolis

So, they are an encountered experience type of experience potentially informing us of the encountered experience of some neurological disorder.

This is nonsense. — Galuchat

That is how implication often works. It allows us to move from the data of experience to new realities, many of which are available to experience. For example, Jane has a hallucination and seeks medical help. The doctors may do blood tests and MRIs to seek the cause. That is medicine, not nonsense.

My point was that while the form of these is different, their matter is the same. — Dfpolis

This makes no sense to me. The first is just a tree. That's all it is phenomenally. The second is phenomenally the tree plus phenomenally the notion of a self, an I, the notion of a perception (or if you want to say a judgment). — Terrapin Station

The tree in the first instance does not simply exist, it exists in relation to me. I can change my relation to it by doing things to myself, not to the tree. So, encountering a tree is loaded with intelligibility about myself:
- As I can change my relation to it, there is a relation to be changed, and thus relata which I choose to name "the tree" and "myself."
- I have encountered the tree, so I am a being with the power to encounter other beings. I can call this kind of encounter "experience."
- I have the power to receive content in experiences and call this kind of receptivity "subjectivity" and so see myself as a subject in relation to a tree object.
- Etc.

All of this allows me to tease <I am perceiving a tree> out of the encounter with the tree. The essential point is than an encounter is not a concept. I can't tease any of the above out of the bare concept <tree>, but, since an encounter is a dynamic relation, I can tease much out of the dynamics present in it.

Once you question realism, you slide down the rabbit hole of solipsism, and there is no such thing as a middle ground (ie. idealism). — Harry Hindu

I think this is right.

Are hallucinations real? — Galuchat

Yes. They are real experiences potentially informing us of the reality of some neurological disorder.

Does it make sense to you that "(Just a) tree" is different than "I am perceiving a tree"? — Terrapin Station

Yes.

So the experience (again, I was trying to avoid that word--we could just say the phenomena) of:

<<(just a) tree>>

would be different than the experience (phenomena of):

<<I am perceiving a tree>> — Terrapin Station

Yes. The first is an experience of a tree, the second the experience of making a judgement about experiencing a tree. My point was that while the form of these is different, their matter is the same. The judgement adds no content. It only actualizes content already present.

What is objective reality, and does it require subjective reality? — Galuchat

Reality is "objective" to the extent that it can enter into the subject-object relation of knowledge, which is to say insofar as it is intelligible. It can be intelligible without being actually known by a subject. So, we know that there is objective reality when we actualize its intelligibility, but our knowing is not a condition of its existence.

My apologies. I am trying to understand you.

I would say that we try to model reality, — Dfpolis

Granted, but what is a model but a construct? — Mww

Models mix abstracted and constructed elements. They are not pure constructs or they would have no relation to the reality modeled. When we combine divers abstracted projections of the same reality, there are invariable gaps because no human understanding is exhaustive, so we fill these gaps with constructs that may not even be consciously added.

Whether model or construct presupposes that which is its cause, which in its turn presupposes a necessary displaced orientation of it. — Mww

I do not understand this sentence. What does "a necessary displaced orientation of it" mean?

That is, because it is reason modeling, the cause absolutely must be oriented exclusive to reason — Mww

Our reason is intentional (manifesting "aboutness" per Brentano). Thus, it points beyond itself.

knowledge of the model cannot be distinguished from knowledge of the cause of the model — Mww

As I explained above, models combine abstracted and constructed elements. Since we can distinguish them, we can differentiate what we add (what occurs in the model, but not necessarily in what is modeled) from the portions of the model abstracted from reality. So, there is no need for epistemological dualism.

But give to his sensibility something for which he has no ready conception, he should be all the more surprised by what little he really knows. — Mww

I agree we know precious little and should always be open to surprise.

whether sometimes the phenomena that are present aren't simply things like trees, rivers, etc. — Terrapin Station

Of course. Sometimes they are experiences of reflective thought, meditation, dreams, pains and joys, etc. Over time we learn to divide the content of experience into "self" and "other" categories. How this is possible is a profound open question in my view.

This is to say that the phenomenon present sometimes is not but simply a tree. — Terrapin Station

I would not call "I am perceiving this tree," a phenomenon, but a refection on a phenomenon. The tree presents itself, is apprehended (or not). Then, we can stop to reflect on the experience, or not. Quine's analysis of introspection in the Concept of Mind is deeply flawed. We don't have separate awarenesses of the tree and of ourselves perceiving the tree, but a single awareness that can be reflected upon and articulated in various ways. Aquinas understood that we come to know our intellectual powers not in se, but in actu, i.e. by reflecting on what we do.

In other words, there's no conscious notion, awareness, etc. of perceiving something per se (or of conceiving, etc.) There's just a tree. — Terrapin Station

I agree that often the intelligibility of the knowing subject is not actualized. Still, the knowing subject is always intelligible in acts of awareness. Awareness makes no sense absent a subject being aware.

If it's the case that the phenomenon present can sometimes just be the tree, then the phenomenon present on that occasion will not be "I am perceiving a tree." So, for those occasions, "I am perceiving a tree" is doing something theoretical (as I'm using that term) that isn't present in the phenomenon it's about. — Terrapin Station

This misunderstands "I am perceiving a tree." It is not a phenomenon, but the result of actualizing/articulating intelligibility already present in the perception of a tree. So, if you see theories as adding content, that isn't happening here. Theory theory is wrong.

"Reality" first means what we encounter in experience... — Dfpolis

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.
IOW, is there a second, third, fourth (etc) elaboration of the meaning of reality (what we encounter in experience)? — Galuchat

Of course there is. We call these shoes philosophy and natural science. In my view, the goal of philosophy is to provide us with a framework for understanding the full range of human experience. Natural science seeks to discover general principles for understanding objective reality in abstraction from the knowing subject.

I had a hard time parsing his statement.

This requires a more in depth discussion to distinguish the differences. — Noah Te Stroete

Feel free to ask for clarifications.

Yes, trees are often just present — Dfpolis

Sure. So going from that to "this is something I'm perceiving" etc. is theoretical, isn't it? That is, it's literally invoking a theory about what's going on. — Terrapin Station

...

"Theoretical"--basically in the sense of reasoning about something, coming up with an account of "what's realy going on" contra the phenomena in question, etc. — Terrapin Station

I think it is naming, not theorizing. In what way does "this is something I'm perceiving" go beyond our experience? I think Maritain's analysis is on point. He sees us as mentally dividing in abstraction, and then joining what was divided in the act of judgement.

So, here we are aware of the integrated act of my tree perception; seeing in it mentally separable notes of intelligibility (<this> and <something I'm perceiving>); and finally seeing that these notes are not actually separate, but both evoked by the identical unity, judging <this is something I'm perceiving>. The copula "is" betokens this identity of source.

So, there is reasoning going on -- specifically mental separation and reunification, -- but there is no new, constructive element being added.

It is not an account of "what's really going on." For that you have to wait for something like Aristotle's analysis in De Anima iii. All the judgement is doing is explicating a unified experience.

The point is that phenomena that are present aren't actually always of one as a conscious being experiencing things. The only way to move away from realism with respect to experience is to introduce theoretical explanations for what's really going on. — Terrapin Station

I have no desire to move away from realism. I think you're confusing realism with naivete.

Minor distinction, perhaps. I consider projections of reality our expressions about it. Reality itself is that which is given to us. Reality comes in via perception, projections go out via understanding. — Mww

To me a projection is first some aspect of reality existentially penetrating us -- projecting itself into us -- and second, our fixing on some part of that presentation and projecting it into our conceptual space. Each of these steps is represents a potential loss of content and so is a projection in the mathematical sense of a dimensionally diminished mapping.

Thank you, both. — Noah Te Stroete

You are welcome. The term was "radiance of action."