Do we know yet? All I know for sure is the op's arguments are long forgotten — hypericin

The OP's arguments don't seem to be unrelated to the last series of posts. One of those arguments is that we only have access to perceptions, not the objects those perceptions are of. This seems to amount to saying we only see representations and not the objects represented. But if that were the case perception would give us a distorted picture of reality and I believe that claim has been adequately refuted by being shown to be self-contradictory or else simply baseless.

Another argument in the OP is that because perception is a process we should not think of it as direct. That, if accepted would leave us with no coherent notion of 'indirect', since the terms is meaningless without some criterion of directness that it can serve as the negation of. We have no such criterion except our ordinary notion of directly perceiving things, and this has been pointed out by several posters in several ways.

So, what do you see remaining of the OP's arguments that has not been addressed?

:up:

Perception sometimes distorts reality. We know this to be so because sometimes, it doesn't. Importantly, and you might agree that folk seem to keep missing this, we can only know that perception distorts reality if we know what is real. — Banno

I agree with this and would put it even more strongly as "perception sometimes distorts reality. We know this to be so because mostly, it doesn't".

Saying that we never perceive things as they are is self-refuting, incoherent, because we would need to perceive things as they are in order to know this. And on further investigation we do perceive things as they are in the special cases where perception does locally distort reality.

One of these must be true:

1. The science of perception is correct and suggests that perception distorts reality
2. The science of perception is correct and suggests that perception does not distort reality
3. The science of perception is incorrect and suggests that perception distorts reality
4. The science of perception is incorrect and suggests that perception does not distort reality — Michael

There is an unacknowledged premise in '1' and in any statement that claims that the science of perception shows us what is the case. The unacknowledged assumption is that perception, being that upon which the science of perception is necessarily based, gives us an accurate picture of what is the case.

Of course this assumption that perception generally gives us an accurate picture of what is the case does not rule out that sometimes in unusual circumstances it may not immediately give us an accurate picture. How else, though, other than via further perceptual evidence could we ever arrive at the realization that this has happened and correct our views?

So, '1' is invalid because the conclusion contradicts the hidden premise. '2' is valid because the conclusion does not contradict the hidden premise. '3' and '4' are not invalid, but if the science of perception is incorrect then what it tells us either way cannot be trusted.

The only contradiction is to argue that perception does not distort reality even though the science of perception suggests that it does. — Michael

The science of perception does not suggest that perception distorts reality generally speaking, but only in special circumstances. And further as I noted above it is only by means of perception that these mistakes can be corrected, and correction would only be possible if perception does not, by and large, distort reality.

The very notion that perception, globally speaking, distorts reality is incoherent anyway, since it is only via perception that we get any notion of reality. Any supposed reality beyond the possibility of our perceiving it is, since unknowable, completely useless as a point of comparison.

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Damnation. Sorry. Well, this way I can claim it as my own. — Ciceronianus

It is a good one and it is yours by default.

Phenomenal experience is direct. We perceive the world via phenomenal experience. The world is first in the chain of events leading to phenomenal experience, and the experience is last. Therefore, we perceive the world indirectly. — hypericin

"Experience is the last in the chain leading to experience"?. I'm afraid I can make no sense of that other than to understand it as being a mere tautology.

That perception distorts reality isn't the assumption but the conclusion. — Michael

As a conclusion based on the assumption that perception enables an undistorted picture, namely the scientific understanding of perception, it is a contradiction of the grounding assumption, and therefore self-refuting.

:cool:

I do. We don't educate children the way we train horses, and this is for more or less the reasons you gave. — Leontiskos

We shouldn’t train horses the way we train horses either. — Joshs

There are both good and bad horse trainers, just as there are good and bad educators of humans.

I'm not sure what you are referring to when you say "the indirection I described". I don't deny that perception is a process, what I deny is that the process can coherently be thought of as inherently distortive or illusory or that what we see are representations.

Ok well the scientific understanding of perception is very aware of the illusions I mentioned, so does that mean science is inherently self refuting? — flannel jesus

The science of perception doesn't claim that perception is illusory: that would be self-refuting.

:up:

Surely a baby does not do that explicitly, but at least at a subconscious level it does. — Lionino

Yes, I think so, which means that primally we experience ourselves as extended, even though in that primordial state, we are not consciously aware of doing so in any reflective sense.

Thanks but it was

:up: I think we agree that philosophy can be thought as an art, but that it has its own unique concerns, its content being generally more intellective than affective, while its form may be aesthetically pleasing or not. — Janus

The difference is that the person and their excellence, excellence in our eyes and theirs, is an end in itself. We want people to be free, and in being free they must understand why they act and accept it "with the rational part of the soul." A merely continent person is always unstable, and in a way, unfree. They want to act in vice and are at war with themselves (Romans 7). But education aims at the enhancement of freedom and harmonization of the person, giving them the tools to harmonize themselves. Training only focuses on the ends of behavior. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think this is a very idealistic view of education. It doesn't accord at all with my experience of the education system, at least at the primary and secondary levels. The tertiary, as I have experiebced it, has some of the virtues your idealistic vision sees.

And why does that mean the scientific understanding of perception is incorrect? I'm pretty sure the scientific understanding of perception is aware of these illusions, these distortions. — flannel jesus

I haven't said the scientific understanding of perception is incorrect. I've said that if the assumption is that perception as such distorts reality then the scientific understanding of perception, which is itself based on perception, cannot be trusted. To trust it and base arguments on it, would on that assumption, be a performative contradiction.

I am at al loss here as I don't know what you are trying to say.

We before anything else proprioceptively experience our bodies as extended—mouth here, ears, nose, eyes, hands, belly, legs and feet etc, all in different places.

Missed this before. It doesn't seem apt to speak of all maps, simply inasmuch as they are not the territory, as "wrong" and as you say some maps are better than others anyway. Perhaps it would be alright to say that maps are more or less adequate, or if you lean towards the negative, more or less inadequate.

It's a funny metaphor in a way, because ordinarily we can know both map and territory.

Philosophy attempts to clarify life's limits via 'thought-experiments' (aporia) of distinctions, connections, hierarchies ... whereas Art attempts to mystify – intensify – 'feeling alive' via 'representative examples' (idealizations) of craft, performance or participation. — 180 Proof

:up: I think we agree that philosophy can be thought as an art, but that it has its own unique concerns, its content being generally more intellective than affective, while its form may be aesthetically pleasing or not.

Simple names function as the names of simple objects, but this does not mean they name things in the way tables and chairs do. They are not the names of 'this' or 'that'. They are about the form not the content of propositions. — Fooloso4

Again, this seems conceptually similar to the ding an sich since the term does not refer in the ordinary sense as with naming table and chairs but is about the form "in itself' as opposed to 'for us'.

There is a coherent conception of directness though. Our ordinary perceptions, and against these the seeing things indirectly through tinted glasses, distorting mirrors, telescopes, radar, periscopes and so on make sense.

If there were no coherent conception of directness, then there would be no coherent conception of indirectness. So really my question "against what coherently conceived directness would we be contrasting it" implied against what coherent conception other than ordinary perception.

If we have direct access to the world then there is no distortion, if our access is indirect then it is distorted. Think about looking at the world through rose tinted glasses or reflected in a convex mirror for example.

Of course, distortion is without meaning except in relation to lack of distortion, just as indirectness has no meaning except in relation to directness. There is no absolute picture here to be found, it is all dialectic. The only choice to be made is between which way of speaking is most apt in particular contexts.

So those who claim it is a fact that we only have indirect access to the world are speaking in absolutes. Our ordinary perception must be the criterion of directness against which indirectness find its sense, otherwise the wheels are spinning but we are going nowhere. So, if the claim is that perception is indirect, against what coherently conceived directness would we be contrasting it?

What's giving you trouble?

The risk when just deserts leaves the picture is most acute when it comes to criminal justice. There, when we cease to focus on what is deserved, and instead only focus on the pragmatics of recidivism and incentives, we risk falling into a conception of the justice system as largely a tool for properly training people to behave in accordance with the law, the way we might "train" a horse. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The training of people, the 'civilizing' of them. although obviously more complex, is essentially no different than training horses. some people, like some horses, train better than others,

For me the purpose of the arts is the creation of novel ways of seeing, hearing, feeling and thinking. The 'novel' part is where the creative imagination comes into play.

And if you're okay with direct realists just assuming that they're perceiving the world as it is, you should be equally okay with indirect realists just assuming they're perceiving the world through their senses and their brain is creating their experience of the world. If direct realists just get to assume they are right, so do indirect realists. If indirect realists cannot just assume they're right, neither can direct realists.

I don't see a difference here in the applicability of skeptical questioning. — flannel jesus

If indirect realists are OK with assuming they're perceiving the world through their senses and their brain is creating their experience of the world then they are accepting that the scientific picture of perception is accurate.

How does this differ from the direct realist claims that the scientific picture of the world is accurate? To me, indirectness suggests distortion—if there is distortion then we cannot rightly assume the scientific picture of perception is accurate.

I don't see him claiming we have *no* access to the world, just no direct access. Indirection still allows access to empirical facts, just not absolute certainly about those facts: everything could always be a simulation, or whatnot. But absolute certainty is overrated. — hypericin

He has said many times we have no access to the world. If all he meant was that we have no certainty about the world, or that we have no access to things as they are in themselves then I have already agreed with him regarding that, and he still disagreed.

We have direct access to things as they affect us and as they appear to us—there seems to be no puzzle in that. We have no access, direct or indirect, to those aspects of things which are not included in the possible ways we can be affected by them.

I do not forgo such knowledge but accept it provisionally to the degree it seems plausible.

My point to Amadeus was that if he denies we have access to the world, to empirical facts, then he has no justification based on the science of perception to claim that perception is either direct or direct.

I don't claim we have no access to empirical facts and I accept the science of perception (provisionally of course). I think the very framing of perception in terms of 'direct' and 'indirect' is wrongheaded from the get-go.

Well, to begin we would have to identify the objects.Wittgenstein does not do this. We do not even know what these objects are let alone knowing internal or external properties except that internal to them they must have the ability to combine with other objects. — Fooloso4

I get that the "objects" Wittgenstein refers to are not ordinary objects but logical simples or something like that. But they seem to be as inscrutable, and hence as propositionally useless, as Kant's 'things in themselves'

If I am to know an object, though I need not know its external properties, I must know all
its internal properties. (2.01231)

If all objects are given, then at the same time all possible states of affairs are also given. (20124)

It would seem that we know these objects in so far as they are the source of the possibilities of the world. From themselves they generate the world through the ways in which they combine.

There is a bottom up order to the universe. — Fooloso4

This seems to invoke things in themselves. Do you read it as suggesting that we can know any "internal properties" of objects, or is all we can know of objects "external properties"?

Declaring "I have two hands," may or may not fall under the category of conviction, i.e., there are contexts where it might be appropriate. — Sam26

It's not a conviction, it's simply something I see or feel. If I have two hands, and I can see or feel, I can see or feel that I have two hands. What could it mean to doubt it?

Isn't the whole concept of scientific or natural law built on the assumption of there being a natural order? — Wayfarer

No, the concept of natural law is based on observed invariances.

Desiring machines — Joshs

Spinoza's 'conatus' or Nietzsche's 'will to power' in different dress; the same old stew, reheated.

So, either you accept that our sight system is factually an indirect system (which, on what's considered the empirical facts, it is without debate) — AmadeusD

If what you mean to say is that I cannot rely on the "empirical facts" of our sight system to deduce that we do not directly experience an object (of sight) then you've proved my case far better than I ever could. — AmadeusD

You have it backwards: I'm saying you cannot rely on empirical facts to support any conclusion at all if you assume we have no access to empirical facts, so in assuming you have access to empirical facts you are assuming you have access to the world, which is contradictory to your stated position.

If you were consistent, you would say we have no access to empirical facts and therefore cannot draw any justifiable conclusions at all about perception, the world or anything else.

I don't accept the whole 'direct/ indirect' framing and to me all your comments are, to quote Dostoevsky, "pouring from the empty into the void", or to alter Chaucer a little "Thy drasty thinking is nat worth a toord".

That said, I'll leave you to the sophistry so appropriate to the lower quarters of your profession, as I have no illusions that your mind might be even a little open to correction.

Are the Skeptics skeptical of reason itself or rather of the common stock of premises upon which reason elaborates?

The story about Pyrrho could well be apocryphal, and since he wrote nothing himself, what we today consider to be Pyrrhonism comes from later sources, one of the most notable being Sextus Empiricus.
This is from Wikipedia:

A summary of Pyrrho's philosophy was preserved by Eusebius, quoting Aristocles, quoting Timon, in what is known as the "Aristocles passage."[5] There are conflicting interpretations of the ideas presented in this passage, each of which leads to a different conclusion as to what Pyrrho meant:

'The things themselves are equally indifferent, and unstable, and indeterminate, and therefore neither our senses nor our opinions are either true or false. For this reason then we must not trust them, but be without opinions, and without bias, and without wavering, saying of every single thing that it no more is than is not, or both is and is not, or neither is nor is not.[12](Underlining mine).

In any case you failed to address the salient question: what do you think reason consists in?

Misology is not best expressed in the radical skeptic, who questions the ability of reason to comprehend or explain anything. For in throwing up their arguments against reason they grant it an explicit sort of authority. Rather, misology is best exhibited in the demotion of reason to a lower sort of "tool," one that must be used with other, higher goals/metrics in mind. The radical skeptic leaves reason alone, abandons it. According to Schindler, the misolog "ruins reason." — Count Timothy von Icarus

This begs the question as to just what reason is or what it consists in. Do not those dogmatists and relativists give reasons for their stances? Surely the radical skeptics also have their reasons for being skeptical.

THe fiction is the particularly perniciious habit of ignoring the empirical facts when discussion perception. This has been ignored. — AmadeusD

The inconsistency in your view, which I have many times and am probably now again unsuccessfully pointing out to you, is that if we have no access to the world and see only arbitrarily constructed representations then there are no empirical facts.

Not sure if you are expecting an answer from me...

Sounds like we agree...

I agree with your responses to the point where my intended response would be redundant. I think @Ciceronianus is working with narrow conceptions of both art and philosophy.

To my way of thinking what counts as art is determined by the presence of creative imagination and technical skill and what counts as great art is determined by a superlative degree of both.

He does say at the beginning that it is an empirical proposition, so yeah, I'm disagreeing with that. I think it is a conceptual matter, you might even say it is tautologous, if something thinks, or does anything at all, then by definition it must exist. The very concept of 'something' seems to involve existence. The alternative seems completely unthinkable.