I don't see the judgement as an empirical one but as a confirmation that the concept of something that thinks involves the concept of existence, further that the concept of anything doing anything involves the concept of existence.

Perhaps a caveat could be added such as "exists in some sense, not necessarily physical", although the idea of a non-physical existent certainly seems inscrutable, and it is questionable as to whether it is even coherent.

Hence my existence also cannot be regarded as inferred from the proposition "I think," as Descartes held (for otherwise the major premise, "Everything that thinks, exists" would have to precede it), — CPR, Kant, B421

The alternative? "Not everything that thinks, exists"?

I would have thought that an Indirect Realist would also have said "I see what appears to be a bent stick". — RussellA

Which just goes to show that the debate is ill-conceived and pointless.

:up:

Can you see an analogy with the idea of the conservation of energy?

We can't falsify it; we can't demonstrate it. But we can assume it. — Banno

Exactly, speaking in terms of the external it seems to be consistent with our general experience and understanding, including science—but the question remains as to whether it contains any internal inconsistency. I can't see that it does.

Perhaps conservation laws are take to be true in the way axioms are - in order to get on with doing stuff. Noether's theorem shows how conservation laws are a result of assumptions of symmetry and continuity — Banno

Yes, the assumption of the conservation of energy seems to work in the sense of being consistent with most of our science. Does that mean it is true? How could we know?

It might be right regarding it being no more a fact than the length of the standard metre being a metre, but again, I don't know about that, it's an analogy I can't get my head around.

Not sure what Kripke would say, I imagine you would have a much better idea about that than I.

So is the conservation of energy a fact about the world, or a way of checking that our talk about energy is consistent? And if this latter, then it is not itself consistent, but the measure against which we determine consistency. — Banno

It might be a fact about the world, or it might not. Do we know what the "might not" could look like? Most of our experience points to it being the case, so it is (mostly?) consistent with our experience. In any case I was referring more to internal consistency. Is there an inherent inconsistency in the idea of the conservation of energy?

Yes, I think humans are generally fascinated with the unknown, even the unknowable—a space is left for the imagination to speculate, a creative activity. Pays not to take such speculation too seriously, though, I think, or else become a believer in some form of Gnosticism. The latter would be a departure from empirical/ rational criteria for belief, though. Empirical/ rational criteria are shared, intuition not so much.

And if it is not even true, nro false, how is it consistent? — Banno

It is consistent if it doesn't contradict itself.

I agree but speculative metaphysics is not necessarily inconsistent (Hegel for example) even if it might be thought implausible or empirically and /or logically underdetermined.

The statistician George Box said "All models are wrong but some are useful." — Gary Venter

What does it mean to say that models are wrong? Wrong in relation to what? If a model is useless it is useless, which means it doesn't accord with experience. Newtonian mechanics is useful, albeit not quite as useful as Einsteinian mechanics in some contexts.

We don't know whether either of them are right, in the sense of true, or even what it could mean for them to be right beyond observations showing that the predictions that are entailed by them obtain.

Right on, brother! Great philosophical works have their own aesthetic, just like mathematics does, but it doesn't follow that the great works will necessarily be to everyone's taste, just as it doesn't follow with great works of art.

I'd be interested to know what those may be. But I think it takes more than imagination to create a work of art. — Ciceronianus

Likewise it takes more than mere imagination to create great works of philosophy.

There might be shame in attempting to continue, rather than turn aside. Coherence has merit. — Banno

I think it's not a matter of shame, as if there could be a fact of the matter as to what is intellectually shameful, but rather a matter of personal predilection and/ or interest. I have no doubt you won't agree but that's alright.

The Indirect Realist says that in the sentence "I see a straight stick that appears bent", the word "see" is being used as a figure of speech and not literally, as in "I can clearly see your future".

The Direct Realist says that there is no difference between a word being used as a figure of speech or literally. — RussellA

I'm not too sure about that. The direct realist would say "I see what appears to be a bent stick, but I know it's really pretty straight, because I took it out of the water".

I dont know why you want to say that , but I can tell you that in Husserl’s phenomenology objects don’t just appear to a subject as what they are in themselves in all their assumed completeness, but are constituted by the subject through intentional acts. — Joshs

That's one way of putting it. Another would be that things present whatever it is possible to present of themselves to percipients, depending on their own constitutions, the environmental conditions and, of course the constitutions of the percipients, Framing this interactive process in terms of intentionality tends to yield a one-sided picture in my view.

It seems to me that phenomenology, like any other form of investigation, is as secondary and derivative of primal, non-dual experience as science. I think talk of one domain of inquiry having priority over another is wrongheaded from the get-go.

On the one hand "I see a bent stick" and on the other hand "I see a straight stick". — RussellA

For me a more accurate way of expressing that thought would be "I see a straight stick that appears bent". I see no cause for confusion in that—I've never seen the supposed problem for realism in the 'bent stick' argument.

Now when I said, above "I see no problem" that is obviously just a different sense of 'see'. We have been dealing with the visual sense of the word, and I don't think it is going to help to bring in other senses of 'see'.

Maybe you can help Janus? Why do you and I want to say, and why do some phenomenologists say, that the things we perceive present themselves to us? I feel I’m missing something obvious. — Jamal

It's a good question. I'm not convinced that speaking of things presenting themselves to us necessarily invokes agency on their part. Well at least not agency in the sense of intention to present themselves. In the context of chemistry agency is spoken about—we say there are chemical agents, defined as those compounds or admixtures which have toxic effects on humans.

While things don't have the intention to present themselves, they could be said to have the propensity to do so. Language is multivalent. We can speak of things presenting themselves or being presented or being or becoming present to us.

I don't know if I've answered the question adequately but that's all I've got right now.

Well, nature very well could BE the laws. — flannel jesus

:up: Yes, in one sense. Spinoza. Natura naturata and natura naturans, commonly translated as "nature natured and nature naturing. The passive and the active

All this seems hopelessly wrongheaded and confused to me, but I lack the will to try to untangle it, since I fear it will just continue going around in useless circles.

Direct Realism is aka Naïve Realism. Indirect Realism is aka Representational Realism,. — RussellA

I don't agree that they are equivalent. Naive realism is pre-scientific realism, the eyes were thought of as windows looking out onto a world which exists independently exactly as we see it. With scientific understanding of perception, we have come to realize the world looks different to different organisms.

As organism we are part of the world, each organism sees the world directly via its perceptual apparatus—there is no question of distortion, no need to invoke indirectness...I think those ideas just confuse the issue.

To add my two-cents worth, Heidegger’s fundamental ontology, what he calls also the ontic-ontological difference, is not at all the same thing as the traditional philosophical meaning of ontology as the meaning of extant beingness. — Joshs

The distinction you mention is either a phenomenological or a metaphysical distinction, and as I said Heidegger, I believe, equates phenomenology with his conception of metaphysics, which is not the same as the classical conception of course.

it wasn’t posited as either so I’ll just leave that. — AmadeusD

see representations is equivalent to saying we see seeings
— Janus

Yet, this is exactly what is intimated by the claims of direct realists, — AmadeusD

Sounded like you were claiming it was entailed by direct realism, but what you wrote was somewhat ambiguous so perhaps I interpreted it differently than you intended.

Which is why I've tried, at length, elsewhere, to delineate between "to look", "to see" and "experience"
You look at something with your eyes, experience a representation, which is seen in the mind. — AmadeusD

That is not anything near being the direct realism account, nor is it entailed by it.

No, on second thought you are probably right, as I imagine there would be basic pragmatic forms of life common to all peoples, which are socially, if not culturally, mediated.

cidentally, I tend to think of forms of life hierarchically, as if there’s a multiply nested plurality all within the general human form of life. — Jamal

Would it not be better then to say "human forms of life", since the only common form of life is the basic biological form which, as basic, is not culturally mediated (even if our understanding of it is).

OK, so you don't think the world is presented to us via the senses?

I agree with you that @RusselA does not give an account which is in accordance with common usage and I said as much. I'm not sure if you misread me as saying that the little light we see is Mars representing itself rather than presenting itself.

I was saying rather that we see Mars as it presents itself to the body via light. I agree it is more parsimonious to simply say we see Mars, but I don't see a problem with including a little detail of what we know about the process of seeing.

Also I don't say we see a presentation, the seeing is the presentation.

The way I see it the "critical reflection" you speak about is the practice of phenomenology, not metaphysics (although interestingly as far as I understand it Heidegger equated metaphysics with phenomenology).

Indeed. I'm not arguing this. I'm just saying they are not propositional and are not as clearly beholden to local axioms as a more fully developed linguistic system is. My point was a minor one - that between silence and linguistic 'coherence' lies noise. — Tom Storm

:up: An excellent point!

As the word "house" is a representation of an object in the world, the dot is a representation of the planet Mars. — RussellA

I think it is less confusing to say that the little light you are seeing is Mars presenting itself, appearing, to you. Language may be representative, but seeing is not, and the analogy you present above is inapt.

Of course you can frame this differently, use the word 'representation' in a different sense and say that seeing is representative, but I think that would place you further from common usage, and so would be liable to create confusion.

We are not going to be able to drill down to some "absolute" picture of what's going on—the best we can hope for is to speak plainly and sensibly and in a way less likely to breed confusion.

And in those terms my reply might be something like that this is mis-phrased, and that seeing a thing consists in constructing a representation of that thing. In this phrasing one does not see the representation, one sees the thing. — Banno

:up: Yes, the seeing just is the representation of the thing, which would mean that saying we see representations is equivalent to saying we see seeings, which is nonsense.

No one else has done better. *shrug* I guess people think that perception, which is physically indirect, is direct in discussion. — AmadeusD

Can you give an example of something which is physically direct, and explain what you would mean by "direct" in that context?

Per above, on my account, there is still going to be this obstacle to establishing a direct link between the experience and the object, in any given case denoted to be 'direct' in a half/half system. So, my issue isn't so much 'what hypothesis is the most workable' and which one gets off the ground. — AmadeusD

Under your criterial demand the only "direct link" would be if the object was the experience. If the object is separate from the experience of it, then you would presumably say there is a gulf between them, and that this gulf justifies saying we do not experience objects directly. As others point out it all comes down to what is meant by "direct". I have long thought that experience can be thought about as direct or indirect, depending on the definitions and framing. So, the whole argument is undecidable in any absolute sense and is thus really a non-starter, another confusing artefact of thinking dualistically.

It’s not necessary that a metaphysical outlook be identically shared among members of a community. Each of those diverse humans you have encountered has an interpretive system for construing events which is partially unique to themselves. — Joshs

Yes, I agree and this in part is what I had in mind when I talked about "human diversity".

:ok:

But that, of itself, again doesn't warrant my view being egregious. — javra

When it comes to tendencies, attitudes, dispositions and so on, I have only encountered human diversity, so for me any view which characterizes people as all having the same tendency, attitude or disposition I find egregious.

OK, thanks for explaining.

Non-veridical experiences like hallucinations are not subjectively distinct from veridical experiences, that seem to represent what they actually represent. A dream is as subjectively real as your current experiences. These two are exactly the same to us. — Ashriel

That may be your experience, upon which you are apparently extrapolating and speaking for others. I can tell you that what is an hallucination and what is not has always been clear to me even when peaking on acid. Same with dreams—what I remember of them does not seem anything like waking experience.

Yes. Even if it were only this, that would be enough. But the fact is, if you radically alter the nature of your being, the way that you live, you can begin to see patterns of feedback from people, society, and the universe, that you did not before. To that extent, it can be 'scientific'. As I have said and will continue to say, the human mind is very limited, so to presuppose that there are not further dimensions to understanding is just poor reasoning. Evolution documents their emergence. — Pantagruel

Sure you can interpret things differently if you alter your consciousness, but it doesn't follow from that that anything determinate is the case about the nature of what is actual in contrast to what might seem actual to you in your altered state.

Such things cannot be scientific because to be scientific is to be intersubjectively assessable according to pragmatic criteria which are accepted by all those who wish to eliminate bias, merely subjective beliefs or ides based solely on imagination.

Where have I claimed there are no possible further dimensions to human understanding? You can take your own understanding wherever you like in the sense that you can believe whatever is believable to you. If you believe anything strongly enough it will alter your experience to be sure.

For just one example, were one to witness billiard balls randomly fall through solid table tops or else hover in midair, one would hold a confirmation bias in line with one’s core ontological understanding as to what is in fact possible. Most would assume it to either be stage magic or tricks of the eye precisely due to this confirmation bias. Whether or not miracles can occur is again determined by one’s core ontology’s confirmation bias. — javra

If youve never seen a billiard ball float in the air or fall through tabletops, then you might hold a view as to what is physically possible, and that might form a part of your general worldview as to what seems to be the case. What would you think if I told you I'd seen such things?

I don't think any of this has much to do with metaphysics. What you term "core commitments" I would simply characterize as 'habitual expectations based on what has been encountered and observed in the course of one's life'.