Your capacity for self-delusion is truly remarkable. "Proper grasp" of course means 'understood as Wayfarer the enlightened one does". You apparently have no capacity to understand other perspectives or to deal intelligently with critiques of your stipulative nonsense.

The urge to devour and assimilate what is not oneself. — Jamal

That's an interesting take. Instead of oneself being a small part of the Universe, the Universe must instead be seen as being a small part of oneself.

It must also be a need to have everyone agree with oneself, given that the rejoinder to any disagreement is always predictably "if you don't agree then you must not have understood" coupled with some attempt to cast aspersions on the others' level of education. It's a sorry spectacle...

Don't feel bad. — Jamal

No, he really ought to feel bad.

An unfortunate deductive error inferring from our inability to say with certainty what kind of existence unperceived objects have to a conclusion that there could be no such actual existence, and that saying there is any such existence is incoherent. It's called 'confusing oneself with a truism'; the truism being that it is only minds that can know anything. What is more remarkable is that this confusion is obstinately repeated ad nauseum, making me wonder what the point or motivation for such idiocy could be.

In answer to the second question, the short answer is no. In order to count something as visible it is only necessary to demonstrate that it is capable of being seen. However the best, and arguably only conclusive way to demonstrate that something is capable of being seen is to see it. — Ludwig V

Right, so we know that the cosmos was visible prior to the advent of percipients, otherwise there never would have been any percipients.

On the assumption that "intelligible" means "capable of being understood", is the analogy a good one? Showing that one understands something is a good way of showing that it is capable of being understood; that's a parallel with "visible". But there is also a difference. Seeing something can be completed - one can reach a point at which one has actuallly seen whatever it is. But understanding is (usually) incomplete - there is almost always further that one could go. Usually, we settle for an understanding that is adequate for the context and do not worry about whether our understanding is complete.
So the answer is (as it usually is with analogies) the parallel is partial. Yet it is somewhat strange that we also use "see" to describe understanding as well as vision. So perhaps there is more to be said. — Ludwig V

I'd say there is always more to be seen in the seeing of anything, more and finer detail and also different ways of seeing as per the different ways, for example, different species see things.

When the OP says "a world that is fully real and determinate independently of mind", what could 'determinate' mean in a world containing no perceivers? How could something be determined when there is no one there to determine it? Percipients do determine their objects. If they could not do that they could not survive. It seems to follow that things were determinable , just as they were visible and understandable, but obviously not seen, understood or determinate, prior to the advent of percipients.

As Tom Waits put it: "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy".

As to wokeism; I wonder why there must be such partisan polemic regarding it. Surely there were, and are, real concerns that lead to advocating wokeism as an attempt to deal those problems. No social movement is immune from downsides. Correcting those rather than rejecting the whole of woke culture would seem to be a better strategy. Instead we see more instances of black and white thinking from the ideologues on both sides.

Therefore the whole cannot be causal in its own creation. We can assume that something external puts the parts together, creating the whole, in a top-down fashion, but this would be nothing but what is called "external telos". — Metaphysician Undercover

Genes are generally understood to provide the information that governs the growth, development and functions of organisms. So, it seems you are right that it is not "the whole of the organism" (whatever we might take that to be) that governs its own growth and development. Should genes be considered "external" though?

I’m clear that intelligibility is something that is constituted (“created”?) in the interaction between mind and world. However, our understanding of the world tells us that it has not changed in any radical way since we appeared and that many of the processes now going on must have been going on long before any sentient or intelligent creatures appeared. So is it not reasonable to infer that the world would have been intelligible if there had been anyone around to understand it? (Note that this is a counter-factual, not a blunt assertion.) — Ludwig V

Must the world be understood in order to be intelligible (able to be understood)? As an analogy, must something be seen in order to be counted as visible?

that gives us an easy way to measure bullshit in this thread. See which group is having an easier time defending their position - the group that's having a harder time of it must be right — flannel jesus

First you have to determine which group is having the easier and which the harder time defending their positions. What're the criteria? Which ones do you think are which, and why?

a world that is fully real and determinate independently of mind. — Wayfarer

Can you explain what you take that to mean, if you are implying something beyond "A world that does not depend for it's existence on any or all minds"?

To make this clearer, consider the example you cite of Neptune’s pre-discovery existence. The realist insists: “It existed all along—we simply didn’t know it.” But the claim I'm advancing would point out that what “it” was prior to its discovery is not just unknown, but indeterminate. — Wayfarer

It couldn't have been "indeterminate" if by that you mean indeterminable, because otherwise it could not have been discovered. If "indeterminate" it you means something more that "undetermined' or "indeterminable", then please explain what that additional meaning is.

And finally, the reason this matters is so we do not lose sight of the subject—the observer—for whom all of this is meaningful in the first place. The scientific, objective view is essentially from the outside: in that picture, we appear as one species among countless others, clinging to a pale blue dot, infinitesimal against the vast panorama that scientific cosmology has revealed. But it is to us that this panorama is real and meaningful. So far as we know, we are the only beings capable of grasping the astounding vistas disclosed by science. Let’s not forget our role in that. — Wayfarer

How can the scientific view be "from the outside"? Perhaps you meant "of the outside". Surely all human views of the external world are, by definition "from the inside" (if you want to speak at all in terms of "outside" and "inside"). It's more accurate to say that all views of the world, including human ones, are views of what lies outside the skin of the viewer.

That we are, as far as we know the "only beings capable of grasping the astounding vistas disclosed by science" is a simple truism. I'm puzzled as to what you think the import of these trivial factoids, acknowledged by anyone who thinks about it for a minute, are.

I've been reflecting on a thought: if people were given the chance to do things society and general are considered "bad" or "evil" with no one ever finding out, and with zero chance of anyone suspecting them, most would likely take it(correct me if i am wrong). — QuirkyZen

How could you possibly know that? At best you know (apparently) that you would do those things if you had the chance. Be wary of projecting your own badness onto others.

What might a Davidsonian aesthetic look like? — Banno

I imagine that you would probably be in a far better position than I to give an account of that.

Again I think it (obviously) depends on how you define the term 'art'. I am predisposed to think that examples of good visual art have colour and tonal and textural relationships that form strong, resolved and unified, compositions. Many works of visual conceptual art are not much or even at all concerned with aesthetics, but rather with conveying some idea or other.

A conceptual explanation just is a psychological explanation if it is assumed that a philosopher thinks a certain way on account of the time and cultural milieu they find themselves in and not on account of their own analyses.

I guess you could say that is the upshot. So we are left with the possibility of looking at things in many different (and hopefully interesting) ways.

The Davidsonian point that we all agree about most things is true when it comes to everyday stuff. Not so much when it comes to aesthetics.

There is a deep historical influence there. That Hume's Guillotine would be formulated first by someone who grew up in the context of the Reformed tradition is not surprising for instance. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You are always giving psychological explanations, which amount to just-so stories, in order to try to debunk what you don't agree with.

I can articulate it just fine — Count Timothy von Icarus

Your explanations lack cogent argument usually. Your articulations seem to amount to "get lost in the wall of words, and quotes from and references to, supposed authorities, many of them obscure". But perhaps I'm being too charitable.

It doesn't really differ. That's why I said from the start that all paintings can be thought of as pictures...or not...depending on the definition of the terms (interpretation).That's also why I offered the Ship of Theseus and Sorites examples as analogies.

I say there is no ontological fact that determines what it is correct to say. You said I am doing ontology in saying that...and I respond again that it depends on your interpretation of the term 'ontology'.

Exactly...now you are making my case for me.

Not at all. We can all form an idea of a black square. We don't need a separate realm where the idea lives.

Are these paintings to be considered pictures? Are they representational?
[img]http://

Well, if you must. The idea that a black square only represents a black square looks a tad too platonic for my taste... it smells of perfect forms and such nonsense. — Banno

Platonism not needed; it is just the idea of a black square that is being represented, an idea which can be re-presented in countless ways, just as the form of a tree or a human face can be re-presented in countless ways.

I'd say it may be said to be one possible representation of a black square, a picture of a black square, and that it also may be said to be just a black square because squares are abstract objects.

Just as a representational, in the traditional sense, paintings are pictures of whatever it is they depict, and at the same time are just painted shapes on a flat surface. I see an intractable ambiguity when it comes to visual representation.

As I've said I see there is always an ambiguity between what a painting represents, whether it is an abstract object such as a square, circle or rectangle or a painting that depicts a landscape, person, still life or whatever, and the formal aspect of all paintings which exists regardless of the subject and which consists in some pattern of tones, textures and colors on a surface and which constitutes a strong well-realized composition or does not.

Cezanne, the Cubists the abstract expressionist painters and others all self-consciously explored in various ways the ambiguity between paintings as patterned flat surfaces and paintings as representations of three dimension space. Your definition of picture is one, but not the only one, and not so useful as it is too restrictive in my view. But "each to their own" I guess.

:cool:

It is a painting on canvas that we might say depicts a red rectangle and is thus to be considered a picture or we might say it is just red paint on canvas in rectangular configuration. If something is just paint on some surface, and does not depict anything then it is just a painted surface.

There is nothing substantive in these kinds of questions― as I've said a few times now it's all in the interpretation.

This is one of those perhaps odd consequences of accepting the institutional theory of art -- Van Gogh's paintings that were not known but found later were not art before they were found, even though they were painted by Van Gogh! — Moliere

Not merely an "odd" consequence, but an absurd one. Van Gogh's works are rich, beautiful and intelligently composed images which are markedly different than anything created before.

I'm hesitant to justify art by its purposes. If anything I think it's entirely useless, and that's sort of the point. Rather than there being functions which art fulfills it can fulfill any function we want -- so a pot, though a useful item, can at the same time be a work of art. But in judging the pot as a work of art I am not concerned with its utility -- a pot in a museum from some ancient time is interesting because of when it was made and what it might mean for the history of art and ourselves, not because it's good at carrying water. — Moliere

Things like pottery and architecture may be considered to be art, and yet serve practical purposes. An American architect called Sullivan said in an essay that in architecture "form follows function". What I think all art has in common is that it attempts to bring an idea or vision into concrete being. We might say that some modern works embody an idea or vision which is quite trivial, aesthetically speaking and that their cultural value consists only in their reflective critical relationship with what had come to be considered "the canon" in an institutionalized monolithic, linear view of art history.

What does ontology have to do with that? — javi2541997

One of a couple of central questions @Moliere asked was what is the distinction between paintings and drawings. I originally simply pointed out that the usual distinction between paintings and drawings is one of the difference between pictures produced using wet or dry mediums.

I referred to paintings and drawings as pictures and then got drawn into a side issue as to whether all paintings and drawings can be thought of as pictures, and I pointed out that it would depend on definitions of the terms, not on some presence or lack of shared essential characteristics of paintings and pictures that make it necessary that they should be thought of as either in the same category or not.

I brought ontology into it to emphasize that it is a mistake to think that there are always some essential characteristics that make it necessary that something must be thought to belong to a particular category or identity.

What is?

I should have addressed this more thoroughly:

They are not all pictures but can all count as pictures. — Banno

You are putting words in my mouth. I'm simply saying that all paintings can count as pictures on reasonable definitions of the terms. On more restrictive definitions all paintings may not count as pictures. I haven't anywhere said that not all paintings are pictures.

On your definition of ontology, perhaps. Ontology is usually understood to be concerned with what exists, and what exists is usually considered to be not a matter of opinion or interpretation. Do you think there exists a fact of the matter as to whether all paintings are pictures? Of course I'm not denying that there might exist different opinions dependent on different interpretations of the terms.

Take the "Ship of Theseus': there is no fact of the matter as to whether the ship with all its parts replaced is the same ship or not, so not an ontological, but a semantic, matter. What does exist is the ship: that's ontology.

Right it's like the 'Ship of Theseus' and 'Sorites'...just a matter of definition not ontology.

How would you know about it other than by observing purposeful behavior? Of course it isn't substance like...although that said, neither purpose nor substance are observable.

I'm not about to trust your judgement as to why Wittgenstein said what he did.

1. Teleology does not exist — Leontiskos

This is a strawman. I'm not claiming teleology doesn't exist. A teleological explanation is an explanation in terms of purpose rather than causation, and teleological explanations are better fitted to understanding and explaining human and some animal behavior.

The idea that the universe as a whole has a purpose―that it was brought into existence on purpose rather than that it just came into existence either without cause, or from some unknown cause, is not supported by any evidence. It seems reasonable to think the universe could not have brought itself into existence on purpose. The other possibility is that it always existed.

Current scientific consensus seems to be that the universe did come into existence, but we cannot say anything about how it came about, because observational data cannot come to us from anywhere but within the already existent universe.

It seems to me you are clutching at straws attempting to confirm something you want to believe.

I was editing my previous post so there is more there for you to address now.

Why quote an ambiguous passage from Wittgenstein instead of answering directly and in good faith? Perhaps Wittgenstein just means that the human interpretations of human experience, replete with all the values and meanings inherent in those interpretations is not to be found in the physical world. Again, hardly controversial.

1. Modern science long rejected teleology, even among plants and animals — Leontiskos

Science has long since gone beyond such a mechanistic view of animality. It's obvious that (some) animals ( including humans) can respond to their environments in novel ways. Such a thing is not possible for simple mere mechanisms. It doesn't follow that there is any overarching purpose behind animal behavior.

3. Given that this conclusion about plant and animal teleology turned out to be unsound, do we have any reason to believe that the conclusion about teleology more generally is sound? — Leontiskos

It was the overwhelming evidence found in observational data and being unable in the face of it to cling on to entrenched prejudices that enabled biologists to see purpose, and even intelligence and reasoning, in animal behavior. What imaginable kind of data is going to provide the evidence to allow us to see universal teleology.

The question is, "What is the rational basis for an anti-teleological view, given that the anti-teleological view as applied to plants and animals turned out to be baseless?" — Leontiskos

The analogical reasoning from one case to the other is not valid. The argument against holding the veiw that there is an overarching purpose to the universe is simply that there is no evidence for such a thing. We don't have to outright deny the possibility, but without evidence that is what it remains; a mere possibility.

They certainly thought they had good arguments in the past, and the current state of science sees most of those arguments as faulty. — Leontiskos

Those arguments were not so much arguments as prejudices, if you are referring to intentionality in animals. Some, perhaps much, of that prejudice came form religious views that propounded the idea that humans are not animals and that animals did not have souls. Luckily good observations of animal behavior exploded that myth.

Of course you won’t see anything like purpose or agency in the data that these instruments collect - but as I said, this is red herring. — Wayfarer

Why is it a "red herring"? We see purpose or agency in the data collected by observing animal behavior. Are you claiming there is purpose or agency there in the inorganic even though we cannot detect it? If you are claiming that, then on what grounds?

I’m interested in a perspective based on phenomenology - that the appearance of organisms IS the appearance of intentionality. It is how intentionality manifests. It’s not panpsychism, because I’m not saying that consciousness is somehow implicit in all matter. The fact that inorganic matter is not intentional in itself is not particularly relevant to that. — Wayfarer

That intentionality, at least in some "proto" sense comes into being with organisms (well at least with animal organisms) is hardly controversial. You are not saying that consciousness (and intentionality?) is somehow implicit in all matter, so that leaves me wondering what you are saying.

Why don't you answer the question in my last post? My first paragraph there explains what I found in your OP, that I can actually agree with.

OK, I'll play along:

However the question of purpose, or its lack, doesn’t always require invoking some grand ‘cosmic meaning.’ Meaning and purpose are discovered first in the intelligibility of ordinary life—in the way we write, behave, build, and think. — Wayfarer

You say "doesn't always require"―does it ever require? I agree that meaning and purpose would be impossible without our experience being intelligible to us in the ways it is, just as meaning and purpose for animals presumably could not be possible for them without their experience being intelligible to them in the ways it is.

Furthermore, the belief that the Universe is purposeless is itself a judgement about meaning. — Wayfarer

It's a judgement based on critical thought. The human notion of purpose presupposes agency. and agency presupposes perception/ experience. If the universe as a whole has no agency, no perception/ experience then how could it have a purpose?

Even the most rudimentary organisms behave as if directed toward ends: seeking nutrients, avoiding harm, maintaining internal equilibrium. Nothing in the inorganic realm displays these (or any!) behaviours. This kind of directedness—what might be called biological intentionality—is not yet consciously purposeful, but it is not mechanical either. — Wayfarer

Who ever said that the basic nature of life is mechanical? Mere mechanism doesn't allow for change based on feedback other than degradation. 'Intentionality' is a slippery term. We think of human behavior as intentional. We also think of some animal behavior as intentional, but it seems a stretch to call the behavior of simple organism, or even plants or fungi, intentional. You agree that the inorganic universe is not intentional or purposeful, and if the vast bulk of existence is inorganic, then how do you reconcile that?

I'll leave it there for now, because if you won't answer the questions already posed, I don't want to waste any more time.

"Your just a positivist". The usual lame response when you have no comeback that actually addresses my questions. Your OP says there is purpose and meaning for organisms. I can agree with that as a way of understanding animal, and perhaps plant, behavior.

Do you want to say something more than that? If so, what? I couldn't find it in your OP beyond some vague intimations.

It was realized that the old idea that the universe was created for a purpose was an anthropomorphic/ anthropocentric projection. Modern philosophical analysis has exposed the idea as incoherent.

Your "just-so" history is not factual, but merely one among many other possible interpretations.

It can reasonably be said that it strictly has nothing to do with science except generally insofar as part of the scientific method consists in not believing anything without evidence. Since all and everything we can know is within the universe, i.e. immanent, not transcendent, could there ever be definitive evidence that the universe was created for a purpose, or any reason, other than wishful thinking, to believe that it was?

Are you actually willing to claim that the Universe has an overarching purpose or are you just trading on the ambiguity, the conflation, I pointed to?

i.e. a composition fallacy. — 180 Proof

Exactly.

You misunderstand entirely then. Perhaps it's my fault for not expressing myself clearly enough. I've not been claiming that all paintings are pictures, as though there were some context-independent fact of the matter, but that all paintings can count as pictures, given certain interpretations of the terms.

The way a lack of intent affects meaning can be seen by imagining that you see a handwritten note with poem written on it, stuck on a wall in a bar. You ponder the meaning of the poem, but then someone tells you it was computer generated. That's when you realize you have a reflexive tendency to assume intent when you see or hear language. You may experience cognitive dissonance because the poem had a profound meaning to it, all of which was coming from you.

The problem with using ChatGPT is that it's processing statements that were intentional. It's not just randomly putting words together. — frank

In your first paragraph you seem to be saying there is no intent there, and in your second paragraph you seem to be saying there is intent there.

It's easy it seems to conflate the true and obvious idea that there are purposes and meaning within the universe, with the incoherent idea that the universe has an overarching purpose.

Except I was not the one offering restrictive definitions―you said not all paintings are pictures, as though there were some fact of the matter, and not that it is merely a matter of how 'picture' and 'painting' is defined as to whether all paintings also count as pictures or not.

The idea of a transcendent meaning is incoherent ...
... like e.g. disembodied mind. — 180 Proof

:up: A prime example!

The meaning of the idea of the transcendent is an immanent one too―we don't know anything transcendent, and this is so by mere definition.

A painting is a picture
— Janus
Why?

Kazimir Malevich, Black Square (1915) explicitly does not represent anything.

Also, note that "picture" does not occur in the OP.

A painting captures a moment in a narrative.
— BC
I like that.

Not all paintings, then, are pictures. — Banno

PICTURE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
https://dictionary.cambridge.org › dictionary › english › picture
picture
uk/ˈpɪk.tʃər/ us/ˈpɪk.tʃɚ/
noun
a drawing, painting, photograph, etc.
an image seen on a television or cinema screen
a film
the cinema
...
verb [ T ]
to imagine something
View full content

You are working with a restrictive interpretation of the word 'picture'. Malevich's work depicts a black square. It is a depiction of an abstract object rather than a physical object.

From Wikipedia:
In his manifesto for the Suprematist movement, Malevich stated that the paintings were intended as "a desperate struggle to free art from the ballast of the objective world" by focusing solely on form.[4]

Not all paintings capture a moment in a narrative either. Paintings may do that as may drawings.

In any case the OP specifically asked what criteria make something count as a painting, asking what is the difference between a painting and a drawing.

I don't think that's true.
— Janus
This is not true either
— Janus

Fair points, honestly that post was half-baked. — hypericin

:up:

I think your notion of "picture" needs clarifying here -- you've stated that a picture need not be representational, and others have mostly taken you to task on "picture" because it seems to indicate a kind of representation? I think?

Either way if this is how you'll differentiate paintings from drawings -- dry and wet pictures -- it's fair to ask "So how do we identify a picture?" — Moliere

I hope what I've written above answers the question. I realize there is a conventional distinction between representational and abstract paintings and drawings, but as I said earlier I think abstract paintings and drawings are representational in a difference sense in that they represent abstract objects or images.

@javi2541997 failed to answer my question as to why he didn't think the Dali picture he used as an example is representaional. Perhaps Moliere, your notion of "picture" needs clarifying in order to identify just where it conflicts with the picture of the meaning of 'picture' I have been presenting.

A painting is art by definition, a drawing may or may not be. — hypericin

I don't think that's true. Watercolours and gouaches are generally considered to be paintings and they may be used for example in architectural design as depictions of what projected buildings or landscape gardens will look like. Are they to be considered art or not? Of course a sketch may be either a painting or a drawing depending on mediums.

Drawings are 2d and represent something other than the literal markings themselves. Paintings are a certain kind of drawing. — hypericin

This is not true either―there are abstract drawings that are all about mark-making and composition, just as there are abstract paintings.

If I am not mistaken, I think you use the word 'picture' thinking of the way of representing real life. — javi2541997

You are mistaken and I think that should have been clear from what I've written.

So, you don't see differences at all. — javi2541997

The difference between painting and drawing, as I've said, is predominately one of mediums.

What could it mean to say the universe is inherently meaningful? Nothing other than that it was created for some purpose.

Of course the things we and other animals experience are meaningful to us and to them, insofar as we and they have needs we and they strive to meet.

Spinoza used the term 'conatus' to signify a natural tendency of things to persist― to survive. Nietzsche, who considered Spinoza to be a kindred thinker, expressed a similar idea with his 'will to power'. If life has a meaning beyond mere survival it consists in the volition to thrive, to reach one's potential (by 'one' here I include animals).

If there is a good we all strive for it is potence. Potence is naturally desirable (considered good) and impotence is naturally undesirable (considered bad). This is not to say that all animals ( or even humans) think consciously about such things.

The idea of a transcendent meaning is incoherent (unless there be posited a creator). All meaning is immanent and relative to life as lived, at least for animals. Humans who posit gods and spiritual realms of course do create, and may live in accordance with, dimensions of imagined meaning.