The difference in doubting the existence of your mind as opposed to the world is that you only know the world by the "subjective contents" of your mind, so if you doubt your understanding of your own mind, you automatically undermine your understanding of the world.

Being that our "subjective contents" have an impact on how we behave, how are they not as real as atoms, and can be talked about like we talk about atoms like we did after we theorized their existence, but before we observed their existence? — Harry Hindu

Sure, the idea of mind is how we conceive of what we take to be the faculty doing the thinking and experiencing. It doesn't seem necessary to hold to any particular conception of mind in order to have an understanding of what we take to be the workings of the world.

You are taking it as read that we 'have' "subjective contents"; that is the default understanding, based on the intuitive analogy of the mind as a kind of container, but is it the best way to understand the mind. Wouldn't we need to consider all the other conceivable alternatives before deciding?

Yes, own logic: It appears that we can't break our habit of thinking in terms of logic (that's how deeply embedded it is in our psyche) and that's why we have paraconsistent "logic", dialetheistic "logic", and so on. Are these really logic or is "logic" an empty word in these cases? It's kinda like saying atheism is just another kind of theism. — Agent Smith

Yes, there are different kinds of logic. I see the idea of logic as being the idea of the connectivity and coherence of thought. If thoughts were disconnected (if there was no underlying logic of their associations and relations) we would have nothing. So there is formal, rule-based logic, but I would say there are also logics of metaphor, of painting, of poetry, of music, of athletics, of dance, of metaphysics, phenomenology and so on.

Also, we have deductive, inductive and abductive logic. Logic, logic everywhere...when you stop to think...: :wink:

Good points!

I almost feel tempted to let science win whatever argument it wants to have with philosophy. If science wants to claim it’s the only sound or reliable way of producing knowledge systematically — sure, you can have that; philosophy can produce something else, understanding maybe. — Srap Tasmaner

I agree: the distinction between knowledge (that) and understanding is a very important one. Our understandings don't have to be true or false; they are the ways we conceive of things that allow us to act in and deal with the world. I imagine they provide for the possibility of language and communication and any knowledge-that or science at all.

How do you know when something which calls itself Buddhist or Christian is no longer one of these? Or is it the case that the name applied is all which matters? — Tom Storm

I guess that's always a subjective judgement call. Could there be a fact of the matter?

The difference, in a word, is religion. The purpose of religion is not to produce graduates but to bind communities. Graduates or 'free' individuals may not be as inclined to move with the herd. If a religion like Buddhism were actually interested in 'transforming consciousness and the self', wouldn't it do a better job of it after over two thousand years??? — praxis

Religion, as it understands itself, has multiple purposes. Salvation, however variously conceived, is probably the most primary. The binding of communities it simply a natural outcome of the like-mindedness that attends religious conversion.

How would you know about the transformation of consciousness or lack of it that has occurred over the millennia?

So you agree that we’re zombies? — Wayfarer

It depends on what that is taken to mean. I agree that some aspects of the so-called folk conception of consciousness are most likely mistaken. I think the idea of qualia is a gratuitous reification, but I don't agree that there is no inner life tout court.

Remember that zombies are not Dennett;s invention but Chalmer's; to distinguish between having the experience of 'what it is like' to have experience, and not having it. I think the idea makes little sense. We feel our aliveness I would say; and if a zombie is defined as an entity that does not feel it's own aliveness then we are not zombies.

Dennett denies that a being could be constituted exactly as we are and yet lack some aspect of our experience. So if zombies, beings who are constituted exactly as we are, and yet do not have a certain kind of experience (that we take ourselves to have), are possible, then according to that argument we must be zombies. I agree with that; but it's not exactly clear to me just what zombies are taken to lack; so I think the whole idea is pretty useless.

Whereas, as Zahavi says, he claims that he doesn’t deny that consciousness exists, but then proceeds to define it out of existence anyway. — Wayfarer

He doesn't define consciousnesses out of existence; he defines what he understands to be the folk conception of consciousness out of existence. I don't agree with him about that; but I don't dismiss his position, since his position is equally an imaginable possibility as the folk understanding, or phenomenological understandings are.

Don’t worry, that feeling is a mere artefact of folk psychology. — Wayfarer

No it's not; it's an artifact of your inability to accept that there are other imaginable positions than your own; the inability to accept that those who disagree with you actually do understand what your position consists in but just happen to think it is the the less plausible of the possibilities.

I think this passage summarises many of the disagreements we have had in threads about Dennett. I say that Dennett believes that humans are no different to zombies, to which you generally reply that I haven't read Dennett, that I don't understand him. — Wayfarer

The point we disagreed on was your claim that Dennett denied that consciousness exists. That's it. You certainly said that was what you are claiming in several of our exchanges; so if that was not what you were saying you have either changed your mind about that, or you are contradicting yourself.

I don't dismiss Dennett's approach, and (of course) I don't dismiss phenomenology, because I have more interest in that approach than Dennett's. I try to take a more balanced view, which involves thinking that all approaches are worth following because we cannot pre-determine what they will turn up.

But it doesn't matter what his critics say - Zahavi, or David Chalmers, or John Searle, or Galen Strawson. You can't kill a zombie. — Wayfarer

That's a lame, low blow! :roll:

I remember listening to a podcast lecture series on Merleau Ponty given by Dreyfus years ago, and I didn't get much out of it at the time. Other than than I know little or nothing about Dreyfus' take on Merleau Ponty. He was also counted as an existentialist as well as a phenomenologist if I remember correctly.

It is axiomatic in Buddhism that regardless of your beliefs, actions will reap consequences either in this life or some other. Belief that at death the body returns to the elements and that there are no further consequences of actions is classified as nihilism. — Wayfarer

Since the idea of Karma was an almost universal belief in India at the time of Gotama, does not entail that it should be "axiomatic" to Buddhism. It is not axiomatic to secular Buddhism, and I think the judgement that secular Buddhism is not "really" Buddhism is an example of the 'no true Scotsman" fallacy.

I have never seen any good argument for thinking that belief in karma is essential to Buddhist practice. Why would it be essential to the practice of zazen, for example?

If you want to learn a practice, any practice: art, music, literature and so on, guidance from those more experienced is, if not essential, at least an advantage. I see no reason why it should be any different with practices designed to transform consciousness and the self.

Bear in mind, all of the '64 wrong views' listed in the voluminous Brahmajala Sutta ('Net of Views') come down to one or another version of, either: 'I will be' (eternalism) or 'I will not be' (nihilism.) And at the root of that is always self-concern, even if in very subtle form. — Wayfarer

Yes, and it also reminds me of Pyrrhonism, because we, absent one or another set of groundless assumptions, have no good reason to believe either that there is an afterlife or that there is not an afterlife. I think people mostly cling to one or another belief in order to justify their ethical stances or mollify their fears. Most of the people I've met who oppose any belief in an afterlife with a belief in no afterlife are those who have had a strict Catholic upbringing, and were, in their phase as believers, terrified of the idea of eternal damnation (can't for the life of me understand why :roll: )

On the other hand most of the people I have known who believed in an afterlife have been unreflective, complacent Christians who simply assume they're going to heaven, New Agers who believe everyone lives many lives which are constantly improving, and/or people who have seemed to me to be quite obsessed with the idea that their lives must have some (ever) lasting value or else life is utterly meaningless. I think of this last as a cult of the self; a kind of narcissism.

Salvation is not to be found in an afterlife, but must be found, if at all, in this life, and belief in an afterlife or lack of an afterlife would seem to be a hindrance to ataraxia, a state of mind which would more likely come with a wholeheartedly lived suspension of judgement. Also note that lack of belief in an afterlife is not (necessarily) belief in a lack of afterlife.

Both. — Tom Storm

And always I suppose?

Wanker... — Tom Storm

While the young women were there, or after they left?

Oh yeah, big time. Dreyfus wanted to turn heidegger into Kierkegaard. — Joshs

Right, so a predominantly existentialist reading of Heidegger?

That's interesting thanks. I seem to remember reading something by Zahavi a few years ago where he was saying that Husserl is not a representational thinker and that Heidegger's critique of Husserl as repeating a "Cartesian" error by failing to think in terms prior to the subject/object distinction is misplaced. It's not clear whether you were implying that Dreyfus also misunderstood Heidegger.

I keep wondering what the force of this 'accusation' is supposed to be.

Why does it sound so much like saying phenomenology is "merely philosophy"? — Srap Tasmaner

Right, that is what it sounds like. Which is why I wrote in an earlier post, referring to first to phenomenology, and then to the rest of philosophy:

I think it is more of an art than a science in that narrow sense of "science', and that it has much value on that account. I mean the rest of philosophy doesn't count as science in that narrow sense, either; so could there be a reason to dismiss phenomenology that doesn't apply to all the other domains of philosophy? — Janus

I think this raises a question as to what the analytic tradition consists in if not some kind of introspection and synthetic a priori analysis, that is some kind of phenomenology. I mean it doesn't seem to be doing empirical science.

What I would really like to do is explore the possibility space on the matter of thought connections. Is it that only logical connections between ideas reveal truth/sense/reality? — Agent Smith

Literature? Poetry? Music? Religion? These also have their own logics, realities and truths though, no?

Right, so you obviously believe Dennett did not understand traditional phenomenology. I'm inclined to agree, insofar as Dennett claims that it consists in mere introspection; which is what I take Zahavi to be arguing.

So, the question that follows is as to what else phenomenology consists in (because it seems that introspection is definitely part of it). Off the top of my head seems to consist in extending the kind of synthetic a priori thinking that began with Descartes and was improved by Kant into more corporeal areas of inquiry.

So this is what I had in mind with the reference to the synthetic a priori:

The only apodictically certain science is transcendental phenomenology. All other scientific results are contingent and relative. — Joshs

Is there even more than that going on?

What you say about Searle I can understand, but I'm also interested to know hear your criticism of Dreyfus' understanding of phenomenology.

'Knowledge' is just a word, it's not an external object with properties we discover by scientific investigation. Something 'actually' being knowledge (as opposed to us treating it as if it were) is a nonsense, — Isaac

Now I think I understand just where your confusion is. Knowledge is of course not an external object,with properties we discover. What we do discover, by looking at and thinking about our linguistic practices, is what we mean when we say that we have (propositional) knowledge. It certainly seems to me that the JTB model comes closest to elucidating what we mean.

So it is still the case that there is a distinction between what it means to take ourselves in some actual instance to have knowledge, (which is subject to correction) and the formula, knowledge consisting in justified true belief, that allows us to be wrong about claiming to have knowledge in any instance.

So, justified belief is not enough to constitute knowledge because the belief must be true. When people thought the world was a flat disc that was not knowledge because it was subsequently discovered that the world is (roughly) a sphere. So, the earlier belief was not knowledge because the belief was not true. We may or may not think that earlier belief was justified.

Personally I think the 'justified' part is the trickiest. Is any belief justified if it is not true? It may seem for all the world to be justified according to our experience, but does it follow from that that it is is in fact justified?. Perhaps the JTB formula could be modified to become 'knowledge consists in truly justified belief' which incorporates the 'justified' and the 'true' such that it follows that any belief which is not true is not justified and any belief which is not justified cannot be true.

None of this changes the fact that we can never be absolutely sure we possess knowledge. I think the idea of dropping the 'true' part is fine if you are also happy with dropping the 'knowledge' part. Then we would never claim to have knowledge at all, but merely beliefs which seem more or less justified, or not justified at all, depending on what we take to be the criteria for saying what constitutes evidence.

I also want to point out that no one has yet addressed the headline question: 'does phenomenology consist merely in introspection'? If it does then Dennett does not misunderstand it, if it doesn't then he does misunderstand it.

For my part I agree with the passage quoted from Zahavi; phenomenology does not merely consist in introspection, but of course introspection is involved just as it is with heterophenomenology. So, I see the two approaches as two possible ways to investigate the data supplied by subjective reports concerning experience; accounts of what is experienced and how that experience feels and how it is understood.

Thanks, that's an interesting account!

Yes, but the question that phenomenology asks is whether we need to recognize that talking about biology or neurology is not departing from the grounding phenomenological structures that makes taking about mind or consciousness possible. — Joshs

I think this is an important point. Dennett's approach and cognitive science generally seem to be predicated on the idea that we cannot elucidate the "grounding phenomenological structures" by practicing phenomenology, but that "third person" scientific investigations are necessary lest we fall into mere "folk" science or philosophy.

I understand the thinking that is taken to justify this stance in general, but I wonder whether Dennett would change his mind if his stance is based on this (purported) misunderstanding, and the misunderstanding were to be cleared up for him, I doubt it: I think his stance comes first and his misunderstanding of phenomenology is driven by the presuppositions involved in that standpoint. But I'm interested to hear what others have to say about it.

To put it another way, should phenomenology be considered to be a failure, a waste of time, vacuous and so on just because it is not a science in the usual understanding of what it is to be a science? I think it is more of an art than a science in that narrow sense of "science', and that it has much value on that account. I mean the rest of philosophy doesn't count as science in that narrow sense, either; so could there be a reason to dismiss phenomenology that doesn't apply to all the other domains of philosophy?

If creators do not bear responsibility for the harm caused by their creations then God's off the hook, granted,but so is all humanity. — Cuthbert

And all the more so due to humanity's lack of omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence

Dennets position is still philosophy. One can only reject philosophy with philosophy as long as one is speculating about the core of life — Gregory

I agree. I think there are various possible philosophical approaches, and it is not my intention to denigrate Dennett's heterophenomenology.To repeat, the question is as to whether Dennett's denigration of traditional phenomenology is misplaced.

I read the article and it seems to me Dennett gets close to Wittgenstein's philosophy. Like I said, he can't get away from philosophy of all kinds — Gregory

I don't think Dennett is trying to "get away from philosophy of all kinds"; I mean he self-identifies as a philosopher after all.

If one calls the encountered thing an apple, it would appear you're saying the apple is not mind-independent. — frank

Why do you think it follows that if we call something an apple, it follows that we would thereby be committed to saying it is mind-dependent?

I agree that it is a fallacy. I came across "The questions of King Milinda" long ago and I always thought is is a spurious argument.

It's also because Dennett has to deny that the first-person perspective contains any elements that are not in principle reproducible from a third-person point of view. — Wayfarer

Dennett's "heterophenomenology" uses for its data, first person reports of experience, and then attempts to match, or discover mismatches, of what is revealed about neural activity by brain imaging with what is reported to be going on by subjects. As he admits this is just Cognitive Science as already practiced. It is an entirely different approach than traditional phenomenology. Zahavi argues that Dennett has misunderstood traditional phenomenology.

I was hoping that participants in this thread would read the paper and respond to the arguments therein. I;m not interested in your opinions about whether Dennett is a "poster boy" for scientism. I also don't want to get into arguments about which is the better approach. That said, it seems obvious Dennett thinks his is the better approach, even the only cogent approach. If that is so, is his attitude based on a misunderstanding of traditional phenomenology as Zahavi argues?

So, 'the idea of a chariot' is what really constitutes 'the chariot', not this or that particular piece of the chariot. — Wayfarer

I think it is the function of the chariot that is constitutive, not merely the idea, but the actuality.

These sure sound like they are talking about introspection, maybe self-awareness. But when you start digging, you find the whole thing is just another western philosophical mountain of words. They seem to want to discuss human experiences without talking about the experiences themselves.

My personal way of seeing things focusses on self-awareness and the experience of the world. This is why I find eastern philosophies so attractive. Seems like I should be attracted to phenomenology too, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. — T Clark

Right, it does seem that way. But if you read the paper you will see that Zahavi argues that phenomenology is much more than that. He presents it as being concerned with reaching inter-subjective agreement as to how human experience seems to be structured.

Now Dennett might reject such results as being "mere folk understanding" and claim that we need to subject the reports of subjects to scientific testing and analysis in order to discover whether they are valid.

I think Zahavi is arguing that this alternative approach of Dennett's predicated as a substitute for traditional phenomenology, a substitute justified due to the latter's purported inadequacy, vacuity or whatever, is based on a misunderstanding of traditional phenomenology, a misunderstanding due to Dennett's lack of familiarity with the tradition.

Yes, I'm of the view that the object of a predicate loses intelligibility if the subject responsible for the predication is dropped or replaced with the mythical subject "we". — sime

But don't "we" agree about the attributes of the moon?

If you don't hold the beliefs I attributed to you and hence don't disagree with what I've been saying (even though to me your responses made it look as though you were disagreeing) all you have to say is that you don't disagree.

If you do disagree I would like to know precisely what you are disagreeing with and why, otherwise discussion is pointless. All this talk about me feeling this or that, and me projecting this and that is pointless. I'm not interested in that.

So when I say X is knowledge, I'm lying. X hasn't actually met the 'true' bit. I just think it has. But thinking it has is exactly the same as the 'good reason to hold' bit, so that can't be a new component. Your saying that to be knowledge, X has to have two properties...

1. Be true
2. Be justified

...but then you seem to say that certainty about 1 is not part of what knowledge is ("knowledge cannot consist in absolute certainty"). You says that reasonable grounds to believe 1 is sufficient ("I have vanishingly little reason to believe that the statements I make about people I know ...are not about actual people"). But reasonable grounds to believe 1 is exactly what 2 is, making the addition of 1 redundant. — Isaac

As I see it you are still conflating what is involved with taking ourselves to possess knowledge and what is involved with our actually possessing knowledge, and that seems to be causing your confusion. From the point of view of requir8ing absolute certainty we never possess knowledge, but merely belief. My point has been that the ordinary conception of knowledge does not require absolute certainty, but only "no (or sufficiently little) reason not to think that we know". I'm also not claiming that the "sufficiently little" is precisely determinable, and I don't think the ordinary conception of knowledge requires that it should be so.

So to take ourselves to possess knowledge is to take our belief to be both true and justified (i.e. believed for the right reasons). I think that is the common understanding of what knowledge is.

But then, if they are the criteria, it seems obvious that we cannot be absolutely certain that we possess knowledge, even in the most mundane contexts. But depending on the context we may still have more or less reason to think that we might be mistaken, and in the situations where there seem to be "vanishingly little" reason to think that we do not possess knowledge, then it does not seem unreasonable to believe that we have knowledge.

The correct answer to "do you know that" (if you do take yourself to know that) is 'I have no reason to believe that I don't know that'. — Janus


'Correct' according to whom. I still haven't had an answer from any of my interlocutors here to this question that keeps arising. If the way we actually use a word in real conversations is not the measure of how it 'ought' to be used, then what is? — Isaac

Correct according to the common understanding of knowledge; you know, like the legal "beyond reasonable doubt". Perhaps you think the common understanding is something else; if so, on that we will disagree.

Obviously, "Yes, massa" is the only appropriate reply to being patronized.

"Massa" is black slave speak for "master". — baker

Yes, I know and was being ironic. I was not patronizing you I was questioning the validity of your statements and asking for arguments to back them up.

For there is a clear sense in which what we experience and try to analyze is subjective, it is "object knowledge", available to subjects. — Manuel

Sure, but there is also a clear sense in which there is a difference between introspected "contents" and publicly available objects. In any case the point of this thread is to determine whether Dennett is correct in his characterization of phenomenology as consisting in mere introspection.

Yeah, formal descriptions of percepts. But to what end? Apparently not Dennett's, so what's Zahavi's (or your) point, Janus? — 180 Proof

Zahavi's point is to refute Dennett's characterization of phenomenology as consisting in mere introspection..As already pointed out, according to Zahavi he refers to phenomenology as practiced by Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau Ponty and others as "autophenomenology", a merely introspective "first person" practice which can yield no substantive knowledge, and proposes that it should become a
"third person practice" (Cognitive Science). Is it true according to you that "traditional" phenomenology as practiced is a practice that yields no substantive knowledge or not?

My disagreement with you was specifically over your claim that Dennett denies the existence of consciousness. There was really no need for you to comment at all, just to say that you are going to abstain from participation. Anyway if all you want to do is go over that argument again. which I think has already been well settled, then it is probably best that you are going to dip out.

Oh, I didn't think she was a Murican. And I thought the expression was Thai...:wink:

I think, and a lot of people think, that that characteristically modern materialist mindset is on the way out. — Wayfarer

The mindset you refer to, I think has never been more than half the total picture that is philosophy. The other half is the phenomenological tradition, a position which formerly was occupied by the classical metaphysical tradition until Kant put paid to it. (Metaphysics has re-surged but is now a part of the analytic, externally focused schools of philosophy). the two approaches have things to offer each other and they touch at various points.
So, I think both sides have value, but, unfortunately, there are many partisans on both sides who can't go beyond their polemical thinking and constantly indulge and express their wish to eliminate the other side. The self-righteous puritan spirit is alive and well on both sides and walking among us, to our detriment.

Massa what? Massamanure?

Because my concept of "the actual moon" is necessarily in relation to my experiences that constitute my frame of reference, and any powers of empathy i might have for pretending to understand the moon from your perspective cannot change this semantic fact. — sime

OK, so perhaps you should have said "fundamental to my definition of the actual moon" rather than "fundamental to the very definition of the actual moon"?

I guess where we might disagree is that for me reason is not separable from affect. Although we can draw a distinction between reason and emotion; i think in vivo, no such distinction is operative. With reasoning as with the arts and pretty much everything in life, we feel it when we have got it right. We can say that reasoning is following rules, but how do we know we are following the rules? By applying more rules? IRL (infinite regress looming).