I find myself wondering why "The right thing to do is apologise" should not have a truth-value…

"The right thing to do is apologize", claimed Antony
"That's true", replied Banno. — Banno

Well if you said “I agree” it might mean you intend to apologize. If you say “You’re right” it maybe means you are giving your assent to my analysis of the situation. And you could say “That is right” if you were teaching me about apologizing. If we look at saying, as Austin might, “That is false”, it is unclear what the implications would be (but something is amiss). This problem is not the same as a math problem or a fact (we can’t look it up). We can argue about what should be done, but neither of us has any inherent claim to what is right, and, as well, we may not reach a point where we agree, and so what is at stake is more than what is right, it is also our relationship, our community; I may shun you for refusing to acknowledge or do what I see as correct. In fact, you might say “That is true” if you agree that it is the right thing to do but you aren’t going to do it and don’t what to offend me.

p.s. Even though this situation does not value certainty, we nevertheless have a way of discussing what would matter in deciding what the right thing to do is. Does it matter if you feel remorseless? Do you intend to keep the relationship or is it more important to hold to the action or words that hurt the other? Can you fulfill the expectation of a promise to act differently?

A belief is a relation between an individual and a proposition. That there is much more to be said about belief is not in contention; this is just a place to start. This is set as a falsifiable proposition. — Banno

Let’s continue on then to see if there are different senses of belief. Provisionally (subject to assent), there at least appear to be different kinds of propositions to believe in. A proposition that can be false is, yes, an assertion that the proposition is true. And here is there actually a difference between the belief that an assertion is true, and an assertion being true? Are not “I believe the earth is flat” and “The earth is flat” both assertions? We might say one is me making a claim (say, not on behalf of you) and the other is a claim for a larger group (everyone?), but then, as you note, why stake an individual claim to a fact?

Maybe at times I am not asserting that the proposition is true, but I am predicting that something might be true (hypothesizing, Wittgenstein says, p. 162 3rd). If I believe it is raining (per Moore), then, when it is not, it is more than that my claim is false, I am said to be wrong (or correct). And we can now understand “I believe the earth is flat” as a prediction, though it makes more sense in examples such as: “I believe Mount McKinley is the capital of Vermont” or I believe 134x23=3082, in which cases we can look it up and find out—not if the assertion is true (though we do just that), but whether I was right or wrong, in the sense of guessing.

But we also propose to believe some things that cannot be looked up. “(I believe) The right thing to do is apologize.” Now the personal claim of belief makes more sense here. The proposition is not true or false, nor can we be “wrong” about this proposition; or, only in so much as misguided, foolish, appeasing, etc. depending on the claim and the situation. We can be said to stand for its truth, prepared to defend it, make ourselves intelligible, give reasons in favor, die before renouncing, etc. I believe this would be, as Wittgenstein puts it, a “tone” of belief, as conviction (#187)—though we need not be “convinced” to make a personal claim (as if it were necessarily rational; that it must be to be part of this category, this sense of belief). And maybe this is the same sense of belief as “I believe in God”, and here we may substitute for God: in the power of absolution, or in eating an apple a day, etc. And maybe we would say that belief here is faith, as “I trust in”, say, the promises of God’s scripture, or that I give control of myself over to God, or my future health over to fruit.

When you communicated in the past, you weren't following any particular rule. Meaning does not arise from community rule following. — frank

And I can agree with that too. I’m not denying the skeptic’s argument.

Kripke presents this as the discovery of a problem; Cavell reads Wittgenstein as stating a truth. There is no fact that ensures the extension of a concept into the future or a new context. Unless it is a game or math, we do not “follow a rule” to reach a certain effect or conclusion. I got into this here

I agree with most everything you are saying and believe we are for the most part preaching past each other to the same choir. However.

There’s no desire for certainty here in acknowledging conditions for objectivity... And I’m not sure what ‘theoretical solution’ you’re referring to — Possibility

I agree with your description of an “accounting” to the criteria for what are “relevant features”, but that is not the classic conception of what “objectivity” is. Plato and Kant’s idea of a metaphysical “object” for comparison with its “appearance” to us was born of a desire for certainty (exactness), not just responsibility, accountability. This is the theoretical picture which I think is continued through in having “discursive” and “materiality” (the word, then the referent) with a tweak to try avoid the conclusion it is “metaphysical”.

What are ‘ordinary criteria’ but ‘conclusions’ themselves - apparatuses that reconfigure the world by enacting agential cuts? — Possibility

I’ll take from what I said to Number2018: we do have criteria for each practice for the judgments we make about them (whether they are appropriate within what we identify as that thing). What is normative is our lives themselves Cavell says. And we can make explicit those criteria for, say, an excuse, an apology, what we would call “following a rule”, or pointing, walking (compared to running)…

“Appropriateness” is precise, rigorous, and clear. Accuracy is a judgment to a set criteria, and so imposed onto an ordinary setting. This is how objectivity was created (out of the desire for an outside, higher, predictable, general criteria).

So yes, every practice is different, but it is differentiating that constitutes each practice, each reason or interest, and even culture itself - “not just what matters, but what is excluded from mattering”. — Possibility

And here I agree as well. To have a something we must push against everything. This speaking is a kind of violence and death. I would also point out that off course the “what” that is excluded is importantly also a “who”.

Being immersed in practices undertaking, how can one keep any basis for comparative evaluation or any means of applying normative criteria? — Number2018

My point is that we do have criteria for each practice for the judgments we make about them (whether they are appropriate within what we identify as that thing). What is normative is our lives themselves Cavell says. And we can make explicit those criteria for, say, an excuse, an apology, what we would call “following a rule”, or pointing, walking (compared to running)…

nature is a flow running through everything rather than a prescriptive essence unique to each being or species, — Number2018

But this “if” is flawed in both premises. We are not unique; and it is our “prescriptive” inculcation into a society and history that allows us to judge someone’s act, if necessary, along the criteria of what has come to be essential to that being what it is—to us, for example, identifying an excuse from a reason.

What has seemed ‘essential’ for ‘our culture’ in the past has been found on numerous occasions to be no indication of its accuracy, let alone its importance or appropriateness. — Possibility

Our practices can be appropriately done, but they are (mostly) not judged to be “accurate”. You can have an appropriate excuse, but it cannot be an “accurate” excuse. Measuring is accurate, the retelling of the facts of an occurrence can be more or less accurate, but there is no standard against which we would call most of our practices “accurate”. The “conditions for objectivity” have “not been lost”, they were imposed in the first place (from math). The desire for that certainty creates the need for a theoretical solution to what is just the varied conclusions available or not under our ordinary criteria.

”practices… are perpetually open to rearrangements, rearticulations, and other reworkings”. That this has been happening long before you and I get there does not render it a priori. — Possibility

Yes our practices are not fixed, however, as I tried to claim previously, they are not decisions, arrangements, or solutions. They are the ways we have lived our lives over thousands of years; changing our shared expectations that create the implications on which our actions are judged is not resolved intellectually but culturally, over time as we change how we live, judge, and expect. And another point I was trying to make is every practice is different in the means and possibility of its evolution and extension.

And by a priori I am pointing out that there is no reference here, only reasons, interests, what matters; and that we do not easily see these, but must deduce them, reflect on what has been there but is normally overlooked, assumed.

There is more here that I agree with than disagree; I think the generalization and something about the non-situational ethical discussion trips me up.

It’s not about responsibility or accountability to a category’s criteria (as if these ‘qualities’ were not simply ‘classic’ but essential, static or a priori), but to each other (human or non-human) in general, regardless of criteria, “for the lively relationalities of becoming of which we are a part”. — Possibility

I can agree that we are responsible to each other, but I would frame it in the sense that the criteria of a category are what has been essential to it for us (our culture) before you and I get there (a priori as it were). We came into our practices with their criteria already having been sculpted by human life choosing what is important about something being what it is, being done appropriately, what we can be held “accountable” to it for being a threat or an apology or a conclusion, etc.

And I agree this is a process of limitation and exclusion as much as identity and participation, but we do not articulate (decide) our criteria. They aren’t static nor inherent, and are subject to change, but as much as our shared lives are. What makes up an apology may not change as much as what we count as justice (dead to us maybe, or as yet unrealized), or even how we address one another.

What is at stake and at issue, that is, what matters within a given set of practices among the participants, is constantly under contestation in partially shared circumstances. — Joshs

Although I wouldn’t say it is always, or “constantly”, maybe we could agree that when “what is at stake” in a practice (its criteria) does become contested, we enter the moral realm, in which, I would say, part of it can be philosophy’s reflection on the workings of our practices, say, how we might continue from being at a loss, part of it is whether we continue together at all.

The endgame is responsible and accountable practices, or intra-action. — Possibility

I can understand how I could be held responsible and accountable for, say, an apology I did, held to the criteria for that practice. I can also imagine someone extending the limits or context of what we would consider the practice of comedy (say, its distinction from tragedy), but that would be relaxing the practice, expanding its criteria, though if we are judging a comedy as lacking the classic qualities, we are defending accountability to its practice. But what would be an example were we make a practice more responsible and accountable? And how?

Rations

What would be Barad’s standard of objectivity other than the measurements determined via the criteria offered by contingent configurations of phenomena? — Joshs

The point is that there is not one goal or outcome like “objectivity”. The standard of objectivity is certainty with goals like repeatability thus predictability and foreknowledge, basically what you get if you remove the human from the mix like science does (it not mattering which human is involved). The “contingent configurations of phenomena” are the criteria for each kind of thing, but each has its own, thus a moral problem can’t ensure agreement like a scientific one.

There are also no hard and fast distinctions between scientific, political, economic and literary domains. — Joshs

I’m not sure what “domain” means here, but what matters in each field leads to different criteria without any similar endgame. My point is that requiring certainty is a theoretical desire that strips away ordinary criteria which are different for each type of thing.

ascertaining the real is simultaneously an empirical, ethical and political endeavor. — Joshs

Well if we’re saying that there are political dimensions to philosophy, or ethical considerations in science, I agree, but the process and criteria, for the identity and correctness or appropriateness or ways in which they fail for each, are different and create the category and structure of a thing or practice.

The relevant "objects" are the ends at issue and at stake within the practice itself. The practice itself, however, already incorporates the material circumstances in and through which it is enacted. — Joseph Rouse

I believe this mirrors my reading to say each practice has its own problems and interests, and maybe “material circumstances” simply means the limits and categorical structure, but it appears to be brought up to defend that there is some solidity or consistency to our practices (like an object but not an object). My point is I find this unnecessary and confusing the issue because it implies that we need and will only accept certainty with any practice.

If I read this correctly, Barad wants to acknowledge that the world is not independent of us, abstract from our… particularity, situation. But she also wants to maintain the outcomes associated with “objectivity”, “existence” and “reality”. She accounts for these two seemingly disparate goals by claiming it is a misconception that the world is already “fixed”—as I take it: is an already-created object which we just come to know—and that the world actually becomes a certain thing (“determinate”) through our interaction with it.

One thing she is saying does not “pre-exist” are the criteria for judging a thing to be what it is (its “relata”; its “boundaries”), and that “which cuts are enacted” are themselves judged as “a matter of accountability for what materializes, for what comes to be”. But it is just Barad’s position, or wish, that criteria should be held to one standard of “objectivity”.

The idea of a “fixed world” was created by the fear of uncertainty associated with the human (termed “subjectivity”) in order to try to attain the certainty we associate with the standard of “objectivity”. Unless we unravel the desire for objectivity, we will merely continue to tie ourselves into theoretical knots imagining we are hiding the same old wish to avoid the “subjective” human. Notice how careful Barad is to stay away from a first person even though there is a lot of “doing” “enacting” “cutting” “accountability”, etc. Her fear of ‘the human’ (uncertainty) is why I take her to pointedly say “Phenomena are real material beings” and “This is, after all, a realist conception of scientific practices.” (Edit: science’s certainty, it’s “objectivity”, comes from its practice (not “reality”); it’s method leads to, because it requires, repeatability, predictability, uniformity (apart from us, as it doesn’t matter who does science)).

Wittgenstein takes criteria and subsumes them into our lives. Expounding Barad’s words: that the world “come [ s ] to matter”, is to say, implicitly: matter to us. What is meaningful about a thing (in our lives) is reflected in our ordinary criteria for judgment of a thing or activity; as Barad might put it, a things “materialization” is “embodied” with us. So there is no singular standard for our criteria like “objectivity” to make them all certain. Now we can say our criteria are “accountable”, but their change and correction and life and death and misuse and corruption are all a part of our shared lives. Barad says we are not the “condition of possibility for the existence of phenomena” but the possibilities, or options, for a phenomena are our shared interest in it (this is not our “self-interest” or desire). Our interest in politics or morality or art are different than our interest in science (though some would have it different).

Maybe a better concept is a fantasy. If there is something there or not, we have a desire that it, for example, serve a certain purpose (reference to an appearance) that it, perhaps, hold a place to allow or close off interpretation. Whatever the object and purpose, the fantasy is from the desire for a certain outcome.

We have an everyday theory about how we perceive and think, and that theory is, you know, wrong. — Srap Tasmaner

I didn’t say “theory”, because philosophy is not explaining vision or whatever the mechanism is for self-reflection or internal dialogue. And I’m not saying science doesn’t correct the lay-understanding of the world with definitive knowledge. But our ordinary criteria for judging that something is seen, or what is a thought, are, however, sufficient and precise enough to allow us to resolve our failings and misunderstandings, without abandoning them for the certainty and generality historically desired by philosophy and hoped for by a scientific explanation of the fantasy that this is all handled by cognitive processes (although not without cognitive processes, but only to say they don’t come into it here, with our ordinary criteria).

modern science has stepped up to continue doing what philosophy used to do — Srap Tasmaner

We used to call philosophy what science does now—the pursuit of knowledge—however, our relation to the world is not entirely by way of knowledge. I’m not speaking of belief or opinion, but of activities, practices, and even self-determination at times. How we “perceive” (let’s say see) or are “aware”, as @NotAristotle says, of objects as objects is based on our criteria for what an object is (rather than an illusion, or a gas, or something like peace or anger) and what counts as those activities in relation to them (what counts as seeing an object rather than another’s point of view, becoming aware of a distinct object rather than of a sneaking suspicion). Usually we don’t reflect on these issues until we are having a problem, in a specific context; we don’t use them rationally to do a thing (usually, unless Machiavellian) nor as reasons for doing something (though depending on the activity, having a motive or interest would be a integral part or requirement—say, applying for a job, but not, throwing a stick).

But you think almost all Western philosophy is a train-wreck anyway, and you're among the special few who understand how most philosophy and almost all science is based on a colossal mistake. — Srap Tasmaner

I’ve never said science is a mistake (though I do claim science is confused about this issue, as philosophy has been). And I take your comment that I am special in understanding this issue as sarcasm, which would be disrespectful and inappropriate here, so, unless I am mistaken, I’ll leave you to it.

It will frequently turn out to be the case that our everyday conceptions are inadequate for understanding what we find, even misleading, but we can also come to understand why we have come to conceive of things as we ordinarily do. — Srap Tasmaner

And this is the story philosophy has told itself, that ordinary criteria for judgment are “inadequate” and/or “misleading”, thus the advent of “appearances” and that philosophy’s job was to understand objects directly or actually or completely. And now science has taken the bait to really tell us how things are, as if the answer was the missing part and not the first step of turning our human condition into an intellectual problem. Science here is trying to answer a rigged question that is not about knowledge. Philosophy does not have the success of science, with its sturdy, repeatable, dependable conclusions; it’s meant to transform people. A moral discussion can always end without agreement, but that is not a reason to retreat to only what we can know (say, about the brain).

Rather than denying our responsibility for what we do with these capabilities, it provides the ground we stand on when we have those discussions. — Srap Tasmaner

Abandoning our regular criteria for distinguishing an object in favor of a scientific explanation is the desire to have something we can know and which removes ourselves from the issue, rather than it being an ordinary act (distinguishing) that we do for ourselves or others, or fail to do, or make mistakes in doing. And when I distinguish an object to someone, and they ask how I am distinguishing that object (in what way am I distinguishing it, by what features or attributes), no one ever explains a process of the brain. It is not the ground of any discussion, a scientific explanation is the end of (reasonable) discussion (other than scientific correction).

My version… just shows them why they were so puzzled… — Srap Tasmaner

And this is the hope for science (for some)—that it will solve philosophy—but philosophy is puzzled because it doesn’t recognize the part that our fantasies play in requiring certainty as an answer. Simply believing that, yes, we can have an answer! is not the way out of the bottle, it is fuel to the fire.

science is a dogma-free zone — Srap Tasmaner

When I say certainty I only mean predictable, repeatable, knowable, etc., which are the criteria for the conclusions of the scientific method. EDIT: most importantly here is that it does not matter which (competent) person does the experiment to reach the same conclusion.

There are well-known ways -- various optical illusions, in particular -- in which if you think that's what you're getting, what you actually get will be awfully confusing. — Srap Tasmaner

That the brain can make errors does not account for all the errors that can be made (and its errors can be understood in advance). And the exact point is that if we are talking about brain processes, we’re not talking about mistakes and excuses and responsibility because of the desire to make our interplay with objects pure instead of muddled with those considerations and our relation to others.

And what is “given” is our lives over the span of human history, all the practices and expectations and implications and shared judgments and interests and failings. Reason and knowledge are not our only relation to the world but that doesn’t mean the relation is hidden from us, only that at times it is a matter of living through it; a matter of, say, me identifying to you which object or part of an object is of interest to me, which is making you “aware” of it (or failing to).

If by training you had in mind some kind of social convention, that's just not it. — Srap Tasmaner

Not sure you’ve specified what it isn’t, but focusing on our biological relationship to objects is fine (it’s not wrong), but only, it’s trying to answer a question that philosophy has misconstrued out of fear and desire (how do we know the back side of the object exists?, etc.)

Hume wanted causality and “real” objects, but his desire overlooked the unexamined ordinary ways we handle our world, and the mistakes we make in it, which created his fantasy of things that could be known, only somehow we’re just out of our reach (see Plato and “virtue”).

And it looks like we are not aware of how some of the basic building blocks of the world are put together for us because we cannot be. The connections aren't there. It may present a bit like a habitual activity that you can perform "on automatic", without thinking, but there are things that you were never thinking, not consciously. — Srap Tasmaner

Yet science can find these magical processes, though the cart is before the horse, as somehow we know what we should be explaining, but have only just not yet explained it.

it does appear that objects are by and large constructed within the brain, without our awareness, — Srap Tasmaner

What we want with this picture is to understand seeing and identification of objects without our participation in the process. The chance of error previously led philosophy to create the idea of “appearances” (compared to something more “real” or certain). The current fascination with brain processes comes from the same desire. The fact of the brain’s development of object permanence, etc. does nothing to help us understand “seeing” “recognizing” “differentiating” “mistaking” “changing aspects” etc., all of which are activities, not hidden brain processes. Our usual “unawareness” of these acts are because we are so trained in them we handle everything effortlessly, until everything falls apart or we turn to reflect on them in doing philosophy. For example: I point out an object you had no awareness of and you “construct” it into your world in learning to identify and differentiate it, learn where to find it, etc. In an actual sense, your unawareness of it as a separate distinct object means it does not exist (for you), as you have no reasons for it to matter, no criteria of our reasons to be interested in it. Basically, the brain’s activity during all this is not critical to, nor does it illuminate, the philosophical issues involved.

"Human"?

Dogs don't bury bones? Beavers don't build dams? Owls don't catch field mice? — Srap Tasmaner

Of course. I only meant to say activities, as: different and more than brain processes; ones we are responsible for, judge the adequacy of. We could say other animals share or can share some with us, even regarding objects, but, of course, we have our own relations to objects; say, our (human alone) relation to our understanding of our relation to objects.

(1) where do we get the criteria for what counts as an object? — NotAristotle

It’s a function of how objects have mattered to us over the course of human life; the different ways we are interested in them compared to, say, theories, or colors, or apologies. When we deal with objects, what do we count as a correct or appropriate judgment or approach or point in their identity, use, differentiation, mistakes, clarity, etc., such as: recognizing it as distinct, being made aware of a part (that you see and I didn’t), presuming a complete picture although we only see a part, etc.

And we come by these criteria in getting raised in our culture through training, watching, mistakes, etc., (unconsciously as it were, not using them overtly), and as philosophers (explicating them) because we can all propose criteria and agree with others’ claims. Wittgenstein and ordinary language theory get these criteria, or “grammar” as he terms it, by looking at what we normally say when, in this example, when we are dealing with objects. What happens is philosophy wants to abandon these ordinary criteria and impose a requirement for certainty first, which creates a fantasy picture of something mental from a desire to have something we can find out for sure.

(2) I think the issue is a "how does our brain do that" mystery. Light enters the brain through the retina, it is parsed as images (lines, shapes, colors, and so on). At what point does that assemblage of lines shapes, colors, etc. become an object? If it's the brain that does that, how does it do so? — NotAristotle

Sure, the brain is doing stuff (vision, attention, focus, etc.) but it does not determine why we are interested in objects, the ways in which they matter to us; our turning our attention to one, our pointing one out from another, identifying one, etc. One way to put this is that physical science can’t do the work of philosophy, can’t solve our concerns and confusions with our human condition. We want it to take us (our failings) out of the picture, but the process of working with objects is a human activity.

Philosophy has been getting mixed up about this for a long time. It starts with error (in recognizing or identifying) and then tries to gain certainty (wanting to see an object “distinctly” as you say). The current manifestation to ensure our control is knowledge of the brain (cause then it will be science! and not us, subject to making mistakes). Your question is both easy and hard. How do we see an object as an object?

“See that object over there.
The grass?
No, I said, the object, dummy.
You mean the cat?
Oh, that’s a cat?”
Or
“You mean the cat?
No, I see the cat. The weird object with the lights above it.
Oh, yeah. Huh.”

We have criteria for what counts as an object, and can judge between cases. We have expectations in “pointing something out” and for seeing it, even for seeing it distinctly (from say, from the objects around it). It is a bit of a mystery because we (unreflectively) don’t usually parse out our lives that much (seems like an inherent ability), but it is not a “how does our brain do that” mystery. You grew up with objects: asking for them, pointing to them, naming them, etc. We aren’t confused about objects, we’re unsure about our future with them, because sometimes the magic doesn’t happen.

…most of the time, mathematical results are of little to no significance — Manuel

But it is the type of certainty that math has that matters: predictable, dependable, extendable to all applications, abstract from context, separate from human fallibility, rule-bound, complete, universal—in a word, perfect. Math is significant because it can find a solution for a future occurrence; it is the power behind technology, and, to an extent, the method of science.

it just seems obvious to me that intellect is far broader than will in scope. Of course, we use the will all the time (arguably), but its scope is somewhat reduced to do this or do that or don't do, more or less. — Manuel

His use of “has a wider scope” is not helping him here, but I take him to mean that we can act without thinking, that we can follow our will whether our knowledge is clear and distinct or not; for example, without being aware of the implications of an act. Part of what makes this interesting is that the force that math has to constrain us (because it is true, independent of who is doing it) is not the same as the shame, confusion, or unintelligibility that may persuade us to take a certain action, but does not have the same force upon us, on our will.

I really do find the whole "remembering" and "from within me" to be quite accurate in my experience and surprising. We need not follow its religious aspects, but it's a powerful thought. — Manuel

I would call it imagery or a mythical description of the feeling you have when you consider and realize how, for example, doing something mistakenly is different than doing it accidentally. That actions you have been doing all along can suddenly have distinctions and rationale that you had not considered, but that, when you do, causes you to acknowledge the truth of it; part awe in its being there already, and part uncanny that it is not always apparent.

certainty in one [ math ], is not translatable to certainty on another [ the existence of God ]. — Manuel

I am just getting through the next section, but I believe he is trying to claim that math and God have the same kind of certainty. As I said above, the force of math to require acceptance, but also its independence from people, their limitations, but I am still working on that.

@Manuel @frank @Janus @Paine

I was surprised, at the 11th paragraph of the Fourth Meditation, to find Descartes’ discussion of truth centered on ethics, and not epistemology or ontology. He, of course, has not let go of his desire for certainty. “when I understand something I undoubtedly understand it correctly.” But the takeaway here is that I do not usually “understand” things (reach that level of clarity and distinction), at least not immediately; to come to where we understand something takes time.

“Well, then, where do my mistakes come from? Their source is the fact that my will has a wider scope than my intellect has, so that I am free to form beliefs on topics that I don’t understand… That is the source of my error and sin.”

So Descartes’ will and judgment is falible, indirect. We must not assume we have immediate access to the truth by some internal calculation or connection to something outside us; it takes time to get clear about what makes this situation or practice distinct from others.

When he turns himself to the particular facts about the world, ordinary criteria are there that we all have access to in order to judge and act; as Plato would say, before our birth. They lie “forgotten” (implicit) embedded in our culture.

"The truths about all these matters are so open to me, and so much in harmony with my nature, that when I first discover any of them it feels less like learning something new than like remembering something I had known before, or noticing for the first time something that was already in my mind without my having turned my mental gaze onto it."

And our practices and their criteria fit his standard to a point. They are "not under [his] control" and when he thinks of them "[he is] constrained in how [he does] this". Unfortunately, for Descartes they must be "eternal, unchanging, and independent…."

So he retreats to mathematics as his example, and the properties it has are repeatable, predictable, thus proveable and so contain the certainty he needs to extrapolate that, if he understands something, it’s properties must be true as well, which is his justification that the property of existence must be true about God.

we are inclined to do or say such and such in a specific situation X, but we are not compelled to do so. — Manuel

Yes, we of course can act however we like—the only thing “compelling” us would be our customary responses. We don’t even “decide” to agree or act appropriately most of the time. An inappropriate action may not even register as a response (unless a form of rejection); it may not do anything in light of the situation (just an engine idling Wittgenstein will say PI#132); it may not even be considered an act. Something out of place does bring up the question, “Did you intend to…?” And here the workings of “intention” are now clear without being metaphysical. We have ordinary criteria to judge whether something is or is not a certain practice, we don’t make it one with our “will”.

Thank you for your continued interest.

@Manuel @frank @Janus @Paine@wonderer1

The picture of a metaphysical “will” (largely uncontested still) is that intention is a human process or ability to create meaning in language or take a certain action. That we internally choose what we mean and decide our actions.

Descartes, in paragraph 10 of the 4th Meditation, puts it as “The will is simply one’s ability to do or not do something.” I read in this that we don’t just do “anything”, but that, in a real situation, there is an expected act (“acceptance or denial, or for pursuit or avoidance”), and we can do the expected thing (the “something”), or not do it: excuse ourselves, beg off, take a stand. The options of what action to take are not inside us, only the decision of which of those available to us do we decide to do (or to do nothing). This why “intention” is not inside us as well.

So our “free will” is not: doing anything we “intend”. We are “determined” in the sense that “anything” is not (usually) open to us. What makes a movement an “act” is its place in a situation. You call a ball or a strike. Descartes calls this being “present[ed] with a candidate”. Our freedom is that, when we are presented with the possibilities in a context, “we have no sense that we are pushed one way or the other by any external force.” So our will may very well be impinged, and our freedom is not about unfettered internal agency; as Descartes puts it, “I can be free without being inclined both ways.” The will is not having every option open (being “indifferent” he says), but having a will, an inclination, passion, desire, wish; Descartes focuses on acting on principle or knowledge, but the picture is that we are partial (made whole in the act Emerson says), personal, not simply intellectual, rational.

Thank you for taking the time to read through those notes. Rather than having an alternative “answer” to Descartes’ metaphysics, I’m finding it more meaningful in seeing that the structure of his argument mirrors that of others concerning the perfection of the self.

I would prefer to say that he strives for certainty, as far as human understanding goes… But by now we know this is not possible, it's asking for way too much. — Manuel

I’m finding that the “striving” is the important part. The goal of certainty I take as self-imposed, so I wouldn’t say we don’t have the ability to understand or that we should just settle for an approximation, but that knowledge (certainty or not) is not our entire relationship to the world, that we must complete ourselves and posture ourselves towards others beyond knowing for sure the outcome or correctness or right.

@Manuel @frank @Janus @Srap Tasmaner @Paine

The third meditation, beginning at paragraph 34, is not an argument for the existence of God; it’s trying to imagine how we could exist without God. “…if God didn’t exist, from what would I derive my existence?”

Having interpreted the text to provide that we enact ourselves (or can), I will have to account for our derivation despite our imperfection. Descartes does stand by the conclusion that we are not metaphysical, that we may not exist (or continue to), though if we do exist it is without direct, conscious control over our selves.

"I experience no such power [to continue myself into the future], and this shows me quite clearly that I depend for my continued existence on some being other than myself."

Emerson and Thoreau and Nietszche at least, not to mention Freud, picture the self as divided in two, a part of which we may only allow to guide us, passively; that our conscious self is not our “cause”, as Descartes frames it. Emerson will talk about the exemplar that brings us to our next self; Nietzsche refers to this as the humanity above us. I take Descartes to be describing the same in saying the cause of us is in a "higher form". Thoreau will say we are at times in ecstasy, beside ourselves; in other words, “outside” our (conscious) selves, where Descartes only allows perfection to remain.

Descartes' case that we cannot be our own cause is partly based on our lack of knowledge of perfection. But our further self is unable to be "grasped by the finite", as Descartes puts it, because we are not a matter of knowledge. As I described above, our self is brought about in action, choice, reaction, interaction, into the future, held to our past, etc. We perfect our selves in “aspir[ing] without limit to ever greater and better things”. The self is not known or consciously chosen, but we strive and reach for what we “can’t grasp but can somehow touch with… thought.” We are not God, but our further self is “made in [God’s] image”, “gaz[ing] with wonder… contemplating… [its] majesty”.

The question is not the existence of God, but of us. “Once, on being asked… when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, ‘The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed [known], nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is in your midst’”. Luke 17:21, New International Ver. (or “within you” in the King James Ver.)

@Manuel @frank @Paine @Janus @Srap Tasmaner

By the 28th paragraph of meditation 3, there only remains the possibility that the idea of the “infinite, eternal, unchangeable, independent” (etc.) is beyond his ability to doubt.

“my perception of the infinite, i.e. God, is in some way prior to my perception of the finite, i.e. myself. Whenever I know that I doubt something or want something, I understand that I lack something and am therefore not wholly perfect.” (Emphasis added)

I find the crux here in the throwaway feeling of “lacking” something, as he was shaken at the beginning to find himself capable of being wrong when he thought he was fine; misinformed, or betrayed by society’s habitual opinions and practices. He takes this “lack” as a problem to be solved completely before proceeding, rather than part of our human condition to be addressed going forward in each case.

The “some way” in which the infinite (perfect) is “prior to” the perception of the finite (let’s say, human fallibility) is our desire for certainty. We set it as a pre-requisite and impose that criteria over our ordinary standards and workings of our practices. We want perfection to bridge our finite, limited knowledge and condition (apart from others) rather than be personally responsible for responding to the other and trusting the shared history of our lives together into our unknown future.

@Manuel @frank @Paine @Janus @Srap Tasmaner

In the 13th paragraph of the third meditation, Descartes now moves on to question the impulse that there are others and other things than himself, and stumbles first on being unsure whether the things he judges are correct. Instead of accepting the fact that sometimes we are wrong or are interested in different aspects of the world, his desire to maintain the possibility of certainty forces him to turn our human condition into a theoretical problem and metaphysically split the uncertainty of our “idea” from a perfect “reality”.

To maintain control, he inserts between them that the world is (more) perfect because it is the “cause” of our (limited) idea, and thus why our idea may or may not “resemble” or represent the perfect external world.

“If I find that some idea of mine has so much representative reality that I am sure the same reality doesn’t reside in me, either straightforwardly or in a higher form, and hence that I myself can’t be the cause of the idea, then, because everything must have some cause, it will necessarily follow that I am not alone in the world: there exists some other thing that is the cause of that idea.”

I take it he is arguing that there cannot be anything in the world unless he is certain he is not the cause because it is “so much” or of a “higher form”. This “cause” could just be the unexamined criteria and conditions of our culture for our ordinary practices, which are our interests in the world coalesced as the different aspects, versions, or “senses” (“uses” Wittgenstein will also say) of our practices (as in his example of the sun). And the necessity of Descartes’ “cause” (its “must”) could be that there is a certain “must” to meet these criteria for a practice to be judged to be what it is, but he is fixated again on certainty and so “eventually one must come back to an idea whose cause isn’t an idea, and this cause must be a kind of archetype containing intrinsically all the reality or perfection that the idea contains only representatively.” He not only attributes this perfection outside his self but outside the world, to avoid accepting its failings, errors, mistakes, limitations, confusions, etc.

@frank @Paine @Janus @Srap Tasmaner

“Nature has apparently taught me to think that [ I can imagine an object correctly ]... When I say ‘Nature taught me to think this’, all I mean is that I have a spontaneous impulse to believe it, not that I am shown its truth by some natural light. There is a great difference between those.”

I agree with him on the innateness claim, as I just don't see an alternative, unless we attribute cognition to the world. — Manuel

Consider that our “spontaneous impulse” is to believe our judgments, which are based on the criteria and conditions that we are inculcated with, which are natural for us, as if part of our “nature” (they are how our world functions, its “cognition”), but we are not normally conscious of the workings of our judgments, not until we shine some light on them, say, by reflection.

“Things that are revealed by the natural light – for example, that if I am doubting then I exist – are not open to any doubt, because no other faculty that might show them to be false could be as trustworthy as the natural light. My natural impulses, however, have no such privilege: I have often come to think that they had pushed me the wrong way on moral questions, and I don’t see any reason to trust them in other things.”

And here we are back at the beginning, where he felt betrayed that he was wrong about something (now—as in most cases with philosophy—with a moral question) and feels he cannot rely on our “natural impulses”, our unexamined judgements, which is where philosophy starts, when we don’t know our way about and turn to reflect. Except in Descartes’ abstraction, there is no particular situation, no point of disagreement or loss as to what to do about a particular case, in a context, at a time. So he just takes his disappointment with the moral realm (where we may or may not agree) and doubts everything. So far that has actually led to uncover by reflection the criteria and conditions which are “trustworthy as the natural light”, but there remains his anxiety that God may still be deceiving us. “I can never be quite certain.”

I’ve only gotten to the 10th paragraph of the 3rd meditation. I’ll keep going and see if I find it.

@Janus @Srap Tasmaner @Manuel @frank

I don't understand how reference to "the activities, practices, judgments, etc. which are ingrained into us, unreflected upon" relates to the use of the "I" in Descartes' speech. — Paine

You’d have to show me where in the Descartes. My quote you are commenting after is in response to Descartes paragraph starting “Among my ideas, some seem to be innate”, but I do not see him making the point about our self (“I”) as above.

—Edit: I see now what you might be getting at. When I say “society” or “cultural” or “conformity” they are a catch-all which includes our lives over thousands of years which have attuned into what I am describing as “the activities, practices, judgments, etc. which are ingrained into us, unreflected upon", which I am reading Descartes to echo. But I will leave my original response below.—

If you are responding to my interpretation of his assertion of his self, I would not say it is connected to my interpretation of Descartes describing thought as a list of activities (in the 2nd Med.) other than I take thought, not as a given, continually-occurring brain activity (like talking to yourself, or, as you say “something that is always there”) which some take that he then notices and concludes that, because of our self-awareness, he must be something, but that, as he says, “while” he is asserting something—which I take as a sense of what “thinking” is, as an activity, in this case, asserting (what I argue is in relation to our culture)—then he is manifesting his self, thus: “I think. I am.”, to be understood as “[[b]while[/b]] I think [i.e., assert myself], I am [me].” I realize now that asserting yourself is not just in aversion to society or culture but can also be to be with society, as an act of, say, accepting expectations as your own duty, to define one’s self. Thank you for the opportunity to clarify.

I have the same doubts about how this relates to Wittgenstein in the comment that I raised before and encounter a new one when you mention 'Theology as Grammer" — Paine

I don’t think it is appropriate here to get into a side argument about what Wittgenstein is doing, instead of just focusing on what I take Descartes to be doing in the spirit of a non-metaphysical inquiry as Wittgenstein did. That said, I take this reference to be to this comment:

By speaking of an ‘indescribable part of myself which cannot be pictured by the imagination', it seems to me that Descartes is pointing at something that is always there but is not understood. In the Third Meditation, Descartes says he needs the existence of God to find grounds for its relation to all of his activities. That seems the opposite approach of Wittgenstein, who describes our use of language to show what it is for us. — Paine

It would be easier if you spelled a few things out for me. I’m not sure where/if Descartes does make the claim about needing God; I do take Wittgenstein as going through examples to show something, but I take that as, partly, that there is different grammar for each example so not just one way the world (thus language) works, so I don’t know what you mean that he is showing “what it is for us”—is “it” language? Language is different for us than God?—And then how is what you take as Descartes’ need for God related to what you are taking Wittgenstein to show us? That Descartes needs certainty (perfection) to communicate where “for us”, i.e., “our use of language” is different? And, as I don’t understand Wittgenstein’s theology as grammar quote, I don’t know what you are saying about that.

Consider the different way thinking is being observed by the two philosophers. At the very least, would you not acknowledge a difference between the "I" that observes the thinking activity as an immediate event by Descartes and something like this from Wittgenstein?: — Paine

Again, it would be much easier if you told me what you take the difference to be, or at least what the “something like this” illustrates about the way Wittgenstein views thinking (though only to illuminate the Descartes). From what I think I understand, I take “the thinking activity as an immediate event” just to be self-awareness, and not “thinking”, and that Descartes’ description of thinking as an activity is more like Wittgenstein’s understanding of thinking (thus why animals can do it, PI #25, in the sense of, e.g., problem-solving; or that we can do it, in the sense of considering (getting a new pen), without talking to ourselves #327-332).

@Paine @Janus @Srap Tasmaner @Manuel

I continue, into the 2nd meditation, to assert that “perceiving” and “perception” is not a natural brain process that needs to be explained, but the activity of coming to consciously understand the ordinary criteria and conditions that something “consists of”, thus, when Descartes says “whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true” I take it that, when we are able to clearly and distinctly uncover the criteria and conditions of something, we understand how something is deemed to be “true”; what set of characteristics (criteria) it is logically necessary to conform or align with or be consistent or faithful to; what “truth” is (consists of) in this instance.

Edit: “my understanding of what a thing is, what truth is, and what thought is, derive purely from my own nature, which means that it is innate”

To say that: how something will be deemed true, such as a royal succession or an apology; what makes up a “thought”—thoughtful, thought out; or tells what is essential to us about a “thing”—what kind of object anything is, Wittgenstein will say, PI #373, which is revealed by what he terms “grammar”: the terms of the possibilities of something, Id. #90. (As an aside, he just after characterizes this connection as “Theology as Grammar”, which I have never been able to figure out.)—to say that these “understandings” are innate, arise from my own nature, is to point to something within us, that we are born with, or into, as are Plato’s forms. My answer to this are the activities, practices, judgments, etc. which are ingrained into us, unreflected upon—what we would consider “natural”—as a member of a culture.

I am not making claims about what you are calling our “ordinary perception”, which I take as our habitual unexamined lives. I disagree that science or “philosophy” (as you see it) are “more reflexive and considerate” than the examination of our regular criteria for judgment about identity, completion, exemptions, etc. Drawing out the standards and conditions of what something “consists in”, as Descartes says, examines and describes what we do rather than creating explanations (and abilities or processes) that fit our desire for certainty (which I argue is the birth of the metaphysical).

When I claim that Descartes’ “perceiving” is not a natural ability or brain process but is more like an activity, I mean like an analysis, an effort that we are in the habit of doing but that we can, nevertheless, reflect upon, be “puzzled by”. When I say like pointing or negotiating, I mean in the sense of a learned behavior, like “seeing” (which is like recognizing, identifying) compared to the faculty of vision. The “tremendous amount of stuff… going on behind the most trivial acts” is the history of human life and our growing up and being indoctrinated into these cultural activities. You learn (even if simply following others’ lead) how to “point”, how to “see”, how to “perceive”, as you learn how to apologize, thank, and promise, all together as the habits that Descartes is trying to pick apart, because we can reflect on our behavior and uncover the conditions and criteria that make up our practices.

@frank @Paine @Janus @Srap Tasmaner

You can attempt to do an epistemological take, without the metaphysics and argue, that in "vulgar" (or ordinary) life, many of these objects are confused and unclear, but when we go into a scientific/philosophical perspective, our ideas of these objects become clearer and more distinct. — Manuel

I’m using “ordinary” in its sense of: not special, not as: unexamined; it is in contrast to creating clarity by abstraction from any context or regular criteria and requiring only the certainty of logic or science. But we are just as capable of precision and rigorous analysis of our ordinary criteria as a “philosophical” perspective. The wish for philosophy to have science-like conclusions is to cover for, or hide from, our messy, vulgar lives and so sets aside “people” and creates the metaphysical, whether it’s the mind or “advanced brain processes”. Descartes is actually saying that our first impression from our senses, say vision, is not as clear as when we uncover the criteria and conditions for, say, the activity of seeing—the inferences we make, the reasons that matter to us for doing it.

without a mind, perception alone amounts for very little. — Manuel

I am claiming that—although it seems natural to assume—perceiving here is not a natural ability or brain function, but an activity like pointing, or negotiating (which is a critical differentiation, not terminological), and that “perception” is seeing what something “consists” of, it’s conditions and criteria, as Descartes did with the wax.

the mind/brain is the organ we use to judge and identify things, while adding the qualifier that it is people that judge and think, and not minds, — Manuel

The brain allows for vision, which gives us information; but we are trained (or pick up how) to identify objects ( say, apart from identifying colors)—to use criteria to judge a goldfinch from a robin, a rock from a turtle. Think of making an error in identifying an object; now did you judge wrong, or did your “brain” make a mistake? And what really is it to “identify things”? We don’t always identify things. We don’t need to. So there are certain conditions, contexts, where we only can be “identifying things”. Looking for the right cereal box? Trying to determine the genus of a new species? Do I take an apple as an apple? Every time?

giving an epistemological reading of his account can be fruitful” — Manuel

I’m not limiting my claims to epistemology; Descartes is discussing ontology (what is and is not, and how), existentialism (the creation of a self), ethics (creation of a better self). I’m just reading him as not giving metaphysical answers.

@Manuel@Janus@frank@Paine@Srap Tasmaner

“But although my perception of [the ball of wax] seemed to be a case of vision and touch and imagination, it isn’t so and it never was. Rather, it is purely a perception by the mind alone – formerly an imperfect and confused one, but now clear and distinct because I am now concentrating carefully on what the wax consists in…”

Well, attempting a non-metaphysical reading here will require some imagination and leniency. Some might say I am inserting what I want into the text, or stretching what is obviously not the case. But if there is the possibility that Descartes’ terms need not necessarily be read as metaphysical, then isn’t that the imposition of a framework (even by Descartes), and in the face of textual evidence of an alternative?

I take Descartes as recognizing that the history of identifying objects, finding characteristics, following the extension of possibilities, etc., in short, our whole lives of interwoven activities, are the conditions for “perceiving” this as a ball of wax; that the wax does not “consist“ as a body (object) but in these non-sensory, non-physical criteria and conditions.

Yes, he calls it “perception by the mind alone”, however, we can still say in a sense we only realize and “see”—as an activity apart from the brain’s sensory vision—this as a ball of wax by the ordinary criteria we judge “makes up” or matter to us about a ball of wax, or a thing to throw at someone, or an adhesive for a poster to a wall, etc. and not “perception” as a mental process like vision or requiring “mind” to be an object, rather than our (and our shared) means of judgment and identification.

“When the wax is in front of us, we say that we see it, not that we judge it to be there from its colour or shape; and this might make me think that knowledge of the wax comes from what the eye sees rather than from the perception of the mind alone. But this is clearly wrong, as the following example shows. If I look out of the window and see men crossing the square, as I have just done, I say that I see the men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax; yet do I see any more than hats and coats that could conceal robots? I judge that they are men.” Emphasis added.

And here is the example that makes it clear that “seeing” and “judging” are activities and not sensations or another faculty wherein we recognize an “object” or an essence or thing-in-itself (the “themselves”). As in the Theatetus, having something be visible to us does not equate to our knowledge of “it”. Austin cleverly makes this point by showing the ordinary ways in which we could be mistaken in applying our criteria to judge a case from seeing hats and coats.

And the fear of not being certain crops up again in the precipice he imagines in not having any metaphysical “themselves” (itself) taking it as far as the fantasy that we judge that the other is not human, or, less cataclysmically, not to be considered, not worth empathy for their pain (rather than certain knowledge). But he is realizing that our ordinary criteria for judgment are enough without metaphysical abstraction, thus that we can conclude these are people from only hats and coats.

Is that line [between asking and pressuring] particularly clear? Isn't this exactly the sort of thing people very often disagree about? — Srap Tasmaner

We are, of course far afield here, but, that people can disagree about it, does not mean that they ordinarily (“very often”) do, nor that the conditions and criteria are not there to make explicit (the grounds for inteligibility, rationality) in relation to the context of this particular case we draw out as necessary to show the confusion or what makes this an exception.

([the conditions] "Allowing"??? [for requesting]) — Srap Tasmaner

Allowing is here in the sense of the opportunity for. To ask for something meaningfully, the situation has to be appropriate. The conditions would be like the Kantian categorical requirements (except for each activity).

And sure we can use language lazily if we like, but beating a nail in with a screwdriver doesn’t make it a hammer. — Antony Nickles

But this is odd. It takes considerable effort for Descartes to achieve the degree of abstraction he does in his reasoning, to extract himself from everyday ways of thinking. Doesn't look like laziness. — Srap Tasmaner

My point was not to define the motivation, but to carry the point that generalizing can be useful, or thoughtless, etc. In Descartes case, as I have discussed, it is the result of his desire for certainty.

Recognizing that the screwdriver will do is not laziness, here, but insight, achieved by abstracting, and by flouting the rules about how tools ought to be used. — Srap Tasmaner

The insight is not “achieved by abstracting”—which is the removal from context and the associated ordinary criteria in place of a generalization, to which we then can impose our desire for certainty projecting an “ought” that we can achieve if we just follow predetermined “rules”—but from the “possibilities” of tools, including their open-endedness to solve problems, which comes from familiarity, thus why carpentry is an apprenticeship and not mostly explicit knowledge.

To attempt to get back on track, my claim here is that Descartes’ focus on the possibilities of thinking as various activities tells us more, and creates a clearer framework, than the abstraction of “thinking” as a process of a metaphysical self (brain, mind), which he avoids in—among other evidence I have discussed—acknowledging that he only “exists” as apart from the pull of society, while thinking. If that is unclear, I have walked through the text above in multiple posts.

Affirming or doubting are acts with very specific criteria done in particular situations, just like asking, or thanking.
— Antony Nickles

How specific? Is there not more than one way of asking? Of thanking? Of affirming or doubting? Are there not specific sorts of specificity? How finely must we chop experience before the spectre of generality has been sufficiently warded off? — Srap Tasmaner

If generalizing haunts us, it’s in connection with removing anything specific to something’s ordinary context, such as “experience”. Used without there being anything extraordinary, it looses its ability to differentiate that is a hallmark of its being brought up. Your history may give you a different perspective, as might undergoing something distinctive (no one will ask about your experience of breakfast, unless you, say, went to a new Dim Sum restaurant), but general experience is categorically unremarkable, unless you have your head in a book.

And, as any lawyer knows, speaking generally may be more appropriate than detailing every instance, but just because I can plead, cajole, call in a favor, etc. and call them all “asking” doesn’t make the conditions allowing for a request to be any less specific nor the criteria for judging the line where it becomes pressuring any less clear. And sure we can use language lazily if we like, but beating a nail in with a screwdriver doesn’t make it a hammer.

@frank @Manuel @Janus

The "always there" I pointed to refers to the "thinking thing" being there when we pay attention to it. — Paine

What I should have said was that it is not an ordinary “thing” (given, constant, observable), and that the characteristics (criteria) of this “thinking” type of thing are not those of an object. It only exists “while” we are thinking, and is feared to go away if we stop. “I exist—that is certain. But for how long? For as long as I am thinking. For it could be that were I totally to cease from thinking, I should totally cease to exist.”

I think Descartes is asking us to accept that the self is a thing despite not being imaginable or described the way other things are. — Paine

I don’t see evidence of that request and interpreting what I do see that way is jumping to a conclusion. Descartes wants to have a certain constant self, but is honest enough to stop short of assuming that.

Seeing the act of thinking as a list of activities does not reflect the problem of description that I commented upon upthread. By speaking of an 'indescribable part of myself which cannot be pictured by the imagination', it seems to me that Descartes is pointing at something that is always there but is not understood. — Paine

Or we could take what he says on its face as stating a fact. Cottingham’s translation is “But I still can’t help thinking that bodies – of which I form mental images and which the senses investigate – are much more clearly known to me than is this puzzling ‘I’ that can’t be pictured in the imagination.” The self cannot be pictured because it is not a body. He is saying it is “indescribable” and “puzzling” not to spur us to try harder to, say, solve the puzzle of describing it, but to say categorically it is not a thing to be described because it is not a thing (“that is always there”). It is not conversely a thing that is not here, something incorporeal. We could say the self is mythical. We are a work in progress (or not), but not a given constant. We are an open question. It is puzzling because it is not how we would reflexively picture it (want to have it be in order for it to be known, and with certainty), that we are still on the way to a new way of thinking of ourselves.