But why should our cognition's form be fixed ? — plaque flag

Interesting. What do you have in mind - evolution or deliberate transformation?

About the aliens: How would Kant understand our understanding of their physics ? Would it necessarily be counterintuitive or false for us ? Despite its effectiveness ? — plaque flag

In my sketch here I am imagining that we (Kant and us) would not be able to assess the effectiveness of the physics on the basis that we have no frame of reference for it. This is just one of those preposterous hypotheticals which is of limited application. :wink:

The Greek term logos gives us a better sense of the problem then 'language'. What is at issue is the logic of saying, a logos of logos. The ability to give a comprehensive account. — Fooloso4

There can be no comprehensive account of being without a comprehensive account of non-being. But what is other is without limit and cannot be comprehended. On the one hand this means that there can never be a comprehensive account of the whole, but on the other, it encourages an openness to what might be; beyond our limits of comprehension. — Fooloso4

I got you. Thanks.

Put your hand in boiling water for a few seconds. Can this pain be doubted? — Astrophel

The pain perhaps not, but is this any more convincing of a material reality than Dr Johnson attempting to refute Berkeley by kicking a stone?

So, rather than saying that things in themselves do not exist in space and time, he could have said that they do not exist in cognitive space and time — Janus

Oh nice..

We can imagine augmentation of the senses we are familiar with, but I don't think we can imagine entirely different senses. — Janus

I agree we can't image the different senses, but can't we imagine that they might have an entirely different dimensionality to inhabit? As 'off limits' to us as the hypothetical noumena.

The very idea of things in themselves suggests difference and duration, which seems to depend on the ideas of space and time. — Janus

Indeed. One gets the feeling that at some point we just have to use inadequate terms to give an impression of what is meant because there simply isn't the vocabulary or conceptual framework to explore it. We are stuck with 'us' to speak of 'them'...

According to general relativity that isn't the case. The laws of physics do explain how we process reality (partly, rest is neuroscience). — Darkneos

Could be. I don't know if this is true and it is contested space so all I'm doing is following the speculations without commitment.

IF anything science demonstrates that our intuition isn't a good measure of reality. — Darkneos

Certainly - although I understand it sometimes took intuition to formulate a hypothesis science later demonstrated.

It just seems impossible to us that possible experience could fail to be either spatial or temporal or both. I suppose we could deny that this is synthetic a priori and say instead that it is analytic, in the sense that only spatial or temporally given phenomena count as experiences. — Janus

Perhaps a silly question - but if, as Kant and subsequent others suggest, space and time are built into our cognitive apparatus and not the universe , does this not suggest that the laws of physics are a reflection of how we process reality, not reality as it is in itself (the ineffable noumena). And does it follow from this that hypothetical sophisticated aliens who do not utilize human cognition might have developed an entirely different and efficacious alternative to our physics? A physics which appears to map onto their world the way ours appears to map onto ours? And there's the possibility that even this account of reality, however it might appear, is still just an appearance...

One of my all-time favourite Buddhist texts was subtitled 'Seeking truth in a time of chaos'. Don't loose sight of the fact that modernity - actually, post-modernity - is chaotic. There's a lot of turmoil, vastly incompatible opinions and worldviews all jostling one another for prominence. Learn to live with it, but I recommend not trying to tame the waters. It's beyond any of us to to that. — Wayfarer

I hear you.

Each side stands both together with and apart from the other. There is not one without the other.

Ultimately, there is neither ‘this or that’ but ‘this and that’. The Whole is not reducible to One. The whole is indeterminate.

And yet we do separate this from that. Thinking and saying are dependent on making just such distinctions. — Fooloso4

Thank you for this, but I'm not sure I follow. What are you saying this tells us about language? That its relationship with the world is one of an irreducible dyad? Can you expand this point a little?

Cool. I noticed there is a George Kelly Society. I've read about him, but not in any detail. I'll follow this up. Thanks.

In other words, logical norms are legitimate, but the 'rhetoric' of power is overwhelming. I can't afford to not use a money-making war-winning algorithm, even if I don't understand it. In our complex economy, we are constantly forced to specialists on topics we don't have time to learn about ourselves. As apokrisis mentioned elsewhere, it costs energy to ask questions.

So maybe philosophers are a mostly ignored priesthood, who might as well be stampcollectors in the context of the way we live now. IMO, politicians are junkfood 'applied' philosophers who are nevertheless effective precisely through easily understood oversimplifications. — plaque flag

Yes, I think I see this and agree. As I said earlier, most of us probably recognize we are tied to a world of ideas and platforms built by our ancestors. But we take this as a given and move on. We don't have the disposition for exploration, nor the foundational knowledge to be of any use in unpicking those ideas and imagining alternatives. Except perhaps is a strictly transactional way through incremental improvements in politics and how we conduct our businesses. Or something like that.

As someone who works in the field of mental health, you may appreciate the fact that every major shift in approach to psychotherapy is directly linked to the outcome of these rarified debates. — Joshs

Yes, I do appreciate this and I understand something of the source material. We know our ideas can be tracked back to other ideas. What I am referring to however is that most of us don't have the inclination to 'look under the hood and tinker with the engine.' :wink:

It also allows us to see the revolutionary paradigm shifts from one era of science to the next as an improvement. This is how Rorty puts it in ‘ What Do You Do When They Call You a 'Relativist'?’ — Joshs

Cool. Thanks for the essay.

I guess Rorty argues similarly by saying (my paraphrase) that all of our values are contingent on other values and so on forever, without the possibility of a final resting place or source.
— Tom Storm

That’s a cartoon version of relativism that Rorty often made fun of , and which is why he rejected the label of relativist. — Joshs

Wasn't meant to be a cartoon, it's simply what I hear when I read him put it like this:

There is nothing to be known about anything except an initially large, and forever expandable, web of relations to other things. Everything that can serve as a term of relation can be dissolved into another set of relations, and so on for ever. There are, so to speak, relations all the way down, all the way up, and all the way out in every direction: you never reach something which is not just one more nexus of relations.

- Contingency, Irony and Solidarity


It's not my intention to misrepresent him.

Within a given cultural , ethical or scientific milieu, there is a certain dynamic stability of shared values which makes possible agreement on matters of common concern. This is why scientists are able to reach consensus, technologists are able to build machines, there can be agreement on legal matters. — Joshs

I'm happy to hear it.

Yes, it has transcended its origins. I like it as an undifferentiated cheap shot about pointless questions.

So I ask again: what should we do if neuroscience still hasn't explained consciousness 1,000 years from now? — RogueAI

Perhaps the problem will remain forever unsolved, like the one about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. :razz:

Are you asking if we can dispense with morality? I think we do when we look at ourselves naturalistically, anthropologically. — frank

No, it was a provocation about the relativistic dimensions of postmodern thinking. But your point is interesting.

Seems to me that if one were to follow antirealist ideas into ethics, one would be setting aside any such ethical truths, just as for ontology. Putin, not Christ, is the consequent. — Banno

And given Putin' s war is blessed by the church, they are perhaps not so far apart in some people's worldviews. But that's a separate problem. I agree that foundational thinking (of which morality must be a form) is impossible in the land of the dead metanarrative.

Well, as Searle points out in the podcast, even if we "can't take any particular account as granted", it does not follow that nothing we say is true! — Banno

Yes. It's easy to throw out babies with bathwater. The other (and similar) position is to argue that since truth can't be taken for granted or even identified (whether it exists or not) why worry about it?

The co-creation part comes in with the socially., culturally and linguistically mediated interpretations that produce the model we call "the external world". But let us not forget the more primordial biologically and semiotically mediated dimensions, which we have in common with other organisms. Shall we say that other organisms also co-create their Umwelts? — Janus

Nicely done. Agree. Reality, such as it, is is embodied cognition.

perhaps it is co-creation all the way down. :wink: — Janus

The other option is confusions all the way down. That seems fairly popular too. On a separate note, I did hear a philosopher (I forget who ) in a guided discussion on truth saying, 'What's wrong with endless recursion, anyway?' Not a notion we hear very often. I guess Rorty argues similarly by saying (my paraphrase) that all of our values are contingent on other values and so on forever, without the possibility of a final resting place or source.

I hope that, that you are reading this, now, is not something of which you need philosophical reassurance. — Banno

No, that much I don't find problematic.

Seems to me that there is a clear sense in which two folk can each draw a different picture of the same vase. Joshs seems to deny this. To me, that reeks of sophistry. — Banno

I don't take @Joshs for a sophist and perhaps that's not what you meant. I think he has a very particular and complex frame of reference for these matters, which are not necessarily intuitive or easy to describe (outside of a domain of discourse). Or compatible with other ways of describing the world (for want of a better phrase). I think he is saying in essence that reality is co-created and that we can't take any particular account for granted. What we see is partly, or largely, based on our suppositions and the very words we use. I don't think he is saying there is no truth but that there are contingent truths that they are not all compatible and generally align with particular worldviews or 'value systems'. Anyway, the question at hand is, do we ever arrive at an approach where genocide can't be seen as different to charity?

What I was attempting to say was that a personal morality that doesn't seek to influence others is not, in my view, really a morality - it's aesthetic preference — ChrisH

I think that's kind of what I was thinking too.

Is there a fact of the matter about anything?
— Joshs

Yes. That you are reading this, for example. — Banno

I have to say some of the nuances of philosophical thinking make me long for the simpler world of common sense delusions. I guess any idea can be picked apart using a given schema and will doubtlessly appear coherent to the acolyte. What I find most challenging is not knowing which way to go in matters like this. I suspect these rarified debates about the nature of reality and how language functions are primarily for the benefit of the cognoscenti, a bit like Star Trek lore or stamp collecting.

Oh ok, I get you. In which case my language was insufficient for purposes.

Morality comes into play when the intention behind the actions of a person runs afoul of previously established expectations and trust between that person and others. That person knowingly disappoints a standard of conduct for no good reason. — Joshs

Thank you.

These descriptions are just redefinitions of immorality as willful disregard of what is right. — Joshs

Hmm - I'm trying to see this, nor can I see how this might help us in the matter. Can you sharpen this for me?

If we say, for instance, that the mass murder of a minority group is wrong - is this just a redefinition of immorality as 'willful disregard of what is right' and is so what is the alternative?

These descriptions are just redefinitions of immorality as willful disregard of what is right. They come down to saying that wrongful behavior is a failure to do what is right. Looked at through this vapid lens , it’s no wonder morality doesn’t vary all that much across cultures. — Joshs

Are you saying the observation I made is vapid, or the way morality is generally framed across cultures is vapid?

They come down to saying that wrongful behavior is a failure to do what is right. — Joshs

I partly understand this point, but it's the question of what is defined as wrongful behaviour that is the issue, isn't it? Does what you say change the fact that stealing (which may have various definitions) is generally considered wrong across cultures? (And I am not saying all cultures, or all people in all cultures and I'm not talking about situational exemptions, etc)

How do you understand morality?

Antirealists point out that for "The kettle is boiling" to be true, we need "The", "kettle", "is" and "boiling". And seem to stop there. — Banno

Do they? I thought they were more crafty. I thought they were more likely to accept that there is empirical justification for holding that (in this example) something is happening, subject to a contingent activities and discourse. A kettle and boiling would work in English and pragmatically if you are steaming a hat or making tea, etc. But what do I know?

What is the 'it' that rains? Really there is no such object, there is simply 'raining' but the structure of our language is such that it has to be expressed in those terms.
— Wayfarer

It's obvious; the sky rains. — Janus

The it = It is the case that it is raining? :wink:

One example arises from the propositional structure of the language which differs from the inflected languages like Latin, where the declensions of verbs are given in the verb suffix rather than distinct particles 'I', 'we', 'they' etc. The effect of this is seen, for example, in the expression 'it is raining', which suggest 'an object which rains'. (This is something I remember Alan Watts commenting on.) What is the 'it' that rains? Really there is no such object, there is simply 'raining' but the structure of our language is such that it has to be expressed in those terms. This underlying structure tends to make English a rather transactional language, comprising objects, subjects and activities, which reflects a somewhat 'atomised' conception of reality, rather than imparting a sense of flow or union which is suggested in other languages. — Wayfarer

That's an interesting example worth noting.

The way I have come to understand it is that there are domains of discourse within which words derive their meaning. I don't know if there is anything like a universal language in that sense (although maths and physics would come close, but they're not languages in the sense being discussed.) Hence the significance of hermeneutics, which is mainly aimed at understanding language within its particular domain of discourse. — Wayfarer

This echoes what Richard Rorty says about truth as being the product of a domain of discourse rather than attached to 'reality'. Which potentially brings us back to Lawson's point about language not being connected in a discernable way to reality.

Which may lead one to thinking this (Rorty this time):

To drop the idea of languages as representations, and to be thoroughly Wittgensteinian in our approach to language, would be to de-divinise the world. Only if we do that can we fully accept the argument I offered earlier – the argument that since truth requires sentences, since sentences are products of vocabularies, and since vocabularies are made by human beings, so are truths. For as long as we think that ‘the world’ names something which we ought to respect as well as to cope with, something which is person-like in that it has a preferred description of itself, we shall insist that any philosophical account of truth save the ‘intuition’ that truth is ‘out there’. This intuition amounts to the vague sense that it would be hubris on our part to abandon the traditional language of ‘respect for fact’ and ‘objectivity’ – that it would be risky and blasphemous not to see the scientist (or the philosopher, or the poet, or somebody) as having a priestly function, as putting us in touch with a realm which transcends the human.

d guess that you weren't able to follow the OP due to reading it using your understanding of morality rather than mine. As I don't understand your critique either, unless I just think of it as a critique of my explanation of morality. — Judaka

Could be.

Though, by the way, what do you mean by "aesthetic"? — Judaka

I think people often select positions based on whether they find them attractive or ugly. Like selecting some music. 'I think homosexuality is wrong' for instance, may just be a synonym for, 'I find it gross'. The statement, 'I believe in god' may just mean, 'The world is more beautiful when I attribute a creator to it.' That kind of thing.

I'm not entirely sure I follow your argument. I guess morality is social behavior and probably only significant where there are other conscious creatures. You don't really have or need morality if no one else exists. In this way, morality must essentially be a code of conduct or a set of 'traffic lights' to regulate behaviors. It's true that (outside of societal rules) we tend to pick moral behaviors that appeal to our preferences but this is culturally generated - a result of education and socialization. Morality doesn't vary all that much across cultures - not stealing, killing or causing suffering within communities of concern are the classic themes. The community of concern may widen or shrink, depending upon what the values of the culture. Not everyone counts as a citizen in some cultures.

One has moral views such as that a man beating his wife is "cowardly", that "incest is disgusting", or that "a man should provide for his family" or whatever else — Judaka

Are they moral reasons or aesthetic? Beating anyone may or may not be cowardly, the salient moral issue is it is causing suffering to another conscious creature. Incest being disgusting is an aesthetic response, isn't it? It may be a moral transgression, where it doesn't involve consent and results in significant birth defects and suffering.

If the subject were a still life with flowers, vases, glasses and fruit, for example, and the instruction to represent every item, I have no doubt that most people would do that, which shows that people see the same things. — Janus

I think that's right. Painting is likely to depart from realism when the deliberate stylization (expressionist, impressionist, etc) result in aesthetic variation. But this isn't because the artists see the flowers differently, it's because they depict them using a particular style.

:up:

— William Shatner, actor — 180 Proof

Wow! Amazing quote.

Every time we think it's aliens, it's never aliens. — RogueAI

DItto god/s. :razz:

But still there are countless truths that deal with the natural constraints of a physical world: I can't walk through or see through walls, I can't fly, I can't even entertain two thoughts simultaneously, I cannot increase or decrease my size, weight or strength instantly, I can't know things I haven't learned, I can't change my appearance without resorting to disguise or plastic surgery...the list is huge... — Janus

No question about that.

If the postmodernist says all is text, and we construct the world through and through, they go far too far, in my opinion. — Janus

I've never quite known if they go as far as the critics suggest. :wink: I think they are probably an easy target... relativism this... relativism that... blah, blah blah. Like Chomsky I find them too complex to formulate a clear understanding, and I've never had the time. But I have to say, what I do know I find fascinating.

When I read Rorty, I am sometimes stuck by the romanticism underpinning the thinking - 'My sense of the holy is bound up with the hope that some day my remote descendants will live in a global civilization in which love is pretty much the only law.'

The basic truths, which are countless, like you will die if you try to swim across the Pacific Ocean, jump off Mt Everest or try to fight a tiger bare-handed don't change. — Janus

It's funny how truth only seems to take something closer to solid form when death is the accompaniment.

Seems perfectly reasonable to me. I think that is a very succinct summary of the matter as understood by Lawson et al.

What do we mean by reality? There is no one answer to this question, there are just answers that fit within the context of a particular language-game. If you're an idealist or realist depends on what language-game you believe best describes reality, or best maps reality. If you're religious, then you accept those views of reality as interpreted by a certain view of metaphysics. If you're not religious you'll latch onto views that have another view of metaphysics. If you hold to a third view, as I do, then you'll hold to another view of metaphysics. — Sam26

Thanks Sam. I have sympathy for this view.

Do they believe the way we divide up the world is arbitrary and entirely dependent on us? Well, they believe that there are better and worse, more or less valid ways to carve up the world, but the arbiter of validity is itself a construction. Put differently, the world speaks back to us in the language in which we couch our questions, so truth is the product of a ceaseless conversation between personal and interpersonal construction , and events. — Joshs

It's hard for me not to agree. I wonder what the best arguments against this might be?

How do they determine what is a better or worse way - a type of pragmatism - useful for certain purposes? How is that determined?

Whilst it might be virtuous and practical to pursue minimalism and a frugal lifestyle, there’s nothing much in the public sphere that encourages it, and there’s no philosophical rationale for it. — Wayfarer

Yes. I think the more recent interest in Epicureanism is heading in this direction. It seems capitalism and marketing rule the world - not just in terms of consumerism, but models of reality and human behaviour. I recall a huge movement of countercultural, anti-consumerist philosophy back in the 1970's, some of it was not aligned with Eastern beliefs, it was just anti 'the man' and anti spending on 'rat race' nonsense. Much of this seems to be aligned with aesthetics and oppositional world views.

What would you consider to be an example of a robust philosophical foundation for a frugal lifestyle (as opposed to religious asceticism)?

There is no countervailing ideology to consumerism, because there's no philosophical or social framework that recognises anything other than consumption and material goods. — Wayfarer

Minimalism is growing in scope. It's generally secular and tends to eschew consumerism and owning lots of objects. I have been an informal and not very focused minimalist for many years. I am currently working to get rid of my car - I lived without heating and cooling for many years and own few appliances. I have noticed over decades that many people who profess spirituality are curiously tied to consumerism and seem to love their creature comfort - pools, cars, clothes, appliances, holiday homes, overseas trips, interior decoration, etc.

So, I am asking, how do you see the 'self' as coexisting as subject and object? — Jack Cummins

I'm not sure I understand the nuances of your construction, but I'll have a go. I do think about myself in third person or as a kind of protagonist in a drama. It might be me at an event recently experienced, or the banal drive in to work that morning. I am certainly accustomed to seeing my contributions or behaviours in a sort of panoptic overview, as a nominally detached observer of my behaviours. When doing this I am sometimes surprised by what I see.

What I notice when I do this is a gap between how I justified a particular behaviour to myself in the experience and how it must look to others. When I think about myself 30 years ago I view this person as a quite different being, whose behaviour and actions are sometimes as puzzling as those of a stranger. I wonder if this is a common thing for people as they age.

What we tend to forget when we look back at behaviour are the invisible pressures, social expectations, peer pressure, mores that contribute to the behaviour and often leave no trace.

It's important to note that this understanding of myself as an object is a contrivance and is probably fraught with contradictions and problems and I can't vouch for its accuracy.

Ever run across the Saphir-Whorf hypothesis? Also known as linguistic relativity, — Wayfarer

Thanks, I have, but I didn't know this name or source. Is this not Wittgenstein's understanding too, as in, “The limit of my language is the limit of my world."

:up: Fair enough.

Could be but I thought your question was about why people use the terms interchangeably on this thread. Sounds like we’ve covered it then. Cheers T.

Well, on what I have read Lawson asserts this, but without argument. Have you seen something with a bit more substance? — Banno

Yes, he says we don't have to abandon criteria of value (these are 'closures' which can be of great use to us), we just need to recognise their contingency and that they are there to achieve a shared purpose - ie, morality. He often seems to say (paraphrasing) 'Things don't need to be objectively true in order to be extremely useful.' And I think you and I both have the same follow up questions to this.

I have read a number of interviews and papers on line and I am pretty sure he raises this point in a couple of YouTube lectures.

The reason I highlighted Lawson is precisely because he is a 'lightweight' or more accessible thinker and somewhat derivative of Rorty and other more complex thinkers. It is instructive to see how some of these ideas look without the decorative filagree of more impenetrable scholarship. I'm sure the university types resent his work and popular appeal. I have no real commitment to Lawson, I'm just curious about the argument he presented in the OP.