No actually, revelation and empirical investigation are often at odds. One issue here is that the word "revelation" can be used in several ways, I have in mind two of them.

One meaning of the word is tied with religion, which is what I think you are hinting at. If used in this way, then we would still be using Aristotelean physics.

The other would be more ordinary usage of the word, in such a manner that you have a sudden insight into a problem you previously struggled with. How or why this happens is not at all clear, but, it doesn't signal the existence of divinity in any way.

You'd have to provide some criteria which could be applied to God alone (and not something else) which could be investigated.

I think the term 'folk psychology' is condescending jargon deployed by a cult movement inside academia, the so-called 'eliminativists'.

I'm surprised you find it so offensive. It's connected to 'folk science,' I'd think, along with 'folk art' and 'folk music.' I'm pretty sure you think that progress in philosophy requires time and seriousness, and I think the same is true for psychology, hence the contrast with what everybody already 'knows' (like the folk metaphysics of man-on-the-street realism.)

Folk science describes ways of understanding and predicting the natural and social world, without the use of rigorous methodologies (see Scientific method). One could label all understanding of nature predating the Greeks as "folk science".

Folk science is often accepted as "common wisdom" in a given culture, and gets passed on as memes. According to some evolutionary psychologists, it may also reflect the output of evolved cognitive processes of the human mind which have been adapted in the course of human evolution.

Is it not the case that spiritual traditions violate the expectations of 'common sense' ? Is the self not an illusion ? The world not an illusion ? I think you're being biased here.

But already after one sentence (about liquidity) it became clear! — EugeneW

@lll just suds their with cheers born fume is ice. Or there sad @lll with jeers porn out a size.

Pour pour @lll just soot there with far in a sighs.

Lick wet he did wither !

A mouth a mouth for river you are...

Is it not the case that spiritual traditions violate the expectations of 'common sense' ? Is the self not an illusion ? The world not an illusion ? I think you're being biased here. — lll

The point about the eliminativists generally, is that they're falling into exactly the trap that Schopenhauer describes: “Materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself.” Eliminativism forgets the very faculty which makes philosophy possible in the first place, viz, critical reflection on the nature of lived experience - not on what constitutes experience as a theoretical construct or system or so-called 'objective science'. That is why D B Hart says that Dennett's conjectures are 'so preposterous as to verge on the deranged'.

The 'spiritual traditions' may indeed surpass common sense, but eliminativism falls well short of it, and there's a big difference!

“Materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself.” — Wayfarer

It's a great line, isn't it?

Schopenhauer also says:

"Everything objective, extended, active, and hence everything material, is regarded by materialism as so solid a basis for its explanations that a reduction to this (especially if it should ultimately result in thrust and counter-thrust) can leave nothing to be desired. But all this is something that is given only very indirectly and conditionally, and is therefore only relatively present, for it has passed through the machinery and fabrication of the brain, and hence has entered the forms of time, space, and causality, by virtue of which it is first of all presented as extended in space and operating in time."

The World as Will and Representation, I, §7

Even in translation he is such a charming and pellucid writer.

The point about the eliminativists generally, is that they're falling into exactly the trap that Schopenhauer describes: “Materialism is the philosophy of the subject who forgets to take account of himself.” — Wayfarer

You neglect, though, that the 'metaphysical subject' is itself a mere invention/convention, just as is the 'physical' that's simultaneously invented as its mediated blindspot. Or it seems just as knee-jerk to me to take one as an absolute starting point as the other, especially after so much great philosophy has taught us alternatives.

Materialism is also too complex for such reductions. Ludwig 'You Are What You Eat' Feuerbach emphasized sensation and emotion.

That is why D B Hart says that Dennett's conjectures are 'so preposterous as to verge on the deranged'. — Wayfarer

Folks are sensitive about 'conch is this' and very much attached to 'the heard problem,' perhaps as a last hiding place from the demystifying astonished-at-nothing fingers of an analysis that wants to get somewhere and not just fetishize the mystery (which is fun sometimes, no doubt.) Maybe Dennett indulges himself, downplays what he doesn't explain, but I found that pointing out the epistemological uselessness of qualia is generally met with the same man-in-the-street 'obviousness' of a congealed grammatical habit mistaken for sempiternal necessity.

It's a great line, isn't it? — Tom Storm

Apparently very hard to understand, though. :wink:

Even in translation he is such a charming and pellucid writer. — Tom Storm

He's first rate, still one of my faves.

for it has passed through the machinery and fabrication of the brain — Tom Storm

Ah, but my dear Schopenhauer, you tell me the brain is an illusion or representation...thrown up by the brain ? Note that space and time themselves are part of the dream, so it's not so naughty of me to think that he's got no reason to trust this image of his a body as 'his' or even as single-souled or as the focal point of 'conch this is.' Idealism proves parasitic on a common sense it pretends to transcend. Or, alternatively, it's a half-hearted conspiracy theory that forgets to doubt its fantasized singular subject and so-called 'interior' 'monologue.' How you know you a you, sir?

Apparently very hard to understand, though. — Wayfarer

Too easy to understand, the identity of world and my fantasy of it, a baby's dream...regurgitated capitalist egoism perhaps (with the good stuff too, to be fair!) And yet I love Schopenhauer and love idealism as a dialectical stepping stone. The journey of self-consciousness ( self-consciousness ) seems to need a visit to the skull.

The fallacy of Dennett's approach is easy to describe. It is expressed in this single paragraph:

What, then, is the relation between the standard ‘third-person’ objective methodologies for studying meteors or magnets (or human metabolism or bone density), and the methodologies for studying human consciousness? Can the standard methods be extended in such a way as to do justice to the phenomena of human consciousness? Or do we have to find some quite radical or revolutionary alternative sci-ence? I have defended the hypothesis that there is a straightforward, conservative extension of objective science that handsomely covers the ground — all the ground — of human consciousness, doing justice to all the data without ever having to abandon the rules and constraints of the experimental method that have worked so well in the rest of science. — Daniel Dennett

All of his critics maintain that this hypothesis is not only indefensible, but mistaken in principle - absurd, even (according to Thomas Nagel, Galen Strawson, John Searle, and others). But as Dennett's is 'the philosophy of the subject that forgets himself', then he suffers from the very blind spot which he can never (by definition!) see. Which makes it a very 'hard problem' indeed. So hard, you might as well walk away from it.

Ah, but my dear Schopenhauer, you tell me the brain is an illusion or representation...thrown up by the brain ? — lll

I think you meant mind in one of the places where you wrote brain. No. Mr S proposes that our physical selves, the brain and it's chemicals are what consciousness looks like when experienced from a dissociated perspective of Will (better translation perhaps, Energy).

then he suffers from the very blind spot which he can never (by definition!) see. — Wayfarer

But that's just my (and probably basically his) criticism of qualia. Why is a square not a circle? That's the hurt problem of conch-is-this ! Riddle me this, scientism, how does this so-radically-elusive-and-private-stuff-that-we-can't-even-talk-about-it connect with your fancy scientific understanding of the world? Tell me, pretender to wisdom, what the meaning of my 'private experience' of C-sharp means in the grand scheme of things. Fit a model to data which is invisible by definition which I nevertheless believe in just the way green ideas sleep which is furiously.

I was thinking of this.

...for it has passed through the machinery and fabrication of the brain, and hence has entered the forms of time, space, and causality...

I should emphasize that 'of course' I think our nervous system is necessary for 'consciousness.' But the 'physical' is not so easily thrown away. The dream-weaver is part of the dream. 'Consciousness' loses sense without its other. The world (whatever its ineffable essence or true and final nature ) was apparently here before we arrived (hopefully during our conception). We seem to have a möbius strip on our hands.

Riddle me this, scientism, how does this so-radically-elusive-and-private-stuff-that-we-can't-even-talk-about-it connect with your fancy scientific understanding of the world? Tell me, pretender to wisdom, what they meaning of my 'private experience' of C-sharp means in the grand scheme of things. — lll

It might, for example, influence what observations you consider important, what experiments you decide to conduct, what you may or may not regard as valid questions for research. None of those influences may be amenable themselves to explication, and none of them obviously visible in the results that you obtain - becuase they're unconscious, or because they're suggested by some cultural affinity you have, or even some traumatic memory. Beneath the surface, so to speak - lurking underneath all of the objective science, in the place you can't see, because it's what you're looking with.

It might, for example, influence what observations you consider important, what experiments you decide to conduct, what you may or may not regard as valid questions for research. None of those influences may be amenable themselves to explication, and none of them obviously visible in the results that you obtain - becuase they're unconscious, or because they're suggested by some cultural affinity you have, or even some traumatic memory. — Wayfarer

I'll grant you that background assumptions and attitudes probably play a role in what is researched.

But hopefully you can see that there's a rational concern about the utility of 'qualia' in a scientific or rational context. That which is ineffably individual (if it makes sense to talk about such a thing) is 'by definition' invisible or non-existent for any unbiased or individual-independent inquiry. I say this with what I can only assume is a familiarity with the typical 'consciousness' of noises and smells. [Wittgenstein on toothaches and beetles is of course relevant.]

That which is ineffably individual... — lll

The problem here, again, is 'objectification'. There is no 'that' in the sense you're gesturing towards. The subject is not 'some mysterious entity', but just what the word says: the subject of experience.

The 'scientistic' approach is simply that objective knowledge is the only valid kind: that what is subjective is merely personal, your or my business, certainly not of interest to science, although of course only science is able to say what, preciselty, it, or anything, is.

I'm not particularly interested in Wittgenstein, but I did notice this remark from his biographer, Ray Monk:

His work is opposed, as he once put it, to “the spirit which informs the vast stream of European and American civilisation in which all of us stand.” Nearly 50 years after his death, we can see, more clearly than ever, that the feeling that he was swimming against the tide was justified. If we wanted a label to describe this tide, we might call it “scientism,” the view that every intelligible question has either a scientific solution or no solution at all. It is against this view that Wittgenstein set his face.

Scientism takes many forms. In the humanities, it takes the form of pretending that philosophy, literature, history, music and art can be studied as if they were sciences, with “researchers” compelled to spell out their “methodologies”—a pretence which has led to huge quantities of bad academic writing, characterised by bogus theorising, spurious specialisation and the development of pseudo-technical vocabularies. Wittgenstein would have looked upon these developments and wept. — Ray Monk, Wittgenstein's Forgotten Lesson

In light of that, what do you think Wittgenstein would have said about 'eliminative materialism'?

The problem here, again, is 'objectification'. There is no 'that' in the sense you're gesturing towards. — Wayfarer

You are telling me exactly what I've been saying, that the metaphysical subject is a fiction or a convention. I criticize the idealist for only doubting the 'external' world and taking an inherited Cartesian cliché as the one undoubtable starting point. Check about and read my direct challenge of the so-called 'interior' 'monologue' which takes its own unity of voice entirely for granted, nevermind the intelligibility of a language that strangely comes with apparently contingent phonemes. (Why does a worldless ghost use the soundmark cogito ergo sum and not some impossibly pure tongue of the angels or slabs of silent concept ? )

The subject is not 'some mysterious entity', but just what the word says: the subject of experience. — Wayfarer

The meaning of our master words is no small issue. 'Just what the word says' seems to refer to something like the average intelligibility of a decontextualized phrase.

To me this passage ages well.

What is “familiarly known” is not properly known, just for the reason that it is “familiar”. When engaged in the process of knowing, it is the commonest form of self-deception, and a deception of other people as well, to assume something to be familiar, and give assent to it on that very account. Knowledge of that sort, with all its talk, never gets from the spot, but has no idea that this is the case. Subject and object, and so on, God, nature, understanding, sensibility, etc., are uncritically presupposed as familiar and something valid, and become fixed points from which to start and to which to return. The process of knowing flits between these secure points, and in consequence goes on merely along the surface. Apprehending and proving consist similarly in seeing whether every one finds what is said corresponding to his idea too, whether it is familiar and seems to him so and so or not. — Hegel

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/ph/phprefac.htm

n light of that, what do you think Wittgenstein would have said about 'eliminative materialism'? — Wayfarer

It seems influenced by his work, which IMO points in many directions, given its fragmented and exploratory form. There's a strong behaviorist streak in him, but he's too complex to wrap up in an 'ism,' which is probably why he endures. He loved spiritual/literary works, no doubt. Sometimes he seems to be trying to reveal the wonderful and strange in the ordinary.

A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.
...
Where does our investigation get its importance from, since it seems only to destroy everything interesting, that is, all that is great and important? ...What we are destroying is nothing but houses of cards and we are clearing up the ground of language on which they stand.
...
The results of philosophy are the uncovering of one or another piece of plain nonsense and of bumps that the understanding has got by running its head up against the limits of language. These bumps make us see the value of the discovery.
...
The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something—because it is always before one's eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck him.—And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful. — W

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. — W

no kidding. This is why the self is unknowable - not because it's some mysterious metaphysical object.

we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful. — W

And accordingly, wish to eliminate it.

This is why the self is unknowable - not because it's some mysterious metaphysical object. — Wayfarer

If the self is 'too familiar,' then we have a 'pre-ontological' grip on it already, and presumably we'd try to develop a knowledge of what functions as a master concept, sometimes as the source or root of existence.

So far no one seems to have explained the unity or the interiority of the 'interior monologue.' I do not question in this context the singularity of the brain. The issue is the conception of the subject singular that haunts or inhabits that brain. Why not 'we think, therefore we are' ? Why not 20 subjects who take turns ? Or no subject ? ('twenty gods or no gods') Why do 'we' (why does our inherited softwhere) distribute exactly one soul to one body, one toe tag per corpse? 'One is one around here, old chap.' 'Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die. ' Do qualia all stream in through different pipes to splash against the same 'non-mysterious' entity? Is this an empirical question ? Does 'one' check one's 'intuition' ?

It seems even wily Kant took for this granted. Distinguishing between an empirical self-image and a 'pure witness' is not what I'm on about. The 'pure witness' itself is what I'm contesting as a superstition or at least an unsupported and yet ferociously habitual assumption.

'The soul is the prison of the body.' Now that's a horsefly of a thesis.

The 'scientistic' approach is simply that objective knowledge is the only valid kind: that what is subjective is merely personal, your or my business, certainly not of interest to science, although of course only science is able to say what, precisely, it, or anything, is. — Wayfarer

And ? We've got 'scientism' and 'woo woo,' a couple of cartoons mostly. This seems like a digression, unless I fit into 'scientism' somehow (which'd surprise me, since I think 'matter' or 'the physical' often functions with the same unnoticed emptiness or ambiguity as 'mind.')

I'm not particularly interested in Wittgenstein — Wayfarer

Probably won't be able to sway you, but in my philosophical journey the semantic issue has bubbled up dialectically. What is the meaning of 'being'? 'real'? of 'meaning' itself ? I think what's hidden from us is the ineradicable ambiguity of our words, including of course our master words. An overstatement of my suspicion would be that we don't know what we are talking about and we don't know that we don't know. But we do know well enough to have kept up the game for thousands of years. Wittgenstein among others persuades me toward a this kind of semantic pragmatism, which is not something that I'd expect to be as popular as icecream.