Thank you, I shall look into that some more.

That would be Aristotle's immanent realism. — Andrew M

That looks like realism about universals, not a position on the subjective/objective distinction.

Maybe I'm missing something?

The transcendental idealist, on the contrary, can be an empirical realist, hence, as he is called, a dualist, i.e., he can concede the existence of matter without going beyond mere self-consciousness and assuming something more than the certainty of representations in me, hence the cogito ergo sum.(A370)

Most people are by instinct 'transcendental realists', whereas I tend towards dualism. — Wayfarer

This, to "concede the existence of matter", is what I refer to in my post above, as an assumption. The existence of matter is assumed, it is not "known", because it is not justified.

Notice how Kant describes this as being directly derived from self-consciousness. The idea of "matter", as that which substantiates the temporal continuity of existence (the temporal continuity of substantial existence), is derived from one's own experience of a self which has continuous existence in time. One's experience of one's own continuous existence in time is what warrants the assumption of "matter", which is a projection of this continuity into the assumed thing itself, validating the thingness (objectivity) of the thing itself.

The problem though, is that it may be the case, that this experience of a "self" with continuous existence in time, may only be provided for by the fact that the self is living (the soul of the individual). Now we have "the soul" which is the essence of this temporal continuity, so the assumption of "matter", as the basis for temporal continuity in the thing itself, stands alone as entirely unwarranted and unjustified. The dualist now needs to revisit this concept, because there is no apparent reason to "concede the existence of matter". That's what Berkeley demonstrated.

Before wading fully into the murky swamps of metaphysics, just recall what the discussion was about in the first place: that the sensory impressions we receive from the proverbial tree, constantly change and shift as we change our position relative to it. But there is a faculty in the mind which integrates all of those momentary impressions into a unified whole, and also makes judgements about the tree in terms of kind, and what the tree might mean (if anything) in the context in which it's being viewed. Whatever that faculty is, is described under the heading 'the subjective unity of perception', i.e. there is an innate ability to see 'holistically', which requires integration of many kinds of data and input into a whole.

Universals - I don't think universals exist, but they determine the ability to classify and categorise according to form and type. In that sense, they're real, but not real as existing things in some abstract of ghostly 'domain'. All of that confusion arises from our unthinking habit of 'objectification', which is to posit every existing thing as something 'other to myself'. Whereas universals, logic, math, and so on, are constitutive of the operations of the mind; they're neither 'out there' nor purely 'internal to the mind', because they are predictive with respect to phenomena.

None of what you have said is relevant, as I see it. I am well familiar with all those old arguments and interpretations of Kant, and so on. I am not concerned about the question of naturalism vs supernaturalism at all here; that is an entirely separate, or rather, further question.This thread is about whether we see the same tree when we move around it, and if so, how we know that; and by extension whether others, including animals see the same objects we do.

All our experience tells us that we do see stable objects and that others see the same objects. If this is right, then there is the further metaphysical question as to how this is possible. Is there a collective mind we share with animals? Are objects stable because God thinks them? Or is it the case that objects simply have an independent physical existence and that we are able to see and make sense of them despite the fact that we are unable to explain how we do that?

Your only argument against the idea that, whatever the explanation might be; objects are stable or more or less invariant seems to be: "yes, but that is only true in a "common sense" kind of way". So, tell me in what other way it is not true that we see the same objects (apart from the obvious one that objects are always imperceptibly changing).

None of what you have said is relevant, as I see it. — John

Starting a post like that disinclines me to respond further, so, pass.

When the going gets tough, eh...

Come on, what you wrote was patronizing inasmuch as you should know by now I am familiar with all that stuff, and yet seem you offer it in a condescendingly didactic spirit as if I have never thought of it or come across it. I don't mind you attacking savagely anything I say as long as you do it with rigorous and relevant argument. I don't take any of this stuff personally; and I don't expect others to either.

Going back to the OP:

I don’t believe any visual field content could be experienced if fully devoid of a simultaneous convergence with some sensed meaning. By “meaning” I don’t necessarily intend a significant conscious value available to linguistic contemplation; instead, I intend any sensation of qualitative nature that is relative to context. And this context always includes the respective sentient being aware of the given phenomena.

The sensed meaning will not obtain from the phenomena one is immediately aware of. The tree, for example, does not innately hold within it “a place to mark territory” for a feline, canid, or bear, “a place to live and find food in” for a squirrel, or “something hard to avoid while skiing” for a human. Acknowledgedly, what has been listed are only a few of the more explicit meanings that pertain to only a few different types of sentient being.

Instead, the sensed meaning obtains from the respective sentient being innately. Even when it is developed through past experience, this past experience has itself gained value from interaction with the innate mental propensities of the sentient being concerned.

One could take a Kantian-like approach as regards at least the most generalized innate meanings, could rely upon genetic inheritance of innate cognitive processes, or, as I uphold, could view the two aforementioned perspectives to be metaphysically co-dependent to a large extent.

With that stated as background, my resolution then is that the sameness of the tree is an apriori meaning in humans (as well as some other lifeforms) that obtains given the right stimuli. But this meaning of sameness is a cognitive meta-process that applies to the particulars of less abstract meanings and phenomena. Hence, this sameness of tree as object, while being apriori, has no bearing on the concrete instantiation of a tree experienced in the visual field—the particularities of the latter being a posteriori.

To me this resolves the issue without affecting the stance of indirect realism.

Before wading fully into the murky swamps of metaphysics, just recall what the discussion was about in the first place: that the sensory impressions we receive from the proverbial tree, constantly change and shift as we change our position relative to it. But there is a faculty in the mind which integrates all of those momentary impressions into a unified whole, and also makes judgements about the tree in terms of kind, and what the tree might mean (if anything) in the context in which it's being viewed. Whatever that faculty is, is described under the heading 'the subjective unity of perception', i.e. there is an innate ability to see 'holistically', which requires integration of many kinds of data and input into a whole. — Wayfarer

So the point I'm making, is that if it is a faculty of the mind which is creating a unified whole, being referred to as "the tree" here, we are not justified in the claim that the tree itself is a unified whole. The ancient, historic position is that the tree itself is in fact a unity, and this unity has a describable form. So no matter what your perspective is, that form is the same. But the principles of logic dictate that if the form changes, it cannot be "the same" tree. Modern physics, which notes that objects are continually changing, and especially relativity theory, deny the possibility that the tree could have one united, describable, form. That is why I say that the claim that there is "the tree", which itself is a unified whole, is unjustified.

Aristotle met the same problem in his day, with sophists denying the reality of being in favour of "becoming". His resolution was to assign the identity of the thing to its matter rather than to its form. This allows that the identified thing does not necessarily have a specific form which can be described, the form is actively changing. The identified thing is constantly changing, so it is not identified as the thing which it is, by its form. He posits matter, and the identity of the thing is transferred to its matter, rather than its form, and matter provides an assumed temporal continuity of existence, regardless of changes to the form. Therefore the unity of the object's existence is found in its temporal extension rather than its spatial form.

All our experience tells us that we do see stable objects and that others see the same objects. — John

Maybe your experience tells you that, but science tells us that what appears to be a stable object is in fact not stable at all. It is actually very active, interacting with electromagnetism for example. And what you see is this interaction, not a stable object. Science and reason are much more reliable than our senses, and that's why throughout the history of human existence, philosophers have been skeptical of what sense experience gives them. This doubt inspires reason and science to determine the true nature of things.

If this is right... — John

Don't you agree that there is no point in going on to consider the consequences of "if this is right", prior to determining whether or not this is right. There is no point in asking why there are stable objects, until we determine that there actually are stable objects. If science is telling us that what appears to be a stable object is actually a whole lot of activity, then how is this appearance of a stable object created by the human sensory system? And your question of why there is stable objects becomes a question of why does the human sensory system create stable objects.

I did say "more or less invariant". Objects are obviously stable enough that we can recognize and speak about them, and we routinely observe others, including animals, responding to them too. Just think about throwing a ball for your dog.

That looks like realism about universals, not a position on the subjective/objective distinction.

Maybe I'm missing something? — Marchesk

Immanent realism reframes the relationship between subject and object. We don't perceive appearances, we perceive things. But an objective representation (or abstraction) of things also depends on our physical sensory systems.

Thus we ordinarily perceive red apples as things in the world that exist independently of us, but their representation as red apples nonetheless depends on our physical sensory systems - other creatures could potentially perceive and represent them differently. So objective representation has a domain of applicability - there is no intrinsic or transcendent representation of things.

I don't take any of this stuff personally; and I don't expect others to either. — John

Don't sweat it. Sorry for being such a pain. But, to respond to your point: what this particular debate is about is 'transcendental realism'. You're arguing that sensory impressions have real, invariant objects - real flowers, real trees, real whatever. I was challenging that with reference to Kant's 'critique of reason'. The fact that you keep dismissing it, or say that I'm attacking a straw man, or that it's irrelevant, means either I'm not explaining it, or you're not seeing the point of the argument. Hence, when you say that what I had posted was 'irrelevant', I couldn't see the point in trying to say it all again. That is where I'll leave it for now.

The tree is the same but your perspective has changed, and in that changed perspective you can learn more from the tree thus giving it a different perception and understanding.

The trouble with that is logic is the ultimate other to oneself. Is 2+2=4 only true because it is of me? Clearly not. Even as I know it (or do not know it), it is other to myself, to my experience. If I were dead, were never born or didn't learn 2+2=4, it would still be true.

A tree, rock, colour or person is no different. All of them are other to me and, regardless of if I knew them or not, they are themselves. To be other me is for something to have its own existence, not an empirical matter of what states I know, but a metaphysical one which defines something regardless of whether I know about it-- a viewpoint or subjectivity which is regardless of whether I think about it or not.

The idealist objection to the realist argument is actually missing the point. To say: "How do you know it's there when you don't observe it?" treats the question as if it is empirical, as if the realist was making the crass and ignorant argument our world always took on the forms we have observed.

This is not really the case.

Most of the the time, the realist is making a point of metaphysics: they're pointing out the things they observe are not them. The rock? It's it own object, no matter how much they might know it by their own experience-- for the rock to be itself (including all the forms it takes) does not depend on them (or any one else) experiencing it.

Like 2+2=4, the truth of a rock stands steadfast above the whim of finite human experiences. If humans are dead, the rock may still exist (depends entirely on if the rock itself ceases or not) and its meaning (all of its expressions, past, present and future) remains untouched.

The realist argument isn't that the world must always exist as we observe, it's the existence of other things (including things we perceive) is not our own, so we cannot treat our own destruction as the end of everything we've experienced.

Since I am not the rock, my death does not mean the rock's death. How does the rock exist after I die? Well, obviously I can't observe it. But the point was never an empirical justification the rock must always be how I perceived it. Only that, given the rock is not me, my death doesn't mean its death. In the world, the rock I perceived may still exist, and it may still have the form I saw. The truth that such a rock exists does not depend on my experience.

The problem with Kant's critique is it dismisses John's approach out of hand.

John's argument holds that there are, for example, real tree and flowers. Not that, somehow, all objects are invariant or unchanging, but people that perceive others things as they are (e.g. balls, trees, dogs, etc.). John's argument is treating form like an expression of the thing-itself. The dog, for example, is itself how we perceive it, in addition to expressing many other forms.

Kant's approach is entirely dismissive of John's argument. It treats form as if it's entirely a fiction of the individual's experience, rather than being defined by the other object itself.

:)

I think where my puzzlement starts is that I had thought you were well aware that I am adequately familiar with Kant's conceptions of Transcendental Idealism and Empirical Realism. I mean I was pretty Kantian in my thinking for years when I first began conversing with you on the other two forums (Philosophy Club and PF). You don't remember all those arguments with Spectrum on the PC?

Actually, though, I wasn't reading this thread as being primarily concerned with the question of transcendental realism but rather as asking the question about exactly what constitutes the empirical realism of objects. (As an interesting aside Kant himself advances a transcendental realist position in the Opus Postumum according to Beth Lord).

Yes, Kant's arguments in the CPR do reject Transcendental Realism, but he later addressed that problematic weakness in his position, firstly in the CJ and then more strongly in the Opus Postumum, according to Beth Lord in Kant and Spinozism.

The tree is the same but your perspective has changed, and in that changed perspective you can learn more from the tree thus giving it a different perception and understanding. — DebateTheBait

But the tree does change, with each passing moment of time it is a little different. And since it is impossible for you to hold perspective A and perspective B at the very same time, then in the time that it takes for you to change from one to the other, the tree has changed. If the tree has changed, then logically it cannot be the same tree.

Furthermore, the special theory of relativity indicates that any true description of the reality of what exists, is different and even contradictory from one perspective to another. These differences between what is the true reality from one perspective, and what is the true reality from another perspective, are supposed to be able to be made consistent with one another through the use of mathematical equations. But that only hides the contradictions within the assumed nature of time, allowing a multitude of "times", for a multitude of true realities, from a multitude of perspectives. This results in the conclusion that time is not real.

I did say "more or less invariant". — John

The op indicates a logical problem with referring to "the same tree", when being observed from different perspectives. If you think that it is "more or less" the same tree, then I guess there is no problem for you.

I'm not suggesting in the OP that one should doubt the existence and temporal integrity of either tree or subject viewing the tree.

You exist. The tree exists. OK? Otherwise it would be meaningless to say that you were looking at the tree.

If you want to say that you or the tree are illusory..ok. The question in the OP isn't directed at you.

For those who believe viewer and tree exist, the OP is asking something about the viewer's experience. What the viewer sees changes from moment to moment.

Something other than visual content is included in the basis of belief in the tree. What is that other thing?

I have to agree with you Mr. Uncover. But we are speaking in the visual realm and not time. One can not see time but only understand it's understanding of how it effects the tree.
Thus if there is a general understanding of how that tree changes in time then it is not the tree that has changed but your perception of how time changes that tree.

You do indeed have a very valid point. But time was out of the question.

Something other than visual content is included in the basis of belief in the tree. What is that other thing? — Mongrel

I am still not sure where you are going with this. Something other than visual content is the sole basis of a blind person's belief in anything.

Sure. Something other than sensation. What is it?

Presumably reasonable inferences from perceptual judgments prompted by past sensations and corroborated by subsequent experiences.

I had thought you were well aware that I am adequately familiar with Kant's conceptions of Transcendental Idealism and Empirical Realism. — John

Where this particular disagreement started was:

A bee and a human will not perceive a flower in the same way. But we have every reason to think they both perceive the same "object", don't we? — John

to which I responded, in part:

how would you perceive the flower independently of how a human perceives it? — Wayfarer

That was what was described as 'nonsensical' and 'not addressing the point'.

In this brief exchange, what the phrase 'the same "object"' means, is precisely what the thing must be 'in itself' - independently of who or what is perceiving it.

So, tell me in what other way it is not true that we see the same objects (apart from the obvious one that objects are always imperceptibly changing). — John

The point about 'transcendental realism' is exactly that it posits that there is an object over and above appearance, and that object is the real object. The counter to that is that no matter how we analyse the object, what it is to us is always an appearance.

In fact Kant explicitly recognises the fact that there must be an external reality in his Refutation of Idealism. But the key point is, that even though a so-called 'external reality' is recognised, it is still grounded by and in the cognitive and intellectual faculties i.e. does not truly exist independently of the perception of it.

So ideas. Right?

That was what was described as 'nonsensical' and 'not addressing the point'.

In this brief exchange, what the phrase 'the same "object"' means, is precisely what the thing must be 'in itself' - independently of who or what is perceiving it. — Wayfarer

The reason I said it was nonsensical is that the idea of a human (me) perceiving a flower "independently of how a human perceives it" is just that: nonsensical.

The reason I said it was irrelevant was that I hadn't nonsensically claimed or even implied that humans could do any such thing. That a bee and a human see the same object (albeit probably in very different ways) does not require that I or any other human must be able to perform the self-contradictory act you suggested.

The phrase "the same object" does suggest that it is something in itself; for it to be such is the logical condition for it being able to be reliably perceived as that object and no other by multiple percipients. That is what 'empirically real' means; it means that objects have empirically real attributes and qualities that may be perceived by any suitably equipped percipient. That objects have such attributes and qualities is attested to constantly by our experience. That's why I asked you the question as to whether you believe that the common nature of our perceptual and cognitive faculties by itself is sufficient to explain, not just the form of our perceptions, but the unique content, that is the content unique to particular objects, as well. That is the question that highlights the difficulty for your position; and you still have made no attempt to address it.

It seems obvious to me that the qualities and attributes of objects are dependent on our faculties of perception and cognition only in respect of the forms of their appearance. A bee may see a flower very differently than a human because its eyes and body size are very different, and even the ways that two humans see a flower will probably be somewhat different due to individual variations, but will still be far closer to one another's than the bee's. So the object itself must contribute something to our perception of it; and we must think it is its unique qualities that allow us to collectively identify it as that object and no other.

So, this is transcendental realism; but it is not saying that the object in itself is absolutely the same thing as the object as perceived; on the contrary the two are logically distinct. The point is that the object must be something in itself; that it be so provides one of the conditions for the possibility of any perception of it. Our perceptual and cognitive apparatuses are another condition for the perception of it; but when you think about it it seems obvious that the former also must be transcendentally real in order to provide a necessary part of the explanation of the empirical reality of perceived objects.

Things must be transcendentally real in some way or another; as I said before, either as ideas in God's mind, material actualities, ideas in a collective mind, aggregations due to collective karma or something else. The point about something being transcendentally real is not to say exactly what it is (that is its empirical reality) but to say that it is not dependent on being perceived by anyone. Actually, that is a condition of a thing's empirical reality as well; so it is not as though there are two realities, but rather one reality considered from two different perspectives; the empirical and the transcendental.

That a bee and a human see the same object (albeit probably in very different ways) does not require that I or any other human must be able to perform the self-contradictory act you suggested. — John

What I suggested was not 'self-contradictory' but the direct implication of the statement that the bee and the human see 'the same thing'. In order to say that, you have to be able to see 'the thing' from outside the human cognitive framework; you have to see 'the thing' as it really is, independent of any act of perception, whether human or insect.

What is the basis of something being identified as 'the same' or 'different', if it is not the apprehension of its identity - that 'this' and 'that' are the same? And where does that identification take place, if not in the mind of the observer? The mind provides that continuity, context, identification - the whole framework within which the judgement of 'same and different' is made.

So the object itself must contribute something to our perception of it; — John

That is not in dispute. At issue is the reality of the object, whether or in what sense it is real apart from its appearance as phenomena. If you say it is real apart from those appearances, then you have to be able to see it apart from any experience of it, as it is 'in itself'. That is what is at issue.

Things must be transcendentally real in some way or another; as I said before, either as ideas in God's mind, material actualities, ideas in a collective mind, aggregations due to collective karma or something else. — John

Or what? What is the penalty of their not being 'transcendentally real'? What if they are 'consistent appearances'?

Consider physics - and no, I don't want to drag the thread into Schrodinger's Cat territory. But this is why Adam Frank relates this anecdote in his recent essay on this question, Minding Matter:

When I was a young physics student I once asked a professor: ‘What’s an electron?’ His answer stunned me. ‘An electron,’ he said, ‘is that to which we attribute the properties of the electron.’

That is related to the attitude called 'instrumentalism', which is that science doesn't perceive entities, but makes measurements, which are predicable and reliable. But another thing this tells us that when you minutely analyse and dissect the elements of the putative object of perception, there is nothing at bottom which retains its identity. There is no physical essence or substance at the bottom of it.

The point about something being transcendentally real is not to say exactly what it is (that is its empirical reality) but to say that it is not dependent on being perceived by anyone. — John

But if 'exactly what it is' is only an empirical reality, then what is it? It has an unknowable essence or source.