I am not, then––and this is a point to be clear about from the beginning––going to maintain that we ought to be 'realists', to embrace, that is, the doctrine that we do perceive material things (or objects). This doctrine would be no less scholastic and erroneous than its anthesis.
It seems to me pure nonsense to say 'we only ever see indirectly', because it draws on the image of 'direct seeing' only to deny that such a thing exists. — cherryorchard
It's a little like saying 'we only ever drive cars indirectly, because we use the pedals and the steering wheel' – that is what driving a car consists of. 'Indirect' (or indeed 'direct') doesn't enter into it, unless there are two varieties of driving (real or imagined) that can actually be classified using those words. — cherryorchard
But let's say I have a friend who is a sense-data proponent. He says that his terminology is perfectly meaningful. There are direct experiences (mental and physical sensations, feelings, thoughts) and indirect experiences of the outer world (sights, smells) that come to us through 'sense-data'. He says this contrast between direct and indirect makes those words perfectly valid and useful. I don't agree with him. But I still feel I'm losing the argument. — cherryorchard
(Oh, and just for future reference, though I realise it's hardly relevant to our discussion – I am a 'she' rather than a 'he'!) — cherryorchard
Austin's argument is about what he sees as the misuse of particular words in philosophy. He is not making (or does not see himself as making) arguments about 'realism' (naive, indirect, or otherwise) per se. — cherryorchard
That's a kind of argument that's very popular with philosophers, because it is a slam-dunk. Unfortunately, such arguments are usually mistake, because they have over-simplified the issue.(The Contrast Theory when made explicit leads to a neat paradox; on its own grounds, a language should sometimes be usable without contrast, so that "contrast" may have a contrast.)
a term and its denial between them do not exhaust the universe, or at least a universe of discourse.
Sure - words can be problematic in philosophy. People get stuck discussing words rather than ideas all the time, so there is room for "ordinary language philosophy". — Manuel
What the proponent of indirectness might say is that when we "drive" our body we are doing so directly, and in comparison to this driving a car is indirect. — Leontiskos
Usually when this topic comes up on these forums the proponent of indirectness ends up being pushed in the direction which says that we directly see our sensations and impressions, and then we infer from those sensations something about the external world. It would be a bit like if you received an encrypted message, and once you decrypted it you would possess information about the external world. As far as I can see, the correct response to this idea is that sight does not involve anything like this inferential process, and that to go further and talk about subconscious inference places us in very dubious waters. — Leontiskos
(The Contrast Theory when made explicit leads to a neat paradox; on its own grounds, a language should sometimes be usable without contrast, so that "contrast" may have a contrast.)
That's a kind of argument that's very popular with philosophers, because it is a slam-dunk. Unfortunately, such arguments are usually mistake, because they have over-simplified the issue. — Ludwig V
Another possibility is that he is picking up on an argument of, I think, Ryle, that it is not possible for all coins to be fake. If there is no such thing as a real coin, there is nothing to fake and so "fake" has no meaning. As I remember it, this was intended to apply to sense-datum theory, because that theory essentially claims that my belief that everything that I see is a three-dimensional object located in space-time is an illusion. In this case, at least, "fake" or "unreal" are defined in relation to "genuine" or "real", so there is a contrast here. — Ludwig V
“If it is possible for someone to make a false move in some game, then it might be possible for everybody to make nothing but false moves in every game.”—Thus we are under a temptation to misunderstand the logic of our expressions here, to give an incorrect account of the use of our words.
Orders are sometimes not obeyed. But what would it be like if no orders were ever obeyed? The concept ‘order’ would have lost its purpose.
There's a quick put-down available, I think. Our perception of colours is our seeing of the colours. Your "opponent" is being misled by the common philosophical tendency to assume that every noun denotes an object.Right, and when I tried to bridge your thread with the thread discussing whether we see colors or only our perceptions of colors I ran into this same problem — Leontiskos
Seethat is what driving a car consists of. 'Indirect' (or indeed 'direct') doesn't enter into it, unless there are two varieties of driving (real or imagined) that can actually be classified using those words. — cherryorchard
This is one of those very difficult muddles that are very hard to articulate. "Indirect experiences" is a rather peculiar phrase. In the cases of sight and smell (and hearing), what is seen etc. is at a distance, but the sense-datum is experienced directly; what is experienced indirectly is the object of the experience, not the experience itself (the sense-datum). Mind you, if that is what he meant, I would say that this is another example of assuming that a noun always denotes an object. But "sense-datum" or "experience" is not an object, it is an event. A common mistake in philosophy.There are direct experiences (mental and physical sensations, feelings, thoughts) and indirect experiences of the outer world (sights, smells) — cherryorchard
i call it a slam-dunk, because some people try to apply the format to all sorts of statements. It's formulaic and refutes without attempting to understand, which, for me, is debating, not philosophy. "We can never be certain of anything" is an example, but the reply "Are you certain of that?" suppresses the argument rather than exposing where it has gone wrong. (Mind you, in that case, the argument is sound.)I'm interested that you call Gellner's 'paradox' argument a 'slam-dunk'. I confess I can't make sense of what he means at all. — cherryorchard
You have to consider that Gellner might believe one or both of those propositions. You don't. So Gellner would think that these are examples of contrast-free statements. If he did so, he would, of course, be begging the question, which is whether those claims are meaningful.whether we can meaningfully make such statements as 'we only ever see things indirectly' or 'we can never be certain of anything'. — cherryorchard
I agree with you about that passage.This is interesting, thank you. I haven't read Ryle – do you remember where this idea comes up in his work? It strikes me as reminiscent of passage 345 in Wittgenstein's 'Philosophical Investigations': — cherryorchard
This would be something that Gellner might elevate to a theory. But Ryle does not present the claim that all concepts must be like this.A country which had no coinage· would offer no scope to counterfeiters. There would be nothing for them to manufacture or pass counterfeits of. They could, if they wished, manufacture and give away decorated discs of brass or lead, which the public might be pleased to get. But these would not be false coins. There can be false coins only where there are coins made of the proper materials by the proper authorities.
In a country where there is a coinage, false coins can be manufactured and passed; and the counterfeiting might be so efficient that an ordinary citizen, unable to tell which were false and which were genuine coins, might become suspicious of the genuineness of any particular coin that he received. But however general his suspicions might be, there remains one proposition which he cannot entertain, the proposition, namely, that it is possible that all coins are counterfeits. For there must be an answer to the question 'Counterfeits of what?' Or a judge, who has found all too many witnesses in the past inaccurate and dishonest, may be right to expect today's testimonies to break down under examination; but he cannot declare that there are no such things as accuracy and sincerity in testifying. Even to consider whether this witness has been insincere or inaccurate involves considering what would be the honest or precise thing to say. Ice could not be thin if ice could not be thick. — Ryle, Dilemmas, pp. 94, 95
Take any analytic statement, "All bachelors are unmarried" is a nice stock example. It is not possible for any bachelor to be married. It is contrast free. Ryle's examples below don't apply and Gellner has a case for saying that this is an example of a contrast-free statement, and, in a sense, it is. But that isn't paying attention to the kind of statement it is, and to the point that of course there are some people who are not bachelors. It's just that there are no married bachelors. — Ludwig V
I'm sorry. I can't work out exactly what you mean. Can you give an example - or two?Sometimes, universal statements about a particular term are meaningful. But why is that so? — cherryorchard
Austin gives an example I think is helpful. But I can't remember the details, so I'll adapt it. Air traffic control radar shows a blip on the screen, with the flight number attached on a little label. The controller says "I can see flight 417", and so he does, but the visitor who peers anxiously out of the window is puzzled. The controller can see flight 417 indirectly. The visitor thinks the controller meant directly. Clearly, seeing flight 417 through the window is seeing it directly (despite the fact that it is through the window). Suppose the visitor gets out a pair of binoculars, sweeps them round a bit and says "Aha! There it is!". Does the visitor see flight 417 directly?And while the word 'indirectly' does have a hypothetical antithesis ('directly'), it's very hard to see how that might apply to anything in this specific case. Someone who wasn't sure what the word 'see' meant would not be helped along if we told them 'we only ever see things indirectly'. — cherryorchard
Neither am I. Philosophers always pretend they are sure of their answers. I don't see any harm in tagging something "not sure". Something may happen later that will help.I'm not sure this deals conclusively with the problem, though... — cherryorchard
Yes, that's what I meant about paying attention to the kind of statement it is - its purpose and context. That's always part of the meaning, isn't it?Maybe it's because the sentence 'all bachelors are unmarried' is a way of defining the term 'bachelor'. — cherryorchard
It's good philosophy and a good read. You're welcome.In any case, thank you for the quotation from Ryle! I will look up that book. — cherryorchard
I think this would be toying with language a little too freely. In English at least, we don't 'drive' our bodies, we 'move' them. And in fact, we usually don't even 'move our bodies' – we just 'move'. The body is the subject, not the object. — cherryorchard
But I don't understand the leap from these clearly acceptable claims to the claim that we don't see material things at all. Where does the 'sense-data' come from, if not from the world outside? And if it does come from the world outside, what are we arguing about? — cherryorchard
From your posts, I'm starting to think that what I really need to do is read Aristotle's Metaphysics... — cherryorchard
There are no words in the theory that lack an antithesis. But Gellner seems to suggest here that the theory requires not only that words have antitheses, but also that all theories have meaningful exceptions. Why should it require that? I can't see how it follows logically. — cherryorchard
Your "opponent" is being misled by the common philosophical tendency to assume that every noun denotes an object. — Ludwig V
(In fact, 'bachelors are unmarried' does sound like something you might really say to someone who wasn't sure what the word 'bachelor' meant – a child or a language learner, e.g.). — cherryorchard
I'm sorry. I can't work out exactly what you mean. Can you give an example - or two? — Ludwig V
Austin gives an example I think is helpful. But I can't remember the details, so I'll adapt it. Air traffic control radar shows a blip on the screen, with the flight number attached on a little label. The controller says "I can see flight 417", and so he does, but the visitor who peers anxiously out of the window is puzzled. The controller can see flight 417 indirectly. The visitor thinks the controller meant directly. Clearly, seeing flight 417 through the window is seeing it directly (despite the fact that it is through the window). Suppose the visitor gets out a pair of binoculars, sweeps them round a bit and says "Aha! There it is!". Does the visitor see flight 417 directly?
The last point - the unanswerable, doubtful case is quite important to me. There's no point in pretending that this stuff is cut and dried.
Now think about why you gave the answer you did give to each case. I think you'll find you understand how directly and indirectly could be applied in this case. I agree I don't think it would help anyone who doesn't already know what "see" means, but it does help us, in our situation, so that's all right.
Austin does raise the question why anyone would worry about the difference in normal life - did you feel the same when you read the example? He's sort of saying that, despite the example, he's not at all sure that "direct" and "indirect" to "see". — Ludwig V
These strike me as good points and good philosophizing. — Leontiskos
Perhaps, but there are probably more contemporary and focused treatments of the subjects that interest you. With that said, Aristotle is great once you get the hang of him. — Leontiskos
I'll maintain that it is up to Gellner to show that they held such a view, rather than up to us to show that they didn't. — Banno
It does not pay to assume that a word must have an opposite, or one opposite, whether it is a 'positive' word like 'wilfully' or a 'negative word like 'inadvertently'. Rather, we should ask ourselves such questions as why there is no use for the adverb 'advertently'. For above all it will not do to assume that the 'positive' word must be around to wear the trousers; commonly enough the 'negative' (looking) word marks the (positive) abnormality while the 'positive' word, if it exists, merely serves to rule out
the suggestion of that abnormality. — Austin, Plea for excuses, Philosophical Papers, p. 192
Seems to me that there is a difference between holding that every use of a word is dependent on a contrast and holding that this use of a word is dependent on a contrast. — Banno
It does not pay to assume that a word must have an opposite, or one opposite
At first, I thought that I would say that your second example is grammatical - a la Wittgenstein - and the second is not. But a second thought gives me pause. Remember, we have that argument that there is a contrast - seeing a sense-datum/experience/impression is seeing directly. So your first example becomes "Seeing an object is always, with no exception, indirect". But then experiences (etc.) are objects ("I see a red patch"), so it becomes "Seeing a physical object is always, without exception, indirect." So it looks empirical, until we realize that there is nothing that would count as seeing a physical object directly, and then it becomes grammatical. There are complications with the first that we do not find with the second. (Though I could invent some, if you want to explore an entirely trivial rabbit-hole.) The reason the first is nonsense to you is that you have a philosophical position (a grammar) and so interpret the first in a certain way. This reflects back on the contrast theory and explains why the philosophers who are accused of holding it by Gellner never articulated it.My first example was 'we only ever see indirectly' – a claim that 'seeing' is always, with no exception, indirect. And my second example was the one you raised: 'all bachelors are unmarried'. These are both claims that admit of no exception. But to me, one of them seems like nonsense and the other one seems meaningful (in a limited way). I'm trying to work out why that is. — cherryorchard
I'll buy that.Seeing something in a mirror is another example – e.g., 'From where I was sitting, I couldn't see the door directly, but I could see it in the mirror.' That sounds like ordinary language to me. — cherryorchard
Good point.ysyti'I couldn't see the airplane directly but I could see it with my binoculars' does not strike me as a familiar use of the word 'directly'. If you wanted to explain that you could only see the plane with binoculars, you might say something like: 'it wasn't visible with the naked eye'. The word 'directly' wouldn't ordinarily be used like that. But I suppose if someone was just chatting and not being mindful of how they expressed themselves, they might say 'I couldn't see it directly'. — cherryorchard
What it suggests is that when we look at examples carefully, we find that a yes/no answer is difficult to impossible to sustain. That is a position that Gellner does not seem to recognize.I suppose elucidating the specific usage suggests that 'directly' and 'indirectly' only work in contrast to one another. But it doesn't prove as much. Or does it? — cherryorchard
No-one seems to have come up with one yet. And yet I don't think anyone has decisively endorsed or rejected Gellner's theory.Can anyone think of any word that is meaningful without a contrast? I haven't seen an example yet. — cherryorchard
I think that Austin has it exactly right. Notice that he does give examples - and there are plenty more - "grumpy", "uncouth". It's a question of what you do next. He doesn't jump to a theory but considers what questions to explore. Very different from Gellner.It does not pay to assume that a word must have an opposite, or one opposite, — Austin,
Absolutely.That is, it appears that in thinking of Wittgenstein or Austin as advocating any theory of meaning, Gellner shows he has not understood what they are up to. — Banno
Ok, so is there any evidence that Austin explicitly accepted the Contrast Theory of Meaning? — Banno
You are concerned with defending the ordinary language philosophers from the allegation that they ever propounded this theory, and I accept and understand that. But I think there is some value in taking the theory on its own merits and trying to assess whether it stands. — cherryorchard
I'm inclined to agree with you.To clarify and or get rid of certain words or tendencies that prevent discussion from advancing.
This applies to a lot of metaphysics and a part of epistemology.
But as for ethics or aesthetics, I don't think ordinary language helps much, because we are dealing with facets of life which we have less depth of insight. And when there is depth of insight, what we can say about it amounts to very little: — Manuel
Yes. I'm inclined to think that the problem is that they are too general. People do manage to have better discussions about specific issues within (and sometimes between) those categories.Why should we be just?
Why should we not do evil?
Why is this beautiful?
These questions have answers which don't give much depth of insight. They tend to be rather trivial but are nonetheless crucial issues for life. — Manuel
I agree. He is not easy, however. It is a mistake to think that you can read him once and get your head around. Everything is interconnected. Very little is easy to grasp from a contemporary view-point. The contrast is very instructive.With that said, Aristotle is great once you get the hang of him. — Leontiskos
I'm just trying to understand why 'we never see material things directly' is qualitatively different from a claim like 'we only ever digest what we consume'. — cherryorchard
... For instance, is 'we only ever hear sounds' a meaningful statement? — cherryorchard
The problem with Ayer's direct/indirect seeing is not that he is stating something self-evident, but that he is saying something obscure. — SophistiCat
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