Davidson rejects the view, held by both metaphysical realists and anti-realists that persons represent the world (scheme vs content) to themselves. Hilary Putnam argues that we all share a single scheme, but, as As Evan Thompson explains

Davidson's conclusion is not that we all share a scheme, but that, since we have been unable to give adequate content to the scheme idea, the idea has no application. As he concludes in another essay, “there can never be a situation in which we can intelligibly compare or contrast divergent schemes, and in that case we do better not to say that there is one scheme, as if we understood what it would be like for there to be more.”

I find Thompsons’s pragmatist pluralism an appealing alternative to Davidson’s non-representationalist direct realism, so I’ll quote his argument here:

We can accept the idea that there is no such thing as a scheme or representational medium interposed between us and the world while making merely the inference that we should not explicate incommensurability by appealing to the dualism of scheme and content. The problem of incommensurability is primarily empirical: it arises in the work of historians, anthropologists, and literary theorists when they attempt to make sense of what seem to be widely divergent systems of belief. We can give up the difference between knowing a language and knowing our way around in the world, and yet hold with Whorf that the Hopi way in the world and ours cannot be “calibrated.” Davidson is right to insist that we must assume an overall agreement to make sense of differences in belief. We must concur about all sorts of things, such as that cows eat grass, that snow is white, that people must eat to survive. But Davidson is, in Hacking's words, a “superholist.”~~ (Remember that a Davidsonian theory is meant to interpret all utterances, actual and potential, of a speaker.)

Thus he seems to think that these mundane agreements are enough to preclude incommensurability. I am suspicious of superholism. Feyerabend might have been mistaken in thinking that “there is still human experience, as an actually existing process independent of all schemes”, but he was right, I think, to insist that theories and practices proliferate, and that the connections among them are often loose and chaotic. These loose connections indicate that our everyday, superficial agreements with another may not help all that much in resolving our differences. That possibility is all that is needed, I think, to warrant occasional talk of incommensurability, where incommensurability simply means that one language may have a range of expressions that cannot be translated into another language without remainder. In such a situation, one may have no choice but to learn the foreign range of expressions and incorporate it directly into one's language. (Isn't this all that Kuhn ever really claimed?) What we learn from Davidson is that we need not, and indeed should not, support such an appeal to incom- mensurability with the metaphysical idea of scheme and content. We should instead make the case directly in anthropology, literary theory, and the history of science.

Davidson does seem to think that he has vindicated realism, but I suggest that he has shown us a way of continuing to do philosophy after representation (pace Rorty) and beyond the realist/anti-realist debate. Recall that the philosophical device of the field linguist abstracts not only from cultural conditions in general, but also from the detail of local, pragmatic situations (e.g., problems of understanding within and among the paradigms, disciplinary matrices, and research programmes of a given science). But these conditions and situations are precisely those in which substantial epistemological and hermeneutical issues arise. Davidson's realism cannot address, then, the realistlanti-realist disputes that arise within these situations. Davidson grounds the claim “that knowledge is of an objective world independent of our thought or language” by trying to show that most of our beliefs must be true.

But these true beliefs are the commonsense, everyday beliefs that most people share; they are not, for example, beliefs about particle physics, selection in biology, authorial intention in literature, or representation in painting, Recent anti-realism, however, has not arisen as a challenge to commonsense; it has arisen in cognitive domains of perplexing complexity, such as particle physics and literary theory. Only if one accepts a superholist view of belief and meaning will one suppose that Davidson's defense of commonsense realism is also a gobal vindication of realism. I suggest, therefore, that by adopting the stance of the radical interpreter to achieve a global perspective on belief and meaning, Davidson has shown us how local issues about realism and anti-realism must ultimately be.

I would give up both realism and anti-realism, then, in favour of what could be called a pluralist pragmatism. What the pluralist insists on is that there is no foundational version, one which anchors all the rest or to which all others can be reduced. The pragmatist insists that the world is both found and made: it is made in the finding and found in the making. To erase the boundary between knowing a language and knowing our way in the world gives us a fresh appreciation of the world. That world, however, is not given, waiting to be represented. We find the world, but only in the many incommensurable cognitive domains we devise in our attempt to know our way around. The task of the philosopher is not to extract a common conceptual scheme from these myriad domains and to determine its faithfulness to some uncorrupted reality; it is, rather, to learn to navigate among the domains, and so to clarify their concerns in relation to each other.

https://evanthompson.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/j-1467-9973-1991-tb00717-x.pdf

Thanks very much for this. Very helpful.

It appears bonobos are capable of sharing our ability to conceive of others as knowledgeable or ignorant of some fact. — wonderer1

The more we look for abilities that both animals and humans have, the more we find.

Does Davidson think of us as having just one conceptual scheme? Shared by all humanity, past, present and future? — Ludwig V

It would be wrong to summarize by saying we have shown how communication is possible between people who have different schemes, a way that works without need of what there cannot be namely a neutral ground, or a common coordinate system. For
we have found no intelligible basis on which it can be said that schemes are different. It would be equally wrong to announce the glorious news that all mankind -all speakers of language, at least - share a common scheme and ontology. For if we cannot intelligibly say that schemes are different, neither can we intelligibly say that they are one. — On the very idea...

So no.

The holism in Davidson consists in our sharing the same world, and hence that whatever beliefs you have about that world are a variation on the beliefs I have. He was not a realist, in the traditional sense, since he does not hold that we are interpreting a word by constructing a conceptual scheme that is about that world. Nor is he an antirealist, since truth is not a function only of our conceptual schemes.

I don't know Thompsons’s work, but there is something odd in what quoted, since it wrongly claims Davidson was a realist, then sets out an approach that rejects realism and antirealism in much the way Davidson actually does, but then re-introduces conceptual schemes.

It looks very much to be yet another misreading of Davidson.

Good.

I don't know Thompsons’s work, but there is something odd in what ↪Joshs quoted, since it wrongly claims Davidson was a realist, then sets out an approach that rejects realism and antirealism in much the way Davidson actually does, but then re-introduces conceptual schemes — Banno

Thompson is simply reiterating Davidson's claim that “with a correct epistemology we can be realists in all departments.”

Two interpreters, as unlike in culture, language and point of view as you please, can disagree over whether an utterance is true, but only if they differ on how things are in the world they share, or what the utterance means. I think we can draw two conclusions from these simple reflections. First, truth is correspondence with the way things are. (There is no straightforward and non-misleading way to state this; to get things right, a detour is necessary through the concept of satisfaction in terms of which truth is characterized.' So if a coherence theory of truth is acceptable, it must be consistent with a correspondence theory. Second, a theory of knowledge that allows that we can know the truth must be a non-relativized, non-internal form of realism.

So if a coherence theory of knowledge is acceptable, it must be consistent with such a form of realism. My form of realism seems to be neither Hilary Putnam's internal realism nor his metaphysical realism. It is not internal realism because internal realism makes truth relative to a scheme, and this is an idea I do not think is intelligible.' A major reason, in fact, for accepting a coherence theory is the unintelligibility of the dualism of a conceptual scheme and a 'world' waiting to be coped with. But my realism is certainly not Putnam's metaphysical realism, for it is characterized by being 'radically non-epistemic', which implies that all our best researched and established thoughts and theories may be false. I think the independence of belief and truth requires only that each of our beliefs may be false. But of course a coherence theory cannot allow that all of them can be wrong.
(Davidson, A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge)

As to Thompson re-introducing conceptual schemes, he can’t be doing that since that would imply a representationalist view of the world, which Thompson is rejecting. His approach, like Davidson’s , assumes that language is directly in touch with the world. The key difference between his pragmatism and Davidson’s unconventional realism is expressed in Thompson’s assertion that “the world is both found and made: it is made in the finding and found in the making.”

Davidson, A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge

An old paper - 1980's? . His views had changed somewhat by the time of Truth and Predication (2005).

We should not say that truth is correspondence, coherence, warranted assertability, ideally justified assertability, what is accepted in the conversation of the right people, what science will end up maintaining, what explains the convergence on final theories in science, or the success of our ordinary beliefs. To the extent that realism and antirealism depend on one or another of these views of truth, we should refuse to endorse either — pp 47-8

.

As to Thompson re-introducing conceptual schemes... — Joshs

But

That world, however, is not given, waiting to be represented. We find the world, but only in the many incommensurable cognitive domains we devise in our attempt to know our way around. The task of the philosopher is not to extract a common conceptual scheme from these myriad domains and to determine its faithfulness to some uncorrupted reality; it is, rather, to learn to navigate among the domains, and so to clarify their concerns in relation to each other.

Those incommensurate domains philosophers are to navigate look very much like conceptual schemes.

All of that is very helpful - and confusing!

I realize that it would be helpful to identify specific remarks to back up what I say, but I have found it difficult to choose exactly the right quotations. Nonetheless, I think there is a basis in what you both have said for the following comments:-

It seems to me that Thompson and Davidson have much in common. But there seems to be a difference (though Thompson seems to say that Davidson points us towards it) in that, for Thompson there are sometimes (but, I notice, not too often) local differences of opinion that involve incommensurability. Davidson certainly rules out the "superholist" view and rejects the conventional realism/anti-realism dilemma. Yet he does seem to adopt an unconventional version of realism. But I don't think that he rules out local disagreements that involve incommensurablity. But nor does he rule them in.

One of the features of Kuhn's version of all this is that he broadens the scope of his paradigms beyond the purely linguistic, to include, for example, technology. I would have expected something similar from Thompson (embodiment, enactivism).

Davidson's view that the only issues are about our beliefs and whether they are true or not "in the world" is surprising, especially when he insists that there are no "raw" (i.e. uninterpreted) experiences, yet it seems to be the case that such facts about the world are the causes of our beliefs. (McDowell's objjection that causality is indifferent to justification seems correct to me.). On both grounds, the articulation of our beliefs is critically important, but the means to articulate them would, surely, be some form of conceptual structure or structures. In any case, it seems just obvious that there are many ways to insulate specific beliefs against empirical refutation. For example, "God always answers prayers. Sometimes the answer is no", "All's for the best in the best of all possible worlds", the concept of repression in psychoanalysis &c,

I hope, but am not sure, that at least some of this makes some sense.

It seems to me that it is the various explanations for how and why the world we perceive is as it is that involve various conceptual lenses (conceptual schemes), and that is not that what we perceive is determined by conceptual lenses, but rather by what is noticed, what is selected, which in turn is determined by what is of interest or use.

Yes. The metaphor of a lens is much better. And, of course, the selection of what is to be noticed by reference to what is of interest or use makes perfect sense. We don't start with a clean sheet of paper, but as human beings thrown into the on-going social and material world. We start with where we are.
So we need to think of pragmatism, in some form, at the level of the conceptual scheme or paradigm or language (and this needs to be flexible, capable of adapting to changes and surprises. Then truth and falsity apply where the scheme applies. (The idea of truth that is independent of what enables us to articulate it and discover it seems like a desirable goal, but doesn't make any sense.)

I like what @Janus says:

It seems to me that it is the various explanations for how and why the world we perceive is as it is that involve various conceptual lenses (conceptual schemes), and that is not that what we perceive is determined by conceptual lenses, but rather by what is noticed, what is selected, which in turn is determined by what is of interest or use.

We can attend to the world in different ways, paying more attention to certain aspects, configurations, things that seem relevant to us for various reasons and are maximally informative in regard to affording the behavior required to live or do what we want to do. I think all our perception trivially is picking out structures in the world even if it requires some processing to do so (e.g. our ability to sense and engage with 3-dimensional depth in visual space can only be inferred indirectly from 2D visual cues and also information from our bodies). Different brains may inclined to attend to some structures more than other, some brains may not even be able to pick out some structures (e.g. color blindness), and brains can often be wrong in some sense (e.g. illusions).

As @Ludwig V suggests, we may have local disagreements in the sense that we make (or think we make) meaningfully different predictions about how the world works. The fact that different cultures or even different people may attend to the world in different ways or use words in different ways then doesn't necesarily preclude some in principle mutual intelligibility in how these people use words, and people generally have access to the same information from the perceived world due to our shared biology and intelligence. This point can be somewhat separated from the idea that people can have different beliefs with different predictions or counterfactuals about how the way the world works - the belief in the existence or absence of God in different cultures is about disagreements of beliefs. Obviously these beliefs may involve novel concepts, but then Davidson's point is that the idea of conceptual schemes becomes vacuous once mutual intelligibility is allowed - it is not so troublesome to incorporate a concept you have never heard of before into your own conceptual repertoire. I think Kuhn's notion of paradigms was never about some notion of global unintelligibility but about general underdetermination of the kinds of hypothetical metaphysics that can account for empirical evidence, and local misunderstandings that cause scientists to sometimes talk past each other.

On the idea of interpreted experiences, I like a kind of middle ground in the sense that I think we just see what we see in terms of direct experiences. However maybe those experiences just change given the context for various reasons in your brain; for instance, color inversion / afterimage illusions is just a very extreme example of the fact that we can plausible have different experiences to the same stimuli given some different context. You might then think of having different experiences to the same stimuli in the sense of the kind of structure that is, so to speak, being inferred by the brain from its sensory inputs - the brain can react to the same sensory inputs in different ways to extract the most information in some context.

There is though, I think, also an interpretation aspect in the sense that we can plausibly act or re-act in response to the same experiences in different ways - that is a sense of interpretation purely in the sense of acts, behavior, changes of attention, vocalization, prompted thought or even mental imagery, prediction, memory, etc ...

Aside:
(Imo, its not necessarily very easy to disentangle experiences and interpretations introspectively because the nature of our experiencrs tends to be in flux - in a William James sense of the metaphor of continual flights and perchings and flights again of a bird. From my introspections, meaningfully making sense of a perch involves a flight which obviously takes you away from that perch - my own experienced cannot be made sense of in an intelligible, noticeable way outside of the fact that those experiences are a continual stream. There is no sense in which I recognize a dog without the reactive changes in attention and behavior that it entails, or the later ability to report and re-affirm that experience. In those attention-blindness tasks with the dancing gorilla, my cortical system may have registeted information on the retina which is related to the gorilla, but without attention and the ability for this information to affect other parts of the brain that react to the gorilla; then for all intents and purposes, nothing was registered, nothing was noticed, nothing was seen, because registering something is an act).

Continued:
... This all in the same sense that different people may attend or have tendencies to make different predictions or construct relationships about what they see in the world. We could then be "wrong" in some sense - the kind of structure inferred may have a different relationship to the world that contradicts counterfactuals related to the particular relevant scenario - a brain can be wrong in some sense when its predictions about its own experiences do not cohere. We use words like 'dog' in relation to a coherent structure of experiences that map to an outside world insofar as our biological machinery is coupled to an outside world. And biological structures can couple to the world in different ways (whether at the level of different species, cultures, individuals, etc), coupling to different facets, in a way that carries some kind of veridicality insofar that they organisms are predictive machines that react appropriately or at least consistently to the environment as a "good regulator": e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_regulator.

We can attend to the world in different ways, paying more attention to certain aspects, configurations, things that seem relevant to us for various reasons and are maximally informative in regard to affording the behavior required to live or do what we want to do. I think all our perception trivially is picking out structures in the world even if it requires some processing to do so (e.g. our ability to sense and engage with 3-dimensional depth in visual space can only be inferred indirectly from 2D visual cues and also information from our bodies). — Apustimelogist

I dont like the metaphor of lens as a depiction of the relation between mind and world. It implies a detached, subjectivist view of how we make sense of the world, as though the information contained in reality is already sitting out there and all we have to do is notice and process it internally. We don’t pick out factual aspects of the world based on relevance for our purposes, we actively do things with the inanimate and social world, and the patterns of our doings forms normative structures of intelligibility and purpose which determine HOW the world appears meaningfully to us, how it ought to be relative to the predictive norms of correctness of fit that are generated from our discursive interactions with it, as well as the pathways by which its intelligibility changes for us over time.

Davidson's point is that the idea of conceptual schemes becomes vacuous once mutual intelligibility is allowed - it is not so troublesome to incorporate a concept you have never heard of before into your own conceptual repertoire. I think Kuhn's notion of paradigms was never about some notion of global unintelligibility but about general underdetermination of the kinds of hypothetical metaphysics that can account for empirical evidence, and local misunderstandings that cause scientists to sometimes talk past each other. — Apustimelogist

The idea of mental scheme vs factual content is vacuous. But if we recognize the performative, enactive nature of sense-making, then we can see why it is the case that when it comes to vitally important aspects of our dealings with each other , on matters such as science, politics and ethics, it is indeed enormously troublesome to incorporate a concept you have never heard of before IF that concept gets its sense from a discursive system of practices that is only peripherally shared by you. No need to blame this on a split between scheme and world, since the world is already directly present in our practices.

I've read that thrice and still have little idea of what your thesis is.

In particular, it is not clear that conceptual schemes correspond in any helpful way with "models" in cybernetics, whatever they are.

I dont like the metaphor of lens as a depiction of the relation between mind and world. — Joshs

How about the "Mirror of Nature"? Sound better?

How about the "Mirror of Nature"? Sound better? — Arcane Sandwich

It sounds wonderful when used as the foil it represented in Rorty’s book Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature.

That's why I said it.

What did you think of the book?

Eh, I don't think that Rorty is a Pragmatist, that's the honest truth. I'm not saying that my interpretation of his philosophy is correct, I'm just saying that it seems more Postmodern than Pragmatist.

I'm not saying that my interpretation of his philosophy is correct, I'm just saying that it seems more Postmodern than Pragmatist. — Arcane Sandwich

I think that’s why he added ‘NEO-pragmatist.

I think that Pragmatism died with John Dewey, that's what I think. People think I'm wrong about that, but I don't really care.

I dont like the metaphor of lens as a depiction of the relation between mind and world. It implies a detached, subjectivist view of how we make sense of the world, as though the information contained in reality is already sitting out there and all we have to do is notice and process it internally. — Joshs

Maybe. What I was thinking about was the idea of attention - selecting parts of the outside world as more relevant than other parts. For me, this idea of attention conveys a lack of one privileged structure from the perspective of an organism - instead, organisms can interact with the world in different ways, to different parts, for different reasons.

We don’t pick out factual aspects of the world based on relevance for our purposes, we actively do things with the inanimate and social world, and the patterns of our doings forms normative structures of intelligibility and purpose which determine HOW the world appears meaningfully to us — Joshs

Not sure I see a fundamental difference.

IF that concept gets its sense from a discursive system of practices that is only peripherally shared by you. — Joshs

But there is nothing inherently stopping anyone from becoming becoming more familiar with that.

In particular, it is not clear that conceptual schemes correspond in any helpful way with "models" in cybernetics, whatever they are. — Banno

If concepts are just the coupling of word-use to the states of the world then that is fundamentally what they are. Words are proxies which convey the sense in which we - and how we - perceive, predict, attend or engage with our environments. If different people seemingly have different concepts then it is because they are interacting with the world in different ways or interacting with different parts of the world.

I don't see how that addresses my question. It is not clear that conceptual schemes correspond in any helpful way with "models" in cybernetics

If we are good regulators then thats trivially what they are.

The point being conveyed was that a good model can be entailed by any fashion in which an organism can couple to its environment.

If we are good regulators then thats trivially what they are. — Apustimelogist

How?

Because thats what all our sensory-motor states are and words (or word-use) are just a special case.

Davidson's point is that the idea of conceptual schemes becomes vacuous once mutual intelligibility is allowed — Apustimelogist

Yes. But that's a misunderstanding of what intelligibility is. Intellgibility is not black and white, but a spectrum. He seems to think that "conceptual schemes" are a tight logical structure which is either completely intelligible of completely unintelligible - which leads to his reductio. That fits with what appears to me a very naive view of translation as just a set of equivalences. That's seldom or never available.

There is though, I think, also an interpretation aspect in the sense that we can plausibly act or re-act in response to the same experiences in different ways - that is a sense of interpretation purely in the sense of acts, behavior, changes of attention, vocalization, prompted thought or even mental imagery, prediction, memory, etc ... — Apustimelogist

That's very close to what I would call a concept.

You seem

We use words like 'dog' in relation to a coherent structure of experiences that map to an outside world insofar as our biological machinery is coupled to an outside world. — Apustimelogist

Now it seems that you are substituting words for concepts.

I don't think we can do without some sort of idea like that of a concept or idea.

our ability to sense and engage with 3-dimensional depth in visual space can only be inferred indirectly from 2D visual cues and also information from our bodies — Apustimelogist

Not quite right. We have 3D stereoscopic vision because of our two eyes; it fails at larger distances, but it works well at smaller distances - as the 3D films show. Our ears manage to give us 3D hearing as well.

Yes. But that's a misunderstanding of what intelligibility is. Intellgibility is not black and white, but a spectrum. He seems to think that "conceptual schemes" are a tight logical structure which is either completely intelligible of completely unintelligible - which leads to his reductio. That fits with what appears to me a very naive view of translation as just a set of equivalences. That's seldom or never available — Ludwig V

Yes I agree, there are gradations of intelligibility. I think the point is that nothing humans do is in principle unintelligible (in regular contexts). When different, say, cultures collide in the same environment, the individuals in that environment are generally engaging with the same structures of the world (or maybe the weaker claim of some common accessible structure is available) - but the difference is their knowledge, ability or simply the norms or conventions of navigating these structures. But they are in principle navigable.

That's very close to what I would call a concept. — Ludwig V

Yes, agreed. I think concepts can be seen as tied to something like meta-awareness or meta-distinctions... awareness of one's own awareness or ability to distinguish one's own distinctions one makes about the world. We model this in word-use - like how we use 'dog' in relation to some coherent structure of experiences.

Not quite right. We have 3D stereoscopic vision because of our two eyes; it fails at larger distances, but it works well at smaller distances - as the 3D films show. Our ears manage to give us 3D hearing as well. — Ludwig V

All visual cues trivially occur to us on a 2D field - the retina is a 2D structure. The use of two retinas does not change this fact. You are just using 2D cues in an interesting way to make inferences that guide action and predictions about the world.

May I chime in?

Here's the thing, people. It's much simpler than what all of you are saying. A good regulator = a good unofficial moderator.

As such, that person is not technically a moderator.

Is that person doing backseat moderation?

Of course not.

That's what makes him a good regulator!

If any of you ever played D&D, you'd understand all of this in a heartbeat.

All visual cues trivially occur to us on a 2D field - the retina is a 2D structure. The use of two retinas does not change this fact. You are just using 2D cues in an interesting way to make inferences that guide action and predictions about the world. — Apustimelogist

I agree that we have to think of the senses as part of a sensori-motor system, which cuts out the distraction of "presentations" and "perceptions".

One can argue that vision is 2D in the eye, I suppose, and that there is an inference being made. But my ears don't have a 2D image. Nor do my touch or pain receptors. Yet we experience them in 3D. Our knowledge of body position is similar. We don't make the inference - the results of an inference made "unconsciously" are available (are reported) "directly". This, I suppose, is why Kant had to posit a priori understanding of space; similar points apply to time.

I think the point is that nothing humans do is in principle unintelligible (in regular contexts). — Apustimelogist

That fits with Wittgenstein's idea that human life and practices are the essential context for everything. It would seem that he did not see any similarities with non-human life. This is somewhat puzzling to me, though I would not automatically extend that understanding to all life. There is disagreement among human beings about that.
There is more to be said about how we deal with extreme - non-regular - contexts.

Yet we experience them in 3D. — Ludwig V

We don't make the inference - the results of an inference made "unconsciously" are available (are reported) "directly". — Ludwig V

Depends what is meant by "experience them in 3D" I guess. For me, 3D "experience" is nothing more than our ability to navigate and predict the 2D visual information. In terms of the body, it is about the integration of joint positions and predictions regarding those degrees if freedom -. Imo, the results of the unconscious inference about 3D space - that becomes available to us - is almosr entirely enactive in terms of my familiarity with the consequences of movements in terms of visual and joint information. And we must include eye movement and lens focusing (i.e. ciliary muscle) in this too - your eye palpates the scene in its motion and focusing which is part of your distinct familiarity with 3D space.

That fits with Wittgenstein's idea that human life and practices are the essential context for everything. It would seem that he did not see any similarities with non-human life. This is somewhat puzzling to me, though I would not automatically extend that understanding to all life. There is disagreement among human beings about that.
There is more to be said about how we deal with extreme - non-regular - contexts. — Ludwig V

I would say maybe there is something like intelligibility in common with non-human life. Maybe we can say humans an animals might share some vague sense of mutual intelligibility with regard to something like space or even emotions on some minimal level depending on the animal, but then animals may be incapable of many of the kinds of abstract predictions a human can. Maybe an animal has a kind of intelligibility in terms of the spatial engagement with a ceiling, but an animal may not have access to the kind of abstract semantic relations and predictions a human could associate with a ceiling. Or maybe a writing is a better example - many animals can see and distinguish letters but will never be capable of attaining more abstract, higher-order predictive content about semantic meaning.

Not the foggiest what you just said, I'm afraid!