Could you please provide a few short quotes from him? — MoK

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus

Albert Camus wrote a piece on Sisyphus that is very famous.

Science is not trying to give an account of what the universe would be like were there no observers. It is trying to give an account of what the universe is like for any observer. — Banno

See, I like that. That rings. Truth found must be the same truth for any seeker, or there may be nothing there to be found.

Science seeks to give an account that works for any of us. — Banno

Yes. Not my truth. Nor the truth absent all of us. But the same truth for any of us.

That "perspectiveless abstraction, stripped of embodiment, situatedness, or any first-person particularity" is a philosopher's invention. — Banno

Now hold on. If something can be seen by any observer, and each observer has their unique situatedness, embodiment and particularity, but that same science can be seen by any observer, then doesn’t it follow that the observer’s particularity is not part of the scientific observation? Like if the view from anywhere shows the same science, science remains nowhere in particular?

Although I would agree science only rests in an observer. It’s just that any observer from anywhere will do. This is like saying the view from nowhere is still a view (still has an observer). So it is really ‘a view from nowhere in particular’, but a view nonetheless.

If something can be seen by any observer — Fire Ologist

Nuh. Science looks for an explanation of what is seen that will be applicable to multiple observers.

Not the same thing.

Folk see different things. Science looks for a common explication.

Science is not trying to give an account of what the universe would be like were there no observers. It is trying to give an account of what the universe is like for any observer. — Banno

If something can be seenby any observer
— Fire Ologist
Nuh — Banno

?? How nuh? You have to really want to disagree with me to find these disagree.

You are talking about a view from nowhere in particular. A view from anywhere is a view from nowhere in particular. What’s wrong with that? It doesn’t refute what you said.

Folks can be too stupid to see science. That’s a non sequitor.

Science looks for the common. We agree on that.

Sounds like you need sleep.

Science is not trying to give an account of what the universe would be like were there no observers. It is trying to give an account of what the universe is like for any observer. — Banno

Yep. :up:

They are not seeking to remove perspective, but to give an account that works from as many perspectives as possible. — Banno

Now how do you say philosophy is different?

@J is convinced that science can give an account that works from as many perspectives as possible, but philosophy can't. Usually what someone of @J's persuasion eventually comes to realize is that either both can or both can't. Scientific knowledge and philosophical knowledge go hand in hand, given that the difference between the two is not as great as has been supposed. The idea that scientific knowledge is possible but philosophical knowledge is not is utterly strange, to say the least. It seems more a consequence of philosophers staring into the mirror of their own reflection than anything of interest.

Tank

@Banno @Wayfarer @Joshs @Fire Ologist @Leontiskos

within any practice that is deeper and more complicated than, for instance, "what constitutes a correct and sufficient apology or excuse," there is likely going to be debate about framework and criteria that is difficult to resolve — J

Sure: knowing, understanding, thinking, seeing, being just, but they all have (specific) ways we judge them and philosophy is the way we talk about what is essential to us about them. There is no fact that ensures those discussions even will be resolved, but that doesn’t annihilate the ability or process to do so, nor make it a matter of individual “opinion” (or a sociological matter). Separately, I would think agreement on the criteria for what constitutes good (even “correct”) scientific method would be easier.

His point is that you don't even get to practices without certain understandings about basic background stuff. — J

We feel we need justification for the “background stuff” beforehand, because we require it to be abstract and absolute. We have no specific topic or situation to dig into. It’s like wanting to agree on the terms of discussion before you can start a conversation. We may not come to an agreement on criteria, but there is at least some substance to talk about.

For Williams' purposes -- and, he suggests, for Descartes' -- an absolute conception would allow us to make sense of, to explain in a unified way, "local" things like secondary qualities, social practices, and disagreements within philosophy. — J

Now I’m not sure what to think, but my concern has only been that dictating that a conception be “absolute” forces what constitutes “local” in comparison. And again, I think we are smooshing together “absolute” as a criteria and “absolute” as all-encompassing (“unified”).

[The absolute conception] should be able to overcome relativism in our view of reality through having a view of the world (or at least the coherent conception of such a view) which contains a theory of error: — Williams, 301

As a reader of Austin, my curiosity is piqued by a discussion of error (he looks into action by examining excuses). Only, I don’t think relativism is to be “overcome”, nor do I imagine a “theory” of error. But yes, error and mistakes and failure and impasse must be accounted for. We have a conflict of interest, however, because our conception wants to avoid the possibility of doubt, or maybe include every outcome. So in saving some of the world (or gaining a complete picture of it), we relegate the rest to “error” or "local predispositions".

What is the difference in kind that you see? — J

Maybe the easiest way to say this is that a moral disagreement is different than an aesthetic one or a scientific dispute. Kant might call the differences categorical, in what makes a thing imperative (to itself). Wittgenstein says the different criteria tell us what kind of object a thing is, what is essential to that kind of thing (for us), what possibilities each thing has.

the assumption is that philosophy's criteria for how to [talk about (say, scientific) criteria] are not on the table. But when the inquiry turns inward, we don't have the luxury of bumping any questions of judgment or method to some off-the-table level. — J

Yes, the last bastion is undefended, without justification or authority, without an arbiter of right. Thus why it is a claim for acceptance, that you accept my observations because you see them for yourself, that you have gathered on your own what evidence is necessary for you to concede. As Wittgenstein puts it, we see the same color to the extent we agree to call it that. This may or may not dovetail into seeing philosophy as a set of descriptions, rather than answers. Doubt creates a gap in our relation to the world, which we turn into a problem of a lack of knowledge, of being unable to envision the world at all (absolutely).

Sure: knowing, understanding, thinking, seeing, being just, but they all have (specific) ways we judge them and philosophy is the way we talk about what is essential to us about them. There is no fact that ensures those discussions even will be resolved, but that doesn’t annihilate the ability or process to do so, nor make it a matter of individual “opinion” (or a sociological matter). — Antony Nickles

Yes, and when one despairs of progress are they being reasonable? What is their time frame and criteria for progress? Is it really true that we have not made moral or philosophical progress over the last 4,000 years?

Yes, the last bastion is undefended, without justification or authority, without an arbiter of right. Thus why it is a claim for acceptance, that you accept my observations because you see them for yourself, that you have gathered on your own what evidence is necessary for you to concede. — Antony Nickles

And this is why a theory of error is helpful, at least in nuce. It helps one see their own errors and move beyond them. The notion that a theory of error or a theory of knowledge or a theory of justification must always be other-focused is entirely non sequitur.

knowing, understanding, thinking, seeing, being just, but they all have (specific) ways we judge them and philosophy is the way we talk about what is essential to us about them. There is no fact that ensures those discussions even will be resolved, but that doesn’t annihilate the ability or process to do so, nor make it a matter of individual “opinion” (or a sociological matter). — Antony Nickles

:up:

It’s like wanting to agree on the terms of discussion before you can start a conversation. We may not come to an agreement on criteria, but there is at least some substance to talk about. — Antony Nickles

However, this desire for terms beforehand only arises after the conversation has already started (something Banno always points out). So it seems to me that when we want to start a conversation, we need to treat the start as actually a middle and move backwards from the middle of the discussion looking to clarify the criteria, while moving forwards in the discussion to develop some substance to talk about. And each step in either direction informs each step in the other direction (criteria informs what substance is identified, and substance identified begs clearer criteria in support thereof) - so we need to juggle both directions at once to soundly and validly move at all.

In this, Nagel approaches something like a dialectic: not a fusion of subjective and objective, but a dialogical relationship between them. — Wayfarer

This is good. I think we forget, because the phrase is now part of the atmosphere, that "The View from Nowhere" was undoubtedly intended to sound absurd, to provoke the response, "Wait a minute, how could there be any such thing?" (Possibly a partial reason why Nagel chose it over "view from anywhere"?) Many who haven't read the book think Nagel uncritically espouses such a view. Rather, he's asking how it is that the philosophical desire for rationality and universalizability seems to pull us toward an impossible point of view, one that in addition abandons what it means to live a life -- that is, subjectivity. And yet we can't just ignore what appear to be the claims of rationality either. So -- yes, a dialectic.

Thanks for the link!

Again, your responses are thoughtful, on point, and help develop the questions of the OP. Much appreciated.

There is no fact that ensures those discussions even will be resolved, but that doesn’t annihilate the ability or process to do so, nor make it a matter of individual “opinion” (or a sociological matter). — Antony Nickles

Right. And we have to hold out against those who see this as a binary -- either we get a resolution or it's just a matter of opinion and/or "how people do."

I would think agreement on the criteria for what constitutes good (even “correct”) scientific method would be easier. — Antony Nickles

Easier than similar criteria for philosophy, anyway. Though I'm alive to the fact that there's a lot of soul-searching going on in the scientific community these days, or maybe it's just the philosophy-of-science community.

my concern has only been that dictating that a conception be “absolute” forces what constitutes “local” in comparison. And again, I think we are smooshing together “absolute” as a criteria and “absolute” as all-encompassing (“unified”). — Antony Nickles

Agreed. The criteriological usage is perhaps closer to Descartes, for what that's worth? -- criteria for certainty = knowledge that cannot be doubted or shown to be false, hence "absolute" knowledge. Looking at the other usage, I'm not sure whether an Absolute Conception that unifies and explains all knowledge would also need to demonstrate itself to be certain. And that's part of Williams' question -- does such a conception have to know that it is correct? He calls that "going too far."

We have a conflict of interest, however, because our conception wants to avoid the possibility of doubt, or maybe include every outcome. So in saving some of the world (or gaining a complete picture of it), we relegate the rest to “error” or "local predispositions". — Antony Nickles

Well, Williams concludes, "The most ambitious ideas that have been entertained of the absolute conception must fail," and this is part of why. I'd only add that I think "error" in Williams' sense, and "local predispositions," are distinct, though equally troubling, categories. From the absolute viewpoint, are all local predispositions errors? Not exactly. They are incomplete, and perhaps dependent on a framework that can't be made part of an absolute conception. But this isn't the sort of "error" that Williams believes an Absolute Conception needs a theory to explain. That error would be the one that claims to be "a rival view" to the Absolute Conception itself.

a moral disagreement is different than an aesthetic one or a scientific dispute. Kant might call the differences categorical, in what makes a thing imperative (to itself). — Antony Nickles

OK. When you wrote:

Judging a good shoe and what is considered a planet are different in kind, — Antony Nickles

I thought you might be thinking that the shoe question could not be settled objectively, whereas the planet question could. But I should have considered your choice of "planet" more carefully, since that's a recent example of a supposedly scientific question that turned on a matter of terminology. So -- objective as to language, in a way, but not as to heavenly bodies!

As Wittgenstein puts it, we see the same color to the extent we agree to call it that. This may or may not dovetail into seeing philosophy as a set of descriptions, rather than answers. — Antony Nickles

Or as any other particular thing, including "therapy" for misuses of language. Do you think there's a way to characterize what most of us call philosophy -- that is, the sort of conversation we're having here -- in Wittgensteinian terms that give it a use rather than a misuse? In a funny way, that's an "absolute conception" question too, though not Williams'.

?? How nuh? You have to really want to disagree with me to find these disagree. — Fire Ologist

Perhaps it would be worth considering the twin paradox.

The two twins do not see the same thing, yet the observations of each twin occurs in accordance with Special Relativity.

Yep.

[Local predispositions] are incomplete, and perhaps dependent on a framework that can't be made part of an absolute conception. But this isn't the sort of "error" that Williams believes an Absolute Conception needs a theory to explain. That error would be the one that claims to be "a rival view" to the Absolute Conception itself. — J

We appear to agree that the “local”/“absolute” framework needs to be set aside, I would say because it is merely a wish, a desire, a manufactured dichotomy. So other observations would not be “rival” views, in competition (not other claims to still conquer skepticism). They would simply not be “complete” or certain, though not thus “errors” or simply “predispositions”. They would still be rational, communal, and correct based on the individual criteria for each thing.

I'm not sure whether an Absolute Conception that unifies and explains all knowledge would also need to demonstrate itself to be certain. And that's part of Williams' question -- does such a conception have to know that it is correct? He calls that "going too far." — J

Again, focusing on specific rather than abstractly “unified”, we can “explain all knowledge” correctly because even knowledge actually has different variations (senses/uses) which have tailored criteria.

So other observations would not be “rival” views, in competition — Antony Nickles

Do you mean, they would not be from our point of view, or from the point of view of an Absolute Conception that claims to be able to give an explanation of them?

This is perhaps another way of asking, If we agree to set aside the idea of a legitimate Absolute Conception, how are we going to characterize what an alleged Absolute Conception is saying? Isn't the AC itself now revealed as an error? Is there a way to describe it, more mildly, as merely another "incomplete" view?

They would simply not be “complete” or certain, though not thus “errors” or simply “predispositions”. They would still be rational, communal, and correct based on the individual criteria for each thing. — Antony Nickles

:up:

It's great to see someone address this topic with clarity, answer questions directly, philosophize forthrightly, etc. Thanks for that.

We appear to agree that the “local”/“absolute” framework needs to be set aside, — Antony Nickles

In different ways, though. For @J and Williams it is not set aside insofar as it remains as a central foil to any thinking going forward. For many others it must actually be set aside as a manufactured dichotomy, which cannot be appealed to as some kind of eternal foil for all future thinking. The question is whether one continues to be haunted by the infallibilist paradigm that they have "set aside."

If we agree to set aside the idea of a legitimate Absolute Conception, how are we going to characterize what an alleged Absolute Conception is saying? Isn't the AC itself now revealed as an error? Is there a way to describe it, more mildly, as merely another "incomplete" view? — J

It’s not the view that we are to overcome, not the form of answer, but letting go of the desire for the outcome.

Would anyone like to join me in analyzing this argument? And if it’s unclear in my paraphrase, I can quote more from Williams to set it up better if need be. — J

It is a naive argument. The cartesian method asks, is there anything that one cannot doubt, and this brings inquiry to bear on where doubt cannot go. There is an analytic divide in this that, at least up front, has to be understood: OTOH, there is language, and language is contingent, and this is important to see, for anything said can be doubted, and the moment is conceived, it is subject to anything that can be brought against it in metaphor, irony, exaggeration, and any of the literary devices you can think of. I like to say, in language, the Gods are just grist for the mill, for nothng is sacrosanct because language is self annihilating: the moment something is uttered, it plays implcitly against what it is not, and all I have to do is speak this: You say God loves us all, and I say, God? But does he love elephants? Paramecia? Does God have agency? Bigger than something, or smaller? And look, there is NO end to this fun. All inquiries into anything at all end up in aporia, indeterminacy, and what is there is entirely open to play. Nothing survives. Which is why Karl Rahner, the Heideggerian Jesuit priest, now tells us that none of it, the rituals, to prayers, the hymns, and the metaphysics of Jesus the redeemer, the son of God, and so on--none it is "true" because God is simply ineffability itself. I would add: God could actually show up at my doorstep and take me into the depths of her being, and language or reason would not bat an eye, and this is because language never was that which had the power to possess "the world" or anythinhg at all. Language is pragmatic, intra-referential or "deferential" but always "at a distance" from its own "ground," that is, unable yo say what "it" is (an interesting book I just began reading by Derrida, The White Mythology, starts on about the good read).

Even logic itself can be doubted, for while it does seem impossible to doubt the "intuition" of something like modus ponens, this bit of reasoning is cast in language, and language is contingent, historical, from the Greek (logic, from logos, which comes from prehistorical roots), and thus the actuality of this "intuition" (which needs to be crossed out as it is written! Because it, too, it a particle of language) and its connection to the prehistoric ground in language must at so9me point be revealed to have that foundational connection with its actual counterpart, the intuition, that makes language actually BE the intuition itself, and this, of course, is absurd. The "aboutness" of language can NEVER be shown, because one in doing so will always encounter the language itself used to show this. You see the problem here? Anyway: So there is no way science will ever do this: disclose the world's own most actuality, so to speak. Science issues from language (Rorty says science is essentially social) and language has no foundational or center of its own (Derrida. You ask me what a doctor is, and I can give answers that never end).

OTOH, take John Cleese, a master ironist (whose family name was once Cheese, and he regretted it being changed) and ask him if there is nothing that survives the death by a thousand cuts that irony can deliver, and he will say there is nothing that cannot be undone, talk about the political, philsophical, religious, the agony of death and torture, NOTHING cannot be undone, and everything can be gainsaid, DOUBTED, refuted, rendered uncertain, even logic! But put in his midst an occurrent actuality of someone suffering, bleeding, in screaming agony, you will find Cleese in a crisis that cannot be gainsaid, derided, doubted, or undone. You have arrived at your desideratum: an absolute, but this absolute stands outside language.

You want to know if Williams' thoughts are compelling. No, because he doesn't understand (based on your info) the nature of doubt and certainty. Doubt is IN every possible utterance, for language is self annihilating, and thus to speak of certainty is to be open to doubt, no matter how certain you are. But there is a paradox on our midst, for language is also the way one bears witness to what is not language.

Thanks for responding. I'm having great difficulty following your thoughts, however. Could you perhaps just begin by saying what you think Williams' position is, regarding an Absolute Conception -- what is the "naive argument"?

Consider that the the Cartesian method is to discover what cannot be doubted, and this is impossible to "say" that is, put in a proposition, because all propositions are contingent and this is because language does not produce certainty beyond doubt. All propositions can be doubted because the ground for language is not a singularity: try to say what a thing is and you will be question begging the meaning of the terms you use to say it, and those terms will rely of other terms, and this is the contingency of language. No utterance is "stand alone" about what it is about; rather the aboutness is diffuse, and is the totality of the language. Think of the way Hegel said that when you point something out, and say There it is! the term 'there' is a universal term, and can be used in a great many contexts, and so what it is before you that is being indicated with 'there' is in no way brought to light with this term. All terms are like this. Language doesn't "speak" the world as it is outside of language, for all of our possible references are universal terms, not particulars. Even the term 'particular' fails refer to something other than language.

I sometimes ask, does General Motors exist? Of course, it exists; it employs thousands, is on the stock exchange, has been making cars for more than a century. and so on. But there was a time when it didn't exist, so how is it that it was simply summoned into existence? We want to think of someting existing as being more than someone's saying so and making money in it. Isn['t GM just like some cultural institution, like marriage or funerals, and what about our names, Jim or Constance or Tiffany: do these people with these names "exist"? We want to say the people do, but the names as such really don't. The point I would make is that EVERYTHING is like this. This is why Williams has to talk about a View from Nowhere: if language is indeterminate, self referential, contingent, then anything that can be said cannot possibly be absolute. But then, what is "nowhere" is right before your waking eyes. You see the cup on the table, but you know your comprehension is tied to a totality of language possiblities, none of which have any authority to speak "about" anything outside of these possibilities. That cup has another dimension entirely, for what sits in the table is not language at all. It is "other" than language.

In the OP you talked about "reality absolutely uninterpreted by human perspectives and limitations" but
science is the LEAST able to put forth foundational meaning like this, for it thinks what is said about the world, actually discloses the world apart from the language that constructs the disclosure, as if calling somethign a fence post or a hydrogen atom "speaks" what that over there IS. Science is firmly rooted in this supposition. But most importantly, science ignores the MOST salient features of our existence (and all of existence): affectivity and "subjective" affairs like thinking, moods, apprehensions, anxieties, anticipating, remembering, resolving, CARING, and so on. And it is here I am saying you will find your desideratum: put lighted match under the palm of you hand. There are TWO phenomena here. One is the actuality of screaming pain, and the other is everything that can be said about it. We generally take the two to be one, but this is wrong. Language is inherently interpretative, and never "touches" the actuality; while this living actuality if pain: can this in any way possible be doubted? Not for a millisecond. It cannot be gainsaid because pain is not language. "It" stands apart from language, yet it is there, most emphatically in your midst; an absolute. An "absolute" is, of course, language, and I am writing these words, and yet, what I talk "about" manages to reach beyond language's totality....or does it?

This is the essential question of ontology. The ethical/aesthetic dimension of our existence is a dimension that is, by the standards of our collective understanding, nowhere.

That about Hegel needs to be made clearer. Oh well.