@Banno, I'm sure you might like this post. What do you think about this?

That's more or less the very question I'm asking you to consider. You insist that empirical observation have territory, while other maps, such as idea of ethics, aesthetic or logic, do not. I'm asking how you arrive at this conclusion when you only have a map in either case. How do you know the empirical maps have territory while the ethical ones do not?

How do you justify empirical maps have territory, and so are not "just psychology," but that other maps, like ethics, have no territory and so are "just psychology"?

how you arrive at this conclusion when you only have a map in either case. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I asked you "I'm not claiming that the map is (necessarily) the territory. Are you?"

You didn't give a straight yes or no answer. So yes, you are claiming that?

I've been scouring the interwebs for more information about Wittgenstein's stance on psychologism, and have found the following book:

https://books.google.com/books?id=MYaOVtuEpPYC&lpg=PA137&ots=dLy6HxQUQU&dq=psychologism%20and%20wittgenstein&pg=PA141#v=onepage&q=psychologism%20and%20wittgenstein&f=false

It's pretty good.

I've not commented on that issue because it wasn't what I was trying to discuss. With respect to that point, I would say the map (our experience) is never the territory (things we might be aware of in our experience).

I'm not sure why you are bringing up this point. All along my point has been about the reasoning of your position. Whether maps are territory or not, when there is a map and territory, isn't relevant to this issue I'm talking about.

My point is the move to deny territory to ethics is unjustified just based on someone is experiencing a map.

Isn't the example of Wittgenstein's forms of life and language games, representative of a psychologism tone in his Investigations?

I'm not sure why you are bringing up this point. — TheWillowOfDarkness

The reason I brought it up is because you said this:

The problem is all our accounts we give are the way we think. — TheWillowOfDarkness

That's saying that the maps are the maps.

So we need to check if you think there are only maps.

You don't think that.

But now you seem to be saying that it's not possible to experience something that's not just our experience, or it's not possible to "put something in a map" that doesn't exist outside of the map?

So you believe that when we feel a particular emotion, for example, it's basically a perception of something that's not mental?

We don’t really, for I was not discussing whether there was territory or not, but rather identifying the status of a map and how it related to claims being made. But I will digress for context.


When we experience which reports some sort of truth, be it the presence of an empirical object or a particular ethical significance, we have a map. All we have to show us what is there or not is the experience. Our experiences/maps are the means be which we learn about any territory which might be present.

For example, if I am to know about the tree in my back yard, I do so through the “map” of my experience. I have perceptions and ideas which, even if they show an underlying territory, are never the thing I’m perceiving or thinking about. No matter how much territory my experiences might show me, they will only ever be the map— a thing which is showing me something else outside of it. My knowing of the tree will never be the tree itself. Each of us is a different thing.

I am indeed saying it is not possible to experience something which isn’t our experience. By definition, any instance of experience is only a state of our experience. This is why the fact of me experiencing the tree in my backyard isn’t the tree. Two different states are present, my experience of the tree (map) and the state (territory) of the tree I know about. At no point can our knowing(map) become the thing which is known (territory). Our knowledge can only ever be a map. When we examine our knowledge, we are always limited to maps. Our experience/state of knowledge is never the territory it reports. But this places no limit or restriction on knowing things. Maps are what show us the territory.

So with respect to emotions, yes, it is perception/knowledge of something that is not mental. If someone feels an emotion, it’s an existing state. If I know someone is happy, for example, I have an experience which is reporting on a truth of how someone else exists. I have a map (my experience they are happy) which shows me a territory (their existing emotional state of happiness).

In terms of mind/body dualism, a person’s thoughts, feelings, etc. are not actually mental. Since the are particular existing states, they are material occurrences of causality, much like anything else, just with a different form. Some things are trees, others atoms… some are experiences.

On your view, you have no grounds for believing there's anything but a map.

You're backing (at least epistemological) idealism via representationalism. I'm neither an idealist nor a representationalist. Again, I'm not claiming that the map is (at least the epistemological) territory. You are (well, or you are and you aren't alternately, seemingly rather arbitrarily, basically as if you don't seem to realize the implications of your own views).

Isn't the example of Wittgenstein's forms of life and language games, representative of a psychologism tone in his Investigations? — Wallows

I haven't had the time to read the book link you posted, but it is certainly the case, as the author states, that Wittgenstein was an anti-transcendentalist who recognised that the semantics of logic and mathematics was reducible to the application of mathematics in the real world. So there is a case to be made that he didn't support anti-psychologism in the sense of believing that the truth of logic or mathematics (and other language-games) transcends human activities. But that shouldn't be taken to imply support for psychologism either, for the reasons i've previously mentioned.

Any software developer knows that a refusal to test the correctness of their software "because the logic of the software is true for myself, representing as it does my psychological construction of truth" isn't acceptable to the consumer. As Wittgenstein later points out, the notion of truth and falsity is relative to a notion of error. And it is
this conceptual allowance for uncertainty in the correct application of logic that makes logic a meaningful form of communication,whereby the meaning of logical practice is irreducible to any particular application of it's rules or to any particular thoughts and feelings that may occur while practising logic.

Hence the anti-transcendentalist must understand meaning in terms of holistic verification that is irreducible to individual feats of psychology.

There are grounds for believing there is more than a map: the independent of thing from experience of a thing. When we consider some sort truth or fact we know, our interest isn't in how we have a map which shows us it. We are curious about what is beyond the map. Our object of knowledge is not our experience, the map, by the underlying territory on its own terms.

Our experience (the map) is not the truth maker. The other thing, that which is independent of the state of experience in question, is the truth maker. My backyard does't have a tree because my experience shows one. It one because that tree itself exists. Similarly, with a logical truth or ethical truth, it is not the case because my experience says so. It is the case because whatever independent logical of ethic truth is present.

The position I'm outlining is the exact opposite of what you claim: it is materialism, in which the representation of experience has no role in determining truth or existence.

If we were to pose one, by having an experience (map), had the truth of the things shown, we would be an idealist who thought existence or truth was achieved through representation. We would be equating our experience (map) with the thing it showed (territory).

Any materialism requires we be restricted to maps. Since our experiences of representation are not the independent truth or existence of anything shown, they can only be limited to maps. Under a materialist position, it impossible for our experiences to be more than maps.

Epistemology can only ever be a map because its presence is not that of the things it shows-- i.e. the independence of existing things and truths from experience/epistemology.

There are grounds for believing there is more than a map: the independent of thing from experience of a thing. — TheWillowOfDarkness

It's not clear to me what that is supposed to read that would make sense.

When we consider some sort truth or fact we know, our interest isn't in how we have a map which shows us it. We are curious about what is beyond the map. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Unfortunately, per your views, you have no grounds for believing there's anything but a map.

Our object of knowledge is not our experience, the map, by the underlying territory on its own terms.

Completely inconsistent with things you said earlier.

How about we try one thing at a time and try to be consistent, try to make sense, etc.?