It's "reliability" is relative, and context dependent, so your dismissal is just an attempt to avoid the reality that it answers your question, regardless of whether answering your question gets us anywhere or not. — Metaphysician Undercover

Let's grant for the sake of argument that (intellectual) intuition sometimes might give us an accurate picture of the nature of reality ("reality" here meaning something more than mere empirical reality, that is not merely things as they appear to us, but rather some "deeper" truth metaphysically speaking). How do we tell when a particular intuition has given us such knowledge?

I won't respond to the rest of your post as it seems like either sophistical nonsense or inaccurate speculations about my motives.

Hmm, seems like the same accusation was leveled against me. That indicates that the person making the accusation is really the one with the idiosyncratic definition. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, you and Wayfarer share an idiosyncratic definition, and surprise, surprise! you are both idealists. As I said, if we want to say 'there are noumena' that amounts to saying 'noumena exist' under any ordinary understanding of what the term 'exist' means. We would be saying that noumena are not merely imaginary entities, but are real.

We would be saying that noumena are not merely mind-dependent or perception dependent entities (phenomena) but are mind-independently real entities. Saying, as Wayfarer does, that they neither exist nor do not exist may have some evocative or poetic point, but in a discursive context, it is just nonsense, because in its contradiction it tells us nothing.

But I also believe this is broadly compatible with the phenomenal-noumenal distinction. The problems arise when we try to 'peek behind the curtain' to see what the in-itself really is. — Wayfarer

Good, agreed. That there is a distinction is all I insist on.

This is exactly the wrong attitude. By giving the name "world" to the noumenal, you imply that what exists independently is in some way similar to our conception of "the world". — Metaphysician Undercover

We can be more precise, terminologically, if that suits you. I have no stake in what's called a "world" and what isn't. Again -- what I care about is the difference, not what terms we use for it. I don't think attitude has much to do with it. We can call the "noumenal world" the in-itself, and "our world" . . . well, whatever you'd like, that you believe would be less misleading. No arguments here.

This is not really the case. In most instances the goal is to create what happens next, i.e. we want to shape the future, not predict it. The ability to predict is just a means to that further end. — Metaphysician Undercover

This can be framed in terms of prediction, inference, model construction. It is called active inference, a corollary of the free energy.

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

So there is no conflict imo. At the same time, all these things like desire still work via neurons that are effectively prediction machines.

Let's grant for the sake of argument that (intellectual) intuition sometimes might give us an accurate picture of the nature of reality ("reality" here meaning something more than mere empirical reality, that is things as they appear to us, rather some "deeper" truth metaphysically speaking). How do we tell when a particular intuition has given us such knowledge? — Janus

It's not a matter of intuition giving us an accurate picture of reality. That's not what I have been arguing. I have been arguing that the picture given by empiricism, the supposed "empirical reality", is incorrect, false and misleading. When we can point out inconsistencies, problems, failures, in the "empirical reality", as I do repeated throughout this forum, then intuition provides us with the conclusion that there is a deeper metaphysical truth which is not provided by the "empirical reality".

So, as I mentioned earlier, the nature of time can be taken as an example, or even the primary specific or "particular intuition". The empirical model is based solely on the past. Only the past has been sensed or experienced in any way. From this, we project toward the future, and conclude that we can predict the future, and this capacity to predict validates the determinist perspective. However, the intuitive perspective knows that we have a freedom of choice to select from possibilities, and this negates the determinist perspective. Unless we deny the intuitive knowledge, that we have the capacity to choose, the difference between these two perspectives indicates that the relationship between the past and the future is not the way that the supposed "empirical reality" supposes that it is.

No, you and Wayfarer share an idiosyncratic definition, and surprise, surprise! you are both idealists. — Janus

Idealism is the predominant metaphysics in western society. Surprise, surprise!

This can be framed in terms of prediction, inference, model construction. It is called active inference, a corollary of the free energy. — Apustimelogist

Did I discuss this with you before, or was that with someone else who referenced the same woefully inadequate model?

Idealism is the predominant metaphysics in western society. Surprise, surprise! — Metaphysician Undercover

That seems to be factually incorrect at least when it comes to philosophers: https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/all

I have been arguing that the picture given by empiricism, the supposed "empirical reality", is incorrect, false and misleading. — Metaphysician Undercover

I haven't seen any argument for that conclusion. Can you briefly state what " inconsistencies, problems, failures" are to be found with empiricism? Be concise, no hand-waving.

Did I discuss this with you before, or was that with someone else who referenced the same woefully inadequate model? — Metaphysician Undercover

No clue what you're taking about

Apropos of whether the use of the term 'existence' is idiosyncratic in this thread.

In common speech existence is defined as “the fact or state of living or having objective reality.” Generally speaking, “exists” and “real” are taken as synonymous.

In philosophy, however, the meaning of 'existence' varies within different frameworks:

• Aristotle: existence (to on) is inseparable from form and actuality. Different beings exist in different modes — e.g., material particulars exist as composites of form and matter, perceptible to the senses, while mathematical objects are real as intelligible forms abstracted by the intellect from sensibles (designated “intelligible objects” by Augustine).
• Kant: phenomena exist in space and time; noumena are real in a sense other than the phenomenal.
• Scholastic: existence is the actus essendi (“act of being”) which actualises an essence; God’s being is of a wholly different order (“beyond existence”).
• Phenomenology: existence is disclosed in and through experience — more than mere physical presence.
• Buddhist: bhava (“existence”) is conditioned and provisional. Nibbana is real but not an existent.

C. S. Peirce also distinguishes reality from existence. Existence is actuality in the here-and-now, the mode of being of things that act and react in time — what he called brute facts (Secondness).

Reality is broader: it is “the mode of being of that which is as it is, independent of what any actual person or persons may think it to be” (Logic of Mathematics). This includes mathematical truths, laws of nature, and possibilities — things that are real but not existent in the same way as physical objects (hence the distinction!) Peirce also held to a form of scholastic realism accepting that universals are real (which is not to say they're existent!)

So in Peirce’s framework:

• Julius Caesar existed.
• The number 7 is real but not existent
• A possible isotope might be real (as a possibility grounded in nature) even if it never comes into existence.

That last point raises the sense in which possibilities are real: a possibility is of something that does not exist, but might. The "realm of possibility" is real, but none of its members yet exist. "Real" here means “having a determinate nature independent of what anyone thinks”; exist means “having actualised presence here-and-now.” Possibilities are real in virtue of what they could become, but until actualised they have no existence.

The reflexive, everyday attitude is that what exists is “out there somewhere.” Empiricism conditions us to expect that what exists can be found in nature, grounded in natural processes, and potentially discoverable by science — a disposition that obscures nuanced philosophical distinctions.

The idea is that a photograph presents the appearance of an object as mediated by the camera’s optical and technical structure. It’s not the object itself, but an image of the object—structured by the mechanics and limitations of the device. In this conversation, the photograph was being used as a metaphor for perception itself. Just as a photograph is a camera-dependent image, so our perception of the world is mind-dependent, shaped by the structure of our perceptual and cognitive apparatus. — Wayfarer

I have no complaint about all this. But you have a worrying tendency to slip from "our perception of the world is mind-dependent" to "the world is mind-dependent".
I take the point about the metaphor. In fact, I think that the the fact that we have technologies of representing the world as we see it is a huge influence on how we think about it. But not necessarily a helpful influence...
If it is a metaphor, it follows that the photograph is not the same as our perception of the world. So we should chart the differences, so that we do not get misled by it.
The most important difference, I think, is that the camera does not perceive what it photographs. You might well say that it records the appearance of what it photographs, but that depends on how we interpret the picture. That's something the camera cannot do. The bone of contention escapes the metaphor.
But it does seem to me that the metaphor gives us grounds for saying that appearances are an objective reality. If they were not, the camera could not record them.

Kant ... distinguishes between the appearance of things—how they present themselves to us—and the thing in itself (das Ding an sich), which is how things are independently of how they appear. — Wayfarer

OK. Let's think about this.
The sun rises in the morning, moves across the sky through the day, and then sinks below the horizon. The sun appears in the morning and disappears in the evening. What happens between the evening and the following morning is hidden from us. This is appearance as disclosure or revelation - as presence (or absence). But this is different, because it is the same object that appears and disappears. (You know how we know that!)
We might complain that the sun, despite appearances, doesn't move. The illusion that it moves is created by the movement (spinning) of the earth. Now we have the distinction between appearance and reality, and it is created by our misinterpretation of what we see. But there is nothing hidden here.
When we collect mushrooms, we have to be very careful. A mushroom can appear to be tasty and nutritious, but be exactly the opposite. A quicksand can appear to be solid ground, but give way as soon as we step on it. People pretend to be (and appear to be) what they are not. These are the appearances the best fit Kant's model. Here, appearance (and not misinterpretation) does hide reality.
Yet perhaps Kant is justified in developing a philosophical, technical, use of "appearance" and classify all appearances together and all realities together. I think not, because appearance and reality are intertwined. There is no binary opposition here. "Appearances" and "realities" are not two different (groups of) objects.

But one sympathetic reading is to see the “thing in itself” as a philosophical placeholder: it marks the limit of our possible knowledge. It also preserves a sense of mystery that no amount of empirical or conceptual inquiry can dissolve—the mystery of what reality is in itself, outside of its appearance to us. In this way, Kant's philosophy continues the classical distinction between appearance (what seems) and reality (what is). — Wayfarer

Marking the limit of our knowledge would be something I could understand. There are indeed unknown unknowns - and, notice, they are presumably what they are independently of anything that we say or do. But I resist the idea that the boundary is fixed. We find that calculating what happens at a molecular level in the macro world is too complex to be a realistic project. So we resort to statistical or probabilistic laws. They work pretty well for us. When we encounter the astonishing phenomena at sub-atomic level, we do not walk away - we wring from the phenomena what conclusions we can.

You rightly emphasize perspective, point of view, as inescapable in all that we know, and, if I've understood you, say that a view of things without any perspective is impossible. I agree. We can characterize a view from a perspective as an appearance, so this becomes an interpretation of what Kant is doing.
So here's Kant trying to make sense of the idea of a view of things outside any perspective. So now I ask, is a view without perspective possible, or not?

If it is possible to say anything that was true of all possible perspectives, that might do as saying something about how things are in themselves, I suppose. (I gather that is one of the strategies that Einstein adopts in the theory of relativity.)

As for the sense of mystery, that could well be one of the motivations. Idealism as denial of the reality of the common sense world, has a very long history, going all the way back to Plato. I am sure that there is something going on here that ordinary philosophical discussion does not touch.

Whatever you imagine is still ordered by a perspective. What you’re visualizing is a Universe as if there were no observers—but the very act of visualizing already imposes a kind of structure, a standpoint. That unknowable, perspective-less universe is what I refer to as the “in itself.” — Wayfarer

This is a version of Berkeley's argument, which he is very enthusiastic about. It is a good one. But if you rule out the possibility of an unknowable, perspective-less universe, what does it mean to refer to it? Is saying of something that it is unknowable true independently of all perspective? I think not. What was unknown can become known - perhaps is already known as soon as we say it is not known.

Reality is broader: it is “the mode of being of that which is as it is, independent of what any actual person or persons may think it to be” (Logic of Mathematics). This includes mathematical truths, laws of nature, and possibilities — things that are real but not existent in the same way as physical objects (hence the distinction!) — Wayfarer

Perhaps I should be taking Peirce (and Meinong) more seriously. "Modes of being" such as "things that are real but not existent in the same way as physical objects" is right up my street. There's much about this approach that I like very much.

I haven't seen any argument for that conclusion. Can you briefly state what " inconsistencies, problems, failures" are to be found with empiricism? Be concise, no hand-waving. — Janus

I mentioned what I called the "primary" example:

So, as I mentioned earlier, the nature of time can be taken as an example, or even the primary specific or "particular intuition". The empirical model is based solely on the past. Only the past has been sensed or experienced in any way. From this, we project toward the future, and conclude that we can predict the future, and this capacity to predict validates the determinist perspective. However, the intuitive perspective knows that we have a freedom of choice to select from possibilities, and this negates the determinist perspective. Unless we deny the intuitive knowledge, that we have the capacity to choose, the difference between these two perspectives indicates that the relationship between the past and the future is not the way that the supposed "empirical reality" supposes that it is. — Metaphysician Undercover

No clue what you're taking about — Apustimelogist

I conclude that it was someone other than you then.

I have no complaint about all this. But you have a worrying tendency to slip from "our perception of the world is mind-dependent" to "the world is mind-dependent". — Ludwig V

I’m very careful about the wording:

…there is no need for me to deny that the Universe is real independently of your mind or mine, or of any specific, individual mind. Put another way, it is empirically true that the Universe exists independently of any particular mind. But what we know of its existence is inextricably bound by and to the mind we have, and so, in that sense, reality is not straightforwardly objective. It is not solely constituted by objects and their relations. Reality has an inextricably mental aspect, which itself is never revealed in empirical analysis. — Wayfarer

Epistemological, not ontological.

More to come…

Very good. And an excellent demonstration of why I never dispute what the term "existence" means!

We have a number of candidate construals, including what you're calling "common speech." (Also Quine's "To be is to be the value of a bound variable."). Is there a way of determining which is correct?

I think not. An understanding of how to construe "existence" can be more or less helpful, more or less perspicuous to a given framework, more or less flexible as it may apply to different cases, but beyond that . . . we have yet to discover the Philosophical Dictionary in the Sky that can answer such questions.

I agree that, for instance, there are good reasons for sometimes distinguishing "exist" and "real," such the numbers example. But I'm sure you wouldn't maintain that it is true that numbers are real but not existent. We can go so far as to say that drawing such a distinction illuminates something interesting and important about numbers. But that something -- the distinction itself -- does not depend on our use of "real" and "existent" to describe it. Arguably, two invented technical terms would do even better.

I’m very careful about the wording: — Wayfarer

I thought so. Now I'm very worried. We'll see.

Epistemological, not ontological. — Wayfarer

OK. I'm not sure what difference it makes, but maybe...

I agree that, for instance, there are good reasons for sometimes distinguishing "exist" and "real," such the numbers example. But I'm sure you wouldn't maintain that it is true that numbers are real but not existent. We can go so far as to say that drawing such a distinction illuminates something interesting and important about numbers. But that something -- the distinction itself -- does not depend on our use of "real" and "existent" to describe it. Arguably, two invented technical terms would do even better. — J

For what its worth, the dictionaries seem to cite that "real" as a definition of "existent". But it seems pretty clear that "real" in most of its uses does not mean exists and "non-existent" is not an antonym for "unreal", not is "unreal" a synonym for existent. What the dictionaries seem to miss is that the meaning of both "real" and "exists" depends on the context - on what is being said to be real or exist.

Nevertheless, it is hard to believe there are many cases in which one would want to say that something real didn't exist, even though it is quite normal to accept that something unreal does exist - under a different description. A toy car is not a real car, but it is a real toy. A painting may not be a real Titian, but it is a real forgery. &c. One needs to bear in mind several close relations like actual, authentic, genuine, and so on.

It is pretty clear that are used in different ways in many contexts. So I'm afraid that I don't understand what you mean by "But that something -- the distinction itself -- does not depend on our use of "real" and "existent" to describe it."

The advantage of dropping words like "real" and "exist" is that it would allow us to replace them with more precise terms that might avoid equivocation and ambiguity. "The meaning of both "real" and "exists" depends on the context - on what is being said to be real or exist," as you say. So they are notoriously difficult to use precisely and consistently.

In practice, take the number example: Would you agree that there is an important ontological difference of some sort between a number and a rock (or the class "rock" too, perhaps, but let's not overcomplicate it)? Does it really matter whether we say, "Rocks are real, numbers exist," or "Numbers are real, rocks exist"? What is actually being claimed here? As far as I can tell, the purpose of such formulations is to highlight a distinction. And the distinction often seems to have something to do with what is basic, essential, grounding, etc. But which term is supposed to be "more basic", and why? How would we find out? Might it not be better to formulate the distinction precisely, say exactly what properties an item must have in order to belong to one or the other or both categories, and leave it at that? How does the choice of "real" vs. "existent" add anything, other than a muddle stretching back thousands of years?

In his own somewhat unsatisfactory way, I think this is what Quine was trying for by equating existence with what can be quantified over.

"The meaning of both "real" and "exists" depends on the context - on what is being said to be real or exist," as you say. So they are notoriously difficult to use precisely and consistently. — J

Well, I'm not opposed in principle to specialized or technical terms. I guess that since you think that there is a distinction out there, in reality, so to speak, you would want the new terms to capture it. But we would need to describe it accurately to do that.
I think it is only difficult for philosophers because they don't seem able to accept that the meaning of the terms depends on their context of use. They expect them to have a univocal meaning. ("Good" is another example, by the way.) If they could accept that, the problems would be, I think, much easier.
However, there is something fundamental about the idea of a concept being instantiated or a reference succeeding. Perhaps that's what we should look at.

Would you agree that there is an important ontological difference of some sort between a number and a rock (or the class "rock" too, perhaps, but let's not overcomplicate it)? — J

Actually, I oscillate between thinking that they have different modes of existence and thinking that they are different kinds (categories) of object. Either way would do, I think.

In his own somewhat unsatisfactory way, I think this is what Quine was trying for by equating existence with what can be quantified over. — J

Well, I thought that idea, together with the idea of domains of discourse, that would define what a formula quantified over, (numbers, rocks, sensations &c.), would work pretty well. I know that some people have gone off it now, but I'm not clear why.

you would want the new terms to capture it. But we would need to describe it accurately to do that. — Ludwig V

Yes. I'm not implying that this is some easy task that philosophers have inexplicably shirked!

They expect them to have a univocal meaning. ("Good" is another example, by the way.) — Ludwig V

It certainly is. I'm not sure how much "univocal" covers, but the problem is partially that these terms are thought of as natural kinds, somehow.

However, there is something fundamental about the idea of a concept being instantiated or a reference succeeding. Perhaps that's what we should look at — Ludwig V

Well, I thought that [Quine's] idea, together with the idea of domains of discourse, that would define what a formula quantified over, (numbers, rocks, sensations &c.), would work pretty well. — Ludwig V

Yeah, I think it's one of the most useful frameworks available. As long as we promise not to claim it's the right way to define "existence"! What quantification gives us is an ordinary, unglamorous way to capture a great deal of the structure of thought. This effort, I believe, is roughly the same project as trying to understand what exists.

Yeah, I think it's one of the most useful frameworks available. As long as we promise not to claim it's the right way to define "existence"! What quantification gives us is an ordinary, unglamorous way to capture a great deal of the structure of thought. This effort, I believe, is roughly the same project as trying to understand what exists. — J

OK. This deserves to be taken seriously.

It occurred to me, while I was thinking about all this, that we have under our hands an example of an attempt to coin technical terms for the purposes of philosophy. Heidegger, Dasein present-to-hand, ready-to-hand &c. Sartre has similar concepts, but was channeling Heidegger; the differences may be important. Both have a certain currency amongst philosophers, but I don't think they have penetrated ordinary language (yet). I don't find them particularly exciting, though.

I'll need to think about this overnight.

That passage reads like nonsense―can't find anything there to respond to.

↪Janus
coherent
Reminds me of that word, “proof”. — Punshhh

Sorry I previously missed this response of yours. I'm not getting what you are getting at.

For what its worth, the dictionaries seem to cite that "real" as a definition of "existent". But it seems pretty clear that "real" in most of its uses does not mean exists and "non-existent" is not an antonym for "unreal", not is "unreal" a synonym for existent. What the dictionaries seem to miss is that the meaning of both "real" and "exists" depends on the context - on what is being said to be real or exist.

Nevertheless, it is hard to believe there are many cases in which one would want to say that something real didn't exist, even though it is quite normal to accept that something unreal does exist - under a different description. A toy car is not a real car, but it is a real toy. A painting may not be a real Titian, but it is a real forgery. &c. One needs to bear in mind several close relations like actual, authentic, genuine, and so on.

It is pretty clear that are used in different ways in many contexts. So I'm afraid that I don't understand what you mean by "But that something -- the distinction itself -- does not depend on our use of "real" and "existent" to describe it." — Ludwig V

Yes, the various meanings and associations of 'real', 'existing' are context dependent. We can say that numbers are real in that they have properties that no one can sensibly deny. We can say that they don't exist, however, because no one has ever seen a number.

On the other hand it could be said that number exists as perceptible quantity. We can see the difference between two oranges and eight oranges, for example. What I object to is the idea that is, at least implicitly, in the OP that there is some absolute "higher" distinction between the terms that only the "illuminated ones" can fathom. Such claims are nothing more than dogma.

An attempt to coin technical terms for the purposes of philosophy. . . . [they] have a certain currency amongst philosophers, but I don't think they have penetrated ordinary language (yet). I don't find them particularly exciting, though. — Ludwig V

Well, that's right, technical terms are kind of a drag to use, especially when they don't originate in English. The Continental stream you point to is one example, but so is the analytic-phil tradition, actually. Or maybe I should back that up and say: The minute you place logic at the forefront of philosophical inquiry, you're going to get what amounts to technical, non-English terminology for a homely concept like "existence."

I frankly don't think my proposal to abandon terms like "existence" or "reality" will work, because thus far we don't have a ship to jump to. Unless you're in the Heideggerean tradition and are willing to adopt that very difficult vocabulary, or you want to do more with the Anglophone logical apparatus. (I've often said that Theodore Sider is really good on this.) For our purposes on TPF, I'd just like to see less contention about "the right definition" for a Large philosophical term, and more attention to the conceptual structure the term is meant to describe or fit into.

I'll be interested in your overnight thoughts!

But it does seem to me that the metaphor gives us grounds for saying that appearances are an objective reality. If they were not, the camera could not record them. — Ludwig V

Certainly. The thrust of the essay isn't that there's not an objective reality, but that reality is not only objective, it has an ineliminable subjective aspect. This is not solipsistic, because as we are subjects of similar kinds, we will experience the objective attributes of reality in similar ways.

"Appearances" and "realities" are not two different (groups of) objects. — Ludwig V

Agree. To think of the appearance and the in itself as a set of two non-equal things is a mistake. I take the gist of Kant's argument is that we don't see what things really are, what they are in their inmost nature, but as they appear to us.

'Epistemological' is the nature of knowing, 'ontological' is on the nature of what exists. I make it clear at the top of the OP that the primary concern is epistemological.

Regards Berkeley, I have an essay on him which I might publish here at some point.

That something -- the distinction itself -- does not depend on our use of "real" and "existent" to describe it. Arguably, two invented technical terms would do even better. — J

On the contrary, it is a fundamental distinction which is almost entirely forgotten or submerged in current culture. Universals, numbers, and the like, are real relationships that can only be grasped by the rational mind. They are the essential elements of reason. Numbers don’t exist as do objects of perception; there is no object called ‘seven’. You might point at the numeral, but that is a symbol. A number is real as an act of counting or as an estimation of quantity. In either case, it is something that can only be known to a rational mind. Hence the interminable debate about Platonism in philosophy of mathematics. Speaking of which:

Standard readings of mathematical claims entail the existence of mathematical objects. But our best epistemic theories seem to deny that knowledge of mathematical objects is possible.

Mathematical objects are...unlike ordinary physical objects such as trees and cars. We learn about ordinary objects, at least in part, by using our senses. It is not obvious that we learn about mathematical objects this way. Indeed, it is difficult to see how we could use our senses to learn about mathematical objects. We do not see integers, or hold sets. Even geometric figures are not the kinds of things that we can sense. Consider any point in space; call it P. P is only a point, too small for us to see, or otherwise sense. Now imagine a precise fixed distance away from P, say an inch and a half. The collection of all points that are exactly an inch and a half away from P is a sphere. The points on the sphere are, like P, too small to sense. We have no sense experience of the geometric sphere. If we tried to approximate the sphere with a physical object, say by holding up a ball with a three-inch diameter, some points on the edge of the ball would be slightly further than an inch and a half away from P, and some would be slightly closer. The sphere is a mathematically precise object. The ball is rough around the edges. In order to mark the differences between ordinary objects and mathematical objects, we often call mathematical objects “abstract objects.” ...

... Some philosophers, called rationalists, claim that we have a special, non-sensory capacity for understanding mathematical truths, a rational insight arising from pure thought. But, the rationalist’s claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies. — Indispensability Arguments in the Philosophy of Mathematics

Bolds added. The point is, if our 'best epistemic theories' can't acknowledge the fundamental role of rational insight in the grasping of numbers, then how good are they? :brow: It's a consequence of what Jacques Maritain describes as the cultural impact of empiricism (but then, he was Aristotelian Thomist, so not obliged to bow to naturalism.)

We're constantly relying on mental constructs, whenever we use language. They are the constitutuents of the lived world, the lebensweld, which is the actual world, as distinct from the abstract domain of theoretical physics.

Understanding that pattern recognition, arising from neural nets taking inputs from senses, can result in recognition of relations (e.g. mathematical relationships) seems like it might clear up some incompatibility issues for some.

That passage reads like nonsense―can't find anything there to respond to. — Janus

Well, aren't you special.

That seems to be factually incorrect at least when it comes to philosophers: — Janus

Philosophers make up a very small percentage of the population. So your proposed facts are irrelevant.

The minute you place logic at the forefront of philosophical inquiry, you're going to get what amounts to technical, non-English terminology for a homely concept like "existence." — J

Too true. But, perhaps, for our purposes, we could use the natural language translation.

I frankly don't think my proposal to abandon terms like "existence" or "reality" will work, because thus far we don't have a ship to jump to. Unless you're in the Heideggerean tradition and are willing to adopt that very difficult vocabulary, or you want to do more with the Anglophone logical apparatus. (I've often said that Theodore Sider is really good on this.) For our purposes on TPF, I'd just like to see less contention about "the right definition" for a Large philosophical term, and more attention to the conceptual structure the term is meant to describe or fit into. — J

It's not a realistic project, I agree. But it gives me something to hold on to when the water gets choppy and I fear drowning in all the different views.

The thrust of the essay isn't that there's not an objective reality, but that reality is not only objective, it has an ineliminable subjective aspect. — Wayfarer

If you just mean that we can know what things are like, I can see the point. I can even accept that there are distortions in the way that we discover and think about reality. But the question is whether those distortions affect reality. I think that they do not - saving exceptional cases.

Agree. To think of the appearance and the in itself as a set of two non-equal things is a mistake. I take the gist of Kant's argument is that we don't see what things really are, what they are in their inmost nature, but as they appear to us. — Wayfarer

OK. I'm not unsympathetic, but I think that Kant misrepresents knowledge, because he doesn't recognize the process that generates it. My version would emphasize the dynamism of our knowledge. Our knowledge is always partial, always finding new questions. But we work on those questions and work out answers, which generate more questions. Complete and final knowledge seems like the terminus of that process, but it will never be actually reached. I would suggest that it is a "regulative ideal", but I really am not sure what complete final knowledge would be.

'Epistemological' is the nature of knowing, 'ontological' is on the nature of what exists. I make it clear at the top of the OP that the primary concern is epistemological. — Wayfarer

I take the point. It may be my problem, rather than yours. But there is a catch. If knowledge is true, then surely, there is a connection with ontology, isn't there?

Regards Berkeley, I have an essay on him which I might publish here at some point. — Wayfarer

I find him fascinating. It's a beautifully constructed argument, with all the right definitions in place. But he keeps taking back what he seems to have said - in the most elegant way and without ever admitting it. His patronizing remark that it is fine for people to go on thinking and speaking in the old way, but he prefers to think and speak with the learned. But the learned, in his day, were mostly the schoolmen, whose ideas he has been consistently rubbishing for page after page. And so on.

... Some philosophers, called rationalists, claim that we have a special, non-sensory capacity for understanding mathematical truths, a rational insight arising from pure thought. But, the rationalist’s claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies. — Indispensability Arguments in the Philosophy of Mathematics

This is odd way of putting the problem. There's no doubt that we are capable of rational thought, at least some of the time. So it can't be incompatible with "an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies." I think that this dilemma is at least partly resolved by the fact that we now have reasoning machines.

Interesting response, thanks.

Here's a possible way to approach the problem: Is "real" more like a name, or more like a description?

Compare "donkey". We point to an individual and say, "This is a donkey," by which we mean that the word "donkey" names, but does not as a name further define or describe, that individual. If someone asked us, "But what does 'donkey' mean? By virtue of what property can we determine that the individual is a donkey?" we would explain how to do this. And if we were further asked, "But why 'donkey'? Why call it that?" we would be a bit puzzled, and reply that there is no particular reason.

I'm suggesting that "real" is more like "donkey". (The analogy isn't perfect, but bear with me.) We examine "conceptual space" and discover that, let's say, "Universals, numbers, and the like, are . . . relationships that can only be grasped by the rational mind." (Notice that for the time being I omitted your word "real".) If this is true, then we've learned something important about a category of being which we encounter.

My challenge is, What is added to our knowledge by describing this category as "real"? Is there any non-circular, non-question-begging way of teasing out more information from "real"? Moreover, what is lost by using "real" can be considerable -- we lose clarity and context, because of the enormously diverse history of that word's usage. We are pulled almost irresistibly into trying to justify our use of "real" to describe the ontological category we've discovered.

Suppose instead -- and this part is fantastical, I know -- we said that universals, numbers, and the like, are Shmonkeys. We can also point out, "In many cultures and traditions, Shmonkeys are equated with what is real, but it is unclear just what that means, apart from being a Shmonkey." And we can go on to give names to other elements of ontology -- perhaps including names for ways of existing. (Quantification!) We'd end up, ideally, with a clear and organized metaphysic that can still speak about grounding, structure, and epistemology, thus covering what most of us want from terms like "real" and "exist," but without the contentious, ambiguous baggage.

To anticipate your response, what this picture leaves out is the idea of "a fundamental distinction which is almost entirely forgotten." I think you're wanting to say that there used to be a correct way of talking about what is real, about what exists, but we no longer remember how to do this. Part of me is sympathetic with this, but not the philosophical part. I think our talk of Shmonkeys can be just as correct, and can reveal the same important properties that (some uses of) "real" is supposed to do, including, as it may be, a fundamental grounding function.

If you just mean that we can know what things are like, I can see the point. I can even accept that there are distortions in the way that we discover and think about reality. But the question is whether those distortions affect reality. I think that they do not - saving exceptional cases. — Ludwig V

But can’t you see that this seemingly straightforward statement already assumes the very point in dispute? You’re picturing “reality” as something fully formed, existing apart from and unaffected by any observer, and then treating our perceptions as merely imperfect copies of it. That is precisely the realist model under debate. The whole issue is whether such a reality—one entirely independent of observation—is anything more than a theoretical construct. We have no direct access to it, only to direct knowledge of it, only to the appearances mediated through our perceptual and cognitive faculties. To claim that reality “is there anyway” is to slip in, unnoticed, the conclusion you are trying to prove.

I think that Kant misrepresents knowledge, because he doesn't recognize the process that generates it. — Ludwig V

:roll: The entire point of the Critique of Pure Reason is about the processes that generate knowledge.

If knowledge is true, then surely, there is a connection with ontology, isn't there? — Ludwig V

Surely, but what we believe exists is very much conditioned by what we think we know.From the OP:

Adopting a predominantly perspectival approach, I will concentrate less on arguments about the nature of the constituents of objective reality, and focus instead on understanding the mental processes that shape our judgment of what they comprise. — Wayfarer

Is "real" more like a name, or more like a description? — J

What is real, the quest to understand it, whether we can understand the real or not, are surely central questions of philosophy.

I think you're wanting to say that there used to be a correct way of talking about what is real, about what exists, but we no longer remember how to do this. — J

You’re aware that scholastic realism was a very different animal from modern scientific realism. Scientific realism, as it’s commonly understood, is rooted in an exclusively objective and empirical framework that sidelines or brackets the subjective elements of judgement, reasoning, and conceptual insight. Scholastic realism, by contrast, affirmed the reality of universals—forms or structures apprehended by the intellect—and saw them as essential to the very architecture of reason.

From the modern empirical-naturalist perspective, this older view is almost unintelligible. Universals are, at best, treated as convenient abstractions from sensory data, not as ontologically basic realities. That is why scientific realism, operating on a one-dimensional ontology of “what exists,” is predisposed to misconstrue or dismiss the reality of universals.

Hence you get statements like this, in a popular essay on the topic of What is Math?:

“I believe that the only way to make sense of mathematics is to believe that there are objective mathematical facts, and that they are discovered by mathematicians,” says James Robert Brown, a philosopher of science recently retired from the University of Toronto. “Working mathematicians overwhelmingly are Platonists. They don't always call themselves Platonists, but if you ask them relevant questions, it’s always the Platonistic answer that they give you.” (ref).

Other scholars—especially those working in other branches of science—view Platonism with skepticism. Scientists tend to be empiricists; they imagine the universe to be made up of things we can touch and taste and so on; things we can learn about through observation and experiment. The idea of something existing “outside of space and time” makes empiricists nervous: It sounds embarrassingly like the way religious believers talk about God, and God was banished from respectable scientific discourse a long time ago.

Platonism, as mathematician Brian Davies has put it, “has more in common with mystical religions than it does with modern science.” The fear is that if mathematicians give Plato an inch, he’ll take a mile. If the truth of mathematical statements can be confirmed just by thinking about them, then why not ethical problems, or even religious questions? Why bother with empiricism at all?

Massimo Pigliucci, a philosopher at the City University of New York, was initially attracted to Platonism—but has since come to see it as problematic. If something doesn’t have a physical existence, he asks, then what kind of existence could it possibly have? “If one ‘goes Platonic’ with math,” writes Pigliucci, empiricism “goes out the window.” (If the proof of the Pythagorean theorem exists outside of space and time, why not the “golden rule,” or even the divinity of Jesus Christ?)

The Platonist must confront further challenges: If mathematical objects exist outside of space and time, how is it that we can know anything about them? Brown doesn’t have the answer, but he suggests that we grasp the truth of mathematical statements “with the mind’s eye”—in a similar fashion, perhaps, to the way that scientists like Galileo and Einstein intuited physical truths via “thought experiments,” before actual experiments could settle the matter.

The Smithsonian passage is a textbook illustration of this mindset. Brown’s suggestion that we grasp mathematical truths “with the mind’s eye” is, to me, utterly unproblematic—indeed, it’s the most natural way to explain how mathematics works. We have the nous! Yet the objections read almost like expressions of alarm. The worry is not really about mathematics, though; it’s about the metaphysical implications. If we admit that certain truths are accessible through intellectual intuition—outside the mediation of the senses—then we reopen the door not only to a Platonic account of mathematics, but potentially to ethical, metaphysical, or even theological knowledge. That is precisely what modern naturalism, with its post-Enlightenment suspicion of anything “outside space and time,” has worked so hard to keep shut.

Richard Weaver saw the origins of this historical break with clarity:

Like Macbeth, Western man made an evil decision, which has become the efficient and final cause of other evil decisions. Have we forgotten our encounter with the witches on the heath? It occurred in the late fourteenth century, and what the witches said to the protagonist of this drama was that man could realize himself more fully if he would only abandon his belief in the existence of transcendentals. The powers of darkness were working subtly, as always, and they couched this proposition in the seemingly innocent form of an attack upon universals. The defeat of logical realism in the great medieval debate was the crucial event in the history of Western culture... — Ideas have Consequences, Richard Weaver

Good stuff. I'm going offline for a couple of days but I'll pick this back up soon.

But can’t you see that this seemingly straightforward statement already assumes the very point in dispute? — Wayfarer

OK.
This is an important moment - when the arguments run out or when there is no fact of the matter that will settle the dispute. Let's suppose that we have here two different ways of thinking about - interpretations of - the world, which are self-consistent and incompatible. Yet we seem able to communicate, so there must be some common ground. This is why Wittgenstein writes in that maddeningly elusive way. I'm not Wittgenstein and it would be absurd to try to imitate him. All I can do is try to present an account of my ideas that you can recognize as, in some sense, possible. The same applies to you. Mutual understanding would be success, I think. Agreement would be a pleasant surprise.

You’re picturing “reality” as something fully formed, existing apart from and unaffected by any observer, and then treating our perceptions as merely imperfect copies of it. That is precisely the realist model under debate. — Wayfarer

Isn't “reality” something that is what it is, ... existing apart from and unaffected by any observer" an important, if not fundamental assumption of science? How is science possible without observation and experiment that do not affect the data?
Your picture of my picture is not quite accurate. Some, but not all, of "reality" exists apart from and unaffected by any observer. (I shall go on to talk of reality without qualification. It simplifies some explanations) It's not necessarily fully formed, whatever that means. Our perceptions are not copies of it. There's a great risk of reification here. Perceiving is an activity, not an entity. Thermostats are a contol system. They respond to events and control machinery. There is no need for any images. (What would an image of temperature or pressure be like?) Our senses are part of a complex system and provide information to enable us to function. Images would just get in the way.

The whole issue is whether such a reality—one entirely independent of observation—is anything more than a theoretical construct. — Wayfarer

Well, there is the awkward fact that reality was there long before we were. I've accepted (perhaps not very clearly) that reality is, let us say, observation-apt and was observation-apt before there were any observers. On the other hand, some would insist that the only reason that reality is observation-apt is that our senses have evolved to take advantage of certain facts about reality in order to provide us with information about it; that idea is the result of our observations and theoretical constructs. I don't think you really reject them.
Theoretical constructs can be true, can't they? I'm not sure you really accept that. I get very puzzled whether you are saying that we don't know (epistemology) whether the earth goes round the sun or vice versa or not. There is the additional interesting question whether you accept that the earth goes round the sun or not. But perhaps that would be ontology.

We have no direct access to it, only to direct knowledge of it, only to the appearances mediated through our perceptual and cognitive faculties. To claim that reality “is there anyway” is to slip in, unnoticed, the conclusion you are trying to prove. — Wayfarer

I think there's a slip somewhere there. I had the impression that you did not think that "direct knowledge" was any more possible than "direct access". Indeed, I rather think that they stand or fall together. I thought we had agreed on this. I also thought that your distinction between epistemology and ontology meant that you accepted that reality existed - the problem is about our knowledge of it.

:roll: The entire point of the Critique of Pure Reason is about the processes that generate knowledge. — Wayfarer

I'm sorry. My remark was badly written. I knew it at the time, but couldn't think of a clearer way to explain. If I think of a better way to explain it, I'll come back to it. But it may be just a muddle.

Isn't “reality” something that is what it is, ... existing apart from and unaffected by any observer" an important, if not fundamental assumption of science? How is science possible without observation and experiment that do not affect the data? — Ludwig V

Truly excellent question! I agree that science depends on the working assumption of a reality that is what it is, independent of us. That’s the stance of objectivity, and it’s indispensable for observation, experiment, and prediction. But that stance is methodological, not metaphysical. It’s a way of working, not a complete account of what reality is.

The point I’m making — and which I explore further in a follow-up essay, Objectivity and Detachment — is that the “independent objects” of empiricism cannot be truly mind-independent, because they’re objects. An object is always an object-for-a-subject, constituted within a perceptual and conceptual framework. Our sensory and intellectual systems have a fundamental role in defining what counts as an object at all.

Phenomenologists like Husserl showed that even the most rigorous scientific observation is grounded in the lifeworld — the background of shared experience that makes such observation possible in the first place. This doesn’t mean reality depends on your or my whims; it means that what we call “objective reality” is already structured through the conditions of human knowing. Without recognising this, science risks mistaking its methodological abstraction for the whole of reality.

So yes, objectivity is crucial. But it is not the final word — it’s one mode of disclosure, and it rests on a deeper, irreducible involvement of the subject in the constitution of the world - a world in which we ourselves are no longer an accident.

The whole issue is whether such a reality—one entirely independent of observation—is anything more than a theoretical construct.

— Wayfarer

Well, there is the awkward fact that reality was there long before we were. I've accepted (perhaps not very clearly) that reality is, let us say, observation-apt and was observation-apt before there were any observers. On the other hand, some would insist that the only reason that reality is observation-apt is that our senses have evolved to take advantage of certain facts about reality in order to provide us with information about it; that idea is the result of our observations and theoretical constructs. I don't think you really reject them. — Ludwig V

I do address that in the OP:

‘Surely “the world” is what is there all along, what is there anyway, regardless of whether you perceive it or not! Science has shown that h. sapiens only evolved in the last hundred thousand years or so, and we know Planet Earth is billions of years older than that! So how can you say that the mind ‘‘creates the world”’?

As already stated, I am not disputing the scientific account, but attempting to reveal an underlying assumption that gives rise to a distorted view of what this means. What I’m calling attention to is the tendency to take for granted the reality of the world as it appears to us, withouttaking into account the role the mind plays in its constitution. This oversight imbues the phenomenal world — the world as it appears to us — with a kind of inherent reality that it doesn’t possess. This in turn leads to the over-valuation of objectivity as the sole criterion for truth.

The point isn’t to deny that the Earth existed before humans — of course it did. The point is that when we talk about “the Earth 4 billion years ago,” we are still talking within the framework of human spatio-temporal intuition and conceptual categories. As Kant put it, “time is the form of our intuition” — we cannot picture a pre-human past except as a temporal sequence ordered in the way our minds structure it. The scientific account is entirely valid within that framework, but it doesn’t erase the fact that the framework itself is ours.

I think there's a slip somewhere there — Ludwig V

In this case, my entry was badly written and I edited it a few minutes after I wrote it.

I also thought that your distinction between epistemology and ontology meant that you accepted that reality existed - the problem is about our knowledge of it. — Ludwig V

Caution needed here, though. Again there's a sense in the back of that of the 'there anyway' reality, which will supposedly carry on regardless. But that too is a mental construct, vorstellung, in Schopenhauer's terms.

When you emphasise the sovereignty of “what is,” I agree there’s an important sense in which the real can be seen in a completely detached way. But there are two very different ideals of vision here. Scientific objectivity brackets out the subjective to measure and describe the world in quantifiable terms, the same for all who measure them. The sage’s detachment, by contrast, transcends the personal without excluding the subject — it is a unitive vision that includes the qualitative and existential dimensions of reality, not only the measurable ones. It’s the difference between the physicist’s analysis of light and the lived experience of “seeing the light.”

Now you may ask what this detachment is that is so noble in itself. You should know that true detachment is nothing else but a mind that stands unmoved by all accidents of joy or sorrow, honour, shame or disgrace, as a mountain of lead stands unmoved by a breath of wind. …

You should know that the outer man can be active while the inner man is completely free of this activity and unmoved … Here is an analogy: a door swings open and shuts on its hinge. I would compare the outer woodwork of the door to the outer man and the hinge to the inner man. When the door opens and shuts, the boards move back and forth but the hinge stays in the same place and is never moved thereby. It is the same in this case if you understand it rightly. — Meister Eckhart, On Detachment

Again, thank you very much for such perceptive and probing questions, I value them. :pray:

I agree that science depends on the working assumption of a reality that is what it is, independent of us. That’s the stance of objectivity, and it’s indispensable for observation, experiment, and prediction. But that stance is methodological, not metaphysical. It’s a way of working, not a complete account of what reality is. — Wayfarer

I don't think it is the case that science depends on the "assumption of a reality that is what it is, independent of us". I believe that idea is a misunderstanding of the true "objective" nature of science. Experimentation involves human action, and what we are looking for with this activity, is a reaction from our environment. So the experiment, being derived from hypothesis, is directed by the hypothesis.

This implies that any assumptions about a reality which is independent of us, are hypotheses dependent. In many cases, of scientific experimentation, the implied assumption is actually the opposite of that. This is clearly evident with the use of relativity theory in the creation of hypotheses. Relativity theory is based in the assumption that if there is a reality about what is, independent of us, this reality is irrelevant to our modeling of observed activities. In other words, the premise of relativity theory is that we can produce an adequate understanding of activities without assuming "a reality that is what it is, independent of us".

So, our attitude toward "a reality that is what it is, independent of us", need not be one of affirmation or negation, when we engage in scientific experimentation. And, I would say that this attitude, be it relativistic or non-relativistic, greatly influences the type of experiments which we design. Notice in the paragraphs above, the experiment is directed by the hypothesis, and the hypothesis is directed by the underlying assumptions or attitude.

Phenomenologists like Husserl showed that even the most rigorous scientific observation is grounded in the lifeworld — the background of shared experience that makes such observation possible in the first place. This doesn’t mean reality depends on your or my whims; it means that what we call “objective reality” is already structured through the conditions of human knowing. Without recognising this, science risks mistaking its methodological abstraction for the whole of reality.

So yes, objectivity is crucial. But it is not the final word — it’s one mode of disclosure, and it rests on a deeper, irreducible involvement of the subject in the constitution of the world - a world in which we ourselves are no longer an accident. — Wayfarer

According to what I wrote above, "reality" to a large degree does depend on the whims of individuals. That is the whims of the scientists devising the experiments. Of course these whims are shaped by the social environment, and the ideology which informs the scientific community. Notice the modern trend, which is greatly influenced by the relativistic perspective, is toward metaphysics like model-dependent realism, and many-worlds. These are ontologies which deny "a reality that is what it is, independent of us", or perhaps could be described in the contradictory way of, 'the reality that is what it is independent of us is that there is no reality which is what it is independent of us'.