I can relate to that...I always want to be in a position to be able to say something more interesting...more interesting that is, than what I have been able to say.

One area I’m interested in is the idea that certain philosophical approaches (like enactivism and constructivism) argue that the regularities we find in science are not pre-given structures in nature, but patterns that emerge through our investigative practices. On this view, order is not merely discovered but enacted or co-created through the interaction between human observers, their conceptual frameworks, and the world they study.

The reason I find this interesting is that it flips the usual picture of science, so often used as the foundational justification for physicalist and narrowly atheistic accounts and offers a more interesting way to think about scientific knowledge and truth than the idea that they simply exist ‘out there' for us to discover.

I tend to agree with that approach, but it seems to me there are nuances. It is unarguable that everything we consciously perceive is the result of an almost unimaginably complex process of pre-cognitive processing, so our perceptions are models of the things that affect our bodies. Does it follow that what we perceive reveals nothing about what is "out there"?

I don't see how that follows. It also doesn't strictly follow that what we perceive reveals "exactly" what is out there either, but given our ability to navigate very successfully in the world I think it is most likely that what we perceive is in accordance with what is out there, including our own bodies, the structures of which are also, relative to conscious perception "out there".

It doesn't follow that things out there are exactly as we perceive them (naive realism) since we know by studying animals that their perceptual setups are different, sometimes very different, even though analogous, to ours. So, it seems most reasonable to think that we and the other animals perceive both what is possible given our various perceptual systems, and also selectively perceive what is of most significance.

So, I think constructivism goes too far, and is too human-centric. There is a distinction between the countless "Umwelts" out there, both human and animal, and the greater world within which all those Umwelts exist.

Does it follow that what we perceive reveals nothing about what is "out there"? — Janus

Whether it follows or not may not be the issue. Also, what is meant by “reveals nothing”? And what is meant by “out there”? I’m willing to entertain a constructivist view, though I haven’t spent much time thinking about it.

So, it seems most reasonable to think that we and the other animals perceive both what is possible given our various perceptual systems, and also selectively perceive what is of most significance. — Janus

I don’t think this makes much difference. Animals respond to shapes, movement, shadows, and food sources, patterns trigger responses. But what does this really say about reality itself? We all evolved from a common origin and "materials", so we likely share similar hard wiring, even if it has been organized radically differently over time. I really don't know how much animal comparisons give us.

But I don’t want to pollute this thread with yet another round of the realism debate in philosophy. :wink:

So, I think constructivism goes too far, and is too human-centric. — Janus

:100: :up: