Cool. :up: :up:

I think you may well enjoy Anthropocentric Purposivism conceptually. — AmadeusD

Interesting. There's a theory for everything and everyone, isn't there? Perhaps this is a kind of soft-Aristotelian, telos affair.

On Talbott’s view, this marks the core limitation of naturalism as it is usually conceived: it attempts to reduce context-driven, interpretive behaviour to physical causation alone. That is the conflict in a nutshell. — Wayfarer

This doesn't seem right. A naturalist isn't restricted to casual explanations only. So long as any contextual, interpretive explanation can ultimately resolve to a casual explanation.

Looking at the behavior of playing chess. A naturalist might explain the how in terms of the neural architecture that supports this ability, and the dopaminergic reinforcement that drives the behavior. And the why, in an analysis of game playing, that it fosters social connection, reinforces hierarchy, and most importantly it is a platform for learning. Each of these in turn might be subject to a how and a why analysis. Eventually, the whys will resolve to hows: to a discussion of adaptive advantage, and how such advantage propagates across generations.

A naturalism that was restricted to purely casual explanations would be hopeless! This seems like a cartoon straw man.

Even if intelligibility “comes to light” only in the act of knowing, we still need an account of why that disclosure is normatively answerable to truth—i.e. why it can be correct or incorrect rather than merely an internally coherent projection. If the possibility of error is to be taken seriously, then disclosure must be constrained by what is the case. This seems to require that reality itself be intelligible in more than a merely relational sense. — Esse Quam Videri

I'd say statements are normatively answerable to truth because our communities are set up in a manner such that we can demonstrate "true" or "false". Norms come from social groups acting together rather than from being.

Though here "the act of knowing" isn't as much a psychic as a social act -- a statement made to a body of fellow thinkers, and not a proposition believed by a given subject of the external world.

:up: I would add that if intelligibility is merely 'pragmatic', then our beleif in our capacity to understand reality would be an illusion. It would seem as if we can understand (in part) but we would be wrong to believe we do.

I'd say statements are normatively answerable to truth because our communities are set up in a manner such that we can demonstrate "true" or "false". Norms come from social groups acting together rather than from being.

Though here "the act of knowing" isn't as much a psychic as a social act -- a statement made to a body of fellow thinkers, and not a proposition believed by a given subject of the external world. — Moliere

I agree that norms of assertion and justification are socially articulated, and that standards of evidence and demonstration are embedded in communal practices. But while social practices can explain how we enforce norms (what counts as warranted, what gets sanctioned, what gets treated as knowledge), they don’t yet explain why those norms are (in principle) answerable to something beyond communal consensus. I’m happy to grant that epistemic norms are socially mediated — but that mediation itself seems to presuppose an independent constraint: the difference between what is justified-for-us and what is actually the case. Otherwise it becomes hard to make sense of inquiry as genuinely corrigible rather than merely internally self-stabilizing.

Yes—exactly. If intelligibility is reduced to pragmatic usefulness, then “understanding” collapses into successful prediction and control. But then the naturalist has given up the stronger claim that our beliefs are answerable to how reality is in itself, rather than merely to what works for organisms like us.

In that case, it’s not that science becomes false, but that its truth-claims are quietly reinterpreted as instruments. And once that slide happens, it becomes unclear what grounds the normativity of truth and correctness rather than just adaptive success.

they don’t yet explain why those norms are (in principle) answerable to something beyond communal consensus. — Esse Quam Videri

I'm not sure that they are. Though...

Otherwise it becomes hard to make sense of inquiry as genuinely corrigible rather than merely internally self-stabilizing. — Esse Quam Videri

I don't think that follows, either.

Couldn't it be the case that norms are always historically bound -- situated, not trans-communal, etc. -- and yet successfully refers, describes, and so forth? I.e. one could make true statements?

Couldn't it be the case that norms are always historically bound -- situated, not trans-communal, etc. -- and yet successfully refers, describes, and so forth? I.e. one could make true statements? — Moliere

Yes, I agree that norms can be historically situated and yet we can still make true statements.

My point is about what makes that success intelligible. If norms are wholly internal to a community, then “true” collapses into “licensed by current communal standards,” and any notion of correction becomes hard to distinguish from mere change in consensus. We could still shift norms, but we wouldn’t have a basis for saying we were previously mistaken rather than merely operating under different standards.

Put differently: the very idea of “successful reference” seems to presuppose a distinction between what is warranted-for-us and what is actually-the-case, because success and failure aren’t defined by communal uptake alone. That’s the sense in which inquiry appears answerable to something beyond consensus, even if it is always socially mediated in practice.

I'm curious: how would you cash out the distinction between "warranted-for-us" and "actually-the-case" if the norms of correction are understood as entirely internal to practice?

I'm curious: how would you cash out the distinction between "warranted-for-us" and "actually-the-case" if the norms of correction are understood as entirely internal to practice? — Esse Quam Videri

My thought here is that I jumped in when you were on board with the general phenomenological thrust of things: to use an idea from @fdrake "warranted-for-us" and "actually-the-case" are mutually determinative of one another -- you don't get one without the other, they mutually constitute one another as a contrast, that sort of thing.

So the norms of correction are either neither internal/external or both/and external/internal. Which in turn would mean that we can't sneak in an "well, ultimately it's being" or "well, ultimately it's us"

to use an idea from fdrake "warranted-for-us" and "actually-the-case" are mutually determinative of one another -- you don't get one without the other, they mutually constitute one another as a contrast, that sort of thing.

So the norms of correction are either neither internal/external or both/and external/internal. Which in turn would mean that we can't sneak in an "well, ultimately it's being" or "well, ultimately it's us" — Moliere

I see what you mean, but to my mind the function of “actually-the-case” is intrinsically asymmetric in the sense that it can overturn what is warranted-for-us, whereas the opposite does not hold. This asymmetry is precisely what underwrites the possibility of error. We revise what is warranted in light of what is the case, not vice versa.

Thoughts?

Thoughts? — Esse Quam Videri

My thought is we do both, and more.

There is sometimes an asymmetry -- but I'd put it that this is when we're approaching a collective practice. The asymmetry comes from how many people of importance would say what, and that asymmetry can be on either side of this (from the perspective of Being) merely conceptual divide.

I grant the sociological point that we often revise both directions — what gets treated as “warranted” shifts, and what gets treated as “the case” shifts as inquiry unfolds. And of course authority and consensus play a major role in how communities stabilize belief.

That said, the asymmetry I have in mind isn’t about which side has more rhetorical or institutional weight in a given historical moment. It’s about the normative status of truth itself: even if “important people” determine what counts as warranted, they don’t thereby determine what is actually the case — which is precisely what it means to say that communities (and authorities) can be mistaken.

If we collapse the normative distinction between warrant and truth, mustn't we relinquish the possibility of an entire community being wrong, even while fully satisfying its own norms of justification?

If we collapse the normative distinction between warrant and truth, mustn't we relinquish the possibility of an entire community being wrong, even while fully satisfying its own norms of justification? — Esse Quam Videri

I don't think so.

This is the co-constitution going on, I think. Yes, we're talking about something. That's what talking often is. And we can satisfy our own norms while being oblivious to something outside of those norms.

I didn't collapse the distinction between warrant and truth -- I don't think there's even a distinction to be had there except that they are different things**. With both we're definitely talking about how we talk about, though, rather than referring to thing itself.

But what it is we are talking about in the first place is decided by our interest -- so it's not so much Being that we're talking about but a facet, an affordance, a temporal part that may never be again.

**"warrant" I associate with justification. "truth" I associate with statements -- i.e. a statement of the proper form is either true or false.

So a statement is about what is, and a justification is about why I believe something is.

I think your last paragraph is exactly right: warrant concerns justification, whereas truth concerns what is the case. I’m completely on board with that distinction.

I'm less sure about the suggestion that we’re only ever “talking about how we talk about” rather than referring to the thing itself. I agree that our interests determine which aspect of reality we’re talking about (we always carve out a facet, an affordance, a temporal slice, etc.). But that selectivity doesn’t seem to imply (on its own) that truth is merely an intra-discursive status rather than a genuine answerability to what is.

In fact, the possibility you mention — that a community can satisfy its own norms while being oblivious to something outside those norms — seems to presuppose precisely the asymmetry I’m pointing to: that what is warranted-for-us can fail to coincide with what is actually the case. If “truth” isn’t ultimately a constraint beyond our practices, in what sense is the community oblivious rather than simply operating within a different discourse?

I think your last paragraph is exactly right: warrant concerns justification, whereas truth concerns what is the case. I’m completely on board with that distinction. — Esse Quam Videri

:up: Cheers.

I'm less sure about the suggestion that we’re only ever “talking about how we talk about” rather than referring to the thing itself. I agree that our interests determine which aspect of reality we’re talking about (we always carve out a facet, an affordance, a temporal slice, etc.). But that selectivity doesn’t seem to imply (on its own) that truth is merely an intra-discursive status rather than a genuine answerability to what is. — Esse Quam Videri

I want to note that I only meant that we're talking about how we talk about when we're talking about metaphysics, epistemology, science, and so forth -- we can certainly talk about more than our words.

Does that untangle some thoughts, or make things more confusing?

In fact, the possibility you mention — that a community can satisfy its own norms while being oblivious to something outside those norms — seems to presuppose precisely the asymmetry I’m pointing to: that what is warranted-for-us can fail to coincide with what is actually the case. If “truth” isn’t ultimately a constraint beyond our practices, in what sense is the community oblivious rather than simply operating within a different discourse? — Esse Quam Videri

"both/and" is my guess here, at least in the abstract.

They're both oblivious and operating within a different discourse -- suppose the many years of Ptolemaic astronomy.

They said true things, of course. Their predictions were better than Galileo's.

Yet to describe the universe as if the earth is the center of it is oblivious.

That helps, yes — and I agree that in metaphysics/epistemology we’re often clarifying the conceptual norms governing our discourse rather than straightforwardly “describing objects”.

For me, the Ptolemaic case nicely illustrates the asymmetry I’m trying to get at. They were warranted given their evidence and conceptual resources, and they certainly made many true claims and successful predictions. But the reason we call the geocentric framing “oblivious” rather than merely “a different discourse” is precisely that it failed to track what was actually the case. The discourse ultimately shifted because reality didn’t cooperate with it.

So I’m happy to grant the “both/and” descriptively — different discourse and genuine error — but the notion of genuine error seems to require that “what-is-the-case” is not itself fixed by our discursive norms, even if our access to it is always mediated by them.

In other words, we are forced to revise discourse to accommodate what-is-the-case, whereas what-is-the-case refuses to be forced into inadequate conceptual schemes.

:up: Also, if 'understranding' collapses to 'pragmatic success', then we would have no reason to trust our most successful models. Why our conceptual models, theories etc work? If you don't assume intelligiblity, there is no answer to this question. If there is no answer to this question, you have no rational reason to trust models and theories no matter how useful they are.

But the reason we call the geocentric framing “oblivious” rather than merely “a different discourse” is precisely that it failed to track what was actually the case — Esse Quam Videri

This is where things are a bit tricky I think. It's not so much that it failed to track what was actually the case but that a different way of looking at the world was developed such that we could describe what was previously certain as oblivious. Here "affordance" helps, I think -- it's not so much that Ptolemy did not describe what-is-the-case. Like I said his predictions were actually better than Galileo's, in that time. Rather Being is such that it affords both a Ptolemaic and Copernican description.

We can say it as oblivious, now, because we've now journeyed outside of Earth and taken pictures. But Galileo and the rest had no such benefit. It's only now, in light of our techonlogical ability, that the picture seems quaint and so it's easy to think Copernicus, et al., were superior because they laid out what-is-the-case better and reality broke the Ptolemaic model.

But in fact science only changes with new generations -- the new model was interesting, lead to new avenues of research, conflicted with orthodox opinion and so was attractive.

It happens to be the case, now, that the Earth is not the center of the universe. But it's not like I have a time machine to go back to then where I can send a rocket into the sky to make sure the Earth was, then, not the center of the universe. We'd predict that it was not, but that's not because we're tracking what-is-the-case better -- at least, there is no measure of such a thing, even if we believe that we have more truth now than they had then regarding astronomy.

This what-is-the-case then becomes something like a thing-in-itself.

Relating back to @Tom Storm (sorry for going a bit off topic there)

I find this argument lacking because it depends entirely on one's beliefs. If one is a theist then the plausibility of naturalism is simply false, and if one is a naturalist then intelligibility couldn't have come from anything but a blind watchmaker.

It's really only appealing to someone who already believes the conclusion.

But some things aren't in need of an explanation. "Why is the world intelligible?" may not have an answer at all. It's something like asking "Why is there something rather than nothing?" -- if there be an answer it won't be of the sort which we abduce. Intelligibility is the mystery which philosophy reflects upon, and all the metaphysical stories we tell about it aren't strictly explanations or descriptions but rather frames for us to be able to say "this is intelligible" in the first place -- frames which I think comes from cooperating with others.

So when in Rome the world is intelligible due to Apollo. And when we're now the world is intelligible because it arose out of a chaotic process of natural selection. But in either case the world is intelligible and intelligibility somehow is "beyond" these stories, or grounds these stories in the first place.

Yes—this is the key pressure point. A naturalist can of course say “we trust our models because they keep working,” but that’s a pragmatic entitlement, not yet a rational vindication. The deeper question is why predictive success should be taken as evidence of truth or real structure rather than merely a contingent fit between our cognitive habits and the environment.

If intelligibility is not intrinsic to reality, then “success” can be explained causally, but it becomes unclear what licenses the further inference to correctness or truth. And that’s exactly where normativity enters.

This what-is-the-case then becomes something like a thing-in-itself. — Moliere

I agree that technological “affordances” matter, and I don’t mean to deny the Kuhnian point that theory change involves sociology, pedagogy, and generational uptake as much as brute confrontation with data. And certainly Ptolemy’s system was impressively successful at saving the appearances within the observational constraints of the time.

But I’m not sure that supports the stronger claim that there’s “no measure” of tracking what is the case better. Even if our access is historically conditioned, we still distinguish theories by explanatory scope, unification, counterfactual robustness, and coherence with independent lines of evidence. Ptolemy and Copernicus aren’t merely alternative descriptions on a par; they make incompatible claims about the Earth’s motion, and later developments (Kepler/Newton, and eventually spaceflight) strongly vindicate one over the other.

So I’m happy to grant that what counts as warranted is interest- and instrument-relative, but the very intelligibility of calling geocentrism “oblivious” seems to presuppose that reality itself was not as the Ptolemaic picture described it—even if no one at the time had the epistemic means to establish that. That doesn’t posit a Kantian "thing-in-itself"; it’s just the minimal realist point that what-is-the-case is not exhausted by what we can currently demonstrate.

But I’m not sure that supports the stronger claim that there’s “no measure” of tracking what is the case better. Even if our access is historically conditioned, we still distinguish theories by explanatory scope, unification, counterfactual robustness, and coherence with independent lines of evidence. — Esse Quam Videri

I'd say there's no measure to reality itself. When we're distinguishing theories with these criteria -- scope, unification, etc. -- we're comparing and contrasting theories to one another on the basis of our aesthetic criteria for knowledge rather than on the basis of Being. Neither has a "more direct" accessibility relationship to reality itself -- in terms of their accessibility relation two theories are on par with one another.

I mean how would you measure your "correctness" to reality? Isn't that just to say "My theory is true, and here are the reasons why"?

it’s just the minimal realist point that what-is-the-case is not exhausted by what we can currently demonstrate. — Esse Quam Videri

I agree that what-is-the-case is not exhausted by what we can currently demonstrate. I don't know if I'd call that "realist", though -- it's not like Voltage was waiting to be discovered. We have to invent new ways of thinking which in turn lead to productive research paths. Reality unfolds and even changes shape with knowledge-production.

I'd prefer to put it that the realist position is something like "There are true statements": rather than an explanation of Being as an independent category wherein we have potential structures to discover I'd pass over that in silence and prefer to say "Some statements are true", which is much more manageable a claim than claims on Being.

I think we’re actually quite close on several points. I agree there’s no “view from nowhere” where we can measure our theories against reality as such, and I also agree that many scientific concepts (voltage is a good example) are genuine inventions that open up new lines of inquiry rather than simply “reading off” ready-made categories from nature.

But I’m not convinced that this makes explanatory scope, unification, etc. merely “aesthetic.” They look more like epistemic virtues that have proven themselves precisely because reality pushes back: ad hoc theories tend to break under novel testing, while unifying theories tend to be more counterfactually robust. So while we can’t directly compare a theory to “Being,” we can still distinguish better and worse ways of being answerable to constraint.

On voltage: I agree we invented the concept and the measurement practices, but it seems hard to deny that electrical potential differences existed long before we conceptualized them. That is, the conceptual scheme is constructed, but what it latches onto is not.

And on your last point: I’m sympathetic to the modesty of “some statements are true,” but I’m not sure we can cash out even that minimal claim without implicitly presupposing that what makes a statement true is not constituted by our norms of justification. Otherwise “true” collapses into “warranted by our best lights,” which reintroduces the very distinction we’ve been debating.

I find this argument lacking because it depends entirely on one's beliefs. If one is a theist then the plausibility of naturalism is simply false, and if one is a naturalist then intelligibility couldn't have come from anything but a blind watchmaker. — Moliere

The problem with this formulation is that even for Hart the argument is independent of theism. Hart is quite comfortable to say that his argument does not lead to theism specifically; it merely identifies an inadequacy in physicalism's explanatory power, for reasons that @wafarer has often pointed out (and he is not a theist either). Thomas Nagel holds a similar view and he is an atheist.

I think it's better to identify the specific reasoning and work out what is actually going on. But the first step is to understand the argument properly, and I’m not convinced that I do. Hence my OP.

But some things aren't in need of an explanation. "Why is the world intelligible?" may not have an answer at all. It's something like asking "Why is there something rather than nothing?" -- if there be an answer it won't be of the sort which we abduce. — Moliere

I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. They are only similar in that both issues seem to be unresolved, but they are not addressing the same type of question. Even your formulation of the issue isn’t quite right: the question is not 'why the world is intelligible', but how naturalism explains intelligibility. Given that naturalism presents itself as the predominant explanatory framework for all things, the question seems apropos.

In my own life (I agree with you) I am content with not having explanations for things, like life or consciousness. My favourite three words are 'I don't know' and I wish more people would employ them. But that's a separate matter to trying to understand this argument.

The problem with this formulation is that even for Hart the argument is independent of theism. Hart is quite comfortable to say that his argument does not lead to theism specifically; it merely identifies an inadequacy in physicalism's explanatory power, for reasons that wafarer has often pointed out (and he is not a theist either). Thomas Nagel holds a similar view and he is an atheist. — Tom Storm

Let me try a different formulation then.

The argument is going to sound plausible to those who reject naturalism as an adequate metaphysics and not plausible to naturalists.

The naturalist is content with it being a capacity of our species that was selected for through a chaotic process. When Thomas Nagel talks about consciousness as a metaphysical problem for naturalism the naturalist simply shrugs. I'm criticizing the persuasive power of the argument. Hart can make a conceptual division, and of course the argument can be rendered independent of theism, but the appeal of the argument will be heavily determined by the beliefs of a listener.

I think it's better to identify the specific reasoning and work out what is actually going on. But the first step is to understand the argument properly, and I’m not convinced that I do. Hence my OP. — Tom Storm

Fair. I'm not convinced I do either, especially as I haven't read Hart -- only the thread.

I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. They are only similar in that both issues seem to be unresolved, but they are not addressing the same type of question. — Tom Storm

I just mean to say that the way we'd answer either question won't be by abduction -- there's not an inference to the best explanatory route by which we can decide whether naturalism is adequate to explaining intentionality or not.

Even your formulation of the issue isn’t quite right: the question is not 'why the world is intelligible', but how naturalism explains intelligibility. Given that naturalism presents itself as the predominant explanatory framework for all things, the question seems apropos.

Fair.

What do you say to my updated reply I started with?

In my own life (I agree with you) I am content with not having explanations for things, like life or consciousness. My favourite three words are 'I don't know' and I wish more people would employ them. But that's a separate matter to trying to understand this argument. — Tom Storm

Sure.

For my part I'm not sure naturalism "explains" anything anymore than non-naturalism does with respect to intentionality. I feel like that's the wrong sort of way to think about metaphysical questions.