I'm confused. This is what you said early in the discussion: — Michael

You're right to flag this, and I want to address it directly rather than paper over it. Over the course of this discussion I've been drawing on two different philosophical frameworks — one that locates directness at the level of judgment and intentional reference, and another that gives a richer account of the phenomenology of perception. I don't think these are contradictory, but I have shifted emphasis between them, and I owe you a clearer statement of how they fit together.

Here's the unified picture: perception has both a phenomenological dimension and an epistemic dimension. Phenomenologically, perceptual experience presents the object itself under profiles — not an inner item that merely represents the object. Epistemically, the justification of perceptual judgments doesn't rest on the phenomenology alone but on the whole cognitional structure of experience, understanding, and judgment. So when I said earlier that directness isn't a matter of phenomenal presence, I was rejecting the idea that epistemic directness is secured by phenomenology alone. When I said more recently that the phenomenology is of the apple, I was making a phenomenological claim about what experience presents, not an epistemic claim about what justifies our judgments. These are distinct questions, and I should have been clearer about which one I was addressing at each point.

Occam's razor and no positive evidence for b) is reason enough to assert a). — Michael

You say that after disintegration, either the appearance is (a) the mental phenomenon emerging from neural activity or (b) some mysterious third thing, and Occam's razor favors (a). But this is a false dichotomy. My view is not (b). The appearance is the phenomenal character of the intentional act — its mode of presentation — which at t1 is unfulfilled by any distal object. That's not a third entity; it's a feature of the act itself. You don't need to posit an extra object; you need to recognize that perceptual acts are individuated by their norms of fulfillment, not by introspective character alone. An unfulfilled perceptual act and a fulfilled one differ in kind — not because of some external add-on, but because fulfillment is constitutive of the act-type, just as a kept promise and a broken promise aren't the same act that merely differs in external outcome. We individuate normative acts by their success conditions, not merely by how they feel from the inside. Occam's razor, if anything, favors this over the postulation of qualia as a distinct ontological category of mental particulars.

We can see colours even without apples or light, e.g. if we're dreaming, hallucinating, or synesthetes listening to music with our eyes closed. What are these colours if not qualia? — Michael

This is a real challenge and I don't want to dismiss it. But notice that you can only classify the dream experience as apple-like or red-like by borrowing those descriptions from veridical perception. The hallucinatory case is not self-standing — it inherits its intentional description from the successful case. So treating hallucination as revealing the true nature of all perception reverses the correct explanatory order. It's like analyzing genuine currency by starting from counterfeits: the counterfeit is only intelligible as a counterfeit of something. Dreams and hallucinations are cases where the neural mechanisms that normally subserve world-directed perception are activated endogenously. The intentional structure — the presenting-as — is preserved, but it is unfulfilled by any distal object. This doesn't show that in veridical perception the colours are also qualia; it shows that the neural substrate can generate experiential acts that have the form of object-presentation without an object. The question is whether we redescribe all perception in terms of the non-veridical case or understand the non-veridical case as a deficient mode of the normal one. I think the latter is more principled.

Do (1) and (2) mean the same thing, or is it logically possible for (2) to be true but (1) to be false? — Michael

You ask whether "colour is how the apple presents itself given the kind of perceivers we are" and "neural activity in the visual cortex from which colour qualia emerge" mean the same thing. No, they don't, and yes, it is logically possible for (2) to be true and (1) false. But it's also logically possible for (2)'s causal story to be true while its ontological gloss — the claim that what emerges are "qualia" as inner mental particulars — is false. I accept the neuroscience. I reject the philosophical interpretation you're attaching to it. The causal chain from apple to retina to cortex can be fully described without concluding that what I'm aware of at the end of the chain is a quale rather than the apple-as-presented. That's the inference I keep challenging.

But let me put the question back to you: suppose I grant you qualia as a label for the sensory character of experience. What do they explain that intentional content, causal enabling conditions, and norms of fulfillment don't already explain? If "qualia" is just your name for what I'm calling the mode of presentation, then we agree on the phenomenon and disagree only about its ontological description — and you need to show why "inner mental particular" is a better description. If qualia are supposed to be genuine intermediaries doing explanatory work, tell me what that work is.

Finally, you've said before that the causal story isn't sufficient for intentionality and normativity. I agree. But if perceptual experience is wholly inner, then your judgments about the world are operating on inner items. What anchors their content to distal objects rather than to the qualia themselves? If the answer is "the causal relation," then causation alone doesn't determine content — causal relations underdetermine intentional content unless some normative constraint is already in play. If the answer is "inference," then what makes the inference truth-tracking rather than merely adaptive? This is the question I keep pressing, and I don't think the indirect realist framework has a very good answer to it.

Phenomenology misleads about form, not content. It presents form, qualitative features, as features of the content. When in reality, they are descriptors. Map, not territory. — hypericin

This is a helpful distinction, but I want to press on it. You say qualitative features are "descriptors" — but descriptors of what? If they describe the apple (accurately or inaccurately), then they are ways the apple is presented to the subject, i.e., modes of presentation of the distal object. That's my view. If they describe nothing external — if they are purely system-internal features with no presentational function — then the intentional directedness you've already conceded becomes mysterious. You can't have descriptors that are "of the apple" in their intentional direction but belong entirely to the system in their qualitative character without explaining how those two aspects are unified in a single conscious experience. I think they're unified because qualitative character just is the way the act presents its object. You think they're unified by... correspondence? Causal connection? That's the gap I keep pointing to.

But the apple has no more requirements in fulfilling this perceptual relationship than it does in fulfilling "to the left of". It just has to sit there. The viewer is doing all the work: they have to fulfill extraordinary biological requirements for the relationship to manifest. — hypericin

I actually agree with much of this. Perception is indeed asymmetric — the subject's biological system is doing the heavy lifting. But "the subject's system is doing all the work" doesn't entail "therefore the product of that work is an intermediary entity." It could equally mean: the subject's system is doing all the work of disclosing the apple. The activity is the system's; what the activity achieves is a presentation of the world. These are not competing claims.

Consider: in understanding a sentence, the listener does all the cognitive work — parsing syntax, activating semantic associations, resolving ambiguities. The sentence just sits there (or the sound waves just arrive). Understanding is a "unipolar process" in your sense. But we don't conclude that the listener is therefore aware of an intermediary "meaning-object" that stands between them and what the speaker said. The listener's active processing constitutes their grasp of the speaker's meaning. The processing is the medium, not an intermediary object.

the image of the apple is the way VS presents the apple...the apple does not support the image on the screen. — hypericin

The TV analogy is vivid and I think it's doing a lot of your argumentative work, so I want to engage with it carefully.

You're right that the viewing system actively constructs a presentation, and that the apple is passive in this process. You're right that the system could present the apple in infinitely many ways — distorted, inverted, unintelligible. I grant all of this.

But the analogy has a crucial structural feature that perception lacks: the TV has a screen. There is a spatially distinct surface where the image is literally inscribed, and this surface can itself become an object of inspection — you can notice the pixels, the refresh rate, the bezel. This is what makes it natural to say "there is an image, and it is an intermediary between you and the apple."

The brain has no screen. There is no inner surface where a presentation is displayed for an inner viewer. And if you posit one, you face the homunculus regress: who watches the brain's display? The TV analogy works precisely because there is a viewer external to the system (the person sitting on the couch). In perception, there is no such external viewer — the system's activity is the awareness. There's no gap between "the system presents" and "the subject sees."

This is why I keep insisting that the constructive activity of the perceptual system produces an act of awareness, not an object of awareness. The system's active presentation of the apple is the subject's seeing of the apple. These are not two things — a presentation and then a seeing of the presentation — they are one event described at two levels (subpersonal mechanism, personal-level experience).

VS could present the apple any which way: distorted, with inverted colors, or with infinite possible other transformations, which could leave the apple unintelligible to a human viewer. None of these transformations belong to the apple, they belong to VS. VS is doing them. — hypericin

Agreed — the transformations belong to the system. But "belonging to the system" is ambiguous between two readings:

(a) They are features of an intermediary object that the system constructs and the subject inspects.
(b) They are features of the system's activity of presenting the apple to the subject.

On reading (a), you get IR: the subject is immediately aware of the constructed object. On reading (b), you get my view: the subject is immediately aware of the apple, but the way it is aware — the qualitative character of the awareness — is shaped by the system's processing. The apple is what is seen; the "transformations" characterize the seeing.

Your own concessions push toward (b). You've agreed that the intentional target is the apple, not the image. You've agreed the image is an event, not an object. You've agreed the system is doing all the work. What remains of IR, once all these concessions are made? It seems like the only thing left is the TV screen — the idea that there must be some surface or entity on which the presentation is inscribed. But that's the very thing that perception, unlike television, doesn't have.

The light which emerges from VS is not the same as light reflecting off the apple. While the light is still of the apple, it is also mediated by VS. — hypericin

Of course — and I've never denied causal mediation. The question was never "is perception causally mediated?" (obviously yes) but "does causal mediation entail an epistemic intermediary object?" I've been arguing it doesn't, and I think your own developing picture — active system, passive apple, constructive processing, intentional directedness at the apple — is actually more naturally at home in a direct realist framework than in IR. What you've described is a system whose activity constitutes awareness of the world, not a system that constructs inner objects for a subject to inspect.

I understand IR to be saying that DR is wrong. — Ludwig V

I can't quite understand what hte prior line has (directly) to do with this question, but to answer it: Yeah. It is not tenable in the face of the empirical facts, and the word 'direct'. It is inapt, and those objects aren't constituent of experience. So, it's wrong to say "DR" is right in any sense. The 'vulgar' ways of talking are heuristic/pragmatic/easier to parse but that doesn't make them right. They can just be wrong, but helpful.

the vulgar stance takes account of things that the theoretical stance neglects - that we are not simply observers in the world but agents in it and part of it. I'm not sure how, exactly, that plays into the argument, but I am sure it should be important to philosophy. — Ludwig V

I quite disagree. In what way does "I see an apple" incorporate any version of our role in the generation of our experience? I agree it's important, and to me, plays directly into reading the empirical story as-it-is and finding no issues with it, on IR lines.

being there makes a difference, in a sort of "what it is like to be a bat" way. — Ludwig V

This can be true but I'm unsure it touches the fundamental issue in question: If this is the case, the actual function viz a viz light-eye-experience doesn't change but there is definitely something to be said for first-person phenomenal quality with no delay in the stream of consciousness. I'll have to think some more on that though; thank you!

why are we so bothered about it? — Ludwig V

It makes no difference to our experience. It makes a difference in this conversation. What I was saying there is simply that it doesn't make me uncomfortable that I am not literally seeing the sun when I 'look' at it.

I don't understand what it would mean to say that first-person experience is constituted by anything, never mind objects in the world and the reification of mental images seems to me to be a mistake. — Ludwig V

Then what would experience be of? If the objects you witness aren't part of your experience, and yet there are also no images in your mind that could be part of your experiences, where are you getting them? Here, image can simply mean "the image" of hte apple when you cast your eyes to it; it need not be mediated. I just want some story that doens't require an apple to be in your experience.

For me, the scientific story is a partial analysis of how perception (DR) works. So what do you think we can appeal to? — Ludwig V

I don't even understand how that could be the case. To me, it's a full analysis of what actually happens when we cast our eyes about us. I refuse, on grounds of consistency/incoherence, to call it Direct. There's nothing further needed imo. It's just slightly uncomfortable for those of us who require that the apple is in our eye.

It seems to me undeniable (and it's almost in explicit terms) from this Banno post, that "Direct Realism" is just a wussy position to take in the face of reality. Sure, it may not 'mean much' in the grander scale of our lives, but its theoretically the exact same "Ahh, I don't like that, but I can't argue with it so I'll call it something else".

You believe you can’t see the real world. Bizarre. — NOS4A2

I repeat the quote you've quoted I guess. Your repetition doesn't seem so bizarre now. I don't think you've actually understood the question, so I'll just leave it here.

It's like analyzing genuine currency by starting from counterfeits: the counterfeit is only intelligible as a counterfeit of something. — Esse Quam Videri

But look what counterfeits reveal: money cannot just be physical form, physical form can remain exactly constant, while moneyness is present or absent. And, moneyness can be present without physical form in digital money. Physical form is therefore not moneyness, physical form must be something else in addition to moneyness.

Just as, the distal object cannot be qualia. Qualia can remain exactly constant, while the distal object is present or absent. And, the distal object can be present without qualia, if there are no capable observers. Qualia is therefore not the distal object, qualia must be something else in addition to the distal object.

The money analogy actually makes my point. What distinguishes genuine currency from counterfeits isn't some hidden "moneyness" substance inside genuine bills — it's that genuine bills stand in the right institutional and normative relations. We don't posit an inner "money-quale" that counterfeits lack. Likewise, what distinguishes veridical perception from hallucination isn't an additional inner entity (a quale) that somehow connects to the world — it's that the perceptual act stands in the right fulfillment relation to its object. Your version of the analogy smuggles in exactly the reification I'm challenging: you treat the difference between genuine and counterfeit as evidence for a hidden inner ingredient, when in fact it's evidence for a relational, normative distinction — which is what I've been arguing all along.

The causal chain from apple to retina to cortex can be fully described without concluding that what I'm aware of at the end of the chain is a quale rather than the apple-as-presented. — Esse Quam Videri

I'm not saying that you're not aware of the apple-as-presented; I'm saying that the apple-as-presented is a mental phenomenon and not an apple, with "qualia" being its particular (mind-dependent) qualities, i.e. phenomenal character such as the colour red.

The appearance is the phenomenal character of the intentional act — Esse Quam Videri

Yes, which is a mental phenomenon. Intentional acts and phenomenal character aren't something the apple is, has, or does, aren't something light is, has, or does, aren't something eyes are, have, or do, and (maybe) aren't something the brain is, has, or does; they are the mental phenomena that emerge from neural activity.

I'm sorry, but I just don't know how to continue with this discussion. I know it's an unfair accusation, but I cannot understand your position as being anything other than indirect realism rebranded to sound like direct realism.

I think we've actually located the precise point of disagreement, which is progress even if neither of us has convinced the other.

I take it that you hold that if phenomenal character is a mental phenomenon (not a property of apples, light, or eyes), then it must be something the subject is aware of as an object—an intermediary. I hold that it can be a feature of the subject's awareness of the world without being itself an object of that awareness. The warmth of an embrace is a real feature of the embracing — it's not a property of the other person's body, and it's not a third entity between the two people. It characterizes the act, not an intermediary.

Whether that distinction is genuine or merely verbal is, I think, the question that separates us. I appreciate the exchange in any case — I think it's sharpened my understanding of where the real fault line lies between us.

know it's an unfair accusation, but I cannot understand your position as being anything other than indirect realism rebranded to sound like direct realism. — Michael

is that Michael's insistence on the mooted "apple-as-present", the view that there are two things here, the apple and the apple-as-presented? That instead we have one thing, the apple, and seeing the apple.

yep, that's basically it.

What is precluded and how is it precluded? — NOS4A2

Visual data is processed in the occipital lobe at the back of the brain. There's no light back there.

Consider: in understanding a sentence, the listener does all the cognitive work — parsing syntax, activating semantic associations, resolving ambiguities. The sentence just sits there (or the sound waves just arrive). Understanding is a "unipolar process" in your sense. But we don't conclude that the listener is therefore aware of an intermediary "meaning-object" that stands between them and what the speaker said. The listener's active processing constitutes their grasp of the speaker's meaning. The processing is the medium, not an intermediary object. — Esse Quam Videri

The analogy is clarifying.

All this processing does something, it produces something: an intermediary meaning, though "object" is problematic. This intermediary meaning is called an "interpretation". And precisely like perception: the subject has indirect access to the meaning of words, via direct access to their own interpretation. Interpretation is not an object, and the intentional target is meaning, not interpretation. But It is naive to claim that we can directly access meaning, all access to meaning must traverse interpretation.

And note: any analysis that leaves out interpretation struggles to handle error. With interpretation as part of the analysis, error is simply misinterpretation.

.

But the analogy has a crucial structural feature that perception lacks: the TV has a screen. There is a spatially distinct surface where the image is literally inscribed, and this surface can itself become an object of inspection — you can notice the pixels, the refresh rate, the bezel. This is what makes it natural to say "there is an image, and it is an intermediary between you and the apple." — Esse Quam Videri

Yes, I agree, there is no physical screen, no spatially distinct object that can be independently examined. But the physical screen is not what is important. The images on the screen are. These images represent by analogy what I call the brain-modeled-object, the object-as-seen, the qualitative object. Note that the image of the apple is not an object, it is an event; just as we agreed moments of perception are events, not objects. And this event is how the VS presents the apple, it fulfills the relation between VS and apple. Yet, the image of the apple is an epistemically mediated presentation of the apple.

The TV analogy works precisely because there is a viewer external to the system (the person sitting on the couch). In — Esse Quam Videri

I think there is a viewer in perception: what I called the conscious subset of the brain. But this is a can of worms, so let's just omit the viewer. Even without a viewer, the TV image is still epistemically mediated. A viewer does not make this so, mediation doesn't happen only conditionally on a viewer watching the physical screen. The relationship between image and apple, passing through a transformative system such as the VS, constitutes the mediation.

One dis-analogy: in perception, to appear is to be apprehended. There is no "absent viewer" case. Either there is always a viewer, or there never is. But the VS analogy shows there is no necessary viewer for epistemic mediation.

(a) They are features of an intermediary object that the system constructs and the subject inspects.
(b) They are features of the system's activity of presenting the apple to the subject.

On reading (a), you get IR: the subject is immediately aware of the constructed object. On reading (b), you get my view: the subject is immediately aware of the apple, but the way it is aware — the qualitative character of the awareness — is shaped by the system's processing. The apple is what is seen; the "transformations" characterize the seeing. — Esse Quam Videri

The point of the example of the VS is to constrain you. I'm assuming that we agree with my claim above, that the image processesed by VS, presented on the TV, is epistemically mediated. If you thought the TV somehow "directly" presented the apple, we would need to discuss what "indirect" could even mean. And so, for a claim you make about perception's "directness" to have any strength, it cannot apply to the VS.

Here, (b) seems reasonable enough for VS: the transformations of the VS are features of the system's activity of presenting the apple. Yet, we agree (I assume) that VS introduces epistemic mediation. So you need to explain why (b) does not apply to VS, or concede that (b) is irrelevant: it applies to a system that clearly involves epistemic mediation.

Of course — and I've never denied causal mediation. The question was never "is perception causally mediated?" (obviously yes) but "does causal mediation entail an epistemic intermediary object?" — Esse Quam Videri

No, I don't agree this is quite the question. I do agree that casual meditation alone does not entail an epistemic intermediary object. The question as I see it is "do the structures of perception entail epistemic mediation between subject and object?"

Your move on the interpretation analogy is well-taken, and I want to engage with it honestly. You're right that interpretation mediates our access to meaning. But notice: when I misinterpret a sentence, the error is a failure of my act of understanding, not a mismatch between two objects (my meaning-representation and the speaker's meaning-representation). I don't first accurately apprehend an inner "meaning-object" and then compare it to the speaker's intended meaning. I simply understand wrongly. The mediation is operational — it passes through the activity of understanding — not objectual. That's exactly my claim about perception: error is a failure of the perceptual act, not a mismatch between an accurately apprehended BMO and an inferred DO.

On the TV: you say that even without a viewer, the TV image is epistemically mediated. But I think the reason we call it mediated is precisely that the image on the screen is a self-standing entity — it has pixel values, luminance, contrast ratios that can be characterized completely independently of any viewer. It exists as a physical particular whether or not anyone is watching. That's what makes it an intermediary: it's a thing with its own properties, interposed between apple and viewer.

You've acknowledged that perception lacks this feature: "to appear is to be apprehended." But I don't think you've registered how much this concession costs. If the perceptual presentation doesn't exist independently of the subject's awareness — if there is no presentation without apprehension — then the presentation is not a self-standing entity interposed between subject and world. It's not a thing that mediates; it's the character of the subject's awareness of the world. And that is the act/object distinction I keep drawing.

So when you ask me to explain why (b) doesn't apply to the VS: it does apply to the VS. But the VS is mediated because of an additional feature — the screen image is an independently existing particular. Remove that feature (as perception does), and (b) describes direct presentation: the system's activity constitutes the subject's awareness of the apple, rather than producing an intermediary entity that the subject then apprehends.

Your reformulated question — "do the structures of perception entail epistemic mediation between subject and object?" — is the right question. My answer is: the structures of perception entail operational mediation (the system actively processes), but not objective mediation (the system does not produce an intermediary entity that the subject is aware of). These come apart, and the TV analogy obscures this because TVs happen to involve both.

I find computational metaphors for mind to be trivial, so I do not believe there is anything like data or processing going on in there. But that’s a different topic.

The light hits the eyes. That’s the direct contact between perceiver and perceived. Anything that occurs beyond that threshold is necessarily talk about the perceiver, not the object of perception. We can describe perceivers in well enough detail already, but what we’re after here is what he perceives.

The light hits the eyes. That’s the direct contact between perceiver and perceived — NOS4A2

Light hits the skin on the back of your hand as well. Is that also perception?

I find computational metaphors for mind to be trivial, so I do not believe there is anything like data or processing going on in there. — NOS4A2

You're free to think whatever you like. March to your own drum.

Light hits the skin on the back of your hand as well. Is that also perception?

Have you never felt the sun on your skin? You might need to get out more.

Have you never felt the sun on your skin? — NOS4A2

The sun is 90 million miles away, so no.

Well, there are photosensitive molecules in your skin and elsewhere if you ever feel checking it out.

Well, there are photosensitive molecules in your skin and elsewhere if you ever feel checking it out. — NOS4A2

That's how exposure to sun triggers melanin production in your skin. I've already got so much melanin it doesn't do much for me.

….the structures of perception entail operational mediation (the system actively processes)…., — Esse Quam Videri

Yes. Five physiological devices, each modality unlike the other, by which the external becomes internal.

…..but not objective mediation (the system does not produce an intermediary entity that the subject is aware of). — Esse Quam Videri

Then what of sensation?

Then what of sensation? — Mww

Good question. I don’t deny that sensation is real, or that the external “becomes internal” through the activity of the sensory system. The question is what role sensation plays in the structure of cognition.

On my view, sensation belongs to the level of experience—the conscious flow that provides data for further operations of understanding and judgment. But sensation is not ordinarily given as an object we inspect in its own right; it is the medium through which the world is given. I don’t first attend to sensations and then infer an apple; rather, the apple is presented in and through the sensory manifold (even if that presentation can later be analyzed or thematized).

This is roughly analogous to Kant’s point that intuitions without concepts are blind: sensory content doesn’t yet constitute cognition of an object until it is synthesized. Where I would part ways with Kant is on whether that synthesis delivers only “appearance” or a perspectival disclosure of the thing itself. But the structural point stands: sensation is a moment within cognition, not an intermediary entity that cognition takes as its terminus.

The question is what role sensation plays in the structure of cognition. — Esse Quam Videri

The thesis under duress here is perception, and the relative directness of it, given the title of the thread. The structure of cognition is something other than that. But to respond to the supposed question, the role sensation plays relative to the structure of cognition, is that it doesn’t have one. Relative to the systemic procedure of cognition, whatever its structure may be, its role would be the empirical ground for its object.

I’m satisfied with your agreement sensation is an intermediary entity the subject is aware of through the activity of the sensory system, even if not that which we inspect in its own right.
—————-

I guess my point was….how does the entity we do not inspect in its own right earn the name “apple”? How does anything at all, given its mere sensation, obtain particular identifying nomenclature? This relates, because if it is the case no naming arises from the structure of perception, and all structures of cognition are that from which naming does arise, then all naming is direct relative to cognition, from which follows necessarily, all talk of apple at the systemic point of sensation, is illegitimate.

Now I can say, I certainly do first attend to sensation, insofar as it is for all practical purposes impossible to ignore, then infer an apple, upon furtherance of the systemic procedure by which naming arises. The apple is not presented in and through the sensory manifold, insofar as at that point, it isn’t an apple. It is no more than a thing, as Martin proposed in the clip Micheal posted on page….whatever.

40 pages of infinitesimal critical analysis, which is good, but with an implicit carelessness which defeats it, insofar as it should have been dialectically obligatory to distinguish and separate direct/indirect and real/valid under completely different systemic conditions then have been touched on so far in this thread.

With sufficiently explanatory distinction, then, that perception is only of the real, and the real is directly given to it, irrespective of knowledge or experience, should have been incontestable, hardly worth 40 pages, the indirectly real being something else entirely, for which you at least, have given the clue.

It was all fun to read and think about, though, so there is that.
—————-

But the structural point stands: sensation is a moment within cognition, not an intermediary entity that cognition takes as its terminus. — Esse Quam Videri

Agreed, sensation is not an intermediary entity cognition takes, but disagreed it is a moment within it. I rather think sensation is a moment, an intermediary entity, within sensibility, which relates the directly real in perception to the indirectly representational in phenomena.

Interpretation and error

You are missing the dyadic structure of error. For there to be error, there must be at minimum that which is wrong, and a standard of correctness. If there is only one thing, there is no room for that one thing to be wrong. This is why I think DR struggles with error: it lacks an intermediate object/event/process which is allowed to be wrong, and therefore distinct from the DO.

So yes, there is interpretation and correct meaning. But the epistemic problem in meaning (as in perception) is that the subject has no direct access to meaning. All they know directly is interpretation. They cannot "apprehend an inner 'meaning-object' and then compare it to the speaker's intended meaning." The intended meaning is not at hand. And so error must be inferred: does the interpretation make sense? Is it consistent with what the speaker has said before? Does it contradict other things I know? Erroneous perception involves this same process.

"I simply understand wrongly", "Error is a failure of the perceptual act" feels very hand-wavy to me. Do you agree that error requires a dyad? If so how does DR provide for that?

The meaning of epistemic mediation

I was struggling with this too. For a while I thought as you did, that epistemic mediation meant passing through a distinct physical object. But this doesn't really work. I don't call what I see through a window epistemically mediated. This is only causally mediated, even though the window is a separate physical object that can be examined and interacted with.

I now have a much better definition:
Epistemic mediation is satisfied iff causal mediation introduces multiple realizability.

When you have epistemic mediation, the object you indirectly see might be as it appears. Or it might be something else entirely. The "live" image of the apple might be an authentic apple. Or, it might have been filmed last year. Or, it could be a computer simulation, not an apple at all.

Epistemic mediation introduces an additional possibility of doubt, such that the information it provides may not be what it appears to be. Whereas, causal mediation does no such thing. The apple is just as likely to be an apple whether or not you place it behind a window.

It is this introduction of doubt, not that a viewer watches a physical screen, that makes VS epistemically mediating.

I think there's more agreement between us than the terminological differences might suggest, so let me try to locate the genuine point of divergence.

I'm happy to grant that at the level of raw sensation, there is no "apple" — there is, as you say, no more than a "something", not yet identified or named. The apple as a particular object of knowledge arises only through further operations: understanding what kind of thing it is, and judging that it is indeed so. That much is central to my account as well. I would say that experience (sensation) provides the data, understanding grasps intelligibility in that data, and judgment affirms whether that grasp is correct. No one of these levels alone constitutes knowledge of an apple.

Where I'd gently push back is on the separation of sensibility from cognition as distinct faculties or systems. On my account, sensation is not housed in a separate faculty that mediates between the real and cognition. It is the first level of the cognitional process itself. This doesn't deny functional distinctions between sensing and understanding; it denies that sensation constitutes a self-contained representational realm that cognition must then "bridge."

In my view, experience, understanding, and judgment are dynamically related operations within a single conscious subject — not separate systems handing data from one to the next. The same subject who senses is the one who understands and judges, and the object is progressively disclosed through those operations. The name "apple" is a conceptual determination of what is already given as a unified "something" in experience.

This matters for the direct/indirect question, because if sensation belongs to a separate mediating faculty — sensibility — then there is structural room for an intermediary: the phenomenon as something distinct from the thing itself. But if sensation is already the first moment of a unified cognitional act directed at the world, then the structural room for such an intermediary narrows considerably — the burden shifts to showing why one is still needed. Instead of a relay between systems, my view visages a single process of coming to know the real at progressively higher levels of determination.

So when you say sensation is "a moment within sensibility, which relates the directly real in perception to the indirectly representational in phenomena" — I'd want to ask whether that relay step is doing necessary work, or whether it's an artifact of the faculty model. In my view, there is no point at which the directly real gets converted into a representation that acts as the direct object of awareness. There is only a subject whose conscious operations progressively determine what is given in experience. I would say it like this: the real is not first given and then re-represented; it is given, then understood and then affirmed.

Your point about distinguishing direct/indirect under different systemic conditions is well-taken. I think the distinction you're drawing between "the real as directly given in perception" and "the indirectly representational in phenomena" is genuinely important — it's just that I'd locate the transition differently than Kant does.

1. Regarding the dyadic structure of error:

I agree that error requires a dyad — something that is wrong and a standard of correctness. You assert that the dyad must consist of two entities (BMO and DO), but you haven't argued for that; you've assumed it. That's precisely what I'm challenging.

I would argue that the dyad can be: act-as-performed vs. act-as-correct.

When I make an error in reasoning — say, I commit a fallacy — the two terms are: my inference as I actually drew it, and the valid inference I should have drawn given the premises. I don't need an intermediary "logic-object" to ground this dyad. The standard of correctness is provided by the logical relations themselves, and my act falls short of that standard.

The same structure applies to perception. The two terms are: (1) the perceptual act as it was performed, and (2) the perceptual act as it would have been performed under proper conditions given the actual state of the world. When I see a white wall as pink under red lighting, the error is not that I have an accurate BMO ("pink-wall object") that fails to match the DO (white wall). The error is that my act of perceiving was performed under conditions — red lighting — that prevented it from disclosing the wall as it is.

The standard of correctness here is not a purely internal ideal; it is fixed by the stable properties of the wall and the lawful conditions under which those properties are disclosed (e.g., normal illumination). So the dyad is act and norm, not inner object and outer object.

More generally: error arises when we judge beyond what our evidential conditions warrant — when we affirm "it is so" without the relevant conditions being fulfilled. The dyad is normative, not ontological.

2. Regarding the definition of epistemic mediation:

Your multiple realizability criterion is creative, and I agree it's an improvement over your earlier formulations. But I see three difficulties:

First, multiple realizability is a feature of the system's causal powers, not of the subject's awareness. The mere fact that a system could have produced the same output from a different source doesn't entail that the subject is therefore aware of an intermediary. Possible deception is not the same thing as an intermediary object of awareness.

Second, this criterion applies to perception itself, since hallucination shows that the visual system can produce similar outputs without a distal object. But that just repackages the argument from hallucination as a definition. And my response remains: phenomenal indistinguishability doesn't entail sameness of intentional structure, any more than a real key and a perfect forgery being indistinguishable entails the same relation to the lock.

Third, this definition proves too much. Memory is multiply realizable (I could be confabulating). Linguistic understanding is multiply realizable (I could be misinterpreting). Reasoning is multiply realizable (I could commit a fallacy). If the bare possibility that the same cognitive output could have been produced by a different source is sufficient for "epistemic mediation," then all cognition is indirect, and the direct/indirect distinction loses its contrast and does no philosophical work.

I suspect this difficulty in finding a stable definition of "epistemic mediation" is not accidental. It may reflect the fact that the direct/indirect distinction, as traditionally drawn, doesn't track a real structural difference in cognition — only a difference in how much processing is involved, which is a matter of degree, not kind.

So I'll put the question directly: on your definition, what would count as direct cognition?

I take it that you hold that if phenomenal character is a mental phenomenon (not a property of apples, light, or eyes), then it must be something the subject is aware of as an object—an intermediary. — Esse Quam Videri

I don't know what you mean by "aware of as an object".

I will just say that I am aware of phenomenal character, like a red colour or a sweet taste, that this phenomenal character is a mental phenomenon, not a mind-independent property of apples or sugar, and that awareness of apples and sugar is mediated by awareness of these phenomenal characters — certainly in the counterfactual sense that I cannot be aware of apples and sugar without being aware of these phenomenal characters.

This view is a response to the naive view that phenomenal character isn't a mental phenomenon but the mind-independent nature of apples and sugar which are literal constituents of the experience.

I would say that experience (sensation) provides the data, understanding grasps intelligibility in that data, and judgment affirms whether that grasp is correct. No one of these levels alone constitutes knowledge of an apple. — Esse Quam Videri

Well said. I, on the other hand, would un-relate experience from sensation, leaving sensation itself as a member of your levels. Experience then becomes the terminus of cognition you spoke of last time.
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Where I'd gently push back is on the separation of sensibility from cognition as distinct faculties or systems. — Esse Quam Videri

I think they can be distinct faculties within one system, from which it can be argued sensation does mediate between the real and cognition, because, while we are conscious of sensation, we are not the least conscious of its objects, and furthermore, we regain conscious awareness of such objects, from a metaphysical point of view only upon understanding, and from a physical point of view only from what the brain tells us about it. From the physical fact that the peripheral nervous system is dark to us, follows the non-contradictory metaphysical justification for phenomena.

I suspect you’re familiar with the principle paraphrased as understanding cannot intuit and intuition cannot think. This is no different in principle from the fact the brain cannot sense and the senses cannot recognize.

…..it denies that sensation constitutes a self-contained representational realm that cognition must then "bridge." — Esse Quam Videri

It being your account, then I agree. Cognition doesn’t bridge the self-contained representational realm of sensation; but rather incorporates it into its own self-contained realm of representations.
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In my view, experience, understanding, and judgment are dynamically related operations within a single conscious subject — not separate systems handing data from one to the next. — Esse Quam Videri

Yes, you’re not alone. Me, being of the mindset I am, put experience at the end, thus, while certainly contained with a single conscious subject and probably in one form or another in conscious subjects in general, not related to dynamic operators at all. It’s the ends, that to which the dynamics advance, much as perception is that from which it begins, all else simply the means.
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I would say it like this: the real is not first given and then re-represented; it is given, then understood and then affirmed. — Esse Quam Videri

I don’t know what re-represented means. I can relate the presented of the real to appearance, but even in doing that, appearance isn’t what’s represented downstream, and the real that is given is a thing and not a representation.

Are you suggesting there’s nothing going on between the given and understanding? If the real is external to the body and understanding is internal in the body, then how is it that the real is what is understood? The real is given, yes. But the real that is given can’t be what is understood and affirmed. You know this must be true; I mean….there’s just no room up there for real basketballs and dinner forks.


I may have said enough on this sub-topic, regarding being unaware of the peripheral nervous system. It is at least non-contradictory to attribute to this part of the overall system some logical metaphysical prescriptions, but it is explanatorily catastrophic to bypass it completely by going from the real as given, which is always necessary, to the understanding and judgement of it. In effect, then, if it is the case understanding and judgement is directed to something that is not the real, and if not directed to representation, then it is directed to nothing at all, in which case there is nothing to understand or affirm, and experience becomes impossible.
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it's just that I'd locate the transition differently than Kant does. — Esse Quam Videri

That’s fine, you can put it wherever you think it fits. I’m more interested in what you think the transition entails then where it may be located.

Anyway….good talk.

I’m more interested in what you think the transition entails then where it may be located. — Mww

Fair enough. I'll address this briefly and then we can leave it at that if you wish.

In my view, the transition from sensation to knowledge is not a passage from one realm (sensibility) to another (understanding), but an enrichment of the subject's relation to what is given. The same conscious subject who senses also inquires, understands, and judges — and these are not operations performed on different objects, but successive operations on the same presentation leading to a progressive refinement of the given.

When I sense, I am presented with a patterned manifold — colors, shapes, resistances — that is not yet understood. I don't know what it is. But the manifold is not understood to be a representation of the real; it is the real as disclosed by the senses. The transition to understanding occurs when I ask "what is it?" and insight grasps an intelligible unity in the data — that's an apple. The transition to judgment occurs when I ask "is it really so?" and marshal the evidence: the data sufficiently support the identification.

What's crucial is that understanding and judgment don't take a different object than sensation. They take the same given and determine it further. The intelligibility that understanding grasps is the intelligibility of the sensed data. The judgment affirms that this intelligibility belongs to what is given, not to some downstream substitute for it. Knowing the real doesn't require containing it — it requires correctly understanding and affirming what is given

Where I diverge most fully with Kant is metaphysically: I take the world to be intrinsically intelligible in its own right, thereby enabling the mind to grasp this intelligibility in the act of insight/understanding, though always perspectivally, fallibly and subject to the embodied conditions of the particular knower.

In my view, the transition from sensation to knowledge is not a passage from one realm (sensibility) to another (understanding), but an enrichment of the subject's relation to what is given. — Esse Quam Videri

Enrichment, yes; made possible at the minimum by whatever the experienced sensation is, even if judgement of the sensation remains uncertain.

The same conscious subject who senses also inquires, understands, and judges — and these are not operations performed on different objects — Esse Quam Videri

They can be, for the same subject can perform inquires, understandings and judgements when there is nothing given from sensation, which makes explicit the objects on which the operations are performed are very different. Even those operations performed on past sensations, which we call the content of consciousness, are not the same kind of object as were the things first sensed which gave us the content. Or, just call it memory if you wish.

I think it necessary system functionality has different aspects, which implies different outcomes for its aspects, which we can call different objects. The objects of intuition are phenomena; the objects of understanding are conceptions; the objects of judgements are cognitions, the objects of cognitions are experiences, the objects of reason are principles; the object of will is volition, and so on.
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What's crucial is that understanding and judgment don't take a different object than sensation. They take the same given and determine it further. — Esse Quam Videri

But sensation is in the sensory apparatuses. The content of the apparatuses is not what is transported on the nerves to the brain. The product of them is, but the product is very different from the content and the product doesn’t change, which further determination implies. So understanding and judgements must take, must concern themselves with, objects different than the objects of sensation.

One of the manifold of objects of tactile sensation is an itch. Neither understanding not judgement takes an itch and determines it further; they take the phenomenon represented by an itch, determine its cause (understanding) on the one hand, and affirm or deny the validity of that cause (judgment) on the other.

I agree with further determinations, though. One can say an itch is caused by a bug without contradicting himself, but he cannot say this itch is only caused by a bug when it is equally non-contradictory to say it is possibly caused by a wayward hair. Hence the benefit of a variety of sensory devices: got an itch, think bug (judge possible bug causality), see spider web (judge dismissal of bug, judge necessary web causality). Swipe web rather than slap bug. Life goes on.

We can leave it anywhere anytime. I think we’re pretty much disassociated on the finer points, and the common points aren’t interesting anyway.