What do you think that properties are? I'm asking because apparently you think they're something separate from other things that somehow can "attach" to them.

I'm a nominalist, so you're going wrong somewhere. — Terrapin Station

I love this. You see things some way, so anyone else simply must be going wrong! Classic.

I don't think there is such a thing as a 'table' outside of our experience of it, so there's nothing to attach these properties to other than the ones in our experience. Otherwise you seem to be making a universal out of 'table', 'brown', 'wooden'...etc.

What do you think that properties are? — Terrapin Station

I think it's a term used to sub-divide the experience of a thing into arbitrary chunks. It's convenient sometimes, but it's not something that 'tables' can have.

I don't think there is such a thing as a 'table' outside of our experience of it, — Isaac

So you're an idealist?

"Property" doesn't imply "universal" or "type," by the way.

I hope that this isn't a matter of once again confusing our concepts qua concepts and what the concepts are in response to or of.

I don't think there's any one 'kind of thing' we see. I mean, I'm mostly on board the embodied cognition train that says we see for the most part "affordances", opportunities for action, sites of relief and rest, goals to arrive at, hazards and safety, speed and rest, and so on. Perception understood in a bodily sense, according to categories that matter to living, moving, metabolizing beings. We perceive significance far more than we perceive things and stuff (phenomenology teaches us this: perception is normative). We're animals before we're anything else.

But even then I don't think this exhausts perception: I don't doubt that we see things and stuff and properties too. But we have to learn how to see this stuff (a bodily learning, and no less than we have to learn how to see what is significant), and sometimes we 'see' some kinds of things and not others, and sometimes there's a mix of things we 'see', different schemas of perception, as it were, that we engage depending on the particular circumstances of the time (if you're looking for a 'property', you'll likely find it). There's a plasticity to perception, and the important thing is to relate it to the kinds of beings we are and what we do with it.

Call it a Wittgensteinian theory of perception: perception is use. And attempting to come up with an a priori theory of it is neither helpful nor interesting.

So you're an idealist? — Terrapin Station

No, although I could easily be. I think there is external matter. It's the division of some of it into 'table' I think is arbitrary.

"Property" doesn't imply "universal" or "type," by the way. — Terrapin Station

I think it does. I don't think one can discuss a 'property' of a thing without engaging in reifying universals. Even to say 'shape' is one type of property and colour another.

Beat me to it (and expressed it better).

I don't think there's any one 'kind of thing' we see. I mean, I'm mostly on board the embodied cognition train that says we see for the most part "affordances", opportunities for action, sites of relief and rest, goals to arrive at, hazards and safety, speed and rest, and so on. Perception understood in a bodily sense, according to categories that matter to living, moving, metabolizing beings. We perceive significance far more than we perceive things and stuff (phenomenology teaches us this: perception is normative). We're animals before we're anything else. — StreetlightX

So in other words, you're conflating how we think about things, how we evaluate and value them, etc., with what we're perceiving.

No, although I could easily be. I think there is external matter. It's the division of some of it into 'table' I think is arbitrary. — Isaac

In order to refer to the external matter, we have to use a type term, since that's how language works. So you're again getting confused here because you're conflating concepts and what they're in response to/about/of.

No one is saying that the external matter is a table a la the concept of a table. But we have to refer to it some way to talk about it in a setting like this. So we have to use terms like "table."

But I am honestly amused - like it makes me smile irl - to think people look out at the world around them and honestly believe in their heart of hearts that what they see are 'properties'. — StreetlightX

I mean, I'm mostly on board the embodied cognition train that says we see for the most part "affordances", opportunities for action, sites of relief and rest, goals to arrive at, hazards and safety, speed and rest, and so on. — StreetlightX

!

So in other words, you're conflating how we think about things, how we evaluate and value them, etc., with what we're perceiving. — Terrapin Station

It takes a particular kind of abstraction to think that we perceive things in their neutrality first, and then evaluate them, as if a two-step process. It's valued all the way down (although not all the way up!)

All properties that are not quantities (that are not simply numerical). — Terrapin Station

What about higher/lower... more/less... same/different ?

Btw, less words is more :up: :up: :up:

It takes a particular kind of abstraction to think that we perceive things in their neutrality first, — StreetlightX

You can't perceive how we think about something, how we value it, etc.

"Perception" has a connotation of "sensing information from outside of us." How we think about things, value them, etc. isn't something that exists outside of us for us to perceive.

This is not to suggest that we don't think about things however we do, value them however we do, etc. at whatever stage in the process, but it's not perceiving those things.

Yeah yeah. But how else would you put it? I see food on the table, I start to salivate, and move towards it, I reach out to the sweetness, the oil glistens on its surface, my stomach rumbles, etc etc. At some point you have to use words.

! — bert1

?

What about higher/lower... more/less... — bongo fury

Those are quantitative. "Quantitative" doesn't have to refer to an exact/known quantity.

"Same/different" is qualitative.

In order to refer to the external matter, we have to use a type term, since that's how language works. So you're again getting confused here because you're conflating concepts and what they're in response to/about/of. — Terrapin Station

Yes but a linguistic affectation can't possess properties can it?

I see food on the table, — StreetlightX

And you're seeing properties of it. Again, if anyone is thinking that this is saying that you're seeing types/universals, "property" doesn't imply that. If one buys nominalism (as I do), every property is actually unique, That doesn't imply that it's not a property. Properties are simply ways that things are, characteristics they have.

You can't _perceive_ how we think about something, how we value it, etc.

"Perception" has a connotation of "sensing information from outside of us." How we think about things, value them, etc. isn't something that exists outside of us for us to perceive. — Terrapin Station

Ah but you're wrong. Valuation is built-in to perception. It's why we are susceptible to visual illusions, it's why people have visual disorders where they can't recognize faces even though they can 'see' them perfectly well and so on. There's a bodily thinking that is irreducible to a rational process of abstraction. Go read about the science of perception, it's interesting.

Yes but a linguistic affectation can't possess properties can it? — Isaac

Again, properties are simply ways that things are, characteristics they have.

So how could there be anything that isn't some way or other?

Valuation is built-in to perception. It's why we are susceptible to visual illusions, it's why people have visual disorders where they can't recognize faces even though they can 'see' them perfectly well and so on. There's a bodily thinking that is irreducible to a rational process of abstraction. Go read about the science of perception, it's interesting. — StreetlightX

Again, "perception" has a connotation of taking in information external to us, through our senses.

So if valuation is perceived, you're saying that valuations exist external to us, and we see or hear or smell or feel or taste them.

I don't philosophize off the back of linguistic connotations. We bring a great deal of ourselves to what we perceive. Any study of perception will tell you this. Maybe you can start with Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. I've already mentioned the affordance approach of Gibson. Lots of cool things for you to study.

"Same/different" is qualitative. — Terrapin Station

And we construct quantities from qualities, a la Goodman in Structure of Appearance?

We bring a great deal of ourselves to what we perceive. — StreetlightX

That's fine, and it's perfectly consistent with saying that we don't perceive that great deal of ourselves that we bring to what we perceive.

And we construct quantities from qualities, — bongo fury

If you're talking about quantity in terms of conceptions of it, sure.

If that's what you get out of that, okay.

Cool. Goodman was agnostic as to what we construct from what, though. Are you siding with what he would have called a phenomenalist basis, as against e.g. a physicalist one?

If you bring your own booze to a restaurant, the restaurant doesn't supply the booze (that you bring, at least).

Cool. Goodman was agnostic as to what we construct from what, though. Are you siding with what he would have called a phenomenalist basis, as against e.g. a physicalist one? — bongo fury

No. And I'm a physicalist, by the way.

No. And I'm a physicalist, by the way. — Terrapin Station

Oh yes, I knew that. So you assume a physicalist basis, but properties are part of it, not something you would (like Goodman) expect to construct?

Oh yes, I knew that. So you assume a physicalist basis, but properties are part of it, not something you would (like Goodman) expect to construct? — bongo fury

Yes, for maybe the fifth time now, properties are simply ways that things are, characteristics they have.

We create abstractions/construct concepts about properties, of course, but that's not all that they are. It's important to not conflate concepts and what the concepts are in response to (again, for about the fifth time in this thread, and maybe the 500th time on this board in general).