Bullseye!!! Remember that definition, “thinking is cognition by means of conceptions”? Images are the schema of conceptions, but we cannot communicate via images, so we invented words to represent our conceptions. Think first, speak later. — Mww

Never "read" a picture book? How are we communicating if not by images on a screen? Words come in the form of sounds, or images (more specifically, scribbles). You use your eyes to see the images and ears to hear the sounds. Thinking with words is thinking in images/scribbles or sounds. It's just that those images and sounds are about things - about your ideas, and your ideas are about the world if they are objective, and not if they are subjective.

I could draw pictures of what I mean, or I could write it or say it. The former is more time-consuming and a less efficient use of my finite energy. The latter saves time and is a more efficient use of my finite energy.

When I do 20 pushups, have I asserted (told, mentioned, conversed with respect to) anything about my strength? When I tell you I like football, have I exhibited (manifested, displayed, shown acquaintance with) anything to do with football? — Mww

Yes, that you are strong enough to do 20 pushups.

Yes, that football is liked by you. You liking football is what contributes to football being a popular sport.

Is saying, "I can do 20 pushups" and doing 20 pushups redundant information? If I can see you do 20 pushups, do you really need to say it?

I can also ascertain your level of knowledge of the English language by your use of it, not just the subject matter of what you are talking about. I can also ascertain that a Big Bang event happened sometime in the distant past if you and I are here communicating. Each and every effect contains information about all the causes that lead up to, or are part of, it. You just have to change your view to access the information you are looking for.

The rest of what you said is confusing.

Pantagruel gave a better response to your question, Echamarion. I would just like to just expand on what Pantagruel said. In using the term, "particle", we are just talking about processes that are fundamental to the view of reality that we are talking about. Change your view to be about the particle then your particle becomes a process of more fundamental processes (particles). The particle-wave duality problem of light and matter is another good example. The problem is resolved by thinking of particles and waves as just different views of the same thing.

we cannot communicate via images, so we invented words to represent our conceptions.
— Mww

Never "read" a picture book? How are we communicating if not my images on a screen? — Harry Hindu

Categorical error. I’m speaking of images with respect to the schema of conceptions, which arise spontaneously from pure thought, you’re speaking of images as empirical representations of the original schema, which arise from experience. Which should prove my point.

Furthermore, apparently you don’t read picture books either, else putting “read” in quotes wouldn’t have an explanation. View pictures, read/hear words. Ever notice that perceiving empirical words becomes viewing mental images? Except for maybe the driest, most technical or abstract moldy tomes, words read always transform internally into the very schema from which they were born, otherwise there is no purpose for them.
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You said exhibition of rationality and assertion of rationality are the same thing.

Exhibiting it is the same as asserting it. — Harry Hindu

My examples proved that incorrect, in that the judgements you make in response to each, are very different.....

Yes, that you are strong enough to do 20 pushups.

.....which is a valid judgement, because from the exhibition that I actually did 20 pushups you know some particular physical ability of mine. On the other hand....

Yes, that football is liked by you. — Harry Hindu

....cannot be a valid judgement of yours merely from my saying so. I might detest football, saying I like it for any number of rational or irrational reasons, which would be impossible for you to derive from the mere assertion.

Categorical error. I’m speaking of images with respect to the schema of conceptions, which arise spontaneously from pure thought, you’re speaking of images as empirical representations of the original schema, which arise from experience. Which should prove my point.

Furthermore, apparently you don’t read picture books either, else putting “read” in quotes wouldn’t have an explanation. View pictures, read/hear words. Ever notice that perceiving empirical words becomes viewing mental images? Except for maybe the driest, most technical or abstract moldy tomes, words read always transform internally into the very schema from which they were born, otherwise there is no purpose for them. — Mww

You're beginning to lose me, Mww. I'm not sure I can ascertain anything useful from your last post. You told me, "Bullseye!" in the last post, yet when I elaborate, you say, "Categorical error". You seem to be saying that we're using the same scribbles, "image" to refer completely different things. I'm trying to tell you that they are a different kind of the same thing.

What is the difference between viewing pictures and reading words if they are both done with the eyes? The difference seems to lie in the judgements of the imagery, not how the images are acquired and stored (remembered) for recalling later.

When seeing words for the first time, how would you understand that those scribbles are more than just scribbles, but are about a context that is irrelevant to the context of you looking at ink scribbles on a sheet of paper? How would you come to understand that concept prior to it being communicated to you because you have yet to learn any language? It was because you were shown pictures of what those scribbles were about - the relationship between the imagery of the scribbles and what context that the scribbles are about. Words are simply a way of condensing a complex idea into simple empirical symbols for communicating, and conceptual symbols (which are stored empirical symbols) for conceptualizing.

....cannot be a valid judgement of yours merely from my saying so. I might detest football, saying I like it for any number of rational or irrational reasons, which would be impossible for you to derive from the mere assertion. — Mww

Which supports what I said about words having an additional layer of aboutness. Words are about your thoughts and your thoughts are about the world when telling the truth and not when telling a lie. When telling a lie, your words are only about your thoughts - your intent to mislead. Lies are an attempt to knowingly propagate subjective views, rather than objective ones. Lying is willful misuse of words for the purpose of invoking the imagery of what those words are about rather than imagery of what is actually the case. You using words to propagate false views tells me something about you - that you are a liar, and that your words aren't useful. This is why it is important to know when a person's words are about the world, or about themselves (like their possible intent to mislead).

I've just joined this discussion and hope it's OK to add a couple of notes. One of my favorite discussions of objectivity includes the following remarks:

“. . . as human beings, we must inevitably see the universe from a center lying within ourselves and speak about it in terms of a human language shaped by the exigencies of human intercourse. Any attempt rigorously to eliminate our human perspective from our picture of the world must lead to absurdity (p3).”

“. . . the act of knowing includes an appraisal; and this personal coefficient, which shapes all factual knowledge, bridges in doing so the disjunction between subjectivity and objectivity. It implies the claim that man can transcend his own subjectivity by striving passionately to fulfill his personal obligations to universal standards (p17).”

--from Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Toward a Post-Critical Philosophy (1964)

The way I see it, man transcends his own subjectivity by constructing value and meaning beyond his own experience, from the interrelated uncertainty of potential and possible information, as one manifestation of objective possibility.

We can think without talking but cannot talk without thinking (...)....
— Mww

....then that tells me that thinking is fundamental, and that talking is a kind/manifestation of thinking.
— Harry Hindu

Bullseye!!! thinking is cognition by means of conceptions. Images are the schema of conceptions, but we cannot communicate via images, — Mww

Never "read" a picture book? How are we communicating if not by images on a screen? — Harry Hindu

Categorical error. I’m speaking of images with respect to the schema of conceptions, (...) you’re speaking of images as empirical representations (...) — Mww

You told me, "Bullseye!" in the last post, yet when I elaborate, you say, "Categorical error". You seem to be saying that we're using the same scribbles, "image" to refer completely different things. — Harry Hindu

The bullseye represents that you admit thinking is fundamental; the categorical error represents that you’ve substituted the primary constituent for the origin of antecedent thought, for the primary constituent of the consequential communication of it. This matters from the point of view that holds with the notion that when you put some general representative scribble in objective form, you’ve already cognized that to which it belongs for you, but when I perceive that same image, I have yet to cognize that to which it belongs for me.

It makes no difference to my understanding what the particular object of perception is, whether word, picture, or tickle on the back of my neck or loud boom from the backyard.....they each and all arise as images of some possible object, called “phenomenon”, to my thinking process. So yes, my employment of “image”, as you put it, is one and only one thing, re: that which represents a single phenomenon, which is then called a conception. I still need to synthesize that image either with a manifold of extant intuitions given from experience, in which case I already know the perceived object, or, some non-contradictory genus of conceptions that forms a possible cognition a priori, in which case I am merely learning what the perceived object is.

Now the categorical error manifests, in that it is the faculty of imagination responsible for synthesizing the possible object in phenomena, to the named object in conception, with my mental images as the intermediary between them, hence, images being the schema of conceptions. The phenomenon e.g., loud boom in the backyard or “images” in a picture book, or “scribbles” representing words, are all nothing but objects of my perception, which mandates they all traverse the same rational procedure as any other real physical object. The category is relation, and the error is thinking the perception of an external image suffices as the internal image as schema, when in fact it does not. Well........actually, in theory it does not.

As an aside, there is also the category of modality, having to do with necessity, but I got a feeling that ain’t gonna fly, especially if the error of relation hasn’t first.
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Words are simply a way of condensing a complex idea into simple empirical symbols for communicating, and conceptual symbols (which are stored empirical symbols) for conceptualizing. — Harry Hindu

No, not really. Words cannot be the sole causality for condensing an idea into symbols representing it. If that were the case, nothing prevents the word “breakfast” from symbolizing the condensed complex idea “religion”, except the invocation of infinite regress to the point of inception of the initial correspondence between any single word and the conception it represents. The initial correspondence is sufficient for the principle of non-contradiction, which henceforth prevents cross-referencing words with concepts to which they do not belong. Which has much more to do with meaning of words, than words themselves anyway. All of that being nothing but.....you guessed it.....pure thought. Think first, speak later. Or, which is the same thing....speak now about what was thought earlier.

I see what you’re trying to say, but your method makes no room for all that happens between condensing and communicating. You’re trying to tell me in words what you think, which is fine in itself, you couldn’t do it without projecting it objectively somehow, but how you think is not determined by your words, they just represent what it is, after you’ve done it.

Thanks very much for your reply to my comments. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by “the interrelated uncertainty of potential and possible information.” Can you say a bit more about that? Best wishes to you.

Though I know very little about category mistakes, I am about to read the following (14p) paper by Ofra Magidor to help me with this discussion and to better understand the term. I begin with three quotes from her paper: Perhaps others will find this paper useful.

“Category mistakes are highly prevalent in figurative language. That is to say, it is very common for sentences which are used figuratively to be such that, if taken literally, they would constitute category mistakes. Consider for example metaphor. The metaphorical sentences ‘The poem is pregnant’, ‘The silence was liquid’, and ‘My thoughts are racing’ are all category mistakes. Or consider metonymy: a waiter might use the categorically mistaken ‘The ham sandwich is angry’ in reference to the customer who ordered the ham sandwich, and a political reporter ‘The White House decided to change its policy’ in reference to the people working at the White House. Another source of examples can be seen in the domain of fictional discourse. In the context of a fictional work, one can use sentences such as ‘The tree was tired’or even ‘The number two was happy’."
. . .
“Sentences such as ‘The poem is pregnant’ are only category mistakes in so far as we attempt to interpret them literally, and on the face of it there is nothing inconsistent with maintaining that a sentence has a figurative meaning at the same time as being literally meaningless. However, in the remainder of the paper, I argue that this appearance is misleading: reflecting on some of the main theories of figurative language reveals that they are not after all compatible with the meaninglessness view. In Sect. 2, I discuss the case of metaphor, in Sect. 3 the case of metonymy,and in Sect. 4, the case of fictional discourse.”
. . .
“In this paper I argued that the view that category mistakes are meaningless is inconsistent with many prominent theories concerning various kinds of figurative language. Some (myself included) would take this as reason to reject the meaninglessness view. Others more sympathetic to the view, might take this conclusion as an invitation to provide alternative theories of figurative language,ones that are consistent with the view. Either way, it should be recognized that the debates concerning the semantics of figurative language and concerning the semantic status of category mistakes are closely connected.”

https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s11098-015-0575-1?author_access_token=wQ3lwrClut3P8Y-qawc5f_e4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY5uJWshWair3e2M6Cv1bHX3NPFgKxSyV10g8bGa4VO3q0oVpFnPsmfoIQuecakH8exnMejkg7dklKjTMkvV0md1WGKSLSXuISzjLMSEMroF8Q%3D%3D

The bullseye represents that you admit thinking is fundamental; the categorical error represents that you’ve substituted the primary constituent for the origin of antecedent thought, for the primary constituent of the consequential communication of it. This matters from the point of view that holds with the notion that when you put some general representative scribble in objective form, you’ve already cognized that to which it belongs for you, but when I perceive that same image, I have yet to cognize that to which it belongs for me. — Mww

It makes no difference to my understanding what the particular object of perception is, whether word, picture, or tickle on the back of my neck or loud boom from the backyard.....they each and all arise as images of some possible object, called “phenomenon”, to my thinking process. So yes, my employment of “image”, as you put it, is one and only one thing, re: that which represents a single phenomenon, which is then called a conception. I still need to synthesize that image either with a manifold of extant intuitions given from experience, in which case I already know the perceived object, or, some non-contradictory genus of conceptions that forms a possible cognition a priori, in which case I am merely learning what the perceived object is. — Mww

Sure, but doesn't the fact that we are both human beings with the same sensory hardware, same type of brain, developed in the same culture that teaches the same use of the scribbles, mean something in how we both interpret the scribble that you or I made? In other words, don't our similar backgrounds lend you to believe that we would interpret those scribbles, a tickle on the back on our neck, loud booms from the backyard, similarly? You and I seem to both interpret the scribbles as words, so then why not what the words mean being that we were taught the same rules for using the scribbles?

In saying "you’ve already cognized that to which it belongs for you, but when I perceive that same image, I have yet to cognize that to which it belongs for me.", isn't accurate. In order to communicate, I would have to cognize that which it belongs to you too. I have to know what language you understand, and the relationship that you have established between certain scribbles and the concepts you hold in order to invoke those concepts with those scribbles. The relationships are established when you learn the vocabulary and grammatical rules of the language - the same vocabulary and rules I learned. To lie, you have to know what I know. You have to know that I don't already know the truth to successfully lie. If I were to tell you the truth, then I would have to know that you don't already know the truth, or else it would be a waste of my time and energy to tell you what you already know. So, part of using scribbles to communicate includes cognizing the potential reader's congnizing.

Sure, but doesn't the fact that we are both human beings...... — Harry Hindu

True enough, with the caveat that humans in general usually communicate by rote, misunderstandings being the exception rather than the rule. The main reason for all this theory talk is to serve as possible explanation for how misunderstandings occur. Since the ancients, what we know is deemed less important than what we don’t.
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In saying "you’ve already cognized that to which it belongs for you, but when I perceive that same image, I have yet to cognize that to which it belongs for me.", isn't accurate. — Harry Hindu

It is, because I stopped at perception. Think of it this way: we each have two halves of an intercommunication, you think then objectify it, I perceive then understand it. For you whatever is being said begins subjectively, becomes objective in the form of its transmission; for me, it begins as object, but ends as an alteration of my subjective condition, that is to say, I know something given from what you say. Role reversal over time, sorta.

However, when all I’ve done is receive the object of your communication my powers of sensibility have engaged, but my rational powers have not, which means my statement is accurate. You’ve communicated to me, but not with me.
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To lie, you have to know what I know. — Harry Hindu

Interesting. What do you think a lie actually is?

Thanks for the reference. Interesting enough, but category mistakes of this kind are not the categorical errors I’m concerned with. The original form, via Ryle, from Way Back When, is, but this modern stuff....ehhhh, seems very much “....beneath the dignity of philosophy...”.

It is, because I stopped at perception. Think of it this way: we each have two halves of an intercommunication, you think then objectify it, I perceive then understand it. For you whatever is being said begins subjectively, becomes objective in the form of its transmission; for me, it begins as object, but ends as an alteration of my subjective condition, that is to say, I know something given from what you say. Role reversal over time, sorta.

However, when all I’ve done is receive the object of your communication my powers of sensibility have engaged, but my rational powers have not, which means my statement is accurate. You’ve communicated to me, but not with me. — Mww

So essentially what you are saying is that you access an objective form of transmission, subjectively? I don't see how that makes any sense. The form the transmission takes is how it sounds or looks in your mind, so how is that an objective form, unless it took the same form in my mind?

The boundary between subjectivity and objectivity becomes blurred when what I am cognizing is the rules of the language that everyone else that understands the same language, learned. I don't see how the rules are subjective if we are using the same rules to transmit and interpret the symbols.

The main reason for all this theory talk is to serve as possible explanation for how misunderstandings occur. — Mww

Misunderstandings occur because of a misunderstanding of the rules of the language and logic.

Thank you much for your reply. I'm rather new to all of this. Can you say more of what you mean by"this modern stuff?" Do you mean (all) those who are writing about category mistakes today? As compared to . . .? -- Thanks much. I'm enjoying your comments.

So essentially what you are saying is that you access an objective form of transmission, subjectively? — Harry Hindu

Perhaps I should clarify: objective form of transmission refers to the general kind of transmission it is, whether written, spoken, signed....stone cairns....whatever. The content of the transmission, whether words, sounds, motions.....whatever, will have its particular form in my faculty of intuition, depending on my experience with them. But yes, in any case, I access that content in whatever the form....kind.... of its transmission, subjectively, as I do with any perception.

The form the transmission takes is how it sounds or looks in your mind, — Harry Hindu

This is correct, hence my clarification. The form the transmission takes has to do with what the transmission becomes (phenomenon, in my mind), the form the transmission has, has to do with what kind of object it is (words, sounds, etc., in the world).

Don’t neglect time here. Even a strict physicalist must acknowledge a time delay between the stimulus of sensual contact and the operation of the brain in relation to it. Just because there are pre-existent neural pathways for some particular experience doesn’t negate operational necessity. Philosophically as well, each and every object of perception runs exactly the same gamut of theoretical cognitive procedure, whether there is extant knowledge of it or not. The brain, the hardware, is predicated on the laws of Nature; pure reason, the software, is predicated on the laws of logic, each legislative in their own domain.

I bring this up in order to prevent the assumption that as soon as I see your words I know what you mean by them. In fact, all I know immediately, is that there are words, which in and of themselves, for they are merely objects of perception, tell me absolutely nothing about your intentions in the employment of them.
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I don't see how the rules are subjective if we are using the same rules to transmit and interpret the symbols. — Harry Hindu

Ehhhh....”rules” is just a word, the representation of a general idea, a theoretical explanatory device. Because the empirical world appears to function according to natural law, it stands to reason the immaterial world of human thought can be said to operate according to rules. We cannot say thought according to law, because law invokes the principles of universality and necessity, which is synonymous with robotics, but human thought is quite apt to be self-contradictory within one instance of it, and contradictory across multiple instances of it, the exact opposite of robotic.

Bottom line I guess.....rules are subjective because we as thinking subjects created them. There are no “rules”, per se, in Nature, so they cannot be objective, much like numbers, so all that’s left is to be subjective. And just as we can create an objective illustration of a number to represent the conception of quantity, we can create objective demonstration of a rule to represent the conception of language, or whatever conception to which a rule may be applied.
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The boundary between subjectivity and objectivity becomes blurred when what I am cognizing is the rules of the language that everyone else that understands the same language, learned. — Harry Hindu

You’re not cognizing the rules of the language; you’re cognizing the content of language according to rules. This is why theories of knowledge are so complex, because even though all thought is considered to be according to rules, doesn’t mean each instance of it will obtain the same knowledge. It should, but that isn’t the same as it will. Ought is not the same as shall. All thought according to rules can do, is justify its ends, but it cannot attain to absolute truth for them.

The boundaries can be blurred, for sure, but context helps with clarity. They are both qualities, but sometimes what they are qualities of, gets blurry. Subjectivity is pretty cut-and-dried, I think, but objectivity isn’t just about objects.

You’re not cognizing the rules of the language; you’re cognizing the content of language according to rules. This is why theories of knowledge are so complex, because even though all thought is considered to be according to rules, doesn’t mean each instance of it will obtain the same knowledge. It should, but that isn’t the same as it will. Ought is not the same as shall. All thought according to rules can do, is justify its ends, but it cannot attain to absolute truth for them.

The boundaries can be blurred, for sure, but context helps with clarity. They are both qualities, but sometimes what they are qualities of, gets blurry. Subjectivity is pretty cut-and-dried, I think, but objectivity isn’t just about objects. — Mww

If anyone is interested in Habermas' take on this, objectivation is the result of the interconnection of systemic and psychosocial mechanisms. In other words, the actual unification of the natural, normative/social, and subjective worlds. This is communicative action in operation. It involves the hermeneutic problem of excavating foundational presuppositions about reality.

This avoids the whole subject-object problem (as systems theoretic approaches in general do).

This modern stuff.....practically everything philosophical written after Russell, 1912.

I’m old, and I think old. Categorical errors are mistakes of reason; category mistakes, except the original Ryle,1949, which is in fact a Kantian categorical error, are mistakes of propositional language, and are all but superfluous.

Still......you know what they say about opinions.

This avoids the whole subject-object problem — Pantagruel

Avoiding isn’t solving, though, is it? In some contexts, the dualism is altogether unavoidable; I mean, the principle of complementarity demands opposites, right?

What would be an example of the subject-object problem your reference avoids?

In general, the systemic approach treats "systems" as the fundamental units, so right there, subject and object always exist in a functional context. Which they kind of do anyway, being dyadic in nature, don't you think?

I agree with the dyadic nature of certain systemic domains as fundamental wholes, certainly. Which explains why I never considered the subject-object dualism much of a problem anyway, with respect to reason as one such systemic approach.

Is this what you mean, that avoiding a problem is merely causing it not to be one?

If I don't experience emotion, or do so at a markedly diminished capacity from what is accepted as normal, would that increase my ability to discern objectivity from subjectivity? If I experience a phenomenon without having any emotional involvement or preconceptions of the phenomenon, do my previous experiences and supposed knowledge of reality skew that perception or introduce some bias merely by being perceived through such a perspective?

The percentage of reality that we are able to experience, our sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum, seems miniscule, if the objectivity of scientific instrumentation is accepted. If we can accept that our universe is significantly more complex than we are able to perceive, what else about objective reality might we be missing? If we're unable to answer that, how can we then be certain that our agreed upon reality and objectivity is as we claim it to be?

You asked "does perception require some assumption?", to which I would say that conscious, intentional observation and perception itself is an assumption or requires as much.

Exactly so.

I would say that conscious, intentional observation and perception itself is an assumption or requires as much. — Seditious

Why do you think that is?

Cool.

I think too that the external property (property?) of objectivity is probably related in a significant way to the subjective quality (ideal?) of objectivity, or "being objective."

Thank you. This gives me a bit of traction. Perhaps you draw a line in the sand after Russell for some reason related to this specific question, or perhaps Russell marks for you a more general gloaming, perchance a sadness (am I reading too much into your remarks?). In your many years here, was there a time in your life that was an apex, when things seemed, most and overall,to be moving in a more fruitful direction? Do you see our present era as one of decline? These questions are a bit off topic, so please don't bother with them if you find them out of place. Regards.

Yes, the quality of our own subjectivity for being objective, determines how objective we can be.

Apologies if I didn’t unpack your comment properly.

Ironic that objectivity is one of those "foundational" concepts that essentially never emerge in ordinary practical contexts of discourse. It seems like it takes a critical-reflexion to become objective.

Perhaps you draw a line in the sand after Russell for some reason related to this specific question — Statilius

Nahhhh....Russell is just some arbitrary cut-off because everybody else after was talking about stuff of which I found not much worthwhile. Some Nagel, Chalmers, Dennet, Pinker, nothing from Sellars, Wittgenstein, Quine, James/Pierce/Dewey, the Churchlands. But to be fair, I read those guys but didn’t study them, as I did the German Enlightenment idealists. And they set the bar so high, poor shmucks coming later had nothing better to do but fall back on language, of all things, plus a few half-assed stabs at consciousness or, “being”. Gotta publish something, I suppose, to justify all those letters after your name.

Ironic, isn’t it? Admitting to the very cognitive prejudice I just talked about absenting in order to be objective. (Chuckles to self)

I know this is starting to look like an interview (and is wandering unpardonably off topic), but I'm wondering what you think are the (one or two or three) most important processes or undertakings for philosophy to (re)engage or come to grips with today? Is the question of objectivity one of them?