I feel like Thomas Nagel said something along these lines..but that could be a false connection. Is it bad that most evolutionary biologists and others (including my self to an extent) already thought along these lines way before Brassier said it with more words and more references to French philosophers? — schopenhauer1

I'm not surprised to hear that Nagel holds some commitments along these lines, but the interesting source is Sellars. Though not widely known outside of academic circles, Sellars was one of the most important American philosophers of the 20th century, and was extremely influential in bringing analytic philosophy to the forefront of American intellectual consciousness, while simultaneously pushing past some of its early missteps (e.g. naive empiricism). Though it can be traced in fragmentary ways back to Aristotle, the notion of conceptual representation we find in Brassier was first worked out in Sellars' work on semantics. Sellars himself found some of the central ideas in Carnap's Logical Syntax of Language.

The concern with originality is a bit misplaced here. Brassier is an eclectic philosopher, meaning that his principal virtues are erudition and the ability to synthesize disparate ideas and traditions. He *seems* original to people who mainly read contemporary continental philosophy because they're used to interacting with a very narrow constellation of (anti-naturalist) ideas. Brassier is right about a lot of things because Sellars is right about a lot of things, but he does the extra service of relating ideas from Sellars to work in other traditions, and thereby increasing the number of human beings in the world who have encountered Sellars' philosophy.

Can you give an example of how we can make sense of these notions in more fundamental metaphysical terms (e.g. in materialist terms)? — schopenhauer1

Brassier does not discuss the details of such an account in "Concept and Object." He does, however, in some of his work on Sellars -- particularly in "Nominalism, Naturalism, and Materialism," which StreetlightX referenced earlier, and in the recorded talk "How to Train an Animal That Makes Inferences." Sellars' own account, in which Brassier has shown a great deal of interest, is very complex. I'd be happy to discuss it in depth, but I don't think this is the place. For the time being, a quick summation:

Sellars first gives a functional role semantics on which the meaning of an expression in natural language is its role in inference (governed by logical and lexical rules of inference); he then gives a theory of rule-governed behavior as supervening on (purely naturalistic) pattern-conforming behavior (such as develops through evolutionary change); he then gives an extremely robust defense of an explanation-first model of scientific inquiry on which the very structure of scientific theory-succession enjoins the logical possibility of a single, convergent explanatory theory (i.e. the unity of science), which account depends on a mind-bogglingly original treatment of the structure of inductive and abductive inference in terms of complex deductive argument schemas; he then gives a sophisticated ontology drawing on Wittgenstein's picture theory of representation in which predicates are reducible to structural descriptions of names, and names picture objects; he then gives very persuasive arguments to the effect that thoughts and other mental events are best understood as behavior-explaining theoretical postulates modeled after the characteristics of overt linguistic utterances; he then shows how, on a final ontology of the final explanatory theory, names in our ontology, understood as physical inscriptions or utterances, will (by logical necessity) stand in one-to-one *physical* isomorphy relations to the physical constituents of the universe; he then shows how the rules, thoughts, and events of inference which make up our folk psychology, if they are actual, can be modeled in precisely this sense, and conceived of as subject to physical laws. This presentation is spread out over a hundred or so papers, as well as a number of lecture series published as books. It's fascinating stuff.

Alright, so - working through C&O. Essentially, I read C&O as something like a ground-clearing operation. Brassier's goal is to establish the importance of epistemology, setting it up as a genuine problem, one which demands a response. Although he doesn't actaully provide that response in the paper itself, the whole point of the paper is simply to set up the problem of epistemology as a problem. This in contrast to a few trends that Brassier sees as having taken hold in certain circles, where epistemology is more or less dissolved into ontology and thus obviated as a problem to address. Latour, obviously, is the primary target here, although Deleuze gets a pot shot taken at him as well.

Anyway, as stated by Brassier himself, the epistemological problem follows from the 'Critical injuntion' (cf. Kant) that: "Thought is not guaranteed access to being; being is not inherently thinkable. There is no cognitive ingress to the real save through the concept. Yet the real itself is not to be confused with the concepts through which we know it. The fundamental problem of philosophy is to understand how to reconcile these two claims." This injunction is 'critical' not in the sense of 'being important', but in the Kantian sense of requiring that we furnish an account of the relation between thought and being, rather than take any such relation for granted, which would be a fall into pre-critical dogmatism, in the Kantian sense. In this regard, Brassier holds to the tradition of Critical Philosophy inaugurated by Kant.

From this starting point, Brassier goes on to look at various ways in which this injunction has more or less been papered over in various ways, beginning with Latour, before going on to his wonderful discussion of Stove's Gem, which he uses not so much to establish realism, but - in keeping with the ground-clearing mode of the rest of the paper - to disqualify approaches which aim to diffuse realism as an issue from the get-go. Here, both Berkeley and Fitche are taken as targets, with Meillassoux also critiqued for buying too easily into the Gem. Again, it's not a 'positive' argument that Brassier is advancing here, but a negative one - or more precisely, an attempt to negate a negative (against the idea that thought cannot track the real).

Hence the conclusion of the piece which goes: "[R]ecognizing this does not resolve or answer any of the profound epistemological and metaphysical difficulties which confront us in the wake of science’s remarkable cognitive achievements. But it may help us realize that these difficulties cannot be circumvented, as both correlationists and dogmatic metaphysicians seek to do." Again, the idea is to 'keep open' a problem, rather than address it directly. There's more to be said about the specifics here, but that's the general thrust and structure of the paper.

his wonderful discussion of Stove's Gem, which he uses not so much to establish realism, but - in keeping with the ground-clearing mode of the rest of the paper - to disqualify approaches which aim to diffuse realism as an issue from the get-go. Here, both Berkeley and Fitche are taken as targets, with Meillassoux also critiqued for buying too easily into the Gem. Again, it's not a 'positive' argument that Brassier is advancing here, but a negative one - or more precisely, an attempt to negate a negative (against the idea that thought cannot track the real). — StreetlightX

A lot hinges on how one feels about David Stove and his Gem as applied to Berkeley. (These are paras 31 and 32 of C & O)

It does seem to me that one wouldn't know from Stove or Brassier that Berkeley said, for instance:

By the principles premised, we are not deprived of any one thing in Nature. Whatever we see, feel, hear, or any wise conceive or understand, remains as secure as ever, and is as real as ever. There is a rerum natura, and the distinction between realities and chimeras retains its full force...[W]e have shewn what is meant by real things in opposition to chimeras, or ideas of our own framing. — Berkeley

'...or any wise conceive or understand...' There are things we don't know yet; the good Bishop feels that God the first cause is holding them in readiness for when our measuring apparatus improves. I don't say I'm a Berkeleyan. I only mean I don't accept the supposed force of Stove's argument against such idealism, which is here a surrogate for an argument in favour of the analytic and against the continental. The perennial problem for a critic of Berkeley seems to me to say, OK, what's your alternative to always seeing oneself in one's own mind's eye? And Brassier doesn't offer that; he is, as SX says, clearing the ground as he sees it, and relying on passing references to Sellars to come up with the positives.

By the principles premised, we are not deprived of any one thing in Nature. Whatever we see, feel, hear, or any wise conceive or understand, remains as secure as ever, and is as real as ever. There is a rerum natura, and the distinction between realities and chimeras retains its full force...[W]e have shewn what is meant by real things in opposition to chimeras, or ideas of our own framing. — Berkeley

Does this matter though? Surely, this is a conclusion inferred by Berkeley from what he takes be a successful argument against a mind-independent world already presented previously? If he began with this he would be begging the question. But Brassier's point is that so too does the argument. So I guess it's true you wouldn't know the above from reading Brassier or Stove, but would you need to?

Yes, Stove and Brassier's readings of Berkeley are irredeemably shallow if you take them as readings of Berkeley, but my impression here is that Berkeley himself is not really the target, but just a sort of stand-in for a propensity they dislike. They also claim this propensity manifests in a certain form of argument that gets repeated over the ages, and of which Berkeley himself is a classical source. I don't think this latter claim is true: I'm not sure of anyone who actually argues for the Gem as Stove characterizes or Brassier recapitulates it.

This is obvious if you look at what Berkeley says in the passages Brassier quotes, and then Brassier's characterization of the argument: the two seem to have nothing to do with each other, with Brassier' attributing claims to Berkeley that he does not make (the tautological premise that 'we cannot conceive of something without conceiving it,' which appears nowhere in the Master argument, let alone as a premise), and also fundamentally getting the form of the argument wrong. Berkeley presents the argument as a reductio of a realist premise, whereas Brassier presents it as an espousal of a first premise (a tautology) that then moves to another premise (a non-tautology), rather than an internal criticism of realism on its own terms.

I think it matters in the sense that, the assumption tends to be that what is experiential or conceptual is not real, or is somehow opposed to the real as something that 'gains access to it' without being identical to it, and Berkeley is pointing out that reality is something that in everyday terms we define using means besides experience-independence, and thus claiming that objects' being experiential, as opposed to non-experiential, has nothing to do with whether they are 'real' or not. A fair and basic point that I think even the most sophisticated of philosophers outside the idealist tradition really do not understand.

I think it's fair to say that Berkeley's 'master argument' is, to put it very simply, based on the tautologous idea that what can be conceived must be itself a conception. From this it follows that if we can conceive an object then an object must be a conception. The next tautological step is the idea that conceptions occur only in minds. The problem then becomes the fact that objects are very obviously independent of any individual mind, with the corollary being that they therefore must be independent of the sum of minds, if each mind is separate. A mind which is independent of our minds must then be posited for the 'objects as conceptions' to exist in. And indeed, for Berkeley. objects are conceptions in God's mind.

So this:

By the principles premised, we are not deprived of any one thing in Nature. Whatever we see, feel, hear, or any wise conceive or understand, remains as secure as ever, and is as real as ever. There is a rerum natura, and the distinction between realities and chimeras retains its full force...[W]e have shewn what is meant by real things in opposition to chimeras, or ideas of our own framing. — Berkeley

is correct as far as it goes in that we have "not been deprived of any one thing in Nature", to be sure. But... we have now been lumbered with God; Who in Himself obviates further metaphysical and epistemological inquiry. In light of the deprivation of the need for such inquiry, this "lumbering" can then be seen to be no small imposition.

Berkeley interesting in that his main argument is, more or less, a direct opposition to Cartesian doubt and other positions which envision the world separate to our knowledge. In his focus on experience, he is clearly setting out we know things, "real" things, no matter what.

The problem is that Brassier's target has nothing to do with the making "real"/ "not real distinction (i.e. finding that which shows what is "real" or "not real" )," but rather the question of claims about what exists at specific times in the world.

Congruent with Berkeley's complaint, there has never been an instance of an object thought of without the someone thinking about the object, but... this does not amount to the absence of unexperienced objects. If I, for example, imagine a building which exists in the centre of Melbourne in one hundred years, it does not follow that it is never unexperienced. It might be the middle of the night when there is no-one around. It might be abandoned and become hidden beneath trees and bushes. Life might be snuffed out by some disaster.

Berkeley's error is not to suppose things are within the conceptual realm, but rather to think instances of thought or experience of objects are always necessary. In his effort to recognise the presence of experience ignored by so many others, he equivocates objects being thought or experienced in one moment as equivalent to them always being experienced.

His analysis of "experienced" and "unexperienced" is deficit. Berkeley treats them like the are a infinite feature of things, such that to say something is "of experience" or "unexperienced" is to proclaim is always one and never the other. The meaning of "unexperienced object," that is to say a moment in time when someone is not thinking about or experiencing an object, as opposed to an object being outside the conceptual realm, is lost on him (just as the meaning of "unknowns" are lost to those who view objects to be outside the conceptual realm. What exactly is an "unknown" if there is not something we may know, we may think of or experience? Such a suggestion is incoherent).

In the end, Brassier's objection to Berkeley is directed in the right area, despite its somewhat superficial reading. Berkeley is still suggesting experience is necessary (and thus, there is no world, no objects, without experience).

Berkeley is pointing out that reality is something that in everyday terms we define using means besides experience-independence, and thus claiming that objects' being experiential, as opposed to non-experiential, has nothing to do with whether they are 'real' or not — The Great Whatever

Indeed. Ironically, this cuts down Berkeley's own argument. Since "real(i.e. existing)" or "not real (i.e not existing), has nothing to do with whether an object is experiential (i.e. thought, experienced) or non-experiential (i.e. unperceived, unthought, unknown), the presence of experience isn't necessary for any object. Berkley is trapped in the same illusion as those he criticises. He treats the "real" as if it is a matter of being experiential as opposed to non-experimental. In his efforts to recognise how objects are thought of and experienced, even the "unknown" or "unperceived" ones, he confuses thinking about and experiencing objects for their existence.

I think it's fair to say that Berkeley's 'master argument' is, to put it very simply, based on the tautologous idea that what can be conceived must be itself a conception. — John

No it isn't?

Congruent with Berkeley's complaint, there has never been an instance of an object thought of without the someone thinking about the object, but... this does not amount to the absence of unexperienced objects. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Sure, but it amounts to their inconceivability, which is the point that the realist is not willing to grant (hence why, when people see the Master Argument, they try to refute it at all costs).

Is that a question or a statement? If the former then I don't understand it, and if the latter, then what is an object, beyond being a conception, according to the assumptions you think the master argument is based on?

But that's utterly wrong. In thinking about unexperienced objects, we have the concept of an object which is not experienced. They are not inconceivable at all. Indeed, we can conceive any object as unexperienced. I can think of a time, for example, where the screen I am looking at is not experienced. All it takes is us to imagine an instance where no-one is experiencing an object. Berkeley is confusing instances of us thinking about an unexperienced object with the existence of an unexperienced object. They are not the same. When we have a concept that some object is unexperienced, it is not the state of the object.

At that moment, the object is experienced (I am thinking of my screen). The concept of the unexperienced object is, however, talking about some other moment (when I am no longer thinking of my screen). I am thinking of the moment of the unexperienced object which has yet to come (or has already passed).

An object, according to Berkeley, is a congeries or bundle of ideas. I usually think of a 'conception' as some sort of act.

In thinking about unexperienced objects, we have the concept of an object which is not experienced. They are not inconceivable at all. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But you see, you were thinking about it. So it was not unexperienced after all.

Yeah... now, but that's not when the "unexperienced" claim was referring to. It was talking about what an object was at some other time. Just because I'm thinking about it now doesn't mean the object can't be unknown or unexperienced at some other time. You are treating "experienced" and "unexperienced" as if they are infinite. They are not. Whether an object is experienced by someone is a question of a finite state.

Just because I'm thinking about it now doesn't mean the object can't be known or unexperienced at some other time. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Right, but if it were, you couldn't conceive of it being so, which is the point. You want to isolate the object in an alternate reality or time and say there it isn't being experienced: but this just loops the problem back into the present experience of a supposition about the past. It does not, as Brassier desires, 'break out' of the circle to find the object independent of experience simpliciter. Idealists of course have always been fine with complex overlapping structures of experience. But the realist is interested in escape form them.

Not in the moment of it being unexperienced, but the was never the claim.

I don't need to "find" the object independent of experience, in any instance where I conceive it, I always have it in experience. Including the times I conceive of objects which aren't being experienced. To think of the "unexperienced object" is to think the idea of an object, at a different time, when on-one is thinking about it. No attempt has been made to get "outside experience." The whole point is that I am thinking about a state where no-one is experiencing an object. Indeed, it's what I know (i.e experience) in this instance. I experience the concept of the unexperienced object, not the (future /former) unexperienced object. At my time, the unexperienced object I am thinking about is experienced.

I always have it in experience. Including the times I conceive of objects which aren't being experienced. — TheWillowOfDarkness

They can't both be 'in experience' (by which I assume you mean, they are being experienced) and not be experienced. That is a contradiction you see.

OK, but if an object is a "bundle of ideas" then it is a bundle of conceptions; i.e. it is conceptual. That doesn't change the substance of the argument.

OK, but if an object is a "bundle of ideas" then it is a bundle of conceptions; i.e. it is conceptual. That doesn't change the substance of the argument. — John

No, Berkeley's master argument is not based on a tautology. It is a reductio of the realist's claim that he can conceive of something that no one is conceiving of.

-Assumption for reductio: It is possible to conceive of something that no one conceives of.
-Hypothetical assumption: Someone conceives of something that no one conceives of.
-But by hypothesis, someone is conceiving of it.
-Therefore, someone does not conceive of something that no one conceives of.
-Therefore, by discharging of the assumption from a contradiction, it is not possible to conceive of something that no one conceives of.

There is no such claim. The experience doesn't exist when the object unexperienced.

Let's say I am reading my hidden diary. I think about how it will go unexperienced for ages(concept of the unexperienced object), possibly until it breaks down, when I an am longer alive (the diary is experienced).

Then I die (the diary is then unexperienced).

The experience, indeed, doesn't exist when unexperienced. The diary is not unexperienced until the states of experience of it cease.

The experience, indeed, doesn't exist when unexperienced. The dairy is not unexperienced until the states of experience of it cease. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But at such a time, you aren't conceiving of it either. So this does not show that you can conceive of something that nobody is conceiving of.

For sure, but who is the one trying to do the impossible now?

Why would someone ever suggest they could conceive of an unexperienced object (i.e. a time when no-one is experiencing the object ) without them conceiving of something? You are trying to separate the object thought of (the one that, in the future or past, no-one is thinking about) from experience. You are attempting the very nonsense you decry.

The entire point of the concept of the "unperceived object"is someone is conceiving of something: a past/future object that no-one is thinking of at its time (as opposed to one's own time, in which the concept of the unperceived object is present and the object is in experience).

Why would someone ever suggest they could conceive of an unexperienced object — TheWillowOfDarkness

I don't know -- it's not a very smart thing to suggest. Let alone write a paper about.

without them conceiving of something?

You can leave off this part, it doesn't add anything.

Look, it's very simple. The realist is concerned with objects no one is experiencing or thinking about. Since he thinks his project isn't nonsense, he claims he can conceive of such a thing. But you can't conceive of an object no one is conceiving of. This is not that hard, people.

But you can't conceive of an object no one is conceiving of. — The Great Whatever

Do you think that being conceived is the same as being conceived ex hypothesi?

Can a painter ever paint someone alone?

You can if the object doesn't exist.

If its a future object or a past object, it existence is not indexed to your present. You are ignoring the difference time makes. One can conceive of an object no-one is thinking about. It just can't exist in the present.

He doesn't claim people can conceive an object when no-one is conceiving of it. The claim is (and more generally, the realist position) that people can conceive of instances which don't yet or no longer exist. (which includes instances where no-one is aware of some past/future object).

What do you mean by, 'conceived ex hypothesi?' Do you mean that, when we imagine an object no one is experiencing, that object is actually experienced, but not experienced ex hypothesi? Is this what the realist is interested in?

Can a painter ever paint someone alone?

Wouldn't the analogous question be, can a painter ever paint someone who isn't being painted? Of course, in the picture, he does not have to paint another painter. But he himself is painting this person, who he perhaps claimed was being painted by no one.

What do you mean by, 'conceived ex hypothesi?' Do you mean that, when we imagine an object no one is experiencing, that object is actually experienced, but not experienced ex hypothesi? Is this what the realist is interested in? — The Great Whatever

Of course. For example, I am male. Therefore, if we don't make a distinction between conception simpliciter and conception ex hypothesi, then I can't conceive of something that isn't being imagined by a male. Thus, I am entitled to reject the idea of objects that are not conceived of by males.

I dunno TGW, you just seem not to 'get it': Brassier's point is that when you frame the realist's point in the way you do - "It is possible to conceive of something that no one conceives of", you've already fixed the game ahead of itself. Yet the entire thrust of Brassier's paper is that in order not to fall into the trap of metaphysical dogmatism, one must distinguish clearly between, well - concepts and objects. The relevant subsections are §§33 and 34:

"The difficulty facing the proponent of the Gem is the following: since the assumption that things are only ideata is every bit as metaphysical (‘dogmatic’) as the assumption that ideata are not the only things (that physical things are not ideas), the only way for the idealist to trump the realist is by invoking the self-authenticating nature of her experience as a thinking thing (or mind) and repository of ideas. But this she cannot do without invoking some idealist version of the myth of the given (which I take Sellars to have convincingly refuted). So in this regard, the alleged ‘givenness’ of the difference between concept and object would be no worse off than that of the identity of the concept (qua self-authenticating mental episode). Obviously, this does not suffice to vindicate metaphysical realism; what it does reveal however is that the Gem fails to disqualify it. It is undoubtedly true that we cannot conceive of concept-independent things without conceiving of them; but it by no means follows from this that we cannot conceive of things existing independently of concepts, since there is no logical transitivity from the mind-dependence of concepts to that of conceivable objects. Only someone who is confusing mind-independence with concept-independence would invoke the conceivability of the difference between concept and object in order to assert the mind-dependence of objects

...The claim that something exists mind-independently does not commit one to the claim that it is conceptually inaccessible. By implying that mind-independence requires conceptual inaccessibility, the Gem saddles transcendental realism with an exorbitant burden. But it is a burden which there is no good reason to accept." (bolding mine).

To the degree that you've not addressed Brassier's argument for the necessity for such a distinction, I don't think you've really understood the argument. You still think, in other words, that the realist ought to accept the very burden that Brassier points out is unnecessary.

Of course. For example, I am male. Therefore, if we don't make a distinction between conception simpliciter and conception ex hypothesi, then I can't conceive of something that isn't being imagined by a male. Thus, there are no objects that are not conceived of by males. — Pneumenon

So, first, I'm not saying there is no such distinction. I am denying that it is the distinction in which the realist is interested. The realist is interested in objects independent of experience simpliciter, not independent of experience within certain hypothetical scenarios, while dependent on experience in order to be conceived of in those hypothetical scenarios.

Second, even if that were what the realist is talking about, your conclusion does not follow from your premise, since you are not the only one who can conceive things. And so there is no inference from what you can conceive to what can be conceived.