The experience of understanding

_db

Does anyone else experience "philosophical" thinking oftentimes as similar to that of having a word on the tip of one's tongue? Especially, more specifically, in phenomenological or empirical generalizations?

It reminds me of Heidegger's analogy to a path in the forest - it seems like there's something there, but you're not sure, so you go down the path and see whether or not it's a dead-end or if it leads to something else.

Also Wittgenstein's idea that sometimes the most important concepts can't easily be transmitted into words.

But essentially I'm thinking about the feeling you get when you know you "get" something but aren't sure how to articulate what exactly you "get". That pre-reflexive "understanding" that may or may not actually be legitimate understanding. "Trust your gut", sort of. It feels like a state of completion, like something is "sinking in" and which compels you to investigate further. As if there would be something wrong with not investigating further.

It's this pre-reflexive "grasping" that acts as a notification that I might be on to something, but it also has to be taken with a bit of caution. For example, when I listen to music, I'll oftentimes feel like "everything makes sense" in the sense that I become "timeless" (a la Schopenhauer's aesthetics). As if I've grasped some greater sum of knowledge. Of course, when the song ends, I'm left scratching my head and wondering what the hell I was thinking. This of course, I think, can be applied to other hallucinatory-like recreations, like drugs or dating.

If what I am describing is widespread and accurate, it would account for the experience one is said to feel when one reads a work of a great philosopher. That "sobering" experience, of "I knew it all along..." but that you just weren't able to piece it all together like the philosopher was able to.

And, of course, there's the feeling of listlessness or unrest when one is unable to fully articulate one's thoughts. Similar to how cognitive dissonance feels, except it's more of a hypothetical rather than an actual.

apokrisis

But essentially I'm thinking about the feeling you get when you know you "get" something but aren't sure how to articulate what exactly you "get". — darthbarracuda

That's Peircean abduction - the leap which can be recognised as already the coherent answer as it is still crisply forming.

And it can be explained neurologically in terms of symmetry breaking. Answers form in the mind as we organise a field of uncertainty. The brain starts to suppress some possibilities as "noise", focus attention on other possibilities as "signal". If it is working - the symmetry does want to break itself in that direction - then rapid feedback drives both kinds of action. What counts as noise, and thus what counts as signal, become ever more strongly felt to us as we "tune into" the best inference to an explanation.

This is important to the epistemology of reasoning of course because it shows how induction does ground rational insight. We are searching for a deductive truth. But we can only get there on the back of a snowballing process of inductive confirmation. Each step, as noise and signal start to be divided in the brain, has to feed back either positively or negatively as a "test" for the germinating concept. As an attempt at symmetry breaking, it either finds that it works and so runs to self-justifying completion, or it stalls and dies, quickly forgotten.

Gestalt psychology of course celebrated this as the aha! experience. Or perceptual pop-out. So it applies just as much to our phenomenal impressions of the world as our rationalistic conceptions.

It is pretty much definitional of why brains (in their creative organicism) are not like computers (in their rigid mechanicalism).

Buxtebuddha

↪darthbarracuda

Sometimes I find it more striking and poignant when I read something that I vehemently disagree with, but which makes me pause and admire the beauty that the author presents his or her work.

Deleteduserrc

But essentially I'm thinking about the feeling you get when you know you "get" something but aren't sure how to articulate what exactly you "get" — Darth

That's Peircean abduction — apokrisis

lol, I don't mean this as a dig ( liked the post) but if you wanted to capture apo in two quotes, couldn't do better than this

apokrisis

lol, I don't mean this as a dig ( liked the post) but if you wanted to capture apo in two quotes, couldn't do better than this — csalisbury

What do you want? That I should invent some completely different metaphysical system for every post?

Logic is like water to fish. Because most folk only operate in the one register of thought, they can't even see that they rigidly apply just the one version of "the truth". All they know is reductionism and predicate logic, so they just get on applying it willy-nilly.

I can appreciate two complementary modes of thought - the reductionist and the holistic. And while "reasoning about the concrete particular" is admirably adapted to dealing with the near-at-hand, everyday, classical or mechanical conception of reality, reductionism is always going to be the wrong tool of thought as soon as we get anywhere near an issue with metaphysical generality.

So there is a reason I'm always saying the same basic thing. People trying to do metaphysics are always locked into the wrong habit of thought and I'm just constantly being helpful in pointing towards the exit.

Peirce of course most fully developed a metaphysical-strength brand of logic. It's not my problem that it remains a post-grad and not under-grad subject of study.

Deleteduserrc

↪apokrisis

I don't want you to to change your approach, really, I like things to stay at least a little the same, and you're a fixture. It's just that anyone with a strong presence and style calls out for caricature, and this post is that caricature. Darth asked if anyone knows that feeling of some new thought forming, some insight on the brink of being realized - and you answered ah yes, of course, that feeling of some new insight forming, let me explain that by means of the same insight I refer to in each of my posts. That feeling is Peircean abduction.

It's too perfect

I'm not knocking your theory, at least not here. I'm genuinely interested in - if a little uneasy with - your approach. I'm still browsing the philosophical market and probably will be for some time yet. But don't you see the joke?

Deleteduserrc

↪darthbarracuda

It feels like a state of completion, like something is "sinking in" and which compels you to investigate further. As if there would be something wrong with not investigating further.

That last sentence especially. For whatever reason Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason really had that effect on me (though, like so many other books, I've yet to finish it.) So many things clicked in exactly that "I knew it all along" sense, but with the important addition that it took 'what I knew all along' and brought it somewhere a little new, that made perfect sense, and that in turn suggested further avenues that, yeah, would be almost wrong not to go down. I know Sartre has his critics, but I love that book, and like some other big ones I haven't yet completed, I keep returning to it.

apokrisis

I'm not knocking your theory, at least not here. I'm genuinely interested in - if a little uneasy with - your approach. I'm still browsing the philosophical market and probably will be for some time yet. But don't you see the joke? — csalisbury

I see the joke. But also the issue of the aha! sensation was largely the subject of my first book. And Peirce came along about 20 years later for me.

So for me, it was the neuroscientific story that meant I could feel that shock of happy recognition on discovering Peirce's writings.

It is not the case that I have had to shoehorn all my facts to fit some Peircean template. The reality is that those facts came first and I continue to be surprised how well Peirce anticipated them.

Deleteduserrc

↪apokrisis

So I'm 28 &, so far, I've experienced at least 2 distinct waves of 'aha' w/ other thinkers validating, expanding, and contextualizing that 'aha.' That shock of happy recognition is the best. I still haven't gotten to the point, at least yet, where I've found a thinker who totally nails it. Each 'aha' thinker I've found, nails a region I'm keen on, but at the expense of other regions. I like Hegel on some things, Deleuze on others, Sellars (recently) on yet others. Zizek for the cultural stuff. (and then the literary guys, who do another thing.) haven't found someone in the way you've found Peirce.

I had no idea you'd published. I'd be interested in checking out your book(s).

Streetlight

↪darthbarracuda

Perhaps interestingly, I think the experience you mention often - if not always - comes about in the very process of 'working out' the thought to begin with. There is, in other words, a kind of mutual propelling of the idea in which articulating the thought makes or fabulates the very thought which is there as a hazy seed to begin with. Recall also that the etymology of the word 'articulate' comes from the Latin arthron, or 'joint', referring back to the language of woodmaking, with it's cognates relating to the conjoining or uniting two pieces of wood.

This reference to the 'joining of two' is important I think, because the it says something about the nature of the 'hazy seed': it refers in fact to a grasping of a distinction which then subsequently gets 'filled out' depending on the problem at hand; that is, part of what makes a work of philosophy (say) 'relatable' in the sense of 'I knew it all along but this just articulates the point in the right way...', is that it creates a distinction around which one can begin to categorize the phenomena under question: 'it's this kind of thing, rather than that kind of thing'. And once this primary distinction emerges, one can begin to trace it's ramifications: 'given that it's this kind of thing, these consequences follow, and not these other ones...' and so on.

This is why great philosophers are not those who provide 'new answers' to old questions, but those who rearticulate the field of problems, who drive a wedge - a distinction - into the field of phenomena in a new and novel way, reorganizing our very approaches to questions. To identify with a philosopher is to identify with the way in which they parse out the field of intelligibility, the ways in which they say 'this belongs to this category, and that, to another'. This is what accounts for the fact that the understanding in question is, as you've put it, 'pre-reflexive': it is operative at the level of the 'problem', the organizing principles of intelligibility, and not at the level of 'answers'.

_db

Each step, as noise and signal start to be divided in the brain, has to feed back either positively or negatively as a "test" for the germinating concept. As an attempt at symmetry breaking, it either finds that it works and so runs to self-justifying completion, or it stalls and dies, quickly forgotten. — apokrisis

This works well with my own phenomenological analysis of how I reason. Except I would add that higher-order thinking processes seem to be based largely on counterfactuality (whereas in the OP I was mostly focused on the initial alarm that something has been stirring below immediate awareness, the vague impression that there might be something). Evaluating possibility, testing compatibility, comparing similarity, predicting eventuality. For a mind like mine with diagnosed OCD, sometimes reasoning essentially skips the initial step of evaluating all the possibilities (perhaps the most crucial step) and tumbles through a garbled prediction - what psychologists might call "black and white thinking", "fortune-telling reasoning", or "catastrophizing".

And it can be explained neurologically in terms of symmetry breaking. Answers form in the mind as we organise a field of uncertainty. The brain starts to suppress some possibilities as "noise", focus attention on other possibilities as "signal". If it is working - the symmetry does want to break itself in that direction - then rapid feedback drives both kinds of action. What counts as noise, and thus what counts as signal, become ever more strongly felt to us as we "tune into" the best inference to an explanation. — apokrisis

And this also works well with the Heideggerian analogy of a path in a forest. Although I don't really see what symmetry has got to do with anything. If anything it seems like symmetry-forming would be what answers are made of.

It's too perfect

I'm not knocking your theory, at least not here. I'm genuinely interested in - if a little uneasy with - your approach. I'm still browsing the philosophical market and probably will be for some time yet. But don't you see the joke? — csalisbury

I agree.

I had no idea you'd published. I'd be interested in checking out your book(s). — csalisbury

Nor did I, although I think he doesn't want anyone to stalk him or something.

There is, in other words, a kind of mutual propelling of the idea in which articulating the thought makes or fabulates the very thought which is there as a hazy seed to begin with. Recall also that the etymology of the word 'articulate' comes from the Latin arthron, or 'joint', referring back to the language of woodmaking, with it's cognates relating to the conjoining or uniting two pieces of wood. — StreetlightX

Yes, very much so this. It's as if you're given a proto-thought and it's up to you to either germinate the seed or let it die.

To identify with a philosopher is to identify with the way in which they parse out the field of intelligibility, the ways in which they say 'this belongs to this category, and that, to another'. This is what accounts for the fact that the understanding in question is, as you've put it, 'pre-reflexive': it is operative at the level of the 'problem', the organizing principles of intelligibility, and not at the level of 'answers'. — StreetlightX

Very interesting.

Streetlight

↪darthbarracuda

If you're interested, there's a rich and pretty lively literature on this phenomenon, but probably one of my favorite's is Heinrich von Kleist's "On the Gradual Construction of Thoughts During Speech". It's an old text (1878), but pretty short (5 pages), and a classic. Here's part of the intro:

"IF there is something you want to know and cannot discover by meditation, then, my dear, ingenious friend, I advise you to discuss it with the first acquaintance whom you happen to meet. He need not have a sharp intellect, nor do I mean that you should question him on the subject. No! Rather you yourself should begin by telling it all to him. I can see you opening your eyes wide at this and replying that in former years you were advised never to talk about anything that you do not already understand. In those days, however, you probably spoke with the pretentious purpose of enlightening others - I want you to speak with the reasonable purpose of enlightening yourself".

It kind of defines my approach to many discussions on the forum too : )

The Great Whatever

When I was little, I thought of it as 'the gray.' Kind of an understanding I guess, but disillusionment. Unlike other experiences, it only goes in one direction, and there's always more left to lose.

I mostly read modern AP of language nowadays, and whatever those philosophers' virtues, they aren't 'great.' But then the 'great' philosophers I used to read just seem sort of stupid now, I don't know. It may be getting older is making me incurious, or that only very young people can be impressed by 'big' thoughts.

Moliere

Does anyone else experience "philosophical" thinking oftentimes as similar to that of having a word on the tip of one's tongue? — darthbarracuda

Yes. I could even classify some as "before" -- as if they put the word in my mouth but I can't articulate it -- and "after" -- as if they finally gave me some adequate means for expressing what I was thinking.

But, regardless of the topic, I can say I believe I've felt what you are asking after here. And, actually, I think it's telling that "understanding" is the term you used in the title -- because this seems to be the process of understanding (as opposed to mere knowing, for instance)

Numi Who

↪darthbarracuda

Not everything has been articulated yet - and the most voluminous of those 'things' are 'potentially-useful perspectives' (which you alone may have just discovered, but others have not, and it is up to you to 'put it into words').

Why put it into words? Why, to share you insights and discoveries with the whole world! Without words, you might be able to communicate your new perspective to the person next to you with mere body language, but that is not as good as communicating it to the entire world (which may need it).

As for those 'hazy feelings' - what they really are are your new senses of reality - an aspect that you have faintly sensed - which may be common to others but new for you.

As for actually putting your hazy notions into clarifying words - it takes practice, and timing - you have to catch most insights as the occur - they are fleeting and you will near-instantly forget them in the noise and distractions of life - meaning you have to record them - in the best words that you can - as soon as you can - and my current method is a pen and notebook (I have about 20 pocket notebooks filled with potentially-useful perspectives that I still need to type into the computer and then post online).

A warning here - don't get all 'mystical' about it - stick with reality. You can imagine things, but know that it is most likely sheer make-believe. You can spend time, money, and energy testing them, if you think they are worth further investigation. but don't go playing the IS GAME - where you claim your speculations are correct without tests and verifications (unless your purpose is deception and fleecing people out of their money, like a celebrity guru).

_db

A warning here - don't get all 'mystical' about it - stick with reality. You can imagine things, but know that it is most likely sheer make-believe. You can spend time, money, and energy testing them, if you think they are worth further investigation. but don't go playing the IS GAME - where you claim your speculations are correct without tests and verifications (unless your purpose is deception and fleecing people out of their money, like a celebrity guru). — Numi Who

I don't know why you seem to be so resistant towards metaphysics. This also isn't even metaphysics, it's an attempt at phenomenology, the science of consciousness from the first person perspective.

The experience of understanding

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