you will never explain the essential epistemic connection to make "out there" come "in here". — Constance

There's your problem: "out there" vs "in here".

Most of what we know about everything we know because we've been told or shown by others. — T Clark

I'm not entirely sure about "shown". Personally, I don't recall being shown or even told how the brain produces sensory cognition, for example. And I think it would be safe to surmise that the same is true of most people.

There's your problem: "out there" vs "in here". — Banno

So, are we "out there", or "in here"?

Both and neither. It's a misleading juxtaposition.

I agree with this. The idea of objective reality can be really useful, but it's not true. Or false for that matter. That's how metaphysics works. — T Clark

Unless the idea of objectivity is also turned on its head: What does this mean if not agreement, and what gives itself to agreement better than the immediacy of what is directly apprehended. As an empirical scientist, I agree that the sun has a greater mass than our moon, this is an evolved, historical idea, a thing of "parts," that is, analyzable. Prior to it becoming a scientific term, it is a phenomenological one, reductive to sensate intuitions, thoughts and a long history of scientific "revolutions" (Kuhn), and, as Kuhn tells us further, there is no reason to think these present theories along these lines will continue as they are, after all, nothing ever has.
What is objective, then? The matter turns to certainty, and degrees thereof. Let us now say the sun is best defined as a phenomenological aggregate of predicatively formed affairs (Husserl) which are witnessed, at the very basic level, as phenomena, first, logically prior to anything being taken up in an empirical theory. Science, of course, continues its course, but at the level of basic questions and assumptions, the entire business is turned on its head.

Not sure what "epistemically opaque" means. How is that different from our brains? — T Clark

Take, say, a Hubble mirror as a model for perfect transparency (just a model of something "passing through" with near perfect accuracy. Then there is opacity: a piece of granite? A brick? Anyway. Now ask, regarding an object's "passing through" to meet and inquiring brain-thing, how opaque or transparent is the brain as a receiver of the object as it is, unmodified, undistorted; how epistemically transparent of opaque is this brain? Of course, it is absolutely opaque, and one has no more "knowledge" of the object than a dented car fender has of the offending guard rail.

This doesn't seem right to me. What's the big mystery about getting stuff from out there in here? We are wired to the outside. Signals come down the wires. Our nervous and other systems process the signals. That processing is called "the mind." We send signals back. — T Clark

the big mystery is this: outside?? Talk about an outside implies one has the means to affirm what is not inside. Take a typical physicalist reductive position and say thought is reducible to brain activity. But how is it that "brain activity" is itself anything but brain activity? The "real" brain is supposed to be the truly real, yet one never gets "out" of the perceptual matrix to affirm it. One is always, already in that which is supposed to be reduced to something else.
I know, we witness things as if we know, but this knowledge's outside/insideness can never be anything but inside; therefore, there is no inside/outside at this level of analysis.

The pain itself probably is not guessing since we seem to experience it. The guessing seems to come into it when we are trying to explain how contact with the sharp glass translates itself into the sensation of pain, who or what it is that perceives and interprets it and why, etc.

As the way we perceive things tends to change from one individual to another, and from situation to situation, at least some of it seems to be subjective. — Apollodorus

I would remove "probably" above, agree with the idea that the "guessing" lies with the explaining, but then to say "some of it" seems to be subjective cancels the progress made in the statement. the explaining is interpretative, and it is here, when we talk, we complicate what is simple. Pain is simple as pain, but open your mouth about it, and you have to explain the context in which the event is thereby placed, and what is immediate and unquestioned now becomes bound to language and context. The pain that is there speaks very clearly as an injunction NOT to bring this into the world. This I argue, is a nonlinguistic phenomenon that "speaks".

Well, you have a point but the error in judgment you commit is that now you've swung to the other extreme - to believing in subjectivity. This is not the intent/aim/goal of skepticism (Cartesian & Harmanian). What Descartes and Harman want to accomplish is to only, I repeat only, sow the seed of doubt in the garden of epistemology. This seed of uncertainty has germinated and is now a healthy (dose of skepticism) plant in full bloom but...it in no way diminshes the value of the other flowers (knowledge) that it grows alongside. If it does anything, it makes us unsure as to whether the flowers present are real or fake. That's not a bad thing if you take the time to realize artificial flowers are so well-made that it's impossible to distinguish them from real ones. If so, does it matter subjective or objective? They're identical insofar as our ability to tell which. — TheMadFool

Well, planting seeds of doubt is a far cry from what is being defended here. Look, if it were a seed of doubt "merely" then you would have recourse to to defend both sides with some margin of credibility. But there is none here. Phenomenology is the only wheel that rolls. That is, unless you can make the case for its opposition. But this simply isn't possible, and there is not an analytic philosopher worth his/her ink that will even try. Kant was never refuted only ignored, after a century of post Kantian fixation. they just gave up, took Wittgenstein seriously when he drew the line between sensible and nonsensible propositions, and proceeded with the assumption that empirical science is the best we can do, and epistemic issues can go hang. Just look at those absurd Gettier problems: they care nothing for P being a nonsense term, and simply proceed as if all were well.
As to subjectivity: all apparent dichotomies sustain and are not challenged, as long as the analysis doesn't attempt to make a claim about basic questions. At this level, subjective and objective lose their meanings, though talk sometimes suggests otherwise.

It gets complicated, and phenomenologists vary. I read, lately, the French theological post moderns like Michel Henry and Jean luc Marion, and Levinas, and others. Massively interesting stuff, but the old vocabulary of subjective/objective is replaced by other terms altogether.

So that's what Pragmatists think!

I was under the impression that Dewey generally wasn't inclined to accept that there's an "out there" and an "in here." So, I think it's inappropriate even to refer to an "external world" in his view. We (including our minds) are parts of the same world, and our experience the result of our existing as a living organism in an environment and interacting with it. He's neither a realist nor an anti-realist as I understand him. I don't think he ever denied the existence of other components of the world. The "out there" and the "in here" merge as part of the manner in which we live in the same world, to put it very simply. There's no question of not knowing what's "out there" as a general proposition, i.e. it doesn't arise in general, though it may in particular.

That is in any case my interpretation of Dewey.

We interact with the rest of the world as we all do and have always done regardless of metaphysical concerns we claim to have. — Ciceronianus the White

Pragmatist epistemology is, well, pragmatic, so my "knowledge" relationship with the world is pragmatic. What is it that I know? I know pragmatics, not objects and there outer presence, but the pragmatics binds me to them. I don't "know" in any other way but the forward looking nature of the relationship. Walking down the street, my knowing all things around me is reduced to a pragmatic familiarity as to what they DO, like the sidewalk giving required support for each step and everything else duly anticipated. Pragmatism is a temporal epistemic theory about what things do when encountered. No metaphysics regarding some occult knowledge of things themselves.
Referring to an external world is perfectly fine. It is only at the level of basic questions that the nature of one's knowledge relationship is revealed. The world doesn't change in its natural relationships. One still walks and talks very naturally about the world out there, but ask philosophical question about what underlies all this, and there is no "out" or "in" at all. These are merely pragmatic terms that work. they have no import beyond this.
So I think this agrees with what you are saying. the real and the anti-real yield to this final reduction: everything is known by it forward looking effects. What is nitro? Well, take some, throw it against a wall with a certain force, observe. That is "what" it is. The "what" is thus no more than the "what it does".

This may seem innocuous enough, but then, consider: when you leave a room, and take all possible experience generating faculties with you, what is left behind is by no means a room, or anything else you think of. Most find such thinking impossible.

There's your problem: "out there" vs "in here". — Banno

How so?

Well, planting seeds of doubt is a far cry from what is being defended here. Look, if it were a seed of doubt "merely" then you would have recourse to to defend both sides with some margin of credibility. But there is none here — Constance

Skepticism is not contradictory - "...defend both sides..." All it states is given a proposition p, it can't be known whether p or ~p. In other words, the doubt (p/~p) can't be cleared. It definitely doesn't claim p and ~p which would be to "...defend both sides..." I can't stress this enough.

Phenomenology is the only wheel that rolls. — Constance

That's only true if you're certain that there's no objective reality. That is a luxury we can't afford.

sensible and nonsensible propositions — Constance

I believe that some philosophers were of the opinion that sensible propositions are those that can be verified by which I suppose they meant the proposition should be amenable to testing.

Just look at those absurd Gettier problems: they care nothing for P being a nonsense term — Constance

As I said, once a proposition is formulated, it's either true/false. Not nonsense!

if my brain is a brain in a vat it would not be a brain as I understand brains because what I now understand to be a brain is (I'm imagining) an illusory brain. And it would not be a vat as I understand a vat because I only know illusory vats. So I would not be a brain in a vat. I would be something and I would not be able to say what that thing is because all I seem to perceive now is some kind of psychological trickery and I have no experience of reality. So it turns out that I cannot coherently state the situation that I am supposing to be possible. And that makes me pause to think whether it is a coherent supposition at all. — Cuthbert

:100: Global skepticism refutes itself. Thank you.

Then the sun goes round the earth. That's how it seems and if what seems is all there is then that's how it is. It's a revolution - or perhaps a counter-revolution. — Cuthbert

:smirk:

Thank you. — 180 Proof

:brow:

???

It's ok. Never mind!

Such is the world of familiar perceptual events, no? — Constance

No. Familiar perceptions do not reveal the world as it is. "Perceiving the world as it is" is a contradiction in terms. But, they do reveal mappings from the real world onto perceptual planes.

That is the difference between brain-in-a-skull and brain-in-a-vat. BiaS can still count on its perceptual machinery being functions on reality of some sort: given the output of these functions, things about the input can be deduced. But with BiaV that link is severed completely: perception tells us nothing about reality whatsoever, where reality is the world beyond the vat.

(you can argue that they tell you about persistent constructs in the simulation program which is feeding your brain, and that these constructs for all intents and purposes is your reality, etc)

Skepticism is not contradictory - "...defend both sides..." All it states is given a proposition p, it can't be known whether p or ~p. In other words, the doubt (p/~p) can't be cleared. It definitely doesn't claim p and ~p which would be to "...defend both sides..." I can't stress this enough. — TheMadFool

I will grant you that in the end what becomes evident is a kind of skepticism, but the philosophical thrust of it all depends on the arguments and how they work out in a positive thesis. Scientific materialism, assumptions about what is there independently of cognitive, affective, pragmatic systems, make no sense at all. Such a strong statement carries the matter far beyond the wishy washy skepticism of doubt as a deterrent to belief. Demonstrate that p is nonsense, then one does not simply become skeptical of p. One dismisses p altogether.

That's only true if you're certain that there's no objective reality. That is a luxury we can't afford. — TheMadFool

But then what do you mean by objective reality? This is the rub. Phenomenologists do not deny objective reality, they simply redefine it, for this is a philosophical concept, and is at issue at this level of analysis.

I believe that some philosophers were of the opinion that sensible propositions are those that can be verified by which I suppose they meant the proposition should be amenable to testing. — TheMadFool

But then, what is it to test? This is a philosophical question. Consider that one tests what stands before one, some thing of event. What are these at the level of basic assumptions? This is not a scientist's question, but one of science's presuppositions. Neil Degrasse Tyson has no insights to offer as a physicist, and the standard scientist's assumptions are out the window. they don't (typically) step outside their world to discuss questions like, What does it mean to call an object real at all? The ones that do end up speaking nonsense. (Keep in mind that someone like Daniel Dennett is not a naive realist. He simply doesn't read phenomenology, and in this he IS naive).
So, when it comes to brains in vats and the epistemic issues it raises, the matter turns decidedly against naïve realism, and does not preserve its standing at all, standing that would allow, well, doxastic resistance at all. It is relegated to the bin of moribund terminology, like a flat earth or cranial phrenology.

As I said, once a proposition is formulated, it's either true/false. Not nonsense! — TheMadFool

Not propositions and logical validity. Looking for a way to epistemically connect P to S is nonsense if P is not analyzable as a singular entity. P's ontological status is bound to justification, that is, what it is cannot be removed from what it means to know it.

No. Familiar perceptions do not reveal the world as it is. "Perceiving the world as it is" is a contradiction in terms. But, they do reveal mappings from the real world onto perceptual planes. — hypericin

Begs the question: Real world??

That is the difference between brain-in-a-skull and brain-in-a-vat. BiaS can still count on its perceptual machinery being functions on reality of some sort: given the output of these functions, things about the input can be deduced. But with BiaV that link is severed completely: perception tells us nothing about reality whatsoever, where reality is the world beyond the vat. — hypericin

You are steeped in murky waters on this. To defend it, you would have explain how it is that anything out there gets in here, AT ALL, such talk about reality independent of perceptual machinery can make sense. A tall order; an impossible one, really. As to complete severance, it only makes sense if you can delineate what is being severed from what, and you can't, because all of you talk is necessarily confined to phenomena.

The true course to reality is within, where the world begins, that is, where generative springs produce emerging phenomena.

This may seem innocuous enough, but then, consider: when you leave a room, and take all possible experience generating faculties with you, what is left behind is by no means a room, or anything else you think of. Most find such thinking impossible. — Constance

I think the relationship between the organism (a human, in this case) and the environment it which it lives is far too close and interrelated to come to such a conclusion. The "boundary" between the two is far more permeable than this conclusion would require--it would require it to be fixed and impermeable. We have no reason to believe that the rest of the world is so different from what we interact with every moment of our lives as to be inconceivable.

And I think it would be safe to surmise that the same is true of most people. — Apollodorus

Most people have not been shown, or told, about quantum mechanics, number theory, or diesel engine repair either. That doesn't mean they are mysterious.

What does this mean if not agreement, and what gives itself to agreement better than the immediacy of what is directly apprehended. — Constance

Let us now say the sun is best defined as a phenomenological aggregate of predicatively formed affairs (Husserl) which are witnessed, at the very basic level, as phenomena, — Constance

Witnessing and apprehending are not immediate or at the very basic level. They are up the ladder of mental processing from the place where objective reality is encountered. Unless there is something more basic, which makes sense to me.

how opaque or transparent is the brain as a receiver of the object as it is, unmodified, undistorted; how epistemically transparent of opaque is this brain? — Constance

Not at all transparent, but how is that different from a brain in a skull-vat rather than a glass-vat?

he big mystery is this: outside?? Talk about an outside implies one has the means to affirm what is not inside. — Constance

The idea of outside vs. inside always makes me think of this:



I imagine a baby "thinking" to itself as it holds it toes - "Hey, when I hold these things, I can feel something. Hey...wait a minute - I think they are part of me." So, anyway, I guess that means we learn inside from outside the same way we learn everything else. Why is that a mystery? It seems plausible to me.

I think the relationship between the organism (a human, in this case) and the environment it which it lives is far too close and interrelated to come to such a conclusion. The "boundary" between the two is far more permeable than this conclusion would require--it would require it to be fixed and impermeable. We have no reason to believe that the rest of the world is so different from what we interact with every moment of our lives as to be inconceivable. — Ciceronianus the White

But philosophy is open, because everything in the world is open at basic questions. You have EVERY reason to believe the rest of the world is so different, for everything, when followed to basic assumptions, falls apart. I mean what do you do with this condition that is laid before you? One thing I do know, and it is that yielding to pragmatic phenomenological ontology takes an existential revolution, I refer to putting down the text and letting its re-interpretation of affairs to take hold. Rorty though Heidegger, Wittgenstein Kuhn and Dewey were the most important thinkers (See his Irony, Contingency and Solidarity where is most transparent), all phenomenologists of sorts. There are many great things he says, but there is one principle one that leaps to mind (which, of course, is constructed out of Kant, Heidegger, Husserl, and on and on): We MAKE the world; we do not discover it (note how this demonstrates the logical reasoning of a pragmatist's view). An act of perception is an act of apperception, and when I see my cat, there is no "mirror" in my head simply taking in the world, as if the world were simply giving itself to me, as if the cat just impossibly entered my head. Note that even on the simple materialist's model, it makes no sense at all not to acknowledge this.

As Rorty famously put it, on this very familiar model of the materialist/physicalist (regardless of how this is construed), how does anything out there get in here? Trace it: there is my cat, here is my brain thing. Proceed. You will find a reductio ad absurdum in your very first substantive premise. Put aside what SEEMS to be the case. Nothing is this.

This may seem innocuous enough, but then, consider: when you leave a room, and take all possible experience generating faculties with you, what is left behind is by no means a room, or anything else you think of. Most find such thinking impossible. — Constance

Whether or not what we've left behind is a room is another, or rather the same, metaphysical question. People may find it "impossible" because it's hard to see beyond language. As long as "room" is hanging around, it's hard to conceive that the room itself may not be.

That is the difference between brain-in-a-skull and brain-in-a-vat. BiaS can still count on its perceptual machinery being functions on reality of some sort: given the output of these functions, things about the input can be deduced. But with BiaV that link is severed completely: perception tells us nothing about reality whatsoever, where reality is the world beyond the vat. — hypericin

But...but.... Oh, wait, you resolved this conflict yourself?

(you can argue that they tell you about persistent constructs in the simulation program which is feeding your brain, and that these constructs for all intents and purposes is your reality, etc) — hypericin

Do you find that unsatisfactory? I don't.

Witnessing and apprehending are not immediate or at the very basic level. They are up the ladder of mental processing from the place where objective reality is encountered. Unless there is something more basic, which makes sense to me. — T Clark

Now you're talking. It gets sticky from this astute observation; I mean, what phenomenologists are doing where I find interest is taking the matter of the phenomenological reduction, a reduction of the world to its "barest" phenomenological "presence" (what Derrida calls the metaphysical present. He, like you, insists, rightly, that IN the perceptual act itself, of any kind, any construal possible will never be free of the text, and text is this diffuse gathering of associated ideas. Think of brain storming in creative writing. This is the "text" and there is no genuine, singular, positive affirmation of a thing).
thinkers like Husserl believed (some disagreement here) that at the level of phenomenological apprehension, where one suspends all presuppositions and, well, stares at the object as the "thing itself" to encounter is qualitatively different than ordinary (naturalistic) perception. One is now truly aware of the object in the most primordial way. THIS kind of thing is at the heart of existential thought.
Husserl is criticized for the very reason you posit: nothing is free like this. Impossible.

But one has to wonder, and indeed, just allow the reduction to reach its end: it is true that there is NOTHING in the simple apprehension of an object that is there in an absolute way? How about this spear in my side? Is that pain truly not presented to my cognition in a "presence" of apprehension?

Big issue, fascinating, really.

Not at all transparent, but how is that different from a brain in a skull-vat rather than a glass-vat? — T Clark

Right. Not different. I think, by this physical model of vats and brains, things are the same.

I imagine a baby "thinking" to itself as it holds it toes - "Hey, when I hold these things, I can feel something. Hey...wait a minute - I think they are part of me." So, anyway, I guess that means we learn inside from outside the same way we learn everything else. Why is that a mystery? It seems plausible to me. — T Clark

Actually, I don't think this happens at all. This kind of thing comes much, much later. First there is the unconscious laying down of a foundation for language and its question, assertions, denials, universals and so on. One cannot say anything to oneself when one has not developed the ability to think. the word "I" has to be modelled, contextualized, assimilated, and so on.
No mystery when you put it like this, in a very familiar way of referring to things. But assume, if you like, that there is such a dialog going on inside the infant's head. Toe? How does this term, this recognition "KNOW" that digital extension? It takes in the sensation of the presence which is done in TIme: first there is the sensation, THEN there is the, oh my; what is this? This association between speech and phenomenon is what is in question.

Whether or not what we've left behind is a room is another, or rather the same, metaphysical question. People may find it "impossible" because it's hard to see beyond language. As long as "room" is hanging around, it's hard to conceive that the room itself may not be. — T Clark

Then we put aside what is hard to conceive, acknowledge the argument at hand, and admit: once the room is vacated of perceptual presence, the matter turns to metaphysics.
Now, after having said this, I am aware the there is an Other to things around me. I am not a chair or a pen. This is where talk of brains and vats has to end and it gets very weird, for we are in phenomenology's world now, and things are not grounded at all. In my view one has to yield to this conclusion: our finitude is really eternity. "Truth" is really eternal.
Very controversial, of course. I would only go into it if you are disposed to to do so.

One cannot say anything to oneself when one has not developed the ability to think. the word "I" has to be modelled, contextualized, assimilated, and so on.
No mystery when you put it like this, in a very familiar way of referring to things. But assume, if you like, that there is such a dialog going on inside the infant's head. Toe? How does this term, this recognition "KNOW" that digital extension? It takes in the sensation of the presence which is done in TIme: first there is the sensation, THEN there is the, oh my; what is this? This association between speech and phenomenon is what is in question. — Constance

I agree. That's why I put "thinking" in quotes. I was being a little cute, but It makes sense to me that babies that age are working with their parents to create a world, with and without language I guess, that includes inside and outside.

Then we put aside what is hard to conceive, acknowledge the argument at hand, and admit: once the room is vacated of perceptual presence, the matter turns to metaphysics. — Constance

One of T Clark's four Noble Truths is that metaphysical statements are not true or false, they are more or less useful in a particular situation. Most people don't see it that way. They think we have to choose just one way of seeing things all day, every day, forever. That means you have to throw something away to see things in a new way.

for we are in phenomenology's world now, and things are not grounded at all. In my view one has to yield to this conclusion: our finitude is really eternity. "Truth" is really eternal.
Very controversial, of course. I would only go into it if you are disposed to to do so. — Constance

I'm not sure what you mean, but I'd be happy to take it further if you'd like. It's your thread, so we can do whatever you want. I will probably be gone for several hours soon.

Oh, they've been given far more than their due, I would think. For good or ill, we're part of the world just like everything else--even that little homunculus in our head some people assume exists. — Ciceronianus the White

Sure, but what is the world?

We interact with the rest of the world as we all do and have always done regardless of metaphysical concerns we claim to have. — Ciceronianus the White

We do, and we can wave our hands about, kick rocks and debate with other people. But so can skeptics, idealists and other troublesome folk like Nick Bostrom. You might say that pragmatically the world is whatever it is we're interacting with, which includes other people and various objects.

But I can also do that in a limited sense when I put on my VR headset. You've probably familiar with Star Trek episodes when their holodeck malfunctions and some of the crew is trapped inside a realistic simulation. Or a hologram becomes aware that he's a simulation.

Rorty isn't necessarily representative of Pragmatism, as I assume you know. Susan Haack doesn't believe he is one, and I have my doubts as well. Anyone who claims Dewey is a postmodernist may have trouble understanding Pragmatism in general.

We don't "discover" the world of course, being part of it. But neither do we "make" it--again because we're part of it. We seem inclined to either consider ourselves separate from the rest of the world or consider ourselves creators of the rest of the world. But we're neither.