Sure, but as I said, the idea is that if such privileged access cannot be assumed, then the only alternative is to begin by making the assumption of such a difference: See §§28: "The difference between the conceptual and the extra-conceptual... can be presupposed as already-given in the act of knowing or conception. But it is presupposed without being posited" (the discussion of Saturn later in the paper elaborates the distinction between presupposition and positing). Anything else is dogmatic metaphysics in the Kantian sense. This is entailed by the rejection of any presupposed coincidence between concept and object: "The rejection of correlationism entails the reinstatement of the critical nexus between epistemology and metaphysics and its attendant distinctions: sapience/sentience; concept/object" (§§28). To argue against the assumption of inter-conceptual difference is to argue for the assumption of extra-conceptual difference. The one rather straightforwardly entails the other. Hence (§§45): "Realism is uncircumventable, even for the most stubborn anti-realist."

Although what Brassier understands by conceptualization is not too clearly spelled out in the paper, it's safe to assume - given the passing references to Sellars and Brandom, as well as his work elsewhere (the video "How to Train an Animal that makes Inferences" in particular) - that to conceptualize is to be able to make an inferential move in a game of giving and asking for reasons. In other words, to know is to conceptualize, and to conceptualize is to be able to give reasons for a claim about this or that. But I can't help but feel - as do legions of others who have called Sellars out on this point - that this is an incredibly limited, if not debilitating account of what it means to know. I have no doubt that this is undoubtedly a kind, or a 'species' of knowing, but I cannot accede to the idea that it constitutes knowing tout court.

[...]

What in particular concerns me is the exact status of sensation and affect, and the way in which the sensible relates to the rational machinery of rational conception. — StreetlightX

You might find this interesting, if you haven't already read it:

http://bebereignis.blogspot.com/2011/07/brassier-and-sellars-on-sensation-and.html

To argue against the assumption of inter-conceptual difference is to argue for the assumption of extra-conceptual difference. The one rather straightforwardly entails the other. — StreetlightX

Streetlight, should that be "intra-conceptual difference"? If not, could you explain this entailment further? I'm not seeing it.

To argue against the assumption of inter-conceptual difference is to argue for the assumption of extra-conceptual difference. The one rather straightforwardly entails the other. — StreetlightX

But he didn't make a case against the assumption (at least not in §§30); he made a case against making the assumption. He said that the assumption needs to be defended. But that p needs to be defended is not to say that ¬p doesn't.

Just because we can't assume that there is something in the box does not mean that we can assume that there isn't something in the box.

Right, the assumption of there being no difference needs to be defended, which means that the 'neutral' positon just is to assume a distinction between concepts and objects. The 'netural' position is not 'we don't know' - it's that there is a distinction.

Remember, Brassier is aruging against a negative proposition, not a positive one (i.e. 'there is no difference between concept and object'); the aim of the paper is to enact a negation of this negation: ¬¬p. And if ¬¬p, then p.

@John: Yeah, sorry, I meant intra. Late night slip of the keyboard/mind.

Much of these problems of concept and object are similar to those of emergence.

Concept is object= (naive) realism = idea "emerges" out of objects. However, the connection of object to idea presupposes an idea was there to begin with. How idea can emerge de novo, out of nowhere, from object is seemingly impossible to explain.

Object is concept= Classical Idealism whereby idea is a brute fact of reality and objects are thus conceptual at some level.. whether "to" someone (leading to Kantian Idealism and Correlationism) or to itself (leading to panpsychism).

Both are hard pills to swallow. Ideas being brute facts seem at odds with evolutionary biology and the notion that the world is interacting objects of nature following laws (i.e. thermodynamics). It is also odd to posit ideas emerging from non-ideas. Surely, physical matter can emerge into other variations of physical matter, but physical matter emerging into ideas has little to no explanatory power. Qualia, let alone higher order of thought seem brute and can never be "pointed to" via neural interactions itself. One must posit that there is an ability to have interiority in the first place. This would lead to a pansychism of sorts.

It is also odd to posit ideas emerging from non-ideas. — schopenhauer1

It may seem "odd" just because we can 'back-form' no exhaustive conceptualization of the process. But that we can produce no conceptual back-formation is exactly what should be expected if ideation did emerge from physical process.

It may seem "odd" just because we can 'back-form' no exhaustive conceptualization of the process. But that we can produce no conceptual back-formation is exactly what should be expected if ideas did emerge from physical process. — John

You are cherry-picking there. Please at least reply to the whole post, which had a bit more explanation than that one quote. If you read the post again, I am saying that having experiences (qualia and higher order thought processes) presupposes an interiority. Otherwise, no explanation has occurred. The only answer to this would be the "epiphenomenon" answer which mine as well mean that angels and elves are the byproduct of neurons.

Concept is object= (naive) realism = idea "emerges" out of objects. However, the connection of object to idea presupposes an idea was there to begin with. How idea can emerge de novo, out of nowhere, from object is seemingly impossible to explain. — schopenhauer1

Here it is still assumed the idea or conceptual is the emerging state.The contradiction only appears because you aren't making the distinction between the object (existing states, which express the meaning of an idea) and the idea (logical expression). This is the error Brassier is trying to get past.

If we, instead, begin with the distinction between objects (states of existence, including our states of consciousness) and conceptual (logic, which is true regardless of what exists), this problem is resolved. Ideas/concepts have always been around and do not emerge at all (in fact, they do not exist. They are logical rules). While objects, including instances where we are aware of an idea (e.g. the state which is me understanding "tree") emerge and pass only in themselves.

Both are hard pills to swallow. Ideas being brute facts seem at odds with evolutionary biology and the notion that the world is interacting objects of nature following laws (i.e. thermodynamics). It is also odd to posit ideas emerging from non-ideas. Surely, physical matter can emerge into other variations of physical matter, but physical matter emerging into ideas has little to no explanatory power.

By making the distinction between the object (existing state) and concept (logic/meaning), these issues are resolved. Since ideas don't exist, they aren't brute facts. While states of consciousness, as they are states of existence, are material; objects which emerge and pass, another variation of physical matter, resulting out of the interactions of other states of existence.

The emergence of ideas is avoided. Physical matter is never suggested to emerge into ideas.

Here it is still assumed the idea or conceptual is the emerging state.The contradiction only appears because you aren't making the distinction between the object (existing states, which express the meaning of an idea) and the idea (logical expression). This is the error Brassier is trying to get past. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I must say that this is one of the reasons why this forum is so frustrating. You did this in the Stoicism thread as well. I am trying to have a dialogue with another person and you hijack the conversation. I understand, in principle, these forums are meant for multiple conversation tangents, but in practice this is very frustrating. I would be glad to have a separate debate with you, but by answering my reply to John, it clearly takes it in (perhaps) another direction and does not allow for the back-and-forth between the original participants. This is not only frustrating for me personally, but disallows a possible interesting unfolding of thought between the original two participants and breaks the flow of the original conversation.

To add to this, I would like to make a personal observation, that I think it is unfair for many people to pile on one person. In a "real world" debate, there are usually teams, and they are allowed to collaborate and meet. On this, usually there is little collaboration, so what ends up happening instead is a disproportionate number of people (who have roughly the same opinion) gang up on one individual who has to defend himself against many opponents. Even in this free-for-all internet forum format, this is simply unfair. I get it that there is little (if any) compassion for anyone else here, there are no house rules to go by, we all have strong opinions we want to share, and "all is fair in philosophy and war" but there has to be some leeway for the opponent so that a natural flow of conversation can take place and so that there is not one person against an army if you will.

Anyways, that being said I'll reply to your post nonetheless because I just tend to want to defend my position if I feel it is necessary...

Here it is still assumed the idea or conceptual is the emerging state.The contradiction only appears because you aren't making the distinction between the object (existing states, which express the meaning of an idea) and the idea (logical expression). This is the error Brassier is trying to get past. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This, as far as I interpret it, is for all intents and purposes, incoherent unless you claim some sort of belief in correlationism, which I am gathering you do not. What is the difference between "existing states expressing the meaning of an idea", and the "idea" if not "object" and "concept"? You are just restating the distinction with more words.

By making the distinction between the object (existing state) and concept (logic/meaning), these issues are resolved. Since ideas don't exist, they aren't brute facts. While states of consciousness, as they are states of existence, are material; objects which emerge and pass, another variation of physical matter, resulting out of the interactions of other states of existence.

The emergence of ideas is avoided. Physical matter is never suggested to emerge into ideas. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This makes no sense to me. If I am to descramble this, I think what you are saying is that concepts are logic. This just doesn't make sense. I don't even know what that is supposed to mean.

By making the distinction between the object (existing state) and concept (logic/meaning), these issues are resolved. Since ideas don't exist, they aren't brute facts. While states of consciousness, as they are states of existence, are material; objects which emerge and pass, another variation of physical matter, resulting out of the interactions of other states of existence.

The emergence of ideas is avoided. Physical matter is never suggested to emerge into ideas. — TheWillowOfDarkness

How does this resolve anything? Ideas don't exist? What? You have to rephrase this all in order for me to understand this. The question is how your experience (qualia and other types of thought) are related or come from objects. You haven't even begun to answer the question other than perplexingly replacing "idea" with "logic" and then saying that the issue is resolved and ideas aren't brute facts. This explains nothing.

@schopenhauer1: It's a mistake to confuse concepts with "ideas" in the classical sense. For Brassier - and Sellars from whom he draws these ideas from - concepts belong to the order of language, and language - on Sellars's account - can be explained as belonging wholly to the natural order without invoking any sort of spooky 'emergence'. This is because on Sellars's account, to employ language is simply to employ a certain kind of 'knowing-how' or embodied competence according to which we learn how to make the appropriate inferences within an inferential-economy which governs the consistency of our employment of concepts. It's all a little bit complex, but the point is that one of the acknowledged strengths of Sellars's understanding of language - and hence conceptuality - is that it is designed to be compatible with a naturalistic point of view. Without going too much into it, here's how Brassier put it elsewhere:

"Humans are concept mongers. This is the essential difference between humans and other animals. But this difference makes an immanent discontinuity within the natural order, not a transcendent exception. We can make sense of the discontinuity. Nature is not reasonable, and reason is not natural. Yet nature's unreasonablness is not unintelligible, just as nature's unreasonableness is not supernatural. The problem that Sellars confronts is this: how do blind evolutionary contingencies generate purposeful rule-governed activity - i.e. conceptual rationality. This has to be explained. So how do human animals
learn to speak, use language, and therefore think? If concepts are rules, and rationality is the ability to follow rules, and concepts and linguistically instantiated function, then the key to understand the specificity of the human lies in understanding how an animal can follow rules."

And this is just what Sellars's account of language is meant to provide. In order for your objection to have any force, it's that account you'll need to examine, in order to see if it holds up. Qualia and 'subjective experience' and so on are wholly irrelevant in this context.

It's a mistake to confuse concepts with "ideas" in the classical sense. For Brassier - and Sellars from whom he draws these ideas from - concepts belong to the order of language, and language - on Sellars's account - can be explained as belonging wholly to the natural order without invoking any sort of spooky 'emergence'. This is because on Sellars's account, to employ language is simply to employ a certain kind of 'knowing-how' or embodied competence according to which we learn how to make the appropriate inferences within an inferential-economy which governs the consistency of our employment of concepts. It's all a little bit complex, but the point is that one of the acknowledged strengths of Sellars's understanding of language - and hence conceptuality - is that it is designed to be compatible with a naturalistic point of view. Without going too much into it, here's how Brassier put it elsewhere: — StreetlightX

I don't see how this explains anything. Granted, nature follows certain "rules" especially at the biochemical and physical level- this is nothing new. How you get from rule-based chemicals to "interiority" is not explained. The interiority is still this "extra" thing, that is somehow this "byproduct" of the rules-based biochemical/physical interaction. Essentially the extra "interiority" must be posited as some sort of panpsychism which is fine, but you then have to explain how it is a limited interiority of simply those rule-based chemicals and not other ones. It is self-encapsulated and there's your problem because you'll say.. X, Y, Z chemicals are doing 1,2,3 rules and 'wallah" interiority which does nothing to explain how x,y,z chemicals doing 1,2,3 rules is interiority just the correlation of the objects with this byproduct of subjective experience.

The problem of emergence is still there because, as stated earlier, while one can easily explain how objects emerge into other objects, it is hard to see how a particular set of objects emerge into subjectivity. Subjectivity seems to supervene on a particular set of rules/objects. If one set of rules/objects "are" subjectivity and not others, then this is a quite magical set of rules/objects because "red" doesn't seem to go with snowflakes but it does with biochemicals.

'Interiority' and 'subjectivity' have nothing to do with conceptuality, at least not in the way that Sellars employs it. May I suggest farmiliarizing yourself with the subject matter you aim to critique, rather than continue offering an opinion which is uninformed about what exactly it is attempting to address? Here is a nice talk that summerizes the point. If you demonstrate some measure of understanding in your next post, we can continue. Otherwise this is a waste of time.

It is self-encapsulated and there's your problem because you'll say.. X, Y, Z chemicals are doing 1,2,3 rules and 'wallah" interiority which does nothing to explain how x,y,z chemicals doing 1,2,3 rules is interiority just the correlation of the objects with this byproduct of subjective experience. — schopenhauer1

X, Y, Z chemicals doing 1, 2, 3 rules isn't interiority. At least no more or less than colliding atoms are two crashing cars. Your description of the causation of experience is unfulfilling because it is missing the most relevant object: the caused experienced itself.

Emergence functions by X, Y, Z chemicals expressing 1, 2, 3 rules, which results is the existing state of experience. Experiences are objects themselves, of the same order as rocks and trees. They are more instances of things in the world. Correlation of the objects X, Y and Z is not all that's is present. When those objects were together in this way, it was soon followed by the presence of another object, a state of experience. It is this object, the state of of experience, which IS the state of interiority (e.g. the experience of feeling happy, being aware of a tree, etc.,etc.). X, Y, Z chemicals expressing 1, 2, 3 rules is most definitely NOT interiority.

That's why it a relationship of causation. If X, Y, Z chemicals expressing 1, 2, 3 rules were interiority, there would by no causation. If X, Y, Z chemicals expressing 1, 2, 3 rules were interiority, it would be the presence of experience itself. In pointing out X, Y, Z chemicals expressing 1, 2, 3 rules, we would be describing about states of experience. This is clearly not the case.

Not that this has much to do with what SX is saying, but the supposed "problem of emergence" seems to be preventing you for thinking of language in a worldly manner, as if human instances of conceptualisation needed to be spoken about in terms of classical ideas.

Thanks to Aaron for the blog link which I'm surprised nobody has picked up on. Sorry I've been away but am catching up.

I agree that on a certain kind of reflection experience may seem to be a kind of interiority; but I don't agree if that is taken to support a claim that there is any kind of ontological interiority beyond the ordinary sense in which organs may be said to be interior to the surface of the body, for example.

I should also explain that for me the idea of "emergence of ideas from physical process" does not mean that ideas are 'something else' in any ontological sense. 'Emergence of ideas' should be read as 'emergence of ideation' or 'emergence of a more complex process from a lesser complex process'.

I read it but have not had the time to comment on it.

'Interiority' and 'subjectivity' have nothing to do with conceptuality, at least not in the way that Sellars employs it. May I suggest farmiliarizing yourself with the subject matter you aim to critique, rather than continue offering an opinion which is uninformed about what exactly it is attempting to address? Here is a nice talk that summerizes the point. If you demonstrate some measure of understanding in your next post, we can continue. Otherwise this is a waste of time. — StreetlightX

I call bullshit. I think this idea of concept and object is essentially an expanded version of subjectivity and objectivity and almost all metaphysics arguments like this (object/subject/concept/object) conflate to philosophy of mind problems. Nothing more.. despite your elitist assertions that it is otherwise and that I am just too ignorant on the matter. Just because you don't see this, doesn't mean it's not the case.

You're right, knowing the position you're critiquing is an incredibly elitist expectation. Give me a moment while I come down to earth in order to make things up as I go along.

You're right, knowing the position you're critiquing is an incredibly elitist expectation. Give me a moment while I come down to earth in order to make things up as I go along. — StreetlightX

I'll read more Sellars.. I am dying to see how his inference-based economy is qualia (notice I don't say "leads to qualia" as that is not getting at the matter). Just because I acknowledged qualia, something I am sure is trying to be explained away, doesn't mean it is not a matter of debate.

"Some Reflections on Language Games" is the relevent paper. Google will bring it up. The talk I linked is a nice summary.

So I'm reading up more on Sellars, and I don't see how quale are addressed really. Rather, he seems to focus more on higher order thought whereby language shapes how we apperceive quale as it is entangled with rule-based languages and thus shapes how we make distinctions between objects, etc. The quale itself, still seems like a brute fact- even if ill-defined until language shapes it and enmeshes it with ever higher order concepts.

So I'm reading up more on Sellars, and I don't see how quale are addressed really. Rather, he seems to focus more on higher order thought whereby language shapes how we apperceive quale as it is entangled with rule-based languages and thus shapes how we make distinctions between objects, etc. The quale itself, still seems like a brute fact- even if ill-defined until language shapes it and enmeshes it with ever higher order concepts. — schopenhauer1

Hi Schopenhauer. Sellars distinguished between the "mind-body" problem on the one hand, and the "sensorium-body" problem on the other and held that, though the two problems are related, the solutions to them are different. Sellars tackles the the "sensorium-body" problem most thoroughly in his Carus Lectures. He ultimately proposes a rudimentary form of emergence-based process metaphysics as his solution. His solution is compelling and somewhat original, but also highly speculative and clearly incomplete. Sellars was well aware of this, and even surmised that the conceptual tools necessary to flesh out such a solution would not develop within his lifetime.

Brassier's paper is (arguably) concerned primarily with the "mind-body" problem rather than the "sensorium-body" problem. Again, that is not to say that the two problems are unrelated, but just that the latter is not the topic of focus for this particular paper.

The problem that Sellars confronts is this: how do blind evolutionary contingencies generate purposeful rule-governed activity - i.e. conceptual rationality. This has to be explained. So how do human animals
learn to speak, use language, and therefore think? If concepts are rules, and rationality is the ability to follow rules, and concepts and linguistically instantiated function, then the key to understand the specificity of the human lies in understanding how an animal can follow rules. — Brassier quoted by StreetlightX

I'm glad AaronR has joined the discussion because one issue that may be a side-issue - but which trips me up here - is how the very idea of language that Sellars-Brassier are starting from is a 'scientific' idea of language. I got bogged down before in trying to understand 'objects' because of this problem: that Sellars-Brassier assume that the core basis of language is a kind of fact-finding, truth-seeking mission. That gives a certain shape to one's very notions of 'concept', 'language' and 'object' that I - coming from a lifetime of arts and communication - don't automatically share. I think of language as communication, story-weaving at its core. I realise that that way postmodernism (and possibly madness) lies, but I'm looking for the analytic route all the same :) I tend to think of this quasi-logical account of language as a subset of language as a whole, as one language-game among many, whereas they are treating the language of science as the exemplary basis of language, but making it look as if they're addressing language as a whole by using very simple examples about red and rot. (I hope I'm making sense in explaining this. )

I *am* confused about the *sequence* of Brassier's argument. When I quoted what I felt were odd presuppositions in paras 3 and 4 of the C & O paper, Sx, you answered with paragraphs from *later* in the paper as if they *preceded* what I was calling 'presuppositions'. It does feel to me as if the paper starts with his answer ('We gain access to the structure of reality via a machinery of conception') then rolls it out. But I think this may be to do with your wider familiarity with his work.

Many thanks for the chat about Sellars and links, to SX and Aaron. Even though I'm expressing reservations above, your remarks have made things a lot clearer to me.

I got bogged down before in trying to understand 'objects' because of this problem: that Sellars-Brassier assume that the core basis of language is a kind of fact-finding, truth-seeking mission. That gives a certain shape to one's very notions of 'concept', 'language' and 'object' that I - coming from a lifetime of arts and communication - don't automatically share. I think of language as communication, story-weaving at its core. I realise that that way postmodernism (and possibly madness) lies, but I'm looking for the analytic route all the same :) I tend to think of this quasi-logical account of language as a subset of language as a whole, as one language-game among many, whereas they are treating the language of science as the exemplary basis of language, but making it look as if they're addressing language as a whole by using very simple examples about red and rot. — mcdoodle

Sellars, at least, was much influenced by the later Wittgenstein, so he's pretty sensitive to the multifariousness of language. A distinction that might be helpful is the one he draws between language as thought and language as communication. Though children acquire language through communication, what they acquire is a system of representation that constitutes the very activity of thought. This is not to say that thoughts themselves are linguistic episodes, but that the structure of thought is derived from and governed by the structure of language. Though there is a sense in which, for each speaker, language as communication is temporally and epistemically prior to language as thought, there is also a sense in which communication is only possible once we have already acquired the ability to think. One consequence of this is that expression-meaning at the level of thought is ontologically prior to expression-meaning at the level of communication: in order for communicated language to be meaningful, thoughts themselves must have meaning.

Thus when Sellars offers his functional role semantics, he is giving an explanation of how expressions come to be meaningful within thought (i.e. through their role in inference). Sellars, of course, takes empirical representational language (e.g. "the table is red") as exemplary of language as thought, because one of the main things we get up to as thinking beings is representing the world. This, of course, is an idea from Kant: the same concept RED that appears in the spoken judgment "the table is red" plays a role in our first-personal experience of the table as red. It is one of Sellars' main purposes in "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" and elsewhere to show that there is no coherent sense in which we can be said to experience the table as red, save through representing it (in language as thought) using the concept RED. Now, the kind of language you're after--of the story-telling variety--certainly presupposes our ability to experience things as red, and therefore presupposes that we already have in place a full-blooded system of language as thought for representing the world as it is.

The sense in which this language is scientific by its own lights is meager. However, another aim of Sellars', throughout his career, was to show that the concepts we employ in representing the world in thought are themselves influenced by our theoretical commitments. The commonsense way of approaching the world is, on his picture, already the byproduct of a great deal of theorizing. He shows this through his famous fictional account of the genius Jones, who postulates theoretical entities called "thoughts" and "impressions" to explain certain kinds of otherwise mysterious overt human behavior. The idea is that, in incorporating these theoretical notions into our representational system, employing them not only in thought but also in story-telling, etc, we get a better grip on how the world actually is. And this is the principle purpose of the physical sciences, as the natural outgrowth of our fundamental curiosity about the world. Scientific language just is a mature realization of this curiosity, and it consists in representations of how things are, just as thought (understood as the medium of perceptual experience) traffics in judgments of how things are. The succession of microphysical theories we see coming out of physics are just more and more sophisticated descriptions (or recipes for descriptions) of how things are.

Now, the kind of language you're after--of the story-telling variety--certainly presupposes our ability to experience things as red, and therefore presupposes that we already have in place a full-blooded system of language as thought for representing the world as it is. — Glahn

Thanks a lot Glahn. It's time I read more Sellars. I was by the way using the word 'scientific' in a rather broad way to embrace human empirical curiosity.

I quite agree that the redness of tables is background knowledge for most grown-up language, including story-telling. I hesitate in accepting that it's 'language as thought' exactly, but that's because I'm rather obsessed with language as dialogue (including dialogue with oneself), and therefore with language as intrinsically communicable, as anyone working from Witt outwards might be. I'm not clear how either thought or communication can be prior to the other, but I'm not disagreeing about this, just commenting.

Has this discussion finished? Perhaps it's only me who went on to read and reread Sellars' essay 'Empiricism and the philosophy of mind'. I'm left with a feeling of some unfinished business.

'How the world actually is' is a phrase Glahn uses. I remain puzzled about the supposed primacy or focal importance of 'objects' in this actual world. The Sellars' argument is rich and thoughtful: partly, that the very idea of 'inner episodes', of individual knowledge and reflection, depend on mutual discussion and understanding. This is part of the attack on the myth of the given, as I'm reading it, that the old idea of sense-data pinging on the individual perceiver is mistaken. I believe I've inadvertently understood some of this through reading McDowell who regards himself as following Sellars in some way.

Nevertheless, Sellars focuses on a 'red triangle' as his exemplary concept. What of the other ideas infants and children learn alongside ideas about objects? I am thinking of properties/qualities - is a 'mother' the object who claims that title, or the sort of person who does 'mothering' things? I am also thinking of the mini-politics of any life: the child learns, for instance, mine/Mummy's/for general use, and the implications of appearance and actions - what might happen if Dad has that look on his face? Some of these may be said to be 'about' objects, but they are non-physical, and are also about processes, qualities, emotions. In what sense are objects supposed to be more primary to our concepts than these other notions, except to physically-based sciences?

I am seguing to Brassier here. He doesn't really put an argument *for* objects, does he? His argument is some sort of ground-clearing about other matters, which does not make any kind of clear case for the importance of 'objects' - as against, say 'properties'.

I would welcome comment/criticism if anyone else is still interested in this topic :)

In what sense are objects supposed to be more primary to our concepts than these other notions, except to physically-based sciences? — mcdoodle

In the sense that it is objects which express concepts, rather than objects which are expressed by concepts. Logically, any state of existence, an object, is defined by itself rather than determined through a concept. Consciousness is perhaps the most telling example. Our experiences are actually objects. They are states of existence defined not by someone being aware of them, but rather by their presence as a, existing thought, feeling, experience. If I am, for example, to be happy, what is required is not awareness of happiness or some infinite concept that determines the presence of such a state, but rather an object: the existence of myself as a state of happiness. A mere concept of me being happy is never enough. We can think about the meaning of me being happy all we want, and how it is logically necessary, but it has no power to form a state where I am happy. An object is needed for that.

Brassier is trying to undo the mistake of holding concepts as primarily, the idea that the infinite of the concepts is what determines states of existence. The whole debate about correlationism pivots around the supposed need for concepts to define states of existence. Supposedly, objects need experience to exist because otherwise the meaning of concepts isn't present to define the object. Yet, it seems, there are objects we don't know about all the time. How can there be meaningful objects outside experience when, it seems, meaning is only given in experience?

In taking objects as primary, we side-step this dilemma completely. Objects, since they are defined in themselves, no longer require a "present" concept (i.e. be experienced) to be. Perhaps more critically though, the infinite meaning of concepts is unattached from states of existence. What exists no longer defines the meaning of a concept and vice versa. No longer does a "concept" need to be "present (i.e. experienced)" to be true. The objects we don't know about, which are defined in themselves, can express the infinite meaning of a concept even if no-one is experiencing it.

Yet, it seems, there are objects we don't know about all the time. How can there be meaningful objects outside experience when, it seems, meaning is only given in experience?

In taking objects as primary, we side-step this dilemma completely. Objects, since they are defined in themselves, no longer require a "present" concept (i.e. be experienced) to be. Perhaps more critically though, the infinite meaning of concepts is unattached from states of existence. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I see that this is your case, and is a case that can be argued. (a) I don't see how Brassier argues this without your help :)

(b) I don't see how you're not presuming the answer in your analysis. If objects were indeed 'defined in themselves' they would be primary. I don't see how an object is so defined, though. Objects are defined by their properties and relations. This idea of being 'defined in themselves' seems to me part of the 'myth of the given', what Sellars is arguing *against*. He has a much more convoluted argument for the primacy of our talk about objects and thence for 'objects'. Or am I misunderstanding this 'myth of the given' stuff?

I'd say you are misunderstanding the "myth of the given." What Sellars is attacking is not our knowledge or the presence of anything we know. He is attacking the notion of "foundational concept" to knowledge.

Wilfrid Sellars’s Argument that the given is a myth, from “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind”.

1. A cognitive state is epistemically independent if it possesses its epistemic status independently of its being inferred or inferrable from some other cognitive state.
[Definition of epistemic independence]

2. A cognitive state is epistemically efficacious — is capable of epistemically supporting other cognitive states — if the epistemic status of those other states can be validly inferred (formally or materially) from its epistemic status.
[Definition of epistemic efficacy]

3. The doctrine of the given is that any empirical knowledge that p requires some (or is itself) basic, that is, epistemically independent, knowledge (that g, h, i, …) which is epistemically efficacious with respect to p.
[Definition of doctrine of the given]

4. Inferential relations are always between items with propositional form.
[By the nature of inference]

5. Therefore, non-propositional items (such as sense data) are epistemically inefficacious and cannot serve as what is given.
[From 2 and 4]

6. No inferentially acquired, propositionally structured mental state is epistemically independent.
[From 1]

7. Examination of multiple candidates for non-inferentially acquired, propositionally structured cognitive states indicates that their epistemic status presupposes the possession by the knowing subject of other empirical knowledge, both of particulars and of general empirical truths.
[From Sellars’s analyses of statements about sense-data and appearances in Parts 1-IV of EPM and his analysis of epistemic authority in Part VIII]

8. Presupposition is an epistemic and therefore an inferential relation.
[Assumed (See PRE)]

9. Non-inferentially acquired empirical knowledge that presupposes the possession by the knowing subject of other empirical knowledge is not epistemically independent.
[From 1, 7, and 8]

10. Any empirical, propositional cognition is acquired either inferentially or non-inferentially.
[Excluded middle]

11. Therefore, propositionally structured cognitions, whether inferentially or non-inferentially acquired, are never epistemically independent and cannot serve as the given.
[6, 9, 10, constructive dilemma]

12. Every cognition is either propositionally structured or not.
[Excluded middle]

13. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that no item of empirical knowledge can serve the function of a given.
[5,11, 12, constructive dilemma] — SEP

Sellars is attacking the idea that what we know about the world is given by some logical rule or experience. What is at stake is not the presence of objects in-themslves, but rather the notion they are defined by instances of the conceptual that we understand. Perhaps the most relevant aspect to this argument is understanding the distinction made in 1. and 2. It is the distinction between logic/conceptual/meaning and awareness of objects.

All instances of knowledge involve epistemic independence. When we know something, we understand a meaning which cannot be defined in any other way. This logical discintion, however, does not define knowledge of the empirical world. If I understand myself to be the president of the US, I know a concept, I have an idea, but this is "knowledge" useless for telling whether or not I am actually president. Since it is epistemic independent, it does nothing to support the contention I exist as the president of the US. It's not an observation of the world. I can't infer I am US president from merely understanding the concept. I might be. I might not be. If I am to tell I need to leave behind the epistemic independence of logic/concept/meaning and observe states from which I can infer whether or not I am US president.

If I do this, if I start thinking about and observing objects, to infer empirical knowledge, what I know no longer has "epistemic independence." Relying on something else, objects, to define what I know, about the world, rather than (attempting) to do it through a mere understanding which has appeared in my experience.

Knowledge of the world cannot be given by logic. To suggest a foundational rule, a foundational concept, which determines/enables knowledge of the world is incoherent. If I'm thinking in terms of a epistemic independent concept, I can't infer anything. I'm not taking part in observation which would allow me to learn what was happening in the world.

Some realists actually fall into participating in the "myth of the given" when trying to defend world independent of experience. When they insist the unexperienced world simply must (i.e. it is logically necessary) be as per state we have experienced or know about in the present, they are trying to define knowledge of the empirical world with logic/meaning/concepts. They are trying to pass off the epistemic independent concept, their imagined state of the unobserved world, as if it was an observation of an object which allowed us to infer something was true about the world.