There seem to be some missing premisses here. How do we know that 2 is true? How does C1 follow from 1 and 2? How does 3 follow from C1? What exactly do you mean by "apriori" in this context? What does it have to do with one's "visual field"? Where does realism come into play?

How do we know that 2 is true? — aletheist

The narrative starts with "you move around the tree." 2 is a premise. Would you say we should not be confident that the narrative is possible or knowable?

But yes, I think one of the main questions suggested by the OP is: why do we think it's the same tree? The fact that it's posited in the beginning of the narrative isn't really enough to cover it. That narrative could just be a reflection of a misconception that needs clearing up.

The other questions you asked are also good ones. I'd like to spend more than a few seconds on them, though. So.. later. Thanks!

why do we think it's the same tree? — Mongrel

I agree with aletheist, every step here is tricky if you want to be picky and non-literary. I am reading David Wiggins on sameness and substance at the mo', have you ever delved there? Slow patient stuff.

In the narrative 'you' are assumed to remain the same you, a first puzzle. The tree changes as you pass it, but in such a slow way that we tend to discount the difference, just as we do with whether your movement and ageing changes you significantly. (I saw a recent theatrical enactment of Paul Auster's New York trilogy in which two identically-dressed actors played him, one emerging a moment after the other left, or the two co-existing on stage for a moment)

The sameness of you and of the tree and the style of their narrative is then, for me, in a different language-game from one in which one would talk of 'visual fields', and in those different language-games different standards of 'sameness' apply. So any confusion may be clarified by Great Uncle Ludwig's recourse to grammar in the widest sense. Or so a Wittgenstein-lover like me might argue :)

The sameness of you and of the tree and the style of their narrative is then, for me, in a different language-game from one in which one would talk of 'visual fields', and in those different language-games different standards of 'sameness' apply. So any confusion may be clarified by Great Uncle Ludwig's recourse to grammar in the widest sense. Or so a Wittgenstein-lover like me might argue :) — mcdoodle

I started failing to understand you right along this part. Is talk of language games a particular language game?

Say you're staring at a tree. You move about 180 degrees around the tree and stare again.

1. The content of your visual field changed,
2. but you're still looking at the same tree.
C1: Therefore, your knowledge of the tree is not derived from the content of your visual field
3. Knowledge of the tree is not apriori — Mongrel

I don't see how C1 follows. How did you know that you were looking at a tree in the first place, and what does it mean to "look at" at tree?

You "know" that you are looking at the same tree because you moved and the tree didn't. You also "know" that trees are three-dimensional, which means that they have multiple sides, so you simply moved to another side. But how do I "know" any of this if not by prior experiences (particularly prior visual experiences) with trees?

The sameness of you and of the tree and the style of their narrative is then, for me, in a different language-game from one in which one would talk of 'visual fields', and in those different language-games different standards of 'sameness' apply. So any confusion may be clarified by Great Uncle Ludwig's recourse to grammar in the widest sense. Or so a Wittgenstein-lover like me might argue — mcdoodle

Presumably if realism is the case then that you're looking at the same tree is not just determined by one's language-game.

How did you know that you were looking at a tree in the first place? — Harry Hindu

Good question. It's not because of the content of your visual field which simply contains grey and brown and greens, bright light and darkness.

well, if you had no visual content, could you say that you are looking at anything?

It's not just colors, but also shapes arranged in a particular pattern. And isnt it the case that I'm comparing those patterns to those stored in memory to say that im looking at a tree?

Duck rabbit.

Neither. Its a picture. A picture of what, you may ask. Ask the artist, would be my reply.

If realism were the case, some language games presumably would be privileged over others. That would explain why people talk about illusions, for example, then say, 'whereas in reality...'.

I didn't mean to sound obscure. I only meant that 'visual field content' sounds scientific, and thus requires a certain level of precision. To be very precise, both you and the tree are changed entities in the course of your short narrative, but by convention, we still call you you, and the tree the tree. It all depends how precise you want to be.

There's a bunch of what in the computer world would be called 'daemons' - cognitive sub-routines - which stitch together all the various perspectives and shifting data arising from visual experience into a narrative whole. And really points 1 and 2 above are very near to the issue which is known as the 'neural binding problem' i.e. how does the mind integrate different kinds of data - shape, position, colour, size, proximity and so on - into an identifiable whole, or a single recognisable entity? This is an unsolved problem in the neuro-sciences (see The Neural Binding Problem, especially the heading 'subjective unity of perception'.)

C1 'knowledge not being derived from visual field' - 'percepts without concepts are blind'. If the brain wasn't performing all of that cognitive stitching and data integration, then you would be seeing a whole series of disconnected percepts - but the daemons in the background are busily integrating all of them into a holistic image.

'Knowledge of a specific tree' is not a priori, but knowledge that it is a tree is based on the knowledge of the class of things called 'tree' of which this or that tree is an instance.

'Knowledge of a specific tree' is not a priori, but knowledge that it is a tree is based on the knowledge of the class of things called 'tree' of which this or that tree is an instance. — Wayfarer

Yes, but the knowledge of, meaning recognition of, or familiarity with, stable objects in an environment is displayed even by animals. There must be some actual basis upon which the "daemons" do the "stitching". meaning that such purported "sub-routines" cannot be merely arbitrary, no?

well, animals can certainly see and respond to objects and their environment, and I daresay many of the basic subroutines are common between us and them. After all the hypothalamus is very similar in humans and much lower animals. So on one level, a lot of that activity is simply physiological - keeping balance, judging distance, identifying foes and friends, and so on. But it's like a matrix which commences at very low levels of functionality, but becomes more elaborated at higher levels; h. sapiens has that enormously developed cerebellum which enables us to theorise, estimate, reason, and so on. But one of the outstanding problems from a neuroscience viewpoint is that science can identify many of the sub-systems involved with specific aspects of that integration, but it can't identify the system which integrates it all into a unified whole. Although that is tangential to the OP I think.

I didn't mean to sound obscure. I only meant that 'visual field content' sounds scientific, and thus requires a certain level of precision. To be very precise, both you and the tree are changed entities in the course of your short narrative, but by convention, we still call you you, and the tree the tree. It all depends how precise you want to be. — mcdoodle

I think it's more existentialist than scientific. In fact the gist of the OP is existential. Maybe that means one can't actually approach it logically, but only by pointing. But the pointing is pointless where experience with trees and visual field content differs.

Hmm.

There must be some actual basis upon which the "daemons" do the "stitching", meaning that such purported "sub-routines" cannot be merely arbitrary, no? — John

I think you're appealing to realism - the 'really existing' objects of perception. My current working hypothesis is that what is perceived by humans as real is inextricably connected with their perceptual and cognitive faculties. The world is 'external to us' in a common-sense kind of way - I certainly don't endorse solipsism. But in another sense, it's also a shared or consensus reality.

Years ago, I read Peter Berger's book 'The Social Construction of Reality' for a tutorial. At the time I was perplexed by the very idea that reality could be 'constructed' - 'do we put the stars in the sky?', I asked, rhetorically. But in the years since I have changed my view. This book is not really talking about 'nature' as such - nature is like the backdrop or canvas onto which our views of what is real (what matters, what we think we know, what is important) are projected. So it's not saying that the world is literally 'constructed' but is talking about the world more in the sense of the 'umwelt' or 'lebenswelt' - the ideational world in which we dwell as affective, thinking, beings.

You see, scientific realism breeds into us this notion that the 'scientific picture' of the world is what is 'really there', from which we derive a notion of the vast cosmos, described by modern astronomy, into which we have emerged by evolutionary processes. That vast and empty cosmos is nowadays felt by us to be what is real, and science the means by which more and more of that is disclosed. So in this world-picture, we pretend that the world that exists without anyone in it is somehow 'the real world'. I'm sure that is a very strong intuition for many.

But that overlooks the point about how our worldview is actually 'constructed' - in the sense Berger means above.

Peter Berger's book 'The Social Construction of Reality' — Wayfarer

Footnote: this was co-written with Thomas Luckmann, a German who was also interested, like you I think Wayfarer, in religion :) I'm afraid I've never read anything by him other than 'Social Construction' but he was once well-known for 'The Invisible Religion', a view that religiosity permeated much of our social action in under-recognized ways.

My current working hypothesis is that what is perceived by humans as real is inextricably connected with their perceptual and cognitive faculties. — Wayfarer

"Perceptual and cognitive faculties" certainly condition how things are perceived. A bee and a human will not perceive a flower in the same way. But we have every reason to think they both perceive the same "object", don't we?

Do you believe that "perceptual and cognitive faculties" (whatever those might actually be) create or determine the content of experience and not merely its form? Do they exhaustively "construct" experience? If so what is it that "constructs" them?

I'm afraid I've never read anything by him other than 'Social Construction' but he was once well-known for 'The Invisible Religion', a view that religiosity permeated much of our social action in under-recognized ways. — mcdoodle

Interesting - and indubitably true, in my opinion. A great recent book on that is The Theological Origins of Modernity.

A bee and a human will not perceive a flower in the same way. But we have every reason to think they both perceive the same "object", don't we? — John

That's 'representative realism' and the common-sense view (derived ultimately from Locke). In a common-sense way, it is true. But how would you perceived the flower independently of how a human perceives it? It appears a certain way to you, but the mind is inextricably involved in 'creating' the flower, from the elements of perception that are received from it, and then integrated into the unitary object, 'flower'. This really is how consciousness operates - it consists of a whole sequence of micro-perceptions called 'saccades' which the mind/brain integrates into a whole. So when seen like that, esse truly is percipe, just as Berkeley said.

I can anticipate an objection to that: 'you mean, when I close my eyes, or am not seeing "the flower", it no longer exists?'

The answer is: You think that I'm saying that things come into, and go out of, existence, depending on whether they're perceived or not. But this is simply the imagined non-existence of an object of perception. You're imagining it going out of existence, or not being there, when it is not being perceived. But that too to is an imaginative construction, it's 'imagined non-existence'.

What I'm arguing is that whatever we can say of an existing object, is always predicated on our (human) notion of existence, to which the mind is a fundamental contributor. There is always an implicitly subjective element or ground, in the act of perception. Now realism believes that we can view 'the Universe' as if it exists entirely separately and apart from our perception of it. But that is only true to a certain point, it is not the absolute truth it is nowadays assumed to be.

But how would you perceived the flower independently of how a human perceives it? — Wayfarer

That's a nonsensical idea that I was in no way suggesting. It would be better if you stuck to addressing what I actually wrote.

Nothing you say here addresses the issue at all as far as I can see. Not to be impolite, but it seems to me you have just gone off on your pet tangent instead of paying attention to the issue.

Well, judging by the time between my posting and your responding, and the comparative depth of the two posts, I would suggest you're the one who didn't read the response. It addresses your point exactly, with reference to both philosophy and cognitive science, and exactly in keeping with the intent of the OP, and all you can do is kvetch ;-)

In any case, what you asked is whether the bee and the human see the same flower, right? So to determine that, you would have to see the object independently of how either of them see it.

And furthermore, that 'pet tangent' is what I have been arguing coherently for, since first joining Internet forums in 2009.

So to determine that, you would have to see the object independently of how either of them see it. — Wayfarer

This is where you make your mistake. I haven't said we can "determine" (in the sense of 'prove' or be 'absolutely certain of') whether other animals see the same objects we do, that is you own projection. I have said we have every reason to believe it. This is because, as per this example ( and there are countless others) everything we know about bees and flowers is consistent with the idea that their interest in them is stimulated by the presence of the nectar they extract from them. It seems obvious that they can recognize flowers as sources of nectar (not self-consciously of course) just as we do, since they don't spend their time confusedly trying to extract nectar from random objects.

You didn't attempt to address my question about whether you think that "perceptual and cognitive faculties" exhaustively create or construct the content (as opposed to merely determining the form) of experience, either. And that is the very question which poses the most difficulty for your position.

Your post addresses a strawman of what I have been saying; it goes to an irrelevant question, treating that irrelevant question as relating to an assertion you purport (incorrectly) that I have been making. My criticism of it has nothing to do with its depth, but rather has to do with its relevance.

I have no problem with your support for your position. But if you tendentiously distort what I say through its lens, and thereby fabricate figures of straw to knock down to your own satisfaction, instead of addressing what I have said with arguments relevant to the content of what I have said, then don't expect me to be pleased about it. It makes me feel as though I have wasted my time writing.

No. Such an account is absurd because any knowledge or observation is an experience.

If anyone is to understand anything, including what bees or other human see, it is done through their veiwpoint.

The objective is not grasped in transcending veiwpoint, but rather in being viewpoint. All truths (i.e. objective) are known in the subjective.

Determining an objective without how we see or understand is exactly what we must not do. If we are to understand what another sees, we need our own experience. We need what we see to contextualise the experience of the other (e.g. I see I red flower. When the bees looks at it, they see... ). Our experience of what the other sees or understands (e.g. Wayfarer sees a red flower like me) is also required.

Objectivity is found within subjectivity, not in escaping supposed binds of experience.

But if you tendentiously distort what I say through its lens, and thereby fabricate figures of straw to knock down to your own satisfaction, — John

But I'm really not intending to do that. I am arguing against naturalism, which is bound to be confronting. I'm not 'distorting' what you're saying, I'm challenging it from another perspective which I don't think you will have considered.

This is because, as per this example ( and there are countless others) everything we know about bees and flowers is consistent with the idea that their interest in them is stimulated by the presence of the nectar they extract from them. It seems obvious that they can recognize flowers as sources of nectar (not self-consciously of course) just as we do, since they don't spend their time confusedly trying to extract nectar from random objects. — John

As I said right at the outset - that is perfectly true, in a common-sense way. You're simply taking the naturalist perspective in saying that, and there is nothing the matter with it. But consider the actual question in this thread, which is 'the nature of knowledge' itself. That is not a naturalistic question, because it's not a question about what is in nature, but how the mind itself receives and understands impressions. It's philosophy, not naturalism.

You didn't attempt to address my question about whether you think that "perceptual and cognitive faculties" exhaustively create or construct the content (as opposed to merely determining the form) of experience, either. And that is the very question which poses the most difficulty for your position. — John

So 'content' means 'ontology', right? You're asking, does perception actually constitute the inner workings, the substance, of the object of perception?

Again, from a naturalist perspective - here I am, biologist in the field, surveying the wildflowers of Blue Mountains. They are each classified according to their genus, species, and so on. And all of those facts really do exist, they are part of our shared experience as humans, aside from being part of the science of botany.

But again, in this debate, flowers are merely a token or a stand-in for the general idea of 'the object of experience'. In such debates as these, we're considering the nature of knowledge itself, not the objects of natural science or philosophy. That's what makes it a question of a different order.

One of the few things I know about Kant is that he said he was an empirical realist AND a transcendental idealist. That is how I see things also. I don't doubt the veracity of experts in the empirical sciences. For instance a botanist will know all manner of things that I don't about flowers. So what I'm concerned with is not the 'substance' of the flowers, what they consist of, or empirical facts about them, but how the mind draws together all of the knowledge about flowers, with the sensory data, and so on, and 'creates' the 'experience of the flower' as a coherent object of knowledge.

Those who automatically see the world from a representative realist perspective might feel somewhat threatened by this, because it is questioning what we normally take for granted about the nature of perception and reality. That is why I think you're reacting against this line of argument. But here we're considering metaphysical (and meta-cognitive) questions.

So, I'm not 'attacking a straw man', I'm criticizing what a great number of people will take for granted, as being an obvious or natural fact about existence. That is what I think you're objecting to.

Here is where Kant says that the transcendental idealist may be an empirical realist.

I (Kant) understand by the transcendental idealism of all appearances the doctrine that they are all together to be regarded as mere representations and not things in themselves, and accordingly that space and time are only sensible forms of our intuition, but not determinations given for themselves or conditions of objects as things in themselves. To this idealism is opposed transcendental realism, which regards space and time as something given in themselves (independent of our sensiblity). The transcendental realist therefore represents outer appearances (if their reality is conceded) as things in themselves, which would exist independently of us and our sensibility and thus would also be outside us according to pure concepts of the understanding. (CPR, A369)

The transcendental idealist, on the contrary, can be an empirical realist, hence, as he is called, a dualist, i.e., he can concede the existence of matter without going beyond mere self-consciousness and assuming something more than the certainty of representations in me, hence the cogito ergo sum.(A370)

Most people are by instinct 'transcendental realists', whereas I tend towards dualism.

In the narrative 'you' are assumed to remain the same you, a first puzzle. The tree changes as you pass it, but in such a slow way that we tend to discount the difference, just as we do with whether your movement and ageing changes you significantly. (I saw a recent theatrical enactment of Paul Auster's New York trilogy in which two identically-dressed actors played him, one emerging a moment after the other left, or the two co-existing on stage for a moment) — mcdoodle

This is a good point. Why do we think that the tree is the same tree, from one moment to the next? We know that the tree is undergoing small changes with every moment of passing time, so why should we call it the same tree? We assume that it is the same tree, but we don't actually know that it is the same tree, this is just an assumption. This is the ontological status of the continuity of substance, we assume that substance has continued existence, but we do not actually know this, because the assumption cannot be justified due to the fact that changes are constantly occurring.

Most people are by instinct 'transcendental realists', whereas I tend towards dualism. — Wayfarer

I would suggest a third view that integrates the subjective and objective without transcending the senses. That would be Aristotle's immanent realism.