I remain puzzled about the supposed primacy or focal importance of 'objects' in this actual world. — mcdoodle

The word "object" is being used by Brassier and others in an entirely generic sense, and is intended to subsume anything that anyone (i.e. "the subject") could possibly think of or come to know. This includes such things as properties, qualities, processes, etc. The discussion is (arguably) being had at a level of abstraction higher than even metaphysics, though Brassier is perhaps not as clear-cut on this point as, say, Wolfendale is.

Thanks to both Willow and Aaron. I need time to reflect on all this. Happy Christmas.

Hey guys pretty late to this convo BUT, I don't know, it seems clear to me that the force of Berkeley's argument has less to do with stupid "you're thinking of it so you can't claim you're thinking of something you're not thinking of!" stuff and more to do with something like "even when you think of something no one's thinking of, your only access - your only way of conceptualizing that thing - is by making imaginative use of perception." It's unfair to cite that passage alone, just as its unfair to cite "There's nothing outside the text" and guffaw.

I think what Brassier's doing *in this essay* can be summed up very naively: Bringing back the thing-in-itself. Now, he's definitely done some acrobatic legwork in other places, but, here, that's all this really boils down to. He says as much, in some part or another of this work. It's not that the 'correlationist' is wrong, per se, but that his or her argument can be exploited by people like Latour. Ok, but that shit's on Latour, not the 'correlationist.'

Laruelle still seems central. I've struggled with Laruelle. I think there's real insight there, but it's buried, princess-and-the-pea, under gaudy rhetorical folds of awful obscurantism (I say this as someone who appreciates Derrida, Deleuze, Heidegger & Foucault!). The whole 'non-philosophy' thing is, frankly, fucking childish. I understand 'philosophy', for L, has to do w/ 'decision' - but whatever. The whole stupid rhetorical thrust of 'non-philosophy' is to seem a step ahead, regardless of what he has to offer. (My suspicion is that everything of value in laruelle could be rendered in 30 pages or less if people's tenure didn't depend on sprawling exegesis) This essay only has worth if Brassier has some legit method of accessing the thing-in-itself. Apparently that method is Sellars. But I'm skeptical. (By the way, Hi everyone! And great job, jamalrob, this site is fantastic. The format is much sleeker. I'm a big fan)

This essay only has worth if Brassier has some legit method of accessing the thing-in-itself. — csalisbury

I'm not sure about this: given that the essay is meant to address an objection (to realism), it ought to stand on it's own. It's an argument against an argument, not a positive argument for something. Granted, it's precisely that 'positive' side which still requires elaboration, but you get my point I hope.

I agree with you about 'non-philosophy' by the way, and incidentally, so does Brassier. I forget if it's in Alien Theory or Nihil Unbound, but he more or less makes one long extended complaint that Laruelle does too much posturing to set himself apart from what he calls 'philosophy', which really in fact only refers to a very narrow set of (French) references to define philosophy, and that in fact, Laruelle can be appropriated into philosophical without much loss of fidelity, as it were. One of his recent(ish) essays, 'Laruelle and the Reality of Abstraction' (in the edited collection Laruelle and Non-Philosophy does alot to situate him with respect the Kantian 'critical turn' and put him right into the 'philosophical' continuum.

I'm not sure about this: given that the essay is meant to address an objection (to realism), it ought to stand on it's own. It's an argument against an argument, not a positive argument for something. Granted, it's precisely that 'positive' side which still requires elaboration, but you get my point I hope. — StreetlightX

I agree with this and disagree with Caslisbury that any elaboration or 'subtlization' of the master argument could make it any the more plausible.
"They muddy the water, to make it seem deep". Nietzsche

I think it is important also to emphasize that any "positive elaboration" must necessarily remain speculative; that is must be some kind of quasi-'inference to the best explanation', and could never be something subject to being empirically demonstrated. That such ideas should be empirically demonstrable is in essence the precise requirement that is implicitly, and incoherently, placed on meta-empirical ideas by such anti-realist arguments.

No "legit method" of "accessing the 'thing-in-itself'" other than the strictly empirical will ( ironically) ever be admitted by (most varieties of) idealists and anti-realists.

I just want to reiterate that, the issue is not really a subtilization of the argument insofar as, to the extent that Brassier addresses it all in the paper, he does not even get its basic structure right, let alone the claims actually made.

The problem is sensory information, precepts, and concepts- even if they emerge or are reducible to physical processes, do not have any link as to their EQUIVALENCE. Of course, I think people confuse CAUSE with EQUIVALENCE. This is where the problem lies. To say:

1.) Physical processes CAUSE sense, perception, and conception is not the same as saying
2.) Physical processes ARE sense, perception, and conception.

Another problem I see is that people simply change TERMINOLOGY and somehow this solves the problem. By making physical processes signs or semiotic relationships, this still does not account for how physical processes ARE sense, perception, and conception.

Worth noting, I think, that Brassier's characterization of the gem changes as the paper progresses.

(A)From paragraph 32: ". Berkeley’s premise is a tautology, since the claim that one cannot think of something without thinking of it is one that no rational being would want to deny. But from this tautological premise Berkeley draws a non-tautological conclusion, viz., that things depend for their existence on being thought or perceived and are nothing apart from our thinking or perceiving of them."

(B)From paragraph 34: "The paradigmatic or Berkeleyian version of the Gem assumes the following form:‘You cannot conceive of a mind-independent reality without conceiving of it. Therefore, you cannot conceive of a mind-independent reality’. Note that the Gem does not assert that there is no mind-independent reality; it merely says that it must remain inconceivable. "

In the space of mere paragraphs, we're told both that the Gem asserts that "things depend for their existence on being thought or perceived" & that "The Gem does not assert that there is no mind-independent reality."

I think there's a reason for the slippage. Brassier/Stove's dismantling of the gem is a dismantling of Gem(A). It's true that only by illegitimately conflating ideatum and object can one argue that the mind-dependence of a conception entails the mind-dependence of that which is conceived of.

But, now to Gem (B) There seems to be confusion here. In an earlier post, Pneumenon illustrated brilliantly the misunderstanding at play.

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

Pneumenon appears to think that Berkeley's point is as follows: When I conceive of an object, that object acquires the predicate 'being conceived of by me." I can't conceive of any object I'm not conceiving of, just like I can't be in any building I'm not inside of.

But - and this is blisteringly clear if you read even a smattering of Berkeley's Treatise - "the gem" has nothing to do with this banal point. It's a provocation: So you're conceiving of something unconceived? Yeah, so what's that thing like in your conception? Can't really talk about what it looks like,for example, because what something looks like is always a matter of how it appears to something else. (The obvious rejoinder is to invoke the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. But Berkeley's already tackled this well before he introduces "The Gem." ) The point is that, strip away everything in your conception that derives from how the thing appears to (or is encountered by) us - and what's left?

I don't usually jump at the chance of rallying for these kinds of arguments, but Brassier and Stove just absolutely casually butcher it.

I mean look at this, from paragraph 42.

" It might be objected that we need [ the meaning/sense of] Saturn to say what [the object] Saturn is; that we cannot refer to Saturn [the object] or assert that it is without Saturn [ qua meaning/sense] But this is false: the first humans who pointed to Saturn did not need to know and were doubtless mistaken about what it is: but they did not need to know in order to point to it."

This is downright embarrassing. Yeah, of course the first humans didn't need to have our current understanding of what saturn is to point to saturn. But they quite obvious had some sort of understanding or experience of what they were pointing to. Otherwise they wouldn't have pointed.

I think there's a reason for the slippage. Brassier/Stove's dismantling of the gem is a dismantling of Gem(A). It's true that only by illegitimately conflating ideatum and object can one argue that the mind-dependence of a conception entails the mind-dependence of that which is conceived of. — csalisbury

There is a deeper reason for the slippage: if one avoids illegitimately conflating ideatum and object, while still trying to maintain conceptual meaning is only expressed in experience, it leaves nothing conceptual available for the unknown world. Brassier moves on to Gem(B) precisely because he grants Berkeley a reprieve from the error of conflating ideatum and object.

If Berkeley accepts a "mind independent" world, avoids equating ideatum and object, then he is committed to something outside experience. Unknown objects are present on a grounds other than experience. But this creates a problem: what are the unknown states? And how are they even there?

The point of an unknown is something is yet to enter knowledge. It's a conceptual meaning not known to anyone. Unknowns do not fit within a position which holds "mind dependence" of conceptual meaning. Berkeley's own call to the meaning of concepts is turned against "mind dependence." We, indeed, cannot not know of something without having a concept of it. But this also means something else: there can't be something knowable unless is it conceptual (so allowing the possibly someone will know what it is).

Expression of the meaning of concepts cannot be limited to experiences, as the correlationism would have us believe. Objects just express the meaning of concepts too. Objects, in themselves, must express conceptual meaning, whether they understood by someone or not. Unknown states require the "independent world." We must grant unknown objects express conceptual meaning or else accept their existence is impossible (in which case, we make the error of equating ideatum and object).

One of my deep displeasures in studying philosophy has been people dumber than Berkeley acting like Berkeley's too dumb for them to bother with. I don't know, it's the Dunning-Kruger effect or something. Not to harp on this one particular philosopher, but he gets a level of disrespect, sloppy scholarship, and flippancy that few other major philosophers make people think they're entitled to. There is little serious engagement with him, yet no end of unserious engagement with him. He is someone that 'needs to be stopped,' not understood in even the most superficial way.

In that sense I think that, despite appearances, Brassier (and his many predecessors, all of whom have for some reason done the same thing to this very same philosopher, for 'some reason') is not interested in an engagement, but a sort of ideological blowing off of steam. Of the scholars that study him seriously (Brassier is obviously not one of them), only Georges Dicker is one Im aware of who doesn't as a result of that study come away with a massive sympathy for him. There are the ones who ultimately reject his arguments, but almost wistfully and reluctantly, like Sam Rickless, and those that have their minds blown and just become Berkeleians (John Foster and A.A. Luce are examples -- it's astounding how captivated they became).

The case study of Berkeley in particular was actually one of my reasons for developing a sort of pessimism about philosophy generally, not about its aims, but about the discipline itself. It proved to me in a way that philosophers simply are not very good at their jobs and that, either due to lack of talent, effort, or genuine desire for rigor, those who practice philosophy are uniquely very bad at their own discipline in a way that say physicists or plumbers are not, and that therefore a career in philosophy is not worth pursuing. End rant.

@The Great Whatever I can't say I've studied Berkeley much, but I have the bare acquaintance necessary to recognize Stove's account as smug confusion ala Banno (who I think cited Stove favorably more than once on pf.)

In general, while I like much of Brassier's writing and argumentation,* his motivation seems often to simply be the most radical, bad-ass, willing-to-stare-into-the-void philosopher out there, steely and sharp in a world of soft, sappy half-thinkers. Nihil Unbound suffered badly from this. That said, the turn to Sellars is kind of interesting. Taking a second stab at his "Some Reflections on Language Games" & I'm really enjoying it, even if I'm not yet sure to what degree I sympathize with his project.



* This, for example, so economically damns an entire project: "An eliminative materialism that elides the distinction between sapience and sentience on pragmatist grounds undercuts the normative constraint that provides the cognitive rationale for elimination. "

his motivation seems often to simply be the most radical, bad-ass, willing-to-stare-into-the-void philosopher out there — csalisbury

I've come to think, as I got more seriously into philosophy, that this is just true of continental philosophy generally, but it doesn't always manifest as being 'steely and sharp,' but just being the most 'transgressive' in whichever way is most fashionable, by reversing old plays on words with new ones. I think it might just be a bankrupt tradition.

Not that the rest of philosophy is much better, but I think I'm at a point that I spent so much of my life on a certain discipline that it's very painful for me, coming to the realization how bad it is and how much of my life I wasted. I am coming to sympathize with laypeople and scientists who think philosophy is just a load of horse shit, and further that my previous bristling at these positions and desire to defend philosophy came from feelings of personal injury at a discipline I had spent so much time on being outed as worthless. But when you see something like this, I just can't help but feel like there's no denying it, even if it's painful. Time to move on and do something worthwhile with your life, and undo the damage reading philosophy has done to you. It's just a hard habit to kick, like a drug addiction, and I really do believe it's legitimately harmful the way a drug is, poisonous to thinking and maybe life too. It's like believing Deepak Chopra or something, professionalized charlatanism that wastes the intellectual efforts of otherwise promising young people.

I read shit SX writes and think, "do I sound like that? Am I ever going to sound like that?" and it just makes me cringe.

In the space of mere paragraphs, we're told both that the Gem asserts that "things depend for their existence on being thought or perceived" & that "The Gem does not assert that there is no mind-independent reality."

I think there's a reason for the slippage. Brassier/Stove's dismantling of the gem is a dismantling of Gem(A). It's true that only by illegitimately conflating ideatum and object can one argue that the mind-dependence of a conception entails the mind-dependence of that which is conceived of. — csalisbury

I think this is fair point to make, but I suspect that the source of the slippage goes beyond Brassier's own inattention but to the inattention of those who use the Gem as an argument in the first place. That is to say, it is the 'correlationist' who slips from 'we can't conceive of things without conceiving of them' to 'therefore things can only exist mind-dependently'. The purely negative result of the Gem ("a mind-independent reality is inconceivable") is illegitimately sublimated into a positive one ("therefore things can only exist mind-dependently"). As I read the paper, Brassier aims to attack the first, negative result. If, as a result, the positive one falls as well, then so be it.

So when you say that Barkeley's argument is essentially a provocation, it's a provocation that Brassier's paper is meant precisely to diffuse. §§33 puts the paper's intended result succinctly: "By implying that mind-independence requires conceptual inaccessibility, the Gem saddles transcendental realism with an exorbitant burden. But it is a burden which there is no good reason to accept." It's this 'burden', that the paper is meant to get rid of in order to clear the way to a positive project.

I sympathize with much of what you've said. I feel like I have a lot I want to add, but I'll wait until I have the time to start a new thread.

So when you say that Barkeley's argument is essentially a provocation, it's a provocation that Brassier's paper is meant precisely to diffuse. §§33 puts the paper's intended result succinctly: "By implying that mind-independence requires conceptual inaccessibility, the Gem saddles transcendental realism with an exorbitant burden. But it is a burden which there is no good reason to accept."

If it's a slam dunk argument, it wouldn't be a burden. It'd be a stop sign. To call it a burden is already to implicitly acknowledge it as a provocation. But Brassier, throughout, paints it as a wannabe formal knock-down argument. That's strange. But, so ok, mind-independence doesn't entail conceptual inaccessibility. But would Brassier be comfortable saying that a conception of a mind-independent watermelon as being pretty much how we spontaneously imagine a watermelon( but with no one around) more or less gets it right? I kinda doubt it what with all the scrambling for Laruelle and stuff. But so wait what's the problem with that spontaneously imagined watermelon ?

The subtext here is I think Brassier is being more than a little disingenuous. The cerebral contortions of his dissertation (which I'll admit I haven't read in full, tho I've read much of it) indicate he's quite aware of certain difficulties which, with the help of the eminent mr stove, evaporate in this paper. Meillassoux's down to bring back god and the ressurrection of the dead to counter the correlationist. It's too bad Brassier & Stove couldn't have directed him to a simpler argument before he took such drastic measures.

(btw I'm a little over halfway through Sellars' "Some Reflections on Language Games" & while I'm like viscerally enjoying its subtlety and precision, I'm a little confused about how it ties in with what's presented in the essay being discussed.)

But would Brassier be comfortable saying that a conception of a mind-independent watermelon as being pretty much how we spontaneously imagine a watermelon( but with no one around) more or less gets it right? I kinda doubt it what with all the scrambling for Laruelle and stuff. But so wait what's the problem with that spontaneously imagined watermelon ? — csalisbury

But Brassier's realism isn't cashed out in term of phenomenality but in terms of epistemology: it's not a question of appearance, but a question of knowledge. How can we come to know things of the world if there is no "pre-established harmony between reality and ideality" (§§3)? If "thought is not guaranteed access to being [and] being is not inherently thinkable", then how does thought 'track' being? Then §§4:

"We gain access to the structure of reality via a machinery of conception which extracts intelligible indices from a world that is not designed to be intelligible and is not originarily infused with meaning. Meaning is a function of conception and conception involves representation—though this is not to say that conceptual representation can be construed in terms of word-world mappings. It falls to conceptual rationality to forge the explanatory bridge from thought to being."

The rest of the paper will not go on the 'forge' this bridge, but clear away the debris that stands in the way of it's being forged. This is what Laruelle is useful for (the negative moment). The bridge itself is something B. locates in Sellars's conception of rationality (the positive moment).

(btw I'm a little over halfway through Sellars' "Some Reflections on Language Games" & while I'm like viscerally enjoying its subtlety and precision, I'm a little confused about how it ties in with what's presented in the essay being discussed. — csalisbury

I found 'Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind' illuminating - in a way - in relation to this brassier paper, and that's what I think Street or another poster directed me to. I think we should start a thread on Sellars actually :)

I just want to reiterate that, the issue is not really a subtilization of the argument insofar as, to the extent that Brassier addresses it all in the paper, he does not even get its basic structure right, let alone the claims actually made. — The Great Whatever

I can't say I've studied Berkeley much, but I have the bare acquaintance necessary to recognize Stove's account as smug confusion — csalisbury

Both of you seem to be asserting that Brassier and Stove have misunderstood and misrepresented Berkeley's argument, but neither of you have given an account of exactly how you think the argument has been misunderstood/misrepresented by them.
Csalisbury, I think your contention that the argument is merely a "provocation" is manifestly false. Anyone at all familiar with Berkeley's philosophy will know that he was not merely an epistemological anti-realist but a metaphysical idealist who made the strong ontological claim that "to be is to be perceived". This is certainly a metaphysical claim and he circumvented the obvious objection that an object cannot logically be equivalent either to any one perception, or to the sum of perceptions, of it by positing that an object can therefore only exist if it is perceived by an infinite mind (God).

Insofar as I'm aware of Berkeley (I haven't done a deep study of him), he is misunderstood frequently. There is actually clue to this in the claim of the "infinite mind (God)." Is the mind of God any of ours? How then can the things we experience said to be dependent on our experience of them, as is often the characterisation of Berkeley's argument? In arguing the "infinite mind of God" Berkeley agrees with the logical distinction between (our) perception of the object and its existence.

Berkeley's concerns are actually similar to those expressed by the direct realist in some respects. His call to experience is an attack on the coherency of various position which pose, supposedly, and external world outside conceptual meaning. How can there be something not of (any) experience if it is subject to someone's knowledge? Such contention is an incoherent. It's impossible for something to be known if it is outside what can be thought or spoken.

Indeed, one of Berkeley's concerns is exactly what Brassier's worried about here. Berkeley position, in many respects, is a flawed version of the exact point Brassier is trying to make here: that knowledge outside the conceptual is incoherent.

Where Berkeley fails is not in the metaphysical error of equating objects with existing perceptions, but rather in the gaps within his metaphysical account and the failure to understand conceptual meaning in distinct from the expression of a concept in an existing state of consciousness. Mistakes which see him speculate an infinite mind of God to account for (unknown) meaning when no such account is needed. Berkeley's failure is not a crass equivocation between existing perceptions (e.g. of existing people) and objects, but rather a failure to understand that conceptual meaning does not need to be given in a mind. What Berkeley fails to grasp is that conceptual meaning is an infinite and that this entails non-existence.

"We gain access to the structure of reality"...

Someone take Old Yeller to the back and shoot him, for Christ's sake...

I think you're right Willow, Berkeley's position is more or less equivalent to direct realism insofar as the things perceived are understood by him to be exactly as they are perceived to be even when they are not being perceived by us. That is so according to Berkeley because they are eternally perceived by an infinite mind and it is according to the way that infinite mind perceives objects that we perceive them.

It would perhaps be more correct to say that the structure of reality gains access to us, and gives rise to perception, although even to say that seems to give the misleading impression that we are somehow separate from reality. While it is true that we cannot strictly conceptualize the pre-conceptual there is no good reason that I can see to doubt that the conceptual arises from, and that it embodies the structure of, the pre-conceptual, insofar as it seems obvious that the former arises within the 'matrix' of the latter. There wouldn't seem to be any coherent alternative 'story'.
So, reality gains access to us and we gain access to reality, but we are not conscious of the inseparability, and deceive our selves with reified ideas of separation due to linguistically generated misunderstandings.

While it is true that we cannot strictly conceptualize the pre-conceptual... — John

?
But that's the point the essay denies! Everything in the essay is predicated on that being false. (Though I'm not sure what work 'strictly' is meant to be doing in the quote.)

It really isn't. The essay is saying the exact opposite: anything which may be known is, by definition, conceptual.- i.e. of concepts. Brassier argument is a turn against the "pre-conceptual" or "the world outside concept," since it doesn't allow for anything which can be understood.

We don't conceptualize the pre-conceptual. The conceptual (meaning expressed by states) is so regardless of what we do or do not conceptualise.

But Brassier's realism isn't cashed out in term of phenomenality but in terms of epistemology: it's not a question of appearance, but a question of knowledge. — sx

Yeah, but concepts without intuition are blind.

But, ok, there is a distinction between the conception and the object. It's accepted that we can only access the object through our own conceptions, tainted as they are with meaning, but that doesn't mean that we aren't conceiving of something that lies outside that meaning. The structure of our conception is derived from the structure of that which lies outside it.

But this would make us almost like programs, or vehicles of truth. We would be able to speak truthfully about that which lies outside the pale of meaning, but, despite our speaking truthfully, we literally would not be able to make sense of these truths. Like a sober, secular version of speaking in tongues.

You still aren't making the distinction between the conception and object here. You are treating it like the existence of the object grants the existence of the conception. For sure our conceptions about the world are always referring to something (which we might call a "meaning" ), the object(s) we are aware of, which lies outside, but does this mean our conception is derived (i.e. given) by the structure of the object?

Most certainly not. The object is not our conception. Our conception is an entirely different state in-itself. That's why we need intuition (i.e. brute understanding). For an object to exist does not define the presence of someone who understands it. Only the outside state of a person can do that. Without this intuition, the existence of experiences which are the understanding of things, no-one would know or understand anything.

It really isn't. The essay is saying the exact opposite: anything which may be known is, by definition, conceptual.- i.e. of concepts. Brassier argument is a turn against the "pre-conceptual" or "the world outside concept," since it doesn't allow for anything which can be understood — Willow

This is very confused. Please cite some passages from the essay to legitimize (and clarify) these claims.

But this would make us almost like programs, or vehicles of truth. We would be able to speak truthfully about that which lies outside the pale of meaning, but, despite our speaking truthfully, we literally would not be able to make sense of these truths. Like a sober, secular version of speaking in tongues. — csalisbury

How do you mean?

The quote you cited as embarrassing earlier has a pretty good example:

"It might be objected that we need [ the meaning/sense of] Saturn to say what [the object] Saturn is; that we cannot refer to Saturn [the object] or assert that it is without Saturn [ qua meaning/sense] But this is false: the first humans who pointed to Saturn did not need to know and were doubtless mistaken about what it is: but they did not need to know in order to point to it."

Notice that Brassier is arguing that Saturn exists, that a meaning of Saturn he knows, is expressed in the presence of these individuals who don't know they are pointing to Saturn. Brassier is not saying that, somehow, he knows something non-conceptual (the "world outside conception" these people don't know about), but rather that the conceptual (Saturn) is expressed outside (or rather regardless of) our concepts. In the presence of the object of Saturn, whether we know about it or not, the meaning of Saturn is expressed.

Thus, Saturn is still present and people can point to it, even though no-one at the time understands what they are pointing as Saturn.