Fair enough. It seems like such a weak position shown false by the simplest of counterarguments that I find it very hard to believe I haven't simply misunderstood their position. I mean, one of the proponents listed in the article you cited was PMS Hacker. I don't agree with a lot of his philosophy, but he doesn't strike me as the sort of low caliber philosopher likely to make such an elementary error.

More reading required, I think. Probably more than I have the time for, unfortunately.

Mighten it be a fundamental misconception, to attribute to “appearance” the notion of “looks like” as opposed to the notion of “makes present to”? If so, what a thing “looks like” may be considered an imputed logical relation by a system of intelligence capable of it, but to be “presented to” may only be a direct effect on the system, having only a physical relation to it. From that, it is hypotetically feasible that both indirect and direct relations occur, with respect to things real, insofar as logical relations cannot manifest in mere physical presence, and mere physical presence cannot authorize logical resemblance.

What is perceived is real directly, insofar as that thing is not mediated by a system; what is experienced is real, but mediated by a system to which it is given by its presence, thus, with respect to perception, is real indirectly.

What really....I mean REALLY....is the problem here? How come, in 50-odd pages, consensus that the possibility of both forms of realism may be incorporated necessarily in the human cognitive system? If each form is justifiably refutable by the other, and the exceptions to each as a general rule are rampant, then the ground of the possibility of both, each limited to its own specific domain, but functioning in unison towards a given end, becomes the better option.

(Back in the day, on the tv show Taxi, Danny Divito and Judd Hircsh were arguing about something, and Cristopher Lloyd, butts in with some comment. They both give him The Look, to which he says, completely deadpan, “oh, I’m sorry, am I still here?”. Call me Lloyd)

What really....I mean REALLY....is the problem here? — Mww

In typical philosophy forum fashion, nobody can quite agree on the terms under dispute, in part because we have our philosophical commitments to uphold.

hen the ground of the possibility of both, each limited to its own specific domain, but functioning in unison towards a given end, becomes the better option. — Mww

How would that look?

From a behavioural perspective, the notion of an agent committing 'perceptual errors' only serves to account for it's stimulus-responses that are unexpected or undesired in the minds of onlookers who interpret the agent's behaviour as being goal-driven, either as part of a causal explanation of it's behaviour, or as a part of a prescription for what the agent ought to do if it is to act in accordance with the onlookers wishes (for example, the agent might be a robot and the onlookers are it's programmers).

Relative to this observation, it seems that indirect realism is ontologically committed to the folk-psychological notions of goal driven behaviour and mental states. For according to indirect realism, agents aren't merely said to commit perceptual errors relative to the expectations of onlookers and their linguistic conventions, but are believed to really make those errors as a result of possessing cognitive states that have goals and beliefs as intrinsic properties.

according to indirect realism, agents aren't merely said to commit perceptual errors relative to the expectations of onlookers and their linguistic conventions, but are believed to really make those errors as a result of possessing cognitive states that have goals and beliefs as intrinsic properties. — sime

Dennett is an indirect realist, and his view of goals and beliefs is that these features of a cognitive system can be reduced to the collective activity of a network of millions of dumb bits which can’t themselves be said to have goals or beliefs. It can be useful for certain purposes to treat such dumb assemblages as if they possessed such intrinsic properties.

How would that look? — Marchesk

The solution looks like some form of transcendental idealism, insofar as it uses, rather than disregards, an intrinsic logical dualism in the human intellect.

First....because it is a metaphysical problem, it must look like a metaphysical solution;
Second....it would look like an epistemological solution, if it explains something we want to know;
Third....it would look like a logical solution, if it is predicated entirely on logical conditions;
Finally....it looks like a solution based on, or incorporating, relations, because that about which we want to know involves conditions that do not belong to us, in juxtaposition to conditions that do.

There is an established metaphysical solution, predicated on logical conditions, sufficiently explanatory for what we want to know, which effectively combines direct empirical realism with indirect representational idealism in a single intelligence.

Whether the solution is worth a damn has nothing whatsoever to do with how old it is, or whatever name by which it is called, but is a function of how many of its core tenets are held in common by its opponents, which merely exemplifies the very human intellectual duality upon which the proposed solution is predicated.

And the fact none of a metaphysical solution’s core tenets are susceptible to empirical proof is irrelevant, because all physical sciences with co-relevant procedural constituency, are equally unprovable. Beside the point that the dialectical discourse is in a philosophy medium, not one in which empirical proofs for the validity of its arguments, is absolutely necessary.

That’s how it would look......to me.
———-

nobody can quite agree on the terms under dispute — Marchesk

Same as it ever was, throughout the ages, right?

Dennett is an indirect realist, and his view of goals and beliefs is that these features of a cognitive system can be reduced to the collective activity of a network of millions of dumb bits which can’t themselves be said to have goals or beliefs. It can be useful for certain purposes to treat such dumb assemblages as if they possessed such intrinsic properties. — Joshs

Does Dennett interpret the the objects of perception to be theoretical entities , such as those defined according to science and ontological naturalism? If so then that might explain his use of 'indirect realism', in the sense that the entities of a naturalistic ontology are only defined up to their structural/mathematical Lockean primary qualities and are left undefined in relation to phenomenological secondary qualities, effectively deferring their phenomenological meaning to the in situ judgements of language users who apply the terms (and who ultimately apply theoretical terms as a result of perception, so I still can't see this as an indisputable example indirect realism).

And of course there is the ambiguity as to the location of the agent's sensory surface. If the agent is looking down a microscope, does the definition of the perceptual process include the microscope or not?

But i think those considerations are tangential, for direct realists take the object of perception to be the stimulus that directly elicits a behavioural response from an agent, however the boundary of the agent is defined. Would Dennett disagree with direct realists who define perception in this way?

But i think those considerations are tangential, for direct realists take the object of perception to be the stimulus that directly elicits a behavioural response from an agent, however the boundary of the agent is defined. Would Dennett disagree with direct realists who define perception in this way? — sime

The problem with this account is that it doesn't seem to say anything about experience at all. Does a Venus flytrap experience the fly when that fly directly elicits a behavioural response from it?

In typical philosophy forum fashion, nobody can quite agree on the terms under dispute, in part because we have our philosophical commitments to uphold. — Marchesk

In general it seems that the more 'uselessly' metaphysical as opposed to practical the issue, the more semantics becomes central.

Also, good point about everyone trying to hold their own ship together in rough weather.

the idea is that red is a property as we see it, not something that causes us to have a response, — Marchesk

I think the wrinkle is in red is a property as we see it. It's as if 'red' is supposed to do double-duty for some ineffable private experience which is somehow known to be the same ineffable private experience for all (an impossible public-yet-private experience). Ryle attacks this kind of confusion in The Concept of Mind, just as Wittgenstein does with his beetles and boxes.

If the thesis is that we all see red the same way, then any data supporting this thesis is impossible in principle ('grammatically') when 'see' is understood to refer to some radically private experience.

All we can compare is public behavior, and this is also enough semantically. Anyone who grasps the proper material implications (and other appropriate uses of the concept red) is seeing red as much as such a thing can be reasonably established. Or that's the best sense I can currently make of the situation.

it seems that indirect realism is ontologically committed to the folk-psychological notions of goal driven behaviour and mental states. — sime

Might be yanking this out of context, but it inspired a question. Does the philosophical situation itself, occurring in the space of reasons and dominated by rational norms, commit itself implicitly to such folk-psychological notions? Is the gist of indirect realism the possibility of an individual being wrong, or an individual perception being wrong ? The gap between me and the truth might involve the degree that my word alone (without further evidence) should count as reliable.

I think the wrinkle is in red is a property as we see it. It's as if 'red' is supposed to do double-duty for some ineffable private experience which is somehow known to be the same ineffable private experience for all (an impossible public-yet-private experience). — Pie

I don't think it needs to be the same. It could be that your red isn't my red in something comparable to Locke's inverted spectrum hypothesis.

But also it could be that it is the same. Assuming that we have the same kind of eyes and same kind of brain, and assuming that the relationship between body and mind (whatever that is) is deterministic, then we should have the same kinds of private experiences.

Ryle attacks this kind of confusion in The Concept of Mind, just as Wittgenstein does with his beetles and boxes. — Pie

I don't buy Wittgenstein's account. If at some point I were shown the contents of your box but not recognise it as being a beetle then clearly I mean something private by "beetle". The word "beetle" and the phrase "the contents of our boxes" would mean different things to me.

Or again, consider Locke's inverted spectrum hypothesis where one morning my private colour experiences change. If such a thing happened I wouldn't then continue to say that grass is green and that rubies are red. I would say that grass is red (or "looks red" if you prefer) and that rubies are green (or "look green"). It's a perfectly coherent scenario (not withstanding its physical possibility) and so clearly there's more to the meaning of colour words than just some public activity.

But as I said before, what we mean by "red" is irrelevant to the discussion really. It's not a discussion about what words mean.

Assuming that we have the same kind of eyes and same kind of brain, and assuming that the relationship between body and mind (whatever that is) is deterministic, then we should have the same kinds of private experiences. — Michael

I understand why one would say this, but consider that we only have evidence for behavior. Our talk and doings are indeed synchronized. The assumption is unwarranted, in my view. Fortunately, it also seems necessary. Note that I don't deny some kind of inner experience. I just think it can play no role in reasoning. As Sellars might put, reporting a sensation would be a kind of entry move. It's a way that I might explain some otherwise dishonorable or just unexpected action (I had a terrible itch, so I didn't bowl a strike.)

The word "beetle" and the phrase "the contents of our boxes" would mean different things to me. — Michael

A good point. I don't deny that we have grammar for unique experience. I think this naturally connects to a scorekeeping understanding of rationality (Sellars via Brandom.) The 'I think' and the 'I feel' implicitly accompany all our reports. Jim might be credulous and Tammy might cry over a mosquito bite. I just think we should be wary of reifications. I look toward norms rather than ontologies on such topics.

Or again, consider Locke's inverted spectrum hypothesis. If such a thing happened I wouldn't then continue to say that grass is green and that rubies were red. I would say that grass is red (or "looks red") if you prefer and that rubies were green (or "looks green"). It's a perfectly coherent scenario (not withstanding it's physical possibility) and so clearly there's more to the meaning of colour words than just some public activity. — Michael

I agree with you about the persuasiveness of the inverted spectrum scenario. I can relate very much to experiencing color as some kind of ineffable stuff, but it's just that ineffability that seems to make it semantically irrelevant. Roses are red and grass is green, even if their colors are reversed for one of us. But what can reversed or inverted mean here? Whose raw feel would have priority? Neither, I say. Inversion implies a norm. But clearly all that matters is the convention that roses are red (like calibrating a scale.)

Roses are red and grass is green, even if their colors are reversed for one of us. But what can reversed or inverted mean here? — Pie

That the colour you see roses to be is the colour I see grass to be and vice versa.

But clearly all that matters is the convention that roses are red (like calibrating a scale.) — Pie

I think it more accurate to say that red is the colour that roses are seen to be. This then accommodates both the "convention" that roses are red and Locke's inverted spectrum hypothesis. There is the common public use of the word "red" and the private understanding of redness.

I think it more accurate to say that red is the colour that roses are seen to be. This then accommodates both the "convention" that roses are red and Locke's inverted spectrum hypothesis. There is the common public use of the word "red" and the private understanding of redness. — Michael

I can make some kind of sense of 'the color you see' as opposed to 'the color I see.' We can agree to use 'color' this way in this kind of context. But calling that a private understanding of redness might be misleading. What I have in mind is the way that concepts fit together (material implications, such as being red implies being colored, etc.). If your private experience of redness has no bearing on on other concepts or the inferences you recognize, 'understanding' seems like too strong of a word.

How about the private recognition of redness?

Fair enough. It seems like such a weak position shown false by the simplest of counterarguments that I find it very hard to believe I haven't simply misunderstood their position. I mean, one of the proponents listed in the article you cited was PMS Hacker. I don't agree with a lot of his philosophy, but he doesn't strike me as the sort of low caliber philosopher likely to make such an elementary error. — Isaac

Hacker shouldn't be construed as defending either direct or indirect realism. He's instead using and analysing terms like direct, indirect, see, perceive and representation in their ordinary sense. Here's a sample from PFN.

That we can see an object to be red only when light is reflected off its surface and on to our retina does not show that the object 'in and of itself' is not really red. It merely shows that a condition for its colour being visible is that it be illuminated. Similarly, that photons reflected off the illuminated object cause changes to protein molecules in the retina, which in turn transmits electrical impulses to the fibres of the optic nerve, does not show that what we see is not really coloured, any more than it shows that we do not see what we see directly. What we see is not the effect of an object on us. The effect of an object on our nervous system is the stimulation of the cells of the retina, the effect of this on the optic nerve, the consequent excitation of the cells in the hypercolumns of the 'visual' striate cortex - but none of this is perceived either by the brain (which can perceive nothing) or by the person whose brain it is. Rather, that we see is a consequence of the action of illuminated or luminous objects on our visual system, and what we see are those objects, colour and all. What we thus see, we see 'directly' (to see something 'indirectly' might be to see it through a periscope or in a mirror - not to look at the thing itself in full daylight with one's eyes).
...
And it is no more necessary for my perceiving a red object that there be something red in me than it is necessary for me to perceive an explosion that something explode in me.
...
Human beings, when they perceive their environment, do not perceive representations of the world, straightforward or otherwise, since to perceive 'the world' (or, more accurately, some part of it) is not to perceive a representation. (To perceive a photograph or painting is to perceive a representation.) And in whatever legitimate sense there is to the supposition that there is a representation of what is seen in the brain, that representation is not what the owner of the brain sees. The 'representation' is a weed in the neuroscientific garden, not a tool - and the sooner it is uprooted the better. — Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, 2nd Ed. - Bennett and Hacker, p143, p145, p154

How about the private recognition of redness? — Michael

Sorry for the delay. Just saw this. Do you mean something like saying to oneself that such and such is red? I can relate to the experience. I can see it figuring after the fact in an explanation. 'That's when I noticed the light was red, when it was too late to stop.'

I believe I have what I am tempted to call the usual intuitions , but I also see that such a thesis is unsupportable not only in practice but even in principle. The inverted spectrum possibility should make us question the whole framework, it seems to me. (As I see it, it makes a beetle-in-box-point itself.)

Sorry for the delay. Just saw this. Do you mean something like saying to oneself that such and such is red? I can relate to the experience. I can see it figuring after the fact in an explanation. 'That's when I noticed the light was red, when it was too late to stop.'

I believe I have what I am tempted to call the usual intuitions , but I also see that such a thesis is unsupportable not only in practice but even in principle. The inverted spectrum possibility should make us question the whole framework, it seems to me. (As I see it, it makes a beetle-in-box-point itself.) — Pie

It's nothing to do with language. A hermit with no language could look at two objects and see them to be the same colour (or different colours). That's colour recognition.

Hacker shouldn't be construed as defending either direct or indirect realism. — Andrew M

Well then I'm left with no idea who these 'direct realists' even are, let alone what they claim. I asked @Michael for some examples of the direct realist claim and he pointed me to the SEP article on colour primitivism which listed Hacker as a proponent.

So...

1. Is Hacker not a colour primitivist, or is colour primitivism not a form of direct realism?

2. Who the hell is a direct realist? Seems everybody quoted turns out not to be one.

A hermit with no language could look at two objects and see them to be the same colour (or different colours) — Michael

You know this how?

I don't know this but it's true nonetheless. We have evidence that animals can recognise colours and no evidence that they share a common colour vocabulary. I don't see why a human hermit would be any different.

We have evidence that animals can recognise colours and no evidence that they share a common colour vocabulary. — Michael

What evidence are we working from here then?

It's nothing to do with language. — Michael

It's everything to do with comparing and classifying, whether or not using word-pointing so to do.

A hermit with no language could look at two objects and see them to be the same colour (or different colours). — Michael

Not without associating those two objects with all the others of their class (or each with a different class).

Without that wider association, and background classification, it wouldn't make sense to say they discriminated (or matched) according to colour. Only that they discriminated (or matched).

Without that wider association you couldn't say they discriminated (or equated) according to colour. Only that they discriminated. — bongo fury

You confuse me being able to know that that he recognises colours with him being able to recognise colours. He either can or he can't, irrespective of what I think.

It's everything to do with comparing and classifying, whether or not using word-pointing so to do. — bongo fury

I don't need to have words for pleasure and pain to recognise that I am in pain or to recognise the difference between me feeling pleasure and me feeling pain. Qualitative experiences occur and differ from one another, and that they do has nothing to do with being able to make and make sense of my own and another person's vocalisations or ink impressions.

Without that wider association you couldn't say they discriminated (or equated) according to colour. Only that they discriminated.
— bongo fury

You confuse me being able to know that that he recognises colours with him being able to recognise colours. He either can or he can't, irrespective of what I think. — Michael

Hence my edit: it wouldn't make sense to say they discriminated according to colour, without their associating according to a background classification.

It's everything to do with comparing and classifying, whether or not using word-pointing so to do.
— bongo fury

No it doesn't. I don't need to have words for pleasure and pain to recognise the difference between me feeling pleasure and me feeling pain. Qualitative experiences differ, and that they do has nothing to do with being able to make and make sense of my own and another person's vocalisations or ink impressions. — Michael

I clearly allowed for there being no language as such: no word- or symbol-pointing. But there will be comparing according to a wider classification, if it makes sense to speak of colour recognition, and not merely discrimination.

And that's how seeing colours is seeing objects. It's recognising classes of objects. (Or classes of illumination events.)

Hence my edit: it wouldn't make sense to say they discriminated according to colour, without their associating according to a background classification. — bongo fury

I clearly allowed for there being no language as such: no word- or symbol-pointing. But there will be comparing according to a wider classification, if it makes sense to speak of colour recognition, and not merely discrimination.

And that's how seeing colours is seeing objects. It's recognising classes of objects. (Or illumination events.) — bongo fury

I have no idea what you're talking about. A hermit with no language can recognise when he feels pain. A hermit with no language can recognise when he feels pleasure. A hermit with no language can recognise the difference between feeling pain and feeling pleasure. A hermit with no language can recognise hot from cold, quiet from loud, hard from soft, sweetness from sourness, and so on.

Nothing about this depends on there being some observer who can make, and justify, these claims.

And there's nothing special about colour that makes it any different to the above.

I have no idea what you're talking about. A hermit with no language can recognise when he feels pain. A hermit with no language can recognise when he feels pleasure. A hermit with no language can recognise the difference between feeling pain and feeling pleasure. — Michael

I'm trying my best to make sense of "recognise" without implying language use.

Nothing about this depends on there being some observer who can make, and justify, these claims. — Michael

Agreed.

I'm trying my best to make sense of "recognise" without implying language use. — bongo fury

A dog can recognise his owner.

A dog can recognise his owner. — Michael

Yes. By learning to compare and classify appearances.