This thing being sipped will always be the same coffee experience iff the sensation of the thing being piped sufficiently replicates the sensation by which coffee became known. — Mww

Sufficiently?

Coffee with sugar will always be experienced as coffee with sugar — Mww

I don't think even this is the case. On a nice day it will taste better than on a bad day.

It manifests in how a thing elicits a feeling. — Mww

But surely how a thing does something is the result of an investigation, it's not just given to us. We don't get to see how the engine works unless we look under the bonnet.

what constitutes a move in the direction of greater valuation as opposed to the lesser (more true, more harmonious, more intelligible...) from where one started. If one starts with "this is how things seem to me" and then conducts any kind of 'investigation', one is implicitly affirming that the way things seem to one is lesser, by whatever measure, than the potential result of that investigation. Less true, less harmonious, less intelligible - whatever. — Isaac

Yes indeed. It would be impossible to have a world at all if we could not distinguish grouping and categories, if we could not talk about events that were more or less consistent with one group rather than another, that belonged or failed to belong to a category, system, pattern, scheme.

The battle-lines, if you want to call them that, between realists and relativists, modernists and postmodernists, is not over whether what I described above is possible, but what is the irreducible basis of the singular elements that particulate in gatherings and dispersions, integrations and differentiations? How do we understand the nature of causation and motivation most primordially?

So the very nature of an investigation has, at it's core, an acceptance that the way things currently seem to one is flawed in some way - in whatever measure you're using to judge the model you have.

Once one has accepted that the ways things seem to one is potentially flawed, one cannot rationally, at the same time, use "but that's the way it seems to me" as a counter to any alternative model put forward. — Isaac

To the extent that one can say there is an ethical direction to postmodern thinking, it involves a preference for the coherent over the incoherent, the integrated over the fragmented, the intelligible
over the unintelligible. But this preference isn't over and above experiences of relative organization or disorganization. The two concepts , preference and integration, are synonymous. So saying that we investigate or aim toward or intend or desire is using a volunteeristic language to describe the fact that we find ourselves already thrown into situations, and our awareness of our ‘preferring’ is an after the fact observation. We find ourselves sense-making, and we talk about ourselves in terms of having a preference and an aim with respect to the way the contexts we are thrown into seem to us, and the way we would like them to seem to us.

iff the sensation of the thing being piped sufficiently replicates the sensation by which coffee became known.
— Mww

Sufficiently? — Isaac

Yes, the quality used when necessity doesn’t have the authority. Metaphysically speaking, the cognition of this sip cannot be understood as coffee unless there is enough in this sensation relatable to that sensation by which the conception “coffee” first became a valid conception. It became a valid conception when it could be said of it….I know what this is.
———-

Coffee with sugar will always be experienced as coffee with sugar
— Mww

I don't think even this is the case. On a nice day it will taste better than on a bad day. — Isaac

What sense does it make to suggest the type of day the coffee is consumed, determines what my sensation of it will be?
———

But surely how a thing does something is the result of an investigation, it's not just given to us. We don't get to see howbthd engine works unless we look under the bonnet. — Isaac

Investigation…yes, agreed. Still, what’s being investigated determines the kind of investigation it will be. Popping the skull to figure out how thinking works is very far from popping the hood on a car to see how an engine works. We think, thinking is a given. As a general rule, there are no humans that don’t think, even if there are vanishingly small exceptions to the rule. Thinking is given to us as just something else to investigate.

I'm sorry you are having so much difficulty following this.

Transcendental arguments are those with roughly the following form:
1) A is true
2) The only way in which A could be so is if B
3) Hence, B is so.

The merit of the second premise is their Achille's heel. It is unfortunate that your friend Kant made such prominent use of them, but that's only of historical interest.
[quote="Mww;762500"...transcendental arguments are false with respect to their content, hence immediately invalid. In short, transcendental arguments are those in which the categories are contained in the predicates of pure a priori cognitions, where they don’t belong.[/quote]
An archaic phrasing. It would be preferable to point out that the argument posits some supposedly obvious state of affairs A such that B as a necessary condition for A in attempt to have folk agree that B is the case. They are not invalid, which is as well for Kant.

This came from:

The smell of coffee is nothing but a sensation that belongs to a certain thing
— @Mww

Don't like nothing buts, for the same sort of reason that I don't like transcendental arguments. That it's the smell of coffee is down to the place of coffee in one's day to day antics. The "nothing but" hides that. — Banno

The problem here is the truncated "nothing but" pretends that our sensations are prior to our "being in the world". It assumes the perspective of an homunculus. That's pretty much the assumption of @Joshs and @Constance, too.

We are however social creatures such that our sensations are not prior to but partially constitutive of a mind embedded in a world. You are not just sitting in your head with a bunch of Kant's a priori scripts, looking out at a world to which you have no direct access.

(@Moliere, by way of this being a part of the previously discussed rant. More or less the same criticism by the homunculus applies to phenomenology.)

The problem here is the truncated "nothing but" pretends that our sensations are prior to our "being in the world". It assumes the perspective of an homunculus. That's pretty much the assumption of Joshs and @Constance, too. More or less the same criticism by the homunculus applies to phenomenology. — Banno

Three phenomenologists offer three readings of sensation. You mentioned Heidegger’s subordination of sense to being-in-the -world:
(“Ini­tially" we never hear noises and complexes of sound, but the creaking wagon, the motorcycle. We hear the column on the march, the north wind, the woodpecker tapping, the crackling fire. It requires a very artificial and complicated attitude in order to "hear" a "pure noise." The fact that we initialy hear motorcycles and wagons is, however, the phenomenal proof that Da-sein, as being-in-the­-world, always already maintains itself together with innerworldly things at hand and initially not at all with "sensations" whose chaos would first have to be formed to provide the springboard from which the subject jumps off finally to land in a "world."(Being and Time).

Then there’s Merleau-Ponty, who was critical
of what he interpreted as Husserl’s reliance on a ‘hyle’ of sensation, a primitive content.

It appeared to Merleau-Ponty that Husserl treated
the elements of a flowing multiplicity of hyletic data as positive essences, as objects separable from what conditions them via subjective history. Instead, he argued, “ There is no hylé, no sensation which is not in communication with other sensations or the sensations of other people. “(P. Of Perception, p.471). Perceptual essence “is not a positive element, not a quiddity; it is rather a divergence within the corporeal field of things. The unity of the thing is of a piece with the unity of the entire field; and this field is grasped not as a unity of parts but as a living ensemble. The living ensemble cannot be recomposed of essences in the sense of eide, since these are positives – significatory atoms or constants. Hence, [Husserl’s] eidetic method is in reality an idealistic variant of the constancy hypothesis [a point-by-point correspondence between a stimulus and the perception of it].”(Phenomenological Method in Merleau-Ponty's Critique of Gurwitsch, Ted Toadvine, p.200).

That leaves Husserl, the intended target of your critique of phenomenology. I happen not to believe that Husserl
started from qualia-like primitives of sensation. For him , as for Isaac, sensations are constructed out of contextual elements.

My criticism is methodological, that what is problematic is taking phenomena as a starting point. Sure, some phenomenologists might reach the right conclusion via a wrong argument. As said previously, it's not so much that I disagree with what you say as the way in which you say it. It's not where phenomenologists are going that is problematic, but the path they take.

There need be nothing in common between various cases for which we use the same word. Hence the discussion of family resemblance. And hence the rejection of the essentialism that requires some one thing to be the same in order to justify the use of that word.

It's just not what we do. — Banno

Of course there is something in common with experiences we could say are of red: they more closely resemble one another than they do experiences we could say are of green or any other colour. This is a similar counter-point to your argument I made earlier regarding the essential role of similarity (and difference), and which you did not address.

(reds) more closely resemble one another than they do experiences we could say are of green or any other colour. — Janus

Sure. So we've flicked from saying what reds have in common to saying how they differ from other colours, trying to achieve an essence by negation - setting out what it isn't. It's still essentialism. Is yellow a red or a green? What of orange? Brown?

GO back to the point of talk of family resemblance again: there need not be something held in common for all the members of a family. Hence we cannot expect to proceed to examine classes or predicates by finding the feature that they supposedly have in common. There might be no such feature.

Once one has accepted that the ways things seem to one is potentially flawed, one cannot rationally, at the same time, use "but that's the way it seems to me" as a counter to any alternative model put forward. we've just accepted that the whole reason we're undertaking an 'investigation' in the first place is because of a lack of certainty about the way things currently seem to us. — Isaac

The way things seem can only be "flawed" in relation to some other way things seem; with the presumption that the latter somehow gets us closer to "the way things really are", or is more serviceable or...

Can you give an example of an investigation that is based on "a lack of certainty about the way things currently seem to us"? Are you saying we are uncertain that things really seem that way, or that they "really are" that way?

It's still essentialism. Is yellow a red or a green? What of orange? Brown? — Banno

Is essentialism some kind of bogeyman for you? Do you see that there might be differences kinds or degrees of essentialism? Yellow is not a red or a green, it is a yellow, or else we fall into incoherence. A yellow may be more reddish or more greenish. The colour wheel although divided into six colours is really a more or less infinite continuum. It is said by some that the human eye can distinguish around ten million different colours, so the division to 'red' 'green' 'yellow' etc., is really a gross generalization.

GO back to the point of talk of family resemblance again: there need not be something held in common for all the members of a family. Hence we cannot expect to proceed to examine classes or predicates by finding the feature that they supposedly have in common. There might be no such feature. — Banno

Can you give an example of two things that should be thought of as belonging to the same family, but which have nothing in common with each other?

Can you give an example of two things that should be thought of as belonging to the same family, but which have nothing in common with each other? — Janus

Wittgenstein talked about this in P.I.

67.” I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than "family resemblances"; for the various resemblances between members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc. overlap and criss-cross in the same way.— And I shall say: 'games' form a family. And for instance the kinds of number form a family in the same way. Why do we call something a "number"? Well, perhaps because it has a—direct—relationship with several things that have hitherto been called number; and this can be said to give it an indirect relationship to other things we call the same name. And we extend our concept of number as in spinning a thread we twist fibre on fibre. And the strength of the thread does not reside in the fact that some one fibre runs through its whole length, but in the overlapping of many fibres. But if someone wished to say: "There is something common to all these constructions—namely the disjunction of all their common properties"—I should reply: Now you are only playing with words. One might as well say: "Something runs through the whole thread— namely the continuous overlapping of those fibres.”

Can you give an example of two things that should be thought of as belonging to the same family, but which have nothing in common with each other? — Janus

Yeah, me and my brother-in-law. He's a bloody insurance salesman. Parasite.

I find Wittgenstein's idea of family resemblances not very coherent or useful and even potentially somewhat misleading. Members of a human family are considered to be such usually because of their genetic commonalities. That said, a person might be adopted into the family, and parents themselves usually don't have a genetic heritage in common, but they are thought of as family on account of being thought of as belonging and being loved like family and so on. Sometimes, perhaps rarely, human family members do not even resemble one another.

We find the idea of family in the larger taxonomic context in relation to plants and animals, and there are morphological criteria which serve as reasons for including particular kinds of plants or animals in a family.

I would still like to see an example of two things that are considered to belong to a family that yet have nothing in common. I can't think of any.

Yeah, me and my brother-in-law. He's a bloody insurance salesman. Parasite. — Banno

But you do have something in common; you are both in relationship with your sister..

Is essentialism some kind of bogeyman for you? — Janus

Psychologising the argument. No.

The topic was introduced by way of elucidating the lack of a one-to-one relation between intentional explanations and neurological explanations.

Here's where it came in:

Worth pointing out, although as you can see those who don't grasp the notion of family resemblance or who adhere to some form of essentialism will have trouble following that discussion. Add to that the non-representational nature of neural networks and you have Buckle's chance of achieving some sort of understanding. — Banno

Seems that's you, bro. :wink:

I recall a long discussion with a Kantian professor who insisted that family resemblance could be accounted for with a concatenation of disjunctions... A or B or C or D. My counter was that for a family, such a list is never complete. Given any such list we might add a new entity E, distinct from A or B or C or D.

One of the points of this is methodological. It's It's contrary to the near ubiquitous supposition that "we call all these things red, therefore there is a thing, redness, that all these have in common" - another transcendental argument, for . It misled Plato into proposing his forms, and has haunted philosophy ever since.

I commend Austin's paper Are There A Priori Concepts? to anyone interested in following up the topic.

I would still like to see an example of two things that are considered to belong to a family that yet have nothing in common. I can't think of any. — Janus

But of course you can find something common between any two things. What this shows is that you've missed the point. Oh well.

Yep.

There's plenty of attempts at definitions of "game" to be found. The further point to be made is that if one stipulates such a definition, someone can either stipulate otherwise or invent a counter instance. A point related to Davidson's derangement of epitaphs, and Wittgenstein's argument for what we might call the inscrutability of rules; given any such definition one can purposefully undermine it.

One of the points of this is methodological. It's It's contrary to the near ubiquitous supposition that "we call all these things red, therefore there is a thing, redness, that all these have in common" — Banno

There is no "thing" redness, if by that you mean an object. But there is a quality of redness that things that qualify as red things display. The quality of course is not some particular shade of red, but a general quality of redness.

But of course you can find something common between any two things. What this shows is that you've missed the point. Oh well. — Banno

It seems it is you, not I, who has missed the point. Of course you can find something in common between any two things, so what? I was asking for an example of two things which could be said to belong to the same family that do not resemble each other in any way that is criterial for counting as being included in the family.

This current series of exchanges between us came about on account of my response to this;

The point is that there need be no similarity for someone to be counted as part of a family. — Banno

Now if you say there is a set of things belonging to a family, then it seems to follow that all members of that family must possess some salient resemblance or similarity to the other members that justifies including it in that family.

Now, I ask you again if you can provide any examples of things which could be said to belong to the same family that possess nothing in common that would qualify them for being included in that family. Don't try to move the goalposts this time, but just attempt to give an honest answer. If you can give a satisfactory answer then I will concede the point, not otherwise, no matter how much you protest that I have missed the point.

there is a quality of redness — Janus

You introduce the word "quality" like it was clear what it means. What's a quality, then?

I submit that it's just a way of using a word. "Using" is the pertinent term. Red things need have nothing in common beyond our saying that they are red.

Now if you say there is a set of things belonging to a family, then it seems to follow that all members of that family must possess some salient resemblance or similarity to the other members that justifies including it in that family.

Now, I ask you again if you can provide an examples of two things which could be said to belong to the same family that possess nothing in common that would qualify them for being included in that family. Don't try to move the goalposts this time, but just attempt to give an honest answer. If you can give a satisfactory answer then I will concede the point, not otherwise, no matter how much you protest that I have missed the point. — Janus

Again, I've already replied to this. Given any rule for inclusion in a family, we can chose a new member which does not satisfy the rule.

A point related to Davidson's derangement of epitaphs, and Wittgenstein's argument for what we might call the inscrutability of rules; given any such definition one can purposefully undermine it. — Banno

And its undermining is the further spinning of new fibers of a thread, correct?

You introduce the word "quality" like it was clear what it means. What's a quality, then?

I submit that it's just a way of using a word. "Using" is the pertinent term. Red things need have nothing in common beyond our saying that they are red. — Banno

So, you are going to play that game? What's a quality? It's an attribute. What's an attribute? It's a trait. What's a trait?....

Why do we (mostly) agree that some things are red, as opposed to any other colour? It's because we perceive those things to be coloured such that they seem to qualify as being red. To qualify means "to have the appropriate quality".

Again, I've already replied to this. Given any rule for inclusion in a family, we can chose a new member which does not satisfy the rule. — Banno

Again you are presenting irrelevancies. I haven't said there needs to be a single rule for inclusion in a family. Given the whole set of characteristics, the possession of a sufficient number of which would qualify for inclusion in a family, can you find a new member who satisfies none of them? That is the salient point.

Transcendental arguments are those with roughly the following form: — Banno

As I mentioned, depends on one’s definition which depends on one’s doctrine in play. Mine in play doesn’t consider “attempts to get folks to agree”.

1) A is true
2) The only way in which A could be so is if B
3) Hence, B is so. — Banno

What makes that transcendental? What do you think transcendental means?
—————

The problem here is the truncated "nothing but" pretends that our sensations are prior to our "being in the world". It assumes the perspective of an homunculus. — Banno

Who’s the nutjob that came up with that? If our sensations are necessarily of that which is in the world, how is it possible our sensations can be prior to that which the sensation is of?

The “nothing but” merely indicates sensation is always related to objects in the world, insofar as there is nothing else to which a sensation could relate. The raisin d’etre for our sensory apparatus is to deliver sensations.

Homunculus: how to argue a conception by using it. (Sigh)
————

that "we call all these things red, therefore there is a thing, redness, that all these have in common" - another transcendental argument, for ↪Mww. — Banno

Footnote at B79 shows the attribution of red, among other examples, as a thing, to objects, is illusory.

e are however social creatures such that our sensations are not prior to but partially constitutive of a mind embedded in a world. You are not just sitting in your head with a bunch of Kant's a priori scripts, looking out at a world to which you have no direct access. — Banno

Can I get an “Amen”!

Amen, brother!

And its undermining is the further spinning of new fibers of a thread, correct? — Joshs

Presumably. Interesting.

you are going to play that game? — Janus

Just responding to your strategy. ...there is a quality of redness that things that qualify as red things display" It's the transcendental argument,

• We use the word red for various things
• There must be something these various things have in common
• This something, we all call the quality "redness"

The argument names a nothing. Why shouldn't we just use a word for a variety of different things, without those things having something in common?

What makes that transcendental — Mww

It's the name for arguments with that sort of logical structure...

The “nothing but” merely indicates sensation is always related to objects in the world... — Mww

Presumably except when they are dreams or hallucinations...

The rope gets longer, the pressure builds....

Why shouldn't we just use a word for a variety of different things, without those things having something in common? — Banno

Because the uses of words that denote perceived qualities are not arbitrary; the perceptions are not without commonality. If they were we could agree on nothing. And the argument is not transcendental but immanent; immanent to what we can commonly recognize. Is the apple red or green?

The agreement does not come about because we consistently use the appropriate words in different cases, but we consistently use the appropriate words because we see perceive the same phenomena. It's not likely that we will disagree about whether an apple is red or green ( leaving aside cases where colour-blindness comes into it).

Because the uses of words that denote perceived qualities are not arbitrary — Janus

Yes, it's not arbitrary. So long as you get the red apple and not the green one, if that's what you ask for, that's what counts. The agreement, so far as there is one, is that you get the red apple. The mooted "quality" redness does bugger all. It doesn't enter into it.

You get the red one and not the green because it's not arbitrary. You seem to be saying that it's not arbitrary because you get the red one not the green one; that would be to put the cart before the horse.

Dogs can see blue and yellow apparently; which means they can distinguish between those colours, but the rest appear yellow or blue or perhaps grey. They don't require language to do this.Our ability to distinguish colours, as opposed of course to naming them, does not rely on language.

You get the red one and not the green because it's not arbitrary. You seem to be saying that it's not arbitrary because you get the red one not the green one; that would be to put the cart before the horse. — Janus

Again, it's not arbitrary, because of what we do with the apples. The cart and the horse are the same thing - it's an automobile.

Dogs can see blue and yellow apparently — Janus

...and we know this not as a result of the quality of blue and yellow, but because of what dogs do. QED.

Again, it's not arbitrary, because of what we do with the apples. The cart and the horse are the same thing - it's an automobile. — Banno

The ability to distinguish colours is not dependent on what we do, some of what what we do is dependent on the ability to distinguish colours. The cart and horse are not the same; the horse pulls the cart, the cart does not pull the horse

...and we know this not as a result of the quality of blue and yellow, but because of what dogs do. QED. — Banno

Of course, yet what they do, their observable actions, is not their ability to distinguish blue and yellow, but what that ability enables.

The ability to distinguish colours is not dependent on what we do, some of what what we do is dependent on the ability to distinguish colours. — Janus

We distinguish colours only because it makes a difference to what we can do.

...what they do, their observable actions, is not their ability to distinguish blue and yellow, but what that ability enables. — Janus

That's rather my point.

We distinguish colours only because it makes a difference to what we can do. — Banno

An over-generalization, I think: we may distinguish colours simply because we like the way they look. In any case distinguishing colours and being able to distinguish them are not the same thing.

What makes that transcendental
— Mww

It's the name for arguments with that sort of logical structure... — Banno

That right there is a Gem if ever there was one. Like…what makes this a block of wood? Why, because it’s a block and it’s made of wood. DUH!!!

The “nothing but” merely indicates sensation is always related to objects in the world...
— Mww
Presumably except when they are dreams or hallucinations... — Banno

Opps. There’s an even worse Gem. Or would that be, a better Gem. My sentence has sensation as its subject, and the only possible way your sentence makes any sense at all, is if yours has objects as its subject. There’s a name for that, and it ain’t pretty.

Hell, now that I think about it….how can either a sensation or an object be a dream, re: “when they are dreams”? Sensation or object in a dream, dreams of sensations or objects, yeah, sure, but being a dream? Nahhhh, not so much.
————

You are not just sitting in your head with a bunch of Kant's a priori scripts, looking out at a world to which you have no direct access. — Banno

You had a lengthy discussion with a Kantian professor, and still think this has any legitimacy? If you really think we have no direct access to the world…try walking through a doorway without opening the door that blocks it. Artemis 1 is on its way back from the moon, in case you haven’t heard. Hope you don’t think I mean “moon in itself”. PleasepleasePLEASE don’t say that.
————

Euphemistic and metaphorical implications aside for the moment, as soon as you think it true you’re not just sitting in your head with a bunch of Kant’s a priori scripts, you’ve contradicted yourself, insofar there is at least that one Kantian a priori script in your head, immediately upon thinking a truth. And if it isn’t really that you’re thinking a truth, you shouldn’t have said it as if you were. And if you said it the way you did because there isn’t any other way to do what you meant to do…subsume a set of particular representations under a general….there’s another a priori “script”.

Can you say….flood gates?

Oh. Afterthought: don’t bring rope to a game of chains.