Sorry, it's taken so long to respond.

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. — csal

The spirit of The Gem - backlit by the reflections preceding its introduction in the treatise - is an attempt to force the reader to try to conceive of something without incorporating elements that can only derive from experience (encounter/appearing-to/etc.)

If we wish to think of things or events occurring outside the ambit of possible human experience, we cannot incorporate a single such element. In the circumstances we wish to conceive, there will be no-one to whom the object will appear - no one who will experience the event - so the presence of any such element would indicate that the entire conception is a fantasy which occludes the observer its smuggled in (like the Freudian fantasy of watching one's own conception, a moment during which one must necessarily be absent.) Again, the point is not that one can't think of something one isn't thinking of because one is thinking of it. The point is that one can't use elements that only come about through experience to conceptualize a situation that irrecusably (lol) precludes any such thing.

Since what's being excluded is that which derives from a (finite) perspective, it's natural to hone in on those elements which relate to vision. But, to my mind, what's most difficult is the exclusion of experienced time. Of course we can say that a year refers to nothing but the earth's rotation around the sun and, as such, will hold just as well absent sentient beings (the earth will still revolve.) But drop the passage of time as experienced and just how quickly does the earth revolve around the sun? We can certainly compare this duration to other durations, but we can't quite grasp what any of it means without bringing it back to our experience of some particular duration. And that experience is always relative to the temporal scale we inhabit (cf Kant's Critique of Judgment, the relevant section of which I'm too lazy to produce at this moment. But I'll furnish it if pressed.)

How rapidly do events happen in our absence, in the absence of any experience? In a sightless, soundless, tasteless, touchless world with no perspective from which to establish a spatial or temporal scale, how do the experienceless postsentient years unfurl? Try - really try - to imagine this.

I suspect this line of thought gets flak because of how simple and naive it is, accessible to even the non-specialist (if a tree falls...). Nevertheless, I can see no way past it.

So, absolutely, we can create a web of inferences from statements/facts about that which lies beyond experience, but the real question is: If we pause for a second, do we really have a sense of what we're talking about? Are we not tacitly making use of the scales and perspectives we inhabit in trying to understand the truths we utter?

Much of this comes back to one's concept of 'concept.' I take the Kantian view that a concept without intuition is empty - imagination is necessary. I gather that for Brassier/Sellars, a concept is something like a move in an inferential game. And this is what I was getting at with the idea of 'secular speaking-in-tongues.' Like Zizek's 'symbolic real' - We can do the math, we can see what checks out and what doesn't, but that doesn't mean we have any grasp of what we're talking about.

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".

If a philosopher's stance is x, does that mean that every argument or persuasive paragraph that thinker employs must be approached as a stand-alone proof of x? Or does it mean rather that he hopes to suggest x through a host of disparate techniques considered together?

I'm sorry but I just don't think what you're saying has anything to do with what Brassier is getting at. I don't know how to respond.

Hey guys pretty late to this convo BUT — csalisbury

I'm even later to this party. But since this text makes contact both with preoccupations of continental philosophy that I am much ignorant of, but find interesting, and with issues of analytic philosophy that I am more conversant with, I just decided to print and read the paper. I will comment soon.

How rapidly do events happen in our absence, in the absence of any experience? In a sightless, soundless, tasteless, touchless world with no perspective from which to establish a spatial or temporal scale, how do the experienceless postsentient years unfurl? Try - really try - to imagine this. — csalisbury

This the problem Brassier is addressing. Such a world is meaningless. Brassier brings this-up precisely because the "independent world," separate to the conceptual, does not make sense. Unknown things must be something. They must have a conceptual expression to qualify as existing states. Without this conceptual expression, no "how" to the unfurling of the world can be defined. Hence conceptual expression is not, as is commonly thought, a mere feature of awareness in experience but rather of objects too.

Thus, Saturn is present (object), and is Saturn (concept expressed by the object), and can be pointed to, even when no-one holds the concept in experience.

Are we not tacitly making use of the scales and perspectives we inhabit in trying to understand the truths we utter? — csalisbury

Indeed, but's that a strawman. Brassier is taking about expression of objects, not what we are aware of in our experience. The fact we are using our own scales and perspectives to understand something (including objects in the absence of our experience) has never been contested. Brassier is talking about something else which has no impact on the fact that what we know is always contained within our perspective.

Hence conceptual expression is not, as is commonly thought, a mere feature of awareness in experience but rather of objects too. — willow

This is decidedly not what Brassier is saying. It's almost the opposite. I'm sincerely confused as to why you think Brassier is saying something like this.

Thought is not guaranteed access to being; being is not inherently thinkable
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The real itself is not to be confused with the concepts through which we know it.
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— brassier

He's describing difference between concepts expressed in expereince and objects there. Objects are never the means by which we know them (our experiences of an object). What this means is not that objects don't express concepts, but rather that such expression is NOT the presence of our experiences. Here he is pointing out our thoughts about objects are not the objects themselves.

I've just finished reading Brassier's paper, so I can now comment. Brassier is attacking correlationism and other forms of anti-realism (including idealism and conceptual idealism). He is rather advocating for transcendental realism, while claiming some affinity or allegiance to a similar Sellars inspired project -- his "synoptic vision" -- which is a form of scientific realism (scientism, even) described in James O'Shea's book Wilfrid Sellars: Naturalism with a Normative Turn. Brassier contrasts O'Shea's realist appropriation with Brandom's neo-Hegelian appropriation of Sellars. I am familiar with Sellars, Brandom and O'Shea. I share with Brassier his reservations about Brandom's pragmatic inferentialism, but I also have reservations with O'Shea's defense of Sellars' scientism. I rather prefer the appropriation of (the best features of) Sellars by John McDowell and John Haugeland (and the similar views on concepts and objects advanced by David Wiggins in Sameness and Substance and various papers on ethics, practical reasoning, values and Frege). But those pluralist, yet realist and naturalist, appropriations of Sellars aren't considered at all in Brassier's text.

I am unsure if the severe criticisms of Latour and Fichte (and the comparatively milder criticisms of Deleuze and Meillassoux) are fair since I am unfamiliar with them. His targets as he describe them are indefensible, for sure. Some of the criticisms of Berkeley (maybe not all) seem fair but this form of idealism -- esse est percipi -- is an easy target.

I have been puzzled by Brassier's reliance on the "thing in itself" as opposed to the thing "for us". While I was reading Concepts and Objects, I was anxiously awaiting for some positive characterization (however abstract) of the "in itself" but the only thing Brassier provided were vagues gestures in direction of Sellars. It's possible Sellars has an account of the noumenon that I overlooked because it was a part of his philosophy that I had found unconvincing (and it's been 8 years since I read O'Shea), and also, my favorite Sellars' inspired philosophers dispense with this notion altogether. Maybe it is meant to be adequately illustrated by Brassier's discussion of Saturn.

So we come to this part of the text. The discussion of Saturn seemed confused to me. There appeared to be an alternation between true but trivial claims and obscure conclusions that depend on one accepting false dichotomies, as if the refutation of Berkeley's idealism was sufficient to vindicate Brassier's ill explained transcendental realism.

Brassier usefully distinguish 'Saturn' (the name), Saturn (the sense; the Fregean Sinn) and Saturn (the "referent"; the Fregean Bedeutung). But those distinctions still aren't quite precise enough. Following Wiggins, I would distinguish the sortal concept 'planet', which is part of the conception one may have of Saturn, as the sort of thing that it is, from the mode of presentation of Saturn, the Fregean sense Saturn of which this conception is a part. They are not the same thing since two persons can share the same conception of Saturn as a planet and have it presented to them under two different modes of presentation (compare the famous cases of Hesperus and Phosphorus, or Afla and Ateb, discussed by Frege). Oftentimes, when Brassier mentions the 'concept' Saturn, he seems to mean the sortal concept ('planet') rather than the Fregean singular sense, or mode of presentation of Saturn, as this is usually understood in analytic philosophy.

One gesture that Brassier makes towards explaining what Saturn in itself is is to argue that one can refer to Saturn without knowing what Saturn (precisely) is. This is true. Following Putnam, we can argue that it is possible to refer to some sample of water, and re-identify it, or identify it with other samples of the same stuff, without knowing that being H2O is what it is (essentially) for something to be water. But this hardly means that one thereby means to refer to water as it is in itself (something we know not what) as opposed referring to it as being potentially answerable to a conception of what it is (e.g. as falling under some determinate sortal concept or other, we don't yet know which one). Before it has been fully investigated, people who refer to bits of stuffs can already understand that there are some (more or less) essential, or regular, properties that make it the sort of stuff that it is. This is a condition for the reference to be objective at all rather than being a reference to the occurrent and non-repeatable experience that it provoques in us.

Hence, people who refer to Saturn without knowing that it is a planet must at least know that it is something like a 'celestial body', say, that is, something objective that can be seen in the sky and will likely not reappear under the bed. This means that Saturn, thus conceived, falls under a determinable (vague) sortal concept that awaits further determination or revision. But the sortal concept under which it falls, however imprecise, still is a part of our conception of Saturn, and partly determinative of what it is.

Brassier of course accepts that the 'concept' (what he calls Saturn) is determinative of what Saturn is, as something answering to our conception of it. What he denies is that Saturn's being is thereby determined (at some point he says "circumscribed" but doesn't explain this term). This claim can have two readings, one that is quite trivial and another one that is quite implausible. The first one simply is the denial of Berkeleyan idealism, that our concept (Saturn) makes Saturn exist. OK. This seems trivially false (unless one is an idealist).

(Let me note in passing that there also remains an equivocation due to Brassier's failure to distinguish the Fregean sense of 'Saturn' from the sortal concept under which Saturn falls. The trouble is that under one account of Fregean senses (inspired by Kripke and Putnam, and further refined and defended by Gareth Evans and John McDowell) singular senses, such as the senses of proper names, or demonstrative expressions, are object dependent. But I will reserve discussion of this issue to another post. Let us just grant the denial of Berkeleyan idealism, or of the "Gem" argument that this and other idealisms allegedly depend on.)

According to the second reading, for Saturn to exist is independent of the sortal concept under which it falls when we think of it, perceive it, or talk about it, as whatever it is that it indeed is (in this case, arguably, a planet). But this is quite implausible. The reason is that reference just can't get any grip on anything objective without some minimal conceptual ground with which to anchor conditions of persistence and individuation that determine what it is one is referring to (in thought, talk, or demonstratively).

It would be easy to work out an example for an object like Saturn, but a simpler example is the case of a lump of bronze that materially constitutes a statue of Hermes. Can one point out demonstratively to 'this object' while being agnostic about its existing as a statue or as a heavy lump of stuff? Brassier, it seems, would need to acknowledge that we can only refer to it as something or other (i.e. as what it is). But what becomes of his claim that, in addition to being something that we refer to as what it is, it also is something in itself? Is that "it", that it is "in itself" still existing after we have hammered flat the lump of bronze and thereby destroyed the statue? It seems that the answer crucially depends on whether we are talking about the statue or the lump of bronze. But then there is no "it" existing independently of the what it is that is self-sustained in existence for an extended period of time independently of what it is. How long it remains in existence, and hence continues to be whatever it is "in itself" (if this makes sense at all) seems to depend crucially on what it is. Yet, Brassier seems to want to deny this.

According to the second reading, for Saturn to exist is independent of the sortal concept under which it falls when we think of it, perceive it, or talk about it, as whatever it is that it indeed is (in this case, arguably, a planet). But this is quite implausible. The reason is that reference just can't get any grip on anything objective without some minimal conceptual ground with which to anchor conditions of persistence and individuation that determine what it is one is referring to (in thought, talk, or demonstratively)....Yet, Brassier seems to want to deny this.

You can understand what motivates his denial though.

Do sortal concepts (or sortal conceiving) exist in the absence of conceiving beings?
If no, and if Saturn's independence of sortal concepts is implausible, then there cannot be a Saturn without such beings.
If yes, then what exactly is this 'minimal conceptual ground' which is independent of conceiving beings? And how can we maintain such a ground without reverting to idealism?


The closest thing to a positive characterization of an alternative comes in section 29:

The scientific stance is one in which the reality of the object determines the meaning of its conception, and allows the discrepancy between that reality and the way in which it is conceptually circumscribed to be measured. This should be understood in contrast to the classic correlationist model according to which it is conceptual meaning that determines the ‘reality’ of the object, understood as the relation between representing and represented. — Brassier

I'm not scientifically trained but I have my doubts that scientists see themselves as 'measuring the discrepancy between really and its conceptual circumscription.' I'm not really sure what 'measure' is even supposed to mean here.

In any case, it seems like Brassier wants is a radically nonconceptual...something (ground/matter/x?). A something from which concepts can arise, concepts which grant (necessarily limited) access to the nature of that something, but which, being necessarily limited, cannot claim to ever exhaust it.

As to this:

Hence, people who refer to Saturn without knowing that it is a planet must at least know that it is something like a 'celestial body', say, that is, something objective that can be seen in the sky and will likely not reappear under the bed. This means that Saturn, thus conceived, falls under a determinable (vague) sortal concept that awaits further determination or revision. But the sortal concept under which it falls, however imprecise, still is a part of our conception of Saturn, and partly determinative of what it is. — PN

Heartily in agreement. I really don't know what Brassier was thinking. This is an amateur error.

Hence, people who refer to Saturn without knowing that it is a planet must at least know that it is something like a 'celestial body', say, that is, something objective that can be seen in the sky and will likely not reappear under the bed. This means that Saturn, thus conceived, falls under a determinable (vague) sortal concept that awaits further determination or revision. But the sortal concept under which it falls, however imprecise, still is a part of our conception of Saturn, and partly determinative of what it is. — Pierre-Normand

This is a strawman because Brassier is not attacking the conceptual nature of anything that we know. Indeed, he makes exactly the same criticism: that a state must have conceptual expression, else be incoherent, as it isn't any specific finite state. "Meaningless" independent worlds are Brassier's targets here.

You've completely missed the role of the conceptual in Brassier's argument. His argument about Saturn is dealing in anything but vagueness. It's about a specific instance of knowledge, Saturn as the planet Saturn, and when this is present. His entire point is that Saturn doesn't fall under a vague sortal concept at all. It is, in the instance of the example, understood to be something it is not (e.g. the face of a mighty sky god), while the fact it is the planet Saturn is unknown. It is not about what awaits whether determination or revision (those are different instances of knowledge!!! ), but rather about specific instance of knowledge and how the relate to specific conceptual expression of an object.

Brassier IS NOT attacking that people understand Saturn in various ways conceptual ways, some right (bright light in the sky, the planet Saturn) and other wrong (mighty sky god). Rather he is pointing out that the conceptual expression of Saturn is present even when no-one understands Saturn to be there. Here the way Saturn is "sorted" conceptually by us at a given time has no relevance to Brassier's point. He's pointing out the object Saturn expresses the meaning of Saturn no matter how we might understand it.

According to the second reading, for Saturn to exist is independent of the sortal concept under which it falls when we think of it, perceive it, or talk about it, as whatever it is that it indeed is (in this case, arguably, a planet). But this is quite implausible. The reason is that reference just can't get any grip on anything objective without some minimal conceptual ground with which to anchor conditions of persistence and individuation that determine what it is one is referring to (in thought, talk, or demonstratively). — Pierre-Normand

Brassier is actually arguing the conceptual expression of Saturn is independent of the presence of our concepts (i.e. it is present whether or not Saturn is present in our knowledge; the position which avoids the idealism of saying someone needs to know the conceptual expression of Saturn for an object with such meaning to exist), as opposed to suggesting it is independent conceptual expression. The definition of reference is maintained because Saturn still expresses the concept that defines its reference to a statement. Hence those who don't know about Saturn ("It's a mighty sky being") or know about it in some other way ("bright light in the sky" ) are still talking about Saturn. Despite not knowing the concept of Saturn, they are talking about the object which expresses the concept of Saturn.

You can understand what motivates his denial though.

Do sortal concepts (or sortal conceiving) exist in the absence of conceiving beings?
If no, and if Saturn's independence of sortal concepts is implausible, then there cannot be a Saturn without such beings.
If yes, then what exactly is this 'minimal conceptual ground' which is independent of conceiving beings? And how can we maintain such a ground without reverting to idealism? — csalisbury

That's a misplaced question. Conceptual expression doesn't exist. It is a question of logic, not of states existence. Existing objects express concepts, they aren't the presence (existence) of concepts. Someone conceiving, therefore, has no need to exist do avoid the incoherence of things without concepts. Concepts are expressed regardless of whether we know about them. Both in terms of present objects (if an object exists, then it is there expressing concepts) and in other logical truths which don't deal with the definition of existing things (e.g. 2+2=4, the idea of a tree, etc.,etc. )

Saturn is not independent from conceptual expression. Brassier is not making any such suggestion. Rather he is pointing out that the presence of someone experiences is not required to define conceptual expression, as it isn't a state of existence. Objects are what exists or does not exist.

Indeed, he makes exactly the same criticism: that a state must have conceptual expression, else be incoherent, as it isn't any specific finite state — willow

Where? Where does he make this criticism? (bonus points if you cite a passage that hasn't already been cited in this thread.)

Do sortal concepts (or sortal conceiving) exist in the absence of conceiving beings?
If no, and if Saturn's independence of sortal concepts is implausible, then there cannot be a Saturn without such beings.
If yes, then what exactly is this 'minimal conceptual ground' which is independent of conceiving beings? And how can we maintain such a ground without reverting to idealism? — csalisbury

Following Frege (or maybe, Wiggins' construal of Frege in his The Sense and Reference of Predicates: A Running Repair to Frege's Doctrine and a Plea for the Copula) I tend to distinguish conceptions (our specific, yet communicable, understandings of a concept) from concepts. A general concept (such as a property) predicated of an object yields a truth value, true or false, accordingly, whether the object has or doesn't have the property. All those notions (concept, object, truth value) belong to the realm of reference (Bedeutung) according to Frege. (Which is rather more restrictive than to say, with Quine, that they are values of bound variables). Sortal concepts are a special kind of general concepts rather unlike properties or relations. That's because objects can't have them accidentally. An object such as Saturn can't cease to be a planet, just like President Obama can't cease to be a human being. If something (a large celestial mass, say) ceases to constitute a planet, for some reason, then this celestial mass can't constitute Saturn anymore. It constitutes, at best, a remnant of Saturn. So, sortal concepts are rather akin to essential properties. But it can't be an a posteriori law of nature (something empirically discovered) that Saturn essentially is a planet. It is rather more akin to a conceptual truth.

We grasp sortal concepts through forging conceptions of objects (understandings of what they are). Sometimes, we also contribute in setting up some of the conditions of their existence, as is the case for functional artifacts and many social objects (monetary tokens, chess pieces, etc.) Our conceptions are, according to Wiggins' Frege, the senses (Fregean Sinne) of predicates that refer to concepts. A conception just is an understanding. It may be correct or incorrect and hence is beholden to the object it aims at being an understanding of (or of the laws of nature the object is governed by) for its correctness. Sortal concepts determine the criteria of persistence and individuation of objects that fall under them. Someone's conception of the sortal concept under which an object such as Saturn falls can be mistaken. The reason why this conception (how it is understood for something to be a planet) is beholden to Saturn for its correctness is because Saturn is the focus of a scientific inquiry. This inquiry is objective just because it has a point -- it discloses interesting and predictable features of phenomena, and objects (such as Saturn) as resilient patterns in the midst of those phenomena. We can adjust our conceptions of object in order to track the objective features that they really have, but this means no more an no less than that our conceptions of the objects that populate some empirical domain (astronomy, say) successfully discloses patterns that we are interested in (because they afford prediction, control, explanation, etc.).

What empirical inquiry reveals is first and foremost the discloseability of intelligible objects within some intelligible mode of empirical investigation (which need no be scientific). Discolseability is a modal notion. Actually existing objects, and the empirical domains that are a part of, need not be actually disclosed in order for them to exist, i.e. to be discloseable. So, thus far, there is no threat of idealism involved in the Fregean account of sortal concepts.

What I was invoking with the idea of a "minimal conceptual ground" just is a minimal understanding of the objective sortal concept an object may fall under when it is identified empirically (maybe perceptually) as being a material object at all (rather than, say, an utterly confused bundle of sensations). I am not claiming that this understanding must be actual in order for the object to exist. My point rather is that if we abstract from even such a minimal understanding of the persistence and individuation criteria that determine what an object might be, then we can't make sense of it potentially being the focus of a protracted and systematic empirical inquiry into what it really is. That is, we must start with some understanding in order for our empirical investigation (our experiences) to rationally bear on our initial understanding (that's the inescapable theory ladenness of experience). But since there always must be some such initial understanding, and this understanding is at play in acts of receptivity (empirical inquiry) this background is transcendental, in the Kantian sense. This transcendental background consists in the discloseability (to us) -- of objective Fregean concepts -- not subjective conceptions. It is not transcendent. Concepts are 'objects' of empirical inquiry. So this background is in play, and objects can exist, even before, or without, any actual understanding (conceptions) by us. And yet, those objective concepts only are objective inasmuch at the patterns that they potentially disclose are intelligible to us (rational embodied enquirers). One may call that conclusion conceptual idealism (or pragmatism). But I think such an 'idealism' is innocuous from a naturalistic point of view since it also is a form of realism and it furnishes an account of the objectivity of empirical judgment.

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

Quite agreed. Brandom offers little improvement over Sellars on this issue, which is why I mostly rely on McDowell and Haugeland for suitable correctives to Sellars' account of experience.

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. — csalisbury

I am glad you noticed too. Maybe I should have read the whole thread before commenting.

Hi Willow, I'll respond later (and edit this post), just to let you know.

(On edit: I answered below, at long last)

So, absolutely, we can create a web of inferences from statements/facts about that which lies beyond experience, but the real question is: If we pause for a second, do we really have a sense of what we're talking about? Are we not tacitly making use of the scales and perspectives we inhabit in trying to understand the truths we utter?

Much of this comes back to one's concept of 'concept.' I take the Kantian view that a concept without intuition is empty - imagination is necessary. I gather that for Brassier/Sellars, a concept is something like a move in an inferential game. And this is what I was getting at with the idea of 'secular speaking-in-tongues.' Like Zizek's 'symbolic real' - We can do the math, we can see what checks out and what doesn't, but that doesn't mean we have any grasp of what we're talking about. — csalisbury

I think this is an important observation, but I see this more as a challenge for Brassier to address, not a problem for his conception of things in and of itself. For example (to reel off an immediate thought), so what if we 'tacitly make use of the scales and perceptives we inhabit in trying to understand the truths we utter'? I'm not sure that anything Brassier says precludes such a use, nor that such a use would in fact be problematic for the rationalist realism that Brassier is trying to advocate for. In fact, isn't the whole point of the paper to establish that even if we make use of specifically 'human' resources - perception, conceptualization, etc - none of this precludes realism? One thing to note is that elsewhere (in his paper "Nominalism, Naturalism, and Materialism"), Brassier in fact does try to explicit address how it is that meaning functions (in what is more or less a recapitulation of Sellars's theory of 'picturing'). The upshot is that meaning is a relation between words and other words, insofar as words are themselves objects:

"The criterion of pictorial adequacy is formulated using our most extant conceptual categories and, as such, is internal to our signifying scheme and dependent upon our predicative resources, yet it can still be used to track the correlation between conceptual order and real patterns. [How? Because...] meaning is not a relation: meaning statements establish metalinguistic correlations between words and other words rather than a metaphysical relation between words and things. The basement level of language consists of pattern-governed connections between natural--linguistic objects and other physical objects. Words do not depict reality because of what they mean but because of physical connections between the semantic regularities obeyed by speakers and the physical patterns in which these semantic regularities are embodied ... These uniformities are incarnated in phonetic, graphic, or haptic patterns, as well as behavioral ones. They are exhibited in the uniformities of performance that constitute pattern-governed linguistic behavior. But these patterns reflect espousals of principle that constitute linguistic competence."

In terms of your objection, I think in such an account there is in fact a way to respond to conceptualization mererly being a 'symbolic real', or in the famous AP term, "a frictionless spinning in a void" - namely, that such a spinning takes place only by way of the friction provided by dint of language's being an 'object among objects', and not a ephemeral 'mirror' of the world, as it were. Whether this account is itself adequate is an open question, but these at least might be the rudiments of a Brassierian reply.

Thanks for such a detailed reply!

I'm in thoroughgoing agreement that some kind of transcendental background is necessary to get cognition going. It will not do to begin with raw sense data and nothing but.

But just what is the ontological status of these sortal concepts? Do they exist (insist? subsist?) waiting to be discovered? Are they somehow baked into the objects they determine?

Since "planet" is the sortal we've been playing with, it seems a good candidate for close examination.

An object such as Saturn can't cease to be a planet, just like President Obama can't cease to be a human being. If something (a large celestial mass, say) ceases to constitute a planet, for some reason, then this celestial mass can't constitute Saturn anymore. It constitutes, at best, a remnant of Saturn. So, sortal concepts are rather akin to essential properties. But it can't be an a posteriori law of nature (something empirically discovered) that Saturn essentially is a planet. It is rather more akin to a conceptual truth.

Yet (as you noted on the Quine thread) there exists a certain celestial mass that has ceased to constitute a planet. Is there no longer Pluto, only a remnant of Pluto?

As you probably know, the revised definition of planethood responsible for Pluto's exile was established by a vote. This vote was motivated by the discovery of new celestial bodies which, according to the definition which afforded Pluto planethood, might themselves qualify as planets.

The reason for Pluto's change of status was not a realization that our conceptions of it were mistaken; rather a new definition of what "planet" meant was constructed .

Now whether or not a given body satisfies the definition of planet indeed depends on the characteristics of the object itself. But, as the vote illustrates, the very concept of 'planet' is a contingent human construction, informed equally by empirical discovery and categorizational expediency. While we may assume that pluto existed before humans, it makes little sense to say that the sortal planet did.

(This is unpolished and I have more to add but im posting from my phone at a bar because I'm itching to get something out. I may refine and add-to soon)

I'm in thoroughgoing agreement that some kind of transcendental background is necessary to get cognition going. It will not do to begin with raw sense data and nothing but.

But just what is the ontological status of these sortal concepts? Do they exist (insist? subsist?) waiting to be discovered? Are they somehow baked into the objects they determine? — csalisbury

They are ontologically co-eval with the objects that fall under them. So the sortal concepts have the same ontological status, that is, the very same grade of objectivity, as the objects that fall under them. For instance, a particular rabbit (Fluffy, say) may fall under the sortal concept oryctolagus cuniculus. Understanding, and investigating, the sort of thing Fluffy is goes hand in hand with investigating the life form that it belongs to, the species, something like an Aristotelian immanent form.

In the case of a functional artifact such as a can opener, its function, as the kind of tool that it is, and the context withing which it operates, which includes the intentions of its designers and users (mostly) determine what it is.

Objects of scientific inquiry -- so called natural kinds (including chemical substances or elements) -- sometimes fall under sortal concepts that are partially constituted by the pragmatic point of the scientific practice that discloses them. In all cases, for both entirely 'natural', or (partially or mainly) socially constituted objects, the sortal concepts are 'baked' into the objects that fall under them, indeed. This is just to say that something can't exist appart from existing as an exemplar of the kind of object that it is, whatever we may happen to know (or decide) about it. It is only discloseable or thinkable as such. (This doesn't rely on the fallacy of the Gem, I don't think. ) It nevertheless makes good sense to say that natural kinds (one particular kind of sortal concepts) are discovered rather than invented, since, unlike socially constituted objets (such as dollar bills) we aren't responsible for the conditions under which they come to be instantiated.

Since "planet" is the sortal we've been playing with, it seems a good candidate for close examination.

[...]

Yet (as you noted on the Quine thread) there exists a certain celestial mass that has ceased to constitute a planet. Is there no longer Pluto, only a remnant of Pluto?

No object ever ceases to be the kind of object that it was just because some definition has changed (unless the sortal concept is entirely socially constituted, and the objet falling under it is instituted by a performative act). Pluto would cease to exist altogether if Pluto itself was materially altered (or some of its relational properties that is part of the definition of a planet changed) -- through losing mass, say -- and in that case the residual mass left behind could be called a remnant of Pluto, no longer a planet, and no longer Pluto.

If there occurs a conceptual revision within a scientific practice, and "planet" is given a new definition, we are entitled to say that Pluto still exists as a planet, under the old definition, and Pluto* doesn't exists anymore as a planet* under the new definition. Inasmuch as both the old and the new definition each have a point within different scientific (sub)-practices, they can both single out an object, just not the same, on pain of equivocation (and violation of Leibniz's Law).

As you probably know, the revised definition of planethood responsible for Pluto's exile was established by a vote. This vote was motivated by the discovery of new celestial bodies which, according to the definition which afforded Pluto planethood, might themselves qualify as planets.

The reason for Pluto's change of status was not a realization that our conceptions of it were mistaken; rather a new definition of what "planet" meant was constructed

Yes, I agree. But it was constructed with a view towards achieving more coherence and perspicuity in a classification scheme. The view that ought to be resisted (I would urge) is that we can single out objects as they are in themselves appart from the way they are individuated within the schemes that express our understandings of them. Those understandings can't be separated from our practical and/or theoretical interests in those objects, and the systematic relations (laws and norms) that they bear with other objects and phenomena in the specific empirical domain that they populate (e.g. the cosmos).

Now whether or not a given body satisfies the definition of planet indeed depends on the characteristics of the object itself. But, as the vote illustrates, the very concept of 'planet' is a contingent human construction, informed equally by empirical discovery and categorizational expediency. While we may assume that pluto existed before humans, it makes little sense to say that the sortal planet did.

I am unsure why you would think that, though I wouldn't phrase it exactly like that (as sortal concepts existing). All I am saying is that, whatever your definition of a planet might be, assuming only that it has a point (as part of an intelligible conceptual scheme) and isn't utterly confused or incoherent, planets existed as planets, and were thus discloseable as such, for as long as there have been planets. Similarly for rabbits and the life forms that they instantiate. An animal can't come into existence before the life form that it exemplifies (or so I would argue).

Inasmuch as both the old and the new definition each have a point within different scientific (sub)-practices, they can both single out an object, just not the same, on pain of equivocation (and violation of Leibniz's Law). — Pierre-Normand

I am quoting myself because I want to preemptively address a possible objection, but I don't want to dilute the main point of the previous post.

I was discussing a case, or a possible construal, of an episode of 'conceptual revision' (scare quotes explained later), where the proposed revision can be taken to replace, though not annihilate, the point of the old concept. Hence it is still legitimate to say that Pluto still is a planet (old definition), even though Pluto* isn't a planet* (and never was).

The objection is that this way of construing things makes it nonsense to say that Pluto (or whatever you want to call it) still exists but isn't a planet anymore. It is indeed nonsense to say this, and it rests on an equivocation between Pluto and Pluto*, but I must explain why it nevertheless makes sense to say that Pluto still exists (as a celestial body), and is the selfsame object that people knew about before the episode of conceptual revision.

The proper construal of this episode of 'conceptual revision' may be suggested by Putnam's discussion of the meaning of 'water' in The Meaning of "Meaning". It is often proper to credit early users of a concept, who had the old understanding (and were relying on the old definition) proleptically with an inchoate grasp of the new concept, or, at the very least, to ascribe to them a standing rational obligation to be open to good reasons that motivate the 'conceptual revision' (so called). Hence, what occurs isn't conceptual revision at all (that is, a revision of a Fregean concept), but rather a revision of the conception people had of the concept that always had been inchoately understood and correctly referred to. This inchoateness needs not even be a nascent state of subjective undertanding, but -- as in the case discussed by Putnam, of 'water', a natural kind concept that singles out a sort of substance initially referred to deictically by means of an exemplar, and/or by means of a prototypical definition -- rather depends on external factors: e.g. as of yet unknown features of the world (such as the chemical composition of water) that contribute to securing the reference of our concept-names.

Hence, for the case of Pluto, it isn't unfair to credit older folks with the true belief that Pluto now is the selfsame object that they always have (correctly) known as 'Pluto', event though they once incorrectly thought it to be a planet*. What they were understanding to be the conditions for something to be a 'planet' just was an incorrect conception of the selfsame concept (planet*) that has now more perspicuously been expressed with the new definition -- a definition that excludes Pluto from its extension.

I am not arguing that this is the most accurate description of the recent historical Pluto case, but it may be a good construal of very many episodes of 'conceptual revision' (or conceptional revision, ought we to awkwardly say) encountered when progress occurs in our understanding of concepts that we already were (or should have been) aware to have a fallible understanding of. Putnam's own 'water' case may be more fitting. And also, such an account clears up some puzzles about proper names, natural kind terms, identity and reference. One may refer to Gareth Evans: The Varieties of Reference, especially the chapter on proper names, for more background on this neo-Fregean gloss on Putnam (and Kripke).

Brassier IS NOT attacking that people understand Saturn in various ways conceptual ways, some right (bright light in the sky, the planet Saturn) and other wrong (mighty sky god). Rather he is pointing out that the conceptual expression of Saturn is present even when no-one understands Saturn to be there. Here the way Saturn is "sorted" conceptually by us at a given time has no relevance to Brassier's point. He's pointing out the object Saturn expresses the meaning of Saturn no matter how we might understand it. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I am only quoting and responding to this paragraph because it nicely hones in on the ground of my perplexity with Brassier's idea of the thing itself, which you construe (possibly faithfully) as an object's self-expression of its own meaning. Even if we grant Brassier the possible intelligibility of such a notion -- which I am prepared to do for the sake of argument -- I don't see how it can be squared with the idea that this object can be pointed at (i.e. referred to deictically). That's because the understanding that we have of an object isn't something over and above the object's spatial and temporal extension. (I am saying this loosely without committing myself to perdurantism; since I rather favor endurantism regarding substances). Our understanding rather singles it out together with the spatial extension that it has, and temporally delimits the conditions of its coming into, and going out, of existence.

The example that I gave earlier was that of the lump of bronze that constitutes, over some finite time period, a statue of Hermes. One can point at the statue (and thereby also point at a lump of bronze) while being unclear over what kind of object it is. Now, Brassier would say that the object pointed at exists regardless of one's knowledge of what it is. (See paragraph 42). But what object is it that Brassier believes is being pointed at? There are at least two of them -- a statue, and a lump of bronze -- and arguably an indefinite number of different objects that different possible understandings of the ways in which the empirical world can be carved up could single out as the object being pointed at. It could be Hermes' nose, of even, supposing Hermes were a person, Hermes himself (with the demonstration of his statue being a conventional means of referring to him).

Brassier objects to the idea that understanding what Saturn is (the concept Saturn) is required for the object pointed at to exist. He objects that this requirement would commit one to conceptual idealism. I would like to agree but I must ask what "object pointed at" is he is talking about? What we are committed to, with 'conceptual idealism', might not be the claim that our having a conception of the object makes it exist, or is necessary for its existing since the object could indeed preexist our conception of it, in the manner of a living Triceratop that existed a long time ago, and could even dispense entirely with our ever coming to that understanding. What we are committed to, rather, only is the claim that for an object of a specific kind to be existing, at any given time, just is for it to be potentially answerable to a correct conception of that kind of objects. In Fregean terms, for the object to exist just is for it to fall under the intelligible and objective concept (regardless of anyone actually grasping the concept) that determines what kind of object it is (together with its persistence and identity conditions).

Since what's being excluded is that which derives from a (finite) perspective, it's natural to hone in on those elements which relate to vision. But, to my mind, what's most difficult is the exclusion of experienced time. Of course we can say that a year refers to nothing but the earth's rotation around the sun and, as such, will hold just as well absent sentient beings (the earth will still revolve.) But drop the passage of time as experienced and just how quickly does the earth revolve around the sun? We can certainly compare this duration to other durations, but we can't quite grasp what any of it means without bringing it back to our experience of some particular duration. And that experience is always relative to the temporal scale we inhabit (cf Kant's Critique of Judgment, the relevant section of which I'm too lazy to produce at this moment. But I'll furnish it if pressed.) — csalisbury

This, and earlier paragraphs that I didn't quote, is very nicely put. I think you would enjoy Sebastian Rödl's Categories of the Temporal: An Inquiry into the Forms of the Finite Intellect. This treatise nicely complements Gareth Evans' The Varieties of Reference, that focuses rather more on the spatiality of embodied experience.

I get your point. But I do think it's reasonable to take the argument that it is impossible to conceive of that which is unconceived, when coupled with the idea that what can be conceived is only that which can be perceived, as leading inevitably to " Else est percipi" and thus to be an argument that perception must be the essence of existence.

@Pierre-Normand
Haven't had much free time recently. Just a placr holder to let you know I plan to respond tonight or tomorrow.

The example that I gave earlier was that of the lump of bronze that constitutes, over some finite time period, a statue of Hermes. One can point at the statue (and thereby also point at a lump of bronze) while being unclear over what kind of object it is. Now, Brassier would say that the object pointed at exists regardless of one's knowledge of what it is. (See paragraph 42). But what object is it that Brassier believes is being pointed at? There are at least two of them -- a statue, and a lump of bronze -- and arguably an indefinite number of different objects that different possible understandings of the ways in which the empirical world can be carved up could single out as the object being pointed at. It could be Hermes' nose, of even, supposing Hermes were a person, Hermes himself (with the demonstration of his statue being a conventional means of referring to him). — Pierre-Normand

You are missing that, in that instance, the statue is named. You began by pointing at a statue. The object you were thinking of has been there all along. Similarity, Brassier begins by talking about Saturn. What object someone is pointing at is always, assuming a coherent claim about the world is made, given in talking about some state of the world (statue, Saturn, etc.,etc.).

Perhaps more critically, Brassier's argument doesn't merely concern itself with a specific object. He has a major point about the logical expression of any object. In making the argument objects don't need experience to exist, Brassier is making a metaphysical argument not an empirical one. In talking about "the thing-itself" one doesn't actually point to any object at all. That's not what the concept is about. One is stating a logical truth about any object, not saying any particular thing exists. It is to say how the statue, the lump of bronze, each atom, the many collection of atoms, Hermes' nose, an object representing Hermes, etc.,etc., etc. (extended to all objects), are given in themselves, as opposed to being dependent on something else to be logically defined.

In Fregean terms, for the object to exist just is for it to fall under the intelligible and objective concept (regardless of anyone actually grasping the concept) that determines what kind of object it is (together with its persistence and identity conditions). — Pierre-Normand

This doesn't make sense because existence is never in question here. All that deal with is the meaning of an object. It says: "For an existing object to make sense, it falls under an intelligible and objective concept, which is how its defined as a distinct object."

What it takes for an object to exist, that an object is present rather than not, isn't spoken about.

An epistemology not governed by the metaphor of 'access' would be nice.

Yes, it is rather a misleading notion isn't it?

so what if we 'tacitly make use of the scales and perceptives we inhabit in trying to understand the truths we utter'?

Bluntly: our understanding of things would remain 'correlationist' since those scales and perspectives are, indeed, for-us. (Spatial or temporal) 'Perspectives' and their accompanying scales can only be introduced metaphorically into a conception of a sentience-less world. (I know some latch onto the theory of relativity to try to show how perspectives are indeed part of space-time itself, but I take it we both understand the misunderstanding at play here and can safely pass it over.)

Perhaps such scales and perspectives can afford us access (though 'access,' as tgw rightly notes, is a troublesome metaphor) to that which isn't for-us. Perhaps they can afford us access, that is, to non-perspectival 'truths.' But if we can only understand those truths by retaining a perspectival supplement - well I think this leaves us four options:

(1) We can speak truths about the in-itself, but our understanding will be forever correlationist. A psychoanalytic metaphor: We 'speak' unconscious truths while remaining deaf to them, entangled, as we must be, in quasi-fictitious accounts of ourselves. These truths could be heard by an analyst, if there were one, but there is not.

(2) We're wrong. There really isn't an it-itself. Strong correlationism.

(3). It would be nice to talk about the in-itself, and man there probably even is one, but there's no way to get at it. Weak correlationism.

(4)Panpsychism

I don't really see any other way. I read Brassier's Nominalism, Naturalism & Materialism about a year ago and found it pretty unconvincing. I'm sure we can fruitfully approach speech-patterns (or concept-patterns) as natural processes and glean some insights. But the idea that we might discover some connection between those patterns and the patterns of the things they represent (but not mirror!) seems hyper-speculative. How would one go about demonstrating that a pattern of ‌•orange‌• occurences is structurally linked to some kind of extralinguistic pattern involving (constituting?) oranges? Harder still: How would go about linking that speech-pattern to orange-patterns that are independent of the orange's incorporation into a speaker's culture?

If sortals are co-eval with the objects that fall under them, then how are we to consider the Pluto case? Since it came down to a vote, do we take it on faith that the right description of the sortal planet was championed by the majority; ought we to believe that the minority view of what 'planet' means lost because the true description will always find support among the greatest number of scientists? Or is it that there may be temporary diversions down wrong paths during particular historical eras (e.g. the luminiferous aether) but that scientific inquiry is inherently self-correcting, slowly drawing itself toward the final, true, definition?

Or should we say instead that had the minority view prevailed, that would indeed be the correct definition?

[this is tangential, but another reflection. If sortals are co-eval with the objects that fall under them, this means, of course, that they don't pre-exist (acknowledging the vagueness of 'exist' here) the objects which 'instantiate' them. Note how strange this term is here. When one says 'x instantiates z', it generally means that x depends on something that does not depend on it, that x actualizes z in a particular, contingent circumstance. But, in your usage, not only does x rely on z, but z relies on x. The material conditions of x's existence make possible the sortal which it 'instantiates.' x instantiates z at the same moment x makes z 'exist.' X depends on z which depends on x which depends on z which depends....]

Everything you've written about sortals seems to imply human purpose and understanding. Indeed you said as much in the Quine thread.

But there is a seeing as, a sortal concept, that makes something -- or rather singles it out as -- a bean. The question that can't possibly be answered through appeal to 'things as they are in themselves' is "How many objects are there in the pod?". Atoms are objets, so are bean parts, bacteria, and two beans stuck together may count as an object (for some purpose or other). Strip away all purpose and understanding (by us) and you dispense with all sortal concepts. — PN

"Strip away all purpose and understanding (by us) and you dispense with all sortal concepts."

Taken in conjunction with

"Planets existed as planets, and were thus discloseable as such, for as long as there have been planets."

I can only see two ways of making sense of these claims taken together.

(1) Pre-human existence must implicitly have a sort of anthropo-soteriological dimension. Planets existed as planets before human existence precisely because, when humans arrived on the scene, they would finally bring about the 'purpose' and 'understanding' planets and their sortal had awaited. A kind of AP rendering of Schelling.

(2)There exist as many sortals as there are possible - human or non human - ways to relate to and understand an object, as in a sort of logical matrix. Thus there is the sortal 'planet' (which is our current understanding of 'planet') and there is the sortal planetx (which are those bodies which correspond to our previous understanding, plus have the existence of at least one red-spot-like storm) and there is the sortal 'lol' (which includes those celestial bodies which are (1) closer to the periphery of a galaxy than to the center & (2) that have been struck by a number of asteroids n where n is less than the number of black holes in a sphere of which 'lol' constitutes the center and whose radius is n lightyears.)

(Fwiw, your view strikes me as Heidegger in Fregean Clothing)

How would one go about demonstrating that a pattern of ‌•orange‌• occurences is structurally linked to some kind of extralinguistic pattern involving (constituting?) oranges? Harder still: How would go about linking that speech-pattern to orange-patterns that are independent of the orange's incorporation into a speaker's culture? — csalisbury

In a thread on PF someone recently asserted that the onus is on the realist to explain what it means to for something to exist independently of words or beliefs. I pointed out that the questioner will reject any possible explanation on the grounds that it is (necessarily) given in words. I said this is a case of loading the dice from the start.

It is based on the misleading notion of 'access', as is your passage I have quoted here. If we think our experience is 'for-us', this is always already a case of presuming our limited access. This presumption is based on a (Cartesian) belief in the infallibility of introspection, that what thoughts and concepts and perception are is somehow transparent to us, so that we can understand what it means for something to exist for us, but cannot possibly understand what it means for something to exist 'in itself'. What if the understanding of both these ideas, the 'for us' and the 'in itself', is only given in terms of use? We all understand very well, in terms of use, what it means for the dinosaurs to have existed prior to the advent of humanity.

So, I would argue that we don't have "access" to either the purported 'for us' or the 'in itself', the whole notion of access is a red herring. We know what it means for something to exist for us or in itself because we know the use of these terms and can grasp the two different contexts.