Nicely put and presumably you’re talking about a process that will continue indefinitely as new or revised models supplant earlier models.

With a bit of help, we can see UV. — Banno

Doesn't this example show the opposite of what the OP hopes to prove, namely that we have no reasonable basis to challenge the veracity of our senses?

If for millions of years we saw the flower as X, but now we learn the flower more truly appears as Y, can't we conclude for all things what we learned from the flower, namely that things as we sense them are not as they truly are?

If X is a perception inconsistent with reality, then the thesis of the OP (i.e. we have no reasonable basis to challenge the veracity of our senses) is disproved.

Once we establish a basis for our skepticism regarding the veracity of our perceptions in one instance (as we just did from your flower example), we'd then logically need to do the same for all perceptions, which leads us to Descartes, the person I feel the OP most wants to avoid.

What an I missing?

There is no guarantee that these appearances give us exhaustive knowledge of how things are or that the nature of things is not (at least partially) hidden from us. — Janus

No guarantee if one is one the Quest for Certainty, I suppose. But in this unhappy, imperfect universe we must make judgments without the benefit of absolute knowledge, on the best evidence available at the time we make them. And we do, in real life, if we're wise.

For Descartes God ensures that we have rational facilities which allow us to tell truth from error in our dealings with things. For Kant, it was our innate categories which steered us in the right direction. — Joshs

And don't forget George Berkeley, the Irish priest who thought material things were just malarkey. God saved us all in his thinking as well.

I'm with Peirce in thinking that we shouldn't doubt in philosophy what we don't doubt in our hearts (which I take to refer to how we act and what we do, regardless of what we may say). So although the philosophers in question may figure something out to remedy their "doubt" the question remains why they "doubt" in the first place, which it seems comes down to a belief that we just are incapable of knowing by nature.

And don't forget George Berkeley, the Irish priest who thought material things were just malarkey. God saved us all in his thinking as well.
I’m with Peirce in thinking that we shouldn't doubt in philosophy what we don't doubt in our hearts (which I take to refer to how we act and what we do, regardless of what we may say). . — Ciceronianus

I don’t think it’s coincidence that Peirce buttressed his epistemic realism with a belief in God. I should also mention that Dewey, James and Mead ‘doubted’ the grounding of Peirce’s ‘pragmaticism’.

So although the philosophers in question may figure something out to remedy their "doubt" the question remains why they "doubt" in the first place, which it seems comes down to a belief that we just are incapable of knowing by nature. — Ciceronianus

And you are arguing that we are capable of knowing. And what is knowing? It would seem that for you it is dependent on a process of weighing evidence, of having a belief, theory, expectation validated by reference to the world around us. I mentioned earlier that your own grounding of everyday knowledge in assured belief may be susceptible to doubt on the part of certain contemporary philosophies. The doubt I have in mind is not a denial that we can know things through evidence-based methods, but a doubt that belief-validation is the fundamental basis of everyday understanding. There is remarkable agreement between the later Wittgenstein and your pal Heidegger on this, as Lee Braver explains:

For Heidegger,

“…nothing exists in our relationship to the world which provides a basis for the phe­nomenon of belief in the world. I have not yet been able to find this phenomenon of belief. Rather, the peculiar thing is just that the world is “there” before all belief. The world is never experienced as something which is believed any more than it is
guaranteed by knowledge. Inherent in the being of the world is that its existence needs no guarantee in regard to a subject. . . . Any purported belief in it is a theoretically
motivated misunderstanding. This is not a convenient evasion of a problem. The question rather is whether this so-called problem which is ostensibly being evaded
is really a problem at all.”

It’s not, of course, that we don’t believe in the world, but rather that belief is an inappropriate way of cashing out our usual being-in-the-world. Wittgen­stein gives an uncannily similar assessment of the foundational framework within which all of our actions and thoughts take place, but which itself does not belong in the arena of reasoning, justification, and belief:

“the language-game . . . is not based on grounds. It is not reasonable (or unrea­sonable). It is there—like our life.”

There are two good reasons why we are under no obligation to dem­onstrate the validity of our belief in the external world: first, as discussed above, because the world is not external; and second, because we don’t believe in it. Not because we’re skeptical, but because our relationship takes place at a much deeper level, so that to approach it in epistemic terms is to commit a category mistake.

“To have faith in the Reality of the “external world,”
whether rightly or wrongly; to “prove” this Reality for it, whether adequately or in­adequately; to presuppose it, whether explicitly or not—attempts such as these . . .
presuppose a subject which is proximally worldless or unsure of its world, and which must, at bottom, first assure itself of a world.” (Heidegger)

It seems to me you’re trying to arrive at the conclusion these two reach without taking the extra step they take in bypassing epistemic belief entirely. But then, the price you pay for taking this step may not be worth it to you. By giving up epistemic belief as the ultimate basis of knowing in favor of language games, you eliminate skepticism concerning the existence of the world, but you turn that world into a place of relativism. After all, if evidence is no longer the adjudicator of the real, then my culture’s world doesn’t have to jibe with your culture’s world. One doesn’t doubt one’s own world , but doubts that this world is the same one as another’s, and doubts that the world as it is for me now is the same one that I will
comprehend at a later date. One might wonder why anyone would find such a philosophy appealing. From an ethical point of view, while it destroys the idea of a ‘same’ world of universal truths, it opens up a path toward tolerance and empathy toward those with alien values that is not available to common sense realist thinking about ethics.

the question remains why they "doubt" in the first place, — Ciceronianus

Good question. There is good reason to doubt that Descartes doubted all he claimed to have doubted. After all, he took his motto from Ovid:

He who lived well hid himself well. (Bene qui latuit bene vixit)

So why does he doubt? Quite simply to avoid the fate of Galileo at the hands of the Church. Doubt is for Descartes a rhetorical device. In the terms of this thread it was an affectation.

Once the foundations of a building are undermined, anything built on them collapses of its own accord ...

He hides behind but argues contrary to his pious pretenses. The building he intends to undermine is that of the Church. But he could not hope to live and have his work published if he openly spoke in opposition to the Church. And so, he calls everything into question without overtly calling the authority of the Church and its teaching into question.

In the first Meditation he says:

Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from the senses
or through the senses.

He begins the discourse on optics by affirming this but to other ends:

All the conduct of our lives depends on our senses, among which the sense of sight being the most universal and most noble, there is no doubt that the inventions which serve to augment its power are the most useful that could be made.

The science of optics is a study and theory of the nature of light. Its explanations are in terms of a physics of motion and physiology. Further, what is at issue is not the fact that the senses can deceive us but that they can be augmented and improved upon.

In a letter to Mersenne, Descartes reveals:

...there are many other things in them; and I tell you, between ourselves, that these six Meditations contain all the foundations of my physics. But that must not be spread abroad, if you please; for those who follow Aristotle will find it more difficult to approve them. I hope that [my readers] will accustom themselves insensibly to my principles, and will come to recognize their truth, before perceiving that they destroy those of Aristotle.
– René Descartes to Mersenne, January 28, 1641, Œuvres de Descartes,
3:297–98, quoted and translated by Hiram Caton in The Origin of
Subjectivity, 17

Quoted here

Still cautious, but Aristotle was for the Church the authority on secular things. Often, when citing his authority, it was not even necessary to call him by name, only "the philosopher"

No guarantee if one is one the Quest for Certainty, I suppose. But in this unhappy, imperfect universe we must make judgments without the benefit of absolute knowledge, on the best evidence available at the time we make them. And we do, in real life, if we're wise. — Ciceronianus

Sure, we make judgements, inferences to what we think are the best explanations. But in philosophy, where consensus seems impossible, as opposed to science where it is operative, who decides what is the best evidence or the best basis for judgment, or what wisdom consists in?

I don’t think it’s coincidence that Peirce buttressed his epistemic realism with a belief in God. I should also mention that Dewey, James and Mead ‘doubted’ the grounding of Peirce’s ‘pragmaticism’. — Joshs

Peirce famously doubted James' Pragmatism as well, and so began calling his philosophy "Pragmaticism" to distinguish it from that of Wild Bill. I think Peirce came to accept Dewey's views as similar to his in some respects, though, and that Dewey would agree with his criticism of Descartes' faux doubt among other things. I know nothing of Mead's views of Peirce, or Peirce's view of Mead if he had any.

I mentioned earlier that your own grounding of everyday knowledge in assured belief may be susceptible to doubt on the part of certain contemporary philosophies. — Joshs

I'm not sure what you mean by "assured belief." I like Dewey's somewhat clumsy phrase "warranted assertability." All judgments are subject to revision, though.

It seems to me you’re trying to arrive at the conclusion these two reach without taking the extra step they take in bypassing epistemic belief entirely. — Joshs

Well, in this thread I've been interested in exploring a different route, i.e. why it is that some even take the position that we can't know what's "in the external world" given the fact that our conduct, and indeed how we live, belies that claim.

By giving up epistemic belief as the ultimate basis of knowing in favor of language games, you eliminate skepticism concerning the existence of the world, but you turn that world into a place of relativism. After all, if evidence is no longer the adjudicator of the real, then my culture’s world doesn’t have to jibe with your culture’s world. — Joshs

I don't understand why you think I take the position that "evidence is no longer the adjudicator of the real." Our interaction with the rest of the world and its results are the best evidence we have of the real.

But in philosophy, where consensus seems impossible, as opposed to science where it is operative, who decides what is the best evidence or the best basis for judgment, or what wisdom consists in? — Janus

Unless we're content with philosophy being a kind of intellectual scrum or free for all, we should make the best judgments we can using the same general method we use to make intelligent judgments in life and in science.

So why does he doubt? Quite simply to avoid the fate of Galileo at the hands of the Church. Doubt is for Descartes a rhetorical device. In the terms of this thread it was an affectation. — Fooloso4

That's an interesting view. An affectation of necessity, as it were. That demon would be very handy in that case. Thank you for that insight.

The judgements we make in science and some of the judgements we make in life are empirically based. In life many other kinds of judgements are made on the basis of intuition or emotion, and in philosophy, which goes beyond the criteria exercised in the empirical domain, the conceptions of wisdom are far more subjective than they are in science and the practical dimensions of everyday life.

I'm not sure of the extent to which philosophy "goes beyond the criteria exercised in the empirical domain." There's practical wisdom after all, in which I think would be included the philosophies of ancient schools like Stoicism and Epicureanism, but I'm not sure what you refer to.

Both Stoicism and Epicureanism had their metaphysics which are not empirically testable. It would seem there are as many "practical wisdoms" as there are practical pursuits; beyond demonstrable efficacy in those contexts how would we measure practical wisdom or test for its presence?

The image on the right was taken using film sensitive to reflected (not fluorescent) UV. The other is visible light. — Banno

The image on the right is colour-coded UV data. We are not seeing UV. Just like colour-coded gravitational fields in a computer graph is not the same as seeing gravity. We as humans completely lack the experience of UV, as it does not interact with our senses except sun burns.

I don't understand why you think I take the position that "evidence is no longer the adjudicator of the real." Our interaction with the rest of the world and its results are the best evidence we have of the real. — Ciceronianus

I didnt explain myself very well. I meant that this is a position I assumed you would not take. But it’s worth examining the consequences of rejecting such a path. Going back to Descartes, the belief at that time that the world offers itself up to us in its unvarnished truth only when we use our faculties of reason correctly was accompanied by the anxiety that evil liars and manipulators could plunge unsuspecting innocents into a 17th century version of the Matrix. All an evil genius would have to do is take advantage of the fact that the world that appears to us doesn’t have the power by itself to reveal its true nature, it needs our help via our proper use of rational faculties. Perhaps all Descartes succeeded in demonstrating to his peers is that those faculties are adept enough to make his doubt- based thought experiments seem ludicrous. And yet it did highlight a common assumption of the era, which is that the difference between truth and falsity hangs entirely on the functioning of a rather arbitrary mechanism of logical cogitation.

By the time we get to Peirce, the thinking has shifted in favor of a more equal participation of the material world in the production of truth, thanks to his absorption of Hegelian dialectic. Rationality is not dependent entirely on the skills of a solipsistic cogito, but is intersubjectively produced through interactions with the world. The Matrix scenario no longer makes sense given the dependence of truth on pragmatic interaction, so evil liars become less of a threat.

But still with Peirce we have to worry about situations in which we fail to gain purchase on truth:

Every man is fully satisfied that there is such a thing as truth, or he would not ask any question. That truth consists in a conformity to something independent of his thinking it to be so, or of any man’s opinion on the subject.

The independence of that truth produces anxiety that we might fall victim to hallucination, madness, illusion. We doubt the reality of our world, which is different than saying we doubt that there is such a thing as a real world. That would be self-contradictory, given that doubting one thing is only possible against a wider backdrop of certainty.

But for Peirce as well as Descartes that certainty rests ultimately on faith, faith that whether we have gained proper access to it or not, there are intrinsic objective truths that apply to the world. For the later Wittgenstein and the phenomenologists, faith is no longer needed in order to ground certainty in the existence of the world. They have freed themselves of the anxiety that has accompanied all belief and evidence based foundations of the really true. For them it can never be the case that a disconnect exists between what is actual and what we think is actual, a source of fear that illusion and error could cloud our apprehension of what is true.
We always already find ourselves ensconced within one language game or another, one or another form of life providing the frame of intersubjectively shared certainty within which we can agree or disagree on what is true or false. The frame itself is not a belief but an unquestioned prerequisite and precondition for belief or doubt.

...we have no reasonable basis to challenge the veracity of our senses? — Hanover

I hope that is not what is suggesting. I certainly don't read what he has said in that way. There's all sorts of situations in which it is entirely reasonable to doubt your senses.

What would be absurd is doubting them in every instance.

What the image shows is that with suitable equipment we can see IR. There's no suggestion that this is how the flower "truly" appears - a weird thought.

Once we establish a basis for our skepticism regarding the veracity of our perceptions in one instance (as we just did from your flower example), we'd then logically need to do the same for all perceptions, — Hanover

So once seeing the Müller-Lyer Illusion would lead you to doubt every observation thereafter? I don't see why.

Once we establish a basis for our skepticism regarding the veracity of our perceptions in one instance (as we just did from your flower example), we'd then logically need to do the same for all perceptions, — Hanover

That doesn't follow. Take the example of forged money (notes or coins). Some money is forged. Some money is genuine. Both those statements must be true, or the distinction between them collapses. So one cannot ask of all notes and coins whether they are all forged. One can ask of each note or coin, whether it is forged. But when it has been established that a given note or coin is genuine, the question is empty.

I saw what you did there.

:up:

For the later Wittgenstein and the phenomenologists, faith is no longer needed in order to ground certainty in the existence of the world. They have freed themselves of the anxiety that has accompanied all belief and evidence based foundations of the really true. For them it can never be the case that a disconnect exists between what is actual and what we think is actual, a source of fear that illusion and error could cloud our apprehension of what is true. — Joshs

I'm not sure how this is done in a practical sense. Is your following para the explanation?

We always already find ourselves ensconced within one language game or another, one or another form of life providing the frame of intersubjectively shared certainty within which we can agree or disagree on what is true or false. The frame itself is not a belief but an unquestioned prerequisite and precondition for belief or doubt. — Joshs

So we inhabit a series of contingent 'domains' which we can explore through our shared presuppositions or rules? Which means that we do not access Truth/Reality but shared truths/realities - frames which are without foundation, are relational and context dependent. A meta-narrative version of reality is not something even recognisable from this position. We inhabit forever preconditions for belief and doubt, but never reality itself. Can you expand on this or correct my take?

For them it can never be the case that a disconnect exists between what is actual and what we think is actual, a source of fear that illusion and error could cloud our apprehension of what is true. — Joshs

I think I see what you are getting at. I would worry that this way of putting it seems to claim (or could be misinterpreted to claim) that we are infallible or that certain beliefs are infallible. Don't we have to acknowledge that error (I assume that's what "a disconnect between what is actual and what we think is actual" means) is always possible? The point is, we can recognize it and rectify it (in principle).

We inhabit forever preconditions for belief and doubt, but never reality itself. — Tom Storm

That seems unnecessarily pessimistic. We don't inhabit "preconditions for belief and doubt", we adopt them. When and if they fail, we can correct them. I'm not quite sure what inhabiting reality means, but if I understand what you are getting at, I would say we do inhabit reality - and the possibility of error, and the correction of error - is part of that.

I saw what you did there. — Banno

It's an old one, but still a good one. Credit to Ryle.

So we inhabit a series of contingent 'domains' which we can explore through our shared presuppositions or rules? Which means that we do not access Truth/Reality but shared truths/realities - frames which are without foundation, are relational and context dependent. A meta-narrative version of reality is not something even recognisable from this position. We inhabit forever preconditions for belief and doubt, but never reality itself. Can you expand on this or correct my take? — Tom Storm

I think your summary captures the idea. The meaningful sense of what is true and what is false is only coherent relative to a background intelligibility that orients us in terms of what is at stake and what is at issue for us, and this background grounding shifts over time as our purposes change. Lee Braver puts it this way:

…this lack of justification does not rob thinking of its legitimacy; rather, it makes certain factors and structures “groundless grounds.” The important point about this phrase is that both terms are in effect: while the grounds of all thinking lack the kind of foundation philosophers have long dreamt of, and thus are groundless, they still function as grounds for finite creatures like us. (Lee Braver, Groundless Grounds ;A Study of Wittgenstein and Heidegger)

Wittgenstein likens this relationship between the fast dynamics of ascertaining proportional truth that play out within larger frames of grounding, and the slower movement of the grounding frames, to the waters of a river and the underlying river bed.

94. But I did not get my picture of the world by satisfying myself of its correctness; nor do I have it because I am satisfied of its correctness. No: it is the inherited background against which I distinguish between true and false.

95. The propositions describing this world-picture might be part of a kind of mythology. And their role is like that of rules of a game; and the game can be learned purely practically, without learning any explicit rules.

96. It might be imagined that some propositions, of the form of empirical propositions, were hardened and functioned as channels for such empirical propositions as were not hardened but fluid; and that this relation altered with time, in that fluid propositions hardened, and hard ones became fluid.

97. The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift. But I distinguish between the movement of the waters on the river-bed and the shift of the bed itself; though there is not a sharp division of the one from the other. (On Certainty)

That doesn't follow. Take the example of forged money (notes or coins). Some money is forged. Some money is genuine. Both those statements must be true, or the distinction between them collapses. So one cannot ask of all notes and coins whether they are all forged. One can ask of each note or coin, whether it is forged. But when it has been established that a given note or coin is genuine, the question is empty. — Ludwig V

The forgery example makes clear the significance of subjectivity. That is, the distinction between a true dollar bill and a forged one does not come down to a discernable physical difference between the two because it's possible to create an exact replica. A perfect forgery would still be a forgery. Distinctions in the physical appearance might count as proof of the forgery, but the true distinction is what the authority declares to be real. If I forge a dollar bill and the king is so impressed he declares it real, then it is real.

But the more telling question is this: In @Banno's example, he presented two pictures of the same flower. Which one is the accurate depiction? If we say that Flower B is the correct depiction, do we then say that Flower A is an incorrect version? I don't think we do. My assumption is that you would say that both A and B are correct depictions, just under different conditions.

Consider another example with Flower C, which is a photoshopped version of Flower A, that makes it looks larger and more colorful. Would we not all say that Flower C is not an accurate depiction of the "the flower"? What then makes A and B correct depictions but not C? That is, why is "the flower" under conditions C not a valid flower but the conditions that prevail upon A and B allow the flower to retain its validity.

And "the flower" is the complicated entity that somehow prevails throughout the conditions regardless of what they are.

I'd suggest that what makes us want to say that C is a fake is that we've added something to "the flower" which neither A nor B contains. This distinction collapses, I'd argue, because there's no meaningful difference between the arbitrary changes we impose by photoshopping as there is with regard to the arbitrary changes we might make to the external environment or to our own ability to perceive.

That is, what it means for A and B to be the same but only under "different conditions" but not for C only makes sense if we abitrarily decide which conditions are invasive enough for us to allow "the flower" to still persist.

Perceptions can be manipulated in a number of ways: (1) by manipulating the external environment by changing the lighting, the temperature, the air pollution level, whether it's suspended in air or in a glass of milk, and all sorts of ways; (2) by intentionally changing it by photoshopping it, drawing on it, cutting its leaves, etc; or (3) by changing the perceiver, by altering someone's consciousness, optic nerves, or putting rose colored glasses on the perceiver.

The question then becomes: once I have the phenomenal state of the flower in my consciousness, which one of those still represents the flower? Keep in mind, the question is loaded because it uses the word "represents" which indicates "the flower" is noumenal and has been subjected to all sorts of conditions from within and without that makes us question whether this representation is an accurate one or whether we have been so deceived to see it not as it is.

That is, this is indirect realism, with the italics to indicate we are not questioning whether our perceptions are of something external and real (i.e. not figments of our imagination), but we are questioning whether we have a blurred, photoshopped, or deteriorated version. That I might see a flower as a gorilla under certain conditions only means I am denying direct realism, claiming that the flower does have anything within it that makes it inherently gorilla-like. I see whatever I do as an interplay of the object, the environment, and my subjective way of seeing things, which is why Descartes was correct in asking whether his perceptions were reliable measures of reality.

In order to define what is "fake", by definition one must define what is "real". As your counterfeiting example demonstrates, many, if not most common philosophical examples are of an inter-subjective, not objective nature. Thus in those circumstances perspective is critical because we are addressing opinions, not objective facts.

What would be absurd is doubting them in every instance. — Banno

Right. As for logic, unwarranted extrapolation is a logical fallacy, I think.

Both Stoicism and Epicureanism had their metaphysics which are not empirically testable. It would seem there are as many "practical wisdoms" as there are practical pursuits; beyond demonstrable efficacy in those contexts how would we measure practical wisdom or test for its presence? — Janus

What kind of conduct and thought makes us miserable and how to avoid them seems demonstrable enough in most cases.

The independence of that truth produces anxiety that we might fall victim to hallucination, madness, illusion. We doubt the reality of our world, which is different than saying we doubt that there is such a thing as a real world. — Joshs

How often does that happen? When was the last time you genuinely doubted the reality of the world, in general and not in a particular context? What happened when you did? I think our conduct is the best measure of the reality of our claimed doubt of reality.

I know next to nothing of phenomenology, but something of pragmatism (that of Dewey, at least) and OLP and related criticisms of traditional metaphysics and epistemology, and find them persuasive. I'm just trying to take a different approach; unsuccessfully, perhaps, but I think it's interesting.

Thanks.

If I forge a dollar bill and the king is so impressed he declares it real, then it is real. — Hanover

On the assumption that you have not forged a dollar bill and do not have the abiity to do so, you meant to say "If I were to forge a dollar bill and the USA (I assume this scenario is set in the USA?) has become a monarchy, then it would be real". Maybe. It depends how real dollar bills are defined in the USA. I rather doubt that your scenario is even likely, so I don't feel any need to decide that question.

There's an example in Sense and Sensibilia (pp.65,66) "Suppose that there is a species of fish which looks vividly multi-coloured, slightly glowing perhaps, at a depth of a thousand feet. I ask you what its real colour is. So you catch a specimen and lay it out on deck, making sure the condition of the light is just about normal, and you find that it looks a muddy sort of greyish white. Well, is that its real colour? It's clear enough at any rate that we don't have to say so. In fact, is there any right answer in such a case?"

I conclude that our ordinary understanding of colour will settle what to say about normal variations under various conditions, but doesn't settle what to say about all possible variations under all possible conditions, now matter how remote and fantastic they are.

This distinction collapses, I'd argue, because there's no meaningful difference between the arbitrary changes we impose by photoshopping as there is with regard to the arbitrary changes we might make to the external environment or to our own ability to perceive. — Hanover

Well, I don't see why you say that the difference is not meaningful. The fact that the changes are, in a way, arbitrary is irrelevant.

Perceptions can be manipulated in a number of ways: (1) by manipulating the external environment by changing the lighting, the temperature, the air pollution level, whether it's suspended in air or in a glass of milk, and all sorts of ways; (2) by intentionally changing it by photoshopping it, drawing on it, cutting its leaves, etc; or (3) by changing the perceiver, by altering someone's consciousness, optic nerves, or putting rose colored glasses on the perceiver. — Hanover

You posit a number of different circumstances of different kinds. Why would there be the same answer for all of them? See above.

I find the next paragraphs very confusing, because you shift between talking of the flower and the picture without being clear which you mean, so I'll skip to the chase.

I see whatever I do as an interplay of the object, the environment, and my subjective way of seeing things, which is why Descartes was correct in asking whether his perceptions were reliable measures of reality. — Hanover

I would say the object, the environment and me. However, whatever we say about these cases does not justify asserting that the same difficulties apply to everything we see.

We don't inhabit "preconditions for belief and doubt", we adopt them. When and if they fail, we can correct them. I'm not quite sure what inhabiting reality means, but if I understand what you are getting at, I would say we do inhabit reality — Ludwig V

Sure. I guess I was suggesting that the world we inhabit is one where these precognitions are given. But I get your point. I was looking for a stronger word than adopt because in some cases we don't choose or adopt them, they may more be like presuppositions for a world we think of as true. That kind of thing.

I think I see what you are getting at. I would worry that this way of putting it seems to claim (or could be misinterpreted to claim) that we are infallible or that certain beliefs are infallible. Don't we have to acknowledge that error (I assume that's what "a disconnect between what is actual and what we think is actual" means) is always possible? The point is, we can recognize it and rectify it (in principle). — Ludwig V

The concerns you express here address our epistemic and empirical goals within the confines of our paradigmatic schemes, but those paradigmatic grounds for our beliefs are not themselves beliefs, so at this level the issue is not one of fallibility or error. Our paradigms are not epistemic hooks looking to grasp the actual, they are already actual. This does not mean that there no progress of paradigms, but this cannot be u destroy as a progress from error to truth.