We have been dealing with the visual sense of the word, and I don't think it is going to help to bring in other senses of 'see'. — Janus

Perhaps this is the distinction between the Indirect Realist and the Direct Realist.

The Indirect Realist says that in the sentence "I see a straight stick that appears bent", the word "see" is being used as a figure of speech and not literally, as in "I can clearly see your future".

The Direct Realist says that there is no difference between a word being used as a figure of speech or literally.

With science we force the object to present more of itself than it wants to. — Jamal

So a connotation of animism? :wink:

Nice summary. I was—or Banno was—hung up on the connoted attribution of agency to an object that “presents itself.” It wasn’t clear to me how we go from the object as “constituted by the subject through intentional acts” to the object as that which is doing the presenting. I’m not saying this doesn’t work, just that the locution is not clear to me — Jamal

The object of an intentional act is neither discovered nor invented, neither simply “forced to present more of itself than it wants to” nor accommodated by the subject as an arbitrary in-itself. The object is “a unity which “appears” continually in the change of the modes of its givenness and which belongs to the essential structure of a specific act of the ego.” “The "object" of consciousness, the object as having identity "with itself" during the flowing subjective process, does not come into the process from outside; on the contrary, it is included as a sense in the subjective process itself and thus as an "intentional effect" produced by the synthesis of consciousness.”(Husserl). So on the side of the subject there is an intentional effect of synthesis (what you call forcing it to present more of itself than it wants to) , and on the side of the object there is presentation or appearance, the aspect of objectification that always resists subsumption within pre-given laws or categories.

The work of the applied scientist is often popularly described as if it were a series of hostile acts: ‘So-and-so wrested from the soil a new source of food’, ‘Whosits forced the atom to give up its secret’. These are grossly misleading descriptions of scientific behavior.(George Kelly)

Also at the thread in general.

It takes a bit of mental contortion to construe the kind of object people are talking about in a direct vs indirect realism debate as transparently an intentional one. The distinction between the two seems to turn on the type of relationship between the content of an intentional act and what that act concerns. And indeed whether there is a distinction between the intentional content of an act and what the act concerns in the first place.

To my reckoning - at least in terms of intentional content - the debate turns on the means by which an object informs the content of perceptual acts involving it. Like a direct realist might be committed to a claim like: "the frequencies of light reflected from an object partially determine how it is seen". There are forms with stronger dependence. An indirect realist might be committed to the claim "what is seen is never an object". There are forms which allow dependence upon the object.

At least on the forum, productive discussions of direct vs indirect realism tend to require pinning down where the disagreement is between disputants.

At least on the forum, productive discussions of direct vs indirect realism tend to require pinning down where the disagreement is between disputants. — fdrake

Suppose in the world is the object "apple" and I perceive an "apple". In my mind, I am conscious of an "apple", and there is an intentionality within my mind about an "apple".

But I cannot perceive an object separate to its properties, in that I cannot perceive an "apple" separate to its properties, such as the colour green and a circular shape. If the object had no properties, then I wouldn't be able to perceive it in the first place.

This means that in fact I am not perceiving an object but rather a set of properties.

The Indirect Realist says that the object emitted a wavelength of 550nm which we perceive as the colour green.

In order for the Direct Realist to see the world as it really is, if they perceive a green object then the actual object must be green.

The question is, does the object emit a wavelength that the Indirect Realist perceives as green, or is the object green?

It depends on definition.

As the Direct Realists define an object that emits a wavelength of 550nm as a green object, by their own definition they are correct

As the Indirect Realists don't define an object that emits a wavelength of 550nm as a green object, by their own definition they are correct.

Even though they are playing different language games to each other, within their own language games they are both correct.

It takes a bit of mental contortion to construe the kind of object people are talking about in a direct vs indirect realism debate as transparently an intentional one…At least on the forum, productive discussions of direct vs indirect realism tend to require pinning down where the disagreement is between disputants. — fdrake

I have a confession to make. I deviated from the topic of the OP in responding to you and Jamal concerning the meaning of an object’s presenting itself in Husserlian phenomenology. I take Husserl to be neither a direct nor an indirect realist , and his use of the term ‘intentional’ is entirely different in its sense from the various ways it is used in analytic philosophy, or in debates between direct and indirect realists.

I take Husserl to be neither a direct nor an indirect realist , and his use of the term ‘intentional’ is entirely different in its sense from the various ways it is used in analytic philosophy, or in debates between direct and indirect realists. — Joshs

Aight! I'm glad. Apologies for misinterpreting the context.

Disagree. Indirect and Direct Realism are part of epistemology. — RussellA

Doesn't seem right. Lots of epistemology is based on idealism or the nature of language with no interest in realist accounts of perception.

I think everyone should be sceptical, whether the Indirect or Direct Realist. Who wants to unquestionably believe everything they are told. — RussellA

Sure, but it is one thing to be skeptical about beliefs of what you see, and another to be skeptical about the seeing as well. In the latter case the skepticism becomes insurmountable.

While the direct realist may not always know what it is that he sees, it can usually be found out and explained. The indirect realist, however, assumes that he never sees things directly, only representations, e.g. 1 mm dots, and that has, in fact, epistemological consequences. As long as the assumption is that you never see things directly, then skepticism follows. Not so for the direct realist. — jkop

It doesn't seem that way to me. Any reason an indirect realist might have to be skeptical seems inherently applicable to direct realists as well.

You might ask an indirect realist, for example, "How do you know that red dot you're experiencing visually was REALLY caused by mars?" And... well, you can ask the exact same question to the direct realist, no? The direct realist doesn't have BETTER reasons to think the red dot in their visual experience is caused by mars.

The Indirect Realist says that in the sentence "I see a straight stick that appears bent", the word "see" is being used as a figure of speech and not literally, as in "I can clearly see your future".

The Direct Realist says that there is no difference between a word being used as a figure of speech or literally. — RussellA

I'm not too sure about that. The direct realist would say "I see what appears to be a bent stick, but I know it's really pretty straight, because I took it out of the water".

The direct realist doesn't have BETTER reasons to think the red dot in their visual experience is caused by mars — flannel jesus

Right, what causes our experiences is something that we find out empirically. Let's clarify some reasons and their consequences.

Since the indirect realist thinks that s/he sees a 1 mm red dot in the visual field, s/he might first want to consult an eye surgeon instead of using a telescope to find out whether the cause is in the eye, or some hallucination, or mysterious sense-data with a causal relation to the planet.

For the direct realist there is little reason for such exaggerated skepticism about vision. S/he doesn't see a dot (unless the cause is a dot). When the cause is the planet, then s/he sees the planet. The planet's appearance is relative the distance, angle of view, available sunlight and so on.

There is no shame in hitting the wall of paralogisms and antinomies. Or maybe there is. — Jamal

There might be shame in attempting to continue, rather than turn aside. Coherence has merit.

Direct Realists are immune to eye problems? I thought cataracts were a thing regardless of if direct realism or indirect realism make more sense. If direct realism is incompatible with eye problems, then direct realism is incompatible with reality - eye problems exist. Same with hallucinations - some humans have hallucinations sometimes and that's just a fact, that's not specifically an indirect realism problem. If direct realism is incompatible with hallucinations, direct realism is incompatible with reality, because we know hallucinations happen.

And if direct realism IS compatible with eye problems and hallucinations, then a direct realist should question the red dot for those reasons to the same extent the indirect realist should.

There might be shame in attempting to continue, rather than turn aside. Coherence has merit. — Banno

I think it's not a matter of shame, as if there could be a fact of the matter as to what is intellectually shameful, but rather a matter of personal predilection and/ or interest. I have no doubt you won't agree but that's alright.

Direct Realists are immune to eye problems? — flannel jesus

That doesn't follow from what I write, though.

I suppose the direct realist will be quick to notice a defect in the visual system (it's not an object of vision) unlike the indirect realist for whom all vision is somehow defective relative objects in themselves.

I don't think you're making a very compelling case that indirect realists need to have any special skepticism in regards to what they see. We all live in the same world, were all subject to the same illusions and eye problems - that's not some particular point of disagreement between direct and indirect realists. So far, any skepticism you think should be applied to indirect realist perceptions can just be equally applied to direct realists.

It all just seems very ad-hoc applied.

Some folk do have a predilection for inconsistency. Anything follows.

(p & ~p) ⊃ q

I agree but speculative metaphysics is not necessarily inconsistent (Hegel for example) even if it might be thought implausible or empirically and /or logically underdetermined.

..speculative metaphysics is not necessarily inconsistent (Hegel for example) — Janus

I'll have to take your word for it.

Dialectic provides a wonderful frame for critique - in the hands of Žižek, the jokes just roll. But is it true?

I am not sure what it could mean to even ask.

And if it is not even true, nor false, how is it inconsistent?

And if it is not even true, nro false, how is it consistent? — Banno

It is consistent if it doesn't contradict itself.

And how does it contradict itself unless it asserts truth an falsehood of some proposition?

Maybe we should go back a few steps. Here is a nice clean metaphysical proposal: Energy is always conserved. it's metaphysical in Poppernian terms because it is neither falsifiable nor verifiable. (The naive falsificationists are now having conniptions...)

And when we find what looks like energy failing to be conserved, we invented the accounting trick of potential energy to make sure the books stayed balanced.

So is the conservation of energy a fact about the world, or a way of checking that our talk about energy is consistent? And if this latter, then it is not itself consistent, but the measure against which we determine consistency.

Or something like that. Mere speculation.

So is the conservation of energy a fact about the world, or a way of checking that our talk about energy is consistent? And if this latter, then it is not itself consistent, but the measure against which we determine consistency. — Banno

It might be a fact about the world, or it might not. Do we know what the "might not" could look like? Most of our experience points to it being the case, so it is (mostly?) consistent with our experience. In any case I was referring more to internal consistency. Is there an inherent inconsistency in the idea of the conservation of energy?

It might be fact about the world, or it might not. — Janus

I'm a bit surprised that you say that. But anyway.

Perhaps conservation laws are take to be true in the way axioms are - in order to get on with doing stuff. Noether's theorem shows how conservation laws are a result of assumptions of symmetry and continuity.

I'm suggesting that perhaps the conservation of energy is no more a fact than the length of the standard metre was 1m.

(But what would Kripke say here?)

Perhaps conservation laws are take to be true in the way axioms are - in order to get on with doing stuff. Noether's theorem shows how conservation laws are a result of assumptions of symmetry and continuity — Banno

Yes, the assumption of the conservation of energy seems to work in the sense of being consistent with most of our science. Does that mean it is true? How could we know?

It might be right regarding it being no more a fact than the length of the standard metre being a metre, but again, I don't know about that, it's an analogy I can't get my head around.

Not sure what Kripke would say, I imagine you would have a much better idea about that than I.

Does that mean it is true? How could we know? — Janus

We can't falsify it; we can't demonstrate it. But we can assume it.

So, where were we? This:

Coherence has merit. — Banno

We can't falsify it; we can't demonstrate it. But we can assume it. — Banno

Exactly, speaking in terms of the external it seems to be consistent with our general experience and understanding, including science—but the question remains as to whether it contains any internal inconsistency. I can't see that it does.

I don't think you're making a very compelling case that indirect realists need to have any special skepticism in regards to what they see. — flannel jesus

It follows from their assumption that perception is indirect: they never see the world, only their own sense-data or worse.

I'm suggesting that perhaps the conservation of energy is no more a fact than the length of the standard metre was 1m. — Banno

From my perspective the standard metre is an agreed upon physical reference as to what distance is to be considered 1m. It seems to me the point of a standard metre is that a bunch of people agree to use it as the definition of a metre, until something better comes along. I assume you aren't suggesting there is such a thing as an actual metre, aside from there being such a consensus on how "metre" is defined.

I'm not at all sure what you said there. I don't know what a "physical reference" might be, nor an "actual metre".

Are you aware of the difference in opinion between Wittgenstein and Kripke?

A thread on its own. Or a career.

Can you see an analogy with the idea of the conservation of energy?