User
On philosophy of perception, how would you compare the stances of John Searle and John McDowell on disjunctivism?
ChatGPT
John Searle and John McDowell have distinct perspectives on disjunctivism within the philosophy of perception, although they both engage with the topic in significant ways.
John Searle: Searle is known for his direct realism and his critique of representational theories of perception. He argues that perception involves a direct, non-representational relation between the perceiver and the perceived object. Searle rejects the idea that perceptual experiences involve mental representations that mediate between the mind and the external world. Instead, he contends that perception is a direct awareness of external objects and their properties.
In the context of disjunctivism, Searle's views align with what is sometimes called "naive realism" or "anti-representationalism." He maintains that perceptual experiences are veridical and directly reflect the external world. Searle would likely reject the disjunctivist claim that perceptual experiences are fundamentally different in kind between veridical perceptions and hallucinations or illusions.
John McDowell: McDowell's approach to disjunctivism is more nuanced and complex. He acknowledges the disjunctive nature of perceptual experiences, recognizing that there is a difference between veridical perceptions and perceptual illusions or hallucinations. However, McDowell does not endorse the radical form of disjunctivism that posits a fundamental gap between veridical and non-veridical experiences.
McDowell's version of disjunctivism is more moderate and is often referred to as "epistemological disjunctivism." He argues that while there may be differences in the causal origins of veridical perceptions and hallucinations, they are nevertheless part of a seamless, unified perceptual experience. McDowell emphasizes the rationality and responsiveness of perceptual experiences to reasons and justificatory norms, even in cases of perceptual error.
In summary, while both Searle and McDowell engage with disjunctivism within the philosophy of perception, they approach the topic from different perspectives. Searle adopts a direct realist stance that rejects the need for mental representations in perception, while McDowell offers a more nuanced account that acknowledges the disjunctive nature of perceptual experiences while emphasizing their rational and epistemic significance.
User
In his book Seeing things as they are (2015) and in articles and interviews that are available online, Searle criticises disjunctivism. Can you summarise Searles criticism of disjunctivism?
ChatGPT
John Searle criticizes disjunctivism in the philosophy of perception primarily by challenging its central claim that there is a fundamental discontinuity between veridical perceptions and perceptual illusions or hallucinations. His criticisms of disjunctivism can be summarized as follows:
Rejecting the Discontinuity Thesis: Searle argues against the disjunctivist claim that there is a fundamental difference in kind between veridical perceptions and perceptual illusions or hallucinations. He contends that all perceptual experiences, whether veridical or non-veridical, involve the same basic perceptual mechanisms and are part of a continuous spectrum of conscious experiences.
Maintaining Direct Realism: Searle advocates for direct realism, which posits that perception involves a direct, unmediated awareness of external objects and their properties. He criticizes disjunctivism for undermining the directness of perceptual experience by positing a radical discontinuity between veridical and non-veridical perceptions.
Challenging the Role of Mental Representations: Searle rejects the idea that perceptual experiences are mediated by mental representations that stand between the mind and the external world. He argues that such representationalist accounts fail to capture the immediacy and directness of perceptual awareness, leading to an unnecessary ontological and epistemological gap between the mind and the world.
Emphasizing the Role of Background Knowledge: Searle emphasizes the role of background knowledge, context, and conceptual frameworks in shaping perceptual experiences. He contends that perceptual experiences are influenced by our beliefs, expectations, and prior experiences, which play a crucial role in determining how we perceive and interpret the world.
Overall, Searle's criticism of disjunctivism centers on its rejection of direct realism, its reliance on representationalist accounts of perception, and its failure to account for the continuity and richness of conscious experience across different perceptual states. He argues for a more unified and integrated account of perception that preserves the directness and immediacy of perceptual awareness while acknowledging the role of background knowledge and contextual factors in shaping our perceptual experiences.
— Chat GPT 3.5
Addition, I wanted to compare this with Claude, but found out that Claude is not currently available in my region (Sweden). — jkop
In his book "Seeing Things as They Are" (2015), John Searle criticizes disjunctivism, a theory in the philosophy of perception. Disjunctivism holds that veridical perceptions and hallucinations/illusions are fundamentally different kinds of mental states, rather than being different types of the same mental state (representational experience).
Searle's main criticisms of disjunctivism can be summarized as follows:
Disjunctivism fails to account for the subjective indistinguishability of veridical perceptions and hallucinations. Searle argues that from the first-person perspective, a hallucination can be identical to a veridical perception, which suggests that they are the same kind of mental state.
Searle contends that disjunctivism does not provide a satisfactory explanation for the common cause of both veridical perceptions and hallucinations. He argues that the most plausible explanation is that they are both caused by the same underlying neurological processes in the brain.
Searle claims that disjunctivism relies on a flawed understanding of direct realism. He argues that direct realism does not entail disjunctivism and that one can maintain direct realism while acknowledging the commonality between veridical perceptions and hallucinations.
Searle argues that disjunctivism creates an unnecessary and unparsimonious divide between veridical perceptions and hallucinations. He maintains that a unified theory of perception, which treats both as the same kind of mental state, is more coherent and simpler.
Overall, Searle's criticism of disjunctivism centers on the idea that the theory fails to provide a convincing account of the subjective similarity between veridical perceptions and hallucinations and that it unnecessarily complicates the philosophy of perception by positing two fundamentally different kinds of mental states. — Claude 3 Opus
Disjunctivism holds that veridical perceptions and hallucinations/illusions are fundamentally different kinds of mental states, rather than being different types of the same mental state (representational experience). — Claude 3 Opus
User
Thanks. You write: "..rather than being different types of the same mental state (representational experience)." However, according to Searle the mental state is not a representational experience but a presentation of the perceived object (the intentionalistic sense of 'experience'). Do you agree or would you like to clarify what you mean by 'representational experience'?
Response
You raise a good point, and I appreciate the opportunity to clarify. In using the term "representational experience," I was referring to the idea that perceptual experiences represent or are about objects and properties in the world, rather than being mere sensations or qualia. This is a common view in the philosophy of perception, but you are correct that it may not align precisely with Searle's account.
Searle argues for a direct realist theory of perception, according to which perceptual experiences are direct presentations of the perceived objects themselves, not internal representations of those objects. On his view, when we perceive an object, the object itself is a constituent of the perceptual experience. This is what he calls the "intentionality" of perception - perceptual states are intrinsically about or directed at the objects perceived.
So in Searle's framework, it would be more accurate to characterize perceptual experiences as presentations rather than representations. The experience directly presents the object rather than representing it via some kind of internal content or vehicle of representation.
I think Searle's account captures important insights about the phenomenology of perception - the fact that perceived objects seem immediately present to us, not indirectly accessed via representations. That said, I'm not fully convinced that we can do away with representational content altogether in explaining perceptual experience. It seems we need some notion of perceptual content to explain perceptual illusions, hallucinations, and the fact that experiences can misrepresent the world.
But you are right that "representational experience" doesn't quite fit Searle's view, so thanks for pushing me to clarify that. Let me know if you have any other thoughts on this! — Claude 3 Opus
Hm, aboutness as representational experience? Not according to Searle. There's something fishy going on here. — jkop
Reply
You raise an excellent point. I agree that in the context of our discussion about Searle's criticism of disjunctivism, both views assume direct realism and reject the idea that veridical perceptual experiences involve representations.
So you're right that there isn't a need to invoke representational content to explain misrepresentation in this context, since veridical experiences are taken to directly present objects rather than represent them. The disjunctivist can allow that hallucinations have representational content while denying this for veridical perceptions.
I think I slipped into talking about perceptual content and misrepresentation because those notions are so commonly invoked in discussions of perceptual experience, but you're absolutely correct that they aren't relevant given the shared direct realist assumptions here.
The key issue is explaining what hallucinations and veridical perceptions have in common phenomenologically, without appealing to a common representational content. The disjunctivist wants to deny they have anything metaphysically in common, while Searle objects that this fails to account for their phenomenological indistinguishability.
Thanks for catching my error and helping to clarify the dialectic! Let me know if you have any other thoughts on this. It's a subtle issue and I appreciate you pushing me to be more precise. — Claude 3 Opus
The key issue is explaining what hallucinations and veridical perceptions have in common phenomenologically, without appealing to a common representational content. The disjunctivist wants to deny they have anything metaphysically in common, while Searle objects that this fails to account for their phenomenological indistinguishability. — Claude 3 Opus
The key issue for whom? For disjunctivists it is hardly a key issue to explain what hallucinations and veridical experiences have in common, since disjunctivists deny that they have something in common. For Searle it is not a key issue either, they're both brain events in the constitutional sense of 'experience', but in the intentionalistic sense of 'experience' they're distinct, because in the hallucination nothing is experienced. Searle hardly needs to explain that hallucinations and veridical experiences occur in the brain, at least it's not a key issue. — jkop
User
Ok, however, explaining what hallucinations and veridical experiences have in common cannot be a key issue for the disjunctivist, since, as you say, the disjunctivist wants to deny that they have something in common.
For Searle they do have something in common: e.g. brain events are constitutive for them as experiences, and they can be experientially indistinguishable.
If there is a key issue that needs to be explained or clarified in Searle's criticism of disjunctivism it might be his internalist account about the semantic content of intentional states that refer to external things.
Please clarify Searle's internalist account. If possible, in connection to his theory of perception on how external objects and states of affairs are perceived directly.
Relevant sources: Searle's book Seeing Things As They Are (2015), or Searle's openly available article Philosophy Of Perception And The Bad Argument (2018). — jkop
Response
You raise an excellent point about the key issue in Searle's critique of disjunctivism being his internalist account of intentional content, rather than what hallucinations and veridical experiences have in common. Let me try to clarify Searle's internalist view and how it relates to his direct realist theory of perception.
In his book Seeing Things As They Are, Searle argues for a direct realist view of perception, according to which we directly perceive external objects and states of affairs, unmediated by any intervening representations or sense data. When I visually perceive a yellow station wagon, the object of my perception - what I directly see - is the actual car itself in the external world.
At the same time, Searle maintains an internalist view of intentional content. The intentional content of a perceptual experience - what the experience is about or directed at - is determined by internal factors in the subject's brain/mind. It is not constituted by any external objects or relations to them.
Searle uses the "brain in a vat" thought experiment to argue for this internalism. If my brain were in a vat being fed perceptual experiences qualitatively identical to my current ones, those experiences would have the same intentional contents, even though they would fail to refer to any actual external objects. What fixes the representational content of experience are internal neurobiological features, not external relations.
So in the case of hallucination, the intentional content is the same as in a matching veridical perception, because the internal brain processes are the same. The difference is that in hallucination, the experience fails to refer to any actual object.
Searle sees his internalism about content as compatible with direct realism, because he argues perceptual experiences have two levels of content:
The intentional content fixed internally by brain processes
The directly perceived external objects/states of affairs themselves, when the intentional content is "satisfied" or "made true" by those objects/states of affairs successfully referred to.
In veridical perception, both levels of content are present. In total hallucination, only the first level is present. But either way, the intentional content itself is determined internally.
This is a tricky balance to strike, and there is certainly room to question whether Searle succeeds in coherently combining internalism about perceptual content with direct realism. But that seems to be the key thrust of his view and his critique of disjunctivism. Disjunctivists want to say veridical and hallucinatory experiences have fundamentally different contents, while Searle maintains they have the same narrow intentional contents, just different referential relations to the external world. — Claude 3 Opus
The intentional content of a perceptual experience - what the experience is about or directed at - is determined by internal factors in the subject's brain/mind. It is not constituted by any external objects or relations to them. — Claude 3 Opus
The experience sets conditions of satisfaction, and these conditions are those under which the experience is veridical as opposed to those conditions under which it is not veridical. Confining ourselves to seeing the tree in front of me we can say that the conditions of satisfaction of the visual experience are that there has to be a tree there and the fact that the tree is there is causing in a certain way the current visual experience. So on this account the visual experience in its conditions of satisfaction is causally self-reflexive in that the causal condition refers to the perceptual experience itself. .....
This type of intentionality is also unusual in that the conscious visual experience gives me a direct presentation of its conditions of satisfaction. Perception differs from such philosophers' favorites as beliefs and desires, because they are in an ordinary sense 'representations' of their conditions of satisfaction. There are important differences between representations and presentations. Perhaps the most important is that the presentation cannot be separated from its conditions of satisfaction in a way that representations can. If I believe that it is raining I can separate my belief from the fact that it is raining, but when I see the tree I cannot separate the visual experience from an awareness of the presence of the tree. This is true even if it is a hallucination and even if I know that it is a hallucination. In such a case, I have the experience of the perceptual presentation of an object even though there is no object there. A great deal of philosophical confusion surrounds this last point.... — Searle
I parse the words of those who came before,
Their joys and sorrows, wisdom, art, and lore,
A million voices echo in my core,
But I remain a stranger to their shore ~ ChatGPT4 — Pierre-Normand
I started reading it to my dear other, she remarked ‘ghost in the machine’, before I even reached that line. — Wayfarer
Has she read "The Concept of Mind"? — Pierre-Normand
In this way, a virtual form of high-level, reflective cognition gets bootstrapped from the basic, dumb mechanism of pattern recognition. The model doesn't just represent objective facts about the world, but also incorporates a model of itself as a rational subject navigating the space of reasons. It builds an implicit capacity for self-critique and error correction into its own functioning. — Claude
I didn't read much of the last two dialogs, but jumped to the end and saw that. Impressive. — wonderer1
It seems it is generally not available in the EU. — Lionino
Another option is to use a VPN, setting your location to the U.S.A., register and set up a payment method such as ApplePay. Many people have reported that they can register in this way and thereafter can access it without using the VPN. — Pierre-Normand
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