I agree, observations and reasoning are important.

Plato’s explanation of knowledge as justified true belief has stood for thousands of years.

The question is, which justified beliefs are true.

Problem one is that there is no one definition of truth, and problem two is that, even if there was, how would we know what the truth was. — RussellA

If we link the truth to our goals does that resolve the problem? The information we use to accomplish some goal is true. The information we use that causes us to fail in our goals is false.

I think the question is whether sense of self is direct or indirect. If it were direct, then it would seem that there is nothing I would not know about myself. I would be fully transparent to myself. If it is indirect, then self-consciousness is not always present. — Leontiskos

What I am may be a mystery, but that I am can only be denied on pain of contradiction.

However, since what a thought is, is not all that clear, there are compound issues with being clear as to the content of a thought. Perhaps this explains much of the puzzlement hereabouts. — Banno

No question. My thought1 and thought2 discrimination was trying to make some progress there, because even if we say, "OK, we're clear about thought2, it's the 'content' of a thought," we still are left with the uncertainty you describe about the nature of thought1. I would be fascinated to know if there is any psychological/scientific consensus on what a thought is, understood as a mental phenomenon. I would bet they're even more confused than the philosophers are. I suppose in good conscience they'd have to leave out any talk of thought2?!

The way things are: the tree is dropping its leaves.

A report about the way things are: "The tree is dropping its leaves".

A report of a thought: I think that the tree is dropping its leaves. Another: I thought "The tree is dropping its leaves".

A few more thoughts. Is the tree dropping its leaves? Is the thing dropping leaves a tree? I wish the tree would not drop it's leaves. Let's call that thing that is dropping leaves, a "tree".

A report about a thought: I wonder if the tree will drop its leaves.

There's quite a lot going on in each of these. — Banno

It's interesting how the first two stick out. The first one, if I'm understanding you, isn't a thought at all; it's meant to be something in the world. Probably a photo of the tree would be the best way to represent it. The second is supposed to be thought2, the "propositional content" of someone or other's thought1. That you invoke "the way things are" for both speaks to Rodl's perplexity about how this can be. All the other formulations are 1st-personal, even the 1st "report of a thought," because although it asserts the proposition, it's phrased as someone's assertion. (And the 2nd "report" is clearly referring to a thought1 thought, quoted.)

I know I've never really laid out a case, if there is one, for why Rodl's perplexity about "content" makes sense. Any case I make has to account for the usages you list. God knows, the force/content distinction allows us to say things we want to say about both logic and thinking. Which Rodl doesn't deny, he just thinks we shouldn't want to say those things, as they're based on a misunderstanding. I'm still wrestling with it. (And barely halfway through his book . . . )

Language does not make us think in ways that we already could not. — Harry Hindu

I wonder if Ildefonso now thinks in ways he could not before he learned language. I'll have to think about that.

But even if language did not make him think in ways that he already could not, it certainly made him think in ways he had not. One day, I saw a book called Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. I'm a Bach freak, and Escher is great, so, despite never having heard of Gödel, I thought I'd see what it was about. I had never heard of Zeno's or Russell's paradoxes before I found GEB. We know everything we know because, at some point in our lives, we're exposed to them for the first time. My first exposure to these paradoxes came from reading a book. Because of the scribbles. One guy scribbled on paper, and, decades later, by looking at those scribbles, someone else is thinking in ways he never had before.

Fortunately not a requirement! Although to listen to some people on TPF, you'd think it was a requirement, and anyone who isn't quite sure what they think, and pursues possible lines of inquiry, is perceived as "refusing to take a position" or "arguing sophistically" or something like that. — J

Chin up! It's not the subject matter. Such people are in all walks of life. But there are also other types.

I know I've never really laid out a case, if there is one, for why Rodl's perplexity about "content" makes sense. — J

It is worrisome that after reading so much Rödl you're still not sure what he is objecting to in Frege. Is the same true of Kimhi?

I would try visiting Geach to find out, as he is the basis of the criticism for both Kimhi and Klima (and note that Rödl is indebted to Kimhi on this score). Geach is the first domino that I know of who critiques Frege in this way.

"Assertion," by Peter Geach
"The Frege-Geach Problem 60 Years Later: A Tribute to an Enduring Semantic Puzzle"

If we link the truth to our goals does that resolve the problem? The information we use to accomplish some goal is true. The information we use that causes us to fail in our goals is false. — Harry Hindu

Are you saying that if we start with a preconceived notion of the truth, and this is supported by observations, then this shows that our preconceived notion of the truth was correct.

The problem becomes when we only use those observations that agree with our preconceived notion of the truth and reject any observation that doesn't.

the force/content distinction allows us to say things we want to say about both logic and thinking. — J

To my understanding:

In my terms, Frege is a Direct Realist in that he believes that force is separate to content. For example, in the world apples exist independent of any observer.

In my terms, Rodl is an Indirect Realist in that he believes that force is inside content. For example, when we see a red object, as the colour red only exists in the mind and not the world, not only our thought about the colour red but also the content of the thought, the colour red, exist in the mind. However, it may not be the case as Rodl says that force is internal to content, but rather force is content

In my opinion, Rodl's argument that self-awareness can be used to show that force must be inside content is a non-starter, as the self-consciousness of the "I" is separate to not only to any thought but also to what is being thought about. This means that self-consciousness has nothing to say about the relation between a thought and what is being thought about, in other words between the force and content.

However, there are other arguments that may be made to show that force cannot be separate to content.

the self-consciousness of the "I" is separate to not only to any thought but also to what is being thought about. — RussellA

Separate in what sense? You would at least have to agree that they are both held by the one mind.

Rodl is an Indirect Realist — RussellA

His book is titled ‘an introduction to absolute idealism.’ If he was an indirect realist perhaps he wouldn’t have used that description.

Separate in what sense? You would at least have to agree that they are both held by the one mind. — Wayfarer

I agree that all these exist in the mind "I", "think" and "p".

But I can hold in my mind two separate thoughts, "I need to buy some bread" and "Paris is in France". Just because these two thoughts are in my mind doesn't mean that they aren't separate thoughts.

In my mind is the thought "I like apples", where "I" is separate to "like apples". If "I" wasn't separate to its predicate "like apples" then "I" would be no more than any contingent predicate. In other words, if "I" wasn't separate to its predicate, then for example, "I" would be "like apples", "I" would be "visited the Eiffel Tower", etc.

The "I" is self-conscious regardless of any contingent predicate.
===============================================================================

His book is titled ‘an introduction to absolute idealism.’ If he was an indirect realist perhaps he wouldn’t have used that description. — Wayfarer

Absolute Idealism and Indirect Realism are not incompatible.

Kant was a Realist even though his theory was called Transcendental Idealism.

I have read that 80% of phd philosophers are Realists. In fact, I challenge you to find a quote by Rodl in his book An Introduction to Absolute Idealism where he says that a mind-independent world does not exist. This would of course lead to the situation that the Universe began when Humans first appeared, which I am sure even Rodl does not believe.

Rodl's main influence was Hegel, and he sees himself re-introducing Hegel's Absolute Idealism. (Wikipedia - Sebastain Rodl)

According to Hegel, in order for the thinking subject to be able to know its object, there must be in some sense an identity of thought and being (Wikipedia - Absolute Idealism)

Hegel is not an Idealist in the sense of Berkeley, for whom the world does not exist outside the mind.

For example, I am both an Absolute Idealist and an Indirect Realist.

Thought is an activity….
— Mww

↪Mww - :up: — Leontiskos

At first, I was ok with Rödl’s initial premises; each published philosopher has his own. But later on, came to object to the development of them.

I mean…

“…. What is thought first-personally contains its being thought….” (Pg 2)

….what does that say except thought is what is thought; IS thought and BEING thought are exactly the same thing; was there ever a thought that wasn’t first-personal? Watahell’s a guy supposed to do with any of that?

Ehhhh…probably just me, too dense to unpack what’s being said.

I wonder if Ildefonso now thinks in ways he could not before he learned language. I'll have to think about that. — Patterner

Sure he thinks in ways he could not before. He now understands that there are ideas can be shared. Can't it be said that you change when you learn anything new? Again, you seem to be trying to make a special, unwarranted case for scribbles.

But even if language did not make him think in ways that he already could not, it certainly made him think in ways he had not. One day, I saw a book called Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid. I'm a Bach freak, and Escher is great, so, despite never having heard of Gödel, I thought I'd see what it was about. I had never heard of Zeno's or Russell's paradoxes before I found GEB. We know everything we know because, at some point in our lives, we're exposed to them for the first time. My first exposure to these paradoxes came from reading a book. Because of the scribbles. One guy scribbled on paper, and, decades later, by looking at those scribbles, someone else is thinking in ways he never had before. — Patterner

Exactly. It wasn't language that made you think differently. It was the ideas in a book expressed in language that changed your thinking. The ideas could have been expressed in any form as long as there were rules that we agreed upon for interpreting the forms, and as long as you had a mind capable of already understanding multiple levels of representation.

Sure he thinks in ways he could not before. He now understands that there are ideas can be shared. Can't it be said that you change when you learn anything new? — Harry Hindu

It seems to me learning language played a pretty big role in his ability to think in ways he could not before.

Exactly. It wasn't language that made you think differently. It was the ideas in a book expressed in language that changed your thinking. The ideas could have been expressed in any form as long as there were rules that we agreed upon for interpreting the forms, and as long as you had a mind capable of already understanding multiple levels of representation. — Harry Hindu

Yes. I still don't know where I'm suggesting any power, or something that isn't logically possible.

Are you saying that if we start with a preconceived notion of the truth, and this is supported by observations, then this shows that our preconceived notion of the truth was correct.

The problem becomes when we only use those observations that agree with our preconceived notion of the truth and reject any observation that doesn't. — RussellA

You said,

I agree, observations and reasoning are important.

Plato’s explanation of knowledge as justified true belief has stood for thousands of years.

The question is, which justified beliefs are true.

Problem one is that there is no one definition of truth, and problem two is that, even if there was, how would we know what the truth was. — RussellA

...which I understand to mean that the word, "truth" is meaningless if we could never know when we know the truth and when we don't.

I'm trying to redefine "truth" in a way that is meaningful in that maybe truth is not a relation between some state of the world and our ideas of the world. Instead "truth" can be thought of as a relation between some idea and the success or failure of some goal.

It seems to me learning language played a pretty big role in his ability to think in ways he could not before. — Patterner

As I have said, learning anything can play a role in your ability to think in ways you did not before. Language is not special in this regard. After you learned a language, did you stop learning anything? Have you not learned new things since you learned a language that changed your ability to think in ways you did not before?

I am not saying that language does not change the way you think. I'm saying that there is nothing special about language in this regard. Making any observation, whether it be watching the behavior of birds, or reading about the behavior of birds, changes the way you think about birds, and I would argue that directly observing birds is better than than reading about them in a book.

At this point I think you should provide examples of how language changed the way you think in ways you did not before. What ways of thinking do you need to be able to learn a language in the first place?

At first, I was ok with Rödl’s initial premises; each published philosopher has his own. But later on, came to object to the development of them.

I mean…

“…. What is thought first-personally contains its being thought….” (Pg 2)

….what does that say except thought is what is thought; IS thought and BEING thought are exactly the same thing; was there ever a thought that wasn’t first-personal? Watahell’s a guy supposed to do with any of that?

Ehhhh…probably just me, too dense to unpack what’s being said. — Mww

What is the difference between first and third person anyway? It seems to me that you are always stuck in one view and the other view is simply changing what it is you are attending to in your mind - the world or yourself? What does it mean to be self-conscious - the act of talking to yourself in your head?

What forms do your thoughts take? If you hear your own voice talking to yourself, is that a first or third person view - hearing the sound of your voice in your mind? Is the sound of your voice all there is to your thoughts?

I agree that all these exist in the mind "I", "think" and "p". — RussellA

But what forms do they take in your mind? How do you know they exist in your mind? Are "I", "think" and "p" just scribbles and that is the form they take in your mind, or do the scribbles refer to other things that are not scribbles and those are what exist in your mind? In seeing these scribbles on the screen, are the same as what is in your mind?

You say things like this:

Sure he thinks in ways he could not before. — Harry Hindu

As I have said, learning anything can play a role in your ability to think in ways you did not before. Language is not special in this regard. — Harry Hindu

Yet you say things like this:

Language does not make us think in ways that we already could not. — Harry Hindu

How are these things not contradictory?

What I meant was that while language does change what we can think, it does not change the way we think. It is merely representative of the way we already think. You should try to answer the question I just posed to you in what ways of thinking are required for you to learn a language in the first place and that might help resolve the contradiction and provide a better explanation of what I am getting at.

What is the difference between first and third person anyway? — Harry Hindu

Pretty open-ended question, isn’t it? Within the context I was talking about, though, there isn’t any third-person to be found, the very notion is absurd.

It seems to me that you are always stuck in one view…. — Harry Hindu

The view belonging to the subject, yet without the pitiful nonsense of Cartesian theater, right?

I don't know how to answer the question, because I don't know the difference between the way I can think and the way I think. If there are different ways a person can think, do we each choose different ways at different times? Or do we each have just one that, for whatever reason, we settled on, perhaps very early in life?

My focus has been on things and types of things we think about, not the way we think. Thinking about an object, say, a boulder on a hill, and thinking about what that boulder might do in the future, say, roll down the hill, are different kinds of thoughts. Thinking about that boulder landing on me leads to thinking about my mortality, which is yet another kind of thought. Thinking about these different kinds of thoughts Is a fourth kind of thought. At least it seems this way to me.

But I don't know that I'm not thinking these different kinds of thoughts in the same way. If they are different ways of thinking, I guess they are the thingd that might answer your question? But what are those ways?

I'm trying to redefine "truth" in a way that is meaningful in that maybe truth is not a relation between some state of the world and our ideas of the world. Instead "truth" can be thought of as a relation between some idea and the success or failure of some goal. — Harry Hindu

There are many definitions of "truth" (SEP - Truth)

My favourite is a correspondence between something that exists in the mind and something that exists in the world, such that "the oak tree is shedding its leaves" is true IFF the oak tree is shedding its leaves.

Unfortunately, being an Indirect Realist, I don't think we can ever know what exists in the world, meaning that we can never know "the truth".

What you want seems to be similar to the Anti-Realist approach to truth, such as Dummett's, where truth is not a fully objective matter independent of us, but is something that can be verified or asserted by us. (SEP - Truth - 4.2).

But what forms do they take in your mind? — Harry Hindu

"Think" exists in my mind as an imagined sound.
===============================================================================

How do you know they exist in your mind? — Harry Hindu

When I hear the sound "think", real or imagined, I know that the sound must exist somewhere. If I know the sound hasn't come from outside my mind, then I know that it must have come from inside my mind.
===============================================================================

Are "I", "think" and "p" just scribbles and that is the form they take in your mind, or do the scribbles refer to other things that are not scribbles and those are what exist in your mind? — Harry Hindu

"Think" exists in my mind in its own right, and doesn't refer to anything else.

If "think" in my mind didn't exist in its own right, and referred to something else, such as "A", then this "A" must refer to something else, such as "B", ending up as the infinite regress homunculus problem. As I see it, I am my thoughts rather than I have thoughts.

Therefore things in my mind must exist in the own right without referring to anything else.
===============================================================================

In seeing these scribbles on the screen, are the same as what is in your mind? — Harry Hindu

When I see the word "think" on the screen I hear the sound "think" in my mind. After many repetitions, in Hume's terms, this sets up a constant conjunction between seeing the word "think" and hearing the word "think". Thereafter, when I see the word "think" I instinctively hear the word "think", and when I hear the word "think" I instinctively see the word "think".

The sound "think" doesn't refer to the image "think", but corresponds with it.

In my terms, Frege is a Direct Realist in that he believes that force is separate to content. For example, in the world apples exist independent of any observer.

In my terms, Rodl is an Indirect Realist in that he believes that force is inside content. — RussellA

I don't want to dispute terminology, especially when it comes to a time-honored Thorny Problem such as realism, but the "content" that Frege is upholding isn't the apples, it's the proposition "There are apples in that tree". Frege probably did think the apples would be there even if you or I were not. But his concern was more about the truths of logic and math, which he insisted were "there" just as much as the apples.

As for Rodl, if force is "inside" or "accompanies" content, that might lead to a sort of indirect realism. But Rodl is clear that the entire picture is wrong, according to him.

As the force-content distinction makes no sense, it has no explanatory power. . . . What is thought cannot be isolated from the act of thinking it; it cannot be understood as the attachment of a force to a content. — Rodl, 36-7

Hence "absolute idealism."

“…. What is thought first-personally contains its being thought….” (Pg 2)

….what does that say except thought is what is thought; IS thought and BEING thought are exactly the same thing; was there ever a thought that wasn’t first-personal? Watahell’s a guy supposed to do with any of that? — Mww

It does look tautologous, whether we construe it that way or whether we construe it as saying that a self-reflective thought contains its being thought.

My initial objection was slightly different. A first-personal thought for Rodl is something like thinking "I think 2+2=4." Does that contain its own thought? Even supposing it does for the sake of argument, not all thought is "first-personal," and therefore not all thought contains its own thought in this way (self-consciously). Maybe Rodl develops this later on.

But the other question is, "In what sense is it contained?" When you say that for Kant, "“I think” represents the consciousness of the occurrence of the activity, but not the activity itself," we are distinguishing two different ways in which one can be conscious of their own thought, That strikes me as an important distinction.

When I see the word "think" on the screen I hear the sound "think" in my mind. After many repetitions, in Hume's terms, this sets up a constant conjunction between seeing the word "think" and hearing the word "think". Thereafter, when I see the word "think" I instinctively hear the word "think", and when I hear the word "think" I instinctively see the word "think". — RussellA

What about people who don't see or hear words in their head?

And wouldn't "reflexively hear/see the word" be better? But how is it different after many repetitions from the initial time, when, upon seeing the word, you heard it in your mind? What has changed after the many repetitions?

not all thought is "first-personal,…" — Leontiskos

Which one isn’t?

A first-personal thought for Rodl is something like thinking "I think 2+2=4." — Leontiskos

Yeah, I kinda got that from him, too. But thing is….nobody does that. Or, to be fair, I question whether anybody does. Using your example, first personal thought with that content is 2 + 2 = 4. That’s it. No need for superfluous redundancies, no add-ons that make no modification.
————-

we are distinguishing two different ways in which one can be conscious of their own thought, — Leontiskos

Care to say more? What do you consider as two ways?

Care to say more? What do you consider as two ways? — Mww

Using your explanation of Kant, "Consciousness of the occurrence of the activity," and, "Consciousness of the activity itself" ().

(I should have said "could" rather than "can." There are here two different ways of conceiving consciousness of one's own thought.)

In fact, I challenge you to find a quote by Rodl in his book An Introduction to Absolute Idealism where he says that a mind-independent world does not exist. …Hegel is not an Idealist in the sense of Berkeley, for whom the world does not exist outside the mind. — RussellA

Berkeley denies the existence of matter as an independently real substance, but he does not deny the reality of the external world. For him, the world consists of ideas that exist either in finite minds (like ours) or in the infinite mind of God. Berkeley’s famous dictum, esse est percipi (“to be is to be perceived”), means that objects exist as ideas in minds. However, he maintains that the continuity and stability of the world are underwritten by God’s beholding of the Universe. He was not a solipsist; he does not claim that the world exists only in your or my mind or that it would come into existence only with humans. Instead, he holds that the world exists as a shared reality, grounded in God’s infinite perception.

The statement that “the world does not exist outside the mind” conflates Berkeley’s denial of material substance with a denial of external reality altogether. For Berkeley, the world is real, but its reality is mental or spiritual, not material. It exists as a collection of ideas dependent on being perceived by finite minds or God. It is the nature of the world that is at issue, not the contention that it is ‘merely a phantasm of the mind’.

Hegel was idealist, but his philosophy was focused on the dialectical development of Geist (spirit) and the unfolding of reason in history. For Hegel, reality is the expression of rational structures, not reducible to subjective or finite minds.

“Consciousness of the occurrence of the activity," and, "Consciousness of the activity itself" — Leontiskos

But I said consciousness of the one but not of the other.

The activity belongs to understanding; consciousness of the occurence of the activity, is merely a condition of being human.

You may still posit the two ways in which one can conceive consciousness of his own thoughts; just not this way. At least I don’t see it. Open to correction, of course.

- Do you think Rodl might believe that what occurs is consciousness of the activity itself? That was my point - that the option that Kant denies might be what Rodl accepts. Or something close to it, given the way Rodl does not see self-consciousness as accidental to thought.