They don't need to be publicly confirmable. I don't need you to tell me that I have a headache for me to have a headache, or for the word "headache" to refer to this mental state that I am in. — Michael

Do you think that is my argument though? Do you think with that hammer, you've just defeated the entirety of what Wittgenstein was getting at, as if that argument was overlooked? I'm asking that because I'm suggesting you're not giving the argument it's due.

You have headaches. You talk to yourself. You have an inner life. You have all sorts of beetles. The word "headache" is understood by me with no reference to your inner headache but by the way the word is used.

I agree with him that things like colours and tastes and smells are secondary qualities, but I don't necessarily agree with him that things like shape and size are primary qualities — and in fact I have made arguments earlier in this discussion that orientation is a secondary quality. — Michael

An indirect realist speaks of the thing out there X and the thing in your head Y. If you are not committed to X resembling Y in any way (having no primary consistent quality), then why are we talking about Xs at all? What I'm getting at is that if we dispense with reference to X, the word "really" becomes irrelevant because X is what is supposedly "really" there." As in, let's not talk about "really" because that is metaphysical talk and it gets us no where. But might there be an X? Of course, but that's beyond the scope of philosophy.

What you have been saying is that meaning is use and that mental states have nothing to do with it, and this is wrong. — Michael

That's not what I've said. I said reference to mental states does not provide a method to determine meaning because they are not publicaly confirmable. I have no idea what mental states might do behind the scenes. I'm not arguing metaphysics.

You also seem to have been saying that meaning-as-use entails direct realism, and this is also wrong. Perception and language are two different things. — Michael

That's also not what I said . I said that reference to the inner workings of the conscious and the unknown ways the environment and your brain monkeys with the mystical noumenal ship at sea provides us no way to establish what we mean when we say basic statements like "There is a ship." I am not suggesting in any way that the ship out there "really" looks like the ship in your mind's eye. I have no idea what the noumenal is and I defer to science how light bends and drug abusers misunderstand their perceptions.

If science says that colours are "in the head" then our philosophical account of language ought recognise that the word "colours" refers to something "in the head", else it is a false account of language. — Michael

The point of Austin and Wittgenstein is to challenge specifically what you have just said, which is what should be the proper account of language.

You can use the word "ship" however you like, but that has nothing to do with perception. — Michael

That summarizes what I just said.

The first half of the book is an assault on Ayer's essay on perception, a pretty extreme example. — Banno

Yeah, more than half is dedicated to showing why Ayer got it all wrong. It's interesting because he doesn't attack the Ayer tradition as much a Ayer specifically.

Without getting into the specifics of everything he says, I would say I generally agree with his notion that it's impossible to speak of metaphysics as many attempt to. The problem, and I blame those who don't articulate it well enough more than those who misunderstand it, is in clarifying the metaphysical is not being denied. Once that is understood, the instinct to attack the position dissipates (or should).

Empirical study trumps armchair theorising, which is why I take the science to prove that this ordinary language philosophy is wrong (at least as you are presenting it), and not the other way around. — Michael

This comment inadvertently makes my point. Wittgenstein and Austin are fairly clear that their object is to delineate the scope of philosophical inquiry. If ever you believe that scientific evidence defeats philosophical claims, then there has been a category error, confusing science with philosophy. The purpose of philosophy under this tradition is to preserve cogent argumentation and use of language and communication. So, if you are doing science, then your debate would be among scientists. That is, stop trying to disprove my position with science. My position makes no important scientific claims.

... unless you buy into primary and secondary qualities — Hanover

I do. — Michael

This doesn't contradict your prior comment, but it presents an odd result. You claim that science answers the questions about how we perceive and not philosophers, but you then claim Locke got it right. We'd have to chalk that up to luck and science vindicating his method, which was just armchair theorizing. That is, he was right, but for the wrong reason.

This view is supported by the actual science of colour: — Michael

That does not provide support for Locke's theory. Locke posited two things: (1) Primary and (2) secondary qualities. Showing that color (a secondary quality) doesn't exist in the object doesn't prove that primary qualities (shape and size, for example) do. To stick to the science, we would show that none of the attributes of the object go unmediated by the subject, which means that I have no more reason to think a red ball is red than I do to think it's round.

Because it would be false. Phenomenal experience does in fact exist and some of our words do in fact refer to it and its qualities. All you seem to be saying is "let's pretend otherwise".

But it's confusing because you do seem to accept that the term "phenomenal experience" refers to phenomenal experience, and maybe also the word "pain"? So what exactly are you arguing? Just that colours are mind-independent in a way that pains aren't? What about tastes and smells? — Michael

The theory is a-metaphysical. It has nothing to do with science or metaphysics. It has to do with the proper role of philosophy, which is referred to a "therapeutic." In that context it, means to explain the proper role of language, communication, and discussing what can be discussed. It's about setting boundaries as to where philosophy can wander. I am therefore saying nothing about referents when interpreting meaning, not because I'm asserting there are no referents (internal or external), but that we cannot meaningfully rely upon those for comprehension. What we rely upon therefore for meaning is use, as in how the community uses a term.

Since it would be absurd to suggest I deny pain or that I deny any phenomenal experience, that could not be my argument. I think that's where this goes astray.

So, you see a ship, but it might really be red, but you see it as blue. It might "really" be 20 feet long or might be 5. You have a mental impression of X. Maybe it looks like the "real" ship, maybe not. Ok, great. I'm saying that's a fascinating scientific inquiry, but when it comes to philosophy, what do I mean when I say "I see a ship?" Do I mean "I am currently experiencing a private inner state of X that I suspect you will replicate if you look at the same Y out at sea that I do, but that is based just upon my assumption that your brain translates the myriad of variables as mine does, but that assumption is limited by the fact that I know there are delusive individuals and folks with various perceptual limitations that I've read about in the literature, like there was one guy who famously mistook his wife for a hat and a book was written about it." That means, when you say you see a ship, I have no idea what you're saying. Yet I do somehow.

In order to limit the role of philosophy, what I say is I don't know what you mean by all these "reallys." What I mean is that I use the term ship is a certain way and we get along with its use in predictable ways and I'm not entering into your theoretical scientific musings about reality.

Are you arguing every word has a referent?
— Hanover

No, I'm arguing that some words and phrases refer to internal mental states, like "pain", "red", and "internal mental — Michael

So then "pain" has a referent, which is the internal state of pain. I don't follow why "red" isn't similar to "ship," unless you buy into primary and secondary qualities, but you're going to have to offer support for why some qualities are purely internal and others external. The Lockean quality distinction seems arbitrary. I also don't follow why "ship" refers to the external ship and not the phenomenal experience of the ship, especially since we have precedent with words like "pain" where we directly refer to the phenomenal (assuming indirect realism).

Under indirect realism, for every experienced X there are two things: (1) X and (2) the experience of X. Why do words like "pain" attach to experiences but "ship" attaches to the ship at sea. What word do we use to describe the experience of the ship other than "ship"? Do we need two words?

Then we have precedent of words with no referent either phenomenal or actual, like "King of France." Why insist upon reliance upon referent at all then? Why not obtain meaning just from use without concern over the metaphysical underwriting of the term?

I'm not saying that all words refer to internal mental states; — Michael

So you are a direct realist with regard to ships?

I'm denying your claim that no words refer to internal mental states. — Michael

Are you arguing every word has a referent?

Back to the main issue: you saw a ship. What did you perceive? Can you paint it for me? Is the painting the ship or just what you saw modified by indirect distortions and interpretation? When I see the picture, do I see what you saw, or do I see a perception of a picture now modified by me? — Hanover

I don't really understand your questions — Michael

How can you not understand them?

They go to the heart of the issue of whether a claim the ship varies from the perception offers us any added explanatory value. That is, if you can't tell me anything other than the ship you perceive looks like a ship, then how is that any different than what a direct realist would say?

That is, there is a ship at sea, your brain presents it to you as the sorts of things we know to be a ship. I ask you to tell me what you saw, so you say "a ship" and then you paint me the most perfect reproduction of the ship in your mind's eye. Of course, since indirect realism is the case, my brain interprets your statement "a ship" and it interprets the picture you painted.

You ask me what I see. I say, "the ship you saw."

My question, which I think you understand, is:

How is the ship at sea different from the ship in your head and how is the ship in my head different from the ship in your head and different from the picture you painted? Is the ship at sea green, but in your head blue? Does it have 3 sails at sea and 2 in your head? Is it a donkey at sea, but you see it as a pelican? You're asserting a modification between its appearance at sea and then in your perception, right?

If your answer is: I have no idea how it's different. I just know there was a process from at sea to my brain, and so it's indirect, and that's all I can say.

So, (1) we call the thing "ship" regardless of whether indirect realism is true and (2) we have no way of knowing if indirect realism alters how we perceive the ship.

Explain how it matters whether you're a direct realist or indirect one. It absolutely doesn't affect our manner of speaking, nor does it explain our world in a meaningful way.

In any event, at least answer my questions even should you think them irrelevant.

I don't understand what you're saying here. — frank

What I'm saying is that indirect realism is the view that there is a ship at sea that is a real ship, but what you perceive in your head is a representation of it, altered by light, your retina, your CNS, etc. You therefore don't have a perception of the ship directly, but indirectly.

When you said a picture of Cagney is a representation of Cagney, that's true, but it's a different sort of representationalism than what we're talking about. That's just a picture.

Cool pic.

Can we first agree that there is a difference between Jimmy and his representation? — frank

Of course. But we"re equivocating here on what we mean by representation. In the context of the thread, representationalism draws a distinction between the veridical state (what actually is) and the delusive state (what is imposed by us on the object). Those terms appear in Austin.

Therefore, the representation (assuming indirect realism) would be of the object Cagney versus the phenomenal Cagney or it could be of the picture of Cagney versus the phenomenal state of the picture. As you've described it, you have the real Cagney versus a picture of Cagney. That is not the sort of representationalism we're interested in here.

Say you watched a Jimmy Cagney movie. You report that you saw Jimmy Cagney in the movie, though you also know what you saw was a representation.

Is this because there's no reasonable basis to maintain a distinction between Jimmy and his re-presentation? — frank

So you're acknowledging rampant equivocation, where we call objects and representations the exact word in all cases outside philosophical circles. The noumenal Cagney and the phenomenonal Cagney are always called "Cagney."

Under what scenario do you distinguish the noumenal from the phenomenonal, and can you tell me the specific difference between the two? If you use the term interchangeably, and you don't even know how the two are different from one another, what exactly are you protecting?

And to be clear, I'm not denying our brain does all the things you say. I'm just asking what we're doing by protecting this entirely indescribable distinction between the true thing and the true thing with mental baggage added on.

I don't disagree with your Wittgensteinian analysis as to what forms meaning. I just don't see Wittgenstein as offering a methodology for creating definitions. He tells us what meaning is.

If you want a one sentence summary: the Wittgensteinian element is not communal voting, it is the insistence that justification has a grammar of correct use and correction, and once we make that explicit, many Gettier intuitions are revealed as cases where the support was only apparent. — Sam26

This suggests a Wittgensteinian impossibility, which is that "justification" currently fails to adhere to usage derived meaning , so we need to regulate this rogue term by insisting it follow Wittgensteinian protocol so we can dissolve Gettier issues.

Meaning is use even for terms we wish had better usages.

That is, per Wittgenstein, justification has a grammar whether we insist upon it or not. He's describing the way words obtain meaning. If "justification" has a fragile use where its meaning fluctuates, then that is what it means. We can't "insist" the word have a better meaning to avoid Gettier cases and that then become its meaning unless our insistence changes its community use. But that's not a Wittgenstein issue. That's just step 1, wanting a new definition, and Step 2, implementing that definition however it's done.

What I say is that I saw Trump. — frank

But you just told me something different. You told me light bounced off a Trump object and a series of fortunate events left you with a phenomenal image of what you called "Trump." So, what is Trump? The thing in your head or the thing the light bounced off?

If they're different, why do you call them both "Trump"? If the reason is because there's no reasonable basis to maintain the distinction between the Trump object and the Trump perception in everyday discourse, you're sounding like a brand of direct realism.

Questions for critique:

Is this notion of understanding genuinely distinct from justification, or does it collapse into it.

Does tying understanding to error signals, defeaters, and correction make the account clearer, or does it over intellectualize ordinary knowing.

Can you think of a counterexample, a case where someone lacks this competence but still seems to have genuine justificatory standing. — Sam26

I wonder if this suggestion is Wittgensteinian at heart or whether it just seeks an agreed upon justification methodology. That is, would it be incompatible for someone who held meaning is attached to private states to demand an agreed upon methodology as you have here. And contrawise, would it be non-Wittgensteinian to allow for subjectively based justifications? I would think not so long as the meaning was tied to use such that the community of speakers could follow how the term was used and engage in the practice.

So what this boils down to is how to avoid Gettier cases, which do seem to arise from reasonable evaluations based upon incomplete knowledge. Your idea seems straightforward: force a community based standard for what constitutes a justification to avoid poor reasoning and perhaps require deeper investigation before declaring "knowledge."

If you tell me you're coming to my house, I see a blue jeep coming toward my house, you own a blue jeep, I say I know you're on the way, and you then arrive moments later to my house, we can say that I had knowledge of your arrival of the JTB variety. But then we learn it wasn't your jeep I saw and you took the bus, now we have a broken J, and a Gettier problem.

If you mean to add to the J methodology a stricter confirmation of all facts to avoid sloppier individualized justifications, that could be a solution, but I ask why that invokes Wittgensteinian other than perhaps reference to community involvement, but, as noted, the community could still use the word justification to mean whatever it decided without concern for avoiding Gettier.

That is, Wittgenstein wouldn't care whether a term were more useful. He'd only insist it's meaning were derived from use.

So what difference does it make if our conversation is only possible through the direct perception of our own internal states rather than the direct perception of our own computer screens or audio devices? — Michael

Aren't you asking what difference any of this makes? As in, if I think even to another extreme that we live in the matrix and we're all hooked up in pods and none of this is real, we're still going about this conversation just the same. That is, it'd be the same with direct realism, indirect realism, idealism, and evil genius land.

And that's the Austin approach. Why all the complicated explanations and not just say WYSIWYG?

Jung's Man and his Symbols. So far some horseshit about dream interpretation. Fascinating how unscientific it is. I'll keep reading. What makes it difficult reading is the font size.

I can perform the experiment on myself — Michael

Why"d you go to that whole rigamarole and not just tell me that when you looked right you saw a tree and when you looked left you saw a bush and then we could say varying stimuli caused varying perceptions.

I then assume that I'm not special and that other humans have first-person experiences like mine — Michael

I categorically do not question the existence of internal states. I am saying it doesn't offer explanatory power. I'm also saying you cannot show me that it does because you can't show me that inner state.

Back to the main issue: you saw a ship. What did you perceive? Can you paint it for me? Is the painting the ship or just what you saw modified by indirect distortions and interpretation? When I see the picture, do I see what you saw, or do I see a perception of a picture now modified by me?

So, I can't know anything except to assume my sight of the noumena matches your sight because you're not special, but when you want to tell me about your phenomena, you just paint me and speak to me in noumena?

As in, your phenomenonal state is certain to you but noumenal to me, but then you make an Austin move and dispense with the problem of delusion by now suggesting I can assume I see what you see. Wasn't part of the implication of hallucination that there is variation across individual perception?

If that, why not for simplicity sake just consider the noumena the same as the phenomena since you can't tell me how the specific distinction between what is and what is perceived except to say there is general consensus as to what the ship is. That sounds like a form of direct realism.

And that returns us to this: if we're going to end up treating the ship as the perception of the ship why the meandering journey to that conclusion every time where we talk about indirectness that affects our outcome in no way?

Hanover

Jim now uses the word "blue" when a 1nm light shines in his eyes because his experience has changed. — Michael

I know that's what you want to conclude, but your thought experiment doesn't show that. What it shows is you've figured out how to change what people say. If your experiment is scientific, you can only report your measurable results. If I stimulate a monkey's brain to make him smile, my report will be that he smiled, not that I made him happy.

Pretending that the word's meaning only has something to do with public behavior because it's the only thing of practical relevance in everyday life isn't "deflating" philosophy but refusing to do philosophy — Michael

It just delineates the boundaries of philosophy and it doesn't result in walking away from the metaphysical questions. It just leaves them to the topic of mysticism, religion, or something else.

It is just as limiting for you to deny a description of the noumenal as for me to deny the description of phenomenonal. I have no idea what's in your mind and you have no idea what's outside the mind, so we limit it to what we can talk about.

Despite the public use of the word "beetle" it really does refer to the private thing in the box. If through magic or advanced technology you were to replace the contents of my box with something very different then I wouldn’t recognize it as being a beetle. — Michael

I'm not denying the beetle may be doing work. The argument isn't eliminituve ontologically. It's eliminitive epistemically. Your discussion of changing your beetle suggests we can now discuss your beetle publicly, which is exactly the way the beetle has been defined not to be.

What would happen if we changed your beetle to a cat and now you said "cat" for beetles, I would know your usage changed. I'd still not know if you saw a dog, a hat, or a cat. The point though is that what you see in your head offers me nothing in terms of the meaning I derive from your utterances. I just work off usage, such that you use "cat" for beetles now.

Is it likely we, all fellow human beings, use our terms to describe the same internal beetle? Probably, but the point is it doesn't matter and we can't know, so let's unbewitch philosophy and use it for clarification instead of entertaining impossible concepts.

That's not to say answers of ultimate reality aren't addressable, but just not through philosophy.

I believe I showed that it can and does in the section below the image here and in the post here. — Michael

So I went back and read your referenced argument. What that proves is that certain neuronal firings result in certain utterances, but how does it prove anything about the private experience?

Jim and John could still see the exact color before and after rewiring but they say different words now. That is the PLA problem. Reference to an unidentifiable beetle provides no additional explanatory power, even if there is a beetle.

it doesn't then follow that colour terms don't (also) refer to this phenomenal character — Michael

I spoke more precisely than that though. I said

meaning falls to use, making the swirl in your head irrelevant. — Hanover

Wittgenstein doesn't deny the phenomenonal. He denies it's relevance for communication and meaning. Wittgenstein doesn't say you have no beetle, nor that it might have all sorts of causative effects. He doesn't approach that inquiry.at all.

The approach (like Austin's) is therapeutic, designed to dissolve unclarity, not to get at ultimate truth.

Does hermeneutics consider progress and appreciate truth, I wonder? — Alexander Hine

It would never suggest understanding lies outside historical context, but it would also not suggest pure relativism where beliefs were accepted as arbitrary and immune from criticism.

Hallucinations are not delusions. When I eat shrooms I very much experience and am very much aware of the kaleidoscope of colours that I am seeing (and very much know that the colours I am seeing are an hallucination caused by the fungus). — Michael

I'd just describe your experience as a visual distortion, not a true hallucination. Someone going through withdrawal where they try to pick off non-existent bugs crawling on their skin I'd think of as a hallucination.

I don't actually think the room spinning if I drink too much, but I wouldn't say I hallucinated it either.

Austin's point, as far as I can tell, wouldn't deny the true hallucinations, but would deny that they were very common. That is, the bulk of your claimed confusion is non-existent, easily understood and described through common language.

He'd also deny Z, where it represents X (the verdical) minus Y (the delusive)., to suggest there is a portion of any experience A that contains some truth and some added mental baggage. To allow that, slips into Locke, distinguishing between the primary and secondary qualities.

Why he denies this, as I was saying to @Banno appears dogmatic. That is, he just denies it necessary to understand the world as we commonly (and a tremendous emphasis is placed on the common man, unconfused by silly philosophical problem creation) perceive it. The minute you break the world down into what there really is (veridical) and what you only think there is (delusive), you fall into the trap of making such silly (per his view) things like "the ship I see isn't the ship there is. "

Austin does, if you buy in, preserve meaning in our ordinary discourse, but I'd argue it does so at the expense of presenting an unexamined view under the guise of a mocking anti-philosophicism (my created term), where he sort of says this has been over thought to nonsense where we can't even say we saw a ship that everyone sees plain as day.

So, my question is if we admit a distinction between the noumenal core reality and the phenomenonal perception with its generated distortions, and the noumenal is defined as beyond knowable, isn't the attempt to identify and describe the mental baggage (Z, as I've described it) futile? If we can't know what is veridical, we can't know what is delusive.

Does this not warrant the sort of move Austin makes just to create boundaries so we can speak normally. I like Wittgenstein's approach better where meaning falls to use, making the swirl in your head irrelevant.

Halfway through Sense and Sensibilia and find it very unpersuasive to the extent it appears just a revelation of the consequences of dogmatically rejecting the constitution of phenomenal states.

That is, if we begin with the conclusion that it's error to speak of internal states as having composition of any identifiable type, then tautologically you cannot arrive at the particularized differences between the veridical parts and delusive parts such that you can conduct a Lockean breakdown of the primary and secondary elements.

It's hand waving away the composition of phenomenal states while still maintaining they exist as some vague non-compisitional event like sort of way.

Whatever he's getting at is not arrived at by force so much as just acceptance of his dogmatic rejection, a sort of phenomenal austerity that refuses to grant the inner state any substance. If you deny that dogma, you just deny Austin and there's no reason provided why you shouldn't.

Again, sensory organs are interfaces. They convey electrical discharges to the central nervous system, which is separated from the rest of the body by the blood-brain barrier. The CNS even has its own private immune system as if it's a separate entity. It's not directly in contact with the world the organism lives in. It's indirect realism. — frank

If I see a cat, I'm not in direct contact with the cat even before it enters the CNS, and I don't receive the cat on my eye. I just receive photons. Even if I pet the cat, I only receive stimuli. Under this description, everything is indirect.

My point is that your distinction that sometimes we have direct contact with the world and sometimes we don't doesn't exist. All external objects are mediated by other objects, whether they be light waves, airwaves, or the various internal structures in your body, like retinas and your CNS.

Under this model, I don't trip over the cat. I experience falling which is how cats are represented to me when they are under my foot. The cat itself can't be said to actually be a certain color, truly have a distinct meow, nor have a certain trip like quality. I just know some noumenal cat triggered a phenomena of me busting my ass so I could better comprehend the elusive real actuality of cat.

The architecture of the nervous system makes indirect realism a no-brainer. — frank

If the distinction between direct and indirect realism is the use of the brain, then indirect realism is direct realism because indirect realism is a no brainer.

Conservative Christians care about divisions. — frank

That's because conservatives adhere to orthodoxy by definition and don't accept variation, which does require them to either ignore or explain away their own modifications that occur over time.

Orthodox Judaism modifies by becoming more strict, so not all change is towards leniency.

The Amish control themselves by adhering to the rule that increasing one's humility is showing off and therefore not humble. Like if I tried to prove myself a super Amish man by having a goat pull me on a rolling chair instead of a fancy horse and buggy.

That's the best example I could think of, but there might be others.

Don’t you mean heterodox rather than liberal? Liberal seems too ideologically divergent. — praxis

Whatever word you like best.

Which religions are the liberal ones? — praxis

I'm distinguishing between liberal and orthodox, where the former are those more inclined to change and the latter more committed to tradition.. So, within Judaism, Reform would be liberal, Orthodox (capital O) would be orthodox. In Christianity, Episcopal, certain Lutherans would be liberal. Roman Catholic, evangelicals would be orthodox. I'm less familiar with Islam and Hinduism, etc., but I'm sure there are similar divisions.

Religions survive by adapting while appearing to hold perennial beliefs. This is accomplished by reinterpretation of text or custom under the guise it's always been that way. This means continuity of identity is more important than continuity of content.

Restorationism is common as well, where new religions spring up, but are presented as returns to previously uncorrupted states. For example, a Mormon would not admit his "truths" began in the 19th century, but instead those truths have always existed just been lost and now rediscovered.

If you assert departure from perennial beliefs leads to the death of religion, you are likely within a tradition that has convinced you its beliefs are perennial.

Religions are social systems and they tend to last longer that most other social systems, like nations and particular governments. They tend to change less over time than does political party doctrine, for example (compare a Republican from the 1980s to today).

It does seem though that conservative religions are more stable than liberal ones, meaning having clearly defined moral codes and behavioral norms is important, but a failure to adapt will be just as problematic for survival.

Well, metaphysics is just conceptual plumbing, after all. So metaphysics is "definitional". Btu yes, I'm really not advocating direct realism so much as rejecting indirect realism, together with its reliance on private phenomenon. — Banno

I read you as just rejecting reliance on private phenomena period. Whether our perceptions directly or indirectly reflect reality or not is irrelevant.

So you would rather a wrong answer here to no answer? — Banno

I was arguing for quietism, meaning you can't say anything about what our perception is. When you say the perception of the ship is just part of the process, that doesn't mean much to me and it tells me nothing about how this seeing happens. It suggests an answer has been provided when it hasn't. The better answer to the question of "what is it to see a ship?" is "I have no idea, but I do. "

The supposed "phenomenal state" is a large part of the problem. Why take such positing private phenomena as a metaphysical given? — Banno

Because they indubitably exist.. There's a significant difference between denying the phenomenonal and claiming it's identification is unnecessary for philosophical purposes.

So far as philosophy consists in conceptual clarification, it doesn't presume an ontology. However there are things that we do talk about, so there are ontological ramifications here — Banno

Wasn't the Wittgensteinian objective to isolate out metaphysical confusion from philosophical inquiry?

Two thoughts: (1) your description of direct realism is definitional, not metaphysical. You're just saying your interest is in your perception and discussion of the thing without perception is meaningless. This means you can both be an indirect realist as the posters here who hold themselves to be and a direct realist as you hold yourself to be at the same time without logical inconsistency. (2) You correctly reject the humonculous as offering no explanatory power because it just moves the magic of perception to a theater chair in the back of the brain where the humonculous views the screen. But to just say the perception then is just part of the process is empty, telling me nothing about how it is we have these conscious experiences, what it means to taste, smell, and see. The phenomenonal state remains a mystery, beyond philosophical description.

The difference I see in our positions is perhaps in my insistence that the boundaries of philosophical inquiry do not imply anything about ontology.

We ought accept that they do not directly see their shared environment. — Michael

Then work through that. There is a ship X. It sends data via photons and airwaves through the environment that distorts as it moves through space. It hits my retina and eardrum and onward through brain circuitry. I then have phenomenal state Y. X caused Y, but there were billions of variables in the causal chain from X to Y.

If you want to call Y "ship," you can't confirm we're using the term consistently by pointing to your hidden internal state. You can't show me your beetle.

If you want to call X "ship," you can't identify anything about it at all. It's noumenal.

So, what to do? You look to see if we use the term consistently. You attach meaning to use. It's all you've got.

Not at all sure what that means. — Banno

It means that just because you find a need to understand the world doesn't mean you can.

The choice here is between on the one hand an account that divides the world into mind and object, then finds itself unable to explain objects; and an account that makes no such presumption. — Banno

If reality is a choice, then let's imbue it with purpose. As they say, imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.

This is to mean, if you can jettison the distinction between mental states and external states on the grounds it makes reality easier to comprehend, regardless of whether it comforts with actuality, then you've made it no less logical to insert other preferences into this mix.

As in, I choose to maintain the dualstic nature and needn't go through the machinations of eliminating what appears an obvious division, but I choose to insert the mystical to maintain that distinction.

And isn't that to a large degree what modern philosophy attempts to do, but to globally disenchant reality? Maybe that enterprise is impossible, which results not in the dissolution of philosophy, but in keeping it to its boundaries. That, I say, is the implication of Wittgenstein.

This is just about category clarification, and I see no reason to seek unification of stand alone systems.

Eric Cline says the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the book of Exodus are probably memories from the same time period — frank

Does Odysseus cross paths with Moses as they both try to fnd their way home? Wait, don't tell me and spoil it.

This got me thinking about Jung and his claims of the consistent themes in myths cross culturally.

Guys, stick to the OP, avoiding distractions and insults, but don't misunderstand this to mean you must be dispassionate and restrained.

I agree that metaphysics and grammar are different things; I just disagree with the claim either that the phenomenal character of experience is not real or that it does not have anything to do with language. It's real, and like every other real (and even unreal) thing in the universe, we can talk about it. — Michael

The phenomenonal is absolutely real. My claims have always been grammatical, not ontological. Phenomenonal states are causally related to utterances. If not, I'd be arguing we're p-zombies.

You can talk about "phenomenonal states" just like you can talk about cats and unicorns and kings of France. It is irrelevant whether you have phenomenonal state for you to talk about them.

When you do speak of them, whatever is doing the work is the rule-governed use of the term, not privileged access to a phenomenal state whose identity could float free of that use.

Because at some stage the conversation has a use. — Banno

That it has a use doesn't mean it can be had. Wittgenstein is diagnostic. Philosophy is declared incompetent for addressing the metaphysical.

But if you just need an explanation even though you realize it will be fraught with inconsistency and just becauses, posit the gods like I do.