That is a real problem with "essential properties". — Metaphysician Undercover

I was alluding to that possibility when I said I could change the definition of a swan. I was a bit abbreviated when I wrote "Swan Z is black". On the other hand, if the object I see is not at all like a swan, then I won't be tempted to modify my generalization, so it isn't problematic.

I don't think definitions are necessarily about "essential properties" in the metaphysical sense. That is, they are only essential so long as we treat them as essential.

Therefore we ought to consider that the person's real relationship with the particulars of the world is direct, and the universal, or generalization, is a sort of tool which the individual can use or not use, as one wills. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, it's a bit more complicated than that. Generalizations are indeed like a rule, and every application is a new decision. But they are subject to inter-subjective agreement. So, if I want to communicate with others, in unusual circumstances, I need to carry their agreement with me.

Your representation of the relationship between me, the rule and the case is a bit odd, but I'm not a Platonist so it is not worth arguing about.

No, I meant a). — Metaphysician Undercover

I think I'll just skip this issue. You are clearly speaking a language different from mine, so there's not prospect of mutual understanding.

The infinite regress is avoided in the way outlined by Plato, by assuming the reality of "the good". — Metaphysician Undercover

You implied that you are not a Platonist. Now you adopt his idea of the good. ???

It is only by properly modeling "the interpreter" that we might exclude the chair as an interpreter. — Metaphysician Undercover

You have a point. But then, you don't want to exclude the chair as an interpreter, so I don't know what's going on.

Austin and Wittgenstein both make what they are doing look obvious, so people take the point as simple, or trivial. — Antony Nickles

As Horace observed long, long ago "The "true/real) skill is hiding your skill". (Ars est celare artem)
But then it looks easy and people think it is easy. Perhaps then, there is a role for rhetoric in philosophy - making it look portentous helps to persuade people to take it seriously.

On which note, has anybody else noticed Austin's rhetoric in Sense and Sensibilia? He gives the impression of someone at the end of his patience rather than a dispassionate analyst. Yet he is also very fair to Ayer. Puzzling, and complicated.

I don’t take OLP as wanting to end philosophy (nor refute skepticism). I think Austin thought he had finally found a way to get started (though in his mind this was just going to be a kind of cataloguing). — Antony Nickles

Yes, if you look more closely, that is what they (all, I think) had in mind. But people (especially conventional/traditional philosophers, perhaps) focused on the initial phase and the second phase got overlooked. It reminds me of the reputation of Descartes, Berkeley and Hume; their constructive phases seem to get swallowed up in the first phase.

In all, I take the suggestion that we look around at the variety of the world to be license to explore our own interests, and that it is democratic to think anyone can reflect and learn. — Antony Nickles

It certainly seemed democratic at the time, in comparison to the condescension of their predecessors - analytic and other wise.

So, when they talk of “tidying up” or “rearranging” (PI #92), they are not talking about word politics, — Antony Nickles

Yes, I cited those example (with some trepidation) in order to show that the technique was capable of being usefully applied where live social and cultural issues are at stake. Inevitably, politics gets involved and sometimes people get things out of proportion.

I can't offer much more. — Banno

There'd be a PhD in arguing that case. — Banno

There a technique in history called "prosopography". That's what we need here. But it is very labour-intensive. Wikipedia - Prosopography

Analytic philosophy takes the sort of conceptual analysis pioneered by the OLP philosophers as granted. — Banno

It's true that I keep seeing traces or reminders of OLP in discussions that seem far removed and it's true that when something is taken for granted, the need to give explicit references is less important.

I've been thinking about other cases in which we know the socio-political tendencies of philosophers. Locke, Berkeley, Hegel, Sartre, Heidegger, Adorno, Russell all spring to mind. Descartes, Berkeley, Hume and Kierkegaard have pretty clear religious affiliations. (There's no point in going further back than that in this context.) I don't think that philosophers pay much attention to them in their philosophical readings of them, do they? How seriously should we take the possible conservatism of OLP?

It might be more relevant to ponder why their work has been so widely disregarded. Likely, it would be speculative to suggest reasons, but here goes, anyway.

There's a theoretical issue. Many philosophers have thought to refute their predecessors. Few of them have thought to bring philosophy as such to an end. Mind you, the twentieth century differs from earlier times in that a successor appeared to be waiting in the wings, to take over all the interesting questions - and, to a considerable extent, it has. (Science, of course.) (I'm reminded of the problem for conventional painting when photography developed. The artists worked out a way forward pretty quickly, Philosophy is still trying.) So, perhaps OLP was too successful. It convinced its adherents, who either spread out to pass on the word or gave up philosophy. Not a recipe for a thriving tradition. (It is possible, however, that the same problem afflicts analytic philosophy in general - there seems to be an under-current of concern nowadays that it is not going anywhere and has nowhere to go.)

There is a practical issue. Simply, that the style of argument that Ryle, Austin and Wittgenstein deploy is much, much harder than it looks.

Here's an example "all grass is green" is a generalization. We can say that this proposition provides a relation to individual blades of grass, that each one must be green, but it's really just a pretend relation to individual blades of grass. And because it's just a pretense, despite the fact that you may call it a relation, the knowledge derived here is only as reliable as the inductive reasoning which created the generalization in the first place. — Metaphysician Undercover

So am I entitled to conclude from your last sentence that "all swans are white" is only as reliable as the induction that created it in the first place? Fair enough. So "Swan A is white" and "Swan B is white" etc are the premises of the induction? Fair enough. So now I reason that "all swans are white" Then I discover that Swan Z is black. So my generalization and the preceding induction is not reliable. So I need to do one of three things: a) abandon the generalization b) modify the generalization ("swans are white, except in Australia") c) change my definition of a swan ("A swan may be black or which" or the quantifier ("Most swans are white".) True, the new generalization is also subject to the same hazards. But what am I supposed to do - abandon all generalizations? I don't think so. There's no pretence involved at any stage.

You say that a chair does not interpret what I say, therefore a chair does not produce interpretations. — Metaphysician Undercover

If my chair does not interpret ("produce interpretations") what I say, there are two possibilities: a) that it produces interpretations of some other thing(s) or (b) causes me to produce interpretations. I deduce that you meant the latter. My mistake. But that does not give any ground for supposing that the chair has a mind or is conscious.

Far too often though, the judgement made prior to the trial and error action is represented as non-intentional, to avoid an infinite regress of intentional acts. — Metaphysician Undercover

You do represent the prior judgement as intentional, so how do you avoid the infinite regress?

The need to act is influenced by emotions and all sorts of subconscious things which cannot be described as judgements of correctness. — Metaphysician Undercover

You are missing the cognitive element in most? all? emotions. If I am afraid of snakes, I have made a judgement about snakes and that judgement is an important part of the judgement about what is needed. Prejudices may be erroneous or ill-founded, but they are nevertheless judgements about what is appropriate in various circumstances - even if I am not aware of them.

(I don't understand the distinction between unconscious and non-conscious which you point to). — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, unconscious and subconscious are a bit tricky. But non-conscious, for me at least, means "not capable of consciousness or unconsciousness" or "the distinction between conscious and unconscious does not apply".

I don't believe there is a standard model of interpretation. — Metaphysician Undercover

1. Something before the interpretation, a text, a picture - something that means something. Call it the original. "Interpretation of...."
2. The interpretation. "Interpretation of .... as ...."
The third stage is not normally necessary when there is only one interpretation available.
3, Evaluation or justification of the interpretation.

Given the accusation of a conservatism so strong that it refused to engage at all with politics, this is a point that it might be worth following up on. — Banno

I don't disagree. A question. Is this a critique of the people, or of the ideas? What conservatism are we talking about? Not philosophical, presumably. Political? Social? Cultural? Linguistic? Are we talking about what was conservative then, or what is conservative now?
It is true that Ayer and Austin were career academics. But I don't think their biographies, particularly in the period 1940 - 1945, support the idea they were "ivory tower" academics. Wittgenstein had a more complicated career, but didn't conform to that stereotype either.

There's a slogan associated with AI Wei Wei. "Everything is art. Everything is politics." He's in a good position to know. Of course, he should have added that "Everything is philosophy". But then, one may begin to feel that this is a matter of point of view rather than domain. Everything can be seen as art, philosophy, politics, etc. because those are aspects of everything. That doesn't mean that everyone should become either artist, or philosopher, or politician.

I really enjoyed the sketch. The parodies of philosophical arguments are very pointed. Like a politician who is anxious to be satirized, one could see it is as a back-handed compliment. But it isn't a criticism specifically on grounds of conservatism.

In favour of the criticism, there is the by now familiar point, less widely acknowledged at the time, that ordinary language can express undesirable, offensive and damaging stereotypes. A great deal of work has gone into exposing them. The good news is that ordinary language (well, a lot of it) has changed in response. (Which is not to say that there is no more to do.)

On the other hand, Austin does not claim that ordinary language may not need reform (p. 63), though admittedly his description of the process, especially the phrase "tidy up", could be described as an understatement and does largely ignore the practicalities of making the changes he is contemplating.

Curiously enough, at the time, OLP seemed to be very much on the side of the democratizing angels. True, in fact, it was not ordinary language but Received Pronunciation that was being promoted. But even Received Pronunciation was a relatively new invention (on the back of the BBC, which was less than thirty years old at the time), developed to facilitate nation-wide communication through speech, rather than writing. Whether OLP contributed to the changes in lexicography that have happened since, I could not say; but it was certainly an aspect of that wider movement.

But the issue of OLP is tangled up with at least two other issues. One is the very idea of the academy and its tendency to separate itself from the world, drawing in its skirts as it goes on its way. Well, specialization is not a bad thing, is it? Anyway, many academics are anxious to engage with the world as well as pursuing their academic work - some even do their academic work in the world and others aim to spread academic ideas outside the academy.

The other is the socio-cultural dominance and consequent exclusivity of Oxbridge (and, now, some other universities). That has little to do with academia as such and a great deal to do with socio-cultural issues at least in the UK, if not more widely. On this issue, I can only applaud and wish there was more of such criticism now. In fact, much of the second half of the 20th century continued that battle, with some success. (Even Oxbridge has moved on. adjusting to the times, as it has no doubt done so often before) Sadly, this century has seen much (but not all) of that progress eroded.

Just some random points.

Words not only “suggest a context”, they require it. — Antony Nickles

Yes. I didn't mean "suggest" in the sense of something that one might ignore or refuse - "How about some crisps with that?" something more like "Love and marriage go together like..." One might supply "meat and potatoes" or "horse and carriage" or "heaven and hell". Hence misunderstandings.

So maybe we could say the context isn’t always everything, but we definitely do not have certainty in what we “perceive” nor control over what is said in what we express. — Antony Nickles

I'll go with that.

Thus why our words seem to move right past each other when we don’t take into consideration we might be standing in different worlds (of interest, implication, anticipation). — Antony Nickles

Yes. But many jokes as well.

that the circumstances are of greater importance than any “form of words”. — Antony Nickles

It seems to me that a form of words always suggests a context, no matter how tiny the thumbnail sketch. So philosophers who think they are just considering a form of words are mistaken. Context isn't everything, but it isn't an optional extra. (I get really annoyed about the examples one sees that are tiny thumbnails, which are treated as the whole story, when it is clear that a wider context would reveal complexities that are ignored.

But Austin is not championing the status quo, as if it was more entitled or that it naturally has more solidity. — Antony Nickles

I'm sorry. I don't see quite what you are getting at. The complaint that OLP is in some way inherently conservative ignores the fact that their project was a philosophical revolution, even if it was not a political or social revolution.

I'll try to articulate some reasonably appropriate responses. As you expect, this isn't my philosophical cup of tea. I don't automatically dismiss all non-analytic philosophy as nonsense. (Actually, my somewhat heretical belief is that there is some analytic philosophy which really is nonsense.) But much of those philosophies seems to be written in a different language, so I can't engage with it fully. But there may be some over-laps.

a contemporary school of thought that criticizes the post-Kantian reduction of philosophical enquiry to a correlation between thought and being (correlationism), such that the reality of anything outside of this correlation is unknowable. — Wiki

Since to know something is precisely "to correlate thought and being", if there is anything "outside" (whatever that may mean) that correlation, it stands to reason that it is unknowable; one might speculate that it will also be impossible to know whether there is or is not anything in that situation. If the Heidegerrian line of thought you go on to explain works, it, by the same token, correlates thought and those beings. But there are some points that might mean something.

Heideggerian Zuhandenheit, or readiness-to-hand, refers to the withdrawal of objects from human perception into a reality that cannot be manifested by practical or theoretical action.

I've come across readiness-to-hand before and I can see Heidegger's point and in a sense would endorse it. The various things that we take an interest in are not merely theoretical objects, but things that we interact with (and which interact with us).
There is that temptation to consider any description of an object and to feel that there is more to be said, as if something had escaped us. I think we've agreed on that.

If the human perception of a house or a tree is forever haunted by some hidden surplus in the things that never become present, the same is true of the sheer causal interaction between rocks or raindrops.

I grant you that there is more to rocks and rain that their interaction; many other things can happen to both.

Coupling Heidegger's tool analysis with the phenomenological insights of Edmund Husserl, Harman introduces two types of objects: real objects and sensual objects. Real objects are objects that withdraw from all experience, whereas sensual objects are those that exist only in experience.

I'll set aside my objections to the use of "real" in the philosophical sense that treats is as a property like colour or shape. From my benighted point of view, the point of the senses is that they (mostly) inform us about real objects; positing sensual objects as an additional category of existence is precisely the key mistake of sense-datum theory.

It's not only not enlightening, it's not the same in kind, in my estimation, to that of a mental event. — schopenhauer1

You misunderstand me. Certainly a rainbow is not a mental event. My point is that the explanation of a rainbow "reduces" it, to use the jargon word, and so seems to assert that it does not exist. But the rainbow is not merely caused by, but is the refraction of light through drops of water. A physical, physiological, account of seeing the rainbow is not a normal causal account, where cause and effect are two distinct entities, but an analysis of what seeing the rainbow is.

But how does the observer itself emerge onto ITSELF? — schopenhauer1

This is just mystification. There is a theoretical construct which is implied in most pictures; it is known as the "point of view". In addition, we perceive ourselves as three-dimensional objects in the world, partly through various self-monitoring parts of our nervous system and partly from acting (and being acted upon) in the world.

Whenever XYZ is there, the mental property must be present. — schopenhauer1

I can accept that as a rough draft of the kind of thing we expect to find. But I'm sure it will be a lot more complicated than that.

I know, and that's why it's incoherent to say that the sense-datum is what is seen, because seeing necessarily involves what you call "assumptions". What is seen includes "assumptions". — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree with that. So I conclude that the concept of sense-data, as adopted by some philosophers, is incoherent.

You are citing specifics again, and that is a problem. — Metaphysician Undercover

If the specifics don't conform to the generalization, it's a problem for the generalization, not for the specific.

since other animals interpret in other ways which we really cannot relate to — Metaphysician Undercover

How do you know that? Surely, if we can know that their perceptions of the world are different from ours, we can "relate" to them.

The argument holds, because neither understanding nor misunderstanding can be implied by "interpretation" itself. These are judgements made as to correct or incorrect interpretation. — Metaphysician Undercover

So we formulate a judgement, which is not an interpretation, and then promote it to an interpretation and then decide whether it is correct or not? At first sight, it would resolve my problem. But what is this promotion process?
To put the point another way, surely to make a judgement is normally to evaluate it as correct? If one doesn't judge that a proposition is correct, one can make a range of different judgements, that it is false, or possible and so on. All of which involve evaluating that these different judgements are correct.

So the non-conscious cannot be excluded from interpretation through the requirement of understanding or misunderstanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

Some interpretations seem to be based on a process that we are not subjectively aware of. The usual term for that is unconscious, which is distinct from non-conscious. Non-conscious beings neither have nor lack an unconscious.

However, there is necessarily some underlying inclination toward a good, or intention, purpose, which drives the act as an act of judgement. But acting with purpose, intention, is not restricted to consciousness. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree with the first sentence, and we should, perhaps, take more account of it in our analysis of perception. But philosophy is interested in theory, which is supposed to be driven only by the pursuit of truth. I would agree that this stance can lead philosophers into mistakes.

So I do not think you can disassociate interpretation from seeing in this way. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not trying to disassociate it. I'm trying to understand it. I'm arguing that there is a problem with the standard model of interpretation.

Searle seemed to think Austin had not understood Private Language. — Banno

What I remember about that anecdote fits with that. But then, he's not alone, neither in his time, nor now.

the stuff about doubt is mostly in On Certainty, which I think came out in 1969. — Banno

OK. And it certainly isn't clear what he thought.

Well done. Interesting format. — Banno

Thanks. I hoped it would work, but wasn't sure. The text just seemed to fall into that format.

Again I'm noticing how much this presages Wittgenstein. This time the discussion of doubt in On Certainty, with "hedging" taking on the role of doubting. — Banno

I don't want to be picky, but Philosophical Investigations was published in 1953 and Sense and Sensibilia in 1962 (both posthumously - I guess that must be just a coincidence), So any presaging must be the other way round. However, the relationship between the two is intriguingly mysterious. It would be wonderful if there was something from him about Wittgenstein. Isn't there an unflattering (to Wittgenstein) anecdote about a comment by Austin on the private language argument?

I kind of like the idea of a 18th century Hume being more (the age of Enlightenment) cynical than the 20th century — schopenhauer1

The irony is, of course, that he didn't think he was a sceptic, and, given that he believed in the Christian story on faith, despite his own demonstration that there is no reason to believe it, he certainly doesn't seem particularly cynical.

We can try to quibble about what a specific author said in a text in a chapter, in a passage, but let's get to what the subtext is, it's this (the hard problem.. ) — schopenhauer1

I'm afraid I find it helpful to focus on a specific text. However, since I don't properly understand how the problem arises (though I've seen a lot of arm-waving), I don't yet have a basis for discussing solutions. (I find it very liberating not to have to pretend to know all about everything now that I'm retired.)

I don't see how it really solves the problem any differently to recognize that indeed it's about the whole body's embeddedness in its environment. — schopenhauer1

But assuming by "whole person" we mean the theory "embedded cognition", — schopenhauer1

Those theories look attractive, though the range of what's on offer is a bit confusing. But when I say "whole person" I meant the context of human life and practices, not cognition, embedded or not. I don't have allegiance anywhere yet, though who knows what may happen next.

It's basically that objects interact with the world through vicarious properties but retain a sort of hidden property that makes the object itself and not just a composite of properties. — schopenhauer1

You are like someone who takes delivery of a flat-pack bookcase, unpacks all the bits and the instructions and wonders where the actual bookcase is. It's a paradox of analysis - the subject of the analysis seems to disappear.

There is something that makes an object that object, without dissolving it, but also recognizes that object has properties that allow it to interact with other objects, etc. — schopenhauer1

You are beginning with a mistake. If there was something that makes an object that object, it would be just another component. It's the problem that Aristotle tried to solve with his idea of "essence" (literally, in the Greek "the what it is to be"), the scholastics with "quiddity" and Locke with his idea of substance ("something, I know not what"). Not even chasing wild geese, but unicorns.

What would it mean for something to have the "property" of a sensation? — schopenhauer1

I grasp the idea that sensation is an activity or an event or partly both; there is a standard verb for it. But "property" is not so clear; I don't know what the adjective would be for it.

But whence "emergence"? It seems like a sort of pseudo-answer, like a Homunculus Fallacy by another name. — schopenhauer1

Yes. I have the impression that the idea was proposed as a project, and that various ideas have been proposed. As one would expect, there are several candidates, none particularly appealing. The sunlight and the rain interact and a rainbow is the result. Would it be fair to say the rainbow emerges? I suppose so, but I don't find it particularly enlightening, compared to the pedestrian scientific explanation.

Memories and anticipations inhere within, and are necessary to, the act of seeing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, but the sense-datum is supposed to be what is left when all assumptions are set aside.

I see very little in any conventional definition, or use of the word, to support your requested restriction. — Metaphysician Undercover

Would the Cambridge dictionary definition be evidence of what the conventional definition is:-

interpretation - an explanation or opinion of what something means.
The dispute is based on two widely differing interpretations of the law.
It is difficult for many people to accept a literal interpretation of the Bible.
We were disappointed that they insisted on such a rigid interpretation of the rules.

interpretation - a particular way of performing a piece of music, a part in a play, etc.:
Her interpretation of Juliet was one of the best performances I have ever seen.

An interpretation by actors or musicians is the expression by their performance of their understanding of the part or parts they are playing:
Masur’s interpretation of the Brahms symphony was masterful.
This does seem to be the best interpretation of their observations.

There is nothing to indicate to me that this type of act could only be carried out by a consciousness. — Metaphysician Undercover

Really? So the chair you are sitting on might understand what you are saying, and your dustbin might understand that to-day is the day it gets emptied?

Since the interpretation might equally be misunderstanding as well as understanding, we cannot say that "understanding" is implied by "interpretation", so the link between consciousness and interpretation may be denied in that way. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not quite. Something that is not conscious cannot understand or misunderstand, so your argument does not "break the link".

That makes the perspective of "sense-data" ontologically problematic because our innate sense of good and bad must be derived in some means other than through the senses, because it must have an active role in the process of interpretation. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would put it this way. We are innately inclined to remember feed-back on what we do. In the case of seeing, that's how we get feed-back. So we learn pretty quickly what works and what doesn't. That's the basis for how we see something. Interpretation can play a role sometimes, but I'm not sure it's meaningful to suppose that it always plays a role.

But if the interpretations are different, where's the logic in assuming that they are interpretations of the same thing in the first place? — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, sometimes they are, and sometimes they're not. What's the criterion for saying that two interpretations are interpretations of the same thing or that they are interpretations of different things?Without that, interpretations objects in their own right, with no connection to anything else. Strictly speaking, to speak of an interpretation without saying what it is an interpretation of, and indeed we often add "as". So Freud's theory was an interpretation of dream as the outcome of unconscious hopes and fears.

Therefore, premising that the difference is due to a difference in attention does not imply that the difference is not also a difference in what is seen, because attention plays an active role in determining what is seen. — Metaphysician Undercover

Good point. So now I ask whether "those differences result from differences in what is seen, or perhaps in what they remember or even in differences in what they think I want to hear."

Can you imagine that a plant might produce interpretations of its world? We can go far beyond "consciousness", in our speculations about interpretations. What about a non-conscious machine, an AI or something, couldn't that thing being doing some sort of interpretations? — Metaphysician Undercover

If a plant produced interpretations of its world, it would be conscious. If an AI produced some sort of interpretation, it would have some sort of consciousness.

A longer reply might (possibly) be more helpful. It depends on circumstances in which you would interpret something as an interpretation. That's why I can't answer the questions. They seem to me idle playing with words. There's nothing to argue about here, because there's nothing to agree or disagree with. All I can do is ask you to elaborate your fantasy. I'm certainly not going to draw any conclusions from it.

Certainly, there are plenty of stories about conscious AIs. But they are writing stories about rather peculiar human beings and then inserting "AI" where they are thinking "person". Don't get me wrong - I enjoy some of them, but they don't face up to the philosophical question about when an AI would be conscious. That's not a criticism. Art is not supposed to be science.

Well, I think he means it in the Humean way of "impressions" and "ideas". — schopenhauer1

I agree that's what's in the background. (There was a great revival of Hume amongst analytic philosophers, at least in the UK, at the time.) But Hume posits "relations between ideas" and rejects "reason" (or some sense or other of it). So Ayer is riffing off Hume, rather than reproducing him.

Some say yes some say no. — schopenhauer1

If photons can count as sense data, then I say yes. But the idea is that we aware of them, so then I say know. So I just say I don't know what they are (supposed to be.)

Is it the "whole body" is involved and thus, one cannot separate it? If that's the case, how does one avoid panpsychism? — schopenhauer1

Well, the idea that the mind is the brain is clearly physiologically inaccurate and since action is embedded in perception, I go for the whole person. But I don't see panpsychism as a problem - just a mistake, generated by the philosophical fondness for exaggerated generlization.

There are things like object-oriented ontologies where all objects have some sort of qualitative aspect, for example. — schopenhauer1

It depends on what you mean by "object". If "to be is to be the value of a variable" is true, then clearly that's false.

Many people consider this secondary properties as the qualities themselves are only apparent to an observer, not "there" in some non-observational sense, other than the physical substrata from which the qualities become realized. — schopenhauer1

I'm coming round to the idea that accepting Locke's argument is a mistake. After all, in ordinary language (for what it is worth), there is no doubt that it is the stop-light that is red and that there is nothing red in my head. Moreover, Berkley's argument that the distinction between primary and secondary qualities won't stand up seems a good one.

And now we are back to the Philosophy of Mind. — schopenhauer1

Perhaps we should never have been anywhere else.

impressions seems pretty equivalent to sense-datum, unless there is some weird technicality I am not understanding. — schopenhauer1

You are dead right about that. Berkeley used "idea" a bit more widely but clearly included the same idea(!) in its scope. Kant's "phenomena" is also very similar. "Sense data" is an update to the idea designed to suit the 20th century.

Ayer is ever closing the human off to only phenomenal and not "the world". — schopenhauer1

To be fair to him, he doesn't deny the external world and doesn't deny that we know things about it.

However he would agree with you that

Even if the judgement is based on experience, that doesn't mean necessarily, "sense impressions" but various judgements and inferences derived from those sense impressions. — schopenhauer1

It's the idea that all knowledge of the external world is based on evidence from the senses. This is useful because it closes the infinite regress of evidence - (sense-data, for Ayer, are incorrigible, so immune from sceptical doubt). So part of what is at issue here is whether all knowledge of the external world is an inference. Austin spends a good deal of time dismantling (or trying to dismantle) that model. The lesson from Austin (and I'm pretty sure he intended this) is that incorrigiblity is a philosophical dream inspired for the search for absolute certainty.

There is a complication here, that Ayer says that physical objects are "constructed" from sense-data. I think he means "logically constructed", so this isn't a straightforward metaphysical claim, but exactly what it means is not clear.

My version of this is that life is not really about avoiding error, but coping with it when it crops up.

That is to say, the "real world" is never known, just represented.. — schopenhauer1

I have an issue with this. First of all, if the "real world" is never known, you have changed the standard meaning of "know" for a distortion created by the idea that "certainty" means immunity from error (see above) and if "representing" means nothing unless what is represented is also known. Comparing representation with original is how you know it is a representation - think picture vs original. How do you know what the picture is a picture of if there is no way of, at least sometimes, comparing them?

..this creates the division of mind/body that many philosophers want to get away from as it again, brings in the "specter" of the ghostly mind, which is to be eradicated and replaced. — schopenhauer1

That is exactly what is at stake in the broader context. I'm sure you know that the modern idea of "qualia" is a (not unsuccessful) attempt to preserve the ghost.

My responses to Lecture XI

There's a good deal of familiar ground in this. But there are differences of detail and elaboration that are of interest. The only thing that seems to materially add is the concluding section on hedging, which I've already drawn attention to.

One other point struck me:- "Warnock says that a witness being asked to report only “what he actually saw” results in the witness being more cautious. Austin's reply is that "I might begin, for instance, by saying that I saw a little silvery speck, and go on to say that what I actually saw was a star. I might say in evidence that I saw a man firing a gun, and say afterwards, 'I actually saw him committing the murder!' That is (to put it shortly and roughly), sometimes I may supposedly see, or take it that I see, more than I actually see, but sometimes less." (p. 134)

It occurs to me that the quest for certainty has missed something. There are two ways of being wrong. One is to state more than I really saw. The other way is to state less. In other words, falsehood is not just suggestio falsi (saying what is false), but also suppressio veri (not saying what is true). Exaggeration is not true, but neither is understatement.

Thus this whole argument needs to go away to preserve realism. — schopenhauer1

You, I and Austin can all agree on that conclusion - depending on what you mean by realism. The trouble is, it hasn't. (See qualia).

Forgive me, I have to go now. I can't respond to this in detail.

I

We need to look at all acts of sensing as acts of interpreting. — Metaphysician Undercover

Different interpretations of a picture presuppose a picture that is the original and mediates between interpretations. Ditto different interpretations of a law or other text. So if all acts of seeing are acts of interpretation, what is the original of what is being interpreted?

To be sure, we give different descriptions of what we see which are, or amount to, different interpretations of what we see. I would be happy to describe "what we see" as sense-data. However, I interpret that in the ordinary sense of see, not the sense required by sense-datum theory. Whether the sense of "see" required by sense-datum theory is coherent or not is one of the key questions.

For example, line up a group of people facing a particular direction, tell them to take mental note of what they see, then have them turn around and write it down. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not clear whether those differences result from differences in what is seen (unlikely, but possible) or differences in what they notice or attend to, or perhaps in what they remember or even in differences in what they think I want to hear.

Now imagine if one's temporal frame of reference was a couple billion years, or just a couple nanoseconds. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm afraid I can't imagine that. However, I can consider the possibility that someone's temporal frame of reference is different from mine. Indeed, while it is unlikely that any actual beings are as so radically different from mine, it is more than likely that other living beings have different temporal frames of reference. Quite how that would play out, is harder to work out, so I'm not much further forward. While I grant that it's possible, I have no idea how one might come to know that it differs or by how much. However, even considering the possibility presupposes a) that I can identify them as conscious, therefore alive and b) that their subjective time would relate to mine in some way, such that I could explain differences by the difference in temporal frame of reference.

I understand what speculation means in ordinary life, but in cases like this, I lose my bearings. How do you manage?

Here, for what it's worth is my summary of lecture XI. I've set it up as a dialogue.

This lecture is about Warnock on Berkeley – a restatement or revision of “Our own ideas are what is immediately perceived” – i.e. what makes no assumptions, takes nothing for granted.

Warnock Making assumptions is not necessarily speaking loosely (as Berkeley thinks). Eradicating assumptions is a matter of paying attention to what we are entitled to say. The case of the witness being asked to report only “what he actually saw” results in the witness being more cautious.(p.133)
Austin But this doesn’t justify sense-data. “sometimes I may supposedly see, or take it that I see, more than I actually see, but sometimes less”. (p.134)

Warnock “Immediately perceive” has no ordinary meaning so Berkeley can decide how it is to be used.
Austin This is an over-statement. In any case, both Berkeley and Warnock do trade on the ordinary uses of “immediately” and “perceive”. (p.135)

Warnock The patch of red that we immediately perceive might or might not be a book, so what we immediately perceive is something different from the book.
Austin This is a confusion, since that patch of red is the book. (p.136)

Warnock rejects Berkeley’s view that there are entities of some sort which are what we immediately perceive. He looks for the kind of sentence which expresses a “judgement of immediate perception”. (p.136)
Austin Possible wrong assumptions are not a matter of propositions/sentences (i.e forms of words) but of forms of words in the circumstances of their use, i.e.statements.

Warnock’s discussion of “Hearing a car” assumes there is nothing else to go on.
Austin But what if there is something else to go on? (p. 137)

Warnock “Material object” does not mean the same as “collections of ideas”. They are related as verdicts to evidence. (p.140)
Austin This model only applies to second-hand judgements. It excludes the possibility of being in the best position to make a judgement. It leaves out the position of the “eye-witness”. (p.140)

Austin Sense-data are the result of the demand to find the minimally adventurous form of words. Warnock’s approach is a matter of hedging from statements about material objects, not building up to them. (p. 141) But we don’t hedge unless there’s some reason for doing so. The best policy is not to ask the question. (p.142)

"Translation" here is an idea that came up earlier in the discussion. It treat the idea of sense-data as a question of language than of metaphysics. I was referring to that. Here's a summary.

So a translation (interpretation) would have the form :
(This collection of sense-data statements) is true IFF (this statement about a material object)
A rough example, the ubiquitous cup...
(I see a red quadrilateral and a red ovoid and another ovoid) is true IFF this is a red cup. — Banno

Rather, observation can be had by any number of methods, many of them inferential. It's a weird hill to die on, unless you really contort the cause-effect relationship back to "sense-data" to prove your point that it all goes back to that. — schopenhauer1

Yes, in a way. You are using "observation" in a common sense way, and I'm on board with that. But Ayer's argument is that all observations other than sense-data are inferences from sense-data.

To be charitable, you can say that sense-data must be involved in the human way of interpreting the world, but that is pretty charitable. — schopenhauer1

To my mind, the effectiveness of the argument about sense-data depends on the appeal of this argument. Dissecting that is a complicated business. But it is difficult to imagine a different way of interpreting the world which was completely incomprehensible to human beings - we couldn't even identify it as an interpretation of the world. (That's a vey brief gesture towards how the argument might go.)

If anything, the whole discussion leads to a sort of Platonic notion of information as agnostic to sense-data and just "existing" in some sense, whatever the interpreter is. — schopenhauer1

Yes. and I find the idea of information as something that couldn't ever inform anyone somewhat puzzling. The relationship with the idea of sense-data is not clear to me. If one interpreted sense-data as light, sound, etc. (i.e. as physical effects of "the world" on our sense-organs), then they make some sense. But that's not what is intended by Ayer. He has in mind "experiences" or what Berkeley called "ideas" and Hume called "impressions" and Kant and Husserl called "phenomena"

Does the project of "logical positivism" or "empiricism" in general rest solely on Ayer's idea of sense data? — schopenhauer1

Two quotations from SEP - Vienna Circle

"The Vienna Circle was a group of scientifically trained philosophers and philosophically interested scientists who met under the (nominal) leadership of Moritz Schlick for often weekly discussions of problems in the philosophy of science during academic terms in the years from 1924 to 1936."

"While the Vienna Circle’s early form of logical empiricism (or logical positivism or neopositivism: these labels will be used interchangeably here) no longer represents an active research program"

And one from SEP - A J Ayer

"Ryle was also instrumental in getting Ayer to go to Vienna in 1933 to study with Moritz Schlick, then leader of the influential Vienna Circle of philosophers, scientists and other intellectuals, joining W. V. O. Quine in being one of only two visitors to be members of the Vienna Circle. His philosophical experience in Vienna was somewhat limited by his uncertain knowledge of German, but he knew enough to pick up the basic tenets of logical positivism."

For example, when we determine the chemical makeup of a substance, scientists use an electron spectrometer. — schopenhauer1

I don't think working scientists ever give a moment's thought to sense-data. But for what it's worth a defence of the idea would go something like this. The spectrometer is a material object like any other, so the usual "translation" could be made. It would be even more complicated that the normal examples of tables or trees, but there's no reason in principle why it could not be made. Reading the information is not specially complicated. The rest is up to interpretation via the various theories. Compare an astronomer observing starts through a telescope. There's no knock-down argument here.

Berekeley considers a watchmaker as a potential counter-example and has no difficulty arguing that, complex as it is, all our knowledge as well as the watchmaker's is easily translatable into collections of ideas. The real argument is in the actions of the watchmaker in building the watch - or so it seems to me. Action in the world establishes that I am embodied - a three-dimensional object among other three-dimensional objects.

Why is "verification" so narrowly defined as sense data? — schopenhauer1

Because Ayer is seeking to find the foundations of knowledge. Sense-data provide the incorrigible and self-evident starting-points of the the chains of evidence that underpin our knowledge. Perhaps, most of the time, we don't actually articulate the chains all the way back to the beginning. But we can, if we need to.

For Carnap the touchstone was consistency, not correspondence. Ayer and Austin on the other hand opted for correspondence. — Banno

The difficulty of consistency/coherence theories is that language itself has a place for non-verbal reality. So I'm with Austin and Ayer here. As you say, Strawson disagreed. However, I don't really know how to articulate words vs world. One of the many topics about which I could do with some revision/refreshment.

Everybody has a hiatus from time to time.

For now, I'm going to go with Ayer as arguing that language about material objects is entailed (for some unspecified notion of entailment...) by sense-data, and that sense data are a hedge on our ordinary talk about objects. Then Austin's reply is that there is no reason for such a hedge, especially since the unspecified nature of the entailment does not provide the sort-after incorrigibility. — Banno

I didn't, perhaps specify clearly enough that my problem with Ayer is that he thinks of material objects are "constructions". He might have meant "logical constructions", I suppose. Either way, this needs explanation. (Perhaps the might be some more detail in his book.) I have a clearer idea of "hedging" means, though it's connection with any version of "entailment" is a bit obscure.
I don't think they are incompatible.

I have a feeling that there's no reason not to proceed to lecture XI, and was thinking of producing a summary. Would that be helpful?

I'm glad our dialogue was constructive and sorry about your decision to leave.

OLP couldn't exist without definitions — RussellA

I’ll grant you that, but it does not rest on definitions — Antony Nickles

It may help to clarify "definition" here. If it means a written set of criteria or list of synonyms that can be entered in a dictionary, rule-book or law, it will be important to remember that we manage to learn to use words correctly without them. That doesn't mean that the words we use don't have a definition; it just means that they don't have a formal definition.
Formal definitions are a useful supplement, but not necessary, except in certain formal situations. (Austin makes this point, correctly, in my view - and he adds, also correctly that we learn very many words by ostensive "definition). In addition, the information given in a dictionary will be useless to anyone who does not know how to use the words, that is, how to apply the definition and use the word in sentences that are at least sufficiently grammatical to convey meaning. (Grammar was developed and used long before it was articulated and written down in Alexandria in the 3rd/4th century BCE. (It was developed to help people teaching or learning a language as adults - clearly written grammatical rules cannot be used by someone learning their first language))

On the other hand, an animal such as a dog has a non-verbal instinctive understanding not to put their paw into an open fire — RussellA

Quite so. But non-verbal understandings and beliefs - and perceptions - are different issue.

I agree, it is a very strange thing for the Indirect Realist to say what we see is sense-data. But then it is also a very strange thing for the Direct Realist to say that what we see are material objects. — RussellA

Well, yes. Austin questions (I think, dismantles) Ayer's use of "material objects" as well as his use of "sense-data". He thinks that neither term is useful or coherently usable. But he would be quite content to say that he sees tables and chairs - and rainbows and rain.

Does it mean either 1) the OLP uses ordinary language when analysing ordinary language or 2) the OLP analyses ordinary language but doesn't use ordinary language? — RussellA

This question emphasizes to me that the description "ordinary language philosophy" is not very helpful. The more I consider it, the less I understand what it means. If one reflects that, however many technicalities are used, the fundamental structure of the language is kept, because it is foundational to any use of the language. In a sense, there is no alternative to ordinary language, even though it can be modified and added to in all sorts of ways. (I except mathematical language which uses neither ordinary grammar nor ordinary vocabulary (though even there, there are some ordinary terms that do crop up - "number", for example.)
In a sense, anyone who speaks/writes relies on ordinary language, however much it may be added to or modified.

As an Indirect Realist, I can say "I see sense-data" meaning "I perceive by the eye sense-data" and I can say "I see a material object" meaning "I imagine the possibility of a material object". — RussellA

Yes, you can. It doesn't half help, though, if you make it clear that you are an indirect realist. I know how to interpret what you say.
However, by the same token, a Direct Realist can say "I see a table" meaning "perceive by the eye a table" (though it's a terrible phrase and almost incomprehensible if one takes it seriously) and, if there's an argument going on with an Indirect Realist "I imagine the possibility of sense-data" (because sense-datum language is derived from "material object" language)
But then the disagreement between them seems just a quarrel about words, hardly worth spending any time or effort on. What's at stake here? Nothing.

However, the figure of speech is foundational to language, meaning that the expressions "I perceive by the eye", "sense-data", "I imagine the possibility" and "material object" are all figures of speech and therefore not to be taken literally. — RussellA

Well you could say that any use of a word that isn't a name for a unique object could be described as metaphorical. When I describe a car as red and then describe a coat as red, I am carrying the word over to another case. In other words, you are applying "metaphor" so widely that I can no longer grasp what it means for you. What you be an example of a literal use of, for example "imagine"?
I'm afraid I haven't read Metaphors We Live By, so I can't engage with what they say. But I understand "metaphor" as defined as a non-literal use of a word, and if that's right, not everything can be metaphorical. Mind you, I can just about get my head round the idea that the literal use of a word is also a figure of speech.

The Indirect Realist is considering the pair sense-data and material object in two distinct ways. In one way as sense, which is a linguistic dichotomy, and in another way as reference, which is not a metaphysical dichotomy. — RussellA

Do you mean that "sense-datum" and "material object" are both referring expressions. That depends on us agreeing what they refer to. I can understand that "material object" refers to things like tables and chair, but probably not to rainbows or colours. But I don't understand what "sense-datum" refers to. That's the issue.

However, Austin's argument is flawed, as he infers that because there is no metaphysical dichotomy, then there cannot be a linguistic dichotomy, which is an invalid argument. — RussellA

That's odd. I interpret him as arguing the other way round, that because there is no (valid) linguistic dichotomy, there can be no metaphysical dichotomy.

and the work they did obviously has merit. — Antony Nickles

My supervisor often used to say that being wrong in interesting ways was nearly as good as being right.
I've quoted this before on this forum, but I'm old enough to believe that some things are worth repeating.

Right or wrong, the best thing is to leave or create a path to continuing the discussion (just as a scientific theory needs to do more than just be "true". It needs to open avenues for further research.). I'm afraid the "no theory" theory, if anyone has ever seriously held it, doesn't do that.

Unfortunately, people always just want something to take away, so any hint that they are generalizing something and we take that as all the value they have, rather than to show us a practice which we continue with our own interests and examples. — Antony Nickles

Well, I was remarking that I like Austin's "analysis" of "real" because it gives me an "oversight" of the yse of the word. So there's that to consider.

The idea of practice is important. When I was a student, it was often emphasized that examples are not marginal, but often critically important to any argument. It's not as easy as Austin makes it look.

But when they see the possibility of error they just jump to the conclusion that we must not be able to “know” the way they want and then they project the skeptical/metaphysical picture from there. — Antony Nickles

Yes, I understand that. My point is only that if one remembers the roots of philosophy in ordinary language, it might seem less of an extraordinary aberration to those who don't see the point.

Cavell, in Problems in Modern Aesthetics, points out that Kant (in his critique of judgment) says that we make aesthetic claims, like OLP’s descriptions of its examples, in a universal voice — Antony Nickles

Yes, I can see the point. So long as that voice is hopeful rather than dogmatic.

Wittgenstein is always leaving things unfinished, asking questions you have to change your perspective in order to answer. — Antony Nickles

Yes. I read somewhere that he was brought up with a practice, not of having heart to heart chats with people when he was going off the rails, but leaving a book by his bedside. I don't know if it's true, but it fits with his practice. It's risky, though.

The accusation of arrogance, in both cases, is the response of those who don't recognize the voice or don't find the expected lesson in the book.

to perceive by the eye and ii) to imagine the possibility. — RussellA

What the dictionary says is not (to coin a phrase) definitive. In other words, the definitions in dictionaries have been developed by human beings are not exempt from criticism and revision. They are intended to capture the use of the word by ordinary speaker

You quoted two of the meanings in Merriam Webster. The full list has 9 main meanings with two or three variants for most of them. The two most important ones, in my book are "to perceive by the eye: to perceive the meaning or importance of". I think the latter is metaphorical. The use of "see" to cover "suppose" and "visualize" cited in Merriam Webster is, in my view, marginal and metaphorical. The Cambridge Dictionary has 9 meanings. Dictionary.com has 21 meanings.

Ayer maintains that "see" has two meanings, both of which are covered by "perceive by the eye". So he and Austin disagree about what the ordinary use is. Many people have agreed with Austin. I don't know that any philosopher has directly argued with Austin about his conclusion. Whether you are convinced by Austin's examples that Ayer is wrong is up to you.

I followed your link. That will take some digesting. But I will read it.

it’s almost like you have to read the whole thing, — Antony Nickles

I assume you mean the whole of the book. I'm afraid I have indeed read lecture XI and couldn't wait to share what I think is a jewel.

But it isn’t about language — Antony Nickles

I had taken a rather different direction, thinking about the "ordinary" in philosophy. Descartes starts his meditation from ordinary life. Perhaps that's just a pedagogical device, starting from where his audience is. Berkeley makes great play of his respect for "vulgar opinion" and "what is agreed on all hands", yet rejects "universal assent". Hume's view of the divide between ordinary life and philosophy is well enough known. And Ayer, as Austin points out, starts from the "ordinary" man (who, admittedly turns out to be a stalking-horse, to be slaughtered before the philosophical work can begin) and insists that both his senses of "perception" are ordinary (see p. 93)

It looks at ordinary usages in individual cases to inform philosophical claims because what we are interested in about a subject, it’s essence, is reflected in how we judge it, which is captured in the kinds of things we say about it in particular cases. — Antony Nickles

I would like to add, however, that it is at its best when it actually analyses the uses. His discussion of "real" is really illuminating, because, I suggest, it goes beyond "looking" and gives me what Wittgenstein might have called an "oversight" (in a non-standard sense) of the use of the word. In contrast, his dissection of "vague" and "precise" is effective enough, but doesn't take that step. Maybe I'm not being reasonable, but I think that extra step is important.

As the sense-data theory cannot show that OLP is invalid, OLP cannot show that the sense-data theory is invalid. — RussellA

Quite so. Perhaps this is where philosophy should begin. But it never does.

Until whilst walking through a town someone driving in a car runs over my foot. — RussellA

It depends what you mean by "understand".

So when I say "I directly see Mars", as there is no information within these photons that their source was Mars, I am using the word "directly" in a figurative rather than literal sense. — RussellA

So far as I know, no-one suggests that photons are the sense-data for the eyes. That would be an entirely different matter. For example, it would be very strange to say that what we see is photons.

c) without an intervening agency - buy direct from the manufacturer — RussellA

Yes. Now we need to work out what it means to buy something indirectly. If one buys from a shop, does one buy indirectly from the manufacturer? If so, I'm not sure that one can buy directly from anyone else. A nice puzzle.

So how does this work in the case of "directly see the car that ran over my foot"?

I don't deny that there's an issue about understanding modern research into vision. If one models the brain as a computer, one would have to classify something as data and something else as output. Both are tricky, but "experiences", "sense-data", "ideas", "impressions", "qualia" are not helpful concepts; they are simply waving one's arms about and worrying (or purporting to worry) about the "hard problem"; but this is simply defining the problem as insoluble, which may be a satisfactory outcome, depending on the point of view you started from. (See my first comment in this post.)

I'm sorry to have missed this fascinating discussion. There's this thing called ordinary life. Very intrusive, not to say annoying.

The symmetry is broken; and with it the two language theory. — Banno

Yes. But there's an additional step, which I think is the killer move. It occurs in the discussion of Warnock - XI pp. 141,142. "Warnock's picture of the situation gets it upside-down as well as distorted. His statements of 'immediate perception', so far from being that from which we advance to more ordinary statements, are actually arrived at, and are so arrived at in his own account, by retreating from more ordinary statements, by progressive hedging. (There's a tiger-there seems to be a tiger-it seems to me that there's a tiger-it seems to me now that there's a tiger-it seems to me now as if there were a tiger.) It seems extraordinarily perverse to represent as that on which ordinary statements are based a form of words which, starting from and moreover incorporating an ordinary statement, qualifies and hedges it in various ways. You've got to get something on your plate before you can start messing it around. It is not, as Warnock's language suggests, that we can stop hedging if there is a good case for coming right out with it; the fact is that we don't begin to hedge unless there is some special reason for doing so, something a bit strange and off-colour about the particular situation."

The two "languages" are not equal. One is "derived" from the other, as Ayer supposes. But object-language is not derived from sense-data language. It's the other way round. (I'm hedging about "entailment", of course.)

There is also a puzzle about exactly what Ayer means by saying that objects are constructions. What are they constructed out of? Experiences? Patches of colour? Actually, I'm pretty sure he means "logical constructions", but that needs a good deal of explaining, and certainly doesn't include any non-verbal reality.

They are interested in the specific and particular case "do I directly see sense-data or do I directly see an object". — RussellA

... and the point about that particular case is that no clear meaning has been assigned to "direct". One might well reply that I see both directly, or that directly has different meanings in the application to objects and to sense-data. If I see sense-data directly, I see objects indirectly. If I see objects directly, I don't see sense-data at all. So the question can only be answered if I have already made up my mind about the answer.

Well OLP is not a movement, nor a belief-system, it’s a method, but Austin is not abandoning either truth, as I discuss here nor is OLP giving up on the essence of things, as I argued in the last paragraph here. — Antony Nickles

I'm beginning to think that "ordinary language philosophy" is a misnomer. It's a lot closer to philosophy than it seems to be if one reads the programmatic description. Perhaps the project would be better understood if one talked about "natural language". Logicians seem to have a generally accepted concept, which seems at least close to ordinary language.

True. The concept of "reality" is manufactured within language. — RussellA

Quite so. That's why careful attention to language is so important. But there is a very tricky problem attached to that. Language - at least ordinary language - clearly "points to" a non-verbal reality, and Austin himself uses the phrase at least once in these lectures. But if we try to understand that non-verbal reality we find ourselves unable to do so. Hence much philosophy and many doctrines. None of which succeed. I don't have a solution, but wouldn't it be reasonable to explore ordinary language carefully to understand what this "pointing to" amounts to? It doesn't seem reasonable to attach a label ("metaphysics") to this phenomenon of ordinary language and then use it as if we understood the phenomenon, thought that's exactly what happens all too often.

The particular method used to obtain an object will pre-determine any object discovered — RussellA

Quite so. So Ayer's method pre-determines what he will discover. Stalemate. What next?

You could urge us to accept both Austin and Ayer, but that's a position that needs some explanation. Few people think that they do not disagree, and most think that both cannot be right including the two participants.

Actually, I think you over-state the case. It would be more accurate to say that the particular method applied will pre-determine what kind of object can be discovered. A microscope will discover many things, but never a star. For that, of course, you need a telescope, which will never discover a bacterium. And you need a different kind of instrument to measure volts and amps.

However, I don't agree that he then continues to argue, still as an Ordinary Language Philosopher, that sense-data is not a valid metaphysical position. — RussellA

So you believe both positions and that no argument can settle the issue? Basically on the grounds that any argument must be from one position or another and that it cannot therefore address the issue. H'm. That would need some explaining.

However, if the argument results in self-contradiction or absurdity, it is possible that it is the argument that is self-contradictory or absurd, not the topic of the argument. — RussellA

That's true. But it depends on the argument. If my argument is that democracy is bound to fail (as Plato argues), that argument may be absurd, but that doesn't show that democracy is absurd. But if the argument is that God exists and that argument is absurd, until there is another argument, there is no basis for asserting that God exists. No?

He acknowledges that the craftsmen, physicians, ship captains, and others have knowledge. — Fooloso4

We would have to get into the texts to settle that. But I pretty clear that he does not think that such people have philosophical knowledge, which is knowledge of the true and the real. They have something lesser; his word is sometimes translated "Knack".

The cave has been discussed in other threads and, of course, a new thread can be started. — Fooloso4

So I think we should leave the topic there.

There may be advocates of sense data who do believe that, but Ayers agrees with the view that what we see is real, whether it's sense data that we see, or material objects. — frank

Well, his position is more complicated than my remark allowed. That is true. If you prefer, he says that it is only sense-data that we see directly, and that "material objects" are "constructions" out of sense-data. So material objects, according to Ayer are not what we think they are.

However, if the argument results in self-contradiction or absurdity, it is possible that it is the argument that is self-contradictory or absurd, not the topic of the argument. — RussellA

OK. But the argument in question here is the argument that we never perceive reality, only sense-data.

The images whose shadows we see are not sense-data, they are: — Fooloso4

Yes, but we see the shadows, never the statues, which are also not what they seem to be, i.e. not men and other animals. So you're right. There are two levels of unreality involved. But Plato is claiming that we never see reality, and that's the central issue in sense-datum theory.

I believe that sense-data are metaphysically true, and I also believe that sense-data is irrelevant to linguistics. — RussellA

That's one of the questions. The difficulty is that arguments about metaphysics have to be expressed in language. If the (attempts to express) metaphysical argument result in self-contradiction or absurdity, they cannot be correct. No?

True, but it would be more difficult for someone who believes in God to formulate an argument for the non-existence of God. — RussellA

I don't know. I don't believe in God, yet I can tell you what the arguments for and against are. What's the problem?

And it isn’t about “language”, it is about the everyday criteria and cases shown in contrast to the singular criteria of certainty (incorrigibility) and an abstract generalized case. — Antony Nickles

I think this is a much better way of putting what's going on. Perhaps it is helpful to reflect that lawyers arguing a point in case law are in a similar position. The practice of the courts, rather than legislation needs to be examined in order to arrive at justice. It strikes me that Austin's examples can be treated as simply (counter-) examples. The ordinariness of the language is beside the point

But there is the suspicion of technical or specialized concepts. Here's the rub. It is impossible for someone who does not accept the term "quale" or "qualia" as being capable of coherent use to join in the discussion. The only possible strategy is to demonstrate the incoherence of the proposed usage.

It is a method of doing philosophy by examining specific cases and “what we say when…” in order to draw conclusions about the way things work (and don’t). — Antony Nickles

Exactly. The ordinariness of the language is beside the point.

And so not that it can’t be a pig unless it checks all the (entailed) boxes, because we don’t know which, if any, criteria to apply until there is a situation, which may be novel, and thus require stretching or changing or ignoring our ordinary criteria. — Antony Nickles

.. and it may well be helpful in such situations to articulate and formalize our habits in order to be better able to focus arguments and settle those difficult cases.

But, of course, science is not searching for philosophical certainty; it has its own: if I apply its method, I come up with the same answer (so does everyone). — Antony Nickles

I'm probably unusual in that I'm rather suspect that there is really no such a thing as a or the scientific method. Blame Feyerabend. (I know he's persona non grate for two good reasons, but if he's right, he's right. I can accept that without approving or excusing some of the things he's probably done). I prefer the idea that science is simply organized common sense.

Which is what I was trying to say, only said better. — Antony Nickles

.. and you elaborated further and I agree with all of that.

This is to say, first-person statements might not be incorrigible at all, and, even if they are, the fact I am making them is not of the only importance. — Antony Nickles

Quite so. That's a consequence of the private language argument. But then, there's the issue whether psychosomatic pains and illnesses are "real" or not. I'm in the camp that says they are not deceptions or illusions, even though the usual causal pathways are not involved.

Cavell (through Wittgenstein) takes the sceptic's generic claims more seriously (where Austin is more… condescending?), though not on their terms either (towards certainty). — Antony Nickles

Yes. Austin thinks that sense-datum theory can be disposed of or dissolved. Cavell, writing some time later, is taking seriously 1) the survival of scepticism (and sense-data) post Wittgenstein, and 2) Wittgensteins remark about "our real needs" being at the heart of the issues. But his phenomenological turn, though plausible, is not, I think, particularly illuminating. On the other hand, I'm not sure where else to go. However, our discussion of the pursuit of certainty is helpful.

Meta is notable for apparently not having even mentioned Austin on a thread about Austin. — Banno

I'm afraid that I'm partly responsible for that. I was curious about his take on Plato (which seemed to be based on some serious reading and thought). But it was also because Plato seems to me to be an early progenitor of the mistakes we are talking about, because he believes that ordinary perceptions are all false and develops something that is close to sense-datum theory in the "cave" metaphor. But he takes the central point (that ordinary perceptions are deceptive) and runs off in an entirely different direction with it, because he has an alternative concept of what is really real. But that's of interest itself. My understanding of Kant is that he also takes the central idea to show that there is a "reality" "behind" the phenomena), rather than believing that the phenomena are the only reality (cf. Berkeley).

True, that's partly based on the accident of my biography, that I've always been involved with Plato, though not at a serious (research) level. The later dialogues were simply beyond me. I couldn't take them seriously enough to get my head round them.

There is an interesting and, so far as I know, unusual, idea there.

The Forms are philosophical poiesis, images of the truth and knowledge that those who desire wisdom strive for. — Fooloso4

This lecture is about why this is a misguided approach. — Banno

I'm going to venture into uncertain territory here. His dismantling of Ayer's approach is convincing, as always. I'm convinced, but not satisfied and I think this raises difficult questions.

On p.121 he says "We learn the word 'pig', as we learn the vast majority of words for ordinary things, ostensively-by being told, in the presence of the animal, 'That is a pig'; and thus, though certainly we
learn what sort of thing it is to which the word 'pig' can and can't be properly applied, we don't go through any kind of intermediate stage of relating the word 'pig' to a lot of statements about the way things look, or sound, or smell. The word is just not introduced into our vocabulary in this way."

This is all very well, and relevant. But formal definition and various kinds of entailment do have a place, whether inside or outside ordinary language. So, though it may be unfair, I'm inclined to think that Austin has over-generalized here.

In the footnote on that page he says "Another way of showing that 'entailment' is out of place in such contexts: Suppose that tits, all the tits we've ever come across, are bearded, so that we are happy to say 'Tits are bearded.' Does this entail that what isn't bearded isn't a tit? Not really. For if beardless specimens are discovered in some newly explored territory, well, of course we weren't talking about them when we said that tits were bearded; we now have to think again, and recognize perhaps this new species of glabrous tits. Similarly, what we say nowadays about tits just doesn't refer at all to the prehistoric eo-tit, or to remote future tits, defeathered perhaps through some change of atmosphere."

Rather than try to find a place of impregnable safety, adapt to the unforeseen when it occurs. Very helpful when dealing with philosophical certainty.

But there's another concern. If we were to take Newtonian mechanics and argue that the terms of that theory were nonsense from the point of view of ordinary language - (and even from the point of view of some non-ordinary language, since the law of gravity violates the prohibition of action at a distance) - we would meet a battery or arguments that our criterion was in appropriate and that the theory had did make sense and had various other virtues. Of course, that isn't a philosophical theory. But how do we distinguish philosophical theories which can be debunked by appeal to ordinary language from other theories, physical, psychological - without begging the question?

I think where I'm going with this is something like - ordinary language is not a distinct philosophical method, it is embedded at least as a starting-point in all philosophy and in all theory. A clean sheet of paper is simply not available.

that I am informing you so that you might help me, — Antony Nickles

More tweaking. I think Wittgenstein's point is that "I am in pain" is not simply passing on information, but is an expression that elicits a response ("Ouch!"). Actually one could use "I am in pain" in the same way as one might use "he is in pain" - to give information. Which use I'm making of it will depend on circumstances.

that first-person statements are incorrigible (even mine to myself) based on their being made by me. — Antony Nickles

I don't quite understand this. What else would they be based on?

This is not a general foundation, but, again, pointing out that a question only comes up in a specific situation. — Antony Nickles

That is a really important point.

From the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word "see" can have several meanings, including "to perceive by the eye" and "to imagine a possibility". — RussellA

The first sense and I mean that I am perceiving by the eye a three-dimensional form - except when I am looking at a two-dimensional picture.

For example, in the expression "I see an apple", Austin's approach is to ignore any possible metaphorical meaning for its so-called "ordinary" usage, thereby turning a blind eye to the range of possible meanings as laid out in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. — RussellA

I wouldn't say he ignores metaphorical meanings for "apple". He explicitly draws attention to one kind of relevant metaphor in the passage you quote. He also draws attention to the difference between that metaphorical use and the literal use. That is not mentioned in the Merriam Webster definition.

However, for Ayer, it is an important metaphysical question when looking at an apple whether I am perceiving by the eye a three-dimensional form — RussellA

As it happens, in the example you cite, "I" am perceiving by the eye (in future, I will write "see" instead of this cumbersome form) two dimensional forms which I know give me information about the three-dimensional world. I can't see any important metaphysical questions from this.

Though, as an aside, as a Christian author could write an article evaluating Atheism and unsurprisingly find it wanting, — RussellA

Yes, it is common to dismiss the arguments of people who believe in God because they arrive at the conclusion they started from. But actually, that's a lazy mistake. It is perfectly possible for someone who believes in God to formulate an argument for the existence of God that deserves to be taken seriously. Some of them do beg the question. But that's not the same thing. For example, if you say “I got the most votes because I won the election”, your premise (I won the election) relies on the conclusion (I got the most votes) rather than providing evidence for it. Nothing to do with what you or I believe.

Austin, as a believer in Ordinary Language Philosophy, has written an article evaluating sense-data theory and has unsurprisingly find it wanting. — RussellA

That's not the same thing as begging the question. Ordinary Language Philosophy is a method of evaluation and he is using it to evaluate Ayer's argument and he comes to the conclusion that the argument is invalid. It would be up to a supporter of Ayer to show that the mistakes and confusions that Austin has identified are not mistakes and not confused. This argument would invalidate any criticism or evaluation of any argument - it would, as they say, - prove too much.

From Austin's Ordinary Language point of view, I may well agree that sense-data is irrelevant, but that does mean that the sense-data theory is irrelevant. — RussellA

I think there's a typo in the sentence, isn't there? You seem to be saying that the sense-data theory is irrelevant. I would agree with that.