I have never heard of anyone trying to justify what they saw. One can confirm what one saw. But usually one doesn't justify what one saw. One justifies what one believes, said, done and think, but not one saw, smelt, felt, drank, ate or heard. — Corvus

Ah, yes. You are quite right. That means that there is something foundational about our perceptions. But I would want to say that it is not necessarily straightforward. Normally, we do indeed believe what we see, etc and that is unproblematic. But sometimes we find ourselves with incompatible beliefs, or simply confused. Then we start asking questions, making diagnoses; very often, but not always we can resolve the situation and then we turn on the perceiver and conclude that there is something wrong or at least different going on - colour-blindness, astigmatism, etc. I realize that's very vague, but I'm gesturing towards all that, rather than trying to describe it. I think we probably don't want to pursue the details here and now.

I think this is true, but then you can't really employ the term, which I would need to supplant here, of "genuine belief". Though, I think we can simply read this as "A genuine emotional disposition to accept as true". Would that perhaps work for you? It says the same thing, to me. — AmadeusD

I've never thought about emotin in relation to belief, or rather I've always assumed that any emotion was superfluous and basically undesirable. The usual assumption is that emotion is always just irrational prejudice, but now that it seems to be generally accepted that emotions have a cognitive element and that does indeed change the game. I need to think about this.

It's not a logical position but an emotional one. — AmadeusD

I have trouble with this. Sincerity, to me, means not affected (pretended), genuine. Emotions can be affected or genuine, sincere or not. So, like honesty, sincerity must be in a different category from the emotions. (Though emotion can be an explanation for people believing things, though usually of them believing things irrationally.)

Tell that to the Jain monks who conscientiously sweep the path they're walking along to avoid stepping on insects. Or the world's many vegetarians and vegans who decline animal products as sustenance (which doesn't include me). I think this is rather a stale caricature of Christian imperialism, even if historically accurate in some respects. — Wayfarer

Yes, I know about the Jains - and respect them. So it is without disrespect that I point out that they sweep the insects from their path, rather than, for example, not walking where they are, or walking round them. Which falls under the prioritization that we were talking about.
Yes. I was using that cliche as a way of making the point that exceptionalism does not necessarily imply exploitation and destruction. Even "stewardship" is open to criticism. We don't own the world just because we can wreck it. So the care we ought to take is more like the care we should take of something that belongs to, or is shared with, someone else.

The exceptionalism I'm proposing is due to our existential condition: that we are endowed with the ability to sense meaning in a way that no other animal is able to do. There are, as a consequence, horizons of being open to us, that are not open to other animals. — Wayfarer

So now I'm puzzled again. The conversation started with the point that a lion prioritized itself and perhaps (I don't know the habits of lions) its mate and cubs over other species, in that it regards its own life as more important than the lives of its prey.
Because I have trouble with "horizons of being", I don't know what you mean by "in a way that no other animal is able to do".

It's both a blessing and a curse, as consequently we have a sense of ourselves, and so also a sense of our own limitedness and finitude and the ability to lose what we cherish and also to act in ways which we ourselves know are sub-optimal — Wayfarer

I think the issue here is about morality. Which is a rather different kettle of fish from rationality. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that some animals to have a simple sense of morality.

But then, it also suits a consumer society to have us believe that the pursuit and satiation of desires is an aim. Many before me have observed that the popular interpretation of the 'survival of the fittest' serve the industrial capitalist mindset very well. — Wayfarer

Yes, that's true. Yet, if they had eyes to see, they would understand that evolution itself demonstrates that we are better together.

That they are demonstrably lacking the rational faculties of h.sapiens is not an expression of prejudice or bias, but a simple statement of fact, which seems inordinately difficult to accept for a lot of people. — Wayfarer

Yet, from my point of view, it is a simple fact that we are animals. I'm sure you don't intend to deny that, just as I don't mean that animals don't do many things that humans do.

Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate in physics, famously claimed that “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.” But to examine the universe objectively and conclude that it is pointless misses the point. — David Loy

I'm sorry. It seems odd that Weinberg should bemoan the pointlessness of the world when he studies the world from a point of view that has been carefully constructed to eliminate any question about what the point of the world is. It doesn't miss the point. It by-passes it. (Not that I'm a fan of the question what is the point of the world).

If cosmologists themselves are a manifestation of the same universe that cosmologists study, with them the universe is comprehending itself. — David Loy

Doesn't the same apply to scientists and historians etc.? But anyway, from the fact that cosmologists are part of the universe that they study, it does not follow that the universe is comprehending itself. I'm not even clear what it means to say that the universe is comprehending itself.

Its not difficult for me to accept that humans possess symbolic language and thus are capable of collective learning in ways that other animals are apparently not. What is difficult for me to accept is that this means we are more than merely another kind of animal or that we are more important in any absolute sense than other animals. — Janus

I agree. Humans are different from animals, animals from fish, fish from insects. Humans are like animals, which are like fish, which are like insects. Each species is like others and unlike them. That's all boring. What makes the issue contentious? It has to be what significance is attributed to them.

The context here was pretty important, though. If you have accurate (or: near accurate, accurate but incomplete (and similar formulations)) data, I would agree. But, if you are misinformed (particularly purposefully, in the way JTB gets beaten by example, when you're accidentally right despite misinformation) I can't see that your rationality is really in play, in the sense that it's, as it were, on trial, in assessing data which, from a third party perspective, is wrong, but you couldn't know. — AmadeusD

If my data is wrong, despite my assessing it rationally, then my rationality is not in question. It would be if I became better informed and failed to change my assessment.

I meant, and I thought the notion was of self-importance. — creativesoul

OK. My misunderstanding.

Yes, rationality includes more than differentiating between accurate/inaccurate information. I was making that case. — creativesoul

Yes. But it does include differentiating between accurate and inaccurate information, doesn't it?

it has nothing to do with your rationality how you assess the data involved, is it? — AmadeusD

I for one would say that assessing the data is an important function of rationality. But does that mean we are only rational if we critically assess everything? Is it actually irrational to believe that the sun is shining because you can see that it is?

I still look out at the cedar tree every morning: though I don't rationally expect to see Sammy there, some superstitious* part of me keeps hoping. The same way the families of soldiers missing in action keep hoping for years or decades that their loved one will come home some day.
*I suppose it's the same part in many humans that insists on believing in a soul and afterlife. Hope, even the most improbable hope, is hard to give up. — Vera Mont

Yes. I think of it like this. Losing someone you know is a gap in your world. In most cases, the gap fills in as life goes on, though the loss is still marked. Like a scar, it can be forgotten, but still there's a reminder. In other cases, the gap does not fill in - perhaps never fills in - like a tooth you have lost, you can always feel the loss as an empty space.
The thing about long-term hope is that it will fasten on the remotest possibility. The thing about remote possibilities is that sometime they actually happen. (Hiroo Onoda was the last Japanese soldier to surrender after 1945. He emerged from the jungle in Lubang in the Phillipines in 1974.) That doesn't make hope against the odds rational, exactly. But it does distinguish it from a fantasy. You could ask the same question about Hiroo Onoda's faithfulness to his mission. If you read the story, you might decide that he was perhaps not rational but at least not irrational either.
Observations:-
1. It would seem that there is a kind of understanding that is not exactly a rational explanation, but does help to understand why people might remember those they have lost when it would not be irrational to forget.
2. But with Hachiko, I don't see how we can ever determine which of the suggested explanations is right or wrong.

All meaningful experience begins with connections being drawn between different things. The world becomes more meaningful as a direct result. That's early rational thought. — creativesoul

That sounds about right.

There's a big difference between formulating beliefs about beliefs and thinking about beliefs. Small children do not formulate beliefs about beliefs. — creativesoul

I agree with both sentences. The ill-understood (at least by me) is the difference and relationship between formulating one's beliefs and having them. Between articulate reasoning and "tacit" reasoning.

I'm sorry. That post was not reviewed prior to posting. There were half edits going on. As it stood, on my view it was nonsense. :blush: From my own poorly attended post nonetheless. — creativesoul

Oh, I do understand. I've often regretted some bit of nonsense within seconds of posting - and it's surprising how often someone spots it before I've had time to remove it. But it's hard to remove everything when a typo can mean the difference between sense and nonsense - and spell checkers only catch the mistakes that are obviously mistakes and perhaps some grammatical errors.

That has nothing to do with rationalising. That is just a perception. Perception and recalling what they saw when asked, is not reasoning.
Reasoning takes place when thinking takes place on why and how, and being able to logically and objectively summarising the grounds for the perception, beliefs, actions or propositions. — Corvus

OK. So believing what they saw and reporting that when asked doesn't involve reasoning. But reasoning can come into it when they are asked to justify (give reasons for believing) their belief that what they say did happen. Is it only after the justification has been provided that it is rational for them to believe what they saw?

The agents with no or little linguistic ability is not the point of the topic. They are not the subject of reasoning. They are objects of reasoning. We have been talking about whether your thoughts and comments on them are rational. Not them. — Corvus

I don't really see the difference between discussing whether animals are rational and discussing whether my belief that animals are rational is rational. Of course, there is a third possibility that my belief that animals are rational may be the result of a valid argument based on false premisses. Is that what you are suggesting?

I wasn't suggesting that it was a prejudice that could be changes, merely that it is a kind of natural prejudice shared by all social animals in favoring their own over other species. — Janus

OK. It's just that it seems to me to be a requirement for a species to be social at all. A "society" in which every member felt free to cannibalize the other members wouldn't survive for long, just as an individual that didn't regard itself as a priority (prioritizing its own life over that of an aggressor) wouldn't survive for long. If that's a prejudice, it would be hard to criticize a society or an individual that had it.

I cannot agree with that interpretation. Humans are responsible for climate change simply insofar as they are causing it. — Janus

It's significant, though, that you (rightly) hold human beings responsible. What's more, we can't expect any other species to step up and control the situation. All I'm suggesting is that, although exceptionalism has been all too often used by humans to justify maltreating everything else, it is also the basis for expecting better of them.
The exceptionalism that I'm opposed to is the exceptionalism that seeks to disown or set aside our animal nature, pretending that we are not animals. In a phrase, it is the idea that we have "dominion" over everything else. It has too often been interpreted as a licence for tyranny, when stewardship is called for.

Once ground for being rational for the topic or issue has been put forward, you either accept it as rational or discard it as irrational. Why do you want to go on circular? — Corvus

Perhaps I should re-phrase my answer.
Are you saying that when someone says that they saw X get out of the car, even though they may not have articulated any rationale for believing what they saw at the time, we can later on ask questions and elicit a rationale?
If so, I agree.
It seems to follow that when we do not elicit a satisfactory rationale and then we say that the belief is not rational. Do you agree?
I did ask a further question. Are you concerned about the trilemma argument that justifications must either be repeated indefinitely, or become circular or must end arbitrarily, with grounds that have no further grounding?
It's a fairly standard issue. But you are free to ignore that question if you find it annoying.

Could you not have said that you were just guessing on the behavior or actions of the animals or children as intelligent or dumb, rather than trying to pretend, make out or assume that they were rational or irrational? — Corvus

I don't believe that when we come to the rationality of creatures that do not have language as we know it, the only way to attribute reasons for their behaviour is guessing. But I wanted also to recognize that the process was more difficult and less certain than it is when we are dealing with someone who can explain their reasons.

A lion will consider the life of some non-lion animal to be of lesser value than a lions life. Its all pure prejudice. — Janus

That seems a bit hasty to me. The lion's attitude to non-lion creatures is certainly not based on a rational evaluation of them. But saying that it is all prejudice suggests that it is an opinion that the lion could change. But the poor beast has no choice about it's behaviour; it's a carnivore.
I think it's not far wrong to say that all life except the life of some organisms like lichens, lives off other life; it's part of the deal. To be sure, humans do have some choice in the matter; they can manage without meat and without killing plants, but they are a long, long way off being able to live without taking life at all.

There are no two ways about it. Human exceptionalism stinks. — Janus

Well, it often does. Often through carelessness and ignorance, it must be said. But human exceptionalism can be a basis for pinning responsibility on them. That's the key point of much of the argument about climate change.

I was trying to give you a simple example of even a simplest most basic daily life knowledge has a ground to be rational when examined. — Corvus

I'm afraid I may have forgotten the context of this. But if you are saying that when someone says that they saw X get out of the car, even though they may not have articulated any rationale for believing what they saw at the time, we can later on ask questions and elicit a rationale, then I agree. Sometimes, we do not elicit a satisfactory rationale and then we say that the belief is not rational.
What bothers me is the looming trilemma, that either that process can be repeated indefinitely, or it must become circular or it must end arbitrarily, with grounds that have no further grounding.

Being rational means that belief, knowledge, perception or action, or proposition can demonstrate in objective manner the ground for being rational when examined or reflected back. — Corvus

I don't disagree. However, when we are dealing with human beings, we can cross-question them and elicit rationales from them. When we are dealing with animals (or small children, for that matter), we can't. Then we have to supply the rationale and that's very tricky. There may be no way to satisfactorily answer the question. We can't even conclude that the belief was irrational.

Can you think of a scenario with a rational thinker who doesn't know about gravity? — Patterner

What's confusing me about this is the difference between everyday, inescapable, common sense and the scientific, technical concepts of gravity. Everyone knows about the former, but not everyone knows about the latter.

Walking off a cliff because you don't think gravity will affect you isn't rational. Going to a train station at a certain time every day for ten years, expecting to see a certain man get off the train, even though that man has not gotten off the train once in the 3,650 days you were there in the last ten years, is not rational. — Patterner

I agree with that, and it does put a different perspective on the story. I think I pointed out before that the public in that case, attributed the dog's persistence to loyalty. But the loyalty isn't necessarily rational.
It's a bit like that narrow line between heroic bravery and foolish recklessness.

The exact things matter, as does the ability/inability to perceive them prior to/while drawing correlations. — creativesoul

They can indeed make an important difference.

Removing naming and descriptive practices would remove metacognition. — creativesoul

Yes. One can only formulate beliefs about beliefs (recursion or meta-beliefs) in language. Though I would distinguish between formulating beliefs about one's own beliefs and formulating beliefs about other people's beliefs. The former seems to me problematic, because the recursion seems infinite and, in the end, empty, whereas the latter seems an everyday occurrence. (There's research in psychology about how and when small children become aware of other people's state of mind - empathy).

Removing metacognition belief content to directly perceptible things. — creativesoul

While a creature that lacked language but has perception can know and believe various things, it cannot know or believe anything about things that cannot be directly perceived, so cannot formulate beliefs about abstract objects, such as beliefs.
That seems reasonable.

We would lose all aspects of our sense of Self that emerge via language use. — creativesoul

Yes, of course. But I don't see why that conclusion requires the premiss about metacognition.

There would be no sense of importance. — creativesoul

That is puzzling. Animals have wants and desires, and I would have thought that implies a sense of importance.

A sincere typical neurologically functioning person who tells you what they believe cannot be wrong about what they believe. Their words are the standard. Now, when talking about an insincere candidate, it's another matter altogether. Luckily, there is no such thing as an insincere language less creature. — creativesoul

Yes. That's the standard way of putting it and my knowledge of what I believe is not to be evaluated in the same way as my knowledge of what others believe. There are a number of qualifications, which may well apply in real life. Nevertheless the believer's words are very helpful in getting a more accurate idea of what, exactly, it is that the believer believes.
But I get worried about how to establish that a candidate is insincere. If one thinks about it from the perspective that you don't know whether a candidate is sincere or not, my remark

If they were the benchmark (the standard), first person reports of beliefs would be irrefutable and irreplaceable. But they are neither, though they are relevant and important. — Ludwig V

may seem less absurd, though it still seems bad-tempered and unhelpful.

What's at issue is how we need to adapt what we can do when we do not have access to the believer's own words. This does turn up in human life, but seems marginal, in some sense. But it is no longer marginal when we come to creatures that do not, and seem incapable of, human language.

I'm good. Just trying to end any possible increase in personal rhetorical slights. — creativesoul

Fair enough. Point taken.

This is about the words/positions/linguistic frameworks... not the authors. — creativesoul

Absolutely

Words don't play games. — creativesoul

Not sure what you are getting at here. If you think I'm just playing games here, better tell me.

I'll do better to depersonalize my replies. — creativesoul

So will I.

But I'm afraid I can't reply to you just now. It's late and I need to be up early. I'll be back tomorrow.

After no-Ueno outnumbers Ueno by two, three, four, five times, how rationally is the dog thinking? — Patterner

I agree. People admired the dog's loyalty, but I'm not sure that loyalty is entirely rational. There has to be some doubt about what motivated him.

...I've enjoyed our discussions over the past couple years. I would suggest toning down the passive aggressive personal pokes and jabs. I'm very slow to anger... as they say. You will be biting off more than your position can even get in its mouth, let alone chew. — creativesoul

Oh, dear. I'm sorry. We are getting a bit heated. I'll sign off and go away and cool down.

The dog cannot feel guilty. It did not eat the tuna. It may be fearful. Especially if it has been falsely accused in past or punished for something that it does not understand for a lack of recognizing the causal relationship. — creativesoul

That's very plausible.

it may have a simplistic sense of what it's allowed to do and what it's not allowed to do(acceptable/unacceptable behavior). — creativesoul

But if the dog understands what it is allowed to do and what it is not allowed to do, how is that not a simplistic moral sense?
I'll tell you what - in my view, cats have absolutely no moral sense at all. There are certain behaviours, which I have observed in dogs, which I have never observed in cats, that lead me to differentiate.

The glaring falsehood though, is the very last claim. As if a dog is capable of thinking about your beliefs about him. — creativesoul

That's just dogmatic.

It acquires this groundwork for rule following by drawing correlations between its own actions and the praise/condemnation that follows. — creativesoul

As do we all.

You claimed in past, on more than one occasion, that beliefs are reasons for action. Now, I think that may be better put as "belief" is a term you use to explain behavior/action. — creativesoul

Well, suppose I said that belief is a term we use to explain behaviour/action by giving reasons.
One difference is that reasons justify what they are reasons for, while causes do not.
Another difference is that reasons play a part in teleological explanations, while causes do not.

Are you claiming that beliefs are not real or that beliefs do not effect/affect/influence? — creativesoul

Of course not. If I were to say that "infinity" or "49" or "love" is not an object, would you think I was saying that infinity or 49 or love are not real and do not effect/affect/influence?

The child named the balloon. — creativesoul

Exactly. It was the balloon that he named - our description, our concept, not his.

Does the dog believe the train arrives at 5 o'clock? — creativesoul

Does the dog believe that no train arrives at 5 o'clock?

Let's see...

The dog is on the platform at 4:55, looking down the track, just like he is there every week-day when Ueno goes off to work in the morning, and just like most of the humans who have gathered there in the last ten minutes. Agreed?
We will say of the humans that they are expecting a train. We know that the next train is due at 5.00. So we know that they are expecting the 5.00 train (whether they know that it is due at 5.00 or not - they might be unclear and only know that it is some time soon.).
Why will we not say of the dog that he is expecting a train? If we do, we know that the next train is due at 5.00. So we know that he is expecting the 5.00 train. "The 5.00 train" is our description, not his. So I'll give you this. The dog is not expecting a train at 5.00; he is not expecting anything at 5.00, because he doesn't have a concept of 5.00.

We know that when the train appears down the track, dog and humans will all come to attention - humans gathering their bits and pieces or moving towards the edge of the platform, dog standing with tail waving slowly back and to. When the train stops, the humans will climb into, and more humans will climb out of, the carriages. The humans still standing on the platform will meet and greet the people they have come to meet, the dog will meet and greet the human he has come to meet. Perhaps some humans will not meet anyone, but will pause till the train has gone and the platform cleared and then walk quietly away. Perhaps they will come back to meet another train. Eventually, the same will happen to the dog and the dog also will come back to meet another train.
Why will we not say that the dog is hoping to meet Ueno? Again, "Ueno" is our description (name), not his.

What if we did not have a system for numbering things and a system for telling time? What if our experience of life were the same as other animals without our thinking systems? How would that affect our sense of reality and our sense of importance in the scheme of things? — Athena

I don't know. I would suggest that one thing that would change would be our ability to co-ordinate with each other.

They are rather beliefs or propositions that are the result of social conditioning. They are introjections. In that sense they are "hinge" or "bedrock" or "background'. — Janus

Why don't you call it learning? It is after all, what one must be able to do before one can join in. The rower who is "conditioned" to that particular routine is learning to row, acquiring a skill.

I did not have in mind the 'social role' conception of the self at all. I was thinking of the difficult to articulate primal sense of being an individual. As the name imply an individual is one who is not divided. One who experiences a sense of continuity. That is what I meant by saying that memory unifies experience. — Janus

When you decide to "bracket" the social role conception of the self, you have created your own problem. "Self" is a complex, multi-faceted idea. ("Facet" implies that each facet depends on the others for its existence). It is an idea that not realized in identifying objects, but in the ability to take part in various activities.

Does the dog believe and/or know that the train arrives at five o'clock? It seems absurd to even hint at an affirmative answer. — creativesoul

One day, we (2 parents and 2 very young children) were driving along a country road. We came round a corner and saw the common of the next village. At that moment, a hot-air balloon was taking off, majestically sailing along and up. We were very close. We all watched in silence for a moment and then my son cried out "Bye, Bye, One". He had never seen or heard of a balloon before. He was too young to understand about such things. He knew it was leaving. "It" refers to the balloon. Why should I deny that he knew the balloon was leaving, even though he had no concept of a balloon? I am not saying it for his benefit, but for yours.
It is very plausible that it is going too far to attribute to the dog a concept of belief; I cannot imagine dog behaviour that would lead me to do that. But saying that the dog believes that the train arrives at 5 p.m. is not for the dog's benefit, but for yours.
However, what would you make of this thought-experiment. Suppose we had some tea and sandwiches one day, and carelessly left the last one on the table and left the room. The cat was sleeping peacefully on a chair. When we got back, the cat had eaten it - or at least the tuna that was in it. The cat was again sleeping peacefully on the chair. The dog was quivering with what looked like guilt. The dog believed that we would think that the dog had pinched the sandwich.

That's not true.
All belief consists of correlations drawn between different things by a creature so capable. <--------that's not a that clause. It is a description of all belief, from the very simplest to the most complex abstract ones we can articulate. — creativesoul

I didn't say anything about what belief consists of. I only said something about how we describe belief.

That looks like a conflation between beliefs and behaviors. In your own framework, it amounts to a conflation between cause and effect. — creativesoul

Now you are reifying beliefs and conflating explanations by reasons and explanations by causes. You are trying to play chess with draughts (checkers).

The question is not how we can attribute beliefs to others. The question is what do their beliefs consist of such that they can be and obviously are meaningful to the creature under consideration. The approach you're employing is focusing upon the reporting process. What's needed here is an outline of all thinking processes. — creativesoul

You are doing phenomenology, then - first person view. Not possible with a dog. But the phenomena that are relevant in this context are not the thinking processes.

They are the benchmark. They are the standard. — creativesoul

If they were the benchmark (the standard), first person reports of beliefs would be irrefutable and irreplaceable. But they are neither, though they are relevant and important.

That's odd. You say it seems about right to say that dogs cannot hope that something will happen despite knowing it may not, and then attribute hope to the dog. — creativesoul

I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I was admitting that it seems right not to attribute hope to the dog, and then, with a "But..", introducing a case that makes that conclusion doubtful.

The reason why is because we all know that "the mouse is under the cabinet" is meaningless to the cat. .... Those things are part of the cat's experience and are meaningful to them as a result. — creativesoul

Yes, and the cat's grasp of that meaning is what justifies us in using "mouse" to describe what the cat is doing. To be sure, the cat's concept of a mouse is different from, and more limited than, our concept of a mouse. But cat and human are both thinking about the same furry animal, hiding away behind the wainscot.

My initial interest was piqued in that story regarding whether or not dogs could look forward to 5 o'clock trains, and/or whether or not it's being the 5 o'clock train could be meaningful to the dog. — creativesoul

Oh, Yes. Philosophers are so obsessed with belief in the first person - "I believe.." that they don't seriously think about 2nd or 3rd person attributions. In those cases, the question whether the dog can apply the human language-game of what is the time? is not relevant. See below.

If that dog has beliefs, then they exist in their entirety regardless of whether or not we take account of them. Are they propositional attitudes? They clearly do not consist of the language used to report on them. They are clearly not equivalent to our report of them. — creativesoul

Clearly, beliefs are not propositional attitudes, except in the sense that a proposition is grammatically necessary to describe them. (There is no description of a belief except by means of a "that..." clause - indirect speech, as it's called. Except, of course, when we believe in someone or something.)

I'm not sure that the question what they consist in is applicable, but my best answer is that they consist in what we say and do. So what the believer says is often given a specially authoritative status. But the believer's own description of their belief is not conclusive. We often overturn it when other evidence convinces us that they are lying or pretending or deceiving themselves.

When we don't have access to what the believer says, (or the believer does not speak English) how can we possibly attribute beliefs to them? We must have a sentence to complete the "that" clause, and the only sentences available are in English. The actual words that the believer would use to express the belief are irrelevant; so is what's going on in his head. The "that" clause is not there for their benefit, but for ours. It needs to make sense to us, not necessarily to them.

If you still have doubts, think about how we might describe the belief of someone who thinks in images.

Hope, it seems to me anyway, is distinct from expectation in a very clear sense. One has hope that something will or will not take place despite knowing it may not or may. I do not see how the dog could ever process such considerations. — creativesoul

That seems about right. But when I'm cooking a meal - not at the dog's dinner time - and my dog hangs around near the kitchen (but not in it - not allowed in my house), I have no hesitation in saying that the dog is hoping that there will be something to eat. But when I'm preparing the dog's dinner (and the dog is allowed into the kitchen and comes in the kitchen without being invited), I have no hesitation in saying that the dog expects there will be something to eat.

I'm curious, if after some time, the dog ever began going on days that the human would not have been on the train. — creativesoul

The story doesn't tell. But surely, if the dog turned up at random times when the human is not coming, there would not have been anything like the same fuss.

Those feelings would continue to result from being a part of the routine if they are the result of not only the expectation of the human, but also all of the other correlations drawn by the dog between other elements within the experience, including between the state of its own brain/body chemistry(its 'state of mind'), the walking, and other surroundings along the way. — creativesoul

Yes, you do need to look more widely and/or have a decent background knowledge of the dog's habits. But if going to the station itself was a pleasurable experience for the dog, would they not turn up at random times as well as at 5 p.m.?

While I agree wholeheartedly, if it is the case we looking for truths relative to other un-like animal’s rational machinations, we must first presuppose there is such a thing, and we find that the only way to grant such a presupposition, is relative to our own, for which no presupposition is even the least required. Further than that we cannot go, and remain strictly objective in our investigations. — Mww

Surely, we would not even try to apply explanations of actions that work for humans unless we found that animal behaviour was sufficiently like human behaviour for that to make sense. It's not an arbitrary choice.

Odd, innit. The thing everybody does, in precisely the same way….because we’re all human….is the very thing on which not everyone agrees as to what that way is. I for one, readily admit I haven’t a freakin’ clue regarding the necessary conditions controlling the disgust I hold concerning, e.g., Lima beans, or controlling the supposed exhilaration for an experience I never had. — Mww

It's the result of the peculiar condition of the philosopher. But it is perfectly true that there are many experiences that we have that seem more or less completely arbitrary. But one can sometimes explain dizziness, for example, by the spinning dancing you've been indulging in, or by an ear infection. So perhaps one day...

With that in mind, it is far further from me to think I’m qualified to affirm the necessary conditions controlling the inner machinations of any animal that isn’t just like me, insofar as I have nothing whatsoever with which to judge those conditions except my own, which I’ve already been forced to admit I don’t know, hence can only guess. Or, as some of us are wont to say, in order to make ourselves feel better about not knowing…..speculate. — Mww

Oh, I think it's a bit over-cautious to say that we know nothing about animals. Their thoughts and feelings are on display to us in just the same way(s) that our thoughts and feelings are on display to them. I don't think speculation is particularly harmful in itself. It's when it gets mistaken for established truth that it can do damage.

(Guy puts a camera in his living room, records his faithful companion looking out the window…
….Guy thinks….awww, how sweet; he’s anticipating my car coming into the driveway….
….Guy next door has a similar camera….
….1st guy shows his dog to the second guy, remarks: look at Fido sitting at attention, anticipating….
….2nd guy shows 1st guy a squirrel sitting on the lawn, by the tree, next to the 1st guy’s driveway…
….says, yeah, he’s anticipatin’ alright. Anticipatin’ the hunt, and lunch at the end of it.) — Mww

In fact, you know perfectly well how to play the game. The fact that we sometimes get it wrong is not important. We can spot mistakes and put them right.
Although in this case, I would propose that he did go out to welcome you home, but got distracted by the squirrel when he got out there. However, I take the point that the sentimental explanation is not always the right one.

My point was that being rational must be able to be verified, justified and approved to be so. — Corvus

You didn't quite say that.

Not always. I know it is autumn by looking at the falling leaves from the trees outside. My knowledge of autumn arrived to me purely from the visual perception. Why do I need to justify the knowledge? If someone asked me to justify it, I could then do it. But before that unlikely event, I just know it is autumn.
But in some other case of knowledge, rational justification is needed, helps or even based on. You seem to be over simplifying the issue, which results inevitably in the muddle. — Corvus

On the other hand, you could be talking about the case when I attribute knowledge to someone else. That is indeed a bit different. But there are still simple cases and more complex ones. In a simple case, I know the person quite well and know that they are in a position to know and are reliable, and then I will say just that.

You cannot call something or someone being rational just because someone went to a shop, or a dog opened the door or hawk hunted his meal. — Corvus

I agree, a single case on its own doesn't cut much ice. One needs a framework of background knowledge, including a decision about whether rational explanation applies to at least some things that the subject does. However, given that you are a homo sapiens, if you walk down the street, stop at the shop door, open it and go in, I am justified in saying that you walked to the shop. I might be wrong, but that possibility applies to everything that I say. It would be unreasonable to deny that you walked to the shop in those circumstances. Ditto the dog and the hawk.

Daniel Dennett in From Bacteria to Bach and Back, I think is the name of it, goes into the biological mutative aspect in more detail than I fully understood even after listening several times. It's an interesting piece of writing. Audiobook was free on youtube at one time. Read by Dennett himself. — creativesoul

I also thought it was fascinating. Being thought-provoking is just as valuable as being right, in my book.

What exactly constitutes being two separate beliefs of that particular dog? Keep in mind that the dog's beliefs must be meaningful to the dog. — creativesoul

I was thinking of the belief that their human has shown up to-day (a distinct belief for each day), and the belief that their human will show up every day, shown partly by their going to the station in advance of the human's arrival, without any specific evidence about to-day, not to mention their persistence in going to the station after their human has not shown up, not just for one day, but for many days. But it would be fair to say that these two beliefs are closely linked, since one is an inductive generalization of the other.

If the only sense of "thought" and "belief" we employ is the one meant only to make sense of reasons in rational actions, then it may be the only place all beliefs overlap. — creativesoul

I was responding to a specific issue. It may be possible to generalize, but it's certainly very complicated.
If you include our sayings as well as our doings as actions, then beliefs do show up in actions. What sense could we make of a belief or thought (rational or irrational) that didn't (couldn't) affect what we say or do at all? But perhaps there is a different sense of belief in which we can make sense of such beliefs. What do you suggest?

I do not feel at all confident saying what the dog expects or recognizes. I could speculate that the dog ran into many people on a regular basis. I'll bet it got petted by dozens of people every day. I'll bet some people saw it regularly, and started bringing a treat when they could. If the man stopped coming, the dog still got tons of love and attention. What began for one reason continues for another. The dog might not remember the man at all. — Patterner

It's entirely appropriate not to be confident about some things - especially when attributing beliefs (and other motivations to animals, and indeed to humans. I confess I hadn't thought of the changes in circumstances. Of course you are right.

The details of the real life story are compatible with your bet. Hachikō would leave the house to greet his human, Ueno, at the end of each day at the nearby Shibuya Station - until May 21, 1925, when Ueno died at work. Initial reactions from the people, especially from those working at the station, were not necessarily friendly. However, the first reports about him appeared on October 4, 1932. People then started to bring him treats and food. Hachikō died on March 8, 1935.
(My source is Wikipedia - Hachiko)

That makes 7 years without much, if any, positive reinforcement. I'm sure the dog was an embarrassment to the station staff and perhaps to the some of the passengers. That changed when the publicity gave them a different perspective. So we could argue about when the reason for meeting the train changed. But your point stands.

We could also debate how far the dog was rational. I would say that persisting for a while after Ueno died is rational. But continuing for that long... I'm not sure. Other dogs, I think, would have given up much, much, sooner. One factor in his persistence may have been that his new home (with Ueno's former gardener) did not distract him from his habit. Habits, I would say, can be rational, but can also be irrational, especially when they do not change when changed circumstances imply a change in habits.

But then, people saw his persistence as loyalty, which is not necessarily rational, but is something that we value, on the whole. So this question of how far we apply the "people" framework to animals extends beyond rationality or not. It incudes values.

Rational thought and thought that is not. — creativesoul

You are distinguishing between thought that the thinker is able to articulate in language and critically evaluate and thought that the thinker is not able to articulate in language or critically evaluate.
I suspect that most people will have thoughts of both kinds. So we cannot say that people either are or are not rational, just that they are rational in some ways, but likely not in others. That, at least, we could agree on.

What do all examples of thought have in common such that having that commonality is what makes them count as being a thought? — creativesoul

There's no easy way to answer that - especially if you are trying to find commonalities between thoughts that are articulated in language and thoughts that are not. The only place that they overlap is in their role as reasons in rational actions.

There are much better ways to do that. — creativesoul

What do you have in mind? What would be better than the ways we already have?

Avoiding anthropomorphism. — creativesoul

I think we have different ideas about what that means. For me, explaining actions as rational is a language-game - a conceptual structure - whose paradigmatic application is to homo sapiens. It has been extended to various other cases, many of which are contested. What's at issue is how far that game/structure can be applied to animals. You have a point which I think does have something to it, that self-reflection is likely something that animals that lack a language like human language are not equipped to do. The complication is that they clearly have self-awareness and self-control as well as, or even because, they are capable of acting rationally - in my sense, though not in yours.

Your versions are fine, although I might insist every experience affects the condition of the subject. — Mww

I wouldn't want to deny that, since every experience has an "owner" or subject. I just wouldn't put it that way.

Hence the new terminology in new philosophies, to stand for a thing that is not an object. — Mww

I do agree that the thought is almost impossible to formulate clearly without a lot of dancing around explaining. I think this is a case that suits well Wittgenstein's idea that some things cannot be said, only shown.

Red herring. — creativesoul

If you say so.

Are you denying that thought and belief is prior to thinking about thought and belief? — creativesoul

If being awareness of my belief is thinking about belief, then surely the two are simultaneous, since the one follows logically from the other. But perhaps awareness of something is not thinking about it - even though awareness of something is being conscious of it.

Thinking about one's own thought and belief as a subject matter in and of itself requires an ability to pick one's own thought and belief about this world out of this world to the exclusion of all else. — creativesoul

This world is not simply composed of entities arranged before us, waiting to be picked out. ('m assuming that you mean something like "focussed on" or "attended to" or "distinguished from other things".) But the problem of the sel f is preciselky that there is nothing to pick out in the world as it is presented or rvealed to us. The same applies to our thoughts and beliefs.

Certain sorts of things captured our attention - as a species - long before documented histories began being recorded. Things become meaningful that way. — creativesoul

The same is true of many animals. So what's the problem?

Does the dog recognize the fact that its own belief is no longer warranted, based upon everyday fact? It is no longer true. The falseness is a lack of correspondence. Recognizing one's own false belief - in that situation - requires recognizing that the world does not match one's expectations. — creativesoul

Yes and no. The dog expects their human to arrive. The dog recognizes that their human is not showing up. It is also true that it does not abandon its general expectation that their human comes back on the 5:00 train every day. But those are two separate beliefs, and it is not unreasonable to retain a generalization in the face of a counter-example. It may be unreasonable not to abandon a generalization in the face of many counter-examples. But the single case and the generalization are two separate beliefs.
We may be pursuing different projects. You seem to be pursuing a phenomenology for the dog. I don't think that the rational explanation of actions is limited to identifying phenomenological events. Third person attributions of thoughts and beliefs are affected by first person declarations. But sometimes, the first person version is not available and sometimes first and third person versions conflict and we reject the first person version. So the authority of first person claims is not absolute. (Lying, self-deception.)

I'm not sure about saying that myths and metaphysical speculations are pre-rational. I guess it depends on what you mean by "rational". I think of rationality as "measuring" things against other things and seeing possibilities. — Janus

I was a bit sloppy there. For us, myths have no special status and can be evaluated by standards we have learnt in other ways. For, say, the ancient Greeks their status is different. So the myths, in themselves are neither post- not pre- rational. It's a question of what they are to one group of people or another. (I'm setting aside the point that nowadays, the evaluation of myths is complicated. They are generally recognized as being at least partly true or based on truth.)
One inevitably moves on to wonder what serves the function of myths in our upbringing and education? The answer is, different stories - the Christian or Buddhist stories, the story of philosophy (Socrates) or science (Copernicus or Galileo), stories from our history - Battle of Hastings, Founding Fathers etc.

I agree with you that culturally entrenched beliefs were probably at least by and large unquestioned and in view of that they could be thought of as being in the Wittgensteinian sense "hinge propositions" (although I never liked the word "proposition" in that context and I think 'belief' would probably be better). — Janus

Good point. Myths are composed or propositions, but that's doesn't mean that they are propositions. Belief does seem to be better - so long as we bracket the context of evidence that applies to most run-of-the-mill beliefs.

A sense of self that via memory "unifies" experience. — Janus

It seems to me that there are two related but different ideas of the self. To a great extent, we define ourselves or create who we are by what we (choose to) do. But that sense of self-identity is not always identical with our sense of the identity of others. A further complication is that often our identity is given by the roles that we occupy and these differ in different contexts. (Parent/child, teacher/student, manager/colleague) One can appeal to continuities of one kind or another - stream of consciousness, physical continuity, and so forth - but then there is the question of how important or relevant they are - especially when they conflict. So unity of experience is one factor amongst others.

Are those leaps? What would incremental steps between other species and us mean? Is there a species that can think of what its life will be next month? Another species that can think of next year? Another that can think of a week after its own death? Another that can think of a month after its own death? — Patterner

I've no idea how the story would go. But it won't be easy. The best evidence would be evidence of how creatures behaved. We can likely make some deductions from the physical remains we have, but we will never achieve the ideal of observing them in action. So we may never come to a plausible, evidence-based story of how rationality evolved.

However, The eye is the classic case of something that seemed to escape the possible range of evolutionary development. A major issue is that soft tissue is not often fossilized. But there is at least an outline of what happened. See:- New Scientist - Evolution of the Eye

As well, since Plato earlier and Russell later, knowledge of is very different than knowledge that, such distinction being entirely absent from experience. — Mww

Oh, yes, well, that makes a lot of difference. People mostly seem very reluctant to deal with that. I think the reason is that they think that knowledge of can be reduced to knowledge that. The probably haven't faced up to Mary's Room.

Knowledge is an end in itself, pursuant to the operation of a system, that end being a change in the condition of the intelligence under which the system operates; — Mww

My version:- "Knowledge is an end in itself, achieved by the operation of a system, that end being a change in the information available to the system itself".

Experience is an end in itself, pursuant to the operation of a system, that end being a change in the condition of the subject to which the system belongs, all else being what it may. — Mww

My version:- "Experience is the operation of a system, which often results in various changes to the condition of the subject to which the system belongs."

Which you must immediately recognize, given your historical commentary precedents, as a (gaspsputterchoke) language game. — Mww

Careful - I'm not sure that is not a dirty word around here.
But that concept enables one to give "knowing oneself" a meaning. But it couldn't be based on the standard concepts of how we come to know things - a different, specialized, language game.

“One’s self can never be an object of experience” works just fine, though, right? — Mww

I think it does. But it is misleading to say that there's no such thing. It's just that one's self is not an object.

Exactly. Although some things, like a pile of sand, are definitely made up of tiny units, we can't define how many are needed for it to qualify as a pile. My guess is that applies to consciousness. — Patterner

Yes, though that's not because consciousness is made up of quantities of atoms or particles. It's in a different category.
Rationality is not dissimilar, but, unlike consciousness, it is the result of a range of skills. One's range may be wider or narrower, greater or lesser.

Thanks for noticing! — Wayfarer

Sorry to be dense, but what have I noticed?

But in some other case of knowledge, rational justification is needed, helps or even based on. You seem to be over simplifying the issue, which results inevitably in the muddle. — Corvus

So you know that it is autumn because you can see the falling leaves. You don't know because you have said to yourself "I know that.. because...". However, you will be able to cite that if anybody asks you how you know, i.e. it is your justification. (I accept that "I can see the falling leaves" needs no further justification under normal circumstances. But so far as the question "How do you know" goes, I don't see the difference between your simple case and your "other cases".

I don't see any other explanation having an easier time. One neuron? Two? A thousand? A million? — Patterner

The moral of the sorites paradox is that some concepts do not have precise border-lines. Consciousness seems to me to be one of them. (So does "rational")

The reason I am arguing so strongly is we learn how to think and we should not expect everyone to think rationally without training. We should not take thinking for granted. — Athena

That's exactly right. Rationality is a complex of skills. Some of them we learn informally in the process of learning to navigate the world. Others (e.g. mathematics, critical thinking) we have to learn in more formal ways. There's no guarantee that everybody learns all the skills.

The problem is not answering the question. Is believing and defending a myth or false belief, rational thinking? — Athena

Well, it depends a bit, partly on which myth or false belief is involved, but also on how you choose to defend it. Granted that most myths contain only a element of truth it will often be irrational to defend them as true. And it is possible to be mistaken about a belief and so end up defending a false belief.

I am struggling to understand how given our modern, science-based understanding of life, can people still believe the Bible is a good explanation of reality. — Athena

The short answer is that they do not start with your presuppositions. The slightly longer answer is that a religious belief involves adopting a specific world-view, that is, a framework within which you assess truth or falsity or good explanation or bad explanation.

And one can also bear in mind experience is an end in itself, laden with nothing, — Mww

But isn't experience supposed to be the foundation of knowledge? How is that possible if it is an end in itself? Aren't experiences pleasant or unpleasant, meaningful or meaningless, &c. &c? How is that possible if they are laden with nothing?

oneself can never be an experience. — Mww

I think you mean that there can never be an experience that is an experience of oneself? Or one's self can never be an object of experience (since oneself is posited as the subject of expereience.)?

The dog is incapable of isolating its own thought/belief to the exclusion of all else. — creativesoul

I don't know what "isolating its own thought/belief" means.

A dog's inability to become aware of its own fallibility is due to not possessing the capacity/capability to isolate their own thoughts and beliefs. Realizing/recognizing that one's belief is false, in this case, happens when reality does not meet/match expectations and we're aware of that. — creativesoul

Perhaps you are thinking that in order to grasp the rationality of what a dog is doing, we have to somehow get inside it's head. That isn't necessary. We just need to interpret what it does. I'm sure that the dog understands that their human has not arrived on the train. I can't think of anything that they could do to make it clear that they recognize in addition, as a distinct belief, that their belief that their human would arrive on that train is false - other than saying it. Yet the latter belief is implicit in the former. i.e. is not distinct from, isolable from, the former.

Either truth and meaning exist in their entirety prior to language or true and false belief exists without meaning and/or truth. — creativesoul

You are forgetting about non-linguistic action.

I am not sure if you would count them as fantasy stories but I was thinking more specifically of myths and metaphysical speculations and religions. That is conjectures which count themselves to be non-fictional. — Janus

OK. "Myths and metaphysical speculations and religions" all belong in a very special category. I'll express this by saying that they are pre-rational and foundational. By which I mean that they give the people who accept them their framework for explaining and understanding the world. It's misleading, in my view, to say that people believe them, because that places them alongside believing that an earthquake is happening or that the harvest is bad - everyday facts.

Yes, perhaps the "I" is nothing more than a mere idea which we hold as an overarching unifying principle. If that were so it would be a kind of metaphysical or ontological illusion. A proudly human linguistic reification of an idea. — Janus

Well, I disagree with the "mere" in "mere idea", because some ideas (including "I") are what set the framework within we can identify facts, experiences, etc. On the other hand, I agree that many people (try to) reify that idea. But that is a misunderstanding of language, which is not built in to, but results from imposing a limited model of language on our linguistic practices.

That said we have a sense of self (or is it just a sense of being?) which seems to be pre-conceptual. If it is just a sense of being it is also a sense of being different (from everything else) it seems. I don't doubt that (at least some) animals have this kind of sense. — Janus

I don't see how the dog can't know that it itself is in pain, for example. Call it a pre-conceptual sense if you like, but there's no way for us to recognize it except in language or in how we respond.

I haven't looked into phenomenology much, but I'd think it a poor basis for understanding the experience of someone with schizophrenia of someone with bipolar disorder who is in a manic state. — wonderer1

That's a good point. I don't know how a phenomenologist would respond. But it seems pretty clear that they think they are talking about what is built in to any experience whatever. It seems better to say that what we are looking for when we try to understand those phenomena is an account that makes sense of them by interpreting them in a framework that rationalizes them.

Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether there's anything lying behind them. — Emptiness, Thanissaro Bhikhu

It seems that the idea of raw data is a necessary illusion for empiricism. But it is an illusion, since the raw data would be "a blooming, buzzing confusion" - except even recognizing that is to interpret the phenomena. But the next two paragraphs show that that's not what is meant. The proposition does not require dropping the entanglements, but not getting entangled in them in order to see them from a different perspective. Bear in mind, that I'm already distorting this explanation, because I'm not considering it within it's intended context of the actual aims of the practices of mndfulness/meditation, which is not the theoretical context posited by philosophy practiced here.

I believe this is near to both the meaning of the 'phenomenological suspension'/ epochē and also to the original meaning of skepticism in ancient philosophy (a very different thing to skepticism in modern terms). Ancient skepticism was grounded in 'suspension of judgement of what is not evident' (ref), namely, the entailments and entanglements that arise from emotional reactivity. That is where the similarity with epochē becomes clear. — Wayfarer

I agree that it is close, and might enable us to learn something. But I think we have to see what the actual practice of phenomenology is.

I was trying to clarify the correct use of the concept "rational" from the muddled way. — Corvus

Well, your criterion is clear. It's also clear because it justifies saying of a person that they are rational or not - because it relies on a capacity, ability or skill. It's just that it's not very useful - for the purposes of thinking about various problems, including the one of this thread.

Having ability of using language or knowing meanings of some words doesn't make one rational, nor does ability or preference eating sushi. — Corvus

I agree. One can (and most people do) use language in irrational ways. But language does open up the possibility of articulate reason. It's necessary, but not sufficient.

Knowing something is not also being rational. — Corvus

That's a bit odd, at least for me. I start from the justified true belief account of knowledge, so for me, knowing something means being able to justify it, which would require some rationality, wouldn't it?
But then that requires language, which would rule out my dog. So I need something else, which would be highly unorthodox, because orthodox philosophy doesn't even attempt to consider epistemology for language-less creatures. It's the same issue, how far and in what ways we have to adapt our concepts to recognize the similarities that there are between humans and animals.

Philosophy of action is very, very complicated, because our thinking/language about actions is very, very complicated - all human and animal life is there. But it is also capable of recognizing some very fine and yet important distinctions. I think it is probably better to patiently disentangle the complications before jumping to the conclusion that our concepts are muddled.

More important, should we assume all humans are rational thinkers or must they learn the higher order thinking skills to be rational? Is believing and defending a myth, rational thinking? — Athena

The trouble is that there is nothing to prevent people using the word "rational" in different ways.
The truth is that even we humans are not rational simplicter. We are a mixture. Our starting-point is the ability to learn - this happens automatically from the moment we are born. There's a range of skills involved and there's no guarantee that everyone will learn all of them.
The word "thinking" is very, very difficult to pin down. We distinguish explicit thinking from acting, forgetting to notice that thinking is something we do, and so is also an action - thought sometimes thoughts just occur to us and we aren't deliberately doing it and sometimes it is not under our control. So is more like breathing - it can be automatic, and it can be under voluntary control.
But we can act without explicit thinking beforehand, and I don't think there is any reason to say that all such actions are non-rational. But it is complicated. Habitual actions, for example, are a bit marginal; we often do them, as we say, without thinking - that's when the habit doesn't adjust to unusual circumstances. We can also react very fast in an emergency and these actions can be more like a reflex than a true action. (True actions need to be under our conscious control.)
I hope I'm not confusing you. I'll stop there.

Whew!! Thanks for editing me out, saves me any more time trying to figure out how to respond. — Mww

I posted by accident and had run out of time. I hope you don't mind that I'm back.

Epoché; the bracketing. A method for removing the necessity for the human cognitive system to operate in a specific way for every occassion. In other words, a method for disassociating the subject that knows, from that which it knows about. — Mww

Well, I'm very much in favour of adopting whatever approach most suits the subject-matter, so I don't have a problem with that. I've lost what I said before about Heidegger, but I expect you'll remember that it was about his distinction between present-at-hand and ready-to-hand.
I have the impression that it was intended as a critique of Husserl, and one can see how Heidegger's distinction maps on to Husserl's. But Heidegger was not only criticizing Husserl, but the idea of the theoretical stance, objective and disconnected from ordinary, involved life. In other words, both sides of the mirroring relationship that you described. His argument was that it is the involved life that is fundamental and the theoretical stance (of both kinds) that was the optional extra. As I understand it.

namely, the experience of the world and self that one has if one determinedly seeks to experience the “I”; and, Hume notwithstanding, such an experience is possible…. — Mww

I don't doubt it. But there are others who maintain the opposite, as you notice.. The question is which experience is veridical. One has to bear in mind that our experience is laden with skills and expectations. Many people think that there is a way of shrugging all that off and experiencing the true experience. But that involves shedding all those skills and expectations. Demonstrating that one has succeeded in that is, let us just say, difficult. I'm not even convinced that there is a truth of the matter, although I do favour the "no-self" view, or more accurately my self = Ludwig = me.

And how one meets and greets, and gets lost in, the other. — Mww

That's perfectly possible. On the other hand, I can only recognize myself when I can recognise the other.

No, they are not rational at all. They are more in the arena of emotional states. — Corvus

In one way, you are not wrong. I think "emotional state" is not the whole story. But I want to ask whether, given that you believe in a myth, working out what it is rational for you to do in the light of that myth is not an exercise in rationality. For example, we know, from textual evidence, that the ancient Egyptians built their pyramids because it was in their interest to do so and that makes sense to us. Why would we not say that given that they believed their myths, they were rational to build the pyramids?

They were physically rational, but not philosophically rational. There is no record or evidence of their rational explanations on how and why they had built them. — Corvus

We know the why, but not the how - thought we have some ideas from the finished product. They also had quite reasonable arithmetic, though they limited themselves to severely practical applications. From textual evidence. Irrational, but capable of arithmetic?

I've been accused of worse than that! :grin: — Patterner

I think it's the sorites problem. One bit of information processed doesn't mean anything. Many bits of information processed is more persuasive. But it's more than just processing information. It's reacting to it in complex ways, and, it's not just responding to information, but initiating action based on information as well.

I was just trying to say that theoretical systems metaphysics is a pretty good way to distinguish one from the other, their respective commonalities notwithstanding. — Mww

Yes. I just like details - but not so many I get confused. .

As far as I remember Husserl considered phenomenology to be the science of consciousness, of human experience. I see the epoché, the bracketing of the question of the existence of an external world as being the kind of reverse mirror image of the bracketing of concern about first person experience in the other sciences. — Janus

That makes sense, and I didn't mean to imply that it couldn't be called a science at all. But the epoche does set on one side the "hard" sciences, doesn't it? That's why phenomenology has to have a method of its own.

But I do think that our capacity to imagine possibilities beyond the ambit of common experience is an important phenomenological fact about the human. — Janus

Yes. You may be thinking of fantasy stories. But those rely on hand-waving - magic or future technology - to keep plausibility going.

German has an expression, Geisteswissenschaften, which literally means 'sciences of the spirit', covering subjects other than what English calls 'natural science', including philosophy. There is no equivalent term in English. — Wayfarer

So it does and so there isn't. I guess English culture is just not comfortable with them.

That would be 'positivism', wouldn't it? And what precisely constitutes 'common' in that sentence? Where do you draw the line between what would be accepted as 'common' and what would not? But then, the kinds of observations produced by the LHC would not be 'common', nor would the interpretive skills required to analyse them, even if they are designated 'scientific'. — Wayfarer

Perhaps I didn't express myself well.
My attitude to this is that truth conditions are not the whole of the meaning of anything. But they are a part of the meaning of everything that is "truth-apt".
But I was thinking that if something cannot affect us in any way, then it makes no difference to us. So it is irrelevant.
I was also thinking that absolute reality, "beyond" all the contextual frameworks that we use to define what's real and what's not is not just an unachievable goal, but meaningless. The framework that defines meaning is, ex hypothesi, missing.
Also, I did refer to the "amplification" of our senses "by techniques discovered or at least validated by science".

Therefore, treating them as suitable sources amounts to relinquishing on developing one's own understanding since developing an autonomous understanding requires that one plants their own flags in relation to those of other participants in the discussion. — Pierre-Normand

This point is a very good one, and suggests that the biggest loser when AIs are misused is the misuser. Socrates would be very gratified.

When I was teaching and found derivative or plagiarized work in their essays, they often said "But X says it so much better than I can". Which reflects a misunderstanding of or perhaps a disagreement about the point of the exercise.

Perhaps a comment somewhere in the guide-lines might help some people not to get caught up in that mistake?

This discussion has been very helpful to me personally. I'm coming out with a view that nothing much has changed. Judicious scepticism still seems the best policy.

AFAIK since Nietzsche Husserl and Heidegger the continentals have (purportedly at least) eschewed metaphysics or at least reduced it to be a subset of phenomenology. — Janus

That is my understanding.

It does depend on how you define science. I think Husserl considered phenomenology to be a science, and I see no reason not to think of psychology, anthropology, sociology and history as sciences. — Janus

Well, the Husserl's crucial idea was the epoche or "bracketing" of external reality to exclude it from consideration. The "first-person" or subjective "lived world" was the subject-matter. The methods of the sciences as understood in his day were not applicable. But he did think of phenomenology as a systematic study and methodology. So in that sense, it was a science but it wouldn't have been called that at the time.

I can see your point if you mean to say that we needn't worry about whether or not what we say is absolutely adequate to the reality, but should rather concern ourselves with the relevance, validity and soundness of what we say within the ambit of common human experience. — Janus

That's about right. I would add that no clear meaning can be attributed to reality beyond our access and the the ambit of common human experience - amplified by techniques discovered or at least valdiated by science - is all there is.

We generally recognise that there is a hard border where no amount of "greater good", not even family ties, can overcome a person's wishes. — Echarmion

Yes. A qualification. Even in those cases, we can recommend to people that this or that course of action would be better prudentially or morally.

That second one is hard to answer. Is it rational to believe something that is not true? — Athena

Is believing and defending a myth, rational thinking? — Athena

The answer to the general question is that it is rational to believe anything that you have good evidence for. Sometimes good evidence is misleading, but that doesn't affect the answer. Sometimes we believe things without good, or even any, evidence. That is irrational. Believing a myth is a bit different. Short story, myths (and religious beliefs in general) have a status a bit like axioms, and in that sense are pre-rational. But one could, nevertheless defend them on rational grounds.

I think any bit of information processing brings a little bit of consciousness. — Patterner

H'm. I think that's a bit extreme, but comprehensible.

But, as far as consciousness goes, I don't think epiphenomenalism applies. — Patterner

It does depend what you mean by the causal explanation "doing all the work". That's a complicated issue. What is the work that the explanation needs to do?

You are mixed up between driving and fueling cars and opening the doors which most people do without having second thought about doing so based on habits and routines, and rationalising i.e. analysing, criticising, reflecting and questioning about them logically, critically and reflectively. — Corvus

OK. I can make some sense of that. To be rational is to rationalise.

1. So do you think that the people who built the pyramids were rational or not? (They built them before the ancient Greeks started philosophizing.)

2. About the process of learning or acquiring a habit or routine. I grant you that putting on one's lucky trainers when going out to compete is not (normally) rational. But when the habit or routine is capable of rational justification - driving or fuelling one's car would be examples - is learning or practising those activities rational or not?

If someone had rational thinking on why he went to a shop, then he should be able to explain the reason why when asked the reason why. — Corvus

That's the great mistake that Socrates made. Articulating one's reasons is a different skill not the same as having them. Even if you can't define courage, you can use the word correctly. You may not know whyhow the fuel makes the car go, but it doesn't mean you are irrational when driving the car.

Just because a hawk has hunted his meals, or dog has opened door to go out for whatever don't mean they have rational thinking. They are just instinctual survival and habitual response by the animals. — Corvus

So when we act appropriately on our survival instincts and open doors when appropriate, are we acting rationally or not?

If you trace back to the origin of rational thinking, then it would be the ancient Greeks. — Corvus

If that's how you choose to define it, that's fair enough. But it seems a bit odd to characterize the people who built the pyramids as irrational, don't you think? (They were indeed irrational in some ways, but not when they built the pyramids.)

Would you be inclined to agree that although the prevalence of the continental tradition writ large has declined, at least it couldn’t be said to have killed itself, as the infusion of OLP and LP eventually self-destructed the analytic? — Mww

No. For a number of reasons.
The OLP advocated that philosophy should analyze, but wanted to analyze in a different way- in Ryle's terms, informal logic as opposed to formal logic or untechnical as opposed to technical concepts - and tried to carve out an arena for philosophy which avoided awkward conflicts with more technical disciplines - though he also thought that philosophy's arena was "more fundamental\" than the technical disciplines' one other feature was abandonment of the idea that it is philosophy's task to reform and regulated language. Philosophy of Language (that is what you mean by LP?) was rather different, and was, I would say, a development of the idea that philosophy's primary method was logical analysis.
Actually, I don't think that analytic philosophy has self-destructed. My perception is that it is alive and kicking strongly - even though some people are very critical of it and are announcing it is over.

I think using the caterpillar and butterfly analogy is incorrect, I think a better one would be a seed planted in a garden. The life cycle of a seed starts at germination, where it starts to take in moisture and sprout, if you were to compare it to a foetus it would be the stage where the egg is fertilized and it starts to divide. — Samlw

I was talking about a certain kind of concept, so I didn't have an actual analogy in mind. Caterpillar and egg were examples rather than analogies. Yes, seeds vs plants are a better analogy.

Obviously I'm not calling for all abortions to be banned. I just think that in the future, we would do well to adhere to a policy of not aborting when not completely necessary (presuming a future that has improved upon the world today, which might be a stretch, but is also the only way I can see a future at all). — Igitur

There's plenty of room for debate about "not completely necessary".
I think we have to be careful about a policy in relation to decisions that ought to be made at an individual level. A policy of encouraging people to have children because the population is declining (or the reverse) is one thing - and actions to make the process (for or against) easier would not be objectionable. But laws compelling people in either direction are objectionable; people tend to resist them strongly anyway.

And he replies that it is not yet fixed, therefore it is fixed, and you should pay. — tim wood

You are confusing me with someone who is making that mistake. There are indeed important differences between the flood that has not yet happened and the flood that is happening now. But it is also important not to confuse the flood that has not yet happened with no flood happening.
I think this is just a question of language and emphasis - unless you can show me what hangs on it. I think that what hangs on this is that, just as one should not confuse a foetus with a child, one should not confuse a foetus with a parasite. A pregnant woman is not yet a mother, but her pregnancy is still important, ethically and in other ways.

It is well established that prior to WWI, German idealism was still highly influential in English and American philosophy departments. That began to wane with GE Moore and Bertrand Russell’s criticism of idealism in the 1920’s, — Wayfarer

That's true. I was placing Husserl a bit earlier than I should have done. I just wanted to point out that their characterization of what they were doing might have been a bit partial. A rebellion was also going on in Germany, which they didn't like, of course. But Bentham and the two Mills had continued the empiricist tradition through Hume from Berkeley and Locke through the 19th century. I think the divide can be traced back to rationalism (Descartes and others, on the other side of the Channel) and empiricism (Berkeley, Locke, Hume, in England).


You see, sometimes I go too far the other way and insist on calling a spade an agricultural implement.

What are some of the major differences you see between Continental and Anglo philosophy? — Janus

First and foremost, and from which all relevant distinctions evolve, the presence in continental, the absence in analytic philosophy, of theoretical system metaphysics.
Probably isn’t a single all-consuming response, but I read this one somewhere, seemed to cover more bases. — Mww

It certainly covers some of them. Russell, Moore, Wittgenstein and Carnap made it clear that theoretical system metaphysics was their primary target. This was a not an unfair characterization of the German Idealism, based on Hegel, and Kantian tradition which were indeed dominant in the whole of Europe at the time, But a rebellion (Husserl, Heidegger) was also going on across the Channel at the same time. Analytic philosophers mostly didn't like them, but they were not simply a continuation of metaphysics.

(Ray Monk was biographer of both Wittgenstein and Russell, although the latter bio is not very well regarded.) — Wayfarer

Yes. I have read the Wittgenstein biography, but not the Russell one. As I remember it, the Wittgenstein book rather stole a march on Brain McGuiness and there was some bad blood. I read McGuiness' as well and it was the better book. But it stopped half way.

The article I linked to ascribes the rift to Gilbert Ryle’s hostility to Husserl and Heidegger in the 1940’s and onwards, and also Ryle’s dominance of English philosophy at that stage (he was editor of Mind from 1949-71 and had a lot of say in who got philosophy chairs in Britain). — Wayfarer

Yes. There were problems, but I just don't feel strongly about it - perhaps because I have always been very sympathetic to his project. I can understand the hostility to Heidegger - there's still an issue about his venture into public life in the 30's. Some people still want him "cancelled". In the context of WW2 so soon after WW1, it would be surprising if there were not some hostility. It looks unreasonable now, I grant you. But we're 70 years, at least two, perhaps three, generations, further away from those times.

Your rhetoric always seems quite circumspect to me, for what it’s worth. — Wayfarer

You don't know how much I delete before posting. When I read others indulging themselves, I don't like it, so...

I've saved the review for later. Thanks.

As am I, make no mistake! But Nagel, in particular, has the advantage of being dissident inside that mainstream, so at least he is paid attention, even if it's often hostile. — Wayfarer

I can recognize that I should not lump him in with the materialist mainstream - nor Chalmers. At present, I'm inclined to think that he is not dissident enough. I need to take a closer look. When the closer look will happen, I do not know. In the mean time, I can perhaps moderate my rhetoric.

According to Ray Monk, the Continental-Anglo divide stems from the period of Gilbert Ryle’s dominance of Anglo philosophy. — Wayfarer

I don't think that's historically accurate. I have the impression that the divide was well embedded before WW2. Indeed, it goes back to Hegel and beyond. Some people seem inclined to blame Ryle for everything, but I don't think that's fair.

Don't we already have, and have had for a long time, that "first-person science" in the form of phenomenology? — Janus

But I thought that Husserl specifically developed phenomenology to be something quite distinct from science - unless you define science as anything that attempts to achieve objectivity.

Which prompts me to complain that this entire discussion is scientistic and ignores the possibility that disciplines that do not aim to emulate science may be (I think are) essential to understanding consciousness. History, Literary and Cultural Studies, Sociology, some branches of Psychology etc. - not to mention Marxism and Psychoanalysis which might well have something to offer. But, of course, it all depends how you define "science".

I have literally never heard anyone try to deny that anywhere, at any time in my life. — Patterner

You didn't mention it in your account of how different humans are from animals. Mind you, I don't mention what you emphasize in my accounts of how similar they are. Perhaps it comes down to "glass half full/empty" - a difference in perspective rather than a disagreement about the facts. Then we need to tease out why that difference in emphasis is so important.

Are you contradicting yourself? Or am I reading it wrong? — Patterner

Yes, it does look peculiar. I didn't put the point carefully enough.
I think that "sensory input" is already a recognition that consciousness and experience are present. I also think that there is no a priori reason to rule out in advance the possibility that conscious beings might have bodies of plastic and silicon. Does that help?

My point is there couldn't be such a thing. As I've said before, just because we can say the words, doesn't mean we can conceive of them. Like a square circle. — Patterner

That's exactly why I can't do anything with your thought-experiments.

Right, but then isn't that the "simpleminded" case? — Janus

Yes, I guess it is. Perhaps that simple-mindedness is a fault. One can't, for example, describe an unborn baby as a foetus and pretend not to know what kind of context that sets up.

I'm not bothered by it either, so it wasn't a complaint, but merely an acknowledgement. I see it as a good thing to acknowledge our limitations. — Janus

Well, I certainly agree that it is a good thing to recognize the difference between a picture and a description and being there. Whether "limitations" is appropriate for that is another question.

But the point is that there is not any such thing. — tim wood

I'm surprised that you think that is a point so obvious and simple that one can simply remind me of it and pass on. There are profoundly different views at stake here. The view that you are expressing here is, on my reading of it, a kind of atomism that posits a world consisting of entities each of which exists in its own right, independently of all the other entities in the world. Everything is what it is, and not another thing. This view works quite well in many contexts, but sometimes does not work at all well.

You can insist that a caterpillar is not a butterfly. I shall insist that a caterpillar is not yet a butterfly. I am thinking of the state of being a caterpillar (or a chrysalis or a butterfly) as a stage in a life-cycle. Because the changes in this life-cycle are so dramatic, we apply different terms to the stages. But we include our understanding of each stage in the concept - the way we think about - each term. We call this the life-cycle of the butterfly, choosing the final stage to identify the life-cycle, which is somewhat arbitrary, but not incomprehensible. This is why there is so much argument about abortion.

The common argument here is that bodily autonomy is a defensive right - you have the right to refuse interference with your body, but you don't have a right to a specific treatment. And in case of a pregnancy, the fetus/baby is "using" the body of the mother, hence her bodily autonomy takes precedence. — Echarmion

I hate this argument. I would think that a mother who thinks like that about her unborn baby is likely to think like that about baby/child and that will not be a good thing for either child or eventual adult. Perhaps one might one posit a radical change of heart. But in fact it amounts to occupying the opposition's ground and turning it against them. It high-lights how inappropriate it is to think of a foetus as a small person as opposed to a future person.