- Are we agreed that there is a difference between acting and observing, even though it is also possible to observe one's own actions?

We know our actions in a direct way -- no input from the outside world. If I walked over to the kitchen, I knew it without waiting for an object to hit my eyes. My action is within me. My being is within me. A ball is outside of me, I can perceive it. I can perceive its qualities. If I lay down and imagine aliens, only I could know I am imagining. The act of imagining is not something that I perceive like I am perceiving a tree. In fact, compared to the perception of a tree, my imagination can take many forms; whereas a tree is a tree is a tree. Seven billion people could confirm that a pine tree is a pine tree. — L'éléphant

Yes, quite right. :up:

---

That was never a contention... — Mww

We're taking baby steps here.

So, yes, we know our own actions in a more immediate way that we know others’ actions... — Mww

Okay great, so we know our own actions in a more immediate way than we know others' actions. Now we can move to the question of the minor: whether we know our own acts immediately.

Some questions: Do you act? When you act do you know you are acting, or are you not sure whether you are acting? Do you disagree with L'éléphant about his knowledge of walking over to the kitchen? Finally, if you think this knowledge is mediate, then what is it mediated by?

()

Give that system any name you wish... — Mww

Do you think people without "systems" are also capable of knowledge?

Ever tied to explain what hasn’t occurred? — Mww

Knowledge is not an act of explanation.

I guess that goes back to the sense/reference discussion you were having with Banno earlier. Specifically whether/how reference leverages concepts or practices that are (often) exclusively associated with sense. — fdrake

Yes, it does go back to that. Perhaps I should have resisted Banno’s desire to move that topic into this thread, for it is a rather different topic than the one Fine is concerned with. On the other hand, your post was comparing Fine’s Aristotelian essentialism to Banno’s linguistic approach, which is also different than the topic of this thread. I suppose that is what I was responding to.

I agree with that, even though it's outside the scope of the thread. I believe that any speech act which refers does so on the basis of a history of use outside its immediate context, and how the referent is individuated+interpreted is informed by that history and the referent's nature. So I believe that the association of names (like "Socrates") with referents (Socrates) is done through an interpretation+individuation of the referent, and that the discursive contexts which refer to that referent must keep associating a "sufficiently like" (weasel words) interpretation+individuation of the referent to fix+continue that particular sense/referent/reference relation. — fdrake

That seems reasonable, but of course the devil’s in the details.

Though there's a rub. Like if you and your friend are having a disagreement about whether the blegbleg really is a shmooblydoo or a bigglewiggle, another friend observing the disagreement can successfully refer to the blegbleg by aping their reference, even without their own understanding of the blegbleg's sense, conditions of individuation, or its real nature. — fdrake

I would have thought “...and the referent’s nature” was meant to circumvent such a rub. But that rub does bother me when it comes to the Wittgensteinian meaning-as-usage idea. On a related note, meaning-as-usage seems to dovetail with the burgeoning ChatGPT movement, fueling the erroneous notion that because AI is able to mimic usage therefore it is using language in the same way that humans do.

How does that rub relate to the thread? Who knows, it just seems to. — fdrake

Be at peace. It is said that moderators are not held to a higher standard. :wink:

But if we really wanted we could draw it back to the thread by opining that when the modalist assesses the nature of language, his necessary properties miss the mark of a true definition and thus erroneously admit the ChatGPT AI into the group of language users. In a way, usage is a necessary property of meaning, and always attends and reflects meaning, and yet to define meaning in terms of usage is a misunderstanding of the essence of meaning (along with the sources and plasticity of languages). The blegbleg example shows why the meaning-as-usage account misses the mark.

Great posts, by the way. Is there a thread where I can ask about your philosophical background?

Interesting, thanks. I will be visiting my parents soon and will have to dig some of my Heidegger books out of storage.

Hrm! I don't know that I'd accept "we know our own actions in a more immediate way than we know others' actions" as a true sentence, but it'd be for boring reasons: I simply wouldn't use the predicate "...immediate" with respect to knowledge in general. — Moliere

But what about "more immediate"? Are there different levels of mediation here? I think that question presents the first step.

then, yes, an obligation would presuppose the existence of a moral fact. Nevertheless, this is would incorrect to use your definition in parsing my OP (since I did not use it that way): I mean a fundamental normative statement. — Bob Ross

I did not give a definition, and what I said is, "the existence of moral facts would presuppose the existence of fundamental obligations." I did not say—as you incorrectly claim—that "an obligation would presuppose the existence of a moral fact."

By moral fact I mean a moral judgment which exists mind-independently... — Bob Ross

How could a judgment exist independent of minds? Judgments are judgments of minds.

Good posts. I think that by "essence" is meant the defining feature of the referent. I think those who prefer Wittgenstein would take the latter approach that you outline.

I myself am not convinced that linguistic use can be so heavily separated from metaphysics. After all, much of our language is referring to things in themselves. I recently listened to Gregory Sadler's video on Wittgenstein. One of the things that came across was the idea that Wittgenstein was a sort of towing truck for English-speaking philosophy, helpful for getting it out of the ditch but not a very reliable vehicle in himself. That seems like a reasonable assessment.

- The description of Harman is interesting, and I think there is a lot of overlap with Aristotle. I will have to look into him.

That is to say, for example, in Harman, the "essence" of an object is always "withdrawn" or "hidden" such that it cannot be interacted with. — schopenhauer1

I don't think Aristotle or Aquinas would speak in such a strong way, but the idea is definitely present in their work. Understanding and defining essences is tricky business, always in need of revision and open to further precision or correction.

A basic question here is: What provides the surest starting point? Harman's objects? Aristotle's substances? Wittgenstein's linguistics?

I think object/substance is the prima facie answer, but if someone like Wittgenstein sees Hume blocking that path they will seek a different route. Of course there is no reason we can't have both. Thinkers like C. S. Peirce or John Deely are two examples of men who had both, in spades.

Anything that is an appearance is known mediately,
Action is known only non-mediately
Therefore, action cannot be an appearance.

This makes it clear that the question is whether action is known only non-mediately, and that would seem to be false, which makes the argument as reformulated valid, but unsound. — Janus

Using this approach, you can get true premises in the following way:

Anything that is an appearance is known only mediately
Action is known non-mediately
Therefore, action cannot be an appearance

(The point is not that action is known only non-mediately, but rather that action is known non-mediately (and mediately), whereas appearance is only known mediately.)

(Ever listened to speeches on the floor of the U.S. House? Yikes, I tell ya; one instance of illegitimate reasoning right after another. The more serious the topic, potentially the more silly the logic) — Mww

Ha!

Aristotle calls this an error in scientific reasoning, meaning it only shows up in demonstrations of the premises. — Mww

Well, it means that the error is fatal precisely to a demonstration. My point is that the OP is not a demonstration, and need not be a demonstration (in the Aristotelian sense).

Here, the major premise, that appearances are known mediately, is true as demonstrated by means of some theory, but the minor, an individual knows his actions non-mediately, is demonstrated as false by that same theory. — Mww

A Kantian theory? I would say that if Kant thinks that one's own actions are known by the same mediation that others' actions are known, so much the worse for Kant.

Again I’ll ask….how do you think it is possible to have knowledge of our own actions in a non-mediated manner? — Mww

My point in indicating that everyone in the thread accepts it is to say that this burden is on you. To everyone in the thread it is accepted that we know our own actions in a more immediate way than we know others' actions, and if you disagree then you will have to provide an argument.

The commonsensical idea is that when I see someone else flip a coin my knowledge is mediated by sense data; but when I flip a coin my knowledge that I am acting is in no way limited to sense data. Because I am the one effecting the act, therefore I know that the act is being effected. The mediation of the former is not present in the latter.

Bottom line….knowledge of any kind, is necessarily mediated by the system which makes knowledge possible. — Mww

I would not say that abstract systems mediate knowledge. "Systemic intellectual methodology" is an afterthought, an epistemic hanger-on that follows after knowledge is already had. It is an attempt to explain what has already occurred.

There are two questions here: first, whether the mediation of the knowledge of appearances and the mediation of the knowledge of first-person acts are different kinds of mediation; and second, whether the knowledge of first-person acts are mediated.

The fact that no fundamental obligation is a moral fact does not negate the existence of moral facts. The point is that the moral facts are not doing any of the work in a rational moral system: its the hypothetical imperative(s) which is(are) the fundamental obligation(s). — Bob Ross

Hypothetical imperatives cannot ground obligation, which is why the existence of moral facts would presuppose the existence of fundamental obligations.

On another note, as argued in the OP, a moral fact cannot be a fundamental obligation, as that would be circular logic. — Bob Ross

I think the OP is nothing more than a circular denial of moral facts, a begging of the question. Positing the existence of moral facts without the existence of fundamental obligations makes no sense at all, and isn't a true positing of moral facts. In reality what you call a "moral fact" is a hypothetical imperative, and what you call a "fundamental obligation" is a moral fact. Thus you are granting hypothetical imperatives while denying moral facts (categorical imperatives). This is the same old consequentialist argument that has been popular for centuries, at least since Sidgwick.

If you think I'm wrong then set out your definition of a moral fact.

(Again, the point here is that @Count Timothy von Icarus' replies are on point. He is defending moral facts because the OP denies moral facts.)

I am still intrigued by this comment of yours, which is quite informative. It seems to be one of those cases where Humean nominalism and British empiricism flow together like oil and water. The attempt to limit oneself to the "discursive context" collapses on itself whenever an act of expression expresses an object. For example, a proper name is a 'rigid designator' which means that the object it identifies is ostensibly unique, and accounting for the manner in which one identifies such an object inevitably draws one outside the "discursive context." The meaning of a proper name is incomplete without some account of the way that proper names are used to reference real objects.

He could feel frustrated by a political decision because it's going to impact his life, but he could also honestly acknowledge to himself that he doesn't oppose that decision from a political standpoint. He wouldn’t label it as detrimental to society, or even to other mathematicians; he would only recognize that it's unfavorable for him. — Skalidris

Is he capable of recognizing political decisions that are unfavorable to others? And if he is capable of the (rational) judgment that a political decision is unfavorable to the vast majority of the society, would he not then oppose that political decision? Because politics is for the polis?

What is your position on the relation between Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) and his Metaphysics of Morals (1797)? Some, such as Allen Wood, allow for the possibility that Kant's moral thought developed significantly in the interim, and that the Groundwork was in some ways superseded.

I thought the central focus was about whether H's work is contaminated or undermined by his Nazism. — Tom Storm

Yes, but the argument you give is not the only one by which someone could reach such a conclusion: "because someone may be problematic [therefore] this bleeds into all their activities."

We "feel" our own actions "from the inside" it seems, and we see, or hear the actions of others, but if feeling as well as seeing and hearing is mediated by prior neuronal activity, the immediacy may be merely phenomenological, which then just be to say that knowledge of our actions seems immediate, which is of course true. — Janus

I do not think it is a question of feeling. Feeling is a passion, not an action, and therefore to feel is not to act. Acting goes beyond feeling, and when one acts they know they have done so. The mediacy of perception pertains to the major premise, not the minor.

At least not in its recent revival. I wasn't a member when the thread began six months ago. Again, if Heidegger were a logician it would be different (link), because it is plausible that logic and ethics have no interrelation. The crux of this issue is illustrated by the difference between and .

I think you may have misunderstood the OP (which is totally fine): it is not that moral realism is insignificant because there are no facts but, rather, that if it were true it would be irrelevant. — Bob Ross

I think @Count Timothy von Icarus' reply is on point given that the OP fails to make this argument. The OP grants moral facts with its right hand and takes them away with its left. "You can have moral facts but you cannot have fundamental obligations," is the same as saying, "You can have moral facts but you cannot have moral facts." A fundamental obligation is one kind of moral fact, and if there are no fundamental obligations then there are no moral facts.

I don't hold to a view that because someone may be problematic that this bleeds into all their activities. — Tom Storm

I don't think anyone in the thread has proposed such a view.

What do we wish, by means of proper reason, to extract from a syllogism? — Mww

Knowledge, and knowledge is not univocal.

If it is the case no knowledge is at all possible that is not mediated... — Mww

If this were the case then the minor would simply be false. But it is not false, because we do have knowledge of our own actions in a non-mediated manner. I don't think anyone in the thread has claimed that the minor is false.

It follows that while the major is true in its use of “mediately”, the minor remains equivocal insofar as “non-mediately” has a different relation to knowledge than the relation in the major, hence is a fallacious sophisma figurae dictionis, especially if “non-mediately” doesn’t relate to knowledge at all. — Mww

This is the metabasis that I referred to. Because "non-mediately" does relate to knowledge—as everyone in the thread concedes—the conclusion manages to convey a form of knowledge, albeit not demonstrative knowledge. The relationship between the subject and the predicate of the major is not identical to the relationship between the subject and the predicate of the minor, but neither is it equivocal. A pros hen relationship obtains (between mediated knowledge and non-mediated knowledge).

Having said all that, what do you think “non-mediately” means, and do you think knowledge is possible by it? — Mww

I think the reason no one has challenged the minor is because we all believe that we possess a knowledge of our acts which is not mediated. This is different from our knowledge of the acts of others.

Note: I have in mind the formalized version of the syllogism ().

I’m sure your actions, from the vantage of a century or so hence, will come to be construed as deeply ethically flawed. — Joshs

But how many times does this poor argument need to be unmasked? Here are some places where it has already been done:





(Conflating cases where "a century or so" is required with cases where "a century or so" is not required is inadmissible.)

A syllogism suffering premises with no relation to each other, is a paralogism — Mww

But it is quite odd to claim that the two knowledge-predicates have no relation to each other. Metabasis eis allo genos does preclude a strict demonstration because not all premises apply per se, but it does not preclude a looser and less exact syllogism. I think that's exactly what is happening here. The conclusion, "Therefore, no first-person actions are appearances," is sound vis-a-vis the metabasis. The error or lapse does not preclude a non-demonstrative kind of inference. The genus-predications map to one another in an inexact way, but they are not wholly equivocal. We can quibble about what invalidity means, but I don't think the syllogism is "just a hot mess."

In other words, ' two terms are not strictly equivocal; they are pros hen homonyms.

I see no contradiction between flawed or 'bad' people (however this is measured) who also produce innovative, prodigious work — Tom Storm

Again, I think it depends on whether Heidegger's philosophy implicates the moral sphere. For an ethicist to produce a work of great import and then choose actions which are deeply flawed is incongruous. For a philosopher whose work implicates the moral sphere the incongruity is not as great, but it is still present. For someone whose work has no relation to the moral sphere, there is no incongruity.

And then this gets into 's point about "philosophical nihilism." It is easy to swallow the idea that a logician, for instance, can produce work unrelated to the moral sphere. But Heidegger is doing and purporting to do something much more fundamental ("metaphysics"), and there is much more at stake in considering whether that fundamental sphere is amoral.

Interesting, thanks. I can see how this reflects your view that "the two bodies of work are two aspects of the same thinking," while yet providing room for a correction, and also providing a way of preserving the philosophy. Overall, this seems like a reasonable approach. I would like to read the entire article.

No, my presupposition is that the two bodies of work are two aspects of the same thinking, and that we must use each side to better understand the other. — Joshs

That's interesting, because most people in your position seem to try to use Heidegger's academic work to explain away the writings, beliefs, and decisions of Heidegger's which are unappealing.

In any case, I don't see how the problem goes away unless one argues that Heidegger's academic work is inherently contrary to the unappealing aspects, and that he simply failed to recognize the way in which his philosophy precludes antisemitism, or Nazism, etc. A tall task.

If as responsible readers we are charged with the task of using the public record and scattered diary fragments to illuminate the meaning of his published work, and vice versa, which of these two sides of Heidegger’s life do you think deserves the most attention in clarifying the ‘true’ intentions of as careful and complex a thinker as Heidegger? — Joshs

But your presupposition is that the two bodies of work are in conflict, and that we therefore must choose either one or the other. Why think that? On my (admittedly limited) view, the two are not in conflict.

When attempts to excuse Heidegger on the basis that he was an intellectual and not a moralist, he seems to implicitly commit himself to the view that Heidegger's academic work is largely non-moral, and is therefore not contrary (nor favorable) to the moral evils of Nazism. This approach also does not see the two bodies of work as conflicting.

It had better hold water, or else the concept of human brilliance needs to be done away with. — Joshs

But that's just what the Nazis said, "Look at this brilliant man who strongly approves of our project! Surely our project is worthwhile given his approval."

Disentangling the two is not as easy as Heidegger's students would wish.

Making the decision to abandon or accept Nazism certainly is a moral choice, not an intellectual one. [...] Werner von Braun the father of modern rocketry doesn't seem to have problems with his good name. — Pantagruel

That's because rocketry and philosophy are not the same thing. You seem to be implicitly admitting that Heidegger's work is like rocketry, and has no moral worth, no?

Two centuries ago slavery was a social norm widely embraced and even more widely tolerated. So whom from that time period should we exempt from moral censure? — Pantagruel

There were plenty of Germans in Heidegger's time who did not fall for the Nazi foolishness, and if Heidegger is to be held up as a paragon of human brilliance I don't think this argument holds water.

I don't have much of an opinion on this matter, not being overly familiar with Heidegger. There are caricatures on both sides. I don't think there is a simple answer to be had, but given Heidegger's stature, his strong support of the Nazi regime casts a indelible shadow on him.

The article is paywalled on the links I found, so I guess we will have to take your word for it. — Banno

Here is an accessible version: "Kripke and Wittgenstein: Intention Without Paradox," by Paul Moser and Kevin Flannery.

As I'm reading Fine a definition is necessary, because Fine accepts the argument that if something is not necessary then it is not essential, but necessity is not sufficient.

Or, if we're going by way of Aristotelian essence, then I'm not sure "sufficiency" is the conceptual mark we should be using at all (hence my divergence into Aristotelian causes for determining whether something named has an essence at all) — Moliere

Yes, this is correct. Your care is appreciated.

Freewheeling a bit, I would say that for Aristotle the purpose of a definition is twofold: to denote an essence, and to distinguish things from each other. These are related, but the latter has more to do with scientific taxonomy than the former. If two real definitions are identical (and correct in describing the essence) then the "two" things that they define are just the same thing. If two things are different then they will have different essences (and different definitions). I would want to say that the idea of sufficiency has to do with this second, taxonomical motive (i.e. the nominal definition should distinguish sufficiently).

Fine's article is very subtle, and the very fact that you can "run" essentialism on modal logic means that his argument is tangential to essentialism. He's not wrong, but I don't think it will be fruitful for someone trying to understand essentialism for the first time to get lost in that abstruse debate.

A definition is a true description of an essence, which is a property which is explanatorily prior to other properties, including the necessary ones (like the Singleton Socrates). — Moliere

Yes, but more concretely, things like risibility, the capacity to learn grammar, and delight.

Leontiskos do you accept the argument that if some predicate is not necessary of a name that then that same predicate is not an essence of the name? (only asking because then we could add to this list to say that essences are necessary, though there are necessary predicates which are not essential) — Moliere

Yes, you are right about this.

The question about explanatory priority is a good one. "Explanation" (or "cause") usually translates aitia, for example:

We think we understand something simpliciter (and not in the sophistical way, incidentally) when we think we know of the explanation because of which the object holds that it is its explanation, and also that it is not possible for it to be otherwise. It is plain, then, that to understand is something of this sort. And indeed, people who do not understand think they are in such a condition, and those who do understand actually are. Hence if there is understanding simpliciter of something, it is impossible for it to be otherwise. — Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, 71b9 (Chapter 2), tr. Barnes

Barnes gives a rather long explanation of why he translates "explanation" rather than "cause". To simplify, I would say the term spans both ontology and also linguistics/theory, such that the twofold purpose above is attainable.


I was looking around for freely accessible material on this topic. I did find something which is free, even if its accessibility is questionable. The article is technically arguing for realism against nominalism, but it also spends a good deal of time on definitions:

Let us return to the honey bee example to make our point. With some study (and or a good Oxford dictionary) I could come to know in a fairly rigorous manner that a honey bee is defined as “a stinging, winged insect that collects nectar and pollen, produces wax and honey, and lives in large communities/colonies.” In this definition, the genus is insect meaning an arthropod with six legs and one or two pairs of wings. An arthropod is an invertebrate with segmented body, an exoskeleton, and jointed limbs. ‘Stinging, ‘winged,’ ‘collecting nectar and pollen,’ ‘producing wax and honey,’ and ‘living in large colonies,’ are differentia which distinguish the honey bee from other members of the same genus, and are taken from the categories of action, quality, and possession/habit.[74] Having these attributes (secondary beings) is the cause of some individuals (primary beings) in nature being honey bees. When I run into such primary buzzing beings, I know them with a very high degree of accuracy, through [this definition]. What is key is that, any time one has predicated a definition of a honey bee in the field, which is an expression (λόγος/logos) of his understanding it in itself and as distinct from other animals and species of its own genus. . . — Daniel Wagner, The Logical Terms of Sense Realism, p. 53

Wagner defines differentia earlier. They are essential attributes which differentiate from other things in the same genus:

“Difference” is an essential attribute added to the genus and constituting the species (e.g., ‘with three equal sides’ differentiates the equilateral from the isosceles and the scalene). — Daniel Wagner, The Logical Terms of Sense Realism, p. 27

- Good posts. :up:

No — Vera Mont

Aye.

So where now? — Banno

Now I'll leave you to it. :victory:

Becoming part of a larger whole really does confer meaning. I should think this is empirically demonstrable. I see you've given some rhetorical protestations to this idea in the thread. Do you have more than rhetoric?

I would have said that our discussion of essences commenced here: ↪Leontiskos; — Banno

This must have been a typo given the referent of the link.

For my part the discussion of essences and definitions never had anything to do with Fine's article. I only mentioned Fine's distinction a few times in the belief thread, before we started talking about essences and definitions. It seemed clear all along that you were not committed to the modal view that Fine is addressing ().

I don't think one can read Fine as rejecting modal accounts of essence, so much as refining them. Otherwise one would be rejecting the conception of essence as necessary and sufficient... — Banno

But modal logic does not have a copyright on the word "necessary." To speak about a modal account of essence is not to speak about any account of essence which utilizes the concept of necessity. Here is an example of fdrake making the proper distinction:

So it seems that he believes there's some subset of the necessary (possible worlds sense) truths which are necessary (essential) to an entity's being. — fdrake

I'm not sure how you could construe "X making a claim on Joe," as, "Joe receiving external validation." Solipsism renders life meaningless.

- Very interesting. This seems to be common. A generation without children, without religion, without patriotism, etc. There is nothing to make a claim on them.

I don't see much by way of an argument in favour of essences, a reason that we need take them into account. — Banno

Was it intended to? Remember that the discussion of essences and definitions was transplanted from a different thread at your request, and was never motivated by Fine's article (link). Fine's article is critiquing the received modal account of essences. He is saying, "A is a better [account of essences] than B." :wink:

Anyway, given that the discussion has moved away from the Fine article I might leave this topic where it is. — Banno

I also want to leave the topic, but it never "moved away from Fine's article." It was never about Fine's article in the first place.

I think I can see what you mean there. Though I read it the other way - how Fine is using the vocabulary of essence makes meaning "thingly" or "concrete" - puts the locus of sinigication/expression closer to the described object or act. Like the essence of Socrates is constrained by who Socrates was. — fdrake

That's fair. I suppose I was thinking more of reference than Fine's article. For example, apparently for Russell or Donnellan if the referent of a name does not exist then the speaker is denoting nothing. Similarly, according to your article from Gareth Evans, Kripke's target and Kripke's response both possess a strong focus on objective uniqueness. For the theory which he targets, the speaker must have a unique description if they are to denote; and for his own "theory" a causal explanation is meant to safeguard the uniqueness of the referent.

So we see these objective impositions: that a referent must exist in order for a name to denote; that a speaker must have access to a unique description if their name is to denote; and that a causal explanation is the proper way to identify a unique referent.

For the Aristotelian I should think that there is a much stronger emphasis on intention and a kind of subjective encounter with the object. For an Aristotelian like Anscombe, there is no reason why the referent of a name needs to exist in order for denotation to occur. For Strawson the idea that the speaker must have ready access to a unique and accurate description is a non-starter. I'm not even sure the Aristotelian account of cognition is going to allow for the level of objectification that someone like Kripke seems to desire. This tangential disagreement about reference may relate to significantly different accounts of knowing.

- You're welcome :up: