If we understand the realist's beliefs as having a causal explanation in terms of the realist's psychological conditioning and sensory input . . . — sime

But why need we do this? I myself don't view realism as a fancy sort of physicalism. There are all kinds of ways to get reasons, ideas, intentions, propositions, what have you, into realism. (Which of these might be mind-independent is a different, and complicated, question.) But now I understand what you meant. If the metaphysical realist doesn't countenance reasons, as opposed to psychological and physical causes, then their case is much harder to make. A typical self-referential paradox would seem to result.

I don't know what you mean, I included the argument right below the quoted section. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sorry if I missed it. Do you mean this?:

If we are incapable of desiring the good because it is known as good . . . then it seems to follow that all actions bottom out in irrational impulse. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I didn't see an argument here, just an assertion. How do we get from "not desiring the good because it is known as good" to "all actions bottom out [are motivated by] irrational impulse"?

Apparently "rational action" for them won't entail knowing why one acts and believing it to be truly best. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Help me see this. Why does the moral anti-realist not know why they act as they do?

First we have to consider the meta-metaphysics of "mind-independence"; should mind-independence be understood to be an existential claim that the world literally exists independently of the senses? Or should mind-independence be understood as merely a semantic proposal that physical concepts are definitionally not reducible to the senses? — sime

This is good. I don't know what @noAxioms has in mind, but I take "mind-independence" to express the former, existential thesis. The semantic proposal would follow.

And even if an apparently dogmatic realist insists upon the former interpretation, should we nevertheless interpret him to be a semantic realist? For can we really entertain the idea that the realist is conceiving the world as existing independently of his senses? — sime

(I think the realist can be one without being dogmatic!) Not sure what seems un-entertainable about that idea. Could you expand? As best I can tell, the sort of nuanced realism I was laying out earlier does allow me to conceive a world independent of my senses, if by this we mean "existing independently but not necessarily known independently." In the case of math and logic, I would say it's also known independently of the senses, though we may need the senses as a jumping-off place for noetic investigation.

they are denying the very possibility of rational freedom and rational action, at least as classically conceived. If we are incapable of desiring the good because it is known as good (i.e. a denial of the existence of Aquina's "rational appetites," or Plato's "desires of the rational part of the soul) then it seems to follow that all actions bottom out in irrational impulse. — Count Timothy von Icarus

How is this an argument for the ethical non-realist to become a realist? They merely reply, "Not at all. Nothing of the sort 'seems to follow.' My actions are neither irrational nor impulsive. I'm not aware of 'denying the very possibility of rational freedom' -- how so? Such a view of my actions comes with extremely heavy philosophical baggage, and you would have to show me why this must be the case. On the contrary, I choose what I rationally believe is best for me. Certainly I may be wrong, in any given instance. But how is that either irrational or immoral?"

There is also the phenomenological argument for the fact that man does possess an infinite appetite for goodness. We cannot identify any finite end to which we say "this is it, this is where I find absolute rest." This finding is, at the very least, all over phenomenology (including atheist phenomenology). — Count Timothy von Icarus

This isn't ringing any bells. Where would I find it? Or could you give the argument, briefly?

I really don't think it's that. The anti-realist is happy to acknowledge the fact that suffering is bad for the beings concerned.

If an "anti-realist" re values acknowledges that there are objective facts about values then they are not an anti-realist. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But you've introduced the term "values" into my quote, and that's something which the anti-realist doesn't countenance. The anti-realist doesn't think there are objective facts about values, simply because something is conducive to happiness or its opposite. Of what value are those? they might ask. The anti-realist understands the moral realist (I think correctly) to be speaking about a type of value that can be seen to be good for everyone -- indeed, obligatory. It is this that the anti-realist denies.

Now I suppose that you could redefine an anti-realist as (only) someone who not only denies objective facts about moral values, but objective facts about the value of anything whatever. But that seems way too stringent. I think the classic anti-realist position would be that lots of things are good and bad for various people, given various considerations, but there are no over-arching values that would mandate, or even allow, a choice among them.

But I think you struggle with getting beyond egoism in particular because you think that, provided the egoist keeps on affirming that they are better off being an egoist, then this simply must be true (i.e. they are infallible about what is to their own benefit). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Personally, I don't agree with the egoist at all. I agree with you: No one is infallible about what is to their own benefit, as human history sadly attests. But what I'm claiming is that the egoist/moral anti-realist is not being irrational, and there is no argument you can make to the contrary, on the basis of objective values. It's not that the anti-realist has to say, "I know for a fact that my egoism is good for me. I can't be wrong about that." They can just say, "Well, this is the way it looks to me, and you have yet to show me an argument for all these 'common values' and 'human flourishings' and 'ethics that extend beyond the personal.' All you're doing is asserting your belief in them and claiming that, if I could only see them, I'd like them too. Perhaps, perhaps not."

Let me be clear, again: I think this character is dead wrong. But they're not going to find out they're wrong through philosophy or argumentation. I think you hold some spiritual beliefs? Then you know what I'm talking about. Jesus, to pick an example we both know, did not offer the Seminar on the Mount, providing his followers with knockdown arguments for being virtuous. Insofar as he discussed praxis at all, he seems to have recommended metanoia as a priority.

Just because someone is a moral anti-realist doesn’t mean they are unconcerned with the suffering of people or animals."

Sure. They just deny that the suffering of people or animals can actually be bad for them as a matter of fact — Count Timothy von Icarus

I really don't think it's that. The anti-realist is happy to acknowledge the fact that suffering is bad for the beings concerned, in the sense that it's painful, undesirable, etc., but only in that sense. The anti-realist denies that this makes a difference to him/her, i.e., there is no further moral conclusion to be drawn. The words "bad/good" carry no ethical implications, on this view; there are particular facts about what is bad or good for X in the sense specified above, but no moral facts about how this may generalize, or how we ought to behave as a result.

I guess the philosophical world is divided between those who believe that "good/beneficial/conducive to happiness/healthful/pleasurable for me" is what "morally good" means, and those who conceive of moral good as above and beyond the personal. I'm not sure how to bridge the division.

Is anyone willing to defend a mind-independent view? — noAxioms

Yes. I would defend the following, more or less from Frege (and paraphrased by Michael H. McCarthy):

1. There is an objective reality, independent of, but accessible to human knowledge.

2. Though human error is abundant, and it's often hard to discriminate between mind-independent and mind-dependent reality, we do in fact possess much genuine knowledge of this reality, including the standard parts of mathematics.

3. Not only the natural sciences, but logic and mathematics have objective truths as their subject matter.

Frege wrote:

If we want to emerge from the subjective at all, from the realm of ideas, we must conceive of knowledge as an activity that does not create what is known but grasps what is already there. — Basic Laws of Arithmetic, 23

I think this is too strong. I would replace "grasps" with "interacts with and displays," to allow for the role of human cognition in this process.

Here's what I would not defend:

1. A use of the term "objective" to mean "out there in a timeless, changeless way that is not only independent of how human consciousness pictures it, but also somehow identical to it." (Frege probably did believe this.)

2. A meta-vocabulary in which human knowledge is itself defended as knowably objective and certain. We don't have any such knowledge or certainty. My beliefs -- and yours -- about mind-independent reality are not verifiable in the way that statements in science are.

3. An either/or conception of objectivity and subjectivity, leading to the view that if mind-independent reality is apprehended by a subject, it has therefore been transformed into non-mind-independent reality, and is hence "only subjective."

But nothing but the person's opinion makes their disapproval hold any water, I'd think. — AmadeusD

This is the dividing line between subjectivism and objectivism in ethics. The subjectivist (you, perhaps?) wants to say that the usage of words like "worthy" or "good" or "right" can be correct only when they express personal opinions. Someone who uses these words to refer to alleged standards that "arbitrate," as you put it, between preferences is using them incorrectly. The objectivist, on the other hand (me, for instance), believes that both subjective and objective usages of value words are fine; both have their contexts; both say meaningful things. The objectivist believes, as the subjectivist does not, that when value words are used in a specifically ethical context (as opposed to "I prefer this ice cream" contexts), they refer to actual objective (or intersubjective) realities that can influence preferences, not merely reflect them.

You think it wasn't choice-worthy and in this case for someone else so there's a second level of preference involved there. — AmadeusD

We can change the example to the 1st person to avoid this: "I made X choice; it was not a worthy choice; I should not have made it." But again, I much prefer using more value-oriented words than "choice-worthy", for the reasons we've already discussed. Better to say, "It was wrong; I shouldn't have done it."

A preference is, definitionally, something subjectively preferred. Not something 'chosen'. That may be why you're seeing a cross-reading available where I do not. — AmadeusD

Well, yeah, but language isn't that easily corralled. Consider the similar case of "want". Some people argue that "You did X because you wanted to do X" is always the case (in non-coercive circumstances), because we only do what we want to do. But in real life it's much more subtle, hence the distinction between "want" and "will," or "want" and "choose." I can will something, or choose something, as my final decision in a complicated matter, without in the least "wanting" to do it. I may not even necessarily want to do the "right thing", as a category -- I just believe I should.

So, the distinction between "prefer" and "choose" follows a similar course. We often have to discriminate between something we'd prefer, subjectively, all things being equal, versus something we would never feel that way about, all things being equal, but feel we must choose, under these circumstances. Perhaps there's a better pair of words to use that reflects the distinction, but at any rate I believe the distinction is an important one.

I'd be interested to know whether you think this sort of distinction can be preserved from an ethical-subjectivist point of view. It seems to me that it can, but tell me what you think.

I cannot understand "choice-worthy" as anything other than an expression of preference. Nothing besides seems to arbitrate what would and wouldn't come under that head. — AmadeusD

If we do stick with ordinary usage, we can find examples on both sides. Sometimes we say, "This non-dairy ice cream is worthy of my choice because it's especially creamy and gooey and that's what I like." Or we might say, "You betrayed your partner. That was not a worthy choice, and you shouldn't have made it." I don't know how far we can push this kind of analysis, other than to point out that the "worth" part of "worthy" can, and does, have more than one meaning.

"Preference" is problematic in the same way. You can stipulate that it means "something I like to choose," or you can say it means "what I do in fact choose, regardless of my personal preferences." You'll find usages supporting either interpretation.

I'm not sure I buy it either. I want to put the best possible construction on it, though. I think we have to understand "worthy" simply to mean "ought to be chosen." If that's not what it means, then the whole attempt to elevate "choice-worthy" into the ethical lexicon wouldn't make sense.

But granted that its proponents do make that equation, we can see how the pieces are arranged on the board. I wouldn't say it's wrong, just not very perspicuous.

Your question, I believe, is more from the point of view of ordinary language: How come something that's worthy of choice therefore ought to be chosen? Don't we need an additional factor to take us over the bridge between "worthy" and "obligatory"? If "choice-worthy" isn't defined as above, then I agree with you.

Understood. Or the way I would say it, calling something "worthy of choice" is the same as calling it "good" or "right," but focusing on the action of choosing rather than the content of what's being chosen. So it doesn't inform us as to the values involved, only that they are "worthy" and therefore ought to be chosen.

I think J is on the right track. — AmadeusD

Thank you, but although we agree that "choice-worthy" isn't helpful, it doesn't follow from this that:

arbiters of 'good' and 'bad' are literally nowhere to be seen, except within agreements between people. — AmadeusD

That's a whole other question.

To understand what is meant, we need to consider the context. The PSR says that everything has a reason. So "unknowable" in this context means having no reason. Having no reason would make it fundamentally unknowable. — Metaphysician Undercover

The context is helpful. You’re not concerned so much with things that might be unknowable in principle, such as the complete decimal expansion of pi. What you want to know is, Is there a class of things that a) have reasons which b) must remain unknowable by us? And if such a class exists, how would we know what the members were? I wonder, though, whether you’ve defined such a possibility out of existence, by stipulating that the PSR is and must be true, so that the idea of a thing without a reason is already impossible.

I guess I’m not sure whether you’re offering this connection of reasons with what can be known as a demonstration that the PSR must be true, or as an entailment of what must follow if the PSR is true.

BTW: There’s a provocative book called No Way: The Nature of the Impossible, edited by a mathematician and a physicist, that collects instances of the debate over what’s possible (including in epistemology) from a wide variety of disciplines, from medicine to music. With a question as big as this, it’s really helpful to hear from people who’ve encountered the problem in a specific situation related to their expertise. Well worth finding a copy if you can.

OK, I did think that by "unknowable" you meant "unknowable by us humans". I admit I'm confused about what "unknowable, period" or "not capable of being known by anyone or anything" might mean. Could you clarify that? Would, for instance, the decimal expansion of pi be an example of this? Or, as your post seems to suggest, do we need to understand what alien forms of life might be capable of knowing? That seems an awfully high bar to settle the question.

How do you think it could be possible to discover that something is not knowable? I think it is impossible to know something as not knowable. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure, a valid question. Depends how much certainty you want to pack in to the concept of "knowing" something. I can say I'm certain that my cat will never comprehend general relativity (I barely do myself), though I can't prove it. Likewise, we may discover the limits of our own comprehension -- not provably, perhaps, but beyond a reasonable doubt. We would then know that something is not knowable.

I bolded "is" and "as" in your quote because I think what you're pointing to may be the idea that to know "something" as unknowable, is already to know something about it, hence a sort of contradiction. I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that, but there are other ways of being unknowable.

The philosophical mind seeks knowledge of all things, and the proposition that some things may not be knowable implies that philosophy is misdirected. — Metaphysician Undercover

This statement caught my eye, looking over this thread. Isn't it too strong? If philosophy should discover that some things aren't knowable, at least by us, wouldn't that be worth knowing, part of "all things" philosophy is interested in? Maybe the word you want is "limited" rather than "misdirected."

I thought that was probably what you meant. What other values, then, other than "life is good," would we need in order to generate an ethics, do you think? The problem is that we can't promote all life, unequivocally. Choices have to be made, preferences shown. My very first philosophy teacher opened our first class by asking, "Why do you believe your life is worth more than a Swiss chard's?" Lively discussion ensued! But no one, as best I recall, was willing to argue that there was no difference in value.

"Life = Good" — James Dean Conroy

Whose life?

(And welcome to the forum!)

A correct expression according to my theory would be, "In-form me!" — JuanZu

Sure, that makes sense. I was trying to disambiguate the uses of "information" as a noun, based on @wonderer1's comment, which I understand wasn't the main thrust of your OP.

The interesting question now becomes, if Joe and Jane are both "in-formed" in the same way, or with the same result, what fact about the interpreted (document, e.g.) allows this to be so?

I think @JuanZu's idea is that information only comes into existence in the context of someone for whom it is information. You can of course use "information" to refer to the things (such as electrical charges) that bear the information (on @JuanZu's understanding), but then you're just disagreeing about what terms to use. Both uses of "information" are common in everyday speech. "Give me the information!" i.e., Hand over that document! vs. "What information does that document contain?" i.e., What do the symbols mean?

On a personal note - — Wayfarer

Thank you for this. I believe many of us have had similar experiences and journeys. It points up something important -- the choice of a specific spiritual path may have less to do with an exclusive truth than with a constellation of images and associations that unlock the deepest parts of ourselves. And that will be different for everyone.

Just to be clear: I'm using "spiritual path" very broadly, but not so broadly as to include, say, ethnic cleansing. The word "spiritual" has to carry with it certain presumptions about values. But not necessarily about God or gods.

My feeing is that deity is ‘personal’ only insofar as not being not an ‘it’ or an impersonal force or mere principle — Wayfarer

That's my view as well, but I still want to add "conscious" because this force has to have, at the very least, the same capacities I do. The Suzuki passage captures this very well: "a willing and knowing being, one that is will and intelligence, thought and action. . . . an inexhaustible fountainhead of love and compassion."

If more personalism is wanted, there are many spiritual paths that emphasize a relationship with an avatar or bodhisattva, Christianity being the most familiar example.

I think we need to pose C. S. Lewis's question: Is it conscious?
— J

Not ‘it’. That is what the (regrettably gender-specific) ‘He’ is intended to convey. — Wayfarer

Fine. I used "it" to avoid gender also, but it sounds like this definition of God is intended to describe a conscious being -- a person, for lack of a better term.

Still, if the Rawlsian lottery were extended to the entire Earth, I'd still pick the year 2025
— J

Presumably being born into middle-class society in the developed world would have some bearing on that. Being born into Gaza might be a different matter. — Wayfarer

Yes, but the lottery doesn't allow that kind of choice. We're supposed to calculate the overall odds of winding up in a life-enhancing situation, given everything we know about planetary conditions everywhere. And even so, I think I have better shot in 2025 than at any other time.

, through a sort of neat accounting trick, we have decided that the slaves mining metals for Westerner's phones, the child laborer who sewed their clothes in a sweltering Dhaka factory, or the migrant workers who picked their food out in the fields, are each not "part of the Westerner's society. — Count Timothy von Icarus

A valid point. Still, if the Rawlsian lottery were extended to the entire Earth, I'd still pick the year 2025. I think I'd have by far the best shot at a decent life. Remember, odds are I'd be born a woman. Up till, generously, 100 years ago, that would have been a kind of chattel slavery, with death in childbirth all too likely.

Hart's definition - and it's a word that should be treated with extreme caution in this matter - is that God is 'the one infinite source of all that is: eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, uncreated, uncaused, perfectly transcendent of all things and for that very reason absolutely immanent to all things.' — Wayfarer

OK, but I think we need to pose C. S. Lewis's question: Is it conscious? Or perhaps Hart meant this to be obvious by including "omniscient".

I agree that totalitarianism is bad per se, but is mechanization bad as such? Are humans not material beings with needs and goals, some of which are arbitrary and others pretty much necessary (and by necessary I don't mean the need for consolation, I count that as one of the "arbitrary needs")? — Janus

Yes. I was thinking of mechanization as an improper model for understanding how humans -- and other forms of life -- coexist with each other. Otherwise, it has its uses. Technology, as you say, is neither good nor bad.

. . . modernity, for all of its marvellous progress, has a shadow side — Wayfarer

Amen. Totalitarianism, mechanization, and, as you discuss so well, the tendency to treat humans as sophisticated bits of matter with "needs" and "goals" that must be arbitrary.

Interesting. Then you certainly know more about it than I do. I see the connection with hermeneutics.

This is a little risky on TPF, but I'll go ahead and say that my main reason for standing a bit aloof from the historical-analysis perspective is that I associate it with various pessimistic (and moralistic) accounts of the decline of Western civilization, which I disagree with. ("We gave up the Greeks and we gave up Catholicism and now we're fucked!"). I see the opposite: intellectual and moral progress (often up-and-down, of course), astounding flourishing of the arts, to say nothing of the incomparably higher quality of life and education now available to the average denizen of Western civilization. (And denied, shamefully, to all those millions who are still "below average."). But this is a vast and controversial topic. All I can say is, if I were offered a Rawlsian "original position" lottery, and asked to pick a time and place to be incarnated over the past 3,000 years, while not knowing my sex, ethnicity, amount of economic power, physical health, education, et al., the choice would be obvious to me: right here, right now ("here" being understood as any European country with universal health care and good public libraries :smile: ).

Good, this all provides a much more nuanced view, and helps me understand what you're saying. In particular, you're right that popular views, or assumptions, about what "science says" often lag behind philosophical accounts but are still very influential.

Concerning the Nagel quote, it sounds spot on to me, concerning analytic vs. continental, and of course I respect Nagel's views enormously. But I don't think we should reduce this question to "who's got a religious temperament." That longing for something to replace the religious consolations may be an important marker of those philosophers who aren't satisfied to be "modern" (using that word as I think you do), but it's not the whole story. For me, any philosopher who is unwilling to accept the apparent consequences of physicalism or reductionism, who wants an account of subjectivity that is at least as compelling as our beliefs about objectivity, should be considered part of a long tradition. For every Mill, there is a Schopenhauer. For every Carnap, there is a Cassirer. Point is, chronological analysis seems quite unimportant to me in this story. But as I've said before, I know others find more to ponder here than I do.

I admit I'm congenitally opposed to thinking in terms of what's modern or not, so perhaps there's something to it. But I dunno, "a certain sort of Protestant theology"? (I realize that's Count T, not you.) "Only what can be encountered by the senses (or the instruments that amplify them) can be considered real"? So you're exempting the Fregean/Quinean/Wittgensteinian tradition from modernism? Along with most phenomenology and existentialism? And Cassirer and Popper and Langer and . . . So who's left, the logical positivists and Daniel Dennett? :smile: Oh and maybe the Churchlands too! Besides, if you can include Schopenhauer among those who challenge what you're calling modern, what does that make him, pre-modern?

Well, it's not of great importance. As I say, I realize others get more out of this kind of classification than I do; just a matter of taste, no doubt. The issues, in contrast, are very alive and interesting to me. Most of my favorite philosophers are modern, in your sense, and they all seem to care very much about disputing the "out-there-somewhere-ness" of the objective mindset, as I do myself.

2nd Position Held: "We should bring back man before any extinct animals. — Unnamed

Could you explain this? I don't understand the context.

And so the natural order was seen as a reality already akin to intellect. — David Bentley Hart, The Illusionist

This quote is very important and insightful. I think it expresses an intuition or a longing that motivates most if not all philosophy. So I don't think we should be so rigid about what is "pre-modern" and "modern," especially if modern is understood as "everything since Descartes." Just as a for-instance: What is Frege's philosophy, if not an attempt to demonstrate this very thing, the mysterious "third realm" of thought that underlies all logic and science? Whenever we ask how it can be that reality/appearance, object/subject, are not separate, we're trying to understand the unity of thinking and being. Most "modern" philosophers take that question seriously. It may be that Descartes, in raising the question in the way he does, gave the impression that res extensa and res cogitans were eternally separate in nature, and to that extent I guess that is a chimerical picture, but I don't think it characterizes most philosophy since. Or, at most, it's the starting point from which, being dissatisfied with it, we try to improve and clarify our understanding.

No examination by a human is ever done from the outside, but always and only from the inside, re: himself. — Mww

I might be missing the deeper point here. Couldn't we just as well say that every examination by a human (of anything external) must be done from the outside? "Inside/outside" is relative to whichever point of view we adopt. I can say, "I'm examining this turtle from the outside" meaning "outside the turtle," or "I'm examining this turtle from the inside" meaning "inside myself." Both are true, though the latter is far less common. But perhaps you could say more about why this seems important.

All I meant, in this context, was that it takes more than "being inside a human being" or "whatever we do is done by us" to establish a meaningful sense of subjectivity.

True, but the problem….problem here indicating reason’s aptitude for putting itself between a rock and a hard place….being there is, as yet, no possible way to reduce either to each other. — Mww

Right. I know I make this analogy a lot, but imagine trying, pre-Einstein, to explain how energy and mass are related. If the concepts you need just haven't been discovered yet, you can't get very far.

Sounds good. It's just the word "seeming," which so often implies a lesser way of comprehending experience. But I understand that's not how you're using it.

Why is the "seeming" of a mental process less actual than the "reality" of a neural process?
— J

It isn’t. — Mww

Right. As I said, this is just physical reductionism. There's no required way to reduce either the mental or the neural to each other.

….when they are examined from the outside, scientifically….
— J


Surely you realize the contradiction. To do anything scientifically is merely to do something in a certain way, but no matter what way it is done, it is still only a human that does it. — Mww

This would only be a contradiction if we accept a very stringent definition of "objective" as meaning something like "untouched by human perception and thought." Which would pretty much rule out the concept. If you're saying that there's no such thing as objectivity, that's certainly discussable. But then we'll need a different word for whatever is the stance that science takes -- for there's a marked and important difference between the methods and discourses of science and those of, say, music criticism. Likewise, when we study neural processes, we're trying to do something very different from phenomenology. I'm not super-concerned about validating a particular use of "objective" or "scientific" -- we can even deny objectivity completely, if you really want to -- but the problem of how science is different from phenomenology will remain. "Doing something in a certain way" is, sorry, not nearly enough of a description, nor is it enough merely to notice that everything we do is done in a certain way by us. That doesn't necessarily make the point of view subjective.

By a nice coincidence, I was just reading an essay by Theodore J. Kisiel called "Phenomenology as the Science of Science" and came across this:

This is not to deny that the cognitive acts of representation, judgment, proof, etc. have a psychological origin, but there are more than psychic events involved here. Terms such as "knowledge," "thought," "judgment" etc. are equivocal, referring as they do both to the subjective and objective poles of the process. And the identity of the logical laws of thought with the psychological laws of "thought" serves to perpetuate this confusion. — Kisiel

This is the same distinction we were making between "reasonings" and "reasons" -- between some individual, hence psychological, instance of thinking, and the rational or objective content that it may represent. Kisiel is mainly explicating Husserl here, so we're in good company. (It's also the Fregean difference between "utterance" and "propositional content," I think, translated into thought-talk rather than assertions.)

We are 'blind' to neural processes in vivo, so of course mental processes don't seem to us to be neural processes. I think this "seeming" is what causes all the difficulties. — Janus

I think I know what you're getting at, but . . . if you use a word like "seeming," you're inevitably faced with the question, "Then what is it really?" Do you want to reply, "Neural processes"? Why is the "seeming" of a mental process less actual than the "reality" of a neural process? This sounds like another version of physical reductionism.

Or put it this way: Could we equally well say that mental processes seem to be neural processes when they are examined from the outside, scientifically, but are really mental? If so, then I think we're back on the right track. We need to separate the idea of "seeming" from its cousins such as "illusion" or "appearance." Neither the mental nor the physical is any more actual or fundamental than the other.

So I agree with you that reasons (as distinct from reasonings) are not necessarily correlated with neural processes. — Janus

That's a good way of making the distinction -- "reasonings" for the particular mental events, "reasons" for the content of those events. And yeah, "content" is terrible but let's not get into full-Frege mode. I think we both know what we mean.

"Running in parallel" is close to what I mean by supervenience, though the phrase does suggest that there are two separate processes. I think the truth will turn out to be even weirder than that, but I'm just guessing. If we come to understand the hard problem, we will have some new concepts for understanding what we now call "mental" and "physical," concepts that will probably make us laugh at the idea of "dual aspects".

Again, words like "correlated with" or "accompanying" are OK for now, because they help us be clear that this is not a causal model. As I said in a previous post, the phenomenon of consciousness itself, as a biological thing, may well be caused -- in fact, I'd be surprised it if weren't. But that doesn't mean that an individual thought (or "reasoning") is caused by the brain's wetware. Likewise, we don't have to postulate mental causation as somehow closing the loop and making changes in the neurons.

Objectivity is the criterion for natural science and many other disciplines. Philosophy is different in the sense that in this subject, we are what we seek to know. Continental philosophy recognises this in a way that current Anglo philosophy rarely does. — Wayfarer

Very true. And part of what I think Continental phil is better at, is recognizing that the objective/subjective pair is not nearly as straightforward as we might like it to be. So I would take issue, slightly, with the assertion that philosophy has to have this self-reflexive character, which would remove us from objectivity as commonly understood. There are many ways of doing philosophy, with more, or less, reachable stopping points. Understood as logical or conceptual analysis (a forte of Anglo phil), we can ask for results that are as objective as anything in the natural sciences, I think. But of course philosophy is unique in that, having said this, we can't leave it alone; we have to go on to ask, But how objective is that? And if you want to say that, ultimately, the grounding questions of philosophy take us back to self-knowledge, I wouldn't disagree.