Yeah, yeah. Save it for the forum gents! Don't say that stuff in a class setting because people like me don't want to read garbage papers like that in said classes. What what you're talking about isn't academic philosophy - that's fine, just know your audience. — Carbon

You might follow your own advice, and consider the audience here. This is not a classroom, this is a forum for free and open philosophical exchange. The shifting fashions and professional interests that restrict philosophical discourse in the academy from one season to the next do not perform the same function here.

People like myself get paid to research, grade, and teach. We don't get paid to "be wise" or do all sorts of mystical nonsense. It's a vocation. — Carbon

Do you mean to suggest that there is no traditional or conceivable correlation between philosophical activity and "wisdom", or between philosophical activity and mystical practice or mystical experience? That there is no room for philosophical conversation about these subjects?

Do you mean to suggest that the conventions of discourse among philosophy professors in the academy from time to time are the best or only standard by which we should distinguish philosophical conversation from other sorts of conversation, or distinguish appropriate philosophical subjects and doctrines from inappropriate philosophical subjects and doctrines?

I suppose it's just that sort of bias among professional academic philosophers that makes so much of their work so irrelevant to the philosophical activity of most members of our society. Arguably their failure to engage the public, to engage in discourses relevant to the public, means that the institution of academic philosophy fails to fulfill its social function.

What function? Surely you have some idea what philosophy is and what philosophy is for, aside from the fact that it's associated somehow with your paychecks and a certain stack of books.

So I'm not bemoaning what you do here on a forum like this - it's great! But do realize that for students, like Mary Ellen, who take classes (that people like me have to teach) - it makes it really difficult to get into the class if this is their take away. She was looking for info on classes - give her info on classes. — Carbon

I agree that aside from your own helpful and insightful reply to Mary Ellen, most of the responses to her question were remarkably ill-suited to her purpose in asking.

On the other hand, arguably your reaction to some of your peers in the forum has been ill-suited to their purposes in making their own remarks in this thread. It seems you've shown more sensitivity to the interests of Mary Ellen than to the interests of the other speakers here, perhaps due to frustration at the lack of fit between your expectations about norms of philosophical discourse and the facts of philosophical discourse here.

Accordingly, it seems you may have done a poor job getting a good point across to your interlocutors.

Don't force your bizarre philosophical convictions down students throats. — Carbon

Who has forced a conviction down anyone's throat? Expressing one's point of view as a free speaker is not the same thing as forcing anyone to listen or agree.

So far as I can see, you're the speaker in this thread who first suggested that the others change their attitudes and behavior to suit your interests and tastes, and who thus provoked a discourse on manners.

It's not cool, it's obnoxious for profs, and it's bad for academia. Save it for forum discussions, fun conversations with friends, etc. where it's no longer "bizarre". — Carbon

I suppose many philosophers, including some in the academy, might agree that the current state of academic philosophy is bad for philosophy.

I see no reason to restrict philosophical conversation, or talk about philosophy, to suit the interests of professors. Perhaps it would be more convenient for them, if all their students showed up on the first day of class with intellectual prejudices already aligned with current academic fashions. Perhaps some professors prefer to manufacture consent by smirking and pouting in the margins of their discourse. One alternative to that sort of ritual would be to meet each student halfway to engage in genuine philosophical conversation, and thus train up each student's habits of reason along with the professor's.

It seems to me that sort of training, and the philosophical fitness it promotes in individuals and communities, is the strongest justification for the continued allocation of paychecks to philosophy professors. For what else do they accomplish? If the professors prefer to neglect that sort of labor, I suppose it's another example of the same attitude that makes so much of their work so irrelevant to so many philosophical conversations in our society.

A lamentable state of affairs, I agree.

That's an extremely well-chosen passage from Plato. — Wayfarer

It marks an important turn. A confused turn in a confused dialogue the purpose of which, it seems, is not to present finished doctrine but to stimulate thinking on a difficult subject.

I suggest it also marks an important turn in ancient thought and culture, involving creative responses to intellectual confusion brought on by attempts to reconcile thoughts about concepts with thoughts about perception.

Socrates is asking, what is it that 'sees reason'? What is it that discerns sameness and difference? You see, I think whenever you make a truth statement -that 'such and such is the case', or 'such and such is not the case', then you're straight away in a domain that is only visible to the rational intelligence, namely, the domain of reason. — Wayfarer

I'm not sure what this talk about "seeing" reason and "perceiving" logos is supposed to mean. If these are metaphors, they are metaphors I consider misleading and prefer to avoid. It seems there is a single, unified awareness in each of us, the same awareness in seeing as in hearing, the same awareness in perceiving as in imagining, thinking, remembering, intending. I suggest that our traditional discourse about consciousness has been greatly disfigured by unwarranted reliance on sense-perception, and especially visual perception, as the paradigm of consciousness.

Clearly anything that involves "making statements", that involves explicit assertions and denials, depends on language. But the capacity for language is not the same thing as the "rational intelligence" we have in common with other animals. I would distinguish animal rationality from the peculiar practice of giving and taking reasons. If we can understand the power of "reason" in terms of that practice of "reasoning", we might say it's a special form of the puzzling and problem-solving we have in common with nonhuman rational animals.

What is it that gives this form of rationality, called reasoning, its special character?

It is because the faculty of reason that humans can see and abstract likeness and unlikeness, or similarity, or equals - an ability that is intrinsic to the nature of rational intelligence. What is the origin of 'rationality' if not the ability to perceive 'ratio'? And it was the ability to perceive 'ratio' and 'logos' that was at the origin of the Greek conception of rationality (and indeed science). — Wayfarer

It seems that many nonhuman animals have the capacity to act on the basis of recognition of generic likeness and unlikeness. Recall the experiments by Shigeru Watanabe, demonstrating that pigeons can learn to distinguish paintings by Matisse from paintings by Picasso.

Isn't it obvious that animals perceive and act on the basis of generic concepts? That they react -- and learn to react, and react intelligently -- in similar ways to similar things, and in different ways to different things? Can't we train them to sort or select on the basis of generic similarities and differences? It seems to me that the capacity to grasp generic similarity and difference is about the worst possible place to start developing an account of how human cognition is different from nonhuman animal cognition, and among the best places to begin developing an account of how human cognition is similar to nonhuman animal cognition.

Accordingly, while I agree that the capacity to understand generic sameness and difference is crucial to "rational intelligence", I deny that this capacity belongs to humans alone among animals, and I deny that rational intelligence belongs to humans alone among animals.

One thing that seems to belong perhaps uniquely to us, among all animals extant on this planet, is the capacity to think about our thoughts, and thus, for instance, to think about the principles of likeness or unlikeness that apply in each case in which we recognize a similarity or dissimilarity. This capacity to think about thoughts, or to reason about reasons, seems to be essential to the practice of "giving and taking reasons", seems to be essential to reasoning and to "reason".

What is the source of this special capacity in us? My best guess is that it's not so much to do with a special power of introspection, but rather an especially refined power of conceptualization -- which allows us to pick out and to coordinate various features of our experience more flexibly and creatively than any other animal on Earth.

We are not alone among animals in being rational and conceptual creatures. But our subtle power of conceptualization opens the way to a practice of reasoning that cultivates the character of human rationality and freedom.

Thank you, that is very kind. I know I've gotten into deep waters here, and I've made many contentious statements. That's my problem, I tackle these issues from too general a level instead of picking one or two aspects of a problem and working on them, and I tend to go in 'guns blazing'. But regardless, I hope I have made the point about the distinct meaning of 'ontology' and the distinction of beings and objects a bit more clear. — Wayfarer

I'm happy to paddle through these deep waters with you. There's no fear of drowning, and the tide always carries us back to shore. Meanwhile, we move back and forth through many of the same currents over the years; the repetition is good exercise and makes a sort of progress.

Perhaps we've got a bit closer to understanding our thoughts about "ontology". I'm still far from sure I understand what you mean in this region of our discourse, and I've left a fresh trail of questions and remarks on the subject today.

So far as I can make sense of it, your distinction between "beings" and "objects" is just another way to express a distinction between "sentient things" and "nonsentient things". But I suspect you mean to suggest something more than this by speaking that way.

But being is never an object of perception, it is invisible to us, in a manner analogous to the blind spot caused by the optic nerve. — Wayfarer

To say something is never an object of perception is not necessarily the same as to say it never appears to us in any way. For instance, I'll say I do not "perceive" my own imagining and dreaming -- not if "perceive" entails sense-perception -- but I am often aware of my own imagining and dreaming, and I say it appears to me. Likewise, I might say that, though I do not perceive my own consciousness, I am aware of it, and it too appears to me.

There's a sense in which we don't "perceive" magnetic force in normal circumstances, but once we know there's such a thing, we can observe it through its cooperation in what we do perceive.

So even though 'the meaning of being' seems obvious to us, in fact it's obscured or misapprehended by a kind of cultural 'blind spot' which we tend to look through, rather than at. — Wayfarer

I don't think the "meaning of being" seems obvious at all. I'm still not sure the phrase makes sense at all, or what sense you think it has.

Arguably Heidegger's opaque concept-poetry does far more to obscure the meaning of being than any scientific habits could.

Why write poems about a blind spot when you can turn around to look? It seems to me the metaphor of "blind spot" would be ill-applied in cases in which there is in principle "no way to look". But I would deny that "consciousness" is such a case.

For each of us is aware of his own awareness.

You know that you can actually detect your blind spot by holding a piece of paper with a dot on it at a certain distance from your eye, at which point the dot becomes invisible. Well, the human blindness to the 'real nature of being' is analogous to that, although it's a lot more far-reaching. That is the import of the argument from the 'unseen seer, the unknown knower'. That is pointing out that 'being' which is the ground of all existence, is not actually disclosed by analysis of phenomena. (This is an ancient idea in philosophy.) — Wayfarer

The history of philosophy is full of bad ideas, ancient and modern. Pedigree establishes nothing.

You keep saying we're blind to being, to the real nature of being, to what really is, to the primary ground of reality…. But you've said very little about what it is you suppose you're speaking about when you speak this way.

Here: the unseen seer, the unknown knower. The fact of sentience. Isn't this the fact you reserve the word "being" to name? Consciousness, mind, awareness.

Who is blind to the fact of consciousness?

Is the phrase "meaning of being" supposed to be roughly equivalent with the phrase "meaning of sentience"? If not, how is it different?

Again, you flatly state that "Being" -- a concept you have vaguely associated with "beings" and hence with consciousness -- is the "ground of all existence". But it's not clear on what ground you make this claim, and it's not clear why or how you associate Being, the ground of existence, with beings, the sentient existents.

And it's not clear how you reconcile your talk about Being as ground of existence, and about "what truly is", with your previous remarks about the distinction between science and ontology -- that "what exists" is the concern of science, while "the meaning of being" is the concern of ontology. Do you depart from Heidegger in this respect, or does he likewise encroach on the lot he assigns to the scientist?

And that is also why dogmatic materialists such as Dennett are obliged to deny that the first-person perspective has any particular significance, and to insist it is something can be completely accounted for by science (which he claims to do in books such as Consciousness Explained. Materialists are generally obliged to deny the existence of the unconscious on the same grounds.) — Wayfarer

Is it materialists, or only some materialists, who are obliged to deny the significance of the first-person perspective and the existence of the unconscious? I can see that perhaps eliminative materialists like Dennett might be so obliged, but not every materialist is an eliminative materialist.

Moreover, Dennett's "heterophenomenology" in Consciousness Explained arguably takes for granted the significance of the first-person perspective. Even so, Dennett takes a rather hard line on consciousness, which is not representative of the full range of materialist and naturalist views on the subject. It's not like Dennett and Heidegger are the only two options, and it's not like we have to choose between eliminative materialism and theism.

I'm not sure what you or Dennett might mean by "completely accounting" for something. What makes an account "complete"?

I suppose a scientist aims to provide an account of what an observable thing is composed of, how it interacts with other observable things, how the parts work, how the whole works. A poet or a painter or a salesman gives another sort of account for another sort of reason.

Do we say the poet's account is "less complete" if it's uninformed by the scientist's account? Do we say the scientist's account is "less complete" if it's uninformed by the poet's account? I don't speak that way. These are two different sorts of account given for two different purposes.

What sort of account does the ontologist aim to provide, and in what sense is it "complete"? Does it add anything to the sort of account the scientist aims to provide, or does it add merely another sort of account alongside that of the scientist, without disrupting the scientist's account any more than the poet's discourse might disrupt the scientist's account?

For instance, scientists develop an account of visual perception by correlating information about light; about objects that emit or that reflect, absorb, or otherwise transform light; about sense-receptors, nervous systems, and perceptual processes in cognition.

Does the ontologist's story about Being, beings, and entities that appear to beings conflict with the scientist's story in any way? Does it add anything to the scientist's account? Or is it just another sort of story, told for an entirely different sort of purpose, that doesn't even come into contact with the discourse of the scientist?

Why should we suppose it's any different in the case of consciousness? To all appearances, there is a scientific account to pursue concerning animal consciousness on the basis of empirical investigation. Is there any reason to suppose that the ontologist's story about Being, beings, and entities that appear to beings will have anything more to do with this scientific story, than it has to do with the scientific story about perception?

In contrast, Dennett's opponents insist that the 'first person perspective', the 'experience of being', is of a different order to what is disclosed in third-person terms (as per Chalmer's essay Facing Up to the Hard Problem). That is where the ontological distinction between 'things' and 'beings' shows up in the contemporary debate. (Dennett's response basically amounts to dismissal, which I am saying is another manifestation of the 'blind spot'. Have a look at the abstract, and Table of Contents entries, for William Byers, The Blind Spot.) — Wayfarer

There's plenty of room for the first-person perspective in a materialist or naturalist discourse. The fact that some philosophers have neglected the first-person perspective, or have sought to diminish the role of introspection as a source of observational judgments, is not a strike against materialism, naturalism, or scientific method.

I'm not sure what contemporary philosophers of mind mean by the term "ontology"; I'm not sure what Heidegger or Wolff meant by the term; I'm not sure how all the uses of "ontology" in history are correlated; and I'm not sure how all those ontologies are correlated with ordinary talk about being and beings, existence and entities, what is and what is not.

I have a hunch that in contemporary academic discussions, talk about "ontology" is often talk about how to set up terms in a logician's notebook: Which phenomena shall we identify as the "objects", as opposed to the predicates that we apply to objects, in a language structured according to conventions of predicate logic. If this is what the professors have in mind, I'd encourage them to make it clear up front, to avoid so much confusion among their readers.

It seems natural scientists often speak in an analogous way about the "ontology" of computational models of things like ecosystems and solar systems. I suppose the logic of the computational models is structured in keeping with the conventions reflected in the logician's notebook.

So far as I can tell, questions about what to count as a logical object in such an "ontology" are not questions about what "exists" and what "doesn't exist", but only questions about the most efficient way to construct formal models about phenomena that do exist.

It's in this spirit that I take the line from Rorty: There is no privileged ontology.

From your comments on the meaning of this term, it's clear that we understand it very differently. I have been criticized over my use of the word 'ontology' but I do base it on the dictionary definition, which says that the word 'ontology' is based on the first-person participle of the Greek word for 'to be' - the first person participle of which is 'I am': — Wayfarer

I am, you are, it is.

Doesn't the grammar support my sentience-neutral use of the term "being"? It's not only sentient beings that be. Not in English, not in Greek.

For that matter: Wasn't it the utter generality of the concept of "being" that fascinated the ancients?

So 'ontology' was originally intended as 'the study of the meaning of being', but even more specifically, the meaning of being in the first person. That distinguishes it from the characteristically 'third-person' view that is fundamental to naturalism. — Wayfarer

I believe Greek verbs are typically given in the first-person singular, and that's the only reason the first-person appears in that definition.

In any case, I'm not sure the etymology of the word "ontology" is enough to inform us what sort of logos ontology was originally intended to be. And I'm not sure that "what a thing was originally intended for" is an enduring standard of what a thing is or can be used for. Moreover, it seems the logos of being and beings -- accounts of existence, talk of what exists and what does not exist -- go back much farther in history than use of the word "ontology".

Where does the word come from? Etymonline traces use of the word back to the 1600s. According to this article by Jose Mora, it was popularized by the rationalist Wolff.

If many of the first self-styled "ontologists" were pre-Kantian rationalists, what's left of ontology when it's removed from the context of pre-Kantian rationalism? Who decides?

How did Wolff and his predecessors conceive of ontology? Did they intend it as a study of being, like the word says, or rather of "the meaning of being", as the word doesn't say? Wasn't this distinction introduced long after them? Aren't there other ways of speaking about being and beings, existence and entities, ontology and ontologies?

(Heidegger differentiated the study of the meaning of being from the domain of the natural sciences. It's a fundamental distinction, because ontology is not concerned with 'what exists' - that is the role of the sciences - but the 'meaning of being' as a philosophical question and in the context of the human condition. It is precisely that understanding which he says has been generally forgotten or obscured by a fundamental error in Western metaphysics.) — Wayfarer

Heidegger's interpretations are controversial and I suspect rather creative.

What is "meaning"? Isn't meaning a product of culture that changes over time? Is there some component of meaning that is immutable? What component is that?

What is the "meaning of being"? How is it different from, and how is it related to, the "being of being"? Is it anything other than the meaning of whatever exists? Is there only one single meaning for all existence, or are there a great variety of meanings? One meaning per existing thing? Meaning for whom, and according to whom….

If science, according to you and Heidegger, is distinguished by its concern with what exists, then what is the study of the meaning of being concerned with? Is it concerned with what does not exist? Or is it concerned in a special, unscientific way with what exists -- not concerned to say what does or doesn't exist, but only to say what existence "means" or what the things that exist "mean"?

What does it mean to say that existence or being or beings "mean" something? What does existence "mean", and what is the standard or method by which we assess the "meaning of being"? How do we adjudicate disagreements about "meanings" and about the "meaning of being"?

You see, that is why I am saying that 'being' is fundamentally different to 'entity' or 'thing'. Entities or things are disclosed to, or appear to, or for, beings. — Wayfarer

It's a fair distinction you use the term "being" to express, but I don't feel the same need to restrict my use of the term this way, as yet another indicator of sentience. One reason I'm not inclined to speak that way is that the verb "to be" is primarily associated with all our talk about existence. So unless one plans to overhaul this basic feature of the English language, there's arguably inconsistency in the attempt to restrict the language of "being" by applying it exclusively to sentient creatures.

Everyone makes his own usage. It's one thing to define your own terms in an extraordinary way, and another to object to statements other speakers make when they use the same vocabulary in the ordinary way, as if those speakers mean what they do not.

To adopt extraordinary usage in speaking is to assign oneself a special burden in communication.

Being is the primary ground or reality, being is what truly is. — Wayfarer

I thought you said it was the concern of science to speak about "what exists", while ontology is concerned with "meaning".

Is there a distinction between "what exists" and "what is"?

Is there a difference between "being" and "truly being"?

What does "primary ground" or "primary reality" mean?

It sounds as though you've shifted from speaking about "beings", qua sentient things, to "Being", qua ultimate ground of reality. How do you account for this shift?

What is the difference between beings and Being? How are they related to each other? How are all the "things" and "entities" that appear to beings related to beings and to Being? Do these things also appear to Being, or only to beings? Is Being sentient, like a being? Do beings appear to Being?

Are beings also entities? Is Being an entity? Does anything that is not an entity appear to beings or to Being, or is it only entities that appear? Do beings appear to each other? Do they appear to each other only as entities? Does Being appear to beings, and only as an entity?

On what grounds does one answer such questions? On what grounds does one adjudicate disputes in such matters?

Without some sense of how to proceed in answering such questions, it's not even clear what conversation we're having here, what theme we suppose we are addressing.

By 'culture wars' I'm referring to the perceived conflict, widespread since the Enlightenment, between science and religion, and the sense that science has undermined the traditional basis of spiritual values in Western cultulre. — Wayfarer

That's a more enduring tension than the war I had in mind.

A lot depends on how we unpack the term "traditional basis". If the basis was religious doctrine and practice, need religious doctrine and practice be theistic? If the basis was a conception of deity, what was the basis of that conception of deity? The more flexibly we conceive the traditional basis, the longer we will say it persists.

Religion and spiritual life may seem to conflict with science if one clings to traditional doctrines rigidly conceived. I don't see any necessary problem here. Say there's tension between competing forms of "explanation": Religion traditionally did, but need not, involve a sort of explanation that conflicts with scientific explanation.

The way remains open to reform spiritual life to suit a scientific age. Perhaps this task was taken more seriously by mainstream philosophers and theologians in the West around a century ago than it is today. We might say Kant and his contemporaries thought of themselves as engaged in that same task.

Pinker's essay on this topic sparked a long debate (in which he was supported by Dennett) with Leon Wieseltier, who had previously writen an incendiary review of one of Dennett's previous books in the New York Times. Suffice to say, I side with Wieseltier (and that review conveys what I think is the gist of the debate). — Wayfarer

I haven't read the relevant bits of Dennett and can't quite make out what Wieseltier is taking issue with. I see nothing objectionable in the thought that our capacity "to have creeds" is a fact open to biological investigation. On the other hand, I don't know that it's this capacity that enables us to "transcend our genetic imperatives". I'm not sure what it means to speak of human action, or animal action in general, as guided by "genetic" (as opposed to "biological") imperatives.

So, to the extent that traditional (or pre-modern) philosophy was in some fundamental way linked to the Greek-Judeo-Christian theistic tradition (and granted that this link is multi-valent), then the rejection of theistic religions, and the attempt to ground human nature in a purely naturalistic account of the world, constitutes what I see as the fundamental divide underlying the 'culture wars' (or at any rate, that is the conflict that I am generally commenting on.) — Wayfarer

My impression is that theism was already controversial in Hellenic culture before the Christian era, thanks in part to the open-ended philosophical activity that flourished in the Hellenic world. I'd say the traditional link between philosophy and theism in the Hellenic and Western traditions does not exclude atheism as a philosophical alternative. To deny this is practically to beg the question of theism in philosophical conversation: As if one cannot conceivably philosophize -- or philosophize "in the Western manner" -- while being an atheist or agnostic.

I think you should feel free to interpret the OP as you see fit. — Mongrel

It seems we're agreed on this point, at least.

Well this is my whole point. We cannot use mathematics to make moral judgements. You seem to be arguing that we can. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am arguing that mathematics can be used in moral reasoning.

I'm not sure that's the same as arguing that math "can be used to make moral judgments". Pure mathematics, like pure logic, informs us of nothing. You can't draw moral conclusions, or even begin to frame moral questions, on the basis of math alone. Just like you can't apply mathematics to any real problem without supplying some information from outside of math -- say, facts about the wall we want to reface, facts about the ratio of cement to square meters.

But now you've qualified that to say that we would have to have moral agents, to supply moral values. — Metaphysician Undercover

Any application of mathematics requires something to which mathematics is applied. Pure math is empty form. We always need something else to fill in the blanks -- something outside that form to inform our calculations, to make them calculations about something or other.

This implies that the moral judgement has already been made by the moral agent. — Metaphysician Undercover

Do you say that a premise is the same thing as a conclusion?

In some cases a moral judgment is made by moral reasoning, or is justified (or criticized) by moral reasoning.

Having a moral value is not the same thing as reasoning in support of a particular moral judgment.

So the mathematics is not going to be used to make any moral judgement, this is already supplied by the moral intuition of the moral agent. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not so. Moral values, moral intuitions, and moral maxims, are not the same as moral judgments informed by moral values, intuitions, or maxims, nor the same as exercises of reasoning that support or justify such judgments.

Mathematics cannot supply the facts about moral values and moral intuitions, just like it can't supply the facts about concrete or the Sun. Supplying facts about the world is not the business of mathematics. That doesn't mean that mathematics has no role in analyzing collections of facts.

What is the mathematics to be used for then? If the moral agent supplies the moral values, then the moral questions of what is right and wrong, has already been answered, prior to applying the math. — Metaphysician Undercover

What is a moral value, according to you? How does a moral value "answer" all questions of right and wrong? Is there such a thing as "reasoning" about moral questions, or does the mere possession of a "moral value" do all the work for us?

It's beginning to seem as though you don't distinguish moral values, moral judgments, and moral reasoning from each other, as if there were no difference between these three terms.

Perhaps this accounts for your worries about the claim that "math can be used in moral reasoning" -- as if anything that plays a part in moral reasoning must therefore be something like, or something as informative as, a moral value.

OK, his "moral reasoning" is wrong. But that's the whole point, that mathematics cannot be used for moral reasoning. The issue here is how can one use mathematics in performing moral reasoning. I think that it can't be done. — Metaphysician Undercover

You've said this many times, but so far as I can tell, you haven't given any reasons to warrant the claim. Worries that some people might use math incorrectly, that some people might make claims about math without good reason, give us no reason to suppose that math "cannot be used".

People use the English language to make invalid arguments, to utter falsehoods, to lie and deceive, but this fact does not support the claim that the English language "cannot be used" to make arguments, nor does it support the claim that the English language "should not be used" to make arguments.

Why should the same susceptibility to abuse lead us to rule out math, but not to rule out the English language? I've made this point before and you've yet to respond to it.

And the further point is that if one does think that there is a way to use math in moral reasoning, that individual could very easily have a wrong answer — Metaphysician Undercover

This also applies to the English language and to formal logic. Should we ban all three from moral discourse?

(because you actually can't use mathematics in moral reasoning) — Metaphysician Undercover

This is blatant question begging.

Of course I agree the individual's argument could possibly be wrong, because people err in reasoning, whether or not they use math to help them think things through.

and also be convinced that it is right answer because math was used. — Metaphysician Undercover

This seems to be the hub of your worries about the use of math in moral reasoning: The mere fact that math is used as part of the reasoning that supports a moral judgment, might persuade some people that the whole piece of reasoning must be correct, since the math it includes is correct.

Compare: "This plan to repair a wall must be correct, since the math we used to calculate the exact amount of concrete is correct." Suppose the calculation is correct. It's based on measurements. What if the measurements are wrong? The calculation is also based on information about the ratio of dry mortar to sand, and of dry mix to square meters; what if this information is wrong? What if the wall or design plan has changed since measurements were made? What if the cement is of the wrong sort, or we're misinformed about how much water to add, or cement acts funny at current temperature or altitude…? None of this is taken into account in the calculation, which plays a limited but crucial role in the plan.

Here someone has made an assumption that, since math is involved in a piece of reasoning about repairing a wall, the whole construction plan must be correct, since the math is correct. But that's a strikingly unreasonable assumption.

Should we conclude that math "cannot be used" or "ought not be used" in reasoning about construction projects?

It seems to me you're arguing in exactly the same way about the use of mathematics in moral reasoning.

It's as if you're concerned that everyone with an inflated sense of the value or prestige of math -- an attitude arguably exemplified in the OP in this thread -- will be easily deceived by incorrect arguments that make use of correct mathematics.

Perhaps there are some people who would be so fooled. But that's no reason to say that math cannot or should not be used in moral reasoning. Again, the fact that people can abuse a tool or a language is not a reason to say that the tool or language cannot or should not be used.

I'd just like to point out that math is central to everything there is. — TheMadFool

I'm not sure what this means.

Is math "central" to the Sun, or is it central to our perception of the Sun, or is it central to a scientific understanding of the Sun -- or is it merely a tool that has proven to be extremely useful in cultivating empirical knowledge of natural phenomena, including the Sun?

It seems to me we'd know nothing at all about the Sun if we relied on nothing but mathematics to inform our views on the Sun.

Accordingly, I'd say it's not mathematics that's "central" to our understanding of the Sun, but rather our observations of the Sun, and thus the Sun itself, that's central to our understanding of the Sun. And likewise with all other observable phenomena.

Of course mathematics is extremely useful in the analysis of such observations.

The simple reason is the ''ER'' and ''EST' words.

BettER, HeaviEST, saddER, whitER, etc.
The above words are comparison words and as such all are an attempt to quantify or in other words all want to use math (the ultimate quantifying tool).
How can we compare two or more things without quantification (use of math) knowing that quantification is necessary in that arena? — TheMadFool

Once we have the capacity to recognize various items as of the same sort, we're on the road to number. This man, another man, and another.... This spear, another spear, and another....

A second ability enables us to judge that one group is greater or lesser than another, has more or fewer members. This many men, not enough spears to equip each man.

In some applications, exercises of the second ability, judgments of relative quantity, are based on easy eyeballing. In others, they're based on the exercise of a third ability, a careful sorting that establishes what we call a one-to-one correspondence between two groups of objects, say men and spears.

Having any of these three abilities is independent of having a fourth ability, the skill of enumerating. Acquiring this fourth ability involves acquiring a concept of number, as well as a practice of counting that establishes a one-to-one correspondence between a series of numbers and a series of objects enumerated.

In that regard, at least, the fourth ability, and some applications of the second, seem to depend on or to entail the third. The second, third, and fourth all depend on and entail the first, the ability to recognize various items as of the same sort, to bring a group of objects under the same concept.


The concept of spear comes along with its own unit of counting. But the concept of water or porridge does not. The concept of man comes along with its own unit of counting, but the concepts of a man's height and weight and speed do not.

Nevertheless, we may say we have a fifth ability, analogous to the second noted above, to recognize relative differences in the volume of accumulations of water or porridge, and likewise to recognize differences in magnitudes of other "properties" of observable things, such as height, weight, and speed.

This fifth ability is exercised in some cases by eyeballing, in some cases by the application of an arbitrary standard or unit of measurement without enumeration, and in some cases by the application of an arbitrary standard or unit of measurement with enumeration.

Sometimes it's easy to tell there's more porridge in one batch than in another batch. In controversial cases, we may dole each batch into small bowls of equal size, and compare the collections of bowls, with or without enumerating. For close calls, we can arrange the bowls from each batch in a one-to-one correspondence to make the comparison carefully, with or without enumerating.

Sometimes it's easy to tell that one thing is taller than another, just by looking. In tougher cases, we may carefully compare two heights, or any linear distances, without enumerating them, by using a piece of rope or wood that's longer than either of the objects to be compared, marking off the height of each object on that measuring tool, and noting which is longer. Given those two measurements, we can enumerate them by expressing each as a fraction of the whole length of the measuring tool. We might instead take a smaller length of rope or wood, and let this stand as the unit of measure, by using it to mark uniform intervals of length on longer objects.

It takes a bit more time, technology, and conceptual sophistication, but we find similar ways to assign arbitrary units in the careful measurement of weight and speed. For instance, by using a scale or a water clock.


A concept of number is a product of culture that emerges among animals like us at some point or another in history, and depends on our ability to bring different objects under a single concept. A practice of enumerating is another such product, that not only depends on a concept of number and on the ability to sort one-to-one, but also requires a more or less sophisticated system of signs to serve as names for each number in a counting procedure. It seems reasonable to expect, and evidence suggests, that the concept of number and a primitive ability to count emerged among us before our system of number signs had progressed very far.

The tools and techniques that equip us to assign arbitrary units by which to measure and compare volumes, lengths, weights, speeds, and other measurable "properties" of phenomena we encounter in the world are likewise products of culture.

Before the emergence of such tools and techniques, before the emergence of a system of number signs, before the emergence of a concept of number, there is the ability to recognize the difference between many and few, much and little, greater and lesser. We have the ability to make quantitative comparisons of groups of men or spears, of accumulations of water or porridge, of heights and weights and speeds of observable things.

We have a concept of weight because some things feel heavy. We make comparisons of weight because some things feel heavier than others. We have a concept of brightness because some things look bright; we make comparisons of brightness because some things look brighter than others. Some things feel hotter than others. Some things move faster than others. And so on.

The capacity to make such comparisons seems to come along with the capacity to apply the relevant concept in each case. If you can recognize that some things feel heavy, you can recognize that some things feel heavier than others; or, at least, the latter ability is not far off from the former, upon which it depends.

Such capacities are prior to sophisticated techniques of precise comparison, measurement, and enumeration, and are independent of the concept of number.

That's a great point but not just yet; I feel that only once the water is rested I will be able to articulate that experience more creatively, as in, in a harmonious manner as I find the harmony within. My songs slowly start to make sense as I make sense of the world. — TimeLine

Whenever you feel ready.

Think of the way a toddler starts singing and dancing, and what kind of progress it can make in proportion to time on task, even without lessons. As we get older we get hung up on how it looks, how it sounds, is it right. We lose something in that bargain.

Whether we let loose or try to stay in the lines, there's going to be a lot of fumbling for a few years at least. There are different ways of aiming at harmony. Arguably all of them involve wading through relatively inharmonious action, one way or another. The harmony along the way is the fitness of activity to novice practitioner, not the fineness of product that flows from an accomplished craftsman.

We all begin by crying and cooing and flailing like insects, trying out voices and limbs.

You get it. (Y) You must be a real musician — TimeLine

I play a little.

Although mathematics is commonly associated with quantity, it is more broadly the application of necessary reasoning to hypothetical or ideal states of affairs. — aletheist

It may be I'm unacquainted with your idiom.

What is "necessary reasoning"?

What sort of necessary reasoning is commonly associated with quantity?

What sort of necessary reasoning is not commonly associated with quantity?

In what broad sense is mathematics "the application of necessary reasoning"?

Can we apply reasoning to real states of affairs, or only to hypothetical and ideal states of affairs?

Can we apply necessary reasoning to real states of affairs, or only to hypothetical and ideal states of affairs?


I suppose I'm willing to agree that mathematics is the "science of formal systems". This suggests one way to flesh out the meaning of a phrase like "necessary reasoning": Necessary inferences in a given formal system are valid moves according to the rules of the system. Of course the signs and statements in a formal system are meaningless gibberish, empty form, until they're interpreted one way or another.

Concepts of number are prior to the formalization of number-concepts and number-relations by way of abstract signs. Concepts of distance are prior to the formalization of geometric concepts and relations by way of abstract signs. Concepts of order, time, modality, or inference are prior to the formalization of ordinal, temporal, modal, or inferential concepts and relations by way of abstract signs. And so on.

An agreement to interpret a particular formal system as representing, say, number-concepts and number-relations in general, does not settle questions about how to apply the system to specific cases.

As such, the usefulness of its conclusions is entirely dependent on how well its initial assumptions capture the significant aspects of reality - not just the model itself, but the representational system that governs its subsequent transformations. — aletheist

Do you mean to say: The usefulness of conclusions [obtained by an application of necessary reasoning to hypothetical or ideal states of affairs] is entirely dependent on how well the initial assumptions [of the application] capture all aspects of reality relevant [to any formally expressible judgment pertaining to the hypothetical or ideal states of affairs]. This includes assumptions that determine the model, as well assumptions that determine the representational system that governs its subsequent transformations.

Or how would you correct that paraphrase?

What is the difference between the "model" and the "representational system" that governs subsequent transformations of the model? How are each of these terms related to the definition of "hypothetical or ideal states of affairs"?

How do we isolate "assumptions" that guide the definition of model, representational system, and states of affairs? Is it the assumptions, or the whole package, that determines the aptness of the conclusions obtained?

What role does measurement play in your account? Or more generally: How are "aspects of reality" translated into formal signs in the model, or into bits of "necessary reasoning"?

It is thus highly suitable for analyzing natural phenomena, since the habits of matter are largely entrenched; but not so much for analyzing human behavior, since the habits of mind are much more malleable. — aletheist

It's not clear how this follows from anything you've just said about "necessary reasoning".

Isn't human behavior part of nature? Aren't human behaviors "natural phenomena"?

One of the ways that minds are malleable is that they can be changed by producing changes in brains. I presume we agree that brains have the "habits of matter". Have you signed up for special troubles associated with dualism?

Moreover, there's a difference between "analyzing" a particular phenomenon, and analyzing many particular phenomena of the same kind to arrive at a generalization with proven predictive power. I suppose a mathematician can use his art to "analyze" trajectories of water or smoke in a video recording of a belly-flop or a forest fire; but an analysis of a large collection of such analyses isn't necessarily useful for predicting trajectories in future dives or fires with great precision, because of the complexity of the underlying phenomena.

Likewise, a mathematician can use his art to analyze video recordings in which various human animals take various pathways through city traffic, or respond in various ways to fuzzy puppies in a park, or to humans of superior rank in an office. I don't see any reason not to call this an analysis of human behavior, and to acknowledge that the predictive power of such analyses resembles the predictive power of analyses of other complex observable phenomena in nature.

On the basis of such analyses, we develop more or less reliable models with more or less predictive power. There's a statistical and probabilistic character to such models, whether we're talking about human beings or molecules of smoke or water.

Accordingly, I'm not sure what difference you've gestured at here, and what relevance it may have for our conversation about the uses of mathematics.

I'm sure they might, but I would argue that this is an example of where the use of mathematics is harmful, when one thinks that mathematics is useful, but it is not. This person produces conclusions believed to be right, with the certitude associated with mathematics, which might actually be wrong. — Metaphysician Undercover

If the person drawing conclusions is careful to distinguish the measurements and calculations on the one hand, from assumptions and inferences about what has been measured on the other, then I don't see what harm there is in it.

The certitude associated with mathematics does not extend to sloppy inferences drawn on the basis of careful measurements and valid calculations.

A person who jumps to conclusions is likely to err, whether or not he uses mathematics to support his arguments.

Why would you say this? If you saw an individual applying logic to false premises, and proceeding to act on the conclusions, wouldn't you feel obliged to inform that person that the conclusions are false? And if that person was acting immorally because the mathematics told him to, do you think that this is ok? Maybe the mathematics told him that if he robbed a bank he would have more money and more money would allow him to buy more things, and having more things would allow him to me more generous. So he thought that robbing the bank would improve his moral character. — Metaphysician Undercover

I say it because I see no such unreasonable act implied by the general idea of using mathematics in association with moral thinking.

You seem convinced that any such use of mathematics must be illogical, immoral, or harmful, but you haven't made it clear to me how this view of yours is warranted in your discourse.

The bank robber in your example needn't have used arithmetic to conclude that he would have more money after a successful robbery than he had before. It's his moral reasoning that is wrong, not his rough quantitative judgment. Getting hung up on the culprit's correct use of quantitative reasoning distracts from the real problem in this case.

We can use correct math or correct English to do good or to do harm, to make valid or invalid arguments, to speak truth or to speak falsehood. That doesn't tell us anything about whether it's right or wrong in general to use math or English.

The issue though, is what would be the case if moral issues cannot be quantified in this way. If they cannot, then the person who uses mathematics in this way will inevitably go wrong. But by assuming that mathematics can be used in this way, that person will be convinced by the mathematics, that he or she is right, and will proceed to act in the wrong way, claiming to be right. So before one proceeds to use mathematics this way, one ought to demonstrate that moral issues can be quantified in this way. — Metaphysician Undercover

What counts as a "moral issue" for the sake of this conversation? I've already given at least two examples of the way that mathematics can be applied to moral thinking:

for instance in assigning "weights" to each "value" in a moral model; or in the collection and analysis of big data pertaining to moral behavior, norms, and intuitions. — Cabbage Farmer

Do you have some reason to suppose that such uses are illogical, immoral, or impossible? I think it's clear enough that mathematics can conceivably be used for such purposes.

Notice that in such examples, mathematics cannot determine moral models or judgments all by itself. We'd still have to rely on moral agents to supply moral values, moral intuitions, and so on. Math can't tell us what is good or bad, but it can conceivably play some role in helping us sort out our thinking and observations about morality.

Likewise, math is useful for physical science, but doesn't determine physical models or judgments all by itself.

I'm not really following you at all here. The meaning of "legitimacy," as used in the OP, doesn't seem confusing or arbitrary to me. — Mongrel

It seems we may be speaking at cross purposes.

I'm not sure why you keep referring to the OP as if it were an authoritative source on the use of words in this thread and a clear standard by which to limit the scope of discourse in this thread. I don't believe it is either.

What is the meaning of "legitimacy" in the OP, according to you? And why do you say the meaning of the term, as characterized in the OP, is "not arbitrary"?

OK. But the OP is about political theory, right? Wouldn't it be appropriate to narrow focus down to what the word means in that context? — Mongrel

I agree that we're speaking about politics in a broad sense. I don't see how acknowledging this would help us narrow down the meaning of the word "legitimacy" in this conversation any further than we have already narrowed it down.

How would you suggest we narrow it down, in light of our agreement that we're speaking here about politics in a broad sense?

Or is there perhaps some narrower sense of "political theory" that you have in mind, that comes along with a textbook definition of "legitimacy" that is agreed upon by all professionals called "political theorists"?

Again... not following this at all. Sorry. — Mongrel

No need to apologize.

Etymology is not the single primary foundation of any of it. He uses it to give weight to (or sort of demand consideration of) a story that starts with a mindless human beast who eventually becomes trapped in a moral straight-jacket. So it's all about will (no surprise there.) — Mongrel

Is that technique similar to the "third use of etymology" I mentioned?

A third use of etymology, as a sort of artist's heuristic: Take your own speech, or another's, and examine it etymologically, either a whole passage or just the most interesting turns of phrase. Let the results of the investigation stir up your thoughts, as prompts for further speaking. — Cabbage Farmer

I meant to allude to the way that some authors, including Nietzsche and Heidegger as I recall, make etymological considerations an explicit feature of their discourse.

It's one thing to draw out a line of thinking along explicitly etymological lines; another to lean on that etymology as a justification for any set of claims in that line of thinking. An etymology might motivate certain thoughts without being intended as a justification for those thoughts; and might "justify" the use of certain words in a particular turn of phrase without being intended as a justification for any claim expressed in terms of that phrase.

Could you expand on that? — Mongrel

The etymology of a word or phrase is not something we observe like a sunset or solve like an algebra problem. It's something traced or reconstructed by scholars, or by less studious readers, through some record of linguistic activity.

Views on the "true sense" or origins of a word or phrase vary across cultural contexts. So we should not expect the views of Nietzsche on the etymology of any term to coincide with the views of the experts who update our dictionaries in light of recent scholarship, or to coincide with the views of Heidegger, Aristotle, or Anaximander.

A combination of factors can enable us to like a song; the lyrics, the music, even the video (I once watched a video that had a Tekken montage with the song 'Bring me to Life' by Evanescence and loved the combination because of memories playing Tekken with friends, the lyrics, the music, her voice), and what compels us to a song could be psychological. Where I found the latter questionable was why I liked the opera of Puccini when I had no social or environmental connection to opera at all and how I could possibly be moved when I do not even understand the lyrics. As mentioned previously, some cultures are known to not even know why they are mutually emotional about a particular form of music but the outcome rests in its symbolism. Perhaps - from a semiotic perspective - I loved Turandot because of a combination of factors that enabled me to imagine tragedy without having to directly understand what Puccini was attempting to convey. So, I was moved with emotion because I am emotional about tragedy. — TimeLine

Extramusical factors play a powerful role in determining the course of development of musical taste. Lyrics arguably contribute an extramusical dimension to songs, often including features of narrative such as character and plot. Music videos and operas contribute visual and narrative dimensions, and opera in its intended context is a theatrical performance.

Relevant extramusical factors extend beyond such formal features of an artwork, to include a broader aesthetic and cultural context. Maybe I'm listening to a recording of Turandot, not watching a video recording, not attending a live performance; maybe I have no idea what utterances those voices are expressing, or what characters, setting and plot are involved; maybe I don't know anything about Puccini or Nizami. But I recognize this music as opera, and I have some conception of how opera and Western classical music fit into the world, and this is enough to color my experience of the music one way or another.

Beneath all such extramusical factors there's the music itself. The same piece of music doesn't stir the same emotions in each hearer. The emotions it stirs in each of us depends in part on extramusical features of the artwork and on our subjective associations with the music and its extramusical context.

It seems that hearers tend to respond to music with emotion one way or other, because musical expressions of pitch and rhythm are recognizable expressions of emotion, just like shouts and groans, laughter and weeping, slaps and caresses, are recognizable expressions of emotion.

Perhaps we should add that a recognizable expression of emotion tends to elicit emotional responses in observers; but the emotional response depends in part on the observer's psychosocial position relative to the observed act.

Depending on the caress observed, an observer might be appeased, amused, aroused, made jealous, enraged. Neither the caress itself, nor the intention of the caresser, can account for all the variety in responses among observers.

Hence my previous remarks and this includes everything that we experience but that we cannot completely maintain at conscious or objective level, filtering out what is necessary. It does not mean that everything else disappears, it is still there, we just cannot articulate it and it is expressed through emotions rather than language — TimeLine

Let's see if I've got this about right: You were speaking about a "phenomenological aspect" of your enquiry, "to try and ascertain the properties that enables a person to experience music and whether sound and perception help conceive of subjectivity."

I wasn't sure what you meant, and I made a first pass at sorting out our terms by speaking about some of the physical properties of soundclouds and the things in the world that produce soundclouds; by speaking about auditory perception as a sort of perception; by speaking about perceptual experience as part of human experience, with both subjective and objective features.

Now it seems you've added something about the way a great deal of information about physical context is "filtered out" of conscious perceptual experience. But again I'm confused by the way you seem to associate "objective" with "conscious" and "subjective" with "subconscious".

I might rephrase the thought about "filtering" along these lines: It seems our perceptual experience gives us a rough-grained glimpse of the world from a limited point of view within the world, and a lot of the facts are "filtered out", omitted in experience; though some of these are traceable through rigorous observation and analysis. Even what is manifest in perception is not completely understood or analyzable from the point of view of ordinary introspection. I hear the music, I feel the vibration, I respond to it emotionally and understand it one way or another, but this is only a partial view of a complex phenomenon.

Even so, I suppose whatever there is to my experience of the phenomenon, there is a subjective character to it as well as an objective character. I can use language to describe my experience, including the emotions I feel in response to the music; but no description is a substitute for the thing itself.

Likewise, an abstract set of instructions for a piece of music, like a score, is no substitute for a performance of the piece. It omits a great deal of information that must be supplied by the performer. No one knows, no one can express, the complete set of "rules" that determine a single performance in its perfect concreteness. We don't think or express such rules; we don't understand them clearly and distinctly. We enact them, guided in part by perception, emotion, and volition in the moment, and in part by an accumulation of habit.

It is hard for me to fathom too, just as much as why I like opera though I do not understand the lyrics and why I feel intense passion when I listen to Vivaldi' Summer Presto and Mozart' Requiem, which was used perfectly in Amadeus. — TimeLine

Lyrics are more important to some people than to others. They can add (or subtract) value from a piece of music, but should be distinguished from the underlying musical content of the piece, which could be repeated with different lyrics or with solfege syllables or phonetic nonsense.

Its the feeling; that is, I respect and admire Bob Dylan when I read his lyrics and him as a person as he epitomises the type of man I respect for his dedication to justice and principles, but I do not feel anything when I listen to him, it simply does not work. I feel more when I read his songs than when I listen. — TimeLine

Does this sound right: You like his work as a songwriter, but not his work as a performer and recording artist, though you admire his moral and political principles and the way he brings them to bear in his work?

Subjective experience can quite easily be flawed considering it is subconscious and therefore wrought with little conscious awareness, but it is nevertheless 'alive' and I tend to believe that the subconscious realm - or intuition - is a network of perceptual experiences that we are unable to identify and make sense of. — TimeLine

Here again it seems you and I use some of the same words quite differently. It may take more careful work to sort out the meaning of our usages and assertions.

I say there is a subconscious aspect to both subjective and objective experience, as well as a conscious aspect.

I might recognize that the sky is blue, without knowing why it is blue. Likewise, I might recognize that I feel sad, without knowing why I feel sad. In each case, I say we have a subjective point of view on an objective matter of fact.

The objective aspect of the experience is indicated when we say, there is an objective "fact of the matter" that determines the truth of the statement "The sky is blue"; and another objective "fact of the matter" that determines the truth of the statement "I am sad".

Contrast those two cases with a third: Gazing at the blue sky, a feeling of sadness flushes through me, and it seems to me it was the sight of the blue sky that made me sad. Perhaps there is an objective fact of the matter that determines the correctness or incorrectness of my judgment that the sight of the blue sky "caused" my feeling of sadness.

Suppose after this one occasion, or after several others like it, I begin to associate blue skies and sadness, and find myself often sad in the face of blue skies. If I go on to infer, on the basis of this subjective association, that "blue skies make everyone sad", or that "blue skies are sad skies", then it seems I have projected the association of blue skies and sadness in my own experience into a misconception of an objective correlation of blue skies and sadness in general.

Experience suggests that subjective associations of that sort are not reliable bases for such generalizations about objective matters of fact.

The error here is not in my feeling of sadness, nor in my personal, subjective association of blue skies and sadness, but only in my confused projection of my subjective association into an incorrect objective generalization.

So, pretend that when you were a child you were walking in the park where there were pigeons and your older brother jumped off a tree he had climbed and frightened you along with the birds that flew up and made loud noises. You grow up fearing or disliking pigeons because the experience with your brother and your limited cognitive and linguistic capabilities have transferred that 'feeling' and you grow up not really knowing why (I read of a similar situation in Helene Deutsch' Character Types). — TimeLine

Nevertheless, I say it's an objective matter of fact, that I experience feelings of aversion to pigeons on the relevant occasions. Accordingly, there would be an objective basis for my statement, "I'm afraid of pigeons" or "I feel uneasy around pigeons". Though I would be mistaken to suppose that everyone feels the same way that I do about pigeons.

When I think of how my feelings could be flawed in some way, I begin to doubt my intention for liking the experience of music. — TimeLine

In one sense, my aversion to pigeons is not a "flaw". My aversion is not, and does not entail, a judgment that "pigeons are scary" or that "everyone fears or ought to fear pigeons". It's just an aversion I have, like some people have an aversion to heights or to slimy food. There's nothing incorrect or imperfect about such aversions, considered in themselves and in general.

I might decide I don't like the aversion and want to be rid of it, especially if it disrupts my conduct too much or too often. In this case I might call the aversion a character flaw. I suppose we might even come to a sort of moral view, that in general it's preferable to be without character flaws of this sort -- it's preferable not to have significant, conduct-altering aversions to things about which we believe we ought to be indifferent, perhaps including pigeons, heights, and slimy food.

Should such considerations, about subjective associations, make us doubtful about our own judgments of taste, our own aesthetic preferences? I don't need a "good reason" to like a piece of music or a piece of food. If I like it, I like it. I might be able to say something about what I like about it, and to say something about why I like it; but these stories may be more doubtful than the experience itself, the enjoyment of and attraction to music like this or food like this.

It seems I gain some experience and insight by liking what I like, and another sort of experience and insight by thinking about why I like what I like. Two activities that contribute to the cultivation of personal taste over a lifetime.

The Philosopher's Index will help narrow down your search. You can access it at a library or through an online account.

The anstoss concept goes back to Fichte. The self posits the "not-self" in order to posit the "self". The anstoss is the spontaneous impulse that moves the self toward such a posit. The underlying logic is a variation on transcendental reasoning in general, where something is demonstrated to be a pre-condition for something else. — Aaron R

Does transcendental reasoning demonstrate that it must be an "impulse" that posits not-self and self? And how do the relevant transcendental arguments define "impulse"?

It seems there's a basic self-awareness that emerges in nature along with sentient animals. We might expect, along the lines of the Kantian's "unity of apperception", that there is a reflexive aspect to all consciousness, that animal consciousness involves reflexive awareness, awareness of oneself.

I see no reason to suppose there is a special impulse for such awareness, or that some special act of positing is required. It seems rather part of the form of consciousness, of minds like ours, to distinguish between ourselves and things outside ourselves. Our minds are organized in keeping with the natural organization of our bodies. Every impulse we have arises in the context of this organization, but I'm not sure what theoretical need there is to posit a special impulse of not-self positing.

Similar reasoning undergirds Sellars's analysis of the looks/is distinction in EPM: — Aaron R

I've been wondering when we'd get back to Sellars. I've been enjoying the preliminary survey of sense-datum theorists in the meantime. I'd say it's a precondition for understanding Sellars' essay.

The point I wish to stress at this time, however, is that the concept of looking green, the ability to recognize that something looks green, presupposes the concept of being green, and that the latter concept involves the ability to tell what colors objects have by looking at them -- which, in turn, involves knowing in what circumstances to place an object if one wishes to ascertain its color by looking at it. — Sellars

There's a fine circle.

Does Sellars mean to suggest that the concept of looking green is identical with the ability to recognize that something looks green, while the concept of being green merely involves the ability to tell what color objects have by looking?

"The concept of looking green, [which is to say,] the ability to recognize that something looks green, presupposes the concept of being green, and that latter concept involves the ability to tell what colors objects have by looking at them...."

In any case, it's an interesting alignment of the terms "ability" and "concept".

Understanding what it means to say that something merely looks green requires as a pre-condition understanding what it is to say that something really is green, or so Sellars argues. — Aaron R

I'd like to hear more of this argument.

For starters, I'd want to clear up the various sorts of "concept" we might distinguish in this connection. I might have a more or less refined ability to tell what colors objects have by looking at them, without having thought about it much, without having any sophisticated theories about color and light, without having acquired a relevant repertoire of "looks" talk. I'm happy to equate that ability with a "concept", but this simple recognitional capacity leaves plenty of room for variation in one's other concepts associated with judgments of color.

Does Sellars say that this "ability" -- the ability to tell what colors objects have by looking at them -- is the precondition of the concept of "being green" (and I suppose of "having color"), and that the concept of "being green" is the precondition of the concept of merely "looking green"?

The ability at the beginning of this chain is not the same as either concept. For in the original ability, there is no distinction between "looking green" and "being green". We might say that "looking green" and "being green" are the same concept in the early stages of color-concept acquisition, or perhaps that to begin with there is no concept of "[merely] looking green", and no correlate concept of "being [truly] green."

These concepts are distinguished from each other as we learn, on the basis of experience, that there's more at play in making correct judgments of color than seemed to be at play at first glance. One way of refining usage and judgment to reflect this new insight into the nature of things is to distinguish between the color things "[truly] have" (in ordinary circumstances) and the color things merely "appear to have" (in extraordinary circumstances); though I'm not sure this is the best way to sort out the facts about color.

It's only after one loses innocence about color judgments that the concept of "being [truly] green" is associated with sophisticated techniques like those Sellars mentions: techniques that apply hard-earned knowledge of "what circumstances to place an object if one wishes to ascertain its [true] color by looking at it."

The concept of "being [truly] green" that's associated with such sophisticated knowledge and techniques is not the original concept of "being green" that is a precondition for the distinction between "[merely] looking green" and "being [truly] green". The precondition is the simple concept of "being green", prior to the loss of innocence that motivates the distinction between "[merely] looking green" and "being [truly] green".

That simple concept does not depend on the ability to tell what color things "truly have" by looking at them -- for that's a more sophisticated concept that requires knowledge of the way that apparent color varies along with circumstances. The original, unrefined concept depends merely on the ability to innocently tell the (apparent) color of things by looking at them.


Having sorted out some of the relevant concepts along these lines, I'll agree that the ability to innocently report the colors things (appear to) have is the precondition for an unrefined concept of things "having color" or "being colored"; and that both this ability and the corresponding concept are refined when we lose innocence and begin to acquire knowledge about the ways that the apparent colors of things vary along with circumstances.

Perhaps enduring philosophical confusion about color judgments makes this example ill-suited to an epistemological discussion about appearances. Why muddy such murky waters?

Right, and that's essentially what Sellars is asking: what justifies your belief that there are such things as round red patches? Sellars doesn't believe that such patches exist, and EPM is essentially a critical examination of the notion that such things do exist, or perhaps more accurately, that such things are seen. — Aaron R

What could justify a belief in such "patches"?

Does he leave room for the sense-datum theorist to posit such things as "patches" as theoretical constructs that are not "seen" or otherwise "sensed"? In that case, we might expect that some ways of talking about "patches" or other "sense-data" would be harmless enough, or even consistent with other useful ways of speaking about the contribution of sensation to perceptual experience -- for instance, perhaps along the lines of the cognitive scientist's "information" or "representation".

At the end of EPM he rehearses the myth of genius Jones, a fictional ancestor who explains perceptual mistakes on the model of "inner replicas" of physical objects. The main difference from sense-datum theory is that these replicas are understood to be "states" that are had by the observer rather than as particulars that are observed by the observer. — Aaron R

This seems like the sort of modelling I had in mind just now.

In other words, there is nothing that is literally red and round in the world that is the object of observation when someone has an hallucination of an apple, but rather the observer comes to have an internal state that is "somehow analogous" to a red round patch. — Aaron R

I think the analogy is best made between the visual perception of an apple and the vision-like hallucination of an apple. The similarity is between the two "states", not between the real apple and its imaginary correlate.

The "somehow" is never explained in EPM, and Sellars actually ends up backing away from the notion that sense-impressions are internal states of the observer when he explicates his theory of absolute processes in the much later Carrus Lectures — Aaron R

Is his view in EPM that it makes sense to talk about sense-impressions as internal states of the observer? What concept of "sense-impression" does he employ in this connection?

And what's the change of direction with "absolute processes" in the Carrus Lectures?

And this is where (per Csalisbury) the Hegel connection comes into play. Sellars leverages aspects of Hegel’s dialectic in the Sense Certainty chapter to expose an ambiguity between the non-conceptuality of the act of sensation vs. the non-conceptuality of the content of sensation. — Aaron R

What is this distinction between "act" and "content"?

Lewis elides the distinction by treating the given as the concrete correlate of direct apprehension while yet investing it with enough epistemic authority to act as a constraint on conceptual thought. — Aaron R

What does "concrete correlate of direct apprehension" mean?

Sellars, like Hegel, essentially argues that insofar as the structure of the sensory "given" is determinate enough to warrant some classifications ("pen", "cylinder", etc.) but not others ("paper", "soft", etc.), it must be considered to be conceptual in nature for the simple reason that classifications have inferential implications. — Aaron R

To me this seems like bending over backward. Where do the classifications come from? They develop in individuals and in culture on the basis of experience. It's the regularity of the world as it appears to us that produces concepts and that warrants the application of concepts in and on the basis of perception.

There's no reason to insist that the structure of a stone "must be conceptual in nature" in order to account for the fact that we apply concepts to stones or that the predicate "being a stone" has conceptual implications.

Likewise, there's no reason to insist that the structure of the given qua given -- the structure of the contribution to experience from sensation -- is "conceptual" or has "logical form", merely in order to account for the fact that we apply concepts to stones on the basis of perceptual experience of stones.

All we need is the notion that the relevant concepts are coordinated with the structure of sensation and with features of the objective world that appears to us through the mediation of sensation. The world has structure, sensation has structure, concepts have a "logical form" that tends to be more or less coordinated with that structure.

For instance, to say that some aspect of the given simply cannot be classified as "soft" implies that claims like "this object is soft" cannot be true and, by extension, that various other claims implied by that claim cannot be true (and so on). — Aaron R

I assume in this context "cannot" has practical limits, and doesn't entail logical impossibility. Looking at this stone, and feeling it with my hands, I find that I cannot sincerely apply the predicate of softness to this stone, though I acknowledge that this judgment may be flawed in principle, that my senses may be deceiving me, etc. To all appearances, the stone is not soft.

This does not imply that the stone is conceptual, or that the stone's hardness is conceptual. It only implies that I am correct to apply the concepts "stone" and "hard" to this thing.

The reason I am correct to call this thing a hard stone, is that it is a hard stone, a fact that I grasp one way or another in perceptual experience, like other intelligent animals, thanks to the faithful contribution of sensation; and that I grasp in one specific way when I call this thing a hard stone.

So returning to your original question, inference plays an ambiguous role in Lewis’s epistemology insofar as the epistemic status of given is ambiguous. Does the "abstraction" process count as a form of inference? It almost seems like it has to insofar as it is a process by which certain classifications are determined to be applicable and others are not. But how can inference occur in the absence of concepts? It can’t, which seems to imply that the "given" is conceptually structured after all (or that there is no such thing as the given after all) — Aaron R

I say it can't be an inference, on phenomenological grounds.

The thought may be that the contribution of sensation "triggers" automatic conceptualization in perceptual experience. In special cases, such provisional conceptualization seems inadequate for judgment or other action, leading us to take a closer look, to check whether things seem to be as they have appeared, to wonder whether things are as they seem to be. Until the automatic, tentative conceptualization is suspended or overruled by such conceptual activity, it has conceptual implications for the perceiver. The initial conceptualization and its implications, like the considered view achieved by careful judgment, are determined by the conceptual stance of the perceiver as well as by the contribution of sensation.

How does the automatic and provisional conceptualization take place? What are the rules by which it proceeds? It seems to me this is an empirical question that cannot be adequately answered on the basis of ordinary introspection, because this front line of conceptualization is not constituted by conscious activity, but rather constitutes the perceptual experience that is central to conscious awareness. Introspection reveals to us that perceptual experience is always already conceptualized, and that sense-perception is radically determined by a contribution from sensation; but introspection is insufficient to inform a fine-grained view of the individual mechanisms that produce such experience.

As a side note, some of the details of Price’s epistemology differ from Lewis’s, but many of the same of questions arise with regard to it. — Aaron R

Any remarkable differences between Price and Lewis?

So far I like Lewis best. I don't find the same muddle in these passages that we noted in Price and Reichenbach. Perhaps there are other passages that bring out similar problems in Lewis more clearly?

I'd say the "tension" you attribute to his account seems largely dissipated, at least with respect to these passages, if we're allowed to shift the frame of the conversation along the lines I've suggested: i) by rejecting an arbitrary and arguably incoherent separation of phenomenology and empirical investigation; ii) by developing an empirical account of perception (especially the contribution of sensation) that coordinates first-person introspective reports with third-person observations; and iii) by outsourcing conversations about "what really is", aside from the world as it appears to us, to a more abstract and general region of discourse.

So far as I can tell, that shift in frame is enough to open the way for us to speak of concepts as naturally coordinated with perceptual experiences and perceptual objects, as produced and applied on the basis of experience.

To all appearances, that natural cooperation is the original context of conceptual activity, which is constrained to reflect the objective environment of an animal perceiver through the mediation of sensation, and thus to coordinate the activity of an organism with salient features of its environment. Human language and culture render us more sophisticated conceptualizers, and open for us an infinitely greater range of action, knowledge, fantasy, and confusion. There's no end to the variety of conceptual stances we may take on the basis of perceptual experience. But that experience, and any coherent conceptualization of it, remains radically constrained by the preconceptual structure of the contribution from sensation, no less for us than for nonhuman animal perceivers.

Short of a full-fledged empirical account of the preconceptual structure of sensation for each animal perceiver, we may locate the fundamental constraint, the essential epistemic role, of perceptual experience by tracing the limits of appearance-talk.

Here’s Lewis writing on the given in Chapter 2 of Mind and World Order — Aaron R

These passages from Lewis make a good impression, and seem less overburdened than those you’ve supplied from Reichenbach and Price.

There is, in all experience, that element which we are aware that we do not create by thinking and cannot, in general, displace or alter. As a first approximation, we may designate it as "the sensuous." — Lewis

We don’t say we "create" our limbs when we use them. Do we ordinarily say we "create" the voluntary motions of our limbs? We produce, perform, discharge… voluntary motions of our limbs by moving them, and only some "elements of experience" by thinking. Likewise, we produce sounds by moving around. When "create" is appropriate here, it’s as another way to characterize such production.

The crucial difference Lewis gestures at aligns with the old Stoic discourse about what is and what is not "up to us" or "in our power". Epictetus speaks as if we have as much responsibility for our emotions and desires as for our thoughts, but less for our bodies, which can be altered or restrained without our consent. Lewis speaks here as if we "create" our thoughts and their content from whole cloth without any hindrance, but are constrained in our encounters with "the sensuous". We might refine the truth in such views by distinguishing various classes of perceptual modality (or basis for noninferential judgment)

exteroception -- proprioception -- interoception -- affect -- imagination -- thought

and accounting for the various constraints on spontaneous activity associated with each of the "modes" or "bases" thus distinguished.

At the moment, I have a fountain pen in my hand. When I so describe this item of my present experience, I make use of terms whose meaning I have learned. Correlatively I abstract this item from the total field of my present consciousness and relate it to what is not just now present in ways which I have learned and which reflect modes of action which I have acquired. […] what I refer to as "the given" in this experience is, in broad terms, qualitatively no different than it would be if I were an infant or an ignorant savage. — Lewis

I suppose we might substitute "I abstract this item from the total field of my present consciousness..." for "I bring a whole field of conceptual relations to bear on this one item in my present field of perceptual experience." The latter seems more apt for many cases; the former perhaps for cases in which we stop paying attention to the perceptual field, and become lost in thoughts about fountain pens, or about this fountain pen, or about what in this vision of a fountain pen is "given".

The passage leans heavily on the phrase "in broad terms". The trouble is to make those terms explicit and perhaps to narrow them down. There’s also an implication, perhaps along pragmatic lines, that the whole conceptual field should be analyzed primarily as reflecting "modes of action I have acquired".

The distinction between this element of interpretation and the given is emphasized by the fact that the latter is what remains unaltered, no matter what our interests, no matter how we think or conceive. — Lewis

The crucial difference.

While we can thus isolate the element of the given by these criteria of its unalterability and its character as sensuous feel or quality, we cannot describe any particular given as such , because in describing it, in whatever fashion, we qualify it by bringing it under some category or other, select from it, emphasize aspects of it, and relate it in particular and avoidable ways. — Lewis

The notorious difficulty.

The given is essentially being defined here as an "invariant" in experience – its structure does not change despite being emenable to multiple classifications dependent on the interests and background knowledge of the agent. The process by which concepts are applied is described as a process of "abstraction" and that’s where things start to get murky insofar as Lewis wants to claim that the structure of the given itself determines what classifications are or are not applicable in a given context: — Aaron R

I can apprehend this thing (given) as pen or rubber or cylinder, but I cannot, by taking thought, discover it as paper or soft or cubical. — Lewis

The thought must be that what's "abstracted" -- the product of the abstraction, not the material it's abstracted from -- has a conceptual structure determined in part by the sensuous given. At each moment, there is a fixed structure to the given, and a fixed structure to my concepts, and merely by focusing on any element in the perceptual field, I spontaneously "abstract", draw off, a conceptual structure determined by the given in the context of my conceptual frame. The mind applies the sensuous given to its concepts, as it applies its concepts to the sensuous given.

I suppose my account of "involuntary conceptualization of the predetermined contribution from sensation" is designed to perform a theoretical role similar to that of Lewis' "abstraction".

The underlying tension is becoming more apparent now. If the given is not conceptually structured, and if the application of concepts is solely the province of the agent, then how is it the case that the given can nonetheless constrain conceptual classification? How is the case that this non-conceptual given simply cannot be conceptually classified as "paper" or "soft" or "cubical"? How is that possible? — Aaron R

I assume "cannot" here has practical limits, and does not entail logical impossibility. Looking at this stone, and feeling it with my hands, I find that I cannot sincerely apply the predicate of softness to this stone. I acknowledge that my judgment may be flawed in principle, that my senses may be deceiving me, etc.; but to all appearances, the stone is not soft.

It seems no more puzzling to me that an experience of a stone should constrain the concepts we sincerely apply to the stone, than that the stone should constrain the concepts we sincerely apply to it.

Here is a stone, here is a haptic appearance of the stone, here is a concept associated with the English word "soft" that is ordinarily inapplicable in such contexts.

Concepts like these are naturally coordinated with experiences like these because they are produced and refined and applied in the context of experiences like these. There is something it's like to feel a hard thing; having an experience of that sort is what rules out the application of the concept "soft" to the thing that feels hard. Not as an eternal truth or an incorrigible assertion, not on the basis of certain knowledge about a stone, but in the ordinary way, provisionally and corrigibly, on the basis of current experience.

Reading through the chapter it becomes clear that Lewis wants the given to pull double-duty. He wants it to be non-conceptual and yet he wants it to have enough epistemic authority to act as a constraint on thought. He wants it to be the concrete basis of all experience, and yet also abstract enough to exhibit a repeatable structure. — Aaron R

To all appearances, there's repeating structure in i) the things themselves as they appear to us, the stones and pens that we perceive and otherwise use; ii) the physical contexts of sensation, including for instance light and air; iii) the body of the perceiver, including physiological processes of sensation and perception; and iv) the conceptual frame of each perceiver, which tends to be fairly stable over time, especially with respect to ordinary empirical concepts that compel us to recognize appearances of, for instance, stones and pens whether we want to or not.

To rule out an objective account of sensation -- a phenomenologically grounded empirical account of the physical and physiological context of perception -- is to lose touch with the preconceptual structure of the contribution of sensation to experience.

Approaching the problem this way, as a pseudoproblem, it seems an error to suppose that the preconceptualized contribution of sensation can be isolated or "directly apprehended" in experience, from an artificially circumscribed first-person point of view, in abstraction from correlate empirical accounts of the objects and context and processes of sensation, as if experience were a groundless picture-show instead of one part of a whole world. We understand sensation by understanding ourselves as natural beings, as perceiving animals in a physical world; or we don't understand sensation.

Right. Both Lewis and Price (like Reichenbach) tend to elide the distinction between sensing particulars and sensing facts. — Aaron R

This distinction keeps rearing its head in our conversation.

These are exactly the kinds of questions that Lewis and Price were wrestling with. For Lewis, the "given" was opposed primarily to the "concept", and the hallmark of conceptuality was logical form. By implication, the given qua given has no logical form, it has no inferential implications and it does not constitute empirical knowledge. — Aaron R

Does Lewis locate the given within experience, or prior to experience? How should we coordinate the terms "given", "sense-datum", and "direct apprehension" with respect to his account?

I'd say nothing is given without a perceiver. A perceiver already has a stock of conceptual capacities, expectations, general beliefs... with inferential structure and "logical form". The given qua sensation-dervied constraint has no fixed logical form, but in each particular context of perceptual experience, it does have conceptual and inferential implications, and it does open the way to empirical knowledge.

So Lewis’s epistemology is quite Kantian in nature. The mind applies concepts to the sensory given and it is the application of concepts that license inferences. — Aaron R

If it makes sense to say "the mind applies concepts to the sensory given", it makes sense to say "the mind applies the sensory given to concepts". The standing repertoire of conceptual capacities and the current intake of sensation are applied together in perceptual experience on each occasion.

Without that cooperation of sensation and conceptualization, there would be no license for the inferences we draw on the basis of experience. We would make no such inferences.

And yet, Lewis seems to recognize the tension that results from taking this kind of position. For what is the epistemic status of the given before concepts are applied, and what is the nature of the cognitive process by which concepts are applied to it? — Aaron R

"Before" concepts are applied, there is no experience, and no appearance, but only, we say, sensory and perceptual processes in preconscious cognition. It seems that the contribution from sensation is determined prior to its manifestation in experience, for instance to reflect impingements of the world on sense receptors; and that sensory and perceptual processes in preconscious cognition are normally more or less insulated from direct interference by conceptually driven processes, so that what appears in experience is radically determined by sensation.

The contribution of sensation to experience seems organized, in the first place, according to a "deep structure" in keeping with principles we associate with our concepts of space and time, light and dark, hot and cold, loud and quiet, and so on, across a range of sensory modalities, which provide a fundamental framework for perceptual experience on each occasion and for empirical knowledge over time. On each occasion, the "synthesis of the manifold of sensation" according to these fixed basic principles provides an integrated perceptual context within which individual phenomena are spontaneously differentiated. That differentiation is in the first place the result of automatic and involuntary cognitive processes, not of any conscious act of judgment. In being thus differentiated within the organized perceptual field, phenomena are conceptualized, and this conceptualization is likewise, in the first place, automatic and involuntary.

Perceptual experience thus constituted -- as spontaneous and involuntary conceptualization of a predetermined contribution from sensation -- provides the context in which spontaneous and voluntary thoughts and judgments may review appearances, to consider, for instance, whether things will continue to appear, upon further inspection, as they now appear, or whether things are in fact as they seem, to all appearances, to be.

To all appearances, it seems neither sort of spontaneous conceptual activity has the power to reconstitute the predetermined contribution of sensation. The fundamental epistemic role of that contribution is characterizable in terms of appearance-talk: I know it's a juniper bush, but in the shadows, from here, it looks just like a man.

Appearances persist -- the look and sound of things persist -- despite shifts in our conceptual attitudes toward particular appearances, despite exercises of our capacity to conceptually reframe a whole perceptual occasion, despite wholesale reorganization of our thoughts about appearances in general.

Is the given completely formless and ineffable, or does it exhibit some form of structure. If the latter, then how are we to understand the structure of the given if not in conceptual terms? — Aaron R

Empirical science continues to develop its account of sensation and sensory perception, and of all cognition, in light of ongoing empirical investigation. That account is one way for us to characterize the contribution of sensation to perceptual experience, or the "structure of the given" -- perhaps already the most informative way, despite the primitive status of the science.

All empirical science is a rigorous extension of ordinary empirical knowledge, and has an essentially phenomenological character. The most sophisticated scientific accounts of perception are continuations of investigations each of us makes by noticing differences in the way things appear when we squint, or close our eyes, or turn out the lights.

A phenomenological account that relies on the unaided introspection of each interlocutor is said to run into deep trouble, for it’s impossible to describe anything -- including preconceptually determined features of one’s own experience -- without employing concepts.

I want to say we blow this difficulty out of proportion in such discourses, by taking for granted an unwarranted and incoherent separation of empirical investigation and phenomenology, and by conflating speculative "metaphysical" questions about the whole world as it appears to us, with phenomenological and empirical questions about animal perception.

He goes on to talk about “the abstract character of impressions” as part and parcel of a “duplicity theory” of perception. And this is where, as seen through the lens of EPM, Reichenbach’s account starts to go off the rails. We can already see in the quotes above the seeds of an ambiguity between impressions qua objects and impressions qua facts. Reichenbach says that he doesn’t “see” his impressions and also says that impressions are “not observable facts”. And yet he’s invoking impressions in order to explain discrepancies in what is seen. — Aaron R

Based on your discussion and the passages you've cited, his discourse strikes me as rather confused, and it's perhaps exceptionally hard to tell what sort of thing he supposes an impression to be.

Things get really bad in chapter 3 where Reichenbach seems to firmly place impressions into the category of “immediate existence”: — Aaron R

Imagine we are taking a walk at dusk through a lonely moor; we see before us at some distance a man in the road […] we do not doubt the man’s reality. We walk farther and discover it is not a man but a juniper bush. […] We shall say that both the man and the bush have immediate existence at the moments we see them. — "Reichenbach

So here we seem to have the paradigm case of an impression. We think we see a man, but it’s really just juniper bush so we invoke the concept of an impression to explain the mistake. The man is inferred to be an impression, but here we are told that the “man” also has immediate existence. So what’s immediate existence? — Aaron R

That's the most pressing question here, for sure.

On the side: Doesn't Reichenbach call the juniper bush an "impression", as well as the man? I've interpreted the passages you've cited this way: It's not that, having fallen short of the mark, Reichenbach infers that the man was an impression, while persisting in the belief that the bush is a physical object but not an impression. Rather, in seeking to understand such cases, to analyze the ways in which we fall short of the mark and wind up in confusion, Reichenbach infers that he has impressions within him, both when he sees correctly and when he sees confusedly. In happy cases there is both physical thing and impression; in unhappy cases, impression alone; and in this one case he judges that his first impression was an impression without a corresponding physical thing.

Of course, in the case at hand, it’s not accurate to say there’s no physical object corresponding in a relevant way to the confused perception of a man. It’s the same physical thing, the bush, corresponding to perception and judgment in the happy case and in the breakdown case. (It’s not clear in the example whether the breakdown is a misperception or a mistaken judgment on the basis of perception, or somehow both).

I’m not sure how Reichenbach intends to sort it all out.

We may regard immediate existence as a concept known to everybody. If somebody does not understand us, we put him into a certain situation and pronounce the term, thus accustoming him to the term and the situation seen by him. […] If a child asks “what is a knife” we take a knife and show it to the child. — "Reichenbach

This strikes me as perhaps the most uninformative sort of definition conceivable. I don't mean the definition of the knife in the example, which is an ordinary ostensive definition. Rather, this attempt to characterize "immediate existence".

Is there any other clue from Reichenbach? Is there supposed to be an analogous situation into which one may be put, where he will observe the meaning of "immediate existence"? Are we supposed to grasp the sense of this term in the context of misperceptions and mistaken judgments on the basis of perception, like the mistaking of bush for man?

It might seem less strange if he'd said "immediate experience", as in: At first I see what appears to be a man, but soon I see that it's a bush.

But what could it mean to say "both the man and the bush have immediate existence at the moments we see them"?

Maybe something like this: At the moment we mistake the bush for a man, we have an idea of a man there whom we're seeing, and the idea of existence belongs to that idea of a man.

Even so, it seems tortured use, to call this "immediate existence", instead of an immediate idea of existence -- i.e., an idea of existence (and an idea of an existing man) that has not yet been mediated and overruled by a sound view of the facts. Perhaps this strained usage is another symptom of the same confusion we've noted in Reichenbach, who seems to smear altogether the seeming, the appearing, and the facts and objects that seem and appear.

In other words, immediate existence is the existence of whatever is directly apprehended or, if you will, known by acquaintance. But wait…this directly contradicts Reichenbach’s earlier claim that impressions are indirect, theoretical entities. These are exactly the kinds of confusions that Sellars was responding to in EPM. — Aaron R

The view seems entirely confused, at least as we've reviewed it here. I hope the sense-datum theorists turn out to have a better champion. For it would seem shameful for a whole generation of experts to be taken in by such a jumble.

My turn to take a break. I look forward to working through the rest of your recent comments.

we need this assumption to explain that in the case of the confused world one of the two worlds, the external world, is dropped. The distinction between the world of things and the world of impressions or representation is therefore the result of epistemological reflection. — Reichenbach

It seems to me we need something like a distinction between sense-perception and imagination just to make sense of the fact that we dream, hallucinate, and imagine -- though how we conceptualize such phenomena, and what judgments we make in light of them, seems to vary from one person and one cultural context to another.

I have the impression that 20th-century analytic philosophers, especially in the shadow of the spooky behaviorist tendency we might trace through Ryle and Quine, tended to neglect such phenomena, and to perhaps quietly lump false judgments made on the basis of imaginings into the same account as false judgments made on the basis of misperceptions. In any case, it's often hard to tell how to map a term like Reichenbach's "impression" here onto a distinction like the one I draw between perceiving and imagining.

Perhaps the neatest way is to say that imaginings are among our impressions. If I mistake my hallucination for perception, and judge that there's an apple on the table on the basis of that hallucination, the source of the confusion is that I have mistaken hallucinating for perceiving, or in other words, I have incorrectly taken an instance of hallucinating as an instance of perceiving. I may correct my own error when I move to the table and aim to fetch the apple; discover that nothing's there, though it still looks like there's an apple; and now correctly judge that I am and have been hallucinating, despite the persistent vision-like appearance of an apple on the table.

The hallucinating is part of the world, just like dreams and less vivid and forceful imaginings are part of the world. Until we have adequate understanding of these phenomena, we might be confused by them and led to make false judgments in light of them; but as we develop adequate understanding, we're more likely to avoid error. In this respect, our concept of hallucination is just like other empirical concepts.

If we're willing to say that each perceiving and each imagining grasped in introspection is correlated in a relevant way with a bit of neural activity in the world; then we should be willing to say that, once we're equipped with the right sort of concepts and general beliefs, we make more or less reliable observational judgments on the basis of introspection about those bits of neural activity, and that these, too, are things in the world of which we have "impressions" whenever we're aware of our own perceiving or imagining, no matter how otherwise ignorant or confused we may be about the relevant facts; much as we make reliable observational judgments about the sun on the basis of visual perception, no matter whether we think it's a god in a chariot or a massive ball of gas.

Along those lines, we might say "the confused world" is the one in which I judge incorrectly, on the basis of current hallucination, that I am perceiving an apple and that this apple is on the table. And we might say the harmoniously conceived, or well sorted, world is the one in which I judge correctly, on the basis of current hallucination, that I am hallucinating and that there is no apple on the table.

Reichenbach, however, seems perhaps to speak as though the confusion is somehow or other contained in the impression, and now he slides from "impression" to "representation". But what sort of thing is the impression supposed to be, if the error in judgment is already contained in it? I can stare at a mirage for hours, and change my mind a thousand times while it remains the same mirage. It looks the same, the world appears to me in the same way, while I cycle through various judgments on the basis of that one appearance. The appearance doesn't tell me how to judge, and I don't tell it how to appear. The judging is up to me, and the appearing is up to the appearance, though I can turn my head and get past it.

Along these lines, I make a three-part epistemological distinction: In the first place there is the fact of the matter, the way things are in the world in fact. In the second place there is the appearance, the fact of how things appear to me (e.g., how things "look to me"). In the third place there is the seeming, the fact of how I take things in fact to be, in part on the basis of appearances. In making active judgments about how things seem, in part on the basis of appearances, I change the seeming, but not the appearances. Normally I don't need to make such judgments in order for things to seem to me one way or another; ordinarily I resort to such judging only when salient features of my experience seem uncertain, confused, or otherwise inadequate to form the basis of a reasonable judgment I have some interest in making. The judgment amends or completes or suspends the seeming.

If I'm going to use the word "impression" in telling that story, the impression belongs with the appearance, not with the seeming.

Note that both the appearance and the seeming are parts of the world, are matters of fact.

There’s no way I can keep up with you Cabbage Farmer, but here’s a start at some answers to your questions: — Aaron R

I can't keep up with my own ramblings, or with anyone else's for that matter. If we keep putting one foot in front of the other, the conversation takes care of itself.

I’d say that C.I. Lewis and H.H. Price figured very prominently, though the others mentioned are not far behind. As an aside, it’s interesting to consider that Sellars studied under C.I. Lewis while completing graduate studies Harvard. — Aaron R

That's good to know, I might have gone straight to Ayer.

I cannot admit that impressions have the character of observable facts. What I observe are things, not impressions. I see tables, and houses, and thermometers, and trees, and men, and the sun, and many other things in the sphere of crude physical objects; but I have never seen my impression of these things […] I do not say I doubt the existence of my impressions. I believe that there are impressions, but I have never sensed them. When I consider the question in an unprejudiced manner I find that I infer the existence of my impressions. — Reichenbach

Perhaps an important distinction lies hidden here. Recalling Sellars' distinction between "sensing particulars" and "sensing facts", I might deny the claim that I can see my own impressions, but affirm the claim that I observe (the fact) that I have current impressions. Accordingly, we might say I observe the impressions, or say at least that I make observational judgments about the impressions, without "sensing" them.

When I look up at the sky, is it the sun I see, or only a bit of its light? I like Brandom along these lines, on the observation of mu mesons, or muons, along with their traces.

Reichenbach's general belief that there are such things as impressions is part of a theory, or model, or discourse about perceptual experience -- a logos he picked up at second hand before kicking the tires himself. Say he confirms the theory to his own satisfaction, and thus acquires the general belief, by way of some inference, and thus ceases to "doubt the existence" of impressions in general, wherever there is perception like ours. It's the theory that positions him to make the inference, on any particular occasion:

If I am sensing right now, then there are impressions in me; and
I am sensing right now;

Therefore, there are impressions in me.

In fact, he doesn't have to bother making this inference on each separate occasion, once he's acquired the relevant general belief; much as I don't have to infer that gravity draws a glass to the floor when I drop it, or that the bright spot in the sky is a massive ball of gas. Inference may play a role in the initial formation of such beliefs, and in the formation of the concepts associated with the beliefs; but once the story is told, most of us who take it on, do so without bothering over what inferences and evidence informed the story in the beginning.

So long as the general belief is correct enough in the relevant ways, and so long as I have applied it correctly enough on a particular occasion, the observational judgment I make in terms of or in keeping with the belief "inherits" the correctness of the general belief -- of the story, and of whatever chain of inferences and observations may have produced the story, whether they were inferences and observations in my head or in heads before mine.

To explain this difference, I introduce the distinction between the physical thing and my impression of that thing. — Reichenbach

We shouldn't suppose this mere distinction informs us about what sort of thing the "impression" is. For instance, we needn't suppose that, whenever there is an impression, there is a one-to-one correspondence between the impression and a physical thing of which it is an impression.

I say that usually there are both physical things and impressions within me but that sometimes there are impressions only […] — Reichenbach

I suppose he doesn't mean: Usually there are physical things within me and impressions within me, but sometimes impressions only.

So I suppose he means something like: Usually the impressions within me correspond (in some relevant way) to physical things (that are not or need not be within me), but sometimes the impressions within me do not correspond to any physical thing (in the relevant way).

In the latter case, this might be a formulation of a distinction similar to the distinction I draw between perception and imagination: the difference between hearing a melody and repeating the same melody in your head; between hearing a sentence uttered and repeating the same sentence in your head; between seeing an apple and hallucinating or dreaming an apple.

One might argue that such imaginings, even at their most "vivid and forceful", hardly deserve the name "impressions". On the other hand, the name seems as suitable for perceptual illusions and other misperceptions as it does for ordinary perceptions.

I think the question which TheMadFool is asking now, is what type of things is mathematics not good for. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'll say, mathematics is useful in a given context insofar as counting and measuring and analyzing quantitative relationships are useful in that context.

We could start with morality. I think that most people would agree that mathematics is not very good for solving moral issues. — Metaphysician Undercover

I expect the majority of utilitarians might object to that claim.

If we move from morality into social studies, we will find some areas where mathematics becomes useful, through the use of statistics, probabilities, and such things. I think that we might find a grey area here, between social sciences and moral philosophy, where some might argue mathematics is useful and others might argue that mathematics is not useful. If one is convinced that the mathematics is useful, when it is not, then the use of mathematics would be harmful. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'll say, if one finds mathematics useful in his own moral thinking, let him use it; and likewise with every other field of endeavor. And if two people disagree about the utility or aptness of some particular application of mathematics, let them work out their disagreement or part ways.

It may be that some uses of mathematics will be of interest to moral philosophers, for instance in assigning "weights" to each "value" in a moral model; or in the collection and analysis of big data pertaining to moral behavior, norms, and intuitions.

To say that moral thinking or moral phenomena can be "quantified" in this way, and that there may be some use for such quantitative approaches, is not to suggest that such practices could displace ordinary moral reasoning and intuitions, or should be required for responsible moral discourse.

Math is now a universally applicable tool, finding its way into almost every subject worth studying. — TheMadFool

Some applications of mathematics are applications to contexts that do not involve "studying a subject" in the ordinary sense of that phrase. For instance, I might use algebra to figure out how much I owe a creditor each month, how much cement I should purchase to replace the front wall of my porch, or how many hours I might spend each week in the practice of philosophical discourse without neglecting other obligations.

On the other hand, mathematics does not seem "applicable" or relevant to some pursuits worth undertaking, though mathematics may be applied, one way or another, even to a study of those pursuits.

Implicit in this is the premise that math is the tool of preference. — TheMadFool

I wouldn't put it that way. Mathematics is rightly held to be a reliable tool, but not "the tool of preference" in every endeavor. For instance, I suppose we can apply mathematics to the study of poetry, but mathematics is not "the preferred tool" of most poets, most audiences of poets, or most scholars of poetry. Math is one tool among others, with various roles in various sorts of endeavor, central in some, peripheral in others, practically irrelevant in yet others.

More specifically, mathematics is useful when we are able and willing to count and measure, and to analyze quantitative relationships in what has been counted or measured. For instance, the ratio of soldiers in two armies, or the number of hours it would take to travel from one city to another at various average rates of speed. The use of numbers is part of the art of the military general, but only one part; a good mathematician is not necessarily a good general or a good strategist.

In other words it is perfect — TheMadFool

Again you resort to the use of this word, "perfect", and I have no idea why.

Now it seems you suggest the role you impute to math as "the universal tool of preference" is what warrants the claim about its "perfection". I've already suggested that the role of mathematics is rather limited or even negligible in many fields of endeavor; perhaps this is enough to put talk of "perfection" to rest?

and we believe as true the results of mathematical calculations/manipulations; — TheMadFool

The results of mathematical calculations are purely mathematical and pertain to nothing but number in general, except insofar as we coordinate them with something else in the world, for instance by way of measurement.

If a scale says I weigh 240 pounds and I say "I don't believe it", normally it means I think that something's wrong with the scale, not that something's wrong with the concept of pounds, or the concept of weight, or the concept of number. Suppose I test the scale by weighing dumbbells I have good reason to believe I know the weights of, and thus confirm that I weigh 240 pounds. Suppose, further, that I'd prefer to weigh 200 pounds. How many pounds would I need to lose in order to reach my target weight? What could it mean to disbelieve the results of the arithmetical calculation by which I determine that I have 40 pounds to lose?

It's not the numbers and the calculations that we take issue with in such cases, but rather the measurements or the extra-mathematical use of those measurements.

The calculations speak for themselves and stand on their own, outside the context of any such application.

math, invariably, improves or underscores the credentials of any study worth its money. — TheMadFool

Again I disagree, along the same lines as before. Arguably an undue use of mathematics degrades the study of poetry, while even an appropriate use of mathematics adds little value to that study.

Of course there's hardly any money in poetry nowadays, but I suppose we can find examples analogous in the relevant respect.

My question is is math deserving of this respect and trust? — TheMadFool

I'm still not sure what kind of respect and trust you imagine mathematics to have in our society.

It surely deserves our respect as a reliable and useful set of conventions for operating with numbers in general, and I suppose as the best example of formalized and formalizable rational thought.

That doesn't mean that every application of mathematics is worthy of the same respect and trust. Much as the respect and trust we might have for the English language doesn't extend to every single use of the English language.

Could it not be flawed? — TheMadFool

Calculations, measurements, applications, attempted proofs can be flawed, and often are. But could "mathematics itself" be flawed? What is this question supposed to ask?

Do you mean, could it be the case that we've got it all wrong, and that 2 + 2 = 5? I'm not sure what this would mean, either.

What does a mathemstical analysis of a given subject deprive us of? — TheMadFool

Nothing at all, unless we're so biased in favor of mathematical analysis that we forget about other relevant features of a given task. Moderation in all things.

Are there some areas of study where math is harmful instead of beneficial? — TheMadFool

None, if it's applied in the right way for the right reasons.

Yes, I have purchased introductory books on how to play the piano and have learnt the notes and concepts like octave and scale etc. I always wanted to play the piano specifically, doing a couple of music classes when I was in early secondary school [around 13 years old] as part of extra-curricular activities they offered but because I was in and out of school and quite poor, I never got a chance to learn and later other priorities became, well, more important. I guess my reasoning behind learning now is because I feel it is never too late to learn anything and I am no longer there anymore and have the choice and the opportunity to learn. Why weep for the past when you can change the present? — TimeLine

That sounds right to me. If you want to do it, and you have the opportunity, go for it. If you keep at it, you'll make progress.

I appreciate and welcome your advice, there is not much to say in response to what you wrote as I will try and adopt the strategies you put forward and turn it into something habitual. — TimeLine

Try it and see what you think. Try applying a similar approach, at least once in a while, to the songs you learn, to the songs you write, to any musical structures you want to assimilate into your repertoire.

Well, I was once a dancer and recently I tried to dance on my own at my friend's studio but couldn't because of an injury. I cried my heart out when I tried dancing to Ben Howard' 'Small Things' as though the song was expressing the misery within that I wasn't aware of. If you know me, there is no chance of seeing me fall in the face of an injury, nothing stops me, but because I was listening to that song it effected me. I felt wonderful afterwards because I knew something was over, out, that my vulnerability was no longer controlling my inner 'movement' because 'small things' understood me. — TimeLine

Sounds like a very powerful experience. The sort of emotion you can channel into your art and into your whole life.

Perhaps it's never quite over till it's over: You can apply the insight you've gained through your past experience as a dancer to your present experience playing and composing music.

Does somebody die on the middle way? — Mongrel

Everybody dies along every way.

Good question. How would you put the meaning of legitimacy into your own words? — Mongrel

I'm not sure that putting it into my own words is a way of answering the question I indicated, which was a question about how other people have used the word, or its closest relations in other languages, across various cultural contexts.

As I've suggested, I haven't heard any generally applicable conception of "legitimacy" that I find philosophically satisfying, and I don't have one myself. I find talk in terms of legitimacy to be quite problematic until we take for granted -- for the sake of conversation, or with respect to something like a national constitution -- some more or less arbitrary characterization of the term.


Taken at face value, the word "legitimacy" suggests that something legitimate is something legal, something made or done in accordance with law. But many people seem to use the word to criticize the law itself, or to criticize institutions established, processes effected, or actions undertaken in keeping with the law.

We may distinguish accordingly: Legitimacy according to the law, legitimacy of the law. Legitimacy according to the government; legitimacy of the government. Legitimacy according to current institutions; legitimacy of current institutions.

In each case, judgment concerning the first sort of legitimacy is a technical matter, for lawyers, public advocates, and other special interests to wrangle over; while judgment concerning the second sort of legitimacy seems to implicate a set of norms held apart from the law (from the government, from current institutions), on the basis of which the law (the government, and current institutions) are criticized.

I suppose that superior set of norms may vary from one cultural context and from one critic to the next, but has in each case a moral and political character that may be analyzed or expressed in terms of values and principles of political organization, or of political justice in a broad sense.


If you mean to ask what values and principles of political organization do I personally consider most relevant to judgments about the legitimacy of laws, governments, and institutions, I’ve given some indication already, in this laundry list:

"justice", "liberty", "consent", "popular sovereignty", "prosperity", "pacificity", "humanity" — Cabbage Farmer

and I suppose we could add more terms to the list and discuss the meaning or relevance of any item in the present context.

After presenting a theory partially based on etymology, Nietzshe asks this question. He wants some academic scrutiny of his own method. — Mongrel

In what way was Nietzsche's theory "based on etymology"?

Was it his “theory” that was based on etymology, or only his interpretations of philosophical texts, or merely his own use of words and phrases?

What do you think? Can you give an example of proper use of etymology in philosophy? If not, anywhere? — Mongrel

A primary use of etymology in philosophy, or in any linguistic enterprise, is as a supplementary convention by which to guide the use of language: for instance, in selecting among words with nearly the same meaning in current usage, or in seeking a good fit for an unsatisfying or incomplete phrase.

Since some speakers, including many expert composers of philosophical texts through the ages, have aimed to align ordinary or technical speech with etymology, another use is as a guide in the interpretation of the speech of such speakers.

That exegetical task is complicated by the fact that different speakers, especially those from different times and places, may have disparate etymological resources at their disposal -- a difficulty a philologist like Nietzsche might hope to resolve.

A third use of etymology, as a sort of artist's heuristic: Take your own speech, or another's, and examine it etymologically, either a whole passage or just the most interesting turns of phrase. Let the results of the investigation stir up your thoughts, as prompts for further speaking.

I suppose some philosophers make such exercises more explicit in their writing than others.

How can we refute the following argument against the existence of animal minds? — jdh

The argument is vulnerable on many fronts. For example:

Homo sapiens are just one of millions of extant species of conscious animals. If you rank these species in descending order of overall intelligence, human beings rank at the very top of the list--out of millions, we're number one. — jdh

It's likely that at this early stage in your argument, you've begun to conflate "consciousness" and "intelligence", as if they mean the same thing. This becomes clearer as your argument proceeds.

The odds of me being a non-human animal seemingly far outweighed my chances of being a human. Nevertheless, I am a human. Since I am a human being, I appear to have won the lottery. I get to be smarter than every other species of animal that exists. — jdh

Here you seem to imply that intelligence is the only thing that makes human birth precious; this is contestable.

Since these odds are so unbelievable, can we question whether or not animal minds even exist? — jdh

Again it seems you've slid between "being intelligent" and "having a mind".

Moreover, I'm not sure this question makes sense, or what reasoning you're attempting to express by way of it. Perhaps this analogy makes the right point:

The odds are against me, defined abstractly as "a human", being born at the time and place I was in fact born; but in fact I was born there. This bit of abstract probabilistic thinking gives no reason to doubt whether other people are born in other times and places. Suppose further, that during my lifetime per capita income is higher where I was born than it is in all other places. This is no reason to suppose that per capita income is zero everywhere else.

Applying the logic you seem to have used against the existence of animal minds to this analogical case: It seems one would argue that, since it's so unlikely that I was born in the place with the highest per capita income, the per capita income everywhere else must be zero.

If animal minds don't exist, then we didn't actually come out on top. If animal minds are not real, we did not win a contest against all odds. — jdh

By now it's quite clear that you've conflated "being intelligent" and "having a mind".

More to the point, you've conflated "being less intelligent" with "having no mind".

Suppose one human is more intelligent than most others; this doesn't entail that the less intelligent others "have no minds".

The same reasoning applies to your argument.

The important question is: isn't it more likely that animal minds don't exist than that we won the lottery against all odds? — jdh

I don't think this is the important question. The whole argument should be redesigned or discarded.

I'm afraid to say it but math is or seems PERFECT. Yet we all know there can be no such thing as perfection. There's always a negative that comes with every positive.

My question then is:

Is mathematics flawless? — TheMadFool

Do you mean to distinguish a concept of perfection from a concept of flawlessness?

I'm not sure how I'd distinguish one from the other, and I'm not sure how to apply either term to particular cases without some arbitrary standard we might use to distinguish things called perfect or flawless in one respect from things that called imperfect or flawed in the same respect.

One such arbitrary standard leads us to say: Each thing is perfectly and flawlessly just what it is. I suppose this truism applies to mathematics as well as to anything else.

We might construct another arbitrary standard by specifying a range of the spectrum of visible light as "red", and carving out a small sub-range as "perfectly red", and on this basis distinguish perfect red, imperfect red, and not red.

But apart from the specification of some such standard or criterion, I'm not sure what it means to say a thing is "perfect", and I don't see how it helps the picture to substitute "flawless" for "perfect".

Most mathematical truths cannot be proved. The overwhelming majority of mathematical relations cannot be known. The overwhelming majority of numbers can't be represented. Only a tiny fraction of mathematical functions can be computed. — tom

tom's critique cuts right to the heart of a question about the limits of mathematics.

But to show the limits of a thing is not necessarily to show that it is "imperfect" in any given respect. The respect in which we're supposed to say whether "mathematics is flawless" has not yet been specified.

A chef's knife is good for cutting food, but not for cutting brick or steel, nor for heating or cooling water, nor for an infinite range of other purposes. Shall we call the knife "imperfect" or "an imperfect knife" on these grounds?

Should we assume that the "provability", "knowability", "representability", and "computability" you indicate are among the most relevant criteria according to which we might judge whether mathematics is "perfect" or "flawless"?

It doesn't guide us. For all practical purposes, you have acceptance of the world as it is unless you are actively seeking to change it or you have recently filled your pockets with stones so as to Virginia Woolf yourself into the river. — Mongrel

A stark characterization of the options. Accept the world as it is, act to change it, or act to reject it by annihilating oneself.

Is it even possible to live in the world without changing it? It may be there are only two options, not three. Then again, from a broad enough point of view, the last option is only a variation on the middle way.

Perhaps we should say there is only one option. The question is not whether we shall act to change ourselves and the world, but how. For that change is always ongoing.

The way you understand legitimacy is influenced by your metaphysical outlook. Are you a naturalist? A Christian? Are you a naturalist who smuggles in a medieval Christian view from time to time? My little essay on the history of the term was supposed to convey that. — Mongrel

That essay did a fine job of indicating the way in which norms associated with our concept of legitimacy have varied through the ages. But I wonder whether the word "legitimacy", or some very close term in translation, has always been used in every time and place, or if perhaps our concept doesn't necessarily map on to linguistic terms in every culture in the same way. Extending that line toward one extreme, I would suggest that we can employ our general concept of legitimacy to think about the tenure of an alpha male chimp, and his acceptance or rejection by the chimpanzee band he lords over; though of course the chimpanzees have no words at all for this feature of their psychosocial dynamics.

Moreover, I suppose "metaphysical" views are not the only relevant factors that determine differences in conceptions of legitimacy across cultural contexts. We might have similar views about metaphysics, while disagreeing about rights and justice, for instance.

His extreme pessimism comes out when he's asked to explain what positive steps he thinks the world should take. — Mongrel

It's one thing to be pessimistic about the prospects for humanity, and another to make claims like "human civilization is fundamentally evil".

I vaguely recall Vonnegut saying something about having become more pessimistic as he got older. I believe I've become more pessimistic with age, too. It might be there's a decade, or two or three, before the last stage of youthful disillusionment and the onset of full-grown pessimism.

But you know, anything's possible.

Our increasing pessimism could be a symptom of age, or it could be a sign of the times. Our expectations are based on what might turn out to be a short segment of history's whole trajectory.

Bill says his government has no legitimacy. — Mongrel

I'll assume that someone who says "This government has no legitimacy" thinks that in general there's good sense to talk in terms of "legitimacy".

This may skip over the point I was making, which you seem to think you are responding to here, that we could use other language to do the work that some of us allocate to the term "legitimacy".

He is fundamentally rejecting its normative influence. — Mongrel

Do you mean to say that Bill rejects the normative influence of "his government", or the normative influence of the concept of "legitimacy"? In keeping with the assumption I've just noted, I suppose you mean that Bill rejects the normative influence of his government.

What kinds of things have "normative influence"? What do they influence or have influence on?

What does it mean to say "this government has normative influence", and what does it mean to reject that claim?

Do you mean something like: If agent X "rejects the normative influence" of government G, then in X's considered view, the laws of G are not binding for X, have no normative value for X, but figure in X's normative outlook only as facts, such as the fact that X may be more or less likely to be caught and punished if X breaks the so-called laws of G?

Bill could:

1. Move to Alaska and live off the land. Lots of people do it. — Mongrel

Aren't there laws and a government in Alaska?

2. Stay and just whine all the time. But in this case, the whining is profoundly pointless because Bill has rejected any possibility of making things better. — Mongrel

Do you mean to suggest that the only alternatives to "rejecting any possibility of making things better" are indicated in (1) and (3), namely, doing one's best to get off the grid if that's still an option, or agreeing that the status quo "is legitimate" and working to improve it?

I'm not sure I understand the way you've set up the terms here. It seems to me we can deny the "legitimacy" of a government while aiming to change it instead of aiming to overthrow it. On what grounds do you rule out such an alternative?

3. Get a clue and realize that he does accept the imperfect government that stands over him (atrocities and all). Now pick an atrocity and try to do something to help. — Mongrel

What does "accept" mean here?

One might "accept" the fact of a flawed and imperfect electoral democracy, for instance -- accept it as a matter of fact just like gravity or the weather -- while calling it "illegitimate" and acting to reform it, without aiming to overthrow the government or change the constitution, without whining, without succumbing to apathy, and without throwing oneself into a river burdened with stones.

It sounds as if you think we must choose between rebellion, apathy in bad faith, and "acceptance of legitimacy". I'm not sure why.

That. Think of Gandhi. We stamp his name on a success that involved the actions of millions of people. Hitler.. same thing except it was a failure. — Mongrel

I agree it makes sense to say the actions of each individual contribute to future outcomes for that individual and for the communities in which he participates.

Each of us constantly changes himself and the whole world by existing. And it seems each of us has some say over how.

If you get that, then you have everything you need to get the OP. — Mongrel

I have the impression that we read the OP in two different ways.

How do we know whether to support or fight against X? A conservative says that a lot of the work has been done for us by history. The stuff that has survived the last few thousand years has shown itself to be worthy. — Mongrel

Does a conservative say that a look at history will settle the question of whether to "support or fight" any politician, institution, or political view? That seems a tenuous claim, though of course historical understanding helps to inform anyone's outlook along these lines.

Is it everything that "has survived the last few thousand years" that's worthy, or only some of it? How do we know which parts to preserve and which to amend? Is it even possible to maintain "the same" institutions given the inevitability of change in technology, economic activity, culture, and the whole social order? Isn't the attempt to maintain "the same" institutions over different cultural and material circumstances just another way of changing the institutions?

Suppose the antecedents to this society were "influenced by, produced by, and well-suited to their circumstances". That's one respect in which we may want to resemble those antecedents, one proven principle we may want to adopt as our own.

The consistent application of that principle would require that we change our institutions along with our circumstances. A failure to do so would render our present conduct out-of-line with tradition.

There is a fly in the ointment here, but most of the ointment is exceptionally wise. — Mongrel

Perhaps many flies.

Give the archetypal Conservative his/her due. We wouldn't be here without them. — Mongrel

Give everyone his due.

What position do we assign to the archetypal conservative here? If all he has to say is, we shouldn't change too much too fast, I'll sign up right away.

That doesn't tell us anything about what to change and what to conserve.

The point is, the mind organises sensations, perceptions and so on, according to judgements, reason and the like (spelling it out formally takes a lot of text). — Wayfarer

I'll agree that experience is always already organized. I’ll agree that a "manifold of sensation" is always already organized in perception. I'll agree that the organization of experience tends to be "rational", and is the basis of the rationality of sentient animals; and that human judgments and reasoning in one sense can but need not, and in another sense must, follow the tracks of experience.

I don't accept the implication that the organization of experience is in general the product of "judgments of the mind" or of "reasoning". But part of what's at issue here is our definition of terms like "judgment" and "reasoning".

Because this is the activity of the 'unknown knower' — Wayfarer

In what sense is the "organization of experience" the activity of "the unknown knower"? What do you mean by this phrase?

Do you mean to imply that each “mind" is an “unknown knower"? But here it seems we have already said a great deal about minds, as if we could know something or other about them. In what sense is the mind "unknown"? And to whom is the mind unknown? And who is it that is unacquainted with his own mind?

it is determinative of what we consider to be reality, — Wayfarer

Many things may be said to "determine" my judgment about whether it's snowing outside, including my mind, my eyes, my eyeglasses, my position relative to the window, the windowpane, the light outside, the light inside, and the weather.

If I close my eyes, I don't lose my mind, but I do lose the basis on which I sometimes use my mind to make judgments about the weather.

Accordingly, to all appearances, it seems that what "we consider to be reality" is determined by our minds as well as by other things.

which we instinctively believe to be external or 'other' to the mind. — Wayfarer

Do you mean that i) each subject has an instinct to believe it has a mind, and ii) the mind of each subject determines (independently of anything else?) what that subject "considers to be reality"; and iii) each subject has an instinct to believe that the reality determined and imputed by its mind is "external to" the mind it has an instinct to believe it has?

Above I’ve indicated that, as pertains to the unpacking of (ii), I see good reason to say “the mind determines our view of reality”, but no good reason to say “the mind, alone, determines our view of reality”.

Moreover, I see no reason to accept (i). For it seems to me that talk of "minds" is a sophisticated product of human culture, and I'm not sure what it might mean to say "each sentient animal has an instinct to believe it has a mind", as opposed to, for instance, "each sentient animal is at least minimally self-aware."

But if there is no such instinct as the instinct indicated in (i), then I'm not sure how to make sense of the claim in (iii), that each sentient animal has an instinct to believe that what it considers to be reality is "external" to its mind. For by my way of reckoning, the sentient animal, including the sentient human, may have no idea corresponding to our idea of "mind", and therefore it's not clear how to interpret the claim about an instinct in (iii). On the other hand, the sort of self-awareness I call reasonable to attribute to at least many sentient animals, would entail that each sentient animal has some understanding we might express in terms of a distinction between its own body and the rest of the world, and the latter may be called “outside” its body, while its body is called “inside” and “part of” the world.

In any case, I'm inclined to think that traditional talk about the world as "external" to the mind is confused, problematic, arbitrary, and far from instinctive or natural to creatures like us. On what grounds do you assign such instincts to all sentient beings?

There is a sense in which that is true, but another sense in which the very notion of 'external' is also in the mind! This is clearly spelt out in Schopenhauer's idea of 'vorstellung' which is why he himself said his philosophy was similar to that of the Upanisads. — Wayfarer

I recall the Germans in those days were increasingly influenced by their engagement with Eastern philosophy.

What's Schopenhauer's concept of "vorstellung", if it's relevant to our conversation?

In any case, I hope I've made clear the extent to which I agree that the relevant "notion of externality" is only "in the mind" of some thinkers, and otherwise a quite dubious notion.

As above. — Wayfarer

You have yet to make clear to me what you mean by "ontological distinction". Hopefully the line of questioning I've left above will help us closer to mutual understanding in this regard.

Notice you have to enclose 'being' in quotes in this sentence. — Wayfarer

What do you make of that typographical gesture?

As I recall, I put it in quotes because you seem to use the word quite differently than I do, and I wanted to signal the difference -- in particular, to emphasize that I was neither using the word in accordance with your usage, nor suggesting that you should refrain from using the word in your own way in our conversation.

Your use of the term is still opaque to me, along lines I've indicated, though it seems you apply “being”, “subject”, and “mind” to the same things, which for some reason you refuse to call “objects” even when they manifest in the experience of subjects.

Whereas for me "being" is practically synonymous with "entity", "thing", and the other terms I listed in that passage. I often defer to conventional usage in selecting from among synonyms, for instance in speaking of "sentient beings" and "human beings" instead of "sentient entities" and "human entities". But I don't mean to suggest anything special by that usage. The work of distinction in such phrases is performed by the terms "sentient" and "human", not by the term "being", which I'm content to apply to anything that's rightly said to exist.

that is because 'beings' are subjects of experience. In very simple beings, this is only present in rudimentary form, whereas in human beings, the nature of being itself can be reflected on. But inanimate objects are not beings, because they're not subjects of experience (although pan-psychism seems to argue that everything is a subject of experience, but I myself don't adhere to that view.) — Wayfarer

I suppose I could aim to restrict my usage so that when I say "being" in my conversations with you, the term always refers to something that is a "subject of experience" or "sentient entity".

What about things that are animate but not sentient, as I suppose plants may be, or other living things without nervous systems?

What is it that's "only present in rudimentary form" in "very simple beings"? I might agree that sentience, self-awareness, intelligence, objectivity, imagination, freedom... are less developed in some animals than in others, and that it seems such terms admit of varying qualities and degrees.

I suppose human beings can reflect on "the nature of being", either before or after they've decided what they mean by the phrase, or as part of the task of definition. It seems human beings are much better at "reflection" and "abstraction" than any other animal species we know; and that this opens us to a special domain of peculiarly human knowledge and confusion. It may be we're the only ones to reflect on "the nature" of anything. It seems that you and I are more or less in agreement in this one respect, while drawing rather different implications.

In these regions of our conversation, I always recall this passage from Plato's Theaititos:

But what about the power which makes clear to you that which is common to everything, including these things: that to which you apply the words 'is', 'is not', and the others we used in our questions about them just now? What is that power exercised by means of? What sort of instruments are you going to assign to all those things, by means of which the perceiving element in us perceives each of them? — Socrates, in Plato's Theaetetus (McDowell trans.)

// to be continued. — Wayfarer

I hope so.

I enjoy our exchanges and the pattern they weave over time. The similarities and differences in our vocabularies and in our views make for about as fruitful an exercise in philosophical conversation as I might hope for, not least because each of us seems eager to carry on in a spirit of goodwill, despite the difficulty of the task and the differences that turn up in the course of the exchange.

At issue is the relation of objects and subjects. — Wayfarer

While I'm still not clear on the meaning of your ontology, I'll register this agreement, that it's meaningful in general to speak about relations of "subjects" and "objects" of experience.

I see no reason to suppose that subjects cannot also be objects, as for instance, when a subject of experience takes itself as its own object, in what is sometimes called reflexive experience, reflexive consciousness, or introspective awareness. Or when one subject of experience sees that another subject of experience "is angry", "smells bread", "seems malnourished", "is about six foot three".

I see no reason to suppose that the things that enter as objects of experience into relations with subjects of experience exist only by virtue of being in such relations, and have no existence independent of such relations; though of course this is one conceivable possibility among others.

Likewise, though it's conceivable, I see no reason to suppose that the things that enter as subjects of experience into relations with objects of experience exist only by virtue of being in such relations, and have no existence independent of such relations. For instance, the same dog that sees me fetching the leash on one occasion, may on another occasion die in its sleep, and thus be, to all appearances, without any experience whatsoever, and no longer a subject, and no longer related to objects as a subject; but that thing may nevertheless be reasonably called "the same thing" that was till now a living dog and a subject of experience.

Humans are the subjects of experience, in a phenomenal domain, comprising objects, forces, other beings, and so on. — Wayfarer

I'm still not clear on the way the term "phenomenal domain" fits into the setting. Is it merely a logical term, for the logical domain of "objects of experience", or does it have some specific phenomenological significance, like the "perceptual field" in Merleau-Ponty's discourse? What does it add to, or remove from, the concept of "experience"?

Are all subjects of experience human beings? Are some nonhuman animals both subjects and beings? Are some non-animal things both subjects and beings? Is there a difference between a "subject", a "being", and a "mind"?

Do you mean to suggest that when "forces" and "other beings" are encountered in the experience (or phenomenal domain) of a subject, they are not rightly called "objects"? Is this another "ontological distinction"? Are there, in addition to subjects and objects, also “forces” and "other beings" which are neither subjects nor objects?

It's beginning to sound as though you mean to say that all beings are subjects and never objects, but some beings are encountered in the experience (or phenomenal domain) of other beings, along with objects and forces; that objects and forces are never beings or subjects; and that accordingly, although subjects are never objects, they do figure somehow in the experience of other subjects as "other beings".

And you're right about me confusing recursiveness and reflexivity - I mean the latter. My bad. — Wayfarer

I'm glad we've cleared up our use of these two terms, at least. Though it's long been clear that this is the sort of pattern you have in mind in this connection, no matter what words we've used. Some riddle of reflexivity, which after all is said by many to be a factor in logical paradoxes like the Liar and in enduring puzzles of self-reference, self-awareness, and self-knowledge in our tradition.

But I've never understood why you bring the riddle to bear in the way you do.

The principle I'm referring to is from the Upanisads, where there is a verse that says 'the hand can grasp another, but not itself. The eye can see another, but not itself. You cannot see the seer or know the knower.' I think a form of this principle is also found in Kant, in the idea of 'transcendental apperception'. I have always regarded it as a first principle. — Wayfarer

You do seem to make much of it, but I'm not sure I grasp the principles by which you apply the rule to particular cases.

I'd test our grasp of the rule itself, which in this form is rather poetically expressed and in need of unpacking to inform interpretation and to guide application to particular cases and contexts. For a feeling of awe at a riddle of reflexivity is not the same thing as a principle by which to clearly distinguish reasonable and unreasonable judgments about reflexivity in a given context.

A hand cannot grasp itself completely, but neither can it grasp a mountain, a sunbeam, a shout, or an hour completely. A hand does more than grasp: A hand can close upon itself, a hand can touch itself, feel itself, wet and dry itself, cut and salve itself, intertwine its fingers, and even clap without a partner....

Of course we can give the same treatment to similar poetic reflections on eyes, seers, and knowers. This is another turn of the wheel, another variation on the theme, another detour through the same path we travel every time you apply this "first principle" of yours in our conversations.

It happens so often, we might as well stick with it here, focus on this recurring thread and see where it leads us.

The distinction between hands is 'chirality'. — Wayfarer

That sounds perhaps tautological.

Do you mean to suggest that, if any non-ontological concept of a relation may be applied to two objects then there is no need for recourse to "ontology" in characterizing the difference between the two objects?

'Ontology' refers to 'the study of the meaning of being' - as distinct from the study of phenomena. — Wayfarer

I often prefer to translate the suffix "-logy" in terms of "discourse", "language", "account", "narrative", "story"... "logos".

Why do you say "meaning of being" instead of just "being"? The name "ontology" suggests a logos of being or beings. In what sense is it, instead, a logos of the meaning of beings?

Is this true in other cases as well? Is phenomenology the logos of phenomena, or the logos of the meaning of phenomena? Is biology the logos of life and the living, or the logos of the meaning of life and the living? And so on.

What's the difference between a "logos of being or beings" and a "logos of the meaning of being or beings"?

What is the relation between phenomena and beings? What is the relation between appearing and being?

I say that 'beings' are ontologically distinct from 'objects', which is why it is incorrect to designate objects as beings, or beings as objects. — Wayfarer

You have yet to say what an "ontological distinction" is supposed to be.

Do you mean, in this case, to say that if a thing is an object, or is rightly called an object, then that thing is not a being, or is not rightly called a being?

In what sense is an "ontological distinction" anything other than a definition of mutually exclusive terms? I might say that anything rightly called a lamppost is not rightly called chocolate pudding: Is this another example of an ontological distinction? What's called a left hand is not called a right hand, despite the fact that they are two hands, and roughly symmetrical, resembling and related to each other in many ways.

Beings generally are subjects of experience, which objects are not. — Wayfarer

Is this what you mean by "ontological distinction"? That there are two sorts of thing that exist, corresponding to two sorts of ways of existing, namely, existing as subject of experience, and existing as object of experience; and that a thing that exists in one of these two ways never exists in the other way; and that anything said to exist must be said to exist in one of these two ways?

Are there any other "ontological distinctions" in your language, or is this the only one? Perhaps I've read too much between the lines: Is there a third class, neither subject nor object; and perhaps a fourth, both subject and object? Or perhaps there are further "ontological distinctions" within each class, distinguishing different sorts of subject on the one hand, and different sorts of object on the other along “ontological” lines?

Are the rules of these distinctions axioms of your preferred "ontology", held to be self-evident by its advocates; or are these claims supported in some more explicit way?

How do the terms "being" and "existence" fit into this story about a distinction between subjects and objects? Do you say, both subjects and objects "exist", but only subjects "are"? Is "being" just a synonym for "subject"? So that if we ask about the being-in-general of objects, you will reply, they are not, but only exist; whereas subjects both are and exist?

A lot to respond to there! At this moment I'm commuting with an iPad so can only respond to just a few points but will come back again. — Wayfarer

I’m afraid my response is about as long this time around. A symptom of how much ground we'd have to cover to clear up our terms, sort out our agreements and disagreements, and begin to converse on the basis of such mutual understanding.

When I refer to the culture war of course I don't imply that I am at war wiith you, or anyone for that matter. It is a reference to what is see as the conflict between scientific materialism and traditional philosophy (to select two examples from a range of possibilities.) — Wayfarer

I'm glad to hear that you and I, at least, are at peace.

I'm not sure I would locate "traditional philosophy" in the culture war the way you have just now. It seems to me the discipline, and scholars and experts who are said to study and practice it, are enlisted on both sides, perhaps on every front of the conflict. Two experts in the political philosophy of Locke or Plato, for instance, might have conflicting views about these subjects and about politics in general. Philosophers are on both sides of the "culture war", much as climatologists are on both sides of the dispute about global warming; though there is far less consensus in philosophy than in climatology.

I've heard some people characterize the culture war in terms of an opposition between "naturalism" and "supernaturalism". I'm sympathetic to the spirit of that characterization, though I'm not sure I agree with the ordinary definition of these terms. For one thing, I'd want to either erase any implications about metaphysics from the distinction, or assign all metaphysical dogmas (including materialism) to the "supernatural" side. Or I might paraphrase the distinction in terms of a conflict between methodological naturalism and magical thinking, or something along these lines.

Steven Pinker's essay Why Science is not the Enemy of the Humanities, 2013, is an example of the kind of approach I'm arguing against. That often puts me in the company of philisophers of religion or at any rate critics of materialism (not all of whom are philosophers of religion.) — Wayfarer

It seems you and I are both critics of materialism, though for different reasons.

Is this the essay?

At a glance, it seems Pinker characterizes scientific activity as providing tools, methods, and results of investigation that can and should be used to inform discourse in what's called the humanities; promotes two ideals, that "the world is intelligible", and that "the acquisition of knowledge is hard"; and proposes a rehabilitation of the term "scientism" that aligns use of the term with the general character of scientific practice and worldview, instead of with practical and theoretical abuses of science.

Do you get something else from it, and what do you find objectionable in it?

At a quick skim the thread seemed alright to me. But I didn't catch this:

I had a temporary ban for saying something to the matter of "If one cannot see the long term benefits of geothermal energy production then one is either ignorant or can't see the woods from the trees." Which they took as a "personal insult". — Question

I could see someone making a case that this counts as an ad hominem attack. The argument would turn on interpretation of the phrases "cannot see" and "is... ignorant".

At least taken out of context here, the statement could be read as stating or implying that anyone who disagrees with the speaker is an ignorant fool (and not merely ignorant of the relevant facts).

It might also be called question-begging, if assessment of "long term benefits" is part of what's at issue in the disagreement among interlocutors.

Putting these two charges together, the prosecutor might aim to characterize the statement as having the form: "Anyone who rejects premise p is a fool", and as implying something like "Anyone who doesn't agree with me about the long-term benefits is too dumb to make sense of the sources cited in this thread."


I'm sure that's not at all what you meant. It seems a close call at most, and a severe policy that would ban a speaker solely on the basis of that one sentence. But I might agree it falls in, or at least approaches, a fuzzy boundary in which appropriate speech and inappropriate ad hominem speech are hard to tell apart.

The reason we might not want to claim that this is false legitimacy is that if we dream of some correction, some alteration, some advancement toward the ideal, those dreams will require some accepted institutions. — Mongrel

Right. We can't be too idealistic, and aim to reject, instead of improve, each and every imperfect institution.

How does that pragmatism guide us in defining terms like "acceptance", "tolerance", and "legitimacy" in this conversation?

One would only abandon legitimacy altogether if one is adopting a late-Chomskyesque attitude: that all human civilization is fundamentally evil. I don't know where on the political spectrum that attitude lies, but it's in a zone of complete irrelevance. — Mongrel

It's hard for me to imagine what a speaker as sober as Chomsky might mean by a statement like "all civilization is fundamentally evil." Can you expand on this attitude and its place in Chomsky's late thoughts? Is it somehow connected to "anarchosyndicalism" or to "left libertarianism"?

What do you mean by "abandon legitimacy"? The phrase could mean: Abandon talk of legitimacy, for instance if we found the term to be fundamentally redundant or ungrounded; perhaps replacing talk of legitimacy with talk in other terms for about the same purposes. For instance, we might use terms like "justice", "liberty", "consent", "popular sovereignty", "prosperity", "pacificity", "humanity"... to evaluate institutions in ways that align with our current use of the term "legitimacy".

That's fine. As I said: it's not saying anything startling, but it's certainly not saying anything ridiculous either. — Mongrel

I agree that the argument attributed to Marquez by Kazuma is not startling, and that it employs some useful concepts.

I spent of lot of years thinking about how everything one says and thinks contributes to bigger successes and failures. — Mongrel

Do you mean that all the speech and other action of an individual contributes to his future successes and failures?

Or that all the speech and other action of each individual contributes to the future successes and failures of that individual, as well as of the communities in which he participates, including the community we call "humanity" and the community we call "all sentient beings"?

Or something else?

I think all governments are basically democratic (granted I was camping in the woods at the time.) — Mongrel

I'm not sure what it means to say that "all governments are basically democratic".

I'm inclined to agree that popular sovereignty seems essential to human nature and human communities, much as it seems essential to chimpanzee nature and chimpanzee communities. This may cease to be the case given the advance of technology. Consider, for instance, Brzezinski's (often misinterpreted) remark that it's recently become easier to kill than to control a million people.

I'd also agree that there seems to be something like an oscillation between oligarchy and democracy in human communities and societies. Typically monarchy is a form of oligarchy: A king with no supporters is no king at all.

The de facto oscillation between oligarchy and democracy continues in a formal hereditary monarchy, just as it does in a formal electoral democracy.

In fact the OP isn't so much presenting an argument as simply laying out how conservatives see the world. — Mongrel

Perhaps some conservatives do think along those lines.

If any such advocate understands the significance of the argument in the way that you and I seem to, I might call him a "marketing strategist for the oppressors" instead of a "conservative".

Could an institution be oppressive and endure? Couple of answers:

1. For a while, yes. If that's happening it could be because there is no known alternative or people perceive that the alternative isn't something they can choose — Mongrel

Another option: The people don't perceive themselves as oppressed.

This can mean something like: The proportion of people in the population who consider themselves, or who consider "the people", to be oppressed is insufficient to support a successful rejection of the status quo.

Another option: The people anticipate that the cost of oppression is not high enough to merit the likely costs and risks associated with potential attempts to reject the status quo.

I suppose considerations like these are relevant in assessing "perception of legitimacy" and "de facto threshold of intolerability".

But where that's happening the situation is unstable. It's like an ailing machine that will clunk along until some critical point is reached and the machine falls apart. — Mongrel

I'm not sure this must be the case. It seems perhaps optimistic to say so.

I'd want to add to the scenario something about sufficiently many people being sufficiently dissatisfied with the conditions associated with their oppression. In that case we might do away with concept of oppression in the equation, and just say "when sufficiently many people are sufficiently dissatisfied with the status quo, the people tend to reject the status quo". Now say something about how perception of oppression is one of the things that leads to dissatisfaction; and something about how "dissatisfaction" is a motive, or is correlated with motives, for action.

Then we might say: As increasing dissatisfaction increases the motives for action aimed at rejecting the status quo, the situation tends to be increasingly unstable....

2. Looking at the question a different way, any institution might occasionally be afflicted by oppressiveness, corruption, immorality... what have you. Yet acceptance exists and that acceptance is real. — Mongrel

This is perhaps my biggest problem in the line of thinking attributed by Kazuma to Marquez: What counts as, what is entailed by, what is ruled out by, "actual acceptance"? For if all this phrase means is that the status quo has not been to date successfully rejected, it means hardly anything at all, apart from "endurance". Specifically, do Kazuma or Marquez mean to distinguish "actual acceptance" characterized as endurance (or more specifically as the state of not having been successfully rejected), from "normative acceptance" characterized as expressed acceptance (or perhaps as the absence of expressed rejection)?

Consider a case in which

i) most of the people complain about the status quo, say it's bad, wish things were otherwise, profess a desire for change, profess a willingness to act to reject the status quo if only the costs of such action were not so high, or if only they saw a reliable means to that end; and

ii) many of the people do act, and others have acted, toward that very end with the same express motives, but this activity has not, to date, succeeded in rejecting the status quo.

Is this, according to Kazuma or Marquez, a case in which the status quo is "actually accepted" and "factually tolerated"?

I'm not comfortable calling that a state of de facto "acceptance" or "tolerance". Compare: the "tolerance" of a body gradually poisoned to death by lead or gold. The "threshold of tolerance" beyond which a man at last cries out under the whip.

Of course not all cases are like that one. In some cases there is "real acceptance", as you say. The question is, how do we distinguish the cases, how do we define "actual acceptance"?

Did you not speak in those terms? — Mongrel

In the context you cited, I used those terms to paraphrase a passage supplied by Kazuma, in an attempt to show how "strained" I found the passage.

Consider the original context of the paraphrase:

1. The endurance of basic institutions* is in part a function of their 'factual' legitimacy, i.e., their actual actual acceptance by the population they regulate (in other words, endurance and factual legitimacy are correlated). — Kazuma

Is this definition in common use? To me it seems quite strained.

As if one were to say, the "factual legitimacy" of oppression and coercion consists in the persistence of oppression and coercion. Or, the "factual legitimacy" of an act of aggression consists in the victory of the aggressor. — Cabbage Farmer

I thought the absurdity of the statements in the paraphrase might shed some light on the significance of the original passage (pushing especially on the role of "actual acceptance" in that passage). I continued commenting in this manner with analogies to lying and strangling.

Perhaps that way of proceeding was too flippant or unclear.


I'm confused by talk of "legitimacy" in general, and also by some ways of talking about "rights". "Perception of legitimacy" and "(actual) threshold of tolerability" seem less troublesome.

The line of thinking cited and attributed to Marquez by Kazuma is even harder for me to fathom than most talk about legitimacy. For it seems to characterize "factual legitimacy" as if the fact that a population has not successfully overthrown its government, or not successfully rejected an institution, should be identified with the population's de facto "tolerance" of the government or institution, and "correlated" with the de facto "legitimacy" of the government or institution. This strained alignment of terms is used to support claims about the correlation of "actual endurance" and "normative" principles.

Admittedly, the strengths of the proposed correlations are diluted with phrases like "in part the function of" and "there is some connection"; and it seems the argument aims to establish merely that "actual endurance" provides some evidentiary support, not conclusive support, for claims about a vaguely construed relation between the endurance and "normative legitimacy" of institutions.

I'm inclined to resist the whole line of thinking, despite the mollifying effect of that vagueness.