All philosophical problems are linguistic in nature — StreetlightX

This is precisely the point I am disputing with Pseudonym

Define 'decision' without begging the question — Pseudonym

A decision is a commitment to a course of action based on a consideration of alternate courses of action. A determinist would say that before this process begins, the commitment is predetermined. I would deny that. There is no question begging on either side.

Define a 'line of action' without assuming cause and effect. — Pseudonym

There is no need for me to avoid assuming that effects follow from adequate causes to maintain my position, nor is the determinist required to do so. However, I am happy to comply with your request: A "line of action" is a continuous sequence of events.

Define what it means for something to be 'possible' without presuming either determinism, or some arbitrary constraints. — Pseudonym

To be possible means that the contrary is not necessary.

I don't think we even agree what it is to 'understand' a thing. — Pseudonym

I will be happy to consider your definition and tell you whether I find it acceptable or not.

There's no such resort with philosophy, hence it is entirely wrapped up in the understanding of language. — Pseudonym

OK, let's take an old saw as an example: Free Will. Of course compatibilists will say that we simply do not understand what it is to be free, but really, that's not the issue. To see this we can avoid the word "free" altogether. The position I take is that at a decision point many, mutually incompatible, lines of action are equally possible. A determinist will say that only one line of action is actually possible. We each understand our terms in the same way. So, language is not the issue.

I seems to me that the role of philosophy is provide a consistent framework for understanding our experience of reality. Occasionally, we misstate what we experience or what we think about our experience, so understanding language can be useful, but it does not get at the central issue of forming a conceptual, and not a linguistic, framework.

Perhaps the fixation on language is an outcome of the 14th c turn away from moderate realism to nominalism.

Where does science fit in this? ... Event experimental setup requires a good deal of creativity and reason. — Marchesk

Of course, science must use intellect, because science is a human activity and humans understand the world by the use of intellect. Still, that does not mean that scientists (as a whole) are all that self-reflective in their use of intellect.

I have written a number of times recently about the fundamental abstraction of natural science. While every act of knowing involves both a knowing subject and a known object, at the beginning of natural science a conscious methodological decision is made to focus on the known object to the exclusion of the knowing subject. As natural scientists, we care about what Galileo saw through his telescope, not about his experience as a knowing subject in seeing it. As a result, the natural sciences leave data on the knowing subject on the table -- excluded from their area of concern. Being bereft of data on the knowing subject, it cannot link what it does know about the objective world of physics to what it does not know about the knowing subject. Thus, the natural sciences are methodologically unequipped to devise theories of consciousness or to discuss intentional realities such as the operations of intellect and will.

Thank you for the reference.

I reject the Thomistic thesis that the intellect can only know universals, which I see, not as Aristotelian, but as Neoplatonic. Aristotle's thesis is that science deals with universals, not particulars. The confusion arises because scientia means both science and knowledge. So the Latin text of Aristotle can be read to mean that intellectual knowledge is only of universals (as stated by Brennan in your quotation).

The problem is that unless both individuals and universals can be recognized by the same faculty, we can't form judgements linking them. We cannot think (an intellectual operation) <This is (universal)>, because (in the Thomistic view) "this" is not an idea, and therefore not something the intellect can grasp, while the universal predicated of "this" can't be represented at the sensory level.

The difficulty can be resolve simply, by identifying the agent intellect with awareness (as I do) and noting that we can be aware of both an object as a unified whole (ousia, substance) and as having various universalizable features or notes of intelligibility. So, in my view, first we become aware of objects as wholes, and then, by abstraction, we dissect them into universal concepts. So, wen we think <this is (universal)> we mean that the "this" we are aware of is the identical object that evokes the universal concept. Both subject and predicate are grasped by the same faculty, but in different modes -- fixing our attentions either on the whole or on a specific note of intelligibility.

Whereas, in consequence of nominalism, which was in many respects the precursor to empiricism, this distinguishing characteristic of the ‘faculty of reason’ is generally no longer recognised, with considerable consequences for modern philosophy of mind and especially theory of meaning. — Wayfarer

Which is why modern defenders of the irreducibly of consciousness fix on qualia and not on the actualization of intelligibility by the intellect.

Do you reject that there are neural mechanisms behind word formation in the brain that have something to do with understanding word meaning? — Marchesk

Of course not. I see the mind as composed of two subsystems: (1) a neural processing subsystem (the brain), and (2) an intentional subsystem that provides awareness and direction (intellect and will).

Does anyone disagree that many words are conceptual? — Marchesk

There are people who believe there is a "language of thought." I reject the notion because it leads to an infinite regress.

Right, but I'm unclear as to the difference between names and concepts in this debate. — Marchesk

It reflects what is thought primary, words or ideas. If you think that ideas are merely words we speak internally, then you are more likely to be a nominalist. If you think ideas are more fundamental, and words merely express them, then you're more likely to be a conceptualist.

clearly there are differences between dogs and cats, while there are similarities among dogs unique to dogs. — Marchesk

Yes, that is why I'm a moderate realist. Perhaps there is a nominalist on the forum that would like to provide a stronger defense of his/her position.

Nominalism says universals are only names, with no foundation in reality. Conceptualism says they are only concepts, with no foundation in reality.

If the only universal things are names, then they exist, but only as conventional signs -- as human inventions.

Unless there is something real to connect universal ideas/concepts to their instances, there is no reason not to call anything by any universal name. For example, I can decide to call my dog a cat, while I call yours a turtle.

Rather, Aristotle's universals are multiple-realizable entities that exist only insofar as they are instantiated in a substance. — darthbarracuda

How is this different from what I said? I suppose that you could think that the universals actually exist in individuals, but Aristotle is quite clear that this is not the case. If you read De Anima iii he is quite clear that objects are merely intelligible until the agent intellect (which I see as awareness) makes them actually known. Thus, while the potential to be universally understood is found in individual substances, actual universals are found only in the mind.

Perception is the mind's impressions of substances, akin to how pressing your thumb into a piece of clay creates an impression of your thumb in the clay. Aristotle's mind is thus a model of substances. — darthbarracuda

The idea of a model misses a critical point in Aristotle's analysis of both sensing and knowing. That point is the dynamic inseparability of sensed and sensor, and of known object and knowing subject. Aristotle points out that the single act of sensing actualizes two separate potentials: the sensibility of the object and the capacity of the sense to be informed. Stated in a different way, the object being sensed by the sensor is (identically) the sensor sensing the object. In a more contemporary projection, the sensible object's modification of our nervous system is (identically) our neural representation of the sensible object.

The same is true of knowing: the single act of awareness actualizes both the object's intelligibility and the intellect's capacity to be informed. Thus, in both the sensory and intellectual aspects of perception, there is an inescapable identity that "modelling" misses entirely. Our knowledge of the object is not a model of the object, but the object itself informing us. Thus, Aristotle avoids the cognitive gap found in modern philosophy.

If universals in the mind reflect reality, then doesn't that mean reality does, in fact, have real universals? — darthbarracuda

No, it means that it has potential universals. The distinction of potency and act is a powerful weapon in Aristotle's intellectual arsenal, and be wields it against innumerable problems.

I hope this helps.

Nominalism theories deny universals and they say particulars can have predicates or group under some category. This is tough for me to understand. — Vipin

Nominalism is tough to understand because it is inadequate. We don't assign the term "strong arms" to Alfred and Tom, by fiat as nominalists seem to think. We assign the term because Alfred and Tom in fact have strong arms.

Moderate Realism, the theory of Aristotle and Aquinas among others, rejects both Platonic Ideals, and the view that universals are merely names or concepts. It takes the middle ground by saying (against Plato) that there are no actual universals outside of thinking minds, but (against nominalists and conceptualists) there is a foundation in reality for our universal concepts.

When we see Alfred, we can mentally separate many features ("notes of intelligibility") he has. Say he's male, lanky, blond, and has strong arms. Each of these features becomes an idea when we become aware of them. <Male>, <lanky>, <blond> and <strong arms> are all ideas evoked by Afred's reality. When we see Tom, the idea <strong arms> is also evoked, showing that it applies to more than one individual, and hence is universal. In each case, the idea is invoked because the individual in question actually has the corresponding feature or note of intelligibility.

Thus, universals are not just names or concepts, they reflect reality. That reality is not a Platonic Idea or Divine Exemplar, but features or notes intelligibility in individuals that have the objective capacity to evoke the same, universal idea. Thus, universals do not depend on arbitrary naming conventions or set assignments. Universal names express our experience that many individuals elicit the same idea, and they apply not only to individuals we have encountered, but to any and all individuals with the objective capacity to evoke the same idea (with the same notes of intelligibility).

So to get your conceptual bearings, the opposite of 'nomialism' is usually said to be 'realism'. — StreetlightX

Yes, but realism need not be the extreme realism of Plato. it can be the Aristotelian or Thomistic moderate realism explained above.

I used to hold the private belief that I was neither my body nor my brain, but an immutable attachment to my mind, which I called "consciousness." — HuggetZukker

But, in fact, you are a unity. You are neither a body/brain alone, nor consciousness alone, but a person who can act both physically and intentionally. You have a metabolism, can move and act in the world, can know and can will. The fact that we abstract different concepts from the one person does not make that person any less a unity than conceiving of a ball as rubber and as spherical makes means it has a rubber part and a spherical part.

"Why am I me instead of someone else? — HuggetZukker

This has no specific answer. It is merely a singular, contingent fact of reality that you are you and not me. If you ask, "Why do I exist?" the question can mean two things. One is why am I me? The rational answer is that "I am me" i simply a tautology, and so not reducible to anything more fundamental than the principle of identity ("Whatever is, is.") They other interpretation of the question is: "What maintains me in being?" The rational answer to that question looks at contingency and necessity, or potency and actualization, and leads to the existence of a necessary being or pure act.

Science and philosophy deal with universals, not with singular facts. So, when you ask "Why is this not that?" the only answer is that that is what our contingent experience of reality tells us. But, when you ask a question which is not about singularity, but has a universal aspect, it is rational to expect science and/or philosophy to have something to say in response.

it disturbed me that I could never know whether anyone else had a spectator inside them: Anyone other than me, I thought, might be a philosophical zombie. — HuggetZukker

Of course we can know that other people ate not zombies, but we can only know it with human knowledge and not with God-like certitude. Almost every bit of knowledge we base our daily lives on is knowledge by analogy. Even in applying scientific principles, we use analogical thinking. The new situation to which we apply our science is never exactly the same as any previous situation, and so we have to rely, not on exact replication, but on the fact that the new situation is analogous to those we have dealt with before.

So it is with other minds. Unless you are mentally ill, you recognize that other people are analogous to yourself, and as your deliberate acts reflect your intellect and will, so do theirs.

It had never before occured to me that my unshakable belief could be construed as belonging to the realm of superstition. — HuggetZukker

I would point out that there were two parts to your belief, One is the experience of being a knowing subject in the subject-object relation we call "knowing." That is no superstition, but a datum to be preserved in our reflections about mind, consciousness and personhood. The other part is a construct you added, unsupported by experience, that you are somehow separate from your body. As with my earlier example of the rubber ball, the fact that we can form distinct ideas does not mean that we are thinking of separate "things." "Body" and "mind" are the names we give to different aspects of the same person.

It was known, before Descartes, that if your brain was damaged (say by a mace blow) that your mind won't work right. So, Descartes's dichotomy between body and mind was ill conceived, even at the time. That does not mean that the mind is simply a matter of neural data processing, for it is not. Still, the contents/information we are aware of depend on neural data processing.

I am only made of my physical self, which is undergoing constant change, meaning I'm basically a new me every day. — HuggetZukker

Materialists are inclined to base identity and being made of the same "stuff." Of course, that is not the basis of personal identity. Identity is more about the continuation of the same, identifiable process. even if every atom in my body were replaced over the course of my life, I am still the same person I was when I was born, because a single life process links the present me to my infant, even zygote, self. So, while I am evolving and maturing, I am not "new" everyday. I am the continuation of my same self.

There's no eternal self, and probably no sharp line to draw between conscious and unconscious. — HuggetZukker

That there is no "eternal" you is as much a faith position as your previous construct. Your account offers no rationale for this belief.

And, there is a very sharp line between being conscious and not. It was drawn by Aristotle inDe Anima iii. What awareness does, that noting else does is make what was merely intelligible, what was only knowable, actually known. There is a huge difference between having and processing information and knowing information, and that difference is bridge when we become aware of (conscious of) intelligibility.

Now you may say that consciousness is "emergent," or that it is "breathed into us by God." There is no operational difference between these views. What is clear is that awareness, by making the merely intelligible actually known, transforms information from being latent in the physical world to being active in the logical order -- and that transformation is not within the competence of physics to explain, because physics has nothing to say about logical entities,

If that is not your position, then can you explain to me the principles whereby you class an act as either physical or intentional. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have repeatedly. You refuse to accept what I tell you or offer a sound reason to reject it.

your position is to assume a dichotomy between physical acts and intentional acts — Metaphysician Undercover

I have already told you many times that this is not my position. Time spent in trying to make you understand my position is time wasted. I'm not wasting any more of my time.

The physicalist claims that if an action can be described without reference to intention, it is not an intentional act (P1) — Metaphysician Undercover

This is not my position.

Intention is not observable, so when any act is described it is not necessary to include intention. — Metaphysician Undercover

This is false on two points. (1) We observe purely intentional acts such as knowing and willing by introspection, so they are observable. They are not intersubjectively observable, it is true, but that is of no epistemological consequence. (2) As acts such as knowing, willing, believing, and hoping can be defined without reference to matter, they are not intrinsically physical. Thus, they are intrinsically intentional.

any act can be described without reference to intention. — Metaphysician Undercover

False.

I certainly agree that, since the laws of nature are intentional, all physical acts, which are guided by those laws, are intentional wrt to God. They are not all intentional with respect to finite minds.

So, just to be clear, I do not see physical acts as lacking intentionality. That they have intentionality was my whole point in beginning this thread. Still, pure intentional acts are not physical acts.

I'm not physicalist, so I would not describe you "knowing that God exists" in a physicalist way. The point is, that a physicalist would describe it in that way. — Metaphysician Undercover

I presume you are not a physicalist because you, like me, see the errors of physicalism. Therefore, it is absurd to rest your case on a position we both agree is defective.

The physicalists produce this description on the this forum quite commonly. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not a physicalist. Are you? The rest of your paragraph wanders aimlessly, not responding to my question. "How would you describe my knowing that God exists physically?"

I believe that all the activities of living beings have an intentional aspect, because intention is inherent within the "soul", which all living things have in common, as the source of all their activities. — Metaphysician Undercover

As Aristotle notes, the soul is the actuality of a potentially living being. While some of our acts are intentional, the mere fact that an act is our does not make it intentional. Your "logic" is rather like saying that since a paint factory can produce black paint, all its paint must be black.

So I believe that any description of the activity of a living being requires reference to intention in order to be a complete description of that activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

All human thought, and all of the language that expresses it, fails to be exhaustive. That does not prevent us from making valid distinctions based on our power to abstract.

What I think, is that in general, all the activities of living things display this "aboutness" which you refer to. — Metaphysician Undercover

Fine. Most of the rest of us do not see that.

I think I have spent enough time with you on this.

We can describe any intentional act as a physical act, simply by excluding the aboutness from the description. — Metaphysician Undercover

Really? How would you describe my knowing that God exists physically? Note that if you remove what my knowledge is about, you fail to specify what knowledge you are discussing. If I say moving my leg is local motion of a lower extremity, I have lost no content.

Also, I have no idea what you think a leg spasm is "about"?

This is what physicalists, materialist, and determinists do, they exclude intention from the description of the act, and from that description without intention, they claim intention is irrelevant to the act. — Metaphysician Undercover

As I said, some acts are intentionally done, others not. Or are you thinking that all acts reflect Divine Intent?

Without any hard principles whereby one could distinguish a physical act from an intentional act in the first place, and then describe the act accordingly, the distinction is meaningless. — Metaphysician Undercover

But I have specified the defining characteristics. Intentional acts are characterized by being about something. Physical acts are characterized by change.

I don't see how you can make this claim. To go from not thinking "pi" to thinking "pi", involves a change. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have addressed this already. Not thinking of pi is not an aspect of thinking of pi.

his crystalline text calved off the larger movement of your thinking. — tim wood

I take no credit for it. It is a standard Scholastic/Thomist position.

It endures (a function performed without matter?). So you call the rock spiritual? — tim wood

No, the rock could not endure absent its matter. If you destroyed its matter, the rock would no longer endure.

The rock is real. But it doesn't seem right to reckon the rock an "aspect" of reality. — tim wood

I would call it "a substance" or "a thing" because it is an ostensible unity. I generally say "aspect" when I'm talking about realities that are not things.

I think endurance is an aspect of reality. Is endurance independent of matter? — tim wood

The concept <endurance> abstracts away matter, but instances of endurance depend on matter, because it is the contrary of inconstancy -- which implies the possibility of change and change entails matter.

Is (the) endurance spiritual? — tim wood

One can have spiritual endurance. Still, that is because of trials found in the material world. It is maintaining one's spiritual commitments in the face of trial.

Well argued.

Could you give me an example of a human physical act which is not about something else? — Metaphysician Undercover

Moving my leg is a physical act. It may or may not serve a purpose It may doe example be the result of a spasm. Bit, even if it did serve a purpose, that would not make it an intentional act in the sense Im using the term. Why? Because there is no need to include the purpose served in defining the act. It is the local motion of a lower extremity -- perhaps specified by the time and place of occurrence. On the other hand, you cannot define a belief or a hope without saying what is believed or hoped for..

If there is an "act" which does not involve change in any essential way, how can this be said to be an "act" without contradiction? To act is to do something, and this implies change. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, in general act does not imply change. My thinking <pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to is diameter> involves no intrinsic change. Neither does my acting like a statute. Indeed, to the extent that I am moving, I'm not acting like a statue.

Take your example, "I know pi is an irrational number". Unless there is a change between the state of not knowing that pi is an irrational number, and knowing that pi is an irrational number, which is essential to the difference between these two, we cannot say that knowing pi as an irrational number, is an act. — Metaphysician Undercover

Note that you had to add something the was not only outside of the act of knowing, but its contrary to knowing in trying to make your point. Nothing intrinsically includes its contrary. So, your argument fails. Being aware is an act that involves no intrinsic change.

Isn't it the case that many physical acts are intentional? — Metaphysician Undercover

The motivation for a physical act is not the act. Some physical acts are intentionally motivated, others are not. The difference is that intentional acts is characterized by "aboutness." They are about something beyond themselves -- a goal to be attained or hoped for, something we know or believe and so on. Physical acts are characterized by motion and change: parts moving and transforming into other parts.

And, aren't all intentional acts physical because we cannot conceive of non-physical activity? — Metaphysician Undercover

We cannotimagine not physical activity. We have no trouble conceiving it. I know pi is an irrational number. There is no change involved in my knowing it per se. Any change is only accidentally associated with it.

How could an act be non-physical? — Metaphysician Undercover

By not involving change in any essential way.

Don't you find this distinction to be very impractical? — Metaphysician Undercover

No.

But what does orthogonality itself mean? They are two non-overlapping directions branching from some common origin. — apokrisis

When I say that two concepts are orthogonal, I mean that they do not share notes of intelligibility. So, they are not species of a single genus. If there is a common origin it is the null concept -- i.e. ignorance.

So that is the secret here. If we track back from both directions - the informational and the material - we arrive at their fundamental hinge point. — apokrisis

Not in terms of intelligibility which has to do with essence (specification). What thye have in common is existence, and we can trace it to God as its Source.

This is what physics is doing in its fundamental Planck-scale way. It is showing the hinge point at which informational constraint and material uncertainty begin their division. — apokrisis

There is no reason to think that things are ontologically indeterminate at Plank scales, only that our concepts break down -- which is an epistemological, not an ontological, problem.

We can measure information and entropy as two sides of the one coin — apokrisis

Actually we can't measure anything -- that is the epistemological problem.

biophysics is now doing the same thing for life and mind. — apokrisis

No, it's not. There is no naturalistic model of consciousness and no hint of one.

Finding the scale at which information and entropy are freely inter-convertible — apokrisis

You are confusing information as a logical concept with entropy which is a property of physical states. Entropy does not need to be known to play its role. information does. The fact that they share a common mathematical framework does not make them any more identical than apples and oranges. They also share a common math -- we can count them both.

That lack of a physicalist explanation has been the source of the mind/body dilemma. — apokrisis

No. Thinking that there is a physicalist explanation is the fundamental error -- as I showed in my discussion of the fundamental abstraction.

What is constraint except the actualising of some concrete possibility via the suppression of all other alternatives? — apokrisis

Constraint is not actualization. It is the reduction of (physical - not logical) possibility.

So intellect and will are just names that you give to the basic principle of informational or semiotic constraint — apokrisis

No, they are not. They do different things. So the difference here is ontological, not semantic.

fully articulated thoughts take time to form. — apokrisis

If thoughts took a nanosecond or an eon to form the problem would be the same. We can have determinate ideas for which there are no words. That is why language grows. New concepts require new words.

Then - like all motor acts — apokrisis

Ideogenesis is not a "motor act." It is the actualization of intelligibility. No movement can explain it. I suggest you read Dennett's misnamed Consciousness Explained. In it he shows why naturalistic assumptions are incompatible with the data of consciousness -- effectively falsifying naturalism wrt mind.

when thinking in the privacy of our own heads, we don't actually need to speak out loud. — apokrisis

Nor do we need to "speak" to ourselves. That is why we can have thoughts we lack the words to express.

The inner voice may mumble — apokrisis

Mumbling is having the words, but not enunciating them clearly. It does not explain lacking the words.

So you want to make this a case of either/or. Either thought leads to speech or speech leads to thought. — apokrisis

No. I'm pointing out which is more fundamental. Sure there are cases where words spark thought -- but they are derivative, not fundamental.

Homo sapiens is all about the evolution of a new grammatical semiotic habit. — apokrisis

Thank you for the faith claim.

Making up new rules or rule extensions can be part of that game. — apokrisis

Read what you wrote. If the rules constrain thought, we are constrained from making up new rules. So your theory is incoherent.

In your dreams you have — apokrisis

I do not need to convince you. I only need to make a sound case.

Get it right. Generalisation is the induction from the particular to the general. For an associative network to achieve that, it has to develop a hierarchical structure. — apokrisis

So how does that make it the same as abstraction -- which requires awareness?

But that is still a dualistic way of expressing it. — apokrisis

Yes, and inescapably so, because we have two orthogonal (non-overlapping) concepts. Such concepts cannot both indicate the same aspect of reality -- the same notes of intelligibility.

The scientific question is how to actually model that functional unity — apokrisis

"Scientific" in the old sense that includes philosophical analysis, not in the modern sense of being in the domain of natural science. My discussion ot the fundamental abstraction shows why this is so.

That said, I do have a model, discussed at length in my book, and in more popular form in my video "#21 The Two Subsystem Mind" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWuS8DXc1l0).

I say this has been answered in the life sciences by biosemiotics. Howard Pattee's epistemic cut and Stan Salthe's infodynamics are formal models of how information can constrain material dissipation or instability. — apokrisis

But intellect and will do far more than "constrain material dissipation or instability." They have the power to actualize intelligibility and to make one of a number of equally possible alternatives actual while reducing the others to impossibility.

these are just different ways of spelling out some word. — apokrisis

No, they are not. The are ways of encoding the same information in irreducibly different media -- thus showing that information is invariant with respect to differences in the physical properties of its material substrate.

So the analysis has to wind up back at the question of how human speech functions as a constraint on conceptual uncertainty. — apokrisis

This is just backwards. Thought is temporally and logically prior to its linguistic expression. If this were not so, we would never have the experience of knowing what we mean, but not finding the right words to express it. If we only thought in terms of existing language, we would never need to coin new words. And so, language itself would never have come into existence -- for it began when our ancestors first expressed their thought in protowords and found them understood.

So "information" in the widest sense is about both the interpretation and the marks together — apokrisis

...

So given that any semantics depends on material marks - meaningfulness couldn't exist except to the degree that possible interpretations are actually limited by something "solid" — apokrisis

And where does thought not expressed in marks or sounds fit into your theory? I have just shown its priority, but it finds no place in your model.

As physical marks, that can be intentionally expressed, how do they constrain states of conception to make them just about "some single item"? — apokrisis

By convention.

Biology ain't trivial. It is amazing complexity. — apokrisis

No one is denying that. Still, it is only biology, and so it has noting to say about thought per se -- and neither does semiotics, which assumes the capacity to interpret, to know concepts and judgements.

But anyway, reason is explained by the evolution of grammar. — apokrisis

Again, just backward of what history and careful reflection show. As I have shown in other posts, the cupola "is" expresses our awareness of the identity of the source of the linked concepts.

Animals can abstract or generalise — apokrisis

This is confused. Animals and neural nets can generalize by association. Forming associations is not abstracting. Generalization is a kind of unconscious induction on the Hume-Mill model -- effectively assuming that other instances will be like the ones we've already encountered. Abstraction is conceptual and so never unconscious, and it does not generalize by adding the assumption of similarity, but by subtracting irrelevant notes of intelligibility. See my video "#35 Induction and Abstraction" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvqcL9LILiA).

So psychological science can explain the evolution of reason. — apokrisis

Please! Reason requires consciousness -- almost universally recognized as the "Hard Problem," and one shown by Dennett to have no solution on naturalistic assumptions.

Eventually that mechanical or reductionist narrative form became completely expressed itself as the new habits of maths and logic. — apokrisis

This is entirely inadequate. If math we just a habit, then 2+2=4 would be true usually and occasionally wrong. In fact, 2+2=4 always and everywhere. If logic were only a habit, there would be no fundamental reason why you not both exist and not exist at one and the same time in one and the same way.

Again he is using 'information' in terms specific to 'information science' whereas I'm considering it in a broader and more philosophical sense and in relation to the metaphysics of meaning rather than information science as such. — Wayfarer

This does not tell me that, or why, Shannon's definition of information does not apply. What specific difference in meaning do you see? Please remember that, as I have pointed out, the possibility by information is logical, not physical, possibility and logical possibility belongs to the order of reason.

This 'extra ingredient' is itself reason, which is not explained by science, but which science relies on. It is nowadays almost universally assumed that science understands the origin of reason in evolutionary terms but in my view, this trivialises reason by reducing it to biology ... — Wayfarer

I agree

quote="Wayfarer;209098"]But that is the main point of contention between naturalism and its critics. In other words, to accept the truth of that, is to reject naturalism[/quote]

That is why the subtitle of my book is The Irrationality of Naturalism,

my view is that mind/body or mental/physical is a real duality so I'm a lot nearer to dualism than the alternatives. — Wayfarer

As always, the devil is in the details. As a moderate realist, I agree that there is a foundation in reality for the concepts of <human intentional acts> and <human physical acts>. So, they indicate really different aspects of the person. Still, these are aspects of a single person, of a single substance.

I reject Descartes's opposition of mind and body. Obviously, the mind is dependent upon, but not fully explained by, the brain. So, the mind is partially of the body. Still, the brain's neural processing capabilities are only one subsystem of the mind. The other, which I call "the intentional subsystem" provides awareness and direction -- intellect and will.

But Shannon's definition of 'information' was wholly and solely concerned with what is required to encode and transmit information. — Wayfarer

Yes, I agree that Shannon was concerned with data transmission. That does not mean that, having abstracted a concept of information, that definition expressing that concept is inapplicable to other realms of discourse. If I actually inform you that your house is on fire, then the possibility that it is not on fire is eliminated, and so what is logically possible to you is reduced. This is a consequence of the Principle of Excluded Middle, which may be thought of as justifying logical possibility, and the Principle of Contradiction, that reduces it once we are informed.

the term itself is polysemic, i.e. its meaning varies, depending on the context and intention. — Wayfarer

Yes, most terms can be analogously predicated. The question is: Is being polysemic relevant here? When Landauer said ""whenever we find information, we find it inscribed or encoded somehow in a physical medium of whatever kind," was he using "information" in a different sense? I do not see that he was. He, like Shannon, is discussing encoded information. If you think they mean different things, please say what differences you see.

the fact that biological systems encode and transmit information has also been used by intelligent design advocates as an argument for an originating intelligenc — Wayfarer

the fact that biological systems encode and transmit information has also been used by intelligent design advocates as an argument for an originating intelligence — Wayfarer

I am familiar with ID, and don't think that it's a cogent attack on evolution. On the other hand, naturalists are certainly wrong in saying that evolution shows that nature is mindlessly random or that order can emerge from ontologically random processes. I take a middle ground in my paper "Mind or Randomness in Evolution," Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies (2010) XXII, 1/2, pp. 32-66 (https://www.academia.edu/27797943/Mind_or_Randomness_in_Evolution).

The argument revolves around the idea that the same information can be represented in a variety of ways. — Wayfarer

I agree: it can be.

the faculty which does this, is not itself physical - in fact, it seems closely related to Aristotle's intuition of the 'active intellect'. — Wayfarer

Yes.

So as that is not a physical capability, then it suggests a form of dualism, which is close in some respects to hylomorphic (matter-form) dualism. — Wayfarer

Yes, but the logical independence of intellectual (intentional) and physical operations does not justify substance dualism a la Descartes. There is no reason a unified human person cannot act both intentionally and physically.

mine is a novel metaphysical argument, although I would be happy to be proven wrong in this regard. — Wayfarer

I do not recall seeing the independence of information on media used in this kind of complete argument previously, although many people, including me, have pointed out that information is independent of medium.

I'm still finding it very unclear what it is that you think you are arguing — apokrisis

What I am arguing is that Descartes's doubts leave what he actually knows (that he is in his chamber) unaffected. What is being questioned is his belief about the deeper structure/nature of "being in his chamber" -- which is something he does not know, but believes he does. (He does not know if his experience of being in his room is due to continuous, extended "stuff" (res extensa), atomic interactions, or demonic activity.) We have known since Robert Grosseteste that the rational way to address his question is posit and test falsifiable hypotheses.

Maybe you are making the contrast between the roles played by coherence and correspondence in theories of truth. — apokrisis

No, I'm not discussing theories of truth. I'm pointing out that knowledge as awareness of present intelligibility is independent of whether we grant or withhold belief.

The coherence theory is too easy a target. Harry Potter's "world" is or easily could be, coherent.
Nor do I support "correspondence." There is no one-to-one correspondence between what we think and reality. Rather, what we think can be adequate or inadequate to reality. If it is adequate to reality. it is true.

there is the certainty (and doubt) that results from some generalised state of coherent belief. We have a world view that seems to work in reliable fashion. — apokrisis

Once you mention your worldview "working," you've started to test your beliefs against intransigent reality -- stepping beyond the bounds of strict coherence. You're asking "Is what I believe adequate to reality?"

We have a pragmatic set of interpretive habits that do a good enough job of understanding the world. This is what intelligibility feels like. — apokrisis

I agree, that our system of beliefs "works" in a general sort of way. Often, however, it does not work at all, because when we examine our detailed beliefs we find them inadequate to reality.

Intelligibility is characterized not by a "feel", but by power -- the power to inform -- to reduce what is logically possible to the actual given.

The world is experienced as having a stable rational structure - where dogs are dogs, horses are horses, the house on the corner is still blue like the last time we saw it, and we aren't concerned about the possibility it may have been repainted or knocked down in the last few days. — apokrisis

Sure. In living our daily lives we expect things to be more or less the same as they were when we last encountered them. (That's an adequate model.) Still, we aren't shocked when a store has closed or moved -- or the house on the corner has been repainted.

So when talking about Descartes, he does seem to be claiming that every fact is merely a particular, and so suffers the challenge of correspondence. — apokrisis

Yes, he could mean that, but, actually he doesn't. He tells us explicitly that he was in his chamber. So, there is no question of it having burned down or having been smashed by drunken rioters. It's still there. He sees it, and relies on it to shelter him.

It conflicts rather too violently with the rationality we find in knowledge as generalised correspondence. — apokrisis

Yes, that is why you need more than logical possibility to be rational. Chesterton makes the same point -- you don't need to bend the facts to be paranoid -- only your interpretation.

Life for us would remain the same despite it being "a grand illusion". — apokrisis

This is close to the point I am making. The "deep structure" of his chamber doesn't matter to the fact of "Descartes being in his chamber." We don't "know" (in the strictest sense) what the deep structure of the world is, but we do know we are in our room, and what we believe of the deep structure is adequate to our needs.

it remains important to see beyond the naive realism of the kind of "unity" of mind and world you appeared to be pushing. — apokrisis

I'm not a naive realist. That is one reason correspondence is a poor criterion for truth. There is no "red" in red apples. We experience red as the result of a complex interaction of objective and subjective factors -- not because the apple contains "redness." There is an objective reality, but it is far more complex than redness in apples. Still, complexity does not belie reality -- or the partial identity of subject and object by which we know it.

In psychological terms, the mind only appears to represent the world. The world is merely an image. And that creates a troubling epistemic gap. — apokrisis

This is precisely the error I am opposing. An apple acts on my senses. Its modification of my neural state is identically my sensory representation of the apple. There is no gap. There are only two names for, reflecting two ways of thinking about, the same reality -- a reality that belongs to both the sensed object and the sensing subject. Thus, we may say, there is an existential penetration of the object into the subject.

The other aspect of this identity was noted by Aristotle: the joint actualization of two potencies by a single act. Both the object's sensibility (its potential to be sensed) and the subjects capacity to sense are actualized are actualized in the single act of sensing. The object being sensed by the subject is identically the subject sensing the object.

So, there is no "gap" -- no separation of phenomenon and noumenon. In sensation the sensory representation is not dynamically isolated from the object -- it is the very mode of the object's presentation to the subject's awareness.

Saying, "The world is merely an image," reminds me of Locke's claim that we only know our ideas. Our ideas are not so much what we know as they are the means by which we know. It is only in retrospect, in reflecting on how we know, that we understand that the existence of ideas. In fact, ideas are not "things" at all. They are simply us thinking. The idea <apples> is just thinking of apples.

So, the world is not an image, the world dynamically projects into us as images, as phenomena.

globalised coherence creates a general certainty about what even counts as actually possible or actually likely. — apokrisis

I am happy to agree with this, but only as one projection of knowledge.

Perception begins with a state of reasonable expectation. — apokrisis

Sometimes it does. Other times it comes as a complete surprise.

Let us not get started on Bayesian probability.

You're welcome.

Stimulus, synthesis, and an act of judgment. — tim wood

I have not addressed it, but there are two kinds of knowledge we have been talking about. Aristotle's account of ideogenesis as the actualization of present intelligibility gives us knowledge as acquaintance: "Do you know the house on the corner?" "Yes, I do." In this case there is no judgement about the house. We are simply aware of its existence.

The second kind is what you are pointing out, judgement. In it we assert (or deny) some truth. "The house on the corner is painted blue." I discussed, in a backhanded way when we considered misjudging a "this" as a horse or dog, how judgement works when it works right. If the presentation that elicits <the house on the corner> is identically the presentation that elicits <painted blue>, then we are justified in thinking <the house on the corner is painted blue>. If the presentations are not identical, then we are not justified, for <the house> is elicited by one thing, and <painted blue> by something else.

This means that the copula "is" bespeaks identity -- not in the coupled concepts, but in the source object eliciting the concepts.

In light of this, I think we need to be careful in assenting to "synthesis" -- at least in the case I'm discussing. We're not bringing anything together that was not one before we abstracted distinct concepts out of it. All we're doing is acknowledging the unity that underpins the concepts we abstracted.

I'm having trouble with Kripke's paradox. — tim wood

The question is: are more than half of Nixon's statements about Watergate false? One of Nixon's statements that is supposedly about Watergate is his claim about Jones' statement. If he is right about Jone's statement, that supposedly tips the balance in favor of true and Jones' statement is false. On the other hand, if Nixon is wrong about Jones' statement, then the balance is tipped the other way and Jones is supposedly speaking the truth.

Cannot be assigned? That seems a stretch. — tim wood

How can you say if a claim is adequate to reality or not, if it says nothing about reality?

It is not clear to me that truth or falsity is ever assigned to any statements — tim wood

You're right, of course. Truth values are assigned. Truth is determined. I wanted a word that would cover both cases, "Assigned" isn't quite it. "Attributed" is probably a better choice.

I think your "actualization of a present intelligibility" works if you allow the addition of "for a present use"; "use" needing be no more than the bringing to consciousness of the knowledge itself. — tim wood

Sometimes we have no idea of a potential use. We just encounter being. We may take joy in it -- or we may not. I understand your extension of "use," but it seems perilous in an era of soundbites -- where "use" is liable to be separated from your extension.

Thanks for the reference

I appreciate you rounding out and balancing what I said.

Most philosophers today understand that the course of investigation presented in the Meditations wasn't Descartes central focus, but rather just a preliminary investigation into the conditions of certainty wrt scientific knowledge. — gurugeorge

I think this may be seeing more in Descartes than is there. I sympathize with his goal -- silencing radical skepticism. Still, the four rules in his Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking for Truth in the Sciences pale in comparison with the elaborate account of the hypothetico-deductive method and the need for controlled experiments laid out in the scientific works Robert Grosseteste.

After Descartes, philosophers turn their vision more and more from being, to the question of what, if anything, we know. — Dfpolis

Is this the "distortion of the trajectory?" — tim wood

Yes, because after Descartes, philosophers confuse distinction (which means independent concepts) with separation (which means ontological independence). As a result, there is a strong tendency to reify concepts. Examples are:

Descartes' res cogitans vs res extensa. Where Aristotle and the Scholastics saw a unified human person capable of physical and intentional operations, Descartes saw two separate things.

Lockean ideas. Where ideas had been the actualization of prior intelligibility, Locke made them separate things -- so that what we knew (in his view) was only our ideas. At most, our ideas are the means of knowing their objects. Minimally, they are just us thinking about their objects.

Kant's separation of unknowable noumena from known phenomena. Instead of seeing phenomena as the inseparable acts of beings revealing themselves, they become separate "things" standing between us and true reality.

Russell and Wittgenstein's logical atomism which proposes a correspondence between true statements and systems of objects.

But maybe it's not a horse. Maybe it's a picture or a man in a horse suit or just a mistake in perception. Now we're stuck on just what knowledge is. I buy your definition - I appreciate that you trouble to define your terms - but it apparently only holds in terms of the object so far as I can say, "I thought it was a horse." Hmmm. Knowledge as intracranial activity, or as a relation in and to the world? — tim wood

I know what you mean. One day, walking home from high school, I was scared by a huge dog that suddenly pocked its head over a fence behind me. When I turn to face it, I saw a chestnut horse. What is happening in cases like this?

First, what we are aware of is a "this" -- a largely unspecified something making itself present to us. Of course our brain does not care what it is, but it has evolved to activate neural net complexes associated with (representing) various categories of experience -- in your case the "horse" complex, in mine, the "dog" complex. So, what is present to awareness is twofold: a largely unspecified "this" and an activated or associated representation ("horse" or "dog" as the case may be.) We are aware of both. One is part of our self (someone more used to seeing horses would probably not activated "dog" as I did, but "horse"). The other has an immediate external source.

Awareness is not judgement. Being aware of both "this" and "horse" is not judging <this is a horse>, but we do so judge, because we confuse the joint awareness of the two different contents with that of a single object that is both this and a horse. For <this is a horse> means that the identical thing that evokes <this> is evoking <horse>.

So, there is no lack of awareness of present intelligibility, but we are confusing association with identity.

does knowledge become certainty? As a practical matter it "certainly" does. — tim wood

I think we agree, knowledge becomes "practically certain," but that does not preclude all chance of error. Of course, there are degrees of certitude (e.g. metaphysical, physical and moral), each appropriate to a realm of discourse.

we still don't know what knowledge is except in terms of a functional definition — tim wood

Well, there is no a priori concept of knowledge handed down from on high. We look at various aspects of reality, forming concepts and expressing them with names. As long as we are careful in applying the concepts and do not think that our concepts exhaust reality, we can avoid errors while being open to further insight.

Here I'm channeling the idea found in the quote that the "essence of truth is the truth of essence," together with its qualification that a criteriological standard for a thing is not what a thing is. — tim wood

I am not sure what to make of this. We can think of "essence" as Aristotle does, as the foundation in reality for our universal ideas, or we can think of essence as the specification of an individual's possible acts. These ideas overlap, but they are not the same. While responding in a feminine manner may not be part of the Aristotelian essence of humanity, it may be very much of the essence of a transsexual male.

Stepping back, saying "essence of truth is the truth of essence," seems rather monadistic. I mean that a great part of truth is not about the essence of any one thing, but more ecological -- about how things relate and interact -- and we can never discover that except by observing actual relations and interactions.

I suspect he was driven to reflection by the tumult of his world. — tim wood

I agree.

Also, it's very dangerous to put oneself in the mind of God. It doesn't fit us.

So the disease of philosophy is the need to, combined with the impossibility of, stating the Truth... — Banno

It is quite possible to speak truth -- provided one does not aspire to be God, and believe that to know truly, one must know exhaustively

Why can't we stop? — csalisbury

Indeed; all that is needed is that one stop. — Banno

Bravo!

Could you expand on this a bit? — tim wood

Before Descartes philosophers were focused on reality. On being as such in metaphysics, on changeable being in physics and the philosophy of nature, and on thought about being in logic and philosophical psychology. After Descartes, philosophers turn their vision more and more from being, to the question of what, if anything, we know.

Aristotle was an empiricist. He based his understanding of reality on what we could learn from sense experience and scolded his students for not wanting to get their hands dirty. He understood that in the single act of awareness actualized two distinct potencies: The knower, with a prior capacity to be informed, is actually informed by the same act that makes the object's intelligibility actually known. Thus, a single act bridges gap between knower and known. Said in a different way, there is a partial identity between knower and known: The object being known by the subject is identically the subject knowing the object.

Locke, Berkeley and Hume we not empiricists in the same way. Following Descartes, they begin by assuming a gap between knower and known -- falling to recognize the unity of subject and object in the act of knowing. Locke, for example, claimed all we could knew was our own ideas. This assumed separation of knower and known became total in Kant's Transcendental Idealism. Phenomenology gives up on being to focus on appearance, analytic philosophy to focus on language.

What is it you'd like to recover from the "lost" subjective experience? I don't question its value; I rather don't know what the value is you have in mind. — tim wood

In epistemology, we have to realize that knowledge is not abstractly "objective." Rather it is a subject-object relationship that is inescapably both objective and subjective. Reality is projected into one or more conceptual spaces and doing so reduces the information we actually consider. We can compensate for this by seeking out diverse projections and finding points seen in one but missing in others.

In the philosophy of mind, we need to understand (vs. Ryle's critique in The Concept of Mind) that every act of knowing contains information not only on the primary object (what we are "looking at"), but also ourselves as subjects knowing the primary object. We not only know x (the objective object). we know that we know x -- so that we are the subjective object of each cognitive act.

In the philosophy of nature, we have to see that intentionality (as revealed by our knowledge of subjectivity) is as much a part of the natural world as physicality. Our intentional life, often called our "spiritual life," is not something "supernatural" (taken as a term of disparagement), is as natural as our physicality.

This goes on, analogically, to such topics as interpreting quantum theory in which we need to include the physics of our detectors (analogous to the subjective object) in any explanation of the measurement process.

Is the knowledge of so-called "divine" knowledge the same knowledge I have when I know that it's raining? It seems to me it must be different - but where does that leave "knowledge"? — tim wood

There are two ways we can know God. Ratiocinatively or by mystical awareness. In reasoning we come to God as the actualizing source of the world of experience. In doing so, we do not experience God per se, but find indicators pointing to God as their Source. We do not have a positive concept, but a negative specification: not contingent, not limited in His ability to act, not limited in knowledge, etc.

In mystical experience, we have something akin to Rubin's vase (the picture that is bi-stable between appearing to be a vase or two faces looking at each other), When we think of our self, or the world, we normally see our self or the world. Yet, metaphysically, there is more to be grasped. The world, being maintained in existence by God is identically God holding the world in existence. And, of course, the same is true of our self.

So, if we are able to shift our intellectual focus (as we do with Rubin's vase), then, instead of being aware of the world (or self) that is held in existence by God, we become aware of God, Who is holding the world (or self) in existence. This is direct, not ratiocinative knowledge.

Whether we are aware of physical objects or of God, we are aware of present intelligibility.

I take it from this that you have not read De Anima iii. — Dfpolis

As if there were one reading of it. — apokrisis

One reading is far superior to total ignorance.

You know that there are many contrasting readings on what was meant by the intellect and how it was embodied. — apokrisis

Yes, but in all, the knower knowing the known is identically the known being known by the knower. Not one credible reading denies that knowledge is the actualization of present intelligibility. The main point of contention is whether the agent intellect is an aspect of the knowing subject, or a power of God, or perhaps the Neoplatonic Logos. Are you, then, claiming that the agent intellect is God or the Logos, rather than the subject's awareness?

Descartes published his Meditations on First Philosophy in 1641 and died in 1650. He was part of the background out of which the Enlightenment developed. — Dfpolis

Oh please. As if Galileo or Francis Bacon did not yet exist. — apokrisis

I suggest you review the names of the cultural movements of early modern Europe. The Late Middle Age ended c. 1500. It was overlapped by the Renaissance which ran from about the 14th to the 17th centuries. Then, as I said, the Enlightenment, began in the late 17th c. (after the death of Descartes). Galileo (1564 -1642) was not an Enlightenment, but a Renaissance, figure -- his work the culmination of late medieval developments in mathematical physics. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) died even earlier.

And I take it from this that you have not read what i wrote in my last post. — Dfpolis

Is this going to be your standard response? Anyone who dares to disagree with you must be merely failed scholars. — apokrisis

Not at all. You can disagree all you like. But, if you're responding to me (as your post indicated), then you should say why you disagree with me. If you don't want to do that, then please don't pretend you're responding to me. Just make an independent post.

You do realize that thoughts are not the same kind of signs as natural and artificial languages? — Dfpolis

But are thoughts things or processes? Are they the syntactical symbols, the mere marks, or the semantic acts of interpretation? — apokrisis

Thoughts are acts. They are not substantial things, nor need they be processes, though they can result from processes.

Thoughts are not syntactical symbols like words. They are essential signs. They are not any kind of "mark." Marks can be instrumental signs, Thoughts can be, but need not be, acts of "interpretation."

maybe you also want to say that thoughts can take mental images as their signs — apokrisis

No, I don't.

my position being that all sense data are signs in a syntactic sense. — apokrisis

I think you have not thought this through. What is the nature of sense data? Is it not neurally encoded information? If it is, then to interpret the supposed "sign" we would have to know our neural state, and then work out its meaning in the same way we first see marks on paper or a computer screen, and then interpret what they mean. Yet, clearly, we do no such thing. We have no idea which of our neurons is firing, nor their firing rate (which is how neural information is encoded). So, our neurally encoded information is not a sign like marks on a page that we "interpret."

Instead, we are aware of the information (or intelligibility) encoded in our neural state directly -- with no process of interpretation. Thus, your semiotic model simply breaks down under scrutiny.

Some yes/no question is being answered about the "state of the world". — apokrisis

We have no reason to think that the brain employs any sort of binary code and much reason to think it does not.

Would you care to back this up with specific texts that support your point? — Dfpolis

I made my argument. — apokrisis

Your "argument" proposes an interpretation of De Anima, but cites no text. That is a prima facie reason to reject your proposal.

Aristotle is remembered as the empirical antidote to Plato's rationalism - a proto-pragmatist — apokrisis

This shows, once again, that you do have no fear of making pronouncements on subjects you don't understanding. I suggest you read about praxis, theoria and the contemplative life in Aristotle.

So is the real debate about the accuracy of Aristotle's epistemology or the unreasonableness of Descartes's? — apokrisis

The debate is about what Descartes called into question. The background for that is the philosophical understanding of knowledge at the time he wrote. The sources for that are Aristotle's De Anima iii and Plato's distinction between episteme and doxa in The Republic v.

I think Aristotle's approach ... boils down quite nicely to a pragmatic and semiotic story. — apokrisis

I take it from this that you have not read De Anima iii.

I just see that he has a place in history as a particular reaction to the simplistic empiricism that characterised the dawning Enlightenment. — apokrisis

Then you need to read history. Descartes published his Meditations on First Philosophy in 1641 and died in 1650. He was part of the background out of which the Enlightenment developed. He was certainly not reacting to a movement that did not begin until the late 17th c.

Knowledge develops by beginning from some "leap of faith" - a willingness to take one hypothesis as a plausible truth and then judge that based on its "real world" consequences. — apokrisis

And I take it from this that you have not read what i wrote in my last post.

pragmaticism is about accepting that absolute knowledge is never going to be the case, then moving on. — apokrisis

We have many examples of metaphysically certain knowledge, but they are not of interest to those whose sole concern is praxis -- only to those interested in theoria -- those who want to know for the joy of knowing.

Pragmatism doesn't just acknowledge our finitude ... — apokrisis

We are not discussing pragmatism (which did not begin until c. 1870), but Descartes's methodological doubt and its implications for our prior understanding of knowledge and belief.

In this light, knowledge is all about the development of those kinds of regulatory habits. — apokrisis

As I said, there are many ways of defining knowledge. However, when you use a different definition, you reference a different aspect of reality. In this case, the aspect of reality you are referencing has little to do with either knowledge defined as awareness of present intelligibility or with knowledge defined as (causally) justified true belief. So, while what you say may be important to you, it is not relevant to the topic we are discussing.

all sense data is simply acts of measurement. — apokrisis

Measurement is a process whereby we ascertain numbers descriptive of physical states. Very little sense data is numerical.

Your scheme seems basically Cartesian in its dualism of mind and world — apokrisis

Really? When have i said that our minds are apart from the world? When have I asserted that we are a compound of thinking stuff and extended stuff? Haven't I said the opposite? That we humans are unified beings. That a major problem is the fundamental abstraction separating the objective and subjective.

And the reason Aristotle would have seen the discursive intellect as somehow coming from somewhere beyond the embodied and sensing animal soul is that its form indeed does come from the "beyond" that is human cultural development, with the "self" and the "world" that emerges there. — apokrisis

I have no idea what text you have in mind here. Do you?

I am stressing that the system of signs is Janus-like in that it encodes both "the real world" and "the real us". — apokrisis

You have not said what "signs" you are talking about. Thought? Natural language? A formal system?

You do realize that thoughts are not the same kind of signs as natural and artificial languages?

my main point here is that what Aristotle meant by the "intellect" maps very nicely to what we would understand about the social evolution of the human mind. — apokrisis

Having read De Anima a number of times, i fail to see any evidence of this. Would you care to back this up with specific texts that support your point?