Without using words (representations of concepts), can you distinguish cats from dogs? — Harry Hindu

Honestly now, when you see a dog, do you really use words to tell yourself what you just saw wasn’t a cat?

symbols or words have no necessary referent — Metaphysician Undercover

You know......people talk so damn much, they think that’s all they ever do. And because when they talk, they use words, so they think words are all there are. If, as you say, the source of the thing is distinct from the thing itself, it follows necessarily that the source of a word is distinct from the word itself, which grants that the concept is presented in the word or represented by the word, which either way immediately subsumes the word under the antecedent concept.

Don’t get me wrong, I fully sympathize with the philosophical vagary, “.....spontaneously producing representations, or the spontaneity of cognition....”**, and the speculative methodology derived from it. Nobody likes spontaneity; it can’t be falsified or established as the case, and the fact it isn’t theoretically self-contradictory is little solace to the ultra-modern, analytic heart. All of which, I suppose, makes it ok to just throw in something or other in order to relieve ourselves of by-gone vagaries we detest so much, justifying the rise of the language gang, which is, of course, merely substituting one vagary for another.

Descriptions and definitions are propositions composed of words; words represent concepts; therefore concepts describe and define concepts, which is impossible. A concept cannot define itself. If a concept cannot define itself, and if the reality of it is given, it must represent that which can be defined, but only as the means to facilitate the possibility of communication. We have no need of definitions in pure thought. You know...pure thought....that thing we do when we’re not so busy talking. And whether we label a particular geometric figure constructed in accordance with precise a priori principles a square or a equilateral rectangle, we still refer to a single conception. We should find we are merely defining the principles which make the conception possible, when closer examination inevitably reveals the lackadaisical attitude of the mind in general, that is, not subjected to critical analysis, when it makes it seem like we are actually defining the conception. We at the same time should find mathematical conceptions, as opposed to philosophical conceptions, are themselves necessary referents, given their construction is entirely dependent on the a priori, albeit synthetic, cognitions of individuals that think them, as long as the principles for it are contained by it.

** CPR B75
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both concepts and objects are created by the application of boundaries. — Metaphysician Undercover

The only way I see this working, is if the boundaries applied are the categories, specifically the category of quantity and modality. A quantity of space is a boundary for the possibility of objects and necessity is a boundary for the realization of concepts. Still, I’d hesitate to grant application of the categories creates anything, but rather makes the construction of conceptions possible a priori and experience of things possible a posteriori. We don’t construct experience and we don’t experience constructs, but both occur in us, so a common ground for them seems to be required. Judgement is common but is not a ground; understanding is a ground but is not common, so something underpins both.

Nahhhh.....I’m going to reject the assertion that we create objects, but grant....sorta.....the assertion that we create conceptions. Arising “spontaneously from pure thought”, as conceptions are said to do, is close enough to creation so as to not cause any major upheaval in The Grand Scheme of Minor Things.

It’s a tangled web, by all accounts.

I hear ya, but still.......

.......I’m not going to give up the notion that concept is independent of word. All representations presuppose that to which they belong;
.......I don’t think concepts are shared. Concepts are mental stuff, yes, but the source of all immanent conceptions, the only ones to which words properly belong, because they relate to possible experience, is understanding, and, just as in consciousness, understanding is never shared;
......because it is logically sufficient to state where concepts are to be found, perhaps the epitome of transcendental illusion is to think only words are to be found there. Concepts, in and of themselves, have a purpose and thereby a use, but not a description. If we find words where there should be concepts, we’re doing something very wrong;
......agreed, the word within the mind does not represent the concept. It is more the case that the word is found in judgement, which represents the concept in cognition, which is the exposition of it;
......we have no empirical evidence of the existence of concepts, no. Rational evidence would seem to be necessary, nonetheless;
......there are those inclined to grant concepts are words, but I submit it is only because they don’t know any better;
......and for those, the search for concepts from the mere representation of them, will be fruitless and endless. And foolish.
————————

objects and concepts are the same type of thing — Metaphysician Undercover

Why would you say that? How are they the same type of thing?

At the beginning of the video, where Austin comments on the first of two things “immensely important to understand...”:

“...Despite the great wealth of words which European languages possess, the thinker finds himself often at a loss for an expression exactly suited to his conception, for want of which he is unable to make himself intelligible either to others or to himself. To coin new words is a pretension to legislation in language which is seldom successful; and, before recourse is taken to so desperate an expedient, it is advisable to examine the dead and learned languages, with the hope and the probability that we may there meet with some adequate expression of the notion we have in our minds. In this case, even if the original meaning of the word has become somewhat uncertain, from carelessness or want of caution on the part of the authors of it, it is always better to adhere to and confirm its proper meaning—even although it may be doubtful whether it was formerly used in exactly this sense—than to make our labour vain by want of sufficient care to render ourselves intelligible. For this reason, when it happens that there exists only a single word to express a certain conception, and this word, in its usual acceptation, is thoroughly adequate to the conception, the accurate distinction of which from related conceptions is of great importance, we ought not to employ the expression improvidently, or, for the sake of variety and elegance of style, use it as a synonym for other cognate words. It is our duty, on the contrary, carefully to preserve its peculiar signification, as otherwise it easily happens that when the attention of the reader is no longer particularly attracted to the expression, and it is lost amid the multitude of other words of very different import, the thought which it conveyed, and which it alone conveyed, is lost with it...”
(CPR, B369)

Similar admonitions, it seems.

Prelinguistic belief does not have propositional form. — creativesoul

Because belief is no more than a judgement. Judgements are correlations of that which consists in their entirety, etc, etc, etc......

Judgements are linguistic iff expressed; if not, remain mere cognitions.

The fundamental criteria of any belief: subjective validity.

Two cents, and not a penny more........

Acquisition of skill, by definition, cannot be innate, in the general sense of the term. The ability to acquire a skill is merely evinced by an interest in it, for try as he may, one may never realize any fruition from his attempt. Even if one excels in a skill, without training or preparation, it would still be impossible to determine the innate-ness of such ability, as opposed to merely an extraordinary adaptation to it.

The rest is superfluous.

A priori is a relational determination in the human complementary cognitive system.
— Mww
Where would instincts fall into this explanation. — Harry Hindu

They don’t. Instinct is innate and automatic, cognition is developed and reactive.

It also seems to me....... — Harry Hindu

Ok, no problem. Everyone is entitled to his own seemings.

Pre-intelligent....the time of one’s rational development before the ego supervenes instinct.

Intellect is the common faculty; intelligence is the general content of it; intelligent is the particular condition of it. Wisdom is the exhibition of its employment.

Would you say there are conditions in which a priori knowledge can be rendered susceptible (to empirical information)? — Possibility

Sure. My experience with driving a car in general is entirely sufficient for driving a Ferrari at 180mph, even though I don’t have that particular experience. My experience of driving an F-35 is entirely lacking, but I know it is possible for an F-35 to be driven. On the other hand, I can prove the shortest distance between two points is a straight line by mere illustration, but I can never empirically prove the necessity of the pure a priori conceptions of quantity and relation, which establish the validity of lines and points.

I know, I know. But like we talked about before.....it’s Sunday. What’s a guy gonna do, now that football’s gone. (Sigh)

If such capacity is not innate, I fail to figure out how can it escape the involvement of experience in the first place.
— Meichen Fan

I think I’m with you on this one. — Possibility

Because observation grants a human is moral before he is intelligent, and because experience itself is absent in pre-intelligent humans, after all the metaphysical reductionism, pure practical reason is given as an innate condition in humans logically. Within the confines of a specific epistemological domain, human morality cannot be explained without the permission of pure practical reason, and in which intelligence is not yet a consideration.

Upon logical justification of pure practical reason, which determines empirical objects for itself manifest in the form of behaviors, the possibility of pure reason with no empirical objects whatsoever, is given, which then becomes the logical ground of all pure a priori conditions in humans in the development of their intelligence, within the confines of that same epistemological domain.

Knowledge is not a capacity, it is an end given from an epistemological method as means. Knowledge is not innate, but the conditions for the epistemological method from which knowledge is possible, is, and it can be called pure reason.

A priori is a relational determination in the human complementary cognitive system. It is merely in juxtaposition to a posteriori, the latter given from sensibility, the former absent sensibility. But absent sensibility itself has two conditions, absent immediate sensibility, or, that of which perception and its representations are not present at the time of cognition, and, absent any sensibility whatsoever in any time of cognition.

In the first, because perception may have instilled phenomena in the system at a former time, intuitions are given in accordance with them and is called experience. This is called impure a priori, and grounds all operations of the cognitive faculties by empirical, re: inductive, rules. This is why we don’t have to learn the same thing at each time of its presentation to us. Better known as consciousness and regulates knowledge. From the principle of complementarity, the opposite of this is ignorance.

In the second, because sensibility is not involved at all, there will be no appearances, no intuitions, no phenomena, hence no cognized experience. But we remain fully aware that there is still something happening, something is occupying our non-sensible cognitive faculties. In short, we remain as thinking subjects, but that to which our thought is directed is not of phenomenal nature because nothing has affected us by its appearance. Thus, that which we are thinking about, must already reside in us without having been put there by experience. This is pure a priori, and grounds all non-sensible cognitive faculties by logical, re: deductive, rules alone. Better known as understanding and regulates possible knowledge. From the principle of complementarity, the opposite of this is belief.

As an aside, thought in which neither rules of Nature nor rules of logic, as such, are employed, is opinion.

Empirical rules are determined from Nature, logical rules are determined from thought. It is clear that because we think even without perception, rules of logic are antecedent to rules of Nature, and from which follows necessarily, with the exception of accident or reflex, that a priori conditions are much more powerful with respect to our knowledge, than that which is given from Nature alone. For humans, a posteriori knowledge is impossible without a priori conditions, but the a priori, in and of itself, has no meaning except in relation to the empirical.

So.....a priori and a posteriori reduce to the manner in which our cognitive faculties operate. A priori does not use the faculties of empirical representation (sensibility), a posteriori does not use the faculties of conceptual representation (understanding). They work together equally for direct empirical knowledge, one merely conditions the other for indirect empirical knowledge, and they are entirely separate for rational knowledge.

And there you have it. The proverbial nutshell. Of course, the theoretical derivations need a healthy dose of.....mmmm......acceptance.

Or not...........

Nahhhh...you got it, bud. I was just passin’ through.

what is the trigger here to adopt the "a priori" knowledge? — Meichen Fan

“...Necessity and strict universality, therefore, are infallible tests for distinguishing pure from empirical knowledge, and are inseparably connected with each other....”
(1787, B4)

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Ryle's point is that there no empirical-observation/rational-thinking divide. Alice sees more because she is rational.
— Andrew M

how does Alice see more than she merely observes?
— Mww

She doesn't. Separating sensory perception and rationality is an abstract and after-the-fact exercise. — Andrew M

My point was that Alice doesn’t see anything because she is rational; she sees because she has eyes. If Alice sees more because she is rational, what she sees must be other than what she observes. But then you say she doesn’t see more than she observes, which begs the question.....what more can she see just but being rational? And even if there is no empirical/rational divide, what was Ryle’s point?

Alice didn't observe something and then infer that Bob won the race - she simply observed that he won the race (contra both the Reductionist and Duplicationist who wrongly think the same thing has been observed regardless of whether Bob won or not). — Andrew M

So is this the point Ryle is making? That Alice makes no inference connecting winning and running? Does anyone actually hold with that? Ya know, doncha.......if Alice makes no inference, that is the same as denying Alice her rational capacity for judgement? Does anyone think Alice makes no judgements?
——————-

Racing does contain the conception of winning - it's the governing purpose. — Andrew M

I’d go with competition as the governing purpose, hence the conception of performance is contained in the conception of racing. In this way, one could, say, race against a clock. And in the case of a personal best, there isn’t a winner, while there is still performance.

Running does not contain a conception of winning. — Andrew M

Agreed. And whether one is running solo along the side of the road, or one happens to be running in an organized event along with other like-runners......he’s only putting one foot in front of the other.

Which is to say, we can get to 10. But our hypothesis for how we got there might be a work in progress. — Andrew M

Sure...a work in progress, which is what synthetic propositions indicate, but not a hypothetical. We can get to 10 by simply counting, or, we can get to ten by synthesizing the 4 and the 6 we started with. The point being, it is the same rational procedure as racing/winning. Just as 10 is not contained by a 4 and a 6, winning is not contained by racing.
———————

Put differently, to be able to talk competently about snow just is to have the concept of snow. — Andrew M

Agreed. Another way to put it is, the definition satisfies the validity of the conception. To talk competently about snow presupposes the conception of it, and the manner in which understanding thinks a particular phenomenon, is its definition from which the conception follows as a judgement. In this way, no matter the language, the conceptions are all identical across the human rational spectrum.
———————

Well we can always ask a person what they're thinking if we need to. That seems a natural approach. But we don't have to have to regard their reports as certain. People can sometimes lie, be mistaken, be inarticulate, confused or delusional, exaggerate, etc. And we can test these things. — Andrew M

Agreed, but the only way to test is to already know what the differences in the test results mean, which presupposes a set of criteria. If we want our criteria to set some standard, we need some certainty from it. Because there is no apodeictic certainty under empirical conditions, we are left with what form certainty would have if we could find it in the empirical world. And where does the form of certainty live? In pure logic. And where does pure logic live? In human judgement, which is itself the conclusion of reason.
——————-

As I see it, things we might call certain are themselves empirical. — Andrew M

Maybe things we might call certain are empirical, but if I’m interested in that which I know to be universally and necessarily certain, I won’t look to things that might be called certain.

There are, however, things that are not provisional, that are apodeictic.
— Mww

What would some examples be? — Andrew M

Different spaces are coexistent but never successive; different times are successive but never coexistent; space and time are not conceptions, but are intuitions; existence has no object; there are no empirical proofs via induction; every change must have a cause; human error is in judgement of sensations, never in the receptivity of them; moral judgement presupposes an autonomous will.
——————-

OK! We agree! — Andrew M

We agree philosophy is a great mental exercise, and we agree philosophy is generally as diverse as those who partake in it. I’m withholding agreement with respect to Ryle, analytic arguments and every language philosopher ever born or ever to be born.

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But it seems you're instead asking the conditions under which a person is rational, or moral, etc., since a human need not always act in those ways. — Andrew M

I rather think rationality and morality are the two outstanding hallmarks of the human animal, or, the two conditions under which animals in general are reducible to the human animal. From here, however a human acts always presupposes the condition under which such act is given. In other words, because one is human, he is necessarily rational and moral, the manifestations of it being given merely from the subjectivity of the individual. It is clear from that, that irrational or immoral is nothing but a relative judgement between agent and observer of the agent. So, yes and no....I ask after the principles underlaying the executive authority these human conditions enable, but not why a human acts as he does, for a valid logical theory of the former sufficiently explains the latter.

Which brings us to the Aristotle quote...

“...It is doubtless better to avoid saying that the soul pities or learns or thinks and ...” [On The Soul, I,4 in Smith, Oxford, 1931] — Andrew M

With a less antiquated substitution, in that man does this with his reason, it can still be better to avoid saying reason pities or learns or thinks, but still leaves unexplained how a man does his pitying or learning or thinking, as manifest in his rationality and morality, by means of his reason. It would seem agency is going to have to be assigned somewhere in a dedicated system, whether in soul or reason, and it seems it will necessarily either be an active faculty in itself, re: personality, or at least ground the validity of positing the notion of one, re: understanding, in order to give the very necessary human conditions we started with, any real meaning.
——————

nous is the Greek term translated as mind there, which is also often translated as intellect. It should be understood to name an activity, not a Cartesian-style mind: — Andrew M

The case of mind is different; it seems to be an independent substance implanted within the soul and to be incapable of being destroyed...” [On The Soul, I,4 in Smith, Oxford, 1931] — Mww

So here we have two things you’ve denied: assigning agency to a faculty, and using Aristotle to refute the Cartesian mind. In the first, correct me if I’m wrong, but you objected to my assertion that understanding is the named thinking faculty, yet here you seem to grant that the intellect names a mental activity. So either intellect is not a faculty or thinking is not an activity. And in the second, Aristotle himself asserts mind as substance, just as Descartes. So either Descartes is talking about mind as indivisible matter (which he isn’t) or they are employing the conception of substance differently. But substance is fundamental for both, Aristotle as a category, Descartes as a continuance, hence refutation, of Aristotle’s final cause.

Besides, it is really confusing: mind (intellect) implanted within the soul makes the soul of higher rank in the mental echelon, but it has already been said it is better not to let soul do anything important in the human animal. All this just doesn’t work at all for me, which is why I favor a metaphysics which attributes to man that which Aristotle doesn't develop for him, and that which Descartes develops, but seriously misfigures.
———————

Me: But Aristotle doesn’t seem to differentiate “knowing being” from plain ol’ objects, in that he treats them all alike, insofar as they are all conditioned by the same set of predicates.

You: That's right. For Aristotle, a knowing being is an object or being (that can't be predicated of anything else), just as a tree is. They are not duals. Just to clarify, Aristotle is not denying subjects as conscious objects (say). He's denying that subjects (as conscious objects) and objects are duals.

Subjects as conscious objects.....
I can only get to subject as conscious object if I think an object that is then the subject of my thought. That of which I think is the subject of my thought. And the subject of which I am consciously thinking is the object I’m thinking about. Apparently, the thing of my perception is both conscious object and extant object, one mental in my head and the very same as physical in the world. If this is the case, then optical illusions are necessarily impossible, yet they are not. An irreconcilable contradiction. So...subjects as conscious objects must have some other meaning that has escaped me.

Subjects (as conscious objects).......
I suppose this to mean the current notion of knowing being, similar to the Descartes’ ”cogito”, refined by the Kantian “unity of apperception” which is represented by the equivalent of Descartes’ ”cogito”, re: the thinking subject.

Can’t be predicated of anything else......
As in the proposition, “this object is a tree”, tree cannot be a predicate of anything but object? So “this river is a tree” is false, “this dump truck is a tree” is false.....like that? OK, I can live with that. But “this pine is a tree”, “this maple is a tree”....are not false propositions, even if tree is the predicate of subjects that is not “object”. So how do we get from a universal propositional subject (“object”) to particular propositional subjects (“river”, dump truck”, “pine”, “oak”) such that “tree” can be a valid predicate of all of them? Well, ok, fine. Aristotle treats them all alike, insofar as they are all conditioned by the same set of predicates: all objects are substance, all objects are extended....so “river”, “dump truck”, “pine”, “oak” are equal as subjects in a proposition, to which tree cannot be predicate of anything but them all alike, and then of course, with the further conceptual additions given from experience, we know some propositional subjects, re” “river”, etc., make the proposition false, while maintaining the non-dualism of tree and river both being conscious objects.

A knowing being is an object or being that cannot be predicated of anything else.......
Putting all these together, I get that the knowing being can be a subject (as conscious object), cannot be predicated of anything else, and is not in itself a dual.

“....The thought, "These representations given in intuition belong all of them to me," is accordingly just the same as, "I unite them in one self-consciousness, or can at least so unite them"; and although this thought is not itself the consciousness of the synthesis of representations, it presupposes the possibility of it; that is to say, for the reason alone that I can comprehend the variety of my representations in one consciousness, do I call them my representations, for otherwise I must have as many-coloured and various a self as are the representations of which I am conscious. Synthetical unity of the manifold in intuitions, as given a priori, is therefore the foundation of the identity of apperception itself, which antecedes a priori all determinate thought. But the conjunction of representations into a conception is not to be found in objects themselves, nor can it be, as it were, borrowed from them and taken up into the understanding by perception, but it is on the contrary an operation of the understanding itself, which is nothing more than the faculty of conjoining a priori and of bringing the variety of given representations under the unity of apperception. This principle is the highest in all human cognition...”
(1787, B134-5)

All that being said, it doesn’t make much sense to affiliate the thinking subject with subject (as conscious object), because we, as everyday, individual, conscious humans, don’t have a notion of ourselves as an object of which we are conscious. When we think, that’s all we’re doing, meaning we don’t associate the thinking immediately with the thinker. We only do that in a post hoc discussion about what we’re doing when we think. Thus, we see it is quite reasonable to distinguish the thinking subject from the thought object: we think about something, but it isn’t ourselves, so it absolutely must be something not ourselves, which is the same as the object of our thinking. This also shows that Aristotle’s treating the thinking subject as an object, isn’t sufficient to explain the human system.

And....added bonus.....we are now capable of articulating “....(rather that) it is the man who does this with his soul...”, again, substituting reason for soul.

Disclaimer: I don’t claim intimate knowledge of Aristotle, so......patience?

Does anybody these days still think everything is matter or everything is mind? Doesn’t seem all that logical to me. That is not to say dualists don’t still walk the Earth, but I rather think they are of the mind and matter kind, not one or the other.

And the metaphysician is at no more loss to explain the interaction between mind and matter than the hard scientist, so as long as they are equal in their ignorance, no harm is done in theorizing about it. Which has been done for millennia, and even if nothing substantial has come from it, nothing particularly detrimental has either.

Is there a reference-able standing theory in support of the notion that information is everything?

If you mean merely that a thought is original if it is the first occurrence of that thought, then I agree. — Janus

Yes, and from which is given, that because circumferences and diameters were already objects of experience, the relationship between them being pi does not immediately follow from them alone.
——————

some unfathomable inspiration due to the nature of a transcendental ego or something like that — Janus

Nahhh....not going there. The transcendental ego doesn’t have a nature and it doesn’t inspire. It is merely the means to identify consciousness.....make the case that we are in possession of the means to even cognize it. You are quite correct, and even more metaphysically astute, in recognizing the transcendental ego gives no manifold of representations, which makes explicit no content of thought is at all possible from it.

Ok, so everything is information. What does that do for us? What are we to do with that information? Is it sufficient from the fact everything is information, that no metaphysical arguments remain?

But what if space were "layered" — Janus

We both know how easy it is to fulfill our possibilities merely from our imagination. Reminds me of my all time favorite truism:

“....I can think what I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself...”
(footnote Bxxvii)

Thus, if space is layered, it contradicts the standing hypothesis of cosmic isomorphism, and all standing empirical science lands in the circular file.
————-

habit of thought developed a posteriori from experience, not given a priori. — Janus

How Hume-ian of you!! Nothing wrong with that, don’t get me wrong; it does seem that way to us nowadays, because everybody comes by that knowledge by being taught the principle, rather than originating it for themselves. But somebody, somewhere, got the ball rolling, which serves as proof of the possibility of a priori cognitions. And proved Hume wrong.

Compromise: mediation by linguistic appeal upon the condition of being taught; mediation by conceptual appeal alone, absent language appeal, upon the condition of original thought.

We know from experience that two things cannot be in the same place at the same time. — Janus

Actually, all I know from experience, is that if I try to put some A and some B in the same place at the same time, either A will displace B or B will displace A. The apodeictic certainty of an intrinsic impossibility, within the existential confines of the induction principle, such that no A and no B can ever be in the same place at the same time, is only given a priori, hence sans linguistic appeal.

I grant conceptual appeal, or mediation if you wish, for human thought is impossible without it, even if such conceptual appeal is merely to the pure categories. I don’t need appeal to the conception of particular objects for the conception of a supposed universal principle, even if I do need appeal to particular conceptions to prove it.

What prevents me from attempting to put A and B in the same place at the same time, then discovering the impossibility of it?

I might need language to present the scenario to you, but I don’t need definitions or language for the doing of it.

Yes? No? Maybe?

“...the technical trick of conducting our thinking in auditory word-images, instead of spoken words, does indeed secure secrecy for our thinking…”(1).......
— Mww

Le Penseur's thinking is private in a mundane sense and remains open to natural investigation. — Andrew M

I am not aware of any natural investigation, or, which is the same thing, investigation using natural means, that has any chance of showing our private thinking. That our experimental equipment cannot show the word-images used for our thought, and our word-images are never given in terms of elementary particles, suggests natural investigation is very far removed from internal privacy.

I suppose philosophy is a natural investigation, and our private thinking is certain open to that. As long as we expect no empirical proofs from such philosophy, we should be ok.

The ghost only makes an appearance when that privacy is separated out from the natural world (whether in a transcendent realm per Plato or in a substantial mind per Descartes). — Andrew M

Cool. So I don’t have to worry about it; I make no attempt to isolate my private thinking from the natural world. I understand there are, or at least were, a multitude of those holding with subjectivity as sufficient causality for the world. I say...a viral POX on them!!!
——————-

So as I see it, that would be shoehorning what is observed into what is theorized - in effect, it's the template or mold. That is, if one defines what thought or rationality is up front and in an idealized/transcendent sense, then that frames the way that everything else is understood. — Andrew M

That would be the case, except that’s not quite the system I advocate. I start with the observed up front, then theorize to an end in which the observed is understood. The theory includes definitions of thought and rationality and all that, but it isn’t up front. It isn’t the starting point. If anything, I’d be shoehorning the theory between the observation and its end. Still, the theory would be a template, I’ll give you that, and it certainly attempts to frame everything in relation to the observation itself, and at the same time serves as warrant for property dualism, not as a consequence, but as a necessary antecedent condition.

Jusqu’à la prochaine fois.....

Transcendental realism and empirical idealist are terms found in A, and dropped in B.
Transcendental idealist = empirical realist = dualist;
Transcendental realist = empirical idealist = psychologist.
(A369-72)

Transcendentalism is used twice in B, in the most generalized sense, thus of no practical import. Properly describing a New England academic/social doctrine.

Transcendent is always in juxtaposition to immanent, and in relation to principles alone.

Given B is properly supposed as an improvement, or at least a change in approach, it may be that either of those terms should be disavowed with respect to Kantian speculative philosophy. Maybe useful from a historical perspective, but not really worth talking about in the Big Picture.

For what it’s worth.......

Thanks for the thoughtful, and interesting, reply. I look forward to them, even while voicing opposition where I find it. As you are welcome to do as well.

And if agency, that is, rationality, morality, consciousness, intellect, are all predicated on either mind or brain, how is agency accounted for if not by those?
— Mww

They are literally predicated on human beings. It is human beings that are rational, moral, etc., not minds or brains. — Andrew M

Yeah, but Abbooootttt!!! You can’t have agency without the human, true enough, but you can have the human without agency, so one is different than the other. Besides, we were asking after the necessary accountability of agency, under the assumption of its presence, not the merely sufficient conditions in the form of a physical vessel in which its presence is not absolutely given.

“...Yet to say that it is the soul which is angry is as inexact as it would be to say that it is the soul that weaves webs or builds houses. It is doubtless better to avoid saying that the soul pities or learns or thinks and rather to say that it is the man who does this with his soul. The case of mind is different; it seems to be an independent substance implanted within the soul and to be incapable of being destroyed...”(1)

We don’t really care that a human is rational or moral, insofar as those are reasonable expectations pursuant to his kind of creature; we want to know how he got that way. Or better yet....how he didn’t.
——————

OK. So if we were just discussing a synonym for "knowing being" (in the ordinary sense of human beings as distinguished from rocks or trees, say) then there would be no philosophical issue. But the problem is that it also brings with it the Cartesian sense of subject/object, internal/external, rational/empirical and so on. — Andrew M

But Aristotle doesn’t seem to differentiate “knowing being” from plain ol’ objects, in that he treats them all alike, insofar as they are all conditioned by the same set of predicates. Re: the same, e.g., category “substance” of things being the same “substance” of soul, along with “movement” and “essence”. So there wouldn’t be a philosophical issue under those conditions. Problem is, we have the capacity to ask why we are actually NOT exactly like all other objects, which is the issue Descartes brought to the table....

“....The absolute distinction of mind and body is, besides, confirmed in this Second Meditation, by showing that we cannot conceive body unless as divisible; while, on the other hand, mind cannot be conceived unless as indivisible....”(2)

....and is best exemplified in Kant....

“...This relation, then, does not exist because I accompany every representation with consciousness, but because I join one representation to another, and am conscious of the synthesis of them. Consequently, only because I can connect a variety of given representations in one consciousness, is it possible that I can represent to myself the identity of consciousness in these representations....”(3)

....where “this relation” is intended, within the context of the entire section therein, as the absolute and altogether necessary distinction between the subject (conscious that) and object (conscious of), which is the ground of the difference between us and other objects. In effect, Aristotle denies a distinction, Descartes warrants the distinction, Kant identifies the distinction.

Done deal!!!!!
——————

Ryle's point is that there no empirical-observation/rational-thinking divide. (...) Alice sees more because she is rational. — Andrew M

Do you see the contradiction? If there is no observational/rational divide, how does Alice see more than she merely observes?

It’s not difficult, actually. The proposition “Bob is running in a race” is a synthetic judgement, insofar as the conception of running and racing does not contain the conception of winning, for, as you have already noted, the race may not end or all the racers may be disqualified, ad infinitum. Therefore, there absolutely is an observational/rational divide, as soon as it is recognized that additional conceptions are required for additional understandings of any given empirical occasion. In order to understand winning, one must have already understood the race to be over. Therefore, the former is conditioned by the latter, which is an a priori rational judgement of an empirical occassion.

Think of it this way: in principle you cannot get to 10, when all you have is a 4 on one hand and a 6 on the other, with nothing else given whatsoever.

That is what I mean by holistic. Instead of a dualistic "physical" seeing + "transcendent" rationality, it's instead just a richer form of seeing. — Andrew M

Which I understand, but at the same time consider to be a categorical error, in that a richer form of seeing is better known as understanding. And understanding is certainly not seeing in any sense, regardless of how convention wishes upon us the less philosophically taxing.
—————-

So concepts have a natural grounding in language use. Which is to say, we have the concept of snow when we are able to employ the word "snow" (or "schnee"). — Andrew M

Yes, but that natural ground is properly called understanding, in which the conception is already given. I understand what you mean when you pick up a handful of schnee because I already know what snow is, and you are showing me exactly the same thing in your hand. But I don’t understand schnee because of the word “schnee”; I understand it from the extant conception that schnee represents.

I would rather think language use has its natural ground in the commonality of conceptions. Conceptions are always antecedent to talk of them. Right? I mean......how can we talk of that which we have not yet conceived?
——————

I think we start with the particulars that we ordinarily observe. We develop rules and processes as we go along. If we discover a wrong claim, we fix it and move on. — Andrew M

Oh absolutely. The scientific method writ large.

The practical approach is not apodeictic (it's instead provisional), but neither is it arbitrary. — Andrew M

Yep. No objections there. There are, however, things that are not provisional, that are apodeictic. Because there are two of those kinds of knowing things, the provisional and the certain.....how do we assure ourselves we aren’t confusing one of them for the other? If the answer to that is to start over, first we have to realize a manifest false knowledge, then we have to determine where to start over from. Then we have to determine why starting over from here is more or better justified then starting over from there. How do we stop this potential infinite regress? Because we are certain we know some things, the infinite regress must have its termination.

In addition, you said the observational approach is provisional, which is irrefutably correct given the principle of induction for empirical conditions, then it follows that the apodeictic cannot be empirical given the principle of contradiction, re: that which is provisional cannot be at the same time be certain.
That which is not empirical is necessarily rational or transcendent. That which is transcendent can have no empirical proofs, but that which is rational, may be susceptible to empirical proofs, depending on its content.

The empirical/rational duality is inescapable with respect to the human cognitive system.

(1) On The Soul, I,4 in Smith, Oxford, 1931
(2) Meditations, Synopsis, in Veitch, St. Andrews, ca. 1854 (MIT, 1901)
(3) CPR B133 in Kemp Smith, 1929

What was Kant's answer? That Alice automatically knows the logical conditions because they are a priori? — Andrew M

Kant’s answer is that Alice doesn’t know a damn thing about logical conditions, as they are insinuated in Ryle. Alice’s entire cognitive faculty is absolutely predicated on them, of which she has not the slightest conscious notion.

Idle musings:

Odd, isn’t it? That Ryle goes to such great lengths to deny the ghost, but allows for the “silent ghostiness”?

“...the technical trick of conducting our thinking in auditory word-images, instead of spoken words, does indeed secure secrecy for our thinking…”(1).......

..........although auditory word/images I would be disinclined to call a technical trick. It is, instead, exactly how the human system operates. And aligning secrecy with a ghost, or occult, that is to say, otherwise inaccessible internality, is far too pejorative a conclusion. Not to mention, the “ghost” disappears immediately upon profitable argument contra substance dualism, re: Ryle’s “category mistake”, while allowing property dualism to remain relatively unaffected. At least til them ordinary language folks latch aholta vit.

If we grant that the supremacy of the human aptitude is for knowledge acquisition, and by that if we arrive at knowledge, we should wish our knowledge to be as certain as possible and we should wish to understand what our knowledge actually entails. The best way to arrive at knowledge certainty, and to best way to understand what our knowledge certainty means, is to base the acquisition system for it on the only conditions which grant lawful authority, which is always certain in itself......logic.

From here it is clear that logical conditions, of which Alice has not the slightest notion, are the methodological processes of human thought, that follow a logical series. She has no notion because they all occur in the steps of the process that Ryle calls “occult”, and you have called unverifiable. While this may all be the case, nothing is taken away from the those conditions being logical, even if we are unaware of them.

“....But modelling thinking on processes (...) which can be broken down into ingredient processes which have been coordinated in a certain way is a mistake…. “(2).

Not sure why not. If we start with this for a fact, and if we end up with that for a fact, we have every right to suppose the excluded middle that supports the end in keeping with the beginning.

“..."there cannot be an intermediate between contradictories, but of one subject we must either affirm or deny any one predicate" (3)

(1) Ryle, 1949a
(2) Ryle 1951b
(3) Metaphysics, 4,7

I also reject Transcendentalism - they're two sides of the same dualist coin. — Andrew M

Maybe....I dunno. Each of those doctrines have so many branches, there probably are some that interact as opposites of a dualism. I do favor methodological reduction, and transcendental philosophy, but I don’t have much to do with Transcendentalism the self-contained intellectual movement, except for Emerson and Thoreau, and that mostly from our common culture.
——————-

The third choice I'm suggesting assigns agency to the human being, not to an idealist mind nor to a materialist brain. — Andrew M

And if agency, that is, rationality, morality, consciousness, intellect, are all predicated on either mind or brain, how is agency accounted for if not by those?

A particular is not the material object of the Reductionist (e.g., Democritus), it is a matter/form compound (per hylomorphism). That precludes the need for the idealist subject of the Transcendentalist (e.g., Plato) since the form (morphe or eidos) of every particular takes on that role. So it's a holistic approach rather than a dualistic approach. — Andrew M

The modern subject/object dualism does not concern itself with the dual nature of real objects in the world. In transcendental philosophy, and perhaps post-medieval systems in general, the subject is he who considers the relationship between himself and those objects. In Aristotle, subject is what is being talked about, in which case the real physical object is the subject of discussion, and he talks about object as subject in at least two different ways, one in “Categories” and the other in “Physics”. All well and good, but not the same kind of subject/object dualism of the moderns.

For Aristotle, particulars exist independently of anyone's knowledge of them. So, for example, the Earth orbited the Sun a billion years ago, well before life emerged to know about it. Thus there were particulars (objects) at that time, but no subjects. — Andrew M

This puts the particular right back into the purview of the the moderns, insofar as particulars are real objects, whether known from experience or not, and further allocates subject as a knowing being instead of the object of discussion.

To reiterate, dualism maintains a separation between subject and object. Whereas with hylomorphism, form and matter are inseparable aspects of every object. — Andrew M

Ok, no problem. Where is the subject in hylomorphism? If it is true Aristotle speaks of object as subject, and attributes both form and matter to the subjects he’s speaking about......where is the speaker? You said before he was treated as any other object, so it appears all those human agency predicates are merely particulars of some certain substance. Even if that gives us what they are, it does nothing to tell us how they work, and how they relate to each other in order to work together such that “agency” has any meaning.

Yes, one kind of modern dualism does maintain a separation between subject and object, but they are in no way to be considered the same kind of thing, as hylomorphism makes of every object including the subject of modern dualism.
——————

Just when I thought we were going to agree, Kant adds an "on the other hand"! (...) Contra both the Reductionist and the Transcendentalist, Bob winning the race is on the roster of observables. — Andrew M

Yes, absolutely. That isn’t the “other hand”, however, which resides in what does winning the race mean, over and above the merely empirical observation of it? As Aristotle himself says...we don’t care so much for what we know as for what we don’t. And Ryle is right that the empiricists list of observables gets smaller and smaller, winning is just one thing after all, and experiments usually give one result, yet eyeballs can see the multiplicity of observables in entire cosmological space available to it, while the rationalists list of unverifiables gets longer, which is your argument against e.g., appearances on one hand and other mythical “causal hypotheses” on the other.
—————

We don’t speak when we think; we speak when we express what we think.
— Mww

Ryle isn't saying that we verbally utter words when thinking. He is saying that thinking is the utilization of language (with a governing purpose). So we can certainly think without speaking. But it's also possible to speak without thinking. And to speak thoughtfully, and to think out loud. Again, just one action - two aren't necessary (though one could also think for a while, then speak). — Andrew M

I meant to speak is to use language, and the use of language does not necessarily include verbalizing. I should have said “we don’t use language when we think....”, which was implied by the CPR quote “thought is cognition by means of concepts”. As such, I reject that thinking is the utilization of language, while granting that thinking has a governing purpose, re: proper relations of concepts in order for cognitions not to contradict themselves. And even if that is an unverifiable in itself, it can manifest as an observable when we get around to actually verbalizing.

Man, just wait til things like schema, and phenomena, and spontaneity come up........no wonder Ryle scoffs at unverifiables, huh????

The issue is that the unobservable is indistinguishable from a ghost. Ryle is arguing that the roster of observables is too short if it excludes thinking. We can observe that Le Penseur is thinking. — Andrew M

Yeah, he got a lot of mileage out of that ghost thing, didn’t he? Sure we may observe that he is thinking. Doesn’t matter, though, really; observation of the manifestation of thought is not the thought process itself. We are still entitled to ask “why did you do that?” after observing what he did.

I’m having trouble understanding how it is at all possible to deny the private subject of human rationality.
——————-

Some interpretations say that wavefunction collapse is an illusion, others that the wavefunction isn't real. So maybe not the best example for making your point. — Andrew M

Sure it is, if the transcendent is merely the unobservable, which I got from your, “transcends what is observable...”. Being illusory or even unreal satisfies being unobservable, but is that sufficient for transcendent? Being impossible as empirical phenomena is transcendent, but that which is illusory is not so impossible. And your ol’ nemesis “appearance” certainly isn’t real, but most certainly is an empirical phenomenon, under at least one metaphysical theory. I picked the wavefunction because it is mathematically real, albeit unobservable in itself, hence questions whether or not it is transcendent.
—————

What infinite regress? Is mind required for the Earth to orbit the Sun? — Andrew M

Of course not. Some productive rational methodology is necessary for us to understand that and how the Earth orbits the Sun, and any other empirical observation. The mind serves to terminate infinite regress in the series of possibilities in the sphere of transcendental imaginables. Because the sphere of possible experience is immeasurable, requires us to set limits in our methods somewhere, otherwise we have no apodeictic ground for our knowledge. No matter the arbitrariness of what the kind or form the limit has, the setting of one is necessary.
——————

It's not so simple since "race/racing" can have different senses depending on the context. — Andrew M

Which gets pretty close to the whole point: looking at it top down, if it is true there are many different senses of a thing, wouldn’t we seek a common ground for all of them? On the other hand, bottom up, wouldn’t we already have a common ground, in order to see the difference in senses of things? And because we can look at things either way, or rather, some things present themselves in one way or the other, wouldn’t we already have the capacity to understand them however they present themselves?

How that all happens seems to be of much more importance than the non-duality of objects, and we shouldn’t allow our disinterest to be enable by mere unverifiables.

I am very disappointed in being sent to wiki.
———————

I get that hylomorphism attributes both matter and form to objects, such that form is relieved of its usefulness in minds. But I don’t get how that falsifies subject/object dualism itself. Aristotle grants that we think, for even the very opening paragraph of “Physics”, “...we do not think that we know a thing until we are acquainted with its primary conditions or first principles...”, makes human thought explicit, of whatever kind it may be. As great length has been given in “Physics” to objects, and gives authority on the primacy of being of them and the relations between constituencies in them, it follows that such ontological predicates of objects are moot, if not irrelevant, if the reality of objects, whatever their constituency, is already presupposed. But referring to the quoted assertion, still leaves “we do not think we know a thing....”, which immediately invokes a subject/object dualism, insofar as there must be he who thinks himself acquainted with conditions and principles, and that to which the conditions and principles belong. So, yes, the internal/external dualism is eliminated by attributing form to objects proper, but eliminating internal/external dualism does not eliminate the subject/object dualism.

Of course, further examination of primary conditions and first principles, when found to be a functional acquaintance of the investigative agency himself, the necessity for subject/object dualism is given.
—————-

Minds don't think, human beings do. — Andrew M

No objections. Mind is nothing but an abstract placeholder, a euphemism for that which serves as the logical means for terminating the speculative tendency towards infinite regress. It’s just a common word for a transcendental idea. We could speak for hours without ever once mentioning the word, all the while having the idea as the silent ground.
—————

Then apparently, you have no reason to think Bob is thinking about racing and winning, as he goes about his worldly event,
— Mww

He presumably would be, but need not be. — Andrew M

Given your inclination towards intentionality, wouldn’t you agree that if Bob is in the race, then he is racing, and if he is in fact racing, he thereby intends to win? If he’s even in the race presupposes he intends to win, otherwise he’d just be a member of a group going from point A to point B, but from that alone, or that in relation to a standard of some sort, it couldn’t be said he is racing.

So granting he is thinking about racing because he’s in the race, and he’s thinking about winning because that’s the intent of racing, then wouldn’t you also grant he has different ideas about one as opposed to the other? And if he has different ideas, he must have different thoughts, and if he has different thoughts, he must have different subjective conditions which facilitate one in succession to the other.

No, he need not be. But not much reason to be there if he isn’t. And he is there, so.......

Fun stuff:

understanding denotes an achievement, not a task (nor a faculty or capability).
— Andrew M

......to better understand our disagreements is an achievement, which we can then say only evolves by the faculty of understanding being tasked to achieve it. Such would be a semantic quibble if it weren’t already a theoretical tenet.
— Mww

Sure. However the semantic quibble for me is the assigning of agency to a faculty... — Andrew M

I understand how assigning agency to a faculty sounds kinda hincky, but really....we only have two choices, within our current knowledge base. One is pure cognitive neuroscience, in which the brain is analyzed to a fare-thee-well but doesn’t tell us what we really want to know; the other is, we think our own cognitive, albeit speculative, metaphysics, which tells us exactly what we want to know, but has no means of empirical justification. The latter in general having been around grappling with the human experience a hellava lot longer than the former, but the former in general effecting the human experience with a hellava lot more power over a significantly lesser time than the latter, puts us into the cross-hairs of a major intellectual conundrum.

The use personal pronouns in the content of our communications merely from the demands of language, gives no logical ground for their origin. Agency is assigned to a faculty in cognitive metaphysics for the expressed purpose of giving that logical ground for the origin of that which the pronouns represent, and that for the excruciatingly simple reason that cognitive neuroscience doesn’t have the means for it.

Now, it is the common notion that pure empiricism is content to wait for its proper knowledge, while metaphysics creates its own, which is the kindly way of saying science is reluctant to invoke magic to get what it wants, while thumbing its collective nose at metaphysics for having no such trepidation. But what pure empiricism overlooks, is the fact that its logic is exactly the same logic employed by the speculative philosopher, and even if the empirical logic is practical, having real objects in its content, and the metaphysical logic is abstract, having merely possible objects in its content, it is still logic. So the reductionist attitude is that the scientist frowns on the metaphysician because the metaphysician can prove his theoretical tenets using a logical methodology, but the pure empiricist has nothing he can prove at all, still being stuck in the exploratory/experimental quagmire of his theoretical domain, notwithstanding his logical methodology, with respect to the assignment of agency.

All that being said, the hinckiness is quite evident, if one is inclined to insist there actually are faculties to which assigning anything at all makes sense. We both know there is no such thing as, e.g., a real, measurable faculty of representation, or a faculty that thinks, or that reason does things for itself. These are either mere figures of speech predicated entirely on the necessity for some arbitrary form of mutual interconnectivity. Or, if you wish.....

“....So since we could witness none of the things John Doe is doing were the required acts of having ideas, abstracting, making judgements, or passing from premise to conclusion, it would seem to be necessary to locate these actions on the boards of a stage to which only he had access. (...) The imputed episodes appeared to be impenetrably “internal” because they were genuinely unwitnessable. But they were genuinely unwitnessable because they were mythical. They were causal hypothesis substituted for functional descriptions of the elements of published theories ....”
(Ryle, 1949, pg 318)

Nevertheless, there are two instance where it is perfectly legitimate to insist on something, re: everybody thinks, and, no science is ever done that isn’t first thought. Put those two together, in a proper, logically consistent, theoretical system, and hinckiness disappears, justified by those very mythical, albeit quite causal, hypotheses.
——————-

knowledge is not possible without intelligibility. So the point at issue is whether that's because the conditions of experience transcend the natural world or because they are immanent in it. — Andrew M

For humans anyway, to say experience transcends the natural world, is a contradiction, if it is the case that the conditions of experience are necessarily given from it. Kantian epistemology takes for granted the principles, which govern the conditions of experience, can be nothing but immanent, that is to say, strictly limited to the natural world......

“...we shall call those principles the application of which is confined entirely within the limits of possible experience, immanent; those, on the other hand, which transgress these limits, we shall call transcendent principles....”
(CPR, A296)

.....for no other reason than we ourselves determine the principles and we belong to the natural world. Nature being, of course, merely the manifold of occassions from which the principles can be thought. That things happen Nature is given; how things happen in Nature is determined solely by the investigating agency, the intelligibility of the former grounded explicitly in the a priori logical functions subsisting in the latter.

For Kant, the a priori imposes controls on "the pryings of introspection". For Ryle, logical conditions are implicit in our practical experiences and observations. — Andrew M

Why is introspection not one of those unwitnessable, imputed episodes mentioned above? That he uses it as a causal hypothetical sorta detracts from his chastisement of the “...great epistemologists Locke, Hume and Kant....”, doesn’t it? That’s fine, though; we all need words, concepts, and language to get our points across no matter the era of our theories.

I get the gist, though. It is pure reason that imposes controls on the extravagances of private cognition, and pure reason is always a priori, so.....close enough.

While I agree with Ryle that logical conditions are implicit in our practical experiences, the a priori has nothing to do with practical experience. I mean....that’s its distinction, having nothing to do with experience. So to reconcile, it must be that Ryle thinks logical conditions are themselves a priori, but if so, they cannot be implicit, but must be explicit. That is, logical conditions must be necessary, not just implied. We know this, because sometimes our observations contradict extant experience, and if the logical conditions weren’t already established, we wouldn’t have the means to recognize the contradiction.
———————

Hume reduces thinking to constant conjunctions. In response, Kant transcendentalizes thinking. Ryle suggests instead that thinking "is saying things to [one]self with a special governing purpose". That's a natural definition that is neither reducible to just talking to oneself nor appeals to anything that transcends what is observable. — Andrew M

Thinking has a special governing purpose, but only an analytic, language, philosopher would call it saying things to oneself. While it may be a “natural” definition, it is only so for that very constant conjunction we use all the time without ever realizing that’s exactly what we DON’T do. We don’t speak when we think; we speak when we express what we think.

“....Thought is cognition by means of conceptions...”.
(CPR B94)

Why does that which is unobservable have to be transcendent? If the theoretical wavefunction collapse is unobservable in and of itself, is it therefore transcendent? Seems rather intellectually inconsistent, to categorically reject the unobservable in speculative metaphysics, yet glorify it in empirical physics.
———————

thinking and thinking deeply being two different things? I don’t see the theoretical benefit in that fine a distinction.
— Mww

No, that's not the distinction. The distinction is between thinking (e.g., about a math problem) and the conclusion one reaches as the result of thinking (e.g., that 2+2=4). — Andrew M

OK, sorry, but you specifically mentioned thinking and thinking deeply, so I just ran with it.

So Alice might cognize that 2+2=4 after much cogitation. And note that she couldn't cognize that 2+2=5, since it's false - to cognize something imples that one has been successful - an achievement. Whereas Alice can nonetheless cogitate about two plus two equaling five or one hand clapping if that's her thing. — Andrew M

After much cogitation: Alice, assuming she already knows how to count, cogitates by assembling blocks by series of two’s, successfully achieves the cognizing of four by counting the totality of the series. So she couldn’t cognize five, because, according to you and Ryle, the logical conditions implicit in the observation, in this case, the counting, prevent it, but she could still cogitate it.

Alice barely knows how to count. How does she know about logical conditions? Kant has the answer; what does Ryle say?

Fun’s over.

(Sigh)

Easy stuff:

I shall take that as saying we still agree language always presupposes experience.
— Mww

No, I don't agree with that!
— Andrew M

(...) All I'm saying is that someone, somewhere, has to observe a tree (i.e., experience something) before people can meaningfully talk about trees (i.e., have language about something). — Andrew M

The only way we couldn’t be agreeing, is if your use of the experience of a particular object followed by meaningful talk of it, is not agreeable with my use of the universal objects of all experience followed by meaningful talk of any of them. Or, for you, observation is not connected to experience, maybe?
——————

On my model, an object is something an observer can point to. So it has form in relation to an observer, it's not intrinsic or invariant. We get a sense of how things can vary for different observers from, for example, color perception studies in animals — Andrew M

Point to....agreed, if “point to” means manually indicate a physical reality;
Has form......ok, but in relation to an observer is too ambiguous. In relation to can mean internal relation or external relation. Because you have stipulated pointing to, which implies external to the observer, dialectical consistency suggests form is external to the observer as well.

Is the externality of form because you speak from a doctrine of nominalism, insofar as form as a universal representation in intuition is denied? That’s fine, and because I speak from a conceptualist perspective, the root of our dissimilar epistemological metaphysics is given.
—————-

all human thought is singular and successive. If such should be the case, then change in subjective condition (Bob racing, Bob winning) is necessarily a process in time.
— Mww

I would deny that Bob racing and Bob winning are subjective conditions or thoughts at all, they instead take place in the world. Bob racing is a process that occurs over a period of time. Whereas Bob winning is a condition that obtains at a single point in time. — Andrew M

Then apparently, you have no reason to think Bob is thinking about racing and winning, as he goes about his worldly event, which you wouldn’t, if you deny subjective conditions. The only way to deny subjective conditions is to deny subjectivity, and by association, you must deny yourself as being a thinking subject. Hmmm.....who am I talking to, again?
——————

What is a conceptual scheme?
— Mww

A way of thinking about the world. — Andrew M

Oh. Thought so, just making sure. You know.....human understanding does that all by itself, without having to create a name for it. That’s its job, after all. Synthesize certain concepts in direct relation to observations. Of course, because of experience, a horse will have four legs, and a horse of any other alternative conceptual scheme won’t be a horse.

In science, it would include heliocentrism v. geocentrism, and classical physics v. quantum physics. — Andrew M

So theory became epistemological domain became conceptual scheme. I’m all for leaving well enough alone, myself.
————

Addendum: after hitting “post comment”, I see you’ve addressed the first of my easy parts. I don’t just erase it so you know I saw the original.

Thanks

I’m talking about the relation between a conception we think and the symbolism assigned that makes language possible. (...)
Disclaimer: I detest language philosophy;
— Mww

you are talking about verbal language. — Sir Philo Sophia

Exactly the thing I’m NOT talking about. “Makes language possible” should have indicated I’m talking about the necessary a priori presuppositions for a particular human physical activity, not the enactment of it by means of its various indices.

(Repeat disclaimer here)

No worries, s’all good. My fault for posing somewhat vague scenarios, in the interest of reductionist simplicity.

I will offer that you are guilty of a Ignoratio Elenchi for giving correct technical answers to what was, for all intents and purposes, a strictly non-technical question. So you are right of course, but under unwarranted conditions.

Again....my fault. Can’t blame a guy for being correct.

If you want to call the whole thing 'rational' thinking without distinguishing any finer category, be my guest, but I'm not sure I see the advantage. — Isaac

I walk up to a guy, show him a Rorschach, ask him.....what’s going on in your brain right now?
Or, I walk up to a guy, show him a Rorschach, ask him.....what does this look like to you.

Which question will he answer?

Humans don’t express thought in terms of brain mechanics. Even though natural law is its ground, the human does not think in terms of charge, spin, quantum number, activation potential and such. So the advantage to calling the whole thing rational thought, is the absolute impossibility of individual comprehensions in particular and thereby meaningful communication in general given from it, in any other terms.

Part Two:

I balk at “her beliefs”, however, because if she knows the object as a tree, she has no need to merely believe in the properties that cause it to be a tree in the first place.
— Mww

OK. But isn't that open to the problem of Crusoe attributing bentness to the (straight) stick? Does he "know" it is bent at the time? — Andrew M

Nahhh...., Robbie has experience of sticks on the ground and branches in trees, so he knows normally sticks aren’t bent in the way they seem when half i/half out of the water. He’ll just think that’s the weirdest stick he’s ever seen. Upon perceiving the stick without its illusory appearance, he’ll understand why it looked so weird. The bent stick isn’t a very good example anyway, because their illusion are so easily remedied, and anything easily remedied isn’t really a problem. The illusion of sunrise is much better, because it took so long to remedy, and because we thought of the sun as actually rising/setting for so long, we still use the terminology for it in common understandings.
——————

Also note that I deny that an object has intrinsic properties. I instead say that the object has form in relation to Alice.

Anyway, my guess is that we're saying the same thing here in our respective terminologies. — Andrew M

Not so sure, myself. I don’t know what it means for an object to have form in relation to a perceiver. What is the relationship between your form and my properties?
——————-

I shall take that as saying we still agree language always presupposes experience.
— Mww

No, I don't agree with that! — Andrew M

Then you are forced to admit to naming things, or at least to admit it is not a problem to name things, about which you know nothing whatsoever. In addition, you’ll find yourself unable to explain how it is that, sittin’ ‘round the dinner table as a kid, you didn’t understand what it meant when your parents talked about balancing the checkbook.

You’re talking about language in the sense of stringing symbols together to form a communication. I’m talking about the relation between a conception we think and the symbolism assigned that makes language possible. Because the same thing can be said in many different languages across cultures, and because the same thing can be said in exactly the same language regardless of culture, re: mathematics, and....as if that wasn’t enough...the same symbolism across cultures can indicate very different things, re: football, then it is readily apparent that experience of the thing being talked about, grounds the symbolism for talking about it.

Disclaimer: I detest language philosophy; its what professionals do because all the cool stuff’s been done already and they can’t think of a way to improve on it.
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I regard realization there as a logical condition, not a process in time. — Andrew M

Understood, and I can see that as a logical condition. What would you say to this: all human thought is singular and successive. If such should be the case, then change in subjective condition (Bob racing, Bob winning) is necessarily a process in time.
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He's denying a stamp-collecting approach to thinking and saying, either as a catalog of bodily movements or as a catalog of mental activities. Ryle brings in reason in the completion of that sentence where he includes the logical conditions under which thinking and saying occur, "... but some nexus of statable because statement-shaped conditions." — Andrew M

See....I didn’t catch any of that from the passage. And I couldn’t unpack that last part at all. And I don’t understand “stamp-collecting”.
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But I also think there is a give-and-take - some conceptual schemes are natural and well-motivated, others not so much. If I call a tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have? — Andrew M

No fair. We already know tails from legs. But if the very first naming of that wispy thing hanging off the south end of a north-bound horse was “leg”, or whatever.....that’s what we’d be calling it today, and all horses would have but one leg.

What is a conceptual scheme?

Sorry about pluralizing your buddy.

Part One:

better understanding our disagreements — Andrew M

Absolutely. No meaningful discourse when the parties all agree with each other. Still, in Ryle, as you say.......

understanding denotes an achievement, not a task (nor a faculty or capability). — Andrew M

......to better understand our disagreements is an achievement, which we can then say only evolves by the faculty of understanding being tasked to achieve it.

Such would be a semantic quibble if it weren’t already a theoretical tenet.
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Still, because minds, in and of themselves, would seem to be irrefutably private....
— Mww

I would say irrefutably not private (per the PLA). Or, to take a broader perspective, we have different ways of conceptualizing mind: — Andrew M

Agreed, not private (per the PLA), because there is no such thing as a PLA anyway. I meant private insofar as inaccessible except as the necessarily abstract ground for transcendental philosophy. Therein, the mind is conceived as the irreducible condition for all that pure reason seeks for itself.

Commonly, I suppose, and granting the complementary nature of human rationality, that which is ultimately real, and possibly knowable, the object, is incomprehensible without logical juxtaposition to the ultimately not-real, hence only thinkable, the mind.

More commonly, I suppose, mind is what the brain does, which is just about as empty a conception as there could ever be.

On my view, to interpret a figurative expression as a Cartesian-style mind is a conceptual mistake. — Andrew M

Given this highlighted section: “...Talk of the mind, one might say, is merely a convenient facon de parler, a way of speaking about certain human faculties and their exercise...”, I suppose this to be a figurative expression, and if it is, I agree such talk is a conceptual mistake. I don’t talk about or of the mind per se, but rather talk about certain human faculties and their exercise on their own validity and merits alone.

And your different way of conceptualizing mind would be......? Which I take as a different concept of mind, in as much as I think we all conceptualize, as a task, the same way.
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On ordinary language: thanks for the explanations; things are clearer for me with them, with respect to Ryle.
On theoretical terminology: understood, even if I maintain that hardly any of it is necessary. I mean...thinking and thinking deeply being two different things? I don’t see the theoretical benefit in that fine a distinction.
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In the immortal words of Herr Pauli......That is not only not right, it is not even wrong!
— Mww

On the contrary, Ryle gets it right! And it's such a clear distillation of Ryle's view that I had to requote it. — Andrew M

The minor objection: the passage itself may be a clear distillation of Ryle, but I don’t get where he thinks Descartes and Plato are transcendentalists.
The major objection: for those I do see as Transcendentalists, or, more properly, transcendental idealists, it must be granted that the “lavishness of the transcendentalist” means the invocation of a priori cognitions and knowledge, and calling such invocation occult-ish and “transcending powers of perception”, is what is not even wrong.

Can you show what the lavishness of the transcendentalist is, that isn’t the advocacy of the a priori, to show what I thought Ryle meant, is incorrect?

Ryle's broader argument is that by rectifying the logical geography here (i.e., rejecting both the ghost and the machine and reallocating the facts marshalled by the transcendentalist and reductionists), the natural world becomes intelligible. — Andrew M

On the other hand, rejecting the alleged ghost and the machine the ghost supposedly lives in, seems to be rejecting the a priori aspect of human reason, and by association, the faculties in which the a priori resides. The intelligibility of the natural world is not the same as knowledge of the natural world, however, and because of that, I reject the notion that the latter is even possible without the former.

All of which validates the premise that method is a systematic procedure according to rules, but not according to laws. Because there is no promise all humans think about things the same way makes explicit the systematic procedure cannot be predicated on laws, even while a logically deterministic method under which the procedure operates, certainly does not have that restriction.
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The more complex you make the instruction, the more challenging the environment you make it in the more varied the results. — Isaac

Agreed, in principle. Which is why the exemplary instruction is as simple as possible. Point-to-foot. Subject/copula/predicate. Unencumbered by manufactured conditionals.


The empirical psychologist will inform me as to the myriad of reasons why the guy won’t point to his foot, but all I want to know is how he understood me when I asked him to.

if the deterministic natural forces are expressed through a stochastic system then there's no reason at all to suppose a deterministic method will result. — Isaac

True enough. Still, in the compendium of practical matters in which humans can agree with each other on an arbitrary set of empirical determinations in accordance with their respective communicative means (if I ask every rational English-speaking body in NYC to point to his foot, they will all point to the same place), there would seem to indeed be a singular deterministic method in place that supports practical matters in general.

Nahhhh......if all humans didn’t have a common thinking method intrinsic to themselves alone, they’d be mere primates.

Anyway....thanks for the perspective.

You used system in regard to a strict, singular, deterministic; I used method. The method is the rules, the system is the use of the rules. No matter the particulars, the brain (the system) obeys the laws attributed to natural forces (the method).

Shouldn’t in the sense that should would be destructive, insofar as if the conditions under which the method is used determine the method, the method is no longer rule-based, therefore not a proper method.

If we can suffice with just “thought”, which I advocate as being the case, why do we need more than one method for it?

Equally compelling views is a relative quality, but still, the enabling parameters for neural networks corresponding to war being different than enabling parameters for neural networks corresponding to peace remain enabled neural networks nonetheless.

From a more esoteric domain, it is unarguable that the human doesn’t think in terms of neural networks, even if neural networks are the physical mechanisms for it. If the brain operates under a strict, singular, mechanically deterministic method, however complex it may be, why wouldn’t the merely philosophical operate under some method as singular, strict and logically deterministic, with some arbitrary corresponding complexity?

Either way, the conditions under which a method operates, shouldn’t determine the rules of the method.

If method is a systematic procedure according to rules, then reason should be readily granted as the method of (human) thinking. But I’m reluctant to admit we have methods of thinking corresponding to the plethora of subjects being thought about.

I’m not going to argue against your expertise in psychology, obviously; just looking for a little clarity.

Reason is simply a method of thinking. — Isaac

Elsewhere you asserted logic is simply a method of thinking.

Are there more?

I reject radical privacy, but not mind-related terminology. — Andrew M

Understood. One can’t reject mind-related terminology yet still talk about mind-like things. Still, because minds, in and of themselves, would seem to be irrefutably private, it seems odd...or self-contradictory....to reject radical privacy in the mental sense, which is what we’re discussing here.
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On “Thinking and Saying”:

I understand you to be countering the predicates my continental transcendentalism with it, but I’m not seeing how that gets accomplished. Rather than dissect it ad nauseam, I’ll just bring forth one item I noticed, abruptly, so to speak, and that comes from.....

“.....This notion of thinking is that of pondering or trying to solve a problem, not that of believing or feeling sure, which unfortunately goes by the same English name of "Thinking." I am interested in cogitation, not credence; in perplexity, not unperplexity. Our specimen thinker is going to be the stilI baffled Penseur, not the man who, having reached conviction, has stopped struggling to reach it....”

.....which is found in the first paragraph after the topic break on p5. The “man who, having reached conviction...” has cognized that which he was beforehand thinking. To say interest in cogitation, not credence: is self-defeating, for credence IS cogitation, as opposed to arriving at cogitation, by means of “pondering or trying to solve a problem”, which is, of course, what le penseur is actually doing when he thinks.

“.....To think an object and to cognize an object are by no means the same thing. In cognition there are two elements: firstly, the conception, whereby an object is thought (the category); and, secondly, the intuition, whereby the object is given. For supposing that to the conception a corresponding intuition could not be given, it would still be a thought as regards its form, but without any object, and no cognition of anything would be possible by means of it, inasmuch as, so far as I knew, there existed and could exist nothing to which my thought could be applied....”
(B147)

Now, one may perhaps interject that Ryles is not talking about cognition when he uses the term cogitation. If that is the case.....I give up. Anybody can say whatever they want if they also invent the terms to justify it. Just going to be mighty difficult to find common ground, though.

“....What is the point of the under-breath muttering which the thinker really is very often doing when thinking? What is the heuristic use of soliloquizing? There is no one-strand answer.....

(Of course there is: understanding)

......The still baffled Pythagoras, in again and again muttering a geometrical phrase to himself, may be intending, by way of rehearsal, to fix it in his memory; or in discontent with its slack phrasing, he may be intending, if he can, to stiffen it; or he may be meaning to re-savour the thrill of a recent discovery...”

....all possible, yet all reducible to........go ahead, take a guess.

Now, about these under-breath mutterings. Ever read a book that thoroughly enthralled you? I mean...took you away and put you right where the author wanted you to be. For me, it was Stephen King, and I’m here to tell ya I never saw the words he wrote, and I never muttered a damn thing. All that says, is that it is entirely possible to have mental activity without the slightest internal muttering, which makes explicit there are certain mental activities in which language has no play. If there are some mental activities in which language has no play, yet mental activities are completely comprehensible, the whole intentionality thing is rather worthless, at least from a radical private perspective.

Anyway, thanks for the reference showing me the ground of your arguments so far. Rest assured I don’t necessarily disagree with them entirely, even if I find such grounding both insufficient for theoretical completeness, and misguided in theoretical derivation.

Ok, fine. Two items. Pg7:

“...Our Reductionist had begun by assailing Cartesian and Platonic extravagances on the basis of what can be, in an ordinary way, observed. But now he reduces, in its turn, observation itself to Nothing But some oddly stingy minimum. However, this stinginess of the empiricist must not soften us towards the lavishness of the transcendentalist. For though he properly acknowledges the differences between kicking and scoring, or between just presenting arms and obeying the order to present arms, yet he goes on to make these differences occult ones. For since they are not to be the earthly or muscular differences demanded in vain by the empiricist, they will have instead to be unearthly, nonmuscular differences that transcend the referee's and the sergeant's powers of perception...”

In the immortal words of Herr Pauli......That is not only not right, it is not even wrong! One has no business qualifying the transcendental with the transcendent, and neither are necessarily occult in nature. Ryles may have been nodding toward Steiner, re: “The Outline of Occult Science”, 1909, but Steiner was no proper transcendentalist, but rather a mere mystic, or spiritualist, a la Swedenborg.
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On my model, when Alice looks at the tree, she is not looking at a photograph of the territory (since there is no photograph), she is looking at the territory which has a specific form in relation to her. Her beliefs about the territory are her map (e.g., that the tree has green leaves).

Whereas on your (Kantian) model, Alice is looking at a photograph (the territory in sense) of the territory-in-itself. Her beliefs about the photograph are her map (e.g., that the tree has green leaves). Whereas the territory-in-itself remains unknowable.

Does that capture your model, on your view? — Andrew M

My model: as you put it, is pretty much the case, yes. I balk at “her beliefs”, however, because if she knows the object as a tree, she has no need to merely believe in the properties that cause it to be a tree in the first place. This is a reflection on my thesis that we attribute properties to objects, as opposed to your thesis that objects are necessarily in possession of intrinsic properties belonging to them irrespective of the perception of them.
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You asked about how the first person bootstraps their knowledge on my model. The answer is that they try something and, if that doesn't work out, they try something else (assuming they survive long enough to do so). And language builds up around those experiences. — Andrew M

Ok, fine. I shall take that as saying we still agree language always presupposes experience.

Later he happens to pull the stick out and realizes it is straight. He makes a mental note of the implications of this discovery for future reference. And so knowledge and language accrete in tandem with practical experience. — Andrew M

Robbie can certainly pull and realize simultaneously. Or, if he happens to be on a tide flat and perceives the exposure of rocks, he can realize without any pulling. But mental note-taking is precisely the other part of the dualism being discussed. And in no case is it possible for Robbie to realize something before his experience of it. He can think it, but thinking is not realizing.

That is, he did not "physically" pull the stick out and, as a separate action, "mentally" realize that it was straight. Instead his realization that it was straight was part-and-parcel of pulling the stick out - a single action (which we can then go on to separate in an abstract sense for analysis). — Andrew M

Even if it be granted the action of pulling and the action of realizing are part-and-parcel of each other, simply from their simultaneity, they are still parts. Besides, realization can be considered really nothing other than a change in subjective condition, and all change takes time, so......

I know what you’re trying to say, and at first glimpse there is force to the argument. But the argument doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, because no explanation sufficient to facilitate it has as much power as an explanation that refutes it. The only reasonable recourse such argument has going for it, is to deny the theoretical reality of what Ryles calls “....any catalogue of simple qualities and simple relations, whether rude or refined...”. Which is tantamount to denying reason itself, because reason is exactly that catalogue.
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The model says that on the condition that Alice has identified a tree, she has acquired knowledge.
— Andrew M

Not my model. My model says on the condition that Alice has knowledge, she has thereby acquired the means to identify an object in the world. Whether or not the object is a tree depends on something else.
— Mww

Do you mean that if she has knowledge of the appearance (the photo in my illustration), she can then go on to identify an object such as a tree? Also, what does "whether or not the object is a tree" depend on? — Andrew M

No. Forget appearances, they are subconscious, theory-specific hypotheticals. Technically, they are means to an end, but a relatively minor one. I meant by my model, re: on the condition that Alice has knowledge, that given a series of mental activities, pursuant to a perception of sense, knowledge of what that perception entails, is given.

Whether or not the perception entails the conception of a particular object, depends exclusively on extant experience. After learning the identity of some particular object....

(Dad, what is this thing? Son, that’s what we call a fork. Oh. Ok)

.......every subsequent perception of a similar object will, all else being equal, be identified as that kind of object....

(SON!! Use your fork, not your fingers!! Oh. Ok.)

Before learning the identity of a particular kind of object, a perception will entail an unknown something in general, which is thereby left open to any non-contradictory judgement the perceiver’s naming method permits.

(What the hell is THAT?? Damned if I know...call it a ______ )

We understand this, because the very first instance of naming anything, is never conditioned by what the object is, but only as how we wish to know it.

(electrostatic discharges of black-body radiation are not fire arrows of the gods; the fundamental constituency of hadrons are not colored)

Til next time......