I'm sorry but I just don't think what you're saying has anything to do with what Brassier is getting at. I don't know how to respond.

Csalisbury, I think your contention that the argument is merely a "provocation" is manifestly false. Anyone at all familiar with Berkeley's philosophy will know that he was not merely an epistemological anti-realist but a metaphysical idealist who made the strong ontological claim that "to be is to be perceived".

If a philosopher's stance is x, does that mean that every argument or persuasive paragraph that thinker employs must be approached as a stand-alone proof of x? Or does it mean rather that he hopes to suggest x through a host of disparate techniques considered together?

Sorry, it's taken so long to respond.

We would be able to speak truthfully about that which lies outside the pale of meaning, but, despite our speaking truthfully, we literally would not be able to make sense of these truths. — csal

The spirit of The Gem - backlit by the reflections preceding its introduction in the treatise - is an attempt to force the reader to try to conceive of something without incorporating elements that can only derive from experience (encounter/appearing-to/etc.)

If we wish to think of things or events occurring outside the ambit of possible human experience, we cannot incorporate a single such element. In the circumstances we wish to conceive, there will be no-one to whom the object will appear - no one who will experience the event - so the presence of any such element would indicate that the entire conception is a fantasy which occludes the observer its smuggled in (like the Freudian fantasy of watching one's own conception, a moment during which one must necessarily be absent.) Again, the point is not that one can't think of something one isn't thinking of because one is thinking of it. The point is that one can't use elements that only come about through experience to conceptualize a situation that irrecusably (lol) precludes any such thing.

Since what's being excluded is that which derives from a (finite) perspective, it's natural to hone in on those elements which relate to vision. But, to my mind, what's most difficult is the exclusion of experienced time. Of course we can say that a year refers to nothing but the earth's rotation around the sun and, as such, will hold just as well absent sentient beings (the earth will still revolve.) But drop the passage of time as experienced and just how quickly does the earth revolve around the sun? We can certainly compare this duration to other durations, but we can't quite grasp what any of it means without bringing it back to our experience of some particular duration. And that experience is always relative to the temporal scale we inhabit (cf Kant's Critique of Judgment, the relevant section of which I'm too lazy to produce at this moment. But I'll furnish it if pressed.)

How rapidly do events happen in our absence, in the absence of any experience? In a sightless, soundless, tasteless, touchless world with no perspective from which to establish a spatial or temporal scale, how do the experienceless postsentient years unfurl? Try - really try - to imagine this.

I suspect this line of thought gets flak because of how simple and naive it is, accessible to even the non-specialist (if a tree falls...). Nevertheless, I can see no way past it.

So, absolutely, we can create a web of inferences from statements/facts about that which lies beyond experience, but the real question is: If we pause for a second, do we really have a sense of what we're talking about? Are we not tacitly making use of the scales and perspectives we inhabit in trying to understand the truths we utter?

Much of this comes back to one's concept of 'concept.' I take the Kantian view that a concept without intuition is empty - imagination is necessary. I gather that for Brassier/Sellars, a concept is something like a move in an inferential game. And this is what I was getting at with the idea of 'secular speaking-in-tongues.' Like Zizek's 'symbolic real' - We can do the math, we can see what checks out and what doesn't, but that doesn't mean we have any grasp of what we're talking about.

It really isn't. The essay is saying the exact opposite: anything which may be known is, by definition, conceptual.- i.e. of concepts. Brassier argument is a turn against the "pre-conceptual" or "the world outside concept," since it doesn't allow for anything which can be understood — Willow

This is very confused. Please cite some passages from the essay to legitimize (and clarify) these claims.

But Brassier's realism isn't cashed out in term of phenomenality but in terms of epistemology: it's not a question of appearance, but a question of knowledge. — sx

Yeah, but concepts without intuition are blind.

But, ok, there is a distinction between the conception and the object. It's accepted that we can only access the object through our own conceptions, tainted as they are with meaning, but that doesn't mean that we aren't conceiving of something that lies outside that meaning. The structure of our conception is derived from the structure of that which lies outside it.

But this would make us almost like programs, or vehicles of truth. We would be able to speak truthfully about that which lies outside the pale of meaning, but, despite our speaking truthfully, we literally would not be able to make sense of these truths. Like a sober, secular version of speaking in tongues.

While it is true that we cannot strictly conceptualize the pre-conceptual... — John

?
But that's the point the essay denies! Everything in the essay is predicated on that being false. (Though I'm not sure what work 'strictly' is meant to be doing in the quote.)

The subtext here is I think Brassier is being more than a little disingenuous. The cerebral contortions of his dissertation (which I'll admit I haven't read in full, tho I've read much of it) indicate he's quite aware of certain difficulties which, with the help of the eminent mr stove, evaporate in this paper. Meillassoux's down to bring back god and the ressurrection of the dead to counter the correlationist. It's too bad Brassier & Stove couldn't have directed him to a simpler argument before he took such drastic measures.

(btw I'm a little over halfway through Sellars' "Some Reflections on Language Games" & while I'm like viscerally enjoying its subtlety and precision, I'm a little confused about how it ties in with what's presented in the essay being discussed.)

So when you say that Barkeley's argument is essentially a provocation, it's a provocation that Brassier's paper is meant precisely to diffuse. §§33 puts the paper's intended result succinctly: "By implying that mind-independence requires conceptual inaccessibility, the Gem saddles transcendental realism with an exorbitant burden. But it is a burden which there is no good reason to accept."

If it's a slam dunk argument, it wouldn't be a burden. It'd be a stop sign. To call it a burden is already to implicitly acknowledge it as a provocation. But Brassier, throughout, paints it as a wannabe formal knock-down argument. That's strange. But, so ok, mind-independence doesn't entail conceptual inaccessibility. But would Brassier be comfortable saying that a conception of a mind-independent watermelon as being pretty much how we spontaneously imagine a watermelon( but with no one around) more or less gets it right? I kinda doubt it what with all the scrambling for Laruelle and stuff. But so wait what's the problem with that spontaneously imagined watermelon ?

I sympathize with much of what you've said. I feel like I have a lot I want to add, but I'll wait until I have the time to start a new thread.

I have some sort of mental something. Been diagnosed w/ a handful of different things: bipolar, ocd w/ depression, borderline personality disorder, psychotic depression.

Whatever I actually have (& I'll spare you all the DSM-is-bogus rant), I definitely struggle with social anxiety, and that anxiety is usually linked to something I guess you could call obsession. At any time, I'm liable to get stuck in some weird thought loop that repeats itself. It's not always obsession with something disturbing (in fact they're usually nonsensical) it's more just that it shuts me in a self-enclosed rhythm which makes it impossible to access the emotional/conversational/social rhythms of the people around me. It's a bummer because I'm often charistmatic, witty etc. and good at making friends, but I never know when I'm gonna zone out like this, so I'm very hesitant to meet people for the second time. When I 'zone out' and there are people around who have met me on a good day, I feel pressure to hide what's happening, which makes me irritated, which makes me view those people as irritating, which makes me feel guilty, which makes me try to hide my irritation and so on and son.

So: I make good impressions, but then avoid. (Or, just as often, make bad impressions and avoid.)

Also, like jamalrob, I drink too much and suffer soul-shattering shame w/ my hangover.

@The Great Whatever I can't say I've studied Berkeley much, but I have the bare acquaintance necessary to recognize Stove's account as smug confusion ala Banno (who I think cited Stove favorably more than once on pf.)

In general, while I like much of Brassier's writing and argumentation,* his motivation seems often to simply be the most radical, bad-ass, willing-to-stare-into-the-void philosopher out there, steely and sharp in a world of soft, sappy half-thinkers. Nihil Unbound suffered badly from this. That said, the turn to Sellars is kind of interesting. Taking a second stab at his "Some Reflections on Language Games" & I'm really enjoying it, even if I'm not yet sure to what degree I sympathize with his project.



* This, for example, so economically damns an entire project: "An eliminative materialism that elides the distinction between sapience and sentience on pragmatist grounds undercuts the normative constraint that provides the cognitive rationale for elimination. "

Worth noting, I think, that Brassier's characterization of the gem changes as the paper progresses.

(A)From paragraph 32: ". Berkeley’s premise is a tautology, since the claim that one cannot think of something without thinking of it is one that no rational being would want to deny. But from this tautological premise Berkeley draws a non-tautological conclusion, viz., that things depend for their existence on being thought or perceived and are nothing apart from our thinking or perceiving of them."

(B)From paragraph 34: "The paradigmatic or Berkeleyian version of the Gem assumes the following form:‘You cannot conceive of a mind-independent reality without conceiving of it. Therefore, you cannot conceive of a mind-independent reality’. Note that the Gem does not assert that there is no mind-independent reality; it merely says that it must remain inconceivable. "

In the space of mere paragraphs, we're told both that the Gem asserts that "things depend for their existence on being thought or perceived" & that "The Gem does not assert that there is no mind-independent reality."

I think there's a reason for the slippage. Brassier/Stove's dismantling of the gem is a dismantling of Gem(A). It's true that only by illegitimately conflating ideatum and object can one argue that the mind-dependence of a conception entails the mind-dependence of that which is conceived of.

But, now to Gem (B) There seems to be confusion here. In an earlier post, Pneumenon illustrated brilliantly the misunderstanding at play.

For example, I am male. Therefore, if we don't make a distinction between conception simpliciter and conception ex hypothesi, then I can't conceive of something that isn't being imagined by a male. Thus, I am entitled to reject the idea of objects that are not conceived of by males. — pneumenon

Pneumenon appears to think that Berkeley's point is as follows: When I conceive of an object, that object acquires the predicate 'being conceived of by me." I can't conceive of any object I'm not conceiving of, just like I can't be in any building I'm not inside of.

But - and this is blisteringly clear if you read even a smattering of Berkeley's Treatise - "the gem" has nothing to do with this banal point. It's a provocation: So you're conceiving of something unconceived? Yeah, so what's that thing like in your conception? Can't really talk about what it looks like,for example, because what something looks like is always a matter of how it appears to something else. (The obvious rejoinder is to invoke the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. But Berkeley's already tackled this well before he introduces "The Gem." ) The point is that, strip away everything in your conception that derives from how the thing appears to (or is encountered by) us - and what's left?

I don't usually jump at the chance of rallying for these kinds of arguments, but Brassier and Stove just absolutely casually butcher it.

I mean look at this, from paragraph 42.

" It might be objected that we need [ the meaning/sense of] Saturn to say what [the object] Saturn is; that we cannot refer to Saturn [the object] or assert that it is without Saturn [ qua meaning/sense] But this is false: the first humans who pointed to Saturn did not need to know and were doubtless mistaken about what it is: but they did not need to know in order to point to it."

This is downright embarrassing. Yeah, of course the first humans didn't need to have our current understanding of what saturn is to point to saturn. But they quite obvious had some sort of understanding or experience of what they were pointing to. Otherwise they wouldn't have pointed.

Of course, tgw, it all comes down to pleasure so it really doesn't matter who's a genuine genius and who's not. The genius and the family-pleasing dope (who might actually (lol) believe in love) Just two types of people. Possible to differentiate, for sure, but it's just categorization. I'm sure, given your past statements, that you agree, so it's refreshing to see someone provide a description of a 'genius' with no value-judgements attached.

Hey guys pretty late to this convo BUT, I don't know, it seems clear to me that the force of Berkeley's argument has less to do with stupid "you're thinking of it so you can't claim you're thinking of something you're not thinking of!" stuff and more to do with something like "even when you think of something no one's thinking of, your only access - your only way of conceptualizing that thing - is by making imaginative use of perception." It's unfair to cite that passage alone, just as its unfair to cite "There's nothing outside the text" and guffaw.

I think what Brassier's doing *in this essay* can be summed up very naively: Bringing back the thing-in-itself. Now, he's definitely done some acrobatic legwork in other places, but, here, that's all this really boils down to. He says as much, in some part or another of this work. It's not that the 'correlationist' is wrong, per se, but that his or her argument can be exploited by people like Latour. Ok, but that shit's on Latour, not the 'correlationist.'

Laruelle still seems central. I've struggled with Laruelle. I think there's real insight there, but it's buried, princess-and-the-pea, under gaudy rhetorical folds of awful obscurantism (I say this as someone who appreciates Derrida, Deleuze, Heidegger & Foucault!). The whole 'non-philosophy' thing is, frankly, fucking childish. I understand 'philosophy', for L, has to do w/ 'decision' - but whatever. The whole stupid rhetorical thrust of 'non-philosophy' is to seem a step ahead, regardless of what he has to offer. (My suspicion is that everything of value in laruelle could be rendered in 30 pages or less if people's tenure didn't depend on sprawling exegesis) This essay only has worth if Brassier has some legit method of accessing the thing-in-itself. Apparently that method is Sellars. But I'm skeptical. (By the way, Hi everyone! And great job, jamalrob, this site is fantastic. The format is much sleeker. I'm a big fan)