Justifying Hallucinations as "Reality"

[Ahab]

31 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Yes this is it. 

No that is not it.

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Misunderstanding.

Sorry, then I confess I'm not sure I understand your critique. My apologies for misreading you.

6 hours ago, pogi said:

Can we then conclude that because man's perspective (and thus knowledge) is limited, that no judgement of man can be conclusively determined to be objectively "true" in light of our "growing knowledge" which may at some future point alter our current judgement?  Until our knowledge is absolute, is our truth not relative?

It sounds like the idea of "objective truth" is really nothing more than a hope and faith in some future state of absolute knowledge and perspective of infallible judgement, which is unattainable by man in his current mortal state.  

This would be true if we demand of knowledge no chance of being wrong. People, like Descartes, have attempted that with epistemic foundationalism. The problem with this is figuring out what such foundational knowledge could possibly be. (Descartes famously thought knowledge of God was foundational in that sense - most disagree with him) Peirce, who've I've brought up a few times, thought all knowledge was inferential and mediated. That didn't make it any less knowledge. So we could claim knowledge, have knowledge but still be fallibilist about our claims. Put an other way we might acknowledge our limits in that we don't have perfect knowledge of the sort Descartes demanded but that doesn't mean we haven't reached a point in our inquiry where we know. 

So objective truth is just the idea that there is a fated conclusion to our inquiry and that we can arrive at that knowledge before inquiry has ended.

[pogi]

9 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

This would be true if we demand of knowledge no chance of being wrong. People, like Descartes, have attempted that with epistemic foundationalism. The problem with this is figuring out what such foundational knowledge could possibly be. (Descartes famously thought knowledge of God was foundational in that sense - most disagree with him) Peirce, who've I've brought up a few times, thought all knowledge was inferential and mediated. That didn't make it any less knowledge. So we could claim knowledge, have knowledge but still be fallibilist about our claims. Put an other way we might acknowledge our limits in that we don't have perfect knowledge of the sort Descartes demanded but that doesn't mean we haven't reached a point in our inquiry where we know. 

So objective truth is just the idea that there is a fated conclusion to our inquiry and that we can arrive at that knowledge before inquiry has ended.

Honestly, I don't see how that is much different from what I was saying.  To accept that our knowledge may be wrong, and to be fallibilistic about our claims simply points to the understanding that man's version of objective truth is entirely relative to his perspective, experience, and understanding, and may change with time and experience - making it more subjective then objective.  

To say of objective truth that, "we can arrive at that knowledge before inquiry has ended", while simultaneously accepting that any "knowledge" we arrive at may change given further inquiry, is simply to say that the idea of objective truth is simply that - an idea, and a faith claim. 

I can say that I believe in objective truth, but to make any claim of objective truth is nothing more than a faith claim until I have a perfect and absolute knowledge.  

[mfbukowski]

13 hours ago, Ahab said:

No that is not it.

Neener neener

[clarkgoble]

43 minutes ago, pogi said:

Honestly, I don't see how that is much different from what I was saying.  To accept that our knowledge may be wrong, and to be fallibilistic about our claims simply points to the understanding that man's version of objective truth is entirely relative to his perspective, experience, and understanding, and may change with time and experience - making it more subjective then objective.  

Much of it is just a semantic issue of where we apply the word knowledge. The dirty little secret of philosophy is that 90% of most arguments are getting the semantics clear. In this case I think it somewhat depends upon what you emphasize. 

The big problem I have are the terms subjective and objective which have all sorts of weird connotations that often lead one astray. So I try to avoid using them because there's usually not any agreement on what they mean. But if your point is always there's a risk that our beliefs could change, then I fully agree. I just see that as a feature not a bug. As I said though foundationalism hasn't really been a popular view in epistemology for quite some time. Usually those who espouse it do so for religious reasons I find.

Ultimately the point about objective truth is just that inquiry leads to stable beliefs and we may reach those stable beliefs ourselves. I suspect you have no end of beliefs you accept as true with a high degree of confidence. The whole discourse of objective truth is just recognizing there are such things which some philosophers and groups have disputed. i.e. it's really a debate over the place and justification of extreme skepticism. And much of the history of epistemology and related fields really is about answering skeptics.

Edited April 20, 2017 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

1 minute ago, clarkgoble said:

. As I said though foundationalism hasn't really been a popular view in epistemology for quite some time. Usually those who espouse it do so for religious reasons I find.

Which brings us back to the OP- the only ones who espouse foundationalism are the man in the street and religious people, and for religious people that is the worst philosophical tradition they can use for their position.  Belief in God doesn't work in foundationalism.

There is no need to recite the history of philosophy to show that there WERE people who tried it- yes i know about that, but that position is ultimately unjustifiable.

I suggest reading every word of this and trying to refute what it actually says rather than perhaps what Rorty said elsewhere vs anyone else's view of the same point- and I would suggest that it presents a pretty tight argument as it is stated in these few words

Quote

 

 " To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences, there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.

     Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."   Richard Rorty- Contingency Irony and Solidarity, P 5.

 

Clearly there is something out there but speaking clearly about it with statements that are Eternally True is an illusion because human minds are always seeking for more.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

Honestly, I don't see how that is much different from what I was saying.  To accept that our knowledge may be wrong, and to be fallibilistic about our claims simply points to the understanding that man's version of objective truth is entirely relative to his perspective, experience, and understanding, and may change with time and experience - making it more subjective then objective.  

To say of objective truth that, "we can arrive at that knowledge before inquiry has ended", while simultaneously accepting that any "knowledge" we arrive at may change given further inquiry, is simply to say that the idea of objective truth is simply that - an idea, and a faith claim. 

I can say that I believe in objective truth, but to make any claim of objective truth is nothing more than a faith claim until I have a perfect and absolute knowledge.  

I don't see that it is different either.

YOU may have a perfect and absolute certainty because you have experienced it directly but getting that certainty from you to me requires language.  OOPS.

Oddly I think Rorty' the atheist's notion of language plus the idea that only direct wordless experience is "things as they are" works well to help understand this verse

Quote

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

Seeing face to face is far different than a written statement, direct experience captures nuances

It helps to understand this verse and therefore to justify visions.

If Joseph saw it, he had direct wordless certainty about the experience.  Writing about it was another matter.  But the only way we can know IF he saw it was by direct wordless experience of our own and we call that "testimony".

[clarkgoble]

34 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

There is no need to recite the history of philosophy to show that there WERE people who tried it- yes i know about that, but that position is ultimately unjustifiable.

Yeah -- I'm just trying to write so that some of the other readers who aren't as familiar with philosophy can follow the discussion. Most people aren't aware of the history of epistemology  - particularly Descartes' arguments and influence.

Quote

I suggest reading every word of this and trying to refute what it actually says rather than perhaps what Rorty said elsewhere vs anyone else's view of the same point- and I would suggest that it presents a pretty tight argument as it is stated in these few words

Not sure what you're referring to here. I came into the thread late so if you mean the first post in the thread I'll try and do that later.

Quote

Clearly there is something out there but speaking clearly about it with statements that are Eternally True is an illusion because human minds are always seeking for more.

I think clarifying what is meant by truth is important. I also think the 'god's eye view' in philosophy can be problematic in terms of arguments. My qualms with Rorty really are just cutting off the 'world out there' as relevant to discussion. I think it key for discussion. But we can have those discussions while acknowledging our fallible position.

Edited April 20, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Ahab]

15 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I think clarifying what is meant by truth is important.

Me too, and I equate it to reality. What is true is what is real, or what was real, or what will be real.

I also think clarifying what is meant by objective reality is imporant to any discussion of it, and I equate objective reality to objective truth, as just another term for the same thing. and I think of that as if the word objective isn't adding anything to the the term truth or reality, with the objective or object being whatever it is, or was, or will be.  The term subjective reality/truth isn't necessarily referring to things as they are, were or will be, even though someone may think it is.

15 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

My qualms with Rorty really are just cutting off the 'world out there' as relevant to discussion. I think it key for discussion. But we can have those discussions while acknowledging our fallible position.

That's my reason for not agreeing with Rorty's philosophy of truth, too. And his idea, it seems, that truth only exist in language or sentences or descriptions.

In my view, truth/reality is indeed or at least can be out there, wherever anything is that is, and our descriptions are at best only references to what is out there.

I wonder if there is a term I can use to refer to what is/was/or will be other than truth/reality.

[mfbukowski]

52 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I think clarifying what is meant by truth is important. I also think the 'god's eye view' in philosophy can be problematic in terms of arguments. My qualms with Rorty really are just cutting off the 'world out there' as relevant to discussion. I think it key for discussion. But we can have those discussions while acknowledging our fallible position.

In regard to writing for the average reader here, I think if we are actually doing that, we need to avoid philosophical jargon and all the "isms" we have been speaking about.  Clearly those have left those extremely bright readers who are not experienced in philosophese in the dust anyway.

Rorty DID NOT cut off the "world out there", my point was take the statement quoted below this sentence and refute it- I dont think that is possible

Quote

 

 To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences, there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.

     Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."   Richard Rorty- Contingency Irony and Solidarity, P 5.

 

Let me break that down because it seems few here are reading it clearly.

Note the first sentence clearly is NOT "cutting off the world out there"

He agrees with common sense that most things in space and time DO NOT include human mental states.  That is not cutting off the "world out there"- it is affirming it.

He then essentially states that truth is found in sentences only

I do not see how that is refutable.  Again, there are no true chairs or tables, only statements can be true or false.  I do not see how that is refutable except by blind assertion without any metaphysics behind it as we have seen from one poster here. Indeed the only way one could assert that truth itself is "out there" would be by asserting some comprehensive metaphysics, none of which have held up to scrutiny.  Neoplatonism held Christianity in its clutches for 2000 years and it is time to break out of that metaphysics along with Cartesian dualism.

Languages are human creations.  Not refutable in my opinion.  Fundamentalists would argue that Adamic was given to us by God.  No problem.  God is a human. The story goes that Adamic was "confounded" in the tower of Babel.  If you take that literally, no problem.  Language is truly confounded today- there is no doubt about that.

Truth cannot be in the world or "out there" independent of humanity (yes and other animals who communicate- I know, I know... consciousness then....) because truth is a property of SENTENCES not of the world.  We cannot SEE the world independent of human experience so how could it possibly be otherwise??

All we have are human sentences which are attempts to describe human experience- allegedly "OF" the "world outside" which unfortunately we cannot see or sense without..... wait for it.... human sensation.   Pretty clear to me.  Even spiritual sensation comes through a human mind- dreams visions etc.... all are human sensations.

The last sentence: Only human descriptions of the world can be true or false- the world itself cannot be true or false.

Again, that stands without some metaphysics to assert otherwise- some theory of the world which has yet to be generated by mankind.  No such metaphysics exists to my knowledge, if there is one which explains all this I would love to find it.

So yet again- THAT statement of Rorty's to me is about as true as any description of the world I have ever seen to the point of being almost an a priori truth.

For those who do not know what that means- here it is

Quote

The terms "a priori" and "a posteriori" are used primarily to denote the foundations upon which a proposition is known. A given proposition is knowable a priori if it can be known independent of any experience other than the experience of learning the language in which the proposition is expressed, whereas a proposition that is knowable a posteriori is known on the basis of experience. For example, the proposition that all bachelors are unmarried is a priori, and the proposition that it is raining outside now is a posteriori.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/apriori/

I think this particular statement by Rorty is virtually true a priori.  If you know the language of English, the way these words are used in contemporary English, the truth of what he says is virtually self evident.  It is illuminating because of the way he says it and unfolds the distinction between "the world" and how we speak about it.

[mfbukowski]

nevermind

Edited April 20, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Ahab said:

Me too, and I equate it to reality. What is true is what is real, or what was real, or what will be real.

I also think clarifying what is meant by objective reality is imporant to any discussion of it, and I equate objective reality to objective truth, as just another term for the same thing. and I think of that as if the word objective isn't adding anything to the the term truth or reality, with the objective or object being whatever it is, or was, or will be.  The term subjective reality/truth isn't necessarily referring to things as they are, were or will be, even though someone may think it is.

That's my reason for not agreeing with Rorty's philosophy of truth, too. And his idea, it seems, that truth only exist in language or sentences or descriptions.

In my view, truth/reality is indeed or at least can be out there, wherever anything is that is, and our descriptions are at best only references to what is out there.

I wonder if there is a term I can use to refer to what is/was/or will be other than truth/reality.

This is absent a comprehensive metaphysics to back it up

Write that up, publish it in a peer-reviewed philosophical journal and you too will be a famous philosopher

 

[Ahab]

43 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

This is absent a comprehensive metaphysics to back it up

Write that up, publish it in a peer-reviewed philosophical journal and you too will be a famous philosopher

 

Good grief. That is just some good common sense, and if that isn't already a philosophical understanding of what truth/reality really is then I don't see any good reason for me to have a very high regard for philosophy 

[SmileyMcGee]

On 4/15/2017 at 9:47 AM, mfbukowski said:

By the way, I recall some discussions with you about these issues and "objective evidence" for the gospel- how did you come to your present understanding?

I can understand that is personal- skip it obviously if that's too personal.

But yeah- you know me- I like to spout off if I know what I am talking about or not

 

I apologize for the late reply. I’ve attempted a response several times but have had trouble feeling satisfied with my explanation. Let me know if this reply is useless and I’ll try something else or add detail somewhere. Let me also remind everyone that I am rather Philosophically illiterate, so I apologize if I botch established ideas.  

As you mentioned, we had a number of discussions regarding objectivity, Truth, and Reality. This is probably a good starting point. I originally came to this board as a very unpleasant a-hole (I like to think that I am less of one, but I guess that depends on who you ask  ). I was so convinced of my objectivity and others delusion that I had no problem ridiculing them. Almost immediately I encountered a member of this forum and the first thought I had was “I want to punch this mfbukowski guy in the face.” It was extremely frustrating debating you, mostly because I thought you were slightly insane but I couldn’t resolve the questions you posed. This became uncomfortable for me, so I decided to dedicate some time to preparing a response to the philosophical questions posed. 

I started by examining my own beliefs and assumptions. I got some help from Descartes and Putnam in testing my beliefs from a radically skeptical view. I thought, “what can I know with certainty?” and “what beliefs do I have that aren’t built upon an endless circle of assumptions?” Long story short, I felt like every belief that I had was destroyed until I arrived at two ideas that I felt were self-evident: 1) sensory data exists (i.e., there are sensations to be perceived), and 2) sensory data is being perceived. Many have made similar statements, but I feel like I finally understood the implications of such statements, beyond just reading them as I had previously. I cannot deny or doubt that I perceive things. I see and hear and feel things, but I have yet to find a way to assert anything about the sensory data that clearly separates the sensory data from my interpretation of it, and this creates a problem for asserting objectivity and making statement about “Reality.” In order to do so I would have to know what objective reality is and then be able to compare my perception to that reality. Yet if reality is defined as the way things are unspoiled by the subjectivity of the mind then comprehending reality and making statements about it seems beyond the mind (the mind doesn’t seem to be able to escape itself and take a look beyond the proverbial curtain). Once I experienced the difficulty of discussing reality, it became irrelevant. 

Letting go of the pursuit of Truth, objectivity, and Reality can be destabilizing. It was for me for a little while and I struggled deeply with nihilism. I think the overarching, hazardous assumption that I was making was that a belief needs to be grounded in some amount of reality for it to be worth holding. If reality doesn’t matter, then it is tempting to think that no belief is worth holding. This is a rather prescriptive approach to beliefs, “you should hold beliefs that meet this and this criteria.” This position falls apart and gets messy. Is there a belief that a person absolutely should hold? How would anybody know? On the other hand, are there beliefs that are useful for some purpose? I think so, based on my experience. This was the most recent turning point for me. Philosophy suddenly went from being prescriptive to descriptive. Beliefs, assertions, positions, ideas, arguments, etc., became stories to me. It tells me how someone interprets their experience and what they find useful. There is nothing I can say about the absolute correctness of their stories. What would I say? “No, the Gospel can’t give you joy because Joseph Smith practiced polyandry.” Really? How does that make sense? Sure I can disagree and make an argument, but I now understand the limitations of my arguments. 
 

Edited April 21, 2017 by SmileyMcGee

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, SmileyMcGee said:

I apologize for the late reply. I’ve attempted a response several times but have had trouble feeling satisfied with my explanation. Let me know if this reply is useless and I’ll try something else or add detail somewhere. Let me also remind everyone that I am rather Philosophically illiterate, so I apologize if I botch established ideas.  

As you mentioned, we had a number of discussions regarding objectivity, Truth, and Reality. This is probably a good starting point. I originally came to this board as a very unpleasant a-hole (I like to think that I am less of one, but I guess that depends on who you ask  ). I was so convinced of my objectivity and others delusion that I had no problem ridiculing them. Almost immediately I encountered a member of this forum and the first thought I had was “I want to punch this mfbukowski guy in the face.” It was extremely frustrating debating you, mostly because I thought you were slightly insane but I couldn’t resolve the questions you posed. This became uncomfortable for me, so I decided to dedicate some time to preparing a response to the philosophical questions posed. 

I started by examining my own beliefs and assumptions. I got some help from Descartes and Putnam in testing my beliefs from a radically skeptical view. I thought, “what can I know with certainty?” and “what beliefs do I have that aren’t built upon an endless circle of assumptions?” Long story short, I felt like every belief that I had was destroyed until I arrived at two ideas that I felt were self-evident: 1) sensory data exists (i.e., there are sensations to be perceived), and 2) sensory data is being perceived. Many have made similar statements, but I feel like I finally understood the implications of such statements, beyond just reading them as I had previously. I cannot deny or doubt that I perceive things. I see and hear and feel things, but I have yet to find a way to assert anything about the sensory data that clearly separates the sensory data from my interpretation of it, and this creates a problem for asserting objectivity and making statement about “Reality.” In order to do so I would have to know what objective reality is and then be able to compare my perception to that reality. Yet if reality is defined as the way things are unspoiled by the subjectivity of the mind then comprehending reality and making statements about it seems beyond the mind (the mind doesn’t seem to be able to escape itself and take a look beyond the proverbial curtain). Once I experienced the difficulty of discussing reality, it became irrelevant. 

Letting go of the pursuit of Truth, objectivity, and Reality can be destabilizing. It was for me for a little while and I struggled deeply with nihilism. I think the overarching, hazardous assumption that I was making was that a belief needs to be grounded in some amount of reality for it to be worth holding. If reality doesn’t matter, then it is tempting to think that no belief is worth holding. This is a rather prescriptive approach to beliefs, “you should hold beliefs that meet this and this criteria.” This position falls apart and gets messy. Is there a belief that a person absolutely should hold? How would anybody know? On the other hand, are there beliefs that are useful for some purpose? I think so, based on my experience. This was the most recent turning point for me. Philosophy suddenly went from being prescriptive to descriptive. Beliefs, assertions, positions, ideas, arguments, etc., became stories to me. It tells me how someone interprets their experience and what they find useful. There is nothing I can say about the absolute correctness of their stories. What would I say? “No, the Gospel can’t give you joy because Joseph Smith practiced polyandry.” Really? How does that make sense? Sure I can disagree and make an argument, but I know understand the limitations of my arguments. 
 

Thanks- I could not agree more with everything you said es pecially about wanting to punch me in the nose.  Lotsa people want to do that.

.Your post does my heart good and keeps me going at this crazy project.  I am proud that one very well known apologist autographed a book for me and said "Thanks for educating me".  THAT was pretty darn cool!

But I had these ideas before I joined the church so it is really the philosophy that helped me as much as it can help others

There is only a problem with relativism if you do not fully understand the concepts- in the final analysis what it has done for me is make me confident and certain of my beliefs which are based on faith= but if you understand that, what isn't based on faith!   Every action we perform is based on faith as was taught in the Lectures on Faith

Quite a bit of work has been done on intentions and the philosophy of planning - what does it mean to make a plan, what is the logic, etc and I see strong parallels with faith.

In our church we "plan" to go to the celestial kingdom as one might plan to go to harvard or become or lawyer etc.  We have the "plan" of happiness.

I am working with one of my buddies on that now and it will be interesting to see how that develops.

 

[mfbukowski]

7 hours ago, Ahab said:

Good grief. That is just some good common sense, and if that isn't already a philosophical understanding of what truth/reality really is then I don't see any good reason for me to have a very high regard for philosophy 

Ahab Ahab.  What can I say.

Let's just say I meant that IF they publish it, you will be famous.

Edited April 21, 2017 by mfbukowski

[SmileyMcGee]

12 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

There is only a problem with relativism if you do not fully understand the concepts- in the final analysis what it has done for me is make me confident and certain of my beliefs which are based on faith= but if you understand that, what isn't based on faith!   Every action we perform is based on faith as was taught in the Lectures on Faith

 

+100! That's the message in a nutshell. It's beautifully poetic to me that my efforts to prove faith false led me to conclude that its all I have...interesting how things come full circle. 

[clarkgoble]

Quote

 To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences, there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.

     Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."   Richard Rorty- Contingency Irony and Solidarity, P 5.

The parts that are wrong is the idea that sentences are only elements of human languages and human creations. I assume you don't think that too but would just say they have to be linguistic. You get at that a bit by saying God is human. It's not crucial but I'd just point out that computers can do math proofs and produce human sentences too. A small point but I just want to expunge that reference to humanness and that is important to the next point.

To say truth can not exist independent of the human mind seems inherently problematic. And that's where he breaks with Peirce. He makes truth a property of a mind here and now. Peirce makes truth a matter of what would be. Possibility. That's a huge deal and emphasized time and time again. Now we can quibble and say that this "what is fated" is still tied to a human-like mind, albeit merely a potential one. 

This is crucial as Peirce discovered quite early on. Originally the pragmatic maxim was stated as a matter of presence, much like Rorty is doing. But Peirce saw that it made no sense to say a diamond was hard only when scratched. It was hard because of how it would behave if it were scratched. Thus very early on the pragmatic maxim became tied to counterfactual tests. Eventually by the 1890's Peirce realized he had to adopt a thoroughgoing logic of possibility to make sense of many things. Truth being only one example.

So if truth is a property of possibilities -- these future sentence that are fated to be converged upon -- then I think to see truth in human minds is inherently problematic. A human statement is true if it accords with this result of possible inquiries. So of course statements in a human mind can be true but what makes them true isn't in the human mind.

Quote

All we have are human sentences which are attempts to describe human experience- allegedly "OF" the "world outside" which unfortunately we cannot see or sense without..... wait for it.... human sensation.   Pretty clear to me.  Even spiritual sensation comes through a human mind- dreams visions etc.... all are human sensations.

But of course most of our knowledge isn't sensation. It is mediated by sensation but that's not quite the same thing. When, as a physicist, I read off a number on a readout which in turn was tied to various causal processes that were tied to what was being measured I'm not merely using human sensation. Sensation is a necessary part of it. But to neglect all those other processes is to miss how human knowledge functions. All our experiences are mediated. This is why the most important part of Peirce's logic is his notion of thirdness or signs. We never have direct knowledge. Mediation is the name of the game.

To locate human sentence in the brain and sensation is to miss the role mediation crucially plays in all this. Peirce was a radical empiricist but part of what made him so radical was the focus on mediation as oppose to a simple consideration of empiricism as sense-states. Ultimately this has a profound implication - that there is no clear line of demarcation between the inside and outside. There's no place you can point to and say, "now we're in sensation" or "now we're in the human mind." Continuity is the name of the game. 

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So yet again- THAT statement of Rorty's to me is about as true as any description of the world I have ever seen to the point of being almost an a priori truth.

I thought Rorty followed Quine in rejecting the analytic/synthetic distinction. Not being argumentative here -- I honestly thought he just used a priori to just mean normatively accepted. It's been a long time since I read Mirrors of Nature but I seem to recall first encountering the idea when reading that in college.

Quote

In regard to writing for the average reader here, I think if we are actually doing that, we need to avoid philosophical jargon and all the "isms" we have been speaking about.  Clearly those have left those extremely bright readers who are not experienced in philosophese in the dust anyway.

To a degree. I think it's useful to refer to the various positions but then explain them. Often that allows people to look things up on their own but also for those who are informed to understand where each person is coming from.

Quote

Rorty DID NOT cut off the "world out there", my point was take the statement quoted below this sentence and refute it- I dont think that is possible

He cuts it off in the sense of only wanting to talk about language.

Quote

Clearly there is something out there but speaking clearly about it with statements that are Eternally True is an illusion because human minds are always seeking for more.

It's not an illusion - it's just that we're fallible so infallibility is an illusion. That's a crucial distinction. (I recognize it's not one Rorty accepts)

 

 

[clarkgoble]

10 hours ago, Ahab said:

Me too, and I equate it to reality. What is true is what is real, or what was real, or what will be real.I also think clarifying what is meant by objective reality is imporant to any discussion of it, and I equate objective reality to objective truth, as just another term for the same thing. and I think of that as if the word objective isn't adding anything to the the term truth or reality, with the objective or object being whatever it is, or was, or will be.  The term subjective reality/truth isn't necessarily referring to things as they are, were or will be, even though someone may think it is.

I'd disagree with mfbukowski here. I think though we should clarify the language a bit. The subjective/objective distinction really arises due to Cartesian metaphysics. The subjective is what is due to the thinking subject. The objective is what it "out there." This division created the classic problem of how to relate the subjective (mind part) with the objective (out of mind part). If you reject the whole trajectory Descartes put philosophy on then most of those problems go away. However because object and subject in this sense are so tied to Descartes metaphysics they quickly become misleading terms. If we use them we have to be clear how we are using them.

The terminology philosophers typically use for what you're getting at is realism vs. anti-realism. Statements that are true without essential ties to the person who knows are about real things. Statements that are true with essential ties to the person who knows them are not real. It's very similar to the subjective/objective distinction but keeps things a little clearer. So if I say "the sky is blue" philosophers might debate over whether "blue" means the wavelength of light (and thereby outside the mind and real) or the experience of blueness to a human mind (and thereby in the mind and not real). Some philosophers think nothing is real because we can't know anything without an essential phenomenal component. (That is fundamentally I can never get to the point where my statements only refer to things outside of a human mind) Some think we can refer to things outside of our mind but that we can't know anything about them beyond the phenomena we experience. (This was Kant's position - we refer to things-in-themselves but only know phenomena which is never this inner part)

Anyway, the topic ends up being more complex than it appears at first glance. I'm barely touching on the debates. Philosophy being philosophy there are many different positions and no way to really pick a conclusion just point out bad arguments. The reason it's useful to distinguish truth from reality is because lots of people will agree statements are true but disagree they are real in the sense of being out there. Again to use the example of the "sky is blue" a person who thinks that sentence is essentially about my experience of a blue sky may say it's true. A person who thinks that sentence is about the blue sky independent of any one knowing about it would say it's true too. What they disagree upon is whether it is real. i.e. mind-independent.  Typically this division is characterized as idealism vs. realism. 

The reason this distinction is important (and why mfbukowski was making jokes about publication) is because these two positions have been at odds since the days of Descartes.The problem with traditional realism was figuring out how to get past our mind. The problem with traditional idealism is that it seemed weird to say we could talk about real things yet simultaneously only be talking about our minds. Clearly we want to do more than that. That's why Kant came up with his philosophy and why it has been so influential. He seemed to manage to keep both parts even though he primarily focused on the idealist or mind-like part.

While I've made a simple discussion undoubtedly more complicated than you realize I'll finally bring Peirce into all this. Typically pragmatists see Peirce and Dewey as finding a third way between the two poles of realism and idealism. Technically Peirce is an idealist but what makes him different is that he sees the whole universe as mind-like. This mind-like aspect is simply that the universe is perfused with signs. A sign is pretty much like what you imagine the world to mean. It's something that stands for some original object and determines an interpretation. As such it mediates between the object and thought. Peirce saw everything as signs rather than their just being something human minds do. So to him an ant colony was all sign-like activity. But so too was chemistry. Causation in physics was just sign-processes. The way he put it is that signs aren't in the human mind. The human mind is in signs. So he inverts the usual way of thinking about all this.

[clarkgoble]

5 hours ago, SmileyMcGee said:

In order to do so I would have to know what objective reality is and then be able to compare my perception to that reality. Yet if reality is defined as the way things are unspoiled by the subjectivity of the mind then comprehending reality and making statements about it seems beyond the mind (the mind doesn’t seem to be able to escape itself and take a look beyond the proverbial curtain). Once I experienced the difficulty of discussing reality, it became irrelevant. 

The alternative way to think about this is that the universe itself is sign like as is the mind. So to make statements about reality is just to make statements tied to mind - just not necessarily human minds. It's a different way of thinking yet once you buy into it many philosophical problems tend to dissipate. You no longer are having to coordinated what's inside the mind and essentially language like from what is outside the mind and essentially non-language like. Instead it's all just signs.

 

[mfbukowski]

oops wrong quote

Edited April 21, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

The parts that are wrong is the idea that sentences are only elements of human languages and human creations. I assume you don't think that too but would just say they have to be linguistic. You get at that a bit by saying God is human. It's not crucial but I'd just point out that computers can do math proofs and produce human sentences too. A small point but I just want to expunge that reference to humanness and that is important to the next point.

To say truth can not exist independent of the human mind seems inherently problematic. And that's where he breaks with Peirce. He makes truth a property of a mind here and now. Peirce makes truth a matter of what would be. Possibility. That's a huge deal and emphasized time and time again. Now we can quibble and say that this "what is fated" is still tied to a human-like mind, albeit merely a potential one. 

This is crucial as Peirce discovered quite early on. Originally the pragmatic maxim was stated as a matter of presence, much like Rorty is doing. But Peirce saw that it made no sense to say a diamond was hard only when scratched. It was hard because of how it would behave if it were scratched. Thus very early on the pragmatic maxim became tied to counterfactual tests. Eventually by the 1890's Peirce realized he had to adopt a thoroughgoing logic of possibility to make sense of many things. Truth being only one example.

So if truth is a property of possibilities -- these future sentence that are fated to be converged upon -- then I think to see truth in human minds is inherently problematic. A human statement is true if it accords with this result of possible inquiries. So of course statements in a human mind can be true but what makes them true isn't in the human mind.

But of course most of our knowledge isn't sensation. It is mediated by sensation but that's not quite the same thing. When, as a physicist, I read off a number on a readout which in turn was tied to various causal processes that were tied to what was being measured I'm not merely using human sensation. Sensation is a necessary part of it. But to neglect all those other processes is to miss how human knowledge functions. All our experiences are mediated. This is why the most important part of Peirce's logic is his notion of thirdness or signs. We never have direct knowledge. Mediation is the name of the game.

To locate human sentence in the brain and sensation is to miss the role mediation crucially plays in all this. Peirce was a radical empiricist but part of what made him so radical was the focus on mediation as oppose to a simple consideration of empiricism as sense-states. Ultimately this has a profound implication - that there is no clear line of demarcation between the inside and outside. There's no place you can point to and say, "now we're in sensation" or "now we're in the human mind." Continuity is the name of the game. 

I thought Rorty followed Quine in rejecting the analytic/synthetic distinction. Not being argumentative here -- I honestly thought he just used a priori to just mean normatively accepted. It's been a long time since I read Mirrors of Nature but I seem to recall first encountering the idea when reading that in college.

To a degree. I think it's useful to refer to the various positions but then explain them. Often that allows people to look things up on their own but also for those who are informed to understand where each person is coming from.

He cuts it off in the sense of only wanting to talk about language.

It's not an illusion - it's just that we're fallible so infallibility is an illusion. That's a crucial distinction. (I recognize it's not one Rorty accepts)

It is quite clear to me that a diamond is only "hard" in a relative human sense.  If you think hardness is not defined by humans there is not much more to say.

If "what is fated" is determined by human minds- it is determined by human minds unless "what is fated" exists as some kind of Platonic Form or who knows what?

 

 

We disagree.

It's been a fun discussion but we keep repeating and repeating- it's not going anywhere.  Maybe we can take it up again another time.

Computers are programmed with languages- scientific equipment are extensions of the senses and have to be interpreted just like the senses are, and I am not just talking about human consciousness.

"A priori" is a term I used not Rorty- I was making a point that it was a virtual tautology.  Here are examples https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/apriori/#ExaIllDifBetPriPosEmpJus

 

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A priori justification is a certain kind of justification often contrasted with empirical, or a posteriori, justification. To get an idea of the difference, consider the following pairs of propositions. In each case, the first member of the pair is supposed to be an example in which, if we are justified in believing the proposition, we are a priori justified in believing it, and the second member an example in which, if we are justified in believing the proposition, we are a posteriori (that is, empirically) justified in believing it. Some of the propositions are false, but that does not mean that we could not be justified in believing them before we had evidence that they are false.

• 1a.All bachelors are unmarried.
• b.All bachelors in the U.S. are taxed at a different rate from married men.
• 2a.All crows are birds.
• b.All crows are black.
• 3a.All vixens are female.
• b.All vixens are cunning.
• 4a.Green is a color.
• b.Grass is green.
• 5a.No object can be red and green all over at the same time.

 

•  

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The parts that are wrong is the idea that sentences are only elements of human languages and human creations.

I do not see that is a refutation but simply an assertion.  "Parts that are wrong?"  You mean they are not justified? On what ground?  Are parts "false"?

You mean sentences exist in a world independent of humanity?

Diamonds "behave" and "hardness" is not a humanly defined term?  Hardness exists independent of humans forming the concept and measuring it?

Edited April 21, 2017 by mfbukowski

[MiserereNobis]

18 hours ago, Ahab said:

Good grief. That is just some good common sense, and if that isn't already a philosophical understanding of what truth/reality really is then I don't see any good reason for me to have a very high regard for philosophy 

Common sense is usually terrible evidence, especially in an advanced field.  Looking down on philosophy because it questions your common sense of how things are is like looking down on physics, both relativity and quantum mechanics, because physics certainly shows that people's common sense about the way the world works is wrong.

An appeal to common sense usually just means: "this is what I believe and it is so obvious to me that I haven't examined it closely."

[clarkgoble]

10 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

We disagree.

It's been a fun discussion but we keep repeating and repeating- it's not going anywhere.  Maybe we can take it up again another time.

Well the nature of philosophical arguments is that the arguments for a particular position are always weak and often circumstantial. There are fads in philosophy and demonstrations arguments are bad. But positions rarely go away.

Quote

Computers are programmed with languages- scientific equipment are extensions of the senses and have to be interpreted just like the senses are, and I am not just talking about human consciousness.

Yes, but if mediation between the mind and the object measured counts as senses then the whole universe is our sense. It's all mediated unless one believes in something like direct intuition like many platonists did.

Quote

"A priori" is a term I used not Rorty- I was making a point that it was a virtual tautology.

Ah. OK. I caught that part but thought you were asserting something a bit stronger. Sorry about that.

Quote

I do not see that is a refutation but simply an assertion.  "Parts that are wrong?"  You mean they are not justified? On what ground?  Are parts "false"?

I thought I gave a good argument. Truth is a matter of possibility not actuality. Possible sentences aren't human sentences. The whole argument is just the distinction between the actual and the possible. I even gave Peirce's example of why this would be - a diamond is hard regardless of whether anyone measures that particular diamond.

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Diamonds "behave" and "hardness" is not a humanly defined term?  Hardness exists independent of humans forming the concept and measuring it?

That's the whole point of the pragmatic maxim. Humans can pick the symbols used but their meaning is determined by the practical consequences and not human definition except for arbitrary terms where their essential meaning is tied to human decisions. So hardness is a physical property the meaning of which is wrapped up in all the ways hardness can be measured. Anger is a human property the meaning of which is wrapped up in all the ways we'd discover if someone is angry.

(I honestly can't recall if Rorty rejected the pragmatic maxim -- I assume so at least by his late phase but a quick google didn't show me a clear answer)

Edited April 21, 2017 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

Common sense is usually terrible evidence, especially in an advanced field.  Looking down on philosophy because it questions your common sense of how things are is like looking down on physics, both relativity and quantum mechanics, because physics certainly shows that people's common sense about the way the world works is wrong.

An appeal to common sense usually just means: "this is what I believe and it is so obvious to me that I haven't examined it closely."

Common sense is amply tested for common phenomena and not at all for uncommon phenomena where it is untrustworthy. Most technical fields are just not investigating the types of things people commonly encounter so it's untrustworthy. Thus the huge gap between psychology/cognitive science and folk psychology or physics and folk physics. 

Edited April 21, 2017 by clarkgoble