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http://www.ditext.com/alston/alston2.html
"SELLARS AND THE "MYTH OF THE GIVEN" WilliamP.Alston Syracuse University
(deconstruct that)
a quote in which he speaks of perception:
"On this view the heart of sense perception of external objects consists of facts of "appearing", facts that some object or other looks, feels, sounds, smells, or tastes in a certain way to a perceiver. These appearings are nonconceptual in character. There is a crucial distinction between 'The tree looks green to S', on the one hand, and 'S takes the tree to be green' or 'S applies the concept of green (of tree) to what S sees' on the other. (I take 'S sees the tree as green' to be ambiguous between these two.) In order for the tree to look green to S it is only necessary that S visually discriminate the tree from its surroundings by its color (not necessarily only by its color). Though it is often supposed nowadays that 'X looks P to S' can only mean 'S takes X to be P', this runs into the obvious objection that the former might be true even though S lacks the concept of P and so can't possibly take X to be P. X may look like a mango to me (present the kind of visual appearance typical of a mango from this distance and angle, in this kind of lighting, etc.) even though I have never formed the concept of a mango and hence am incapable of taking X to be a mango. "
"For a quick fix on this notion of a direct awareness of external objects, consider a naive view of perception. Take a case in which first your eyes are shut and you are thinking about the scene in front of you, say your front yard. You remember the trees in the yard. You wonder whether there are squirrels and robins out there at the moment. You hypothesize that your neighbor across the street is working in his garden. That is, you form various propositional attitudes concerning what is or might be in front of me. Then you open your eyes and take a look. Your cognitive condition is radically transformed. Whereas before you were just thinking about, wondering about, remembering the trees, the squirrels, the houses, and so on, these items (or some of them) are now directly presented to your awareness. They are given to your consciousness. They are present to you, whereas before you were merely dealing with propositions about them. It is this kind of awareness, one that makes the difference between actually seeing something and just thinking about it that the Theory of Appearing construes in terms of relations of appearing. "
fuck me if i can see the relevance of that. isn't it more simple to just say: ones perception does not alter the state of X?.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
well, 'perception' and 'state of x' are tricky. you need to use them in the right way to see the point of the argument.
it is obvious that, by relating to a certain conceptual framework, 'the state of x' will be relevant to 'perception of x.' if we were doing neuroscience for example, and the 'perception' mechanism is causally figured out, it would be fair to say, 'state of x' causally determines 'perception.' even though, saying such would not alter your perception.
the point is, there is a link here, that certain conceptual framework, that is sometimes assumed. to determine this framework is a matter of empirical investigation through the actual performance of thinking, and there is no way around it.
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ok.
questions:
isn't the mechanism host dependant?.
even if you determine the state of x you still wouldn't know why it works the way it works or you will be satisfied by knowing it's pattern.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
yes, the mechanism is the host, and really anything that would affect it.
i dont understand that last part. are you saying, there is something besides causal mechanism that we could know about.
well yes, there are other things, or more precisely, there are other things we could do (as in, think, believe, etc). but to answer hte causal questions, the causal framework is enough.
i feel i've been too attacted to the particulars of the problem. i'll simply lay out the general point when i recover it. the basic line is, thinking and logic are distinct activities. even though a description of them may be 'accurate' or 'true' as descriptions, but they do not substitute the activity, and are reliant on conceptual frameworks in need of empirical investigation. as relevant to philosophy and so forth, the language used by actual processes of thinking, operating with concepts and so forth, is not the same as the language of description. saying, it is true that 'a believes/thinks k is true'' uses two 'true' and they are incommensurable, with their own system of logic and so forth. even though one may get a sense of relativistic scepticism when describing logic as 'something people just do,' this force is not something substantive, it derives from the insubstantive character of the 'just do.'
i had hoped to attack relativisms voiced like "oh, that's just your belief."
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i was thinking more like this: the host being the actual brain. each brain has it's own mechanism which can only be determined by it self, it's own thinking processes. relativism might have a case here arguing that since no two mechanisms are identical, the value of knowing how they work is only intrinsic thus relative. like Einsteins s.r.i.'s. the law from one s.r.i. does not apply in another s.r.i.
as to my other question. assume that you find your language. after you understand it you think that it exists another way in which the language (mechanism) could operate. so the normal question is why it operates like it does and not like you thought it could.
even if the causal mechanism is determined you can't say for certainty that is the only one that can exists.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
well yes, it may be that each individual's reason is different etc, but such a declaration is not 'a priori' and assumed but must be subject to empirical testing. furthermore, the mechanism for this test is tricky, since it relates to both its original intent and frames its own relevance. it may turn out that relativism and scepticism are coherent and even 'right' but that they fail to attack or debase rationality or truth.
a causal mechanism for relating 'it is true!' will dictate 'it is true!' even if the underlying concepts etc are different, by way of linguistic form we should be able to construct a criteria for relevantly true, and since this mechanism is only observing what we have been doing until now, it changes nothing, it will not be problematic to our usage of true etc.
although, mind you, talking about concepts is itself working in a conceptual framework with some assumed relations and such. the possibility of different causal mechanisms for each person may be illusionary. this is ironically the best case for god.
even if the causal mechanism is determined you can't say for certainty that is the only one that can exists.
"a causal mechanism for what?"
at this point, two things are clear. there is a causal mechanism, for thinking etc, and that we can think, and understand ideas. you should know what these activities are. (i do not mean to say anything in your head is logic, quite to the contrary, logic is only a very small part of what you believe and confide in. the thrust is methodological adherence to rational and empirical inquiry, the practice of these faculties)
then, by the causal mechanism, you know that this particular mental activity is logic, and it is just this way. but also, by way of performing the logic, you come to logical conclusions which you think are absolutely true. (the shape of hte logical objects. a platonist notion, and i think a correct one but a tricky one as well) there is no force in trying to overthrow your beliefs in truth of this kind by appealing to a different casual mechanism with differnet results, since the former is the status of given, and by causal integrity you cannot appeal to 'a different causal mechanism.'
it is practically impossible to establish this kind of link anyway.
but of course, you can err in coming to trust a logical conclusion, (the point of the above though, is that the way you would come to realise error is by still a commensurable practice of logic, with all the logical expressions of truth etc remain as they are, respected as true) and this calls for more thinking and ironing out logic etc. logical explorations should be done in logic.
the case for unique rationality is i think unnecessary. because, even if some other rationality exist, you have noway of access unless you assert some causal relationship to it, and logically this make them both one mechanism. as for confidence in our expressions of logic, the same still holds, you can't argue it unless you argue it.
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the rationality and truth being the values of the casual mechanism?
i don't think they have to attack them. the relativists and skepticists will just up a notch their believes. assuming that such mechanism will be proven to exist in such a manner thath it's state of being can not be disputed they would just say that infinite thinking processes can be build on this mechanism. so even if you have your cause the determination of all it's posible states (of thoughts) will be unknown to you.
i guess it all depends on what the hell you'll find up there.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
i think we are getting too stuck on mechanism. mechanism is simply a description with causal force. it could be a reductionist physicalist account or a psychological account or whatnot. the point is really, you can't construct a sceptical account by merely pointing to this causal account and acting as if it could go everywhichway.
let's use the is/ought problem.
i would declare that 'ought' is a different discourse from is and these two have their incommensurable concepts. but, the 'ought' process can itself be an 'is' but this does not render the concepts used in the 'ought' discourse of the 'is' nature. nor can you get any sort of 'ought' conclusions without undergoing the 'ought' discourse. this is incommensurability.
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well you can go mathematically and try to attach infinite (countable, uncountable) values to concepts and then go insane trying to find a connection between them.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
the point is not whether something is wrong or right, but proper argument. for example. you cannot convince me of 1+2=2 unless you make a mathematical argument, and this area of thought, mathematics, is mapped out by its admission of arguments. every argument admissible to mathematical convictions is mathematics. this does not include things like 'mathematics is a social construct.'
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Responding to your first comment about Russell,
"But if the reality is not what appears, have we any means of knowing whether there is any reality at all?"
means
"But if the thing-in-itself is not the reality that appears to our senses, have we any means of knowing whether there is any reality at all?
thing-in-itself is Kant's term for a thing's essence separate from outside perception, a thing in its true nature.
Russell did not intend to confuse at all, Russell simply does not intend to confuse, that's what I admire him for. What he is saying, in a very straightforward way is, assuming the Kantian concept of thing-in-itself exists, our perceived reality, what we gather by our sense datum, can never be proven to be equal to the "true reality". His exact point is the point you mentioned, which is that when we view a table through a glass, the actually reality does not change, it is our perceived reality that changes.
And about the table, I really think you're just nitpicking, the table is used as an example. He means to say that every object we perceive changes depending on how we perceive it. The basic point is, when you see a table, do you see little atoms and and a piece of wood at the same time? It's impossible, but the table is both of those things. But our senses can not perceive both at the same time. The "logical structure" of that sentence is assuming table is one object, which to us who perceive it using our senses, it is.
"regardless of what becomes of this particular argument, it has not changed anything in a person saying 'table is red' except the metaphilosophical attitudes 'inferred' from such notions."
the book this quote is from is an introductory level book, so the table is a very simple example of a much more complicated philosophical concept. Which deals with the changing nature of reality, assuming there's a reality, the reliability of our senses, etc, etc. I think it was a response to phenomenology. I take it you've read wittgenstein and his "language game" ideas, but I don't see how they make Russell's philosophy weak here. The example of the red table is obviously assuming the metaphilosophical attitude of Hume or Locke or whoever, I forgot, that a table can be safely called red because our senses is all we have to trust or something like that. Empiricism.
I just simply don't get where Russell's logic fails. You can attack what he assumes, but his logic is rather perfect. Also, if you could elaborate more it would help tremendously, we are all discussing language and logic, so we ourselves should try to be as understable as we can.
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"yet their occurrence is a sign of something existing independently of us, something differing "
the questino here would be, 'why does this make sense.' 'a sign of something existing independently of us' is a logical category with a distinct shape. it is not 'Something.' it is fine to do honest analysis with these concepts, being sincere to its logical shape, but one is apt to substitute another in its place, such is the temptation of the language.
I don't get what you're saying here. I've never read wittgenstein and all the knowledge I have of the concept of "language game" is from wiki, though they give quite a incisive description there you reaaaaaaaaally still have to clarify what you're saying.
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yet their occurrence is a sign of something existing independently of us, something differing
their occurence = the inductive conclusion that objects appear different depending how on our perception
is a sign = is a conclusion we can derive a new conclusion from
of something existing independently of us = that the true nature of objects, assuming there is one, might be different from what we perceive.
something differing = something differing
this makes sense because in the tradition of Descarte and later empiricism, philosophers and scientists rely on experience and sensory perception as tools to empirical "truth". And Russell counters that stance with a very simple yet effective example of the table that may or may not be red.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On September 29 2007 12:39 zulu_nation8 wrote:
"yet their occurrence is a sign of something existing independently of us, something differing "
the questino here would be, 'why does this make sense.' 'a sign of something existing independently of us' is a logical category with a distinct shape. it is not 'Something.' it is fine to do honest analysis with these concepts, being sincere to its logical shape, but one is apt to substitute another in its place, such is the temptation of the language.
I don't get what you're saying here. I've never read wittgenstein and all the knowledge I have of the concept of "language game" is from wiki, though they give quite a incisive description there you reaaaaaaaaally still have to clarify what you're saying.
what i meant is, there is a step of conceptual formulation before an 'impression' like 'red table' becomes, 'the table that is red'. take the 'red table' to be the sight of the red table, the 'table that is red' the conceptual table. the two corresponding activities are, seeing, and conceptual reasoning. it is improper to equate these two, even though the concept may relate to the sense perfectly.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On September 29 2007 12:46 zulu_nation8 wrote:
yet their occurrence is a sign of something existing independently of us, something differing
their occurence = the inductive conclusion that objects appear different depending how on our perception
is a sign = is a conclusion we can derive a new conclusion from
of something existing independently of us = that the true nature of objects, assuming there is one, might be different from what we perceive.
something differing = something differing
this makes sense because in the tradition of Descarte and later empiricism, philosophers and scientists rely on experience and sensory perception as tools to empirical "truth". And Russell counters that stance with a very simple yet effective example of the table that may or may not be red.
'objects appear different'
quite obviouisly, you need some kind of 'object' for it to 'appear different.' here we are examining the logic of the 'object.'
i dont think russell's analysis was a retreat from empiricism, he was doing empirical research but arrivingi at a puzzlement that shouldn't be there.
he was examining the statement 'table is red' against some thought experiments in which different empirical data were present. one could say, he destroyed the 'red table' concept that took 'red' to be a property of the table (this is not translatable really), or that concept of 'red table' first adopted. the puzzle then seemed to him to suggest a lack of reality when what simply happened was an improved account of 'red table.'
edit: damn i lost a big paragraph by browser death
i would not count russell's effort as againsts empiricism, it was rather an attempt at empiricial examination of the concept of reality by some thought experiments. it is just that he took the conclusion the wrong way.
talking about the 'red table' would only make sense wihtin a given conceptual framework. (make sense means, what hte concept entails.' 'the red table' is quite fully formed concept and in it is contained all the talk about 'property' 'reality' 'sense' 'ideas.'
one could say that reality and 'something existing independently of us' talks are both one and the same, contained in a conceptual framework that just is. in saying 'the red table,' all of the logic of this framework is admissible to frame 'properties' or 'existence' of such a table.
the key here is not that 'red table' is an idea, but hte metaphysical attitude toward 'mere ideas.' since these ideas containi in themselves the logic of reality, glossing over their logic and attepmt to deny reality is just a shell game. the temptation for this move is in teh way 'ideas in my head' is seen as something of a logic substitution for 'red table.' the former is only descriptive of the latter in a conceptual framework in which 'ideas' and 'the red table' have different positions. yet when you substitute in 'ideas in my heaad' with 'the red table,'' you are impressed with the 'mereness' of 'the red table' when in fact you are just impressed with the mereness of 'ideas in my head.'
russell is not exactly confusing, he is just confused.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
And about the table, I really think you're just nitpicking, the table is used as an example. He means to say that every object we perceive changes depending on how we perceive it. The basic point is, when you see a table, do you see little atoms and and a piece of wood at the same time? It's impossible, but the table is both of those things. But our senses can not perceive both at the same time. The "logical structure" of that sentence is assuming table is one object, which to us who perceive it using our senses, it is.
i did not attack his whole talk, just that one little part where he substituted 'the description of 'red table', an idea' with 'the red table,' and claimed that he found a hole in space.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
hahaha, thanks for introducing russell'ss table into this, i finally figured out why im in such a fucking bind. everything should be ok.
let's see
"logic and the operations of conceptual language is an activity."
"logic and the operations of conceptual language as an activity."
former is description fo the latter. what is description, a conceptual activity with its logic and such. you may call the sentence 'former is a description fo the latter' as a description of 'description' anad its logic. th epoint is, the logic of description seemingly warrant substitution of descriptions for what they are describing. this is all assuming that these are 'ideas.'
when we say 'logic and the operations of conceptual language is merely an activity,' we substitute the status of 'merely something people do,' and the actual 'doing.' when it is something like logic and concpetual thinking, the description of it is not substitutable, since the "something people do" is not the same as what "something people do" is describing.
this unwarranted substitution makes the actual activities themselves seem arbitrary and easily different.
simply put, you cannot evaluate something that people do by evaluating the description. the description has no substantial contribution to the concept, it is merely a mirror, if you will, used in reference. aside from the referential it cannot substitute the original.
i think i just broek the mirror!
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On September 29 2007 13:08 oneofthem wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2007 12:39 zulu_nation8 wrote:
"yet their occurrence is a sign of something existing independently of us, something differing "
the questino here would be, 'why does this make sense.' 'a sign of something existing independently of us' is a logical category with a distinct shape. it is not 'Something.' it is fine to do honest analysis with these concepts, being sincere to its logical shape, but one is apt to substitute another in its place, such is the temptation of the language.
I don't get what you're saying here. I've never read wittgenstein and all the knowledge I have of the concept of "language game" is from wiki, though they give quite a incisive description there you reaaaaaaaaally still have to clarify what you're saying. what i meant is, there is a step of conceptual formulation before an 'impression' like 'red table' becomes, 'the table that is red'. take the 'red table' to be the sight of the red table, the 'table that is red' the conceptual table. the two corresponding activities are, seeing, and conceptual reasoning. it is improper to equate these two, even though the concept may relate to the sense perfectly.
well i don't think it's improper because "table" and "red" are concepts that are pretty universal to everyone who reads that sentence. So from the sense table to the conceptual table is a step of deductive reasoning I think everyone can accept for the sake of argument. More so, if you're saying it's improper to make that connection then it'd be improper for a loooooooooot of things in philosophy to be said, like the fact that you're saying that sentence is an improper "conceptual formulaton", you took the sentence and what YOU think is the conceptual formulation and made a connection to the conceptual "conceptual formulation" you got from wittgenstein, etc. If you're able to make that leap then I dont see why Bertrand can't make his.
And can you link me to some stuff that talks about what you're talking about
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On September 29 2007 13:14 oneofthem wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2007 12:46 zulu_nation8 wrote:
yet their occurrence is a sign of something existing independently of us, something differing
their occurence = the inductive conclusion that objects appear different depending how on our perception
is a sign = is a conclusion we can derive a new conclusion from
of something existing independently of us = that the true nature of objects, assuming there is one, might be different from what we perceive.
something differing = something differing
this makes sense because in the tradition of Descarte and later empiricism, philosophers and scientists rely on experience and sensory perception as tools to empirical "truth". And Russell counters that stance with a very simple yet effective example of the table that may or may not be red.
'objects appear different' quite obviouisly, you need some kind of 'object' for it to 'appear different.' here we are examining the logic of the 'object.' i dont think russell's analysis was a retreat from empiricism, he was doing empirical research but arrivingi at a puzzlement that shouldn't be there. he was examining the statement 'table is red' against some thought experiments in which different empirical data were present. one could say, he destroyed the 'red table' concept that took 'red' to be a property of the table (this is not translatable really), or that concept of 'red table' first adopted. the puzzle then seemed to him to suggest a lack of reality when what simply happened was an improved account of 'red table.' edit: damn i lost a big paragraph by browser death i would not count russell's effort as againsts empiricism, it was rather an attempt at empiricial examination of the concept of reality by some thought experiments. it is just that he took the conclusion the wrong way. talking about the 'red table' would only make sense wihtin a given conceptual framework. (make sense means, what hte concept entails.' 'the red table' is quite fully formed concept and in it is contained all the talk about 'property' 'reality' 'sense' 'ideas.' one could say that reality and 'something existing independently of us' talks are both one and the same, contained in a conceptual framework that just is. in saying 'the red table,' all of the logic of this framework is admissible to frame 'properties' or 'existence' of such a table. the key here is not that 'red table' is an idea, but hte metaphysical attitude toward 'mere ideas.' since these ideas containi in themselves the logic of reality, glossing over their logic and attepmt to deny reality is just a shell game. the temptation for this move is in teh way 'ideas in my head' is seen as something of a logic substitution for 'red table.' the former is only descriptive of the latter in a conceptual framework in which 'ideas' and 'the red table' have different positions. yet when you substitute in 'ideas in my heaad' with 'the red table,'' you are impressed with the 'mereness' of 'the red table' when in fact you are just impressed with the mereness of 'ideas in my head.' russell is not exactly confusing, he is just confused.
ok i think i got it. The red table is a bad example and poor Bertrand confused himself, did wittgenstein break him? cuz it must've been someone like ultra ultra ultra ultra brilliant to see past this. Basically Bertrand just went around in circles
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so this is a problem with representation basically, and language. again, like the transcendental subject, except the red table is a transcendental object, and transcendental in different ways. Whoever thought past this is really brilliant.
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EPT
