Yes, it looks like the thread has achieved consensus on that. It’s an artifact of English.
We can see how we hit the limits of our language, in a case like this. Like you, I might choose “feeling” as the closest term I can find to what I want to say – but it isn’t quite right, quite accurate enough. And “human experience” also gestures in the right direction, but there’s that problem of context you refer to.
All I can say for sure is that we shouldn’t assume that “the limits of our language are the limits of our world,” sorry, Witt. (But then he probably changed his mind about that.)
I read j.j.’s comments as concerning philosophical substance , not your personal style. His critique is focused on an array of philosophical positions which have in common an understanding of the real in terms of third person causal objectivity. Such approaches find formal logic to be well suited to describing at its joints. J.J. , as I understand him, believes that your own philosophical position belongs loosely within that community. His claim is that, rather than being the ‘ground floor’ description of the way things really are , logic is a peculiar kind of abstraction which conceals the subjective, perspectival basis of objectivity and of formal logical propositions.
Okay. Not sure how that’s supposed to relate to me or what I said, or how it furthers understanding of the topic at hand. Does this imply we should abandon logic in this discussion then, or in any discussion about subjectivity? As far as I can see, that leaves us with no other alternative than to speak nonsense.
There are a wide range of philosophical positions which put into question of the priority of formal logic. I’m saying this because you may want to reject their arguments, but you should at least know that such approaches are put forth not just by isolated cranks like me or j.j., but can be found in some of the most notable philosophical movements of the past two centuries, including pragmatism, phenomenology, enactivism, existentialism, hermeneutics and poststructuralism.
Unless you consider all these movements to be nonsense, then there are indeed alternatives to formal logic. But if you are not familiar with these alternatives, then they may appear to you to be speaking nonsense. As to how this debate over the role of logic relates to your OP on what it is like to be a bat, it gets at the heart of how to understand the relation between the subjective and the objective, the affective or felt and the cognized and rational, the first personal and the third personal, the perspectival view and the view from nowhere.
If the goal is to educate me, while I appreciate the intent, I think that it isn’t being approached by j.j. in a very effective way. The form of the post doesn’t really look like it’s trying to educate me though, so I’m skeptical that’s what’s happening. Perhaps you imagine you are educating me, which again, I honestly appreciate the intention if that’s it. Nonetheless, it seems a distraction if it’s unclear how it informs the discussion at hand.
First, the implication that I must acquaint myself with, and explicitly account for, every possible philosophical movement that touches on the notion of subjectivity is ludicrous. What makes you assume I am not aware of this? I have actually explicitly made points from a pragmatist view myself in this thread.
Secondly, I am not relying on formal logic. I haven’t introduced a single syllogism. I am speaking entirely informally, and when I refer to “logic” in the last post, I am speaking of normal sense-making, which does share some similarity to formal logic, but isn’t identical to it. I am uninterested in abandoning sense-making.
Good, then let’s talk about normal sense-making. I am a big fan of enactivist approaches in cognitive science. They introduce models of sense-making which depict living systems as self-organizing. The basis of this organization is reciprocal causality, in which the role of the bits that make up an organism are defined on the basis of overall patterns that are produced by the interaction among all the parts as the organism actively engages with an environment. This is where the ‘normal’ comes in.
These overall patterns of functioning which orient the behavior of the organism are normative. That is, they produce goals and purposes which guide the living system in its environment. Enactivists see this normative organization as also the basis for cognitive processes in humans. Each of us , though interaction with other, produce norms of sense making. But there isn’t one correct ‘normal’ way to make sense of the world. Norms are continually being readjusted through experience. Our individual experiences are only partially shared with others, so societal normativity is only an average drawn from individual perspectives.
I’ll tell you what. Rephrase your response in a way that explicitly relates to sense-making about the subject at hand, and I’ll gladly respond. Otherwise this just looks like gate-keeping.
The issue isn’t what model we land on to describe shared experience, the issue is the role of ambiguity in big philosophical questions, or specifically in Nagel’s thought experiment.
“Sense-making” needn’t be one inerrant thing, nor need it be static for it to exist and be worth adhering to. If you think that my sense-making isn’t compelling, then make the case, don’t just describe how I might be possibly wrong because nothing is fixed.
As you probably know, this is a traditional approach to philosophy by now. Wittgenstein is perhaps the most famous for this therapeutic approach. I used to be fly the OLP flag myself, but Gellner’s Words and Things convinced me to burn that flag.
You contrast ambiguity with mystery here. Why isn’t ambiguity mysterious ? Us not knowing exactly what we “mean” by fundamental signs is perhaps a primary motive for philosophy.
What are these “objects” we are always talking about ? What is this “consciousness” that we talk about it ? Perhaps there isn’t “consciousness” but only world-from-perspective ?
For context, I don’t believe in God or consciousness or qualia. But I object to this casting of ambiguity as an arrow that points to something relevant. Ambiguity itself is the target of philosophy. But the world is finally mysterious. Of course. Yet we are practical animals who mostly can’t afford the state of wonder.
As others have already indicated, the “real problem” is the problem of consciousness, which I prefer to transform into the problem of the meaning of the sign “being.”
That’s basically it, though I would like to emphasize what I mean by dialogical positivism. Spoken or written sentences are perceptual objects in the world. Organisms, including humans, depend on their sense organs for the perception of these signs. These signs have a significance that is a function of the perceiver’s physiology and more importantly their entire history in the world.
In my view, a particular organism is in no position to control or engulf the significance of signs for other organisms. Yet we come together to discuss inferential and semantic norms. Of course @Dobbler has every right to share their approach, but they — in my view — were leaning unconsciously on a sense of possession of “how language really works.”
More generally —and this is not aimed at anyone in particular — OLP and related strategies tend to be blind to their own intense metaphysical presuppositions. While tending to pose as above metaphysics ( inquiry). Instead of just not caring about issues, they try to present blocking the road of inquiry as something profound. “Poor philosophers think there is a mystery here.” The patient in the madhouse thinks he’s a doctor. The “true” OLP type never opened a foolosophy book and doesn’t know what “OLP” stands for. What I mean is that the spirit of OLP is fundamentally anti-philosophical. To be “pure” OLP is to have never been tempted and tainted in the first place.
It’s not a question, though, of choosing between logic and nonsense. The vague idea of a “true logical speech” is perhaps the official phantasm of foolosophy. Primates trading signs can try to be polite, stay on topic, explain why they believe what they believe. Sometimes they will sound like nonsense to others despite all this.
I don’t believe that words are little vessels stuffed with eternal essences. I don’t believe that philosophy can be like a formal system.
There are things that can be opaque about the way we speak about the world, and there are things that can be opaque about what we observe about the world. These are very different types of problems, and it shouldn’t be surprising that they are sensitive to different tools. Why isn’t ambiguity mysterious? Because it’s commonplace, predictable, and fits into our understanding of language use. The same reason basic arithmetic or the rising and setting of the sun aren’t mysterious.
I get that you might find this a fascinating subject, but it isn’t relevant to my inquiry. I am happy for you to start your own topic to discuss the subject.
You misunderstand me. I am saying that some (people) might suppose that ambiguity points to a mystery, but I am not one of those people. At best, ambiguity points toward some cognitive flaws we posess.
Again, you’re free to have that discussion somewhere, but that’s not what this thread is about. The “real” problem that is the subject of this discussion is the effect of ambiguity on philosophical problems.
I’m not suggesting any objectively true logical speech, just normal making sense. If you think I’m not making sense in a specific way, be it formal logic or any other way that you might think someone might find compelling, then make the case. Otherwise your critique is useless and irrelevant.
Have you looked into the philosophy of mathematics ? Computability theory ? Wittgenstein himself, in his philosophy of mathematics, sticks to very simple math like arithmetic.
The rising of the sun in the causal nexus is perhaps not so mysterious, but the being of a sun in the first place is mysterious. If you trace it back to the big bang, then the big bang is mysterious, etc. Yet I grant that we often don’t have time for this mysteriousness. And many will have their wonder quieted by a cause that is itself finally without cause.
As I see it, you are “misreading” Nagel and missing the point. Now that I point that out, I am directed to the exit.
You are perhaps missing key points in my response. Ambiguity is the fundamental problem of or motive for philosophy.
Perhaps you just wanted to use Nagel’s bat as an example, but your treatment of it looks like a misreading. You also mentioned “the hard problem of consciousness.” To me the OP seemed to prioritize a strategy of evasion presented as linguistic insight.
I’m sorry, but I think you’re being pedantic and intentionally obtuse. There is no subject that if we dive deeply enough into doesn’t contain mystery. Nonetheless, functionally these things aren’t mysteries in most contexts.
I can’t see where you pointed out a misreading of Nagel. Let’s have a look.
I see you asking what appear to be rhetorical questions about consciousness here, and making literally no reference to anything I’ve said.
I neither agree nor disagree with this statement. I’m skeptical of categoricals that require the adoption of something fundamental. However, it is neither here nor there to the relevance to the topic at hand. If it is true, then yay for me, I am engaging with the fundamental motive of philosophy.
Can you be more specific? In what specific way is my treatment of Nagel a misreading? I am happy to discuss that. For what specific reason does my OP seem to “prioritize a strategy of evasion”?