they all see different things — Wayfarer

I agree with the gist of what you're saying, and the language I quoted is so suggestive that it must capture something essential, must be somehow right. I don't really want to say, that's just a metaphor and pass on by. But there's a reason philosophers in the analytic tradition have felt themselves pushed toward externalism. There's a reason we find it hard to escape the idea of culture. Even someone in the trenches of cognitive science like @Isaac finds a need for social roles in behavior that are not merely the individual agent's 'conception' or 'idea' of that role, but more like borrowed scripts they act out.

In short, anything that paints what's going on when two people 'see different things' is going to come up short if it treats them as isolated beings confronting the world on terms that are theirs individually, uniquely, and alone.

In short, anything that paints what's going on when two people 'see different things' is going to come up short of it treats them as isolated beings confronting the world on terms that are theirs individually, uniquely, and alone. — Srap Tasmaner

Interpreters go back and forth about where Heidegger stands with respect to the self and the social. For instance,

Zahavi is among those thinkers who interpret Heidegger's ‘we-self' of every day das man as taking precedence over his authentic self of ‘ownmost' possibilities. As das man , Zahavi claims

“group belongingness, rather than being founded upon an other-experience, preceded any such experience.”

“...an everyday being-with-one-another characterized by anonymity and substitutability, where others are those from whom “one mostly does not distinguish oneself” (Heidegger 1996: 11)

He surmises that Heidegger would approve of Schmid's(2005) assertion that “...the we, the “sense of us” or “plural self-awareness,” precedes the distinction between yours and mine, is prior to any form of intersubjectivity or mutual recognition, and is itself the irreducible basis for joint action and communication.”

Zahavi is far from alone in interpreting Heidegger's discussions of the discursive practices of Das man as assuming an introjection of norms by a socially created self or a socially conditioned self-affecting subjectivity. Heidegger's critique of Husserl's model of empathy was taken by many interpreters as evidence that the primacy of being-with for Dasein functions as the conditioning of a self by an outside.

On the other hand, other writers take the exact opposite stance.

“Gallagher(2010) says: “In Heidegger, and in thinkers who follow his line of thought, we find the idea that a relatively complete account of our embodied, expert, enactive, pragmatic engagements with the world can be given prior to or without reference to intersubjectivity.”

Gadamer(2006) writes:

“Mit-sein, for Heidegger, was a concession that he had to make, but one that he never really got behind. Indeed, even as he was developing the idea, he wasn't really talking about the other at all. Mit-sein is, as it were, an assertion about Dasein, which must naturally take Mit-sein for granted..."Care" [die Sorge] is always a concernfulness [ein Besorgtsein] about one's own being, and Mit-sein is, in truth, a very weak idea of the other, more a "letting the other be" than an authentic "being-interested-in-him."”

So who’s right? I think they are both right and both wrong.Heidegger shows that it’s possible to model being in the world for me as interaubjective from
the start, but at the same time it is ‘the world for all of us’ as seen from my unique vantage.

Three guys looking at a field. One is a real estate developer, one a cattle farmer, and one a geologist. Even though they're looking at the same scene, they all see different things, because they're looking at it from different perspectives. That's an analogy for the sense in which 'the world' is, for us, a construction, 'vorstellung' in Schopenhauer. Having insight into how we construct it is what wisdom is, according to him. — Wayfarer

The three guys are looking at a field, it's not that they are in the same spot and one sees a field, another a mountain and the third a river. "They're looking at the same scene"—your words. They see "different things" only in that they see different potential uses, or things to discover, or to be gained, there. The field is there; we didn't "construct it".

But they are, as described, oriented toward the field as something, and that something is different in each case. In turn, that changes what they will notice about the field, what they will pay attention to, and so on.

None of which is too say 'the field' isn't there, or is constructed. I just to want to allow that they are, in one sense, doing the same thing, and in another, doing three different things. A veteran cattleman will also look at the field differently from someone less experienced. All of these distinctions are 'off the rack', though not wrong for being stereotyped.

Nothing here strikes me as decisive.

None of which is too say 'the field' isn't there, or is constructed. I just to want to allow that they are, in one sense, doing the same thing, and in another, doing three different things. A veteran cattleman will also look at the field differently from someone less experienced. — Srap Tasmaner

Agree. It's interesting too how we bring who we are to our observation of things. Each object we look at is also poured full of our history and our personal experience with objects, colors, a multiplicity of associations. The cattleman is a good example - what he sees when he looks over the landscape is an entire realm of signs and signifiers that you and I do not see and can't access. We see a different world - to an extent.

But your question is apropos: Is this decisive?

I agree. The three see the field as different kinds of "affordance" (Gibson). This has commonalities with with Heidegger's 'ready-to-hand' mode of being.

Further to that, when we look at, or stand in, a field, we all have our unique associations and about such experiences we could even write poems that would all be very different. Or set twenty people to paint or draw the field and see how different the works are.

I agree nothing is decisive; we don't want to make too much or too little of the sameness or too much or too little of the differences.

The three guys are looking at a field, it's not that they are in the same spot and one sees a field, another a mountain and the third a river. "They're looking at the same scene"—your words. They see "different things" only in that they see different potential uses, or things to discover, or to gained, there. The field is there; we didn't "construct it". — Janus

Verily. Verum est factum. What peculiarity of ours leads some of us to claim otherwise? Though of course we don't actually "see" potential uses; we consider that what we see may, in the future, be used in certain ways.

I first read Being and Time nearly forty years ago. Just started re-reading it yesterday, so I will return with all the answers shortly.

Though of course we don't actually "see" potential uses; we consider that what we see may, in the future, be used in certain ways. — Ciceronianus

True, we don't literally see the potential uses or possibilities there. But I think it is fair to say that, even unreflectively, these possibilities colour and change the way we see things. And these pragmatic orientations to things are more primordial than the analytical view which sees things as merely present objects standing in front of us in all their ontic brutishness, to be simply stared at so to speak.

:up: It's about ten to fifteen years since I read it, I think, and I've too much on my reading list to consider reading it again right now, so I look forward to your pearls of wisdom!

If there is a tree in your way, you just cannot walk further. What is rationally undenyable lies in what cannot be case. The best positive statements can achieve is to not be wrong obviously.
Maybe we have to see things as what they essentially are: sources of pure negativity, footprints of nothingness, phantastic structures of pure chaos.

The field is there; we didn't "construct it". — Janus

If a fact of the matter has no status outside of an account which gives it its structure and sense, then there can be no facts independent of accounts. We can say that ‘something’ is there to act as affordances or constraint on our accounts, but we can’t identify it as a field , since that’s already an account.

We can say that ‘something’ is there to act as affordances or constraint on our accounts, but we can’t identify it as a field , since that’s already an account. — Joshs

But we can all agree, no matter what our interests might be, that it is a field. That commonality seems to be more than a mere account.

But we can all agree, no matter what our interests might be, that it is a field. That commonality seems to be more than a mere account. — Janus

In other words , is agreement that it is a field due to its being a neutral fact or thing, or is agreement on its being a field an example of one of many possible accounts, beyond which there is only an empty core?

Is the above example different from below?

“If the composition of points out of lines or of lines out of points is conventional rather than factual, points and lines themselves are no less so. ... If we say that our sample space is a combination of points, or of lines, or of regions, or a combination of combinations of points, or lines, or regions, or a combination of all these together, or is a single lump, then since none is identical with any of the rest, we are giving one among countless alternative conflicting descriptions of what the space is. And so we may regard the disagreements as not about the facts but as due to differences in the conventions-adopted in organizing or describing the space. What, then, is the neutral fact or thing described in these different terms? Neither the space (a) as an undivided whole nor (b) as a combination of everything involved in the several accounts; for (a) and (b) are but two among the various ways of organizing it. But what is it that is so organized? When we strip off as layers of convention all differences among ways of describing it, what is left? The onion is peeled down to its empty core.”(Nelson Goodman)

And so we may regard the disagreements as not about the facts but as due to differences in the conventions-adopted in organizing or describing the space. What, then, is the neutral fact or thing described in these different terms? — Goodman

In English, that’s a field, and that it is a field, is a fact. For speakers of English, the fieldhood of that field is as neutral as it gets.

“In English, we call that a ‘field’, but who knows what it really is.” What could that possibly mean? **

Conventions don’t block neutrality; they create it.


**
Some variations:
“In English, we call that a ‘field’, but maybe we’re wrong.”
“In English, we call that a ‘field’, but that’s just what we call it.”
“In English, we call that a ‘field’, but maybe real fields aren’t like that at all.”

The field is there; we didn't "construct it". — Janus

That-s what you see. A field. The other three guys see something more. You might think your view is detached of observers, but it's still a view. That's the human being condition. We all want our views to be objective. But all we have are views. Worldviews. For different people or groups the views can diverge. One's objectivity is the others fantasy.

But we can all agree, no matter what our interests might be, that it is a field. That commonality seems to be more than a mere account. — Janus

'First there is a field. Then there is no field. Then there is.' Zen saying (paraphrased for context).

There is the 'realist' view, that things just are as they are, and will always be so, whether we know them or not. (First there is...)

Then there is the realisation of the conditional nature of perception, of how we bring perspective to everything we see, and things have no separate reality outside that. That is the 'realisation of emptiness' (Then there is no....)

Finally we see things 'how they truly are', which is the perspective that balances both of these earlier stages of insight (Then there is.)

It sounds trite compressed to a few lines but I think it makes an important point regardless. The point I take from it, is that the natural acceptance of the reality of the objects of perception has to be modulated by critical awareness of the role of our own faculties in arriving at such judgement. This is something like what I believe is meant by 'critical realism'.

I have to object.

There is the 'realist' view, that things just are as they are, and will always be so, whether we know them or not. (First there is...) — Wayfarer

But things are as they are. That's logic, not realism.

Then there is the realisation of the conditional nature of perception, of how we bring perspective to everything we see, and things have no separate reality outside that. That is the 'realisation of emptiness' (Then there is no....) — Wayfarer

Sure, we see things only through our own perspective. Concluding from this that we do not see things as they are is Stove's gem. You know better. Further, concluding that they have no identity apart from what we see is as unjustified as concluding that they have an identity about which we can know nothing. Further still, that we do know about things, so this approach is patently false.

...that the natural acceptance of the reality of the objects of perception has to be modulated by critical awareness of the role of our own faculties in arriving at such judgement. — Wayfarer

Sure. But this is a job for psychology and physiology, not philosophy.

What an effort is needed to deny, or render questionable, what our day-to-day conduct establishes we reither deny nor question! There's something fantastic in this rejection of the world and our active participation in it. Like a belief of a fundamentalist in the supernatural.

But things are as they are. That's logic, not realism. — Banno

The reason that this is not logical is that it presumes 'we know how things are'. But, being mortal, I contend that we don't know this. We only ever know a very, very small fraction of that.

Concluding from this that we do not see things as they are is Stove's gem. You know better. — Banno

Sure, I did two semesters under Stove. But Stove's Gem only applies to bastardized versions of such arguments - lazy relativism, about which see this critique by Jim Franklin:

Talk of `forms of perception’, and `things in themselves’ may suggest Kant, but it is not clear that Kant was imposed on by a `Worst Argument’. Stove does pin a few small Gems on him but they are not central to Kant's argument. Well before that stage in his reasoning, Kant relied on arguments from antinomies, transcendental arguments and considerations about constructions in geometry and the activity needed in counting, none of which are Gems.

Yes, as Peirce said: "Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts".

It sounds trite compressed to a few lines but I think it makes an important point regardless. The point I take from it, is that the natural acceptance of the reality of the objects of perception has to be modulated by critical awareness of the role of our own faculties in arriving at such judgement. This is something like what I believe is meant by 'critical realism'. — Wayfarer

I have no argument with that. Note that, except in the somewhat confused second stage, there is a field. Sure, 'field' is just one possible name for it. It could be called "a stretch of grass", "a flat grassy area', "a habitat for plovers", but these are all synonymous with "field".

I don't see how it could ever be denied that our faculties play a role in arriving at such judgements, If we had no senses we could experience nothing and make no judgements, I believe you could take a person from every culture and bring them together in a (very large) field and, assuming that translation difficulties could be overcome, they would all agree that they were in a field. Even the pygmy from the Congo who has never left the forest would agree that she was in a place of no trees (assuming for the sake of argument that we are talking about a treeless field).

That's too cryptic for me; can you clarify?

Even the pygmy from the Congo who has never left the forest would agree that she was in a place of no trees (assuming for the sake of argument that we are talking about a treeless field). — Janus

Interesting story from my university days. I think it might have been in cognitive science, or possibly anthropology. It concerned some anthropologists who took a pygmy chieftan up to a mountain lookout by jeep. This individual had never before been outside the dense forest he and his tribed lived in. From the lookout they had panoramic views out over the plains in the distance. They noticed the chieftan was squatting down and reaching towards the ground in front of himself. After some back and forth, they realised he was trying to touch the herd of wildebeest that could be seen grazing on the distant plain, as he had never seen anything that distant before and so thought they were small animals right near his feet.

Thanks, you never disappoint.

I am not interested by his mysticism as much as by the way people evolve and define themselves through dialogue and otherwise interacting with others, IMO an understudied aspect of the human mind in philosophy. Sure, cogito ergo sum, but not alone. We dialog therefore we are.

I'm reading the Stanford article on Buber, a very interesting entry written by someone with a good sense of turn-of-century Vienna.

We dialog therefore we are. — Olivier5

So much so that we are often a different person when surrounded by different people.

I've met a few so-called "pygmies"* is Congo, more correctly called the Twa people. Their environment is quite diverse, with plenty of open spaces such as rivers, clearings, hiltops, etc. Rest assured they can see things from afar and understand what they are seeing.

* The term "pygmy" is derived from Greek mythology and regroups artificially different communities that have nothing to see with one another. It has no more scientific value than the term "amazon".

When we strip off as layers of convention all differences among ways of describing it, what is left? The onion is peeled down to its empty core.”(Nelson Goodman) — Joshs

“...Not only in judgements, however, but even in conceptions, is an a priori origin manifest. For example, if we take away by degrees from our conceptions of a body all that can be referred to mere sensuous experience—colour, hardness or softness, weight, even impenetrability—the body will then vanish; but the space which it occupied still remains, and this it is utterly impossible to annihilate in thought. Again, if we take away, in like manner, from our empirical conception of any object, corporeal or incorporeal, all properties which mere experience has taught us to connect with it, still we cannot think away those through which we cogitate it as substance, or adhering to substance, although our conception of substance is more determined than that of an object. Compelled, therefore, by that necessity with which the conception of substance forces itself upon us, we must confess that it has its seat in our faculty of cognition a priori....”
(CPR B6)

Maybe interesting......Goodman makes this analogy on pg 118 of his 1978 text, to which it may be considered as conclusion, whereas Kant states the similar analogy as a 1787 introductory major premise upon which an entire thesis is built.

.....maybe not.
—————-

'First there is a field....... — Wayfarer

Keyword: first. The subtlety being ghostly or explosive.

Sure, cogito ergo sum, but not alone. We dialog therefore we are. — Olivier5

Yeah. Tickle me, therefore you are. :smirk:

n English, that’s a field, and that it is a field, is a fact. For speakers of English, the fieldhood of that field is as neutral as it gets.

“In English, we call that a ‘field’, but who knows what it really is.” What could that possibly mean? **

Conventions don’t block neutrality; they create it. — Srap Tasmaner

Applying this to Goodman’s example of points and lines, one would have to extract from the various accounts he offers of them a single word to unite all these descriptions. But there may be no single word uniting the accounts. A single word, however, can describe one of the accounts. So, one could say that , in English, each one of the accounts describes what the points and lines together produce with a unique word, and within the bounds of that account , the thingness of that word is as neutral as it gets. So the convention established by an account doesn’t block the perceived neutrality within the account , it creates it. If we apply this analysis to the word ‘field ‘, there would be different accounts, with their own English words to match them , of the space that , within one account, might be called a ‘field’. But to be more Wittgensteinian, the same word would be used in an infinity of different senses( there are force fields, fields of grass, baseball field, fields of study), each sense expressing a different account , a different convention, a different ‘as neutral as it gets’.