If they're different, why do you call them both "Trump"? — Hanover

Say you watched a Jimmy Cagney movie. You report that you saw Jimmy Cagney in the movie, though you also know what you saw was a representation.

Is this because there's no reasonable basis to maintain a distinction between Jimmy and his re-presentation?

Say you watched a Jimmy Cagney movie. You report that you saw Jimmy Cagney in the movie, though you also know what you saw was a representation.

Is this because there's no reasonable basis to maintain a distinction between Jimmy and his re-presentation? — frank

So you're acknowledging rampant equivocation, where we call objects and representations the exact word in all cases outside philosophical circles. The noumenal Cagney and the phenomenonal Cagney are always called "Cagney."

Under what scenario do you distinguish the noumenal from the phenomenonal, and can you tell me the specific difference between the two? If you use the term interchangeably, and you don't even know how the two are different from one another, what exactly are you protecting?

And to be clear, I'm not denying our brain does all the things you say. I'm just asking what we're doing by protecting this entirely indescribable distinction between the true thing and the true thing with mental baggage added on.

So you're acknowledging rampant equivocation, where we call objects and representations the exact word in all cases outside philosophical circles. The noumenal Cagney and the phenomenonal Cagney are always called "Cagney."

Under what scenario do you distinguish the noumenal from the phenomenonal, and can you tell me the specific difference between the two? If you use the term interchangeably, and you don't even know how the two are different from one another, what exactly are you protecting? — Hanover

There are a couple of issues here, but what I'd like to first square away is the notion that philosophy results in delusional behavior. Jimmy Cagney is dead. You didn't actually see Jimmy Cagney in the movie. You saw a representation.

Can we first agree that there is a difference between Jimmy and his representation?

Can we first agree that there is a difference between Jimmy and his representation? — frank

Of course. But we"re equivocating here on what we mean by representation. In the context of the thread, representationalism draws a distinction between the veridical state (what actually is) and the delusive state (what is imposed by us on the object). Those terms appear in Austin.

Therefore, the representation (assuming indirect realism) would be of the object Cagney versus the phenomenal Cagney or it could be of the picture of Cagney versus the phenomenal state of the picture. As you've described it, you have the real Cagney versus a picture of Cagney. That is not the sort of representationalism we're interested in here.

Therefore, the representation (assuming indirect realism) would be of the object Cagney versus the phenomenal Cagney or it could be of the picture of Cagney versus the phenomenal state of the picture. As you've described it, you have the real Cagney versus a picture of Cagney. That is not the sort of representationalism we're interested in here. — Hanover

I don't understand what you're saying here. I'll leave you with a painting by Magritte (I had a poster of it on my wall as a teenager.) It's about indirect realism.

I don't understand what you're saying here. — frank

What I'm saying is that indirect realism is the view that there is a ship at sea that is a real ship, but what you perceive in your head is a representation of it, altered by light, your retina, your CNS, etc. You therefore don't have a perception of the ship directly, but indirectly.

When you said a picture of Cagney is a representation of Cagney, that's true, but it's a different sort of representationalism than what we're talking about. That's just a picture.

Cool pic.

When you said a picture of Cagney is a representation of Cagney, that's true, but it's a different sort of representationalism than what we're talking about. That's just a picture. — Hanover

I know. There's also a homunculus problem with using Cagney as an example, but I wasn't trying to say that watching a movie is a comprehensive analogy for perception. My point was that highlighting the fact that we call Cagney's representation "Cagney" is not philosophically significant. It does not at all imply that we don't know the difference between the thing and its representation.

I don't see how we can move on to the real philosophical problems with indirect realism if we're stuck on an inflationary reading of common speech ("inflationary" in that it's drawing conclusions about the state of things by various turns of phrasing.)