First, can you see that the grammar of "headache" and the grammar of "cold" are very different? — Banno

Yes, and? I'll repeat my previous post, as both the part you quoted and the part you didn't quote are still relevant:

If just one word refers to private sensations then this argument that you and Hanover keep pushing that meaning is just public use, that private sensations must drop out of consideration because we can't know each other's experiences, etc. is shown to fail.

...

But people do say "stop exaggerating, it doesn't hurt that much". This idea you have that our everyday way of talking to each other and about the world has bearing on phenomenology or perception or physics or metaphysics just doesn't hold up.

If John and Jane both agree on the water's temperature but disagree as to whether this temperature is hot or cold then what is the actual substance of their disagreement? What does it mean for 37°C to be hot or to be cold? What does it mean for an injection to be painful? The common sense and parsimonious answer is that it concerns how such things feel to us, i.e. the types of first person phenomenal experiences they cause. Any "disagreement" stems from the naive (and mistaken) assumption that there's a "right" way for 37°C water or an injection to feel — or it's faux disagreement that ought not be taken literally; they're just describing how the water and the injection feels to them and acknowledging that they feel different to the other.

Simply insisting on a thinner, grammatical use of “refers to” doesn’t engage that theory; it just declines it. — Esse Quam Videri

That's because this "thinner, grammatical use" suffices. The word "pain" refers to pain, and pain is a sensation. The word "thoughts" refers to thoughts, and thoughts are private mental phenomena. Nothing justifies making this any more complicated.

No one is claiming that "headache" does not refer to a sensation. What is being pointed out is that the sensation is not what fixes the meaning of "headache". Again, the meaning is found in the behaviour, avowals, characteristic causes, typical remedies, patterns of use in diagnosis, excuses, and so on, that surround the use of the word.

Your argument is that the meaning of "headache" is fixed by reference to a sensation. It isn't. If it is 'fixed" at all, its fixed by use. And that use is communal.

No one is claiming:

• No word may refer to a sensation.

What is being claimed is:

• Reference to a private sensation cannot be what fixes meaning.

No one is claiming that "headache" does not refer to a sensation. — Banno

Esse Quam Videri is. I think Hanover is as well. I thought you were too, but happy to be wrong.

Your argument is that the meaning of "headache" is fixed by reference to a sensation. — Banno

No it isn't. I'm getting sick and tired of repeating myself. I am only claiming that the word "headache" refers to a sensation.

I'm getting sick and tired of repeating myself. — Michael

I'm not surprised.

If you do not think reference fixes meaning, then you agree with Hanover and I and the objection collapses. If you do think reference fixes meaning, then you are committed to a private-language-style semantics and have to face all the familiar problems — which you have been carefully avoiding.

The reason you keep repeating yourself is that your claim is orthogonal to the debate.

If there is no unmediated account, there's no unmediated truth. — frank

Depends on the claim. Something like "being punched is painful"? Sure. Something like "the Earth's mass is greater than Pluto"? I don't think so.

If “refers to” is exhausted by the grammatical schema “the word ‘X’ refers to X,” then reference does no explanatory work. It cannot distinguish correct from incorrect use, successful from failed reference, or meaningful disagreement from mere verbal repetition. That thin notion is harmless for everyday talk, but it cannot support the ontological conclusions you want to draw about sensations being objects of awareness. If reference is to underwrite those conclusions, it has to be normatively constrained—and that’s exactly what an essentially private item cannot be.

The reason you keep repeating yourself is that your claim is orthogonal to the debate. — Banno

It's not orthogonal.

Here are two propositions:

1. The 37°C water feels cold₁
2. The 37°C water is cold₂

My claim is that "cold₁" refers to a sensation and that if (2) means anything it means the same thing as (1).

If “X is cold₂” just means “X causes cold₁ sensations in me”, then:

• instruments don’t measure cold, only predict feelings
• disagreements are merely parallel reports
• learning temperature terms requires introspection
• correction becomes impossible except as etiquette

That is not how the language works, and it is not how science or ordinary life proceeds.

That is orthogonal to the earlier dispute.

That thin notion is harmless for everyday talk, but it cannot support the ontological conclusions you want to draw about sensations being objects of awareness — Esse Quam Videri

As I keep saying, whether or not perception of distal objects is direct has nothing to do with language. We can quite reasonably ask if plants, non-human animals, human babies, primitive cavemen, or quadriplegic mute hermits have direct perception of their environment. We can even ask if any of these have perception at all, as perception might require the kind of first-person phenomenal experiences that we have but that plants probably don't.

instruments don’t measure cold — Banno

Correct, they measure temperature. A thermometer can't tell you if 37°C water is hot or cold.

disagreements are merely parallel reports — Banno

Correct, unless these people are naive realists and believe there to be a "right" way to feel things, in which case they are also making false claims about the world.

learning temperature terms requires introspection — Banno

For the words "hot" and "cold", yes, but not for "37°C".

correction becomes impossible except as etiquette — Banno

Yes, it's a fiction.

and you respond by saying such things as "[internal states don't] offer explanatory power". What is this response saying if not that the indirect realist's account of perception is false? — Michael

They don't explain our use of words. That's what I'm saying. If you say that photons bounce off the ship and enter your retina, why would I debate the validity of that in the context of what "ship" means?

And why would I enter into a debate as to what your phenomenal state is or isn't when I have no access to it? How does it help me to track back all the physical and biological processes as physical substance meanders about until it finally provides you a private state I have no ability to know? How does it help me know what ship means from your telling me all the steps that preceed the magic of experience?

And even more important, since I have at my disposal knowledge of the use of the word, and from that I can obtain meaning, why involve myself in your mission? Particularly when you acknowledge reference doesn't impart meaning? You admit your inquiry doesn't tell us what "ship" means.

Suppose you want to know meaning, do you rely on use?

I know I would rely upon an optometrist if I saw double.

The point here is that the person you need to be discussing this with is the neuro-scientist who can better correct all your claims about neural processing and vision, not a philosopher.

This is just to say your argument of indirect realism is orthogonal to the question of meaning, which is why I needn't comment on its validity, and why you're incorrect to assume I've rejected explicitly or implicitly your metaphysical claims. I've said all along, yours is a category error, and I'm being consistent to avoid engaging in it too.

I agree that perception doesn’t depend on language. But our theory of perception does. And the question I’m pressing is whether your theory commits you to entities—private sensations as objects of awareness—that lack intelligible criteria of objecthood.

The moment we claim that perception involves “objects of awareness” or phenomenal intermediaries, we are making an ontological claim, and those claims are accountable to criteria of objecthood and individuation. My appeal to semantic normativity isn’t meant to explain perception; it’s meant to constrain what kinds of entities a theory of perception can coherently posit.

The point here is that the person you need to be discussing this with is the neuro-scientist who can better correct all your claims about neural processing and vision, not a philosopher. — Hanover

Again, this is exactly what I have repeatedly argued; on the first page quoting the Wikipedia article on direct and indirect realism which says "indirect perceptual realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception that subjects do not experience the external world as it really is"; here where I reference the SEP article on what science tells us about colour; and here responding to you, saying "I said that empirical study trumps armchair theorising, i.e. that if the two are ever in conflict then we ought accept the results of empirical study over the results of armchair theorising".

The moment we claim that perception involves “objects of awareness” or phenomenal intermediaries, we are making an ontological claim, and those claims are accountable to criteria of objecthood and individuation. My appeal to semantic normativity isn’t meant to explain perception; it’s meant to constrain what kinds of entities a theory of perception can coherently posit. — Esse Quam Videri

You are making an ontological claim when you accept that headaches are mental phenomena. Yet you then say that the word "headaches" does not refer to these mental phenomena. Your own reasoning has drawn a clear distinction between a theory of meaning (or reference) and a theory of ontology.

So you can go on and on about how words like "headaches" and "colours" and "whatevers" cannot refer to mental phenomena; by your own account it would be invalid to then conclude that headaches and colours and whatevers are not mental phenomena.

As soon I stop quoting words you're left with no ammunition. You say that the word "red" doesn't refer to a mental phenomenon? Fine; red is still a mental phenomenon. It sounds ridiculous but it's a ridiculousness of your own making.

You are making an ontological claim when you accept that headaches are mental phenomena. Yet you then say that the word "headaches" does not refer to these mental phenomena. Your own reasoning has drawn a clear distinction between a theory of meaning (or reference) and a theory of ontology. — Michael

My appeal to reference is meant to constrain theoretical reification, not to deny phenomenology. A theory that treats mental phenomena as objects has to make sense of their individuation and explanatory role. Pointing out that such items cannot function as objects or referents doesn’t show they aren’t real; it shows they aren’t the kind of things certain theories want them to be.

Pointing out that such items cannot function as objects or referents doesn’t show they aren’t real; it shows they aren’t the kind of things certain theories want them to be. — Esse Quam Videri

I think you're reading too much into it. The word "pain" refers to pain, pain is a mental phenomenon, and if I perceive pain then pain is the object of perception. There's no need to think of objects or referents as being anything more complicated than this — and this suffices for indirect realism (although strictly speaking the first part of the sentence is irrelevant). You're welcome to understand objects and referents in another way, but unless you can show that indirect realists mean it in this other way then your objections are guilty of equivocation.

I agree that one can use “object of perception” in a thin, grammatical sense: whatever fills the X-slot in “I perceive X.” On that usage, one can say “I perceive pain,” and nothing I’ve said denies that.

But if “object” is understood that thinly, then indirect realism ceases to be a substantive thesis about the structure of perception. Historically, indirect realism was meant to posit intermediary items that explain illusion, hallucination, and perceptual error by standing in for distal objects. That requires a thicker notion of objecthood—something with an explanatory role and some criteria of individuation.

My argument is conditional: if indirect realism is meant to be more than a verbal redescription of experience, then it owes an account of such intermediaries. If it isn’t meant to be more than that, then the disagreement with direct realism largely evaporates.

You haven't refuted the public-use account of meaning so much as rejected it in favour of a phenomenalist error theory — and then acted surprised that others won’t follow him there.

If “hot”, “cold”, “painful”, “harmful”, etc. were mere fictions, then safety thresholds, medical advice, engineering tolerances and so on would all lose their point. Science would be answering questions no one had.

That John and Jane disagree as to the temperature of the bath is not a fiction; it's something to be explained. This is lost in your account.

We have on the one hand: Science refines and explains ordinary concepts; meaning is fixed by public use; sensations play a role without grounding semantics.

And on the other: Ordinary predicates are systematically mistaken; disagreement is illusory; language misrepresents reality; only physical descriptions are real.

Now I think this latter view is plainly impoverished.

That John and Jane disagree as to the temperature of the bath is not a fiction; it's something to be explained. This is lost in your account. — Banno

Definitely. It's not unusual that a person with a temperature of 103 F will ask for a blanket because they feel cold.

It might be said that they feel cold even though they aren't. But this is not to say they're experiencing an illusion. They really do feel cold. This is an excellent moment to see how words take on meaning in context.

Yep. there is a difference between being cold and feeling cold, as is shown by the fact that we have that very grammatical structure.

Another interesting point is how this comes to light only when there is a disagreement. If John and Jenny had agreed that the water was just right, that's an end to the discussion. And what this shows is the opposite of what Michael is suggesting: that all there is to hot and cold is the sensation.

Yep. there is a difference between being cold and feeling cold, as is shown by the fact that we have that very grammatical structure. — Banno

Right, but when the feverish person says "I'm cold.". I don't tell her she's wrong. I believe she's telling the truth. The content of experience isn't private in the Wittgenstein sense.

The content of experience isn't private in the Wittgenstein sense. — frank

It isn't? Can anyone other say how cold the feverish person is?

Can anyone other say how cold the feverish person is? — magritte

They say they feel cold. I understand what they're saying. What else is needed?

What else is needed? — frank

A doctor will attempt to relate "I'm cold" to their Wittgensteinian meaning by asking "on a scale of 1 to 10 how cold do you feel?" That number is only on a relational scale, but it is still meaningful assuming the patient was sincere (which is not a given).

So it's not private. We understand what they're saying.

No, we don't understand either one. There are two distinct notions 'orthogonal' to each other plus a scale measure to create a rough translation from one language-less feeling to a public technical language that can be charted for other doctors to see.

That John and Jane disagree as to the temperature of the bath is not a fiction; it's something to be explained. This is lost in your account. — Banno

I very explicitly said that John and Jane agree that the bath water is 37°C but disagree as to whether this 37°C water is hot or cold.

You seem to be intentionally engaging with a strawman.

I think you're equating indirect realism with the sense-datum theory. As I said before, there are two distinct claims:

1. We only have indirect perception of distal objects
2. We have direct perception only of mental phenomena

The sense-datum theory may treat the mental phenomena in (2) as being objects in the substantial sense that you mean, but it does not follow that if they're not then (1) and (2) are false.

My take is that (1) is true because distal objects and their properties are not "directly present" in the character of first person experience, of the kind that would entail that if some distal object appears blue then it "really is" blue in the naive realist sense, and that (2) is true in the thin sense that I am aware of the character of my first person experience — including its features of pain and pleasure and colour and shape and smell and taste — and that being aware of this is the means by which I have indirect perception of their causes; they are also the things I am aware of when I dream and hallucinate, with dreams occurring when I'm asleep and hallucinations (caused by drugs or illness) lacking the "appropriate" stimuli.

Regardless, no deference to language or Austin or Wittgenstein is going to resolve this dispute. It's a matter for physicists and physiologists and neuroscientists and psychologists; and I think it's clear that "indirect perceptual realism is broadly equivalent to the scientific view of perception that subjects do not experience the external world as it really is".

No, we don't understand either one. There are two distinct notions 'orthogonal' to each other plus a scale measure to create a rough translation from one language-less feeling to a public technical language that can be charted for other doctors to see. — magritte

You don't understand what a person is telling you if they say they're cold? Odd.