We have no knowledge without perceiving the world. The mechanism is irrelevant to the argument, about the content of knowledge.

I'm not ignoring it, but you are misunderstanding it.

We have no knowledge without perceiving the world. The mechanism is irrelevant to the argument, about the content of knowledge. — charleton

But the point is that there is no perception without also conception. Perceiving presumes "a world" for a start.

So the exact mechanism is very relevant to any theory of epistemology.

Psychological science makes many striking points of this kind. Any image stabilised on our retinas quickly becomes invisible. Our eyes have to dance with micro-saccades to keep the fixed and constant aspects of the world in sight.

So what is going on there? For some reason we are set up to tell what parts of the world are still by introducing motion into our view of the world. We in fact perceive the stability of the things "out there" in contrast to the instability that we can generate "in here, ourselves" as the necessary contrast.

There just is no "simple looking and seeing what is out there". It all starts with the organising presumption of our conceiving of "a world" in which "we perceive".

With respect, my interlocutor is trying to refute the necessary claim I made that the source of all knowledge is from perception.
Even knowledge of the mechanism has to be perceived as evidence. By saying that there are OTHER sources of knowledge has to be false.

There just is no "simple looking and seeing what is out there". — apokrisis

I never even implied that. I said what I said, that the source of all our knowledge is from what we perceive. There is simply no avoiding this.
But I even gave exceptions contra Locke, that we have limited instinctual "knowledge".
The problem is 'simple looking' is not a problem for me, as accepting the limits of perception is the only clear way to begin to over come them.

With respect, my interlocutor is trying to refute the necessary claim I made that the source of all knowledge is from perception. — charleton

But there is something in the Kantian position that to get the ball of inference rolling, an abductive leap has to be made.

So the strenuous way you are arguing here certainly makes it seem your goal is to deny this. Evidence just accumulates and becomes our ideas. We are Lockean tabular rasa, Behaviourist association machines.

I never even implied that. I said what I said, that the source of all our knowledge is from what we perceive. There is simply no avoiding this.
But I even gave exceptions contra Locke, that we have limited instinctual "knowledge".
The problem is 'simple looking' is not a problem for me, as accepting the limits of perception is the only clear way to begin to over come them. — charleton

So you are saying perception does have a foundational element of conception to it. Isn't Marchesk saying the same thing? Isn't this a glass half full/half empty argument here?

I'm not ignoring it, but you are misunderstanding it. — charleton

Let's set aside the rationalism/empiricism debate, since this thread is about whether Hume/Witty's version of causality is adequate.

Resetting the issue: according to Hume, the only reason we think that B will continue to follow A is that it has so far in the past. Thus, our expectation that the sun will rise tomorrow is based on nothing more than it having risen before.

However, science says we have confidence the sun will rise tomorrow because it still has matter it can fuse due to it's relatively intense gravity. And furthermore, this will continue for a few more billion years until it can't fuse any more elements, and then it starts expanding and turns into a red giant. There is a reason the sun has been shining for billions of years.

As such, science isn't just cataloging Bs following As, it's looking to provide explanations for B following A. That's what Hume's account leaves out.

IOW, science operates under the assumption that there are causal explanations to be had. It's possible this doesn't always turn out to be the case, depending on how one interprets QM, but for a wide variety of phenomena, it has so far.

Also, as for the problem of induction, where Hume points out that tomorrow could be Thanksgiving for us turkeys, the problem isn't that we have no justification for causality, only that we don't always know when we're observing correlation or causation.

This is baloney, of course, as it has been pointed out before. It pretents that Hume can't recognise that these events are in relations of precedency, contiguity and constant conjunction. — Πετροκότσυφας

But Hume also says we have no logical reason to suppose the constant conjunction will continue. He presents a skeptical view of the future, and thus undermines prediction.

OK, I hear your assertion and await the supporting counter-argument. What could be more accurate than saying the past constrains the future? — apokrisis

The past does not constrain the future. Rather, our method of reasoning is founded on the premise that the future will be maximally similar to the past.

The reason such a method of reasoning is useful is not because the past constrains the future. Rather, it is because the events, within the environment that we live, happen to mostly unfold in a manner that fits models created using such a method of reasoning.

It is inaccurate to say the past absolutely determines the future - that there is no actual quantum grain of free spontaneity. — apokrisis

It is inaccurate to say that the past determines the future in any sort of way, relative or absolute. Instead, what is accurate is to say that there is a relation between two points in time. Relation is nothing but a measure of similarity/difference. For example, a later point in time can be very similar to an earlier point in time. The degree of similarity can vary. It can be absolutely similar (i.e. no difference in all relevant aspects) or relatively similar (i.e. minor differences in some of the relevant aspects.) Similarly, a later point in time can be very different from an earlier point in time. It can be absolutely different (i.e. no similarity in all relevant aspects) and relatively different (i.e. minor similarities in some of the relevant aspects.)

And it would be even more inaccurate to say the past leaves the future completely undetermined, or radically free and spontaneous. On the whole - as you agree about stability - the future seems pretty classically predictable. — apokrisis

It is not inaccurate to say that the past leaves the future completely undetermined. What is inaccurate is to say that the future breaks free from the past in any sort of way, relative or absolute.

The presence of relation between two events, i.e. a degree of similarity or difference between them, requires no underlying mechanism. Rather, it is intelligent organisms that require such a mechanism because they want to predict the future so that they can more effectively attain their goals (whatever these goals are.) Mind you, such mechanisms can only be useful in relatively stable environments. But that does not mean that stable environments are a product of some underlying mechanism. They aren't. It is an unnecessary assumption.

So why is my constraints-based view of causality incorrect when - strictly speaking - it covers both the classical determinism and the quantum indeterminism? — apokrisis

It makes things unnecessarily complicated.

How is it sufficiently stable? — apokrisis

It does not matter whether you ask "why" or "how". These two types of questions are very similar to each other. In fact, I'd say they are two sides of the same coin. I'll try to explain what's wrong with them in another post.

Let's take gravity as an example. On a Humean account, gravity is just a shorthand for objects behaving in a similar attractive manner, such that bowling balls and feathers fall at the same rate on Earth, or the planets orbit in the same manner around the sun.

But Einstein notices a connection between acceleration and gravity, and posits the acceleration of objects through curved space as the gravitational force. So now you've moved from a shorthand for particulars to a very general principle. — Marchesk

Why should Humean account (as you describe it) be confined just to Newton's theory of gravity? This contrast between Newton's and Einstein's theories that you keep invoking is quite puzzling. Both are empirical theories that are aimed at explaining certain categories of observations. Relativity has a wider scope of application and, where it can be applied to the same observations as Newtonian physics, it fits some of them better.

Nevertheless, you could paraphrase Einstein's theory in terms of what you call the Humean account just as readily as you did it with Newton's theory: Relativity is just a shorthand for objects [and all of the observables to which the theory applies] just happening to behave [as far as we know] as the theory says they should behave, as a matter of brute fact, without any underlying metaphysical powers of causation constraining or impelling them.

Now, I am curious: how would you distinguish such a "Humean" universe from one that is "enriched" with your favored metaphysics?

It always puzzles me why people are quite contented with the dictum that you can't get an ought from an is, but discontented with the dictum that you can't get a will-be from a has-been.

But while I puzzle, here's a longish talk about Wittgenstein and Turing that might amuse.

https://vimeo.com/241850881?ref=fb-share&1

Now, I am curious: how would you distinguish such a "Humean" universe from one that is "enriched" with your favored metaphysics? — SophistiCat

I think science is implicitly realistic, even though people figure out ways to talk about in non-realist terms. The Newton example wasn't meant to say that Newton was Humean in his account. He was not. It was just an example of going from particulars to general law. The problem with Newton's realist account of causality is that he couldn't explain gravity as a force acting at a distance, but Einstein could.

The reason for thinking science implies or assumes realism is because unobservables and general laws are posited as part of the theories.

You are misrepresenting Hume. Please state where you think he says "the only reason that..."
His argument is more subtle, suggesting that a priori reasoning does not predict the outcomes of causal interactions and that as humans we have since time immemorial simply had to OBSERVE and conclude from observations causality.
If you have something better, let me know.

His argument is more subtle, suggesting that a priori reasoning does not predict the outcomes of causal interactions and that as humans we have since time immemorial simply had to OBSERVE and conclude from observations causality. — charleton

And Kant's argument was that we couldn't have come up with causality by just past observation. It wouldn't be something that could occur to us as a concept.

If Hume had come up with a skeptical argument for space or time, the same Kantian critique would apply. Habit or custom cannot create a fundamental concept.

No, but I've heard and read people discussing Hume and Kant, and there are SEP articles on this issue. In the OP, I mentioned the Partially Examined Life podcast. They discussed Hume, then Plato, then Kant, and then James & Pierce for the pragmatic response. The issue of knowledge, causality and particulars were prominent themes.

Marky has been too eager to attack me for saying that the source of all knowledge is perception, thinking he has spotted a naive empiricist (not that one exists), even though I refute thetabula rasa, of Locke, which even for him is not so rasa as people think.
It's fight picking, without due consideration for considering what I have said.

1) the source of all knowledge is perception. This is irrefutable
2) If there is an exception it would have to be an abuse of language which considersinstinctive intuition as the same thing as knowledge; it is not.
3) If we were utter tabula rasa then we would be rendered incapable of understanding percpetion, and all sensory data would be white noise.
4) Kant's notions ofCategories of an inherent substrate understanding of time and space act to give us a ground of understanding upon which to build our interpretation of the world might be helpful in this, but his understanding of psychology is far too logical/ cerebral and anthropocentric in my view, and does not account for how simple animals function too.

I have more respect for Hume than Kant. Kant's view is tainted by his theism as this gives him licence to impart humans with whatever quality God wanted to bestow on them - however incredible. Humans are an example of a special creation, able to summon up objective knowledge without so much as an agreement. Hume was a skeptic and does not allow himself to enter into any such flights of fancy.

Edit: or even better, read Hume. — Πετροκότσυφας

And even better yet, you read Kant. This is a discussion, not a book reading club.

I agree about Kant, but...

1) the source of all knowledge is perception. This is irrefutable — charleton

...seems too strong.

I think this is because knowledge and perception are already such loaded words. Knowledge suggests direct realist truth. And perception is properly a conception-loaded process - so already crossing over into idealist territory - in psychological science.

We probably agree on the essential issue. The mind only exists as a modelling relation with the world. So all information that shapes states of conception are ultimately derived from that relating.

But note the stress on the information resulting from the relating, not actually from "the world". The source is not the world in any direct unmediated sense. It is the possibilities of the relation that are the source of any knowing going on.

It is irrefutable.
There is no knowledge without perception, not even Kant disagrees with this. I'm not saying perception is knowledge. But you seem to what to avoid that what we perceive is the source and fudge it by saying it comes from a 'relation'. Even if that we not a fudge, it would still not avoid the irrefutability of the statement, as there is no relation without that which is perceived, and ipso fact the perception IS the relationship between the world and the knowledge.

It's a times like these that I wish there was a "Like" button! :)
:D

But you seem to what to avoid that what we perceive is the source and fudge it by saying it comes from a 'relation'. Even if that we not a fudge, it would still not avoid the irrefutability of the statement, as there is no relation without that which is perceived, and ipso fact the perception IS the relationship between the world and the knowledge. — charleton

So where you are fudging things is talking about "the knowledge" and not "the knower". You concede my point about the relating, but seek to reify "the facts".

Sneaky.

Hume had no need to argue for against that which came after him. Hume's shoulders were those upon which Kant stood.

He might have clarified Hume in this respect he did not add to him. Hume's work assumes that we understand causality. It is just Kant's hubris to claim that he had a special idea my making causality a basic category, which is, with space and time, not "knowledge as we accept it" but the ground of understanding upon which knowledge is built.

No. You are making fudge, not I.
Perception is the relation, obviously.
Since you have mentioned the "knower", you would agree that something lies between the knower and the thing to be known about, and that relation is perception.

...ipso facto the perception IS the relationship between the world and the knowledge. — charleton

Well which do you want to say it is?

My position is that the relating creates the division into knower and known. So I don't in fact claim there to be a "knower", let alone "the knowledge". If we focus on the relating, we just see a process of experience becoming structured a certain way.

So talk about perception as a relation is talk of a relation that points in both directions. It points also to the kind of mind that would be necessary to see the world in a certain fashion. It points to a particular habit of interpretation.

Hume and Kant and many others could appreciate that there is something fundamentally knotty about epistemology. We are too wont to simplify that.

My position is that the relating creates the division into knower and known. — apokrisis

This is an abuse of language.

LOL.

It's like saying evolution causes things to change.

Or evolvability evolves?

Evolution is an effect not a cause.

Uh huh.

I get that you see the world through the eyes of a reductionist ontology. You don't abide with holism or systems thinking.

Your loss.