How is it incoherent?

It's true that intersubjectivity cannot establish anything ":absolute". It is the incoherent demand for something "absolute" that is the problem. So, of course, that includes the demand for an "absolute" meaning of 'is'.

In other words what is established intersubjectively is the best we can do; and with rejection of such establishment, all discourse, including Descartes' global scepticism, would be meaningless gibberish.

So? — Snakes Alive

It has much to do with the other part of my post.

again:

We need some sense of what veridicality means. Where can we come by such an understanding? — csalisbury

I don't think we 'come by' a sense of veridicality. It's just how we're hardwired to think about things. There can't ever be 'evidence' ultimately that a perception is veridical.

A more neutral descriptor might be 'need for a conceptual anchor' where the need is less a personal need of the thinker that something impersonally generated from within the conceptual game. — csalisbury

Ah. That makes more sense.

I do think the conceptual analysis holds, as a kind of historical-philosophical narrative, even if you strip out the desire stuff, but I'm not sure. — csalisbury

So we've generalized an explanation of the form "seems y because is x, in circumstance z" that helps us understand/cope with particular cases of perceptual error. Even if we posit something akin to desire as a prime mover within the dynamics of experience, why take the next step and universalize the formula to all possible experiences? Is it desire pushing us to look for an explanation where none exists? Or is it just bad metaphysics?

that helps us understand/cope with particular cases of perceptual error. — Aaron R

Does the idea that there is a perceptual error arise because we say "Is green, but looks blue under certain conditions"? What if we said "looks green under most conditions, but can look blue under certain conditions". Would the notion of perceptual error then dissolve?

So we've generalized an explanation of the form "seems y because is x, in circumstance z" that helps us understand/cope with particular cases of perceptual error. Even if we posit something akin to desire as a prime mover within the dynamics of experience, why take the next step and universalize the formula to all possible experiences? Is it desire pushing us to look for an explanation where none exist? Or is it just bad metaphysics? — Aaron R

To answer well, I'd have go back and reread (or sufficiently read for the first time) Leibniz, Locke and Hume, among others.

All I can do is speculate, based on what I do remember. I'll probably get a lot wrong. That said:

Descartes guarantees the validity of our perceptions by reference to our ability to conceive of infinity (this is what 'god' for him boils down to.)

Locke et al disagreed with Descartes on this, yet retained the primacy of sense impressions for knowledge.

Let this marinate a while, and you get Hume. How can we connect impression x to impression y? Isn't this just habit?

And then Kant. Kant, as you probably know, doesn't substantialize the noumenon, despite rumors to the contrary - but the way in which he talks about the noumenon still gives some clues, maybe?

He talks a lot about how reason, necessarily, seeks the unconditioned. Seeks the unconditioned despite being dependent on the understanding and so being limited to the conditioned.

The infinity of Descartes, long-repressed, reappears here. But it's a little different. Kant's 'understanding' allows the interrelation of all phenomena in a legible conceptual web. Reason, on the other hand, seeks to ground the web itself. Kant is well-aware that it can't. But he's also aware that it can't help itself. So the Infinity of Descartes is pushed into the ethical (critique of moral reason) and the aesthetic (critique of judgment.)

I guess none of this answers your question though. Something about how reason needs to take everything as a whole, but needs that whole to be based on a ground. And how that is complemented by a different tendency to take everything as separate, but has no way of figuring out how those separate things hold together.

I'll try to take another stab tomorrow, a little soberer.

Descartes guarantees the validity of our perceptions by reference to our ability to conceive of infinity (this is what 'god' for him boils down to.) — csalisbury

I always thought this guarantee was a matter of the omnibeneficence of God: that because he is a perfectly good being he would not deceive us.

I'll have to have another read of the relevant section, but iirc the benevolence was secondary to the infinity thing, not vice-versa. (i.e. God's perfectly good, because of the infinity stuff.)

Just did a reread. You're right that the guarantee is based on benevolence, but the benevolence is definitely based on the infinity stuff. Something like this: We could only conceive of infinity through our faculties were those faculties given to us by an infinite being. Therefore an infinite being exists. An infinite being would have no reason to deceive us (as deception is something like: subterfuge used to correct a bad state of affairs that is causing one to suffer--- this sort of thing would never apply to an infinite being.)

The concept of perceptual error is probably generalized out of the recurrent experience of having our expectations or desires unfulfilled. The formula "seems y because is x, under circumstances z" (or whatever) is a further generalization that helps us explain why particular perceptual errors occur. So when I walk into work in the morning and notice that my purple tie looks green, I will leverage an explanation that satisfies the aforementioned form (e.g. "my purple tie looks green because of the black lights installed over my cubicle"). So it's not that that perceptual error arises because we say "X is Y, but looks Z under the current circumstance" rather we leverage that formula as a way of explaining the experience of getting things wrong.

In regards to leveraging a formula that says something like "X looks Y under most circumstances, but looks Z under others" won't eliminate perceptual error because we still can't help but make claims about how things really are, and we will still inevitably get things wrong from time to time. If I look into my parlor and say to you "John is sitting on my sofa in the parlor right now", but really it's just my daugher's life-sized Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal (for example) that is sitting on the couch, it won't help to try to formulate an explanation in terms of this Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal looking like Winnie the Pooh under most circumstances, but looking like John in other circumstances. First of all, my one-off mistake is probably not generalizable/repeatable in that way. But more fundamentally, the fact of the matter is that it's just Pooh-Bear sitting on my couch, not John, and that's that.

That makes sense; the fact that we can conceive infinity can only be on account of the existence of an infinite being, a fact which, if true, guarantees the existence of God, and then God's benevolence guarantees the veracity of our perceptions. So strangely, it does look like our ability to conceive infinity, according to Descartes, guarantees the veracity of our empiric (finite) perceptions. It's curious; I'd never though about it like that before! :cool:

Yeah - never explain things that exist by other things that exist. That is what science does.

That makes sense; the fact that we can conceive infinity can only be on account of the existence of an infinite being, a fact which, if true, guarantees the existence of God, and then God's benevolence guarantees the veracity of our perceptions. So strangely, it does look like our ability to conceive infinity, according to Descartes, guarantees the veracity of our empiric (finite) perceptions. It's curious; I'd never though about it like that before! :cool: — Janus

Right? I do disagree with him, but it's still a pretty exquisite thought-thing. Just conceptually-aesthetically, :ok:

But more fundamentally, the fact of the matter is that it's just Pooh-Bear sitting on my couch, not John, and that's that. — Aaron R

But how can you be sure of that? It might be John who just looks and behaves like Pooh-Bear under some special condition. As if you could be sure to be in error if you cannot be sure about the world!

I mean I disagree with him, but it's still a pretty exquisite thought-thing. Just aesthetically, :ok: — csalisbury

I disagree with him too, but it is indeed "an exquisite thought thing". And I've been tending to think lately, in general, that metaphysical speculation is, understood most coherently, a search, not for truth, but for beauty in terms of different ways to understand or think about things. It's more like poetry than empirical science. So, the exquisiteness of Descartes' thought is not at all dependent upon its propositional truth, but, on the other hand, it is an aletheic truth, insofar as it presents something to us.

I need to think about this some more Aaron, but my immediate take is that the difference between seeing John instead of seeing Pooh, that is the perceptual error, is a difference within the context of perception between what I thought I saw and what I discover, on further investigation, that I had really seen.

I don't think we 'come by' a sense of veridicality. It's just how we're hardwired to think about things. There can't ever be 'evidence' ultimately that a perception is veridical. — Snakes Alive

When you say we're 'hardwired' - what do you mean by that? Why do you think that's the case?

It's not about being "sure", or even correct. It's about the structure of the concepts that we deploy in order to explain our (purported) perceptual mistakes.

I need to think about this some more Aaron, but my immediate take is that the difference between seeing John instead of seeing Pooh, that is the perceptual error, is a difference within the context of perception between what I thought I saw and what I discover, on further investigation, that I had really seen. — Janus

Sure thing. I don't disagree with what you wrote above, so maybe there was just a misunderstanding prior?

I think it's the case because it just happens, in the same way that we see distances, and so on. It's in the structure of experience, if you like. The Cartesian move strikes me as a kind of self-awareness.

I think it's the case because it just happens, in the same way that we see distances, and so on. It's in the structure of experience, if you like. — Snakes Alive

When we see distances, we understand that the thing we're seeing is 'there', not 'here but small.'

When we see veridically (building on your analogy) we understand that the thing is real instead of not-real?

I mean, maybe. It seems like a strange analogy. I'm open to persuasion, but persuasion is needed.

When we see distances, we understand that the thing we're seeing is 'there', not 'here but small.' — csalisbury

Right, and there was an analogous kind of self-awareness when the empiricists noticed that you could come to 'see' things as just rearranged as different sizes in the visual field, instead of representing objective distances. We just naturally see these things as distances, but we only do this by means of the visual field being stimulated in this way, and when one turns to epistemology one 'sees' this again. Usually one sees 'through' it.

When we see veridically (building on your analogy) we understand that the thing is real instead of not-real? — csalisbury

We take the experience to be 'of' something.

But this whole metaphor relies on an autocorrection of visual data in order to furnish a true picture of the world. It's not true that the sun is small and here. It's large and out there. etc

It doesn't seem like a good metaphor to me. In fact, in seems like the opposite. We adjust our perceptions in order to fit them to a world we know is the real one. We'll make our perceptions fit the world we live in, before we discard them.

And, moreover, we're right to do so.

It's not true that the sun is small and here. It's large and out there. etc — csalisbury

It's true that that's how we're accustomed to think of it by default. I don't think there's any possible way to answer transcendent questions about whether that way of seeing it is the right way.

The point is that the Cartesian turn allows one to see it the other way – a way that one initially does not even understand that one can see it. In that sense, it's not like learning a new true proposition, but being able to see where once one was blind. You get a new ability. The Cartesian is also right that in some sense this is the way it was 'all along.' You can of course choose to ignore this new ability and have faith that it is just an aberration, and the old way of seeing things is the 'right way.' But it's just that – faith.

We adjust our perceptions — csalisbury

In general, we do not have the power to adjust our perceptions.

The point is that the Cartesian turn allows one to see it the other way – a way that one initially does not even understand that one can see it. In that sense, it's not like learning a new true proposition, but being able to see where once one was blind. You get a new ability. The Cartesian is also right that in some sense this is the way it was 'all along.' You can of course choose to ignore this new ability and have faith that it is just an aberration, and the old way of seeing things is the 'right way.' But it's just that – faith. — Snakes Alive

Wait, but none of this has anything to do with the Cartesian turn, at all. I don't mind rhetoric - i love rhetoric, - but only when its wedded to good argumentation. This is just a lot of rhetoric anchored on a phrase' cartesian turn' that , far as I can see, has no relation to any of the talk.

I don't even think you're playing foul, but this isn't....

I don't know what you're talking about.

you either - we're at an impasse!

shake hands and be done with it?

OK (not much lost – these threads are of pretty poor quality, OPs are too vague / scatterbrained).

Deal (sounds like you oughta find a better forum?)