Hrm, I feel the exact opposite. Phenomenology is a potential route to giving scientific explanations for religious feelings -- if we understand the structures of consciousness, then we'd have theories by which we can understand how people have visions, and such.

To me phenomenology shows how experience is a rich place for exploring the limits of language -- it's able to objectify what isn't, strictly, an object and make us able to communicate about general patterns of experience (at least, insofar that phenomenology isn't just a nonsense, a solipsistic invention for someone by themself -- a possibility, by all means, but it seems too intelligible to me for that) — Moliere

Look at phenomenology as a presuppositional analysis, and just that, of what we experience in the usual way. I certainly won't bore you with what they say, and this would be Kant through Heidegger (and while I have read a lot of it, I am by no means an expert) but will simply point out that Richard Rorty thought Heidegger was one of the three greatest philosophers of the 20th century, and this was a very busy time for philosophy. Rorty is important here because he really understood, though in an arguable way, continental philosophy, and he wrote extensively about and with and against analytic philosophers (like Davidson, Putnam, et al). He was strongly influenced by Thomas Kuhn whose Structures of Scientific Revolutions showed how one could explain science's progress in a way that kept theory really more about itself and less about the way the world revealed itself. He wrote about Heidegger and Derrida with this exact "distance" kept away from science's faith in empirical work's ability to "reveal" properties about he world, and defended, and this is and has been a very important revelation to me, the idea that there is noway anything out there can get "in here" (the brain).

Of course, he talked like this to simplify the strong claim he made that truth is made, not discovered. One has to give that notion some serious thought. He also thought Dewey, the pragmatist/naturalist, was among the three greatest philosophers, and you can see this in his writing: talking naturally about the world in terms familiar and commonsensical, but all the while, underlying this, was a theory of foundational pragmatism that entirely denied traditional models of a world independent presence in the intimation of its existence to empirical observation and interpretation. He was no Kantian, nor a phenomenologist, if you asked him, but in the broader sense of phenomenology, he was well aligned with Heidegger (arguably, again). You know, the early Wittgenstein is thought to be a phenomenologist.

It was the same epistemic divide that pushed Rorty to hold that truth was made, not discovered, that is in place for transcendental idealism. I read phenomenology because empirical science cannot address this simple yet all important question: how does anything out there get in here?

Only one way out of the problem this simple question poses: it is not a denial that brain generates experience, but that what a brain IS, like all things, has it accounting in metaphysics. we think of a delimited object like a house of a fencepost, and so this epistemic connection utterly fails. this delimitation has to be removed, and then the full breadth of what we are can be revealed. I hold this is possible, though not very familiar in reasoning why this is so. Oh well---the world is NOT a familiar place at the basic level of analysis.

If knowing is a justified true belief, I don't know there is a chasm. I believe there is and I can justify my belief that there is. I infer there is, but I don't know there is as I don't know whether or not my belief is true. — RussellA

The rub lies in the justification. What are you tryin to justify? What is being argued here is simple: how is it that epistemic connectivity can occur between two objects, a brain and my couch? Justify this. If this proves impossible, and it is, then you have to reassess the basis of your ontology. You will have to turn to phenomenology, which is about the Totality of our existence, and not just an aggregate of localized arguments that is found in analytic thinking.

It was the same epistemic divide that pushed Rorty to hold that truth was made, not discovered, that is in place for transcendental idealism. I — Constance

He went so far as to suggest that we could do
away with the notion of truth because it was a confused and therefore not very useful idea.

I read phenomenology because empirical science cannot address this simple yet all important question: how does anything out there get in here? — Constance

I feel like I've found a kindred spirit, but I'll admit I think I'm now on the materialist side of things. And not as an inference, but as a choice. I think the materialist way of looking at the world makes us better, for the kinds of creatures we are. (we can sorta glimpse that there may be more, but usually, the "more" makes us do bad things)

Only one way out of the problem this simple question poses: it is not a denial that brain generates experience, but that what a brain IS, like all things, has it accounting in metaphysics. we think of a delimited object like a house of a fencepost, and so this epistemic connection utterly fails. — Constance

My way of thinking is that if something is an accounting in metaphysics, then it's already something which we can only decide upon based on our feelings on the matter. Want to live forever? Sure, we're immortal. Want to note how we don't? Well, sure, we're mortal.

Like, literally, you could say anything, and as long as people like what you say then it'll be counted as true.

So the brain IS -- immortality. Or whatever religious belief you want.

EDIT: Just to note, I don't think "wanting" implicates "true". Because religious beliefs are never amenable to methods of knowledge-generation, like ever, while they could be true -- they'll never be known.

if we can't accurately convey parts A, B, and C of an experience, I see no reason why we should think we could accurately convey D, E, or F, meaning the entire experience and all experiences are ineffable. If there are portions of the experience that are capable of being perfectly conveyed, I'd like to know what those portions are and why. — Hanover

Experience itself cannot be conveyed. Yet, it is possible via language to project the speaker's experience into a similar experience imagined by the listener.

I cannot experience your red, it may or may not be the same as mine. We would never know precisely because the content of this experience is beyond language. Yet by saying "red" I am projecting my experience of red onto yours.

Is this communicating my experience? Both yes and no.

et my concept of "mountain" cannot be the same as anyone else's. My concept has developed over a lifetime of particular personal experiences, as is true for everyone else. A Tanzanian's concept of "mountain" must be different to an Italian's concept of "mountain". My concept of "mountain" is private and subjective, inaccessible to anyone else in the same way that my experience of the colour red is private, subjective and inaccessible to anyone else. — RussellA

Are you making a claim here? Something that is either true or false. But it can't be either by the very way it is defined. If someone's experience is private and inaccessible, how could one determine whether it is the same or different? By definition, we could not make this determination; thus, making a claim that "my concept of 'mountain' cannot be the same as anyone else's." cannot be determined to be true or false because you do not have accessibility to my experiences to compare nor do I have accessibility to yours to compare.

However, if you start using "mountain" in new or unusual ways with your fellow human being, you might begin to think that you have a different concept of "mountain".

No wonder anglo American philosophy is such a dead end, so busy trying to squeeze meaning our of ordinary language — Constance

To a person who has limited knowledge of formal philosophy, this describes what seems to be going on in this thread.

No wonder anglo American philosophy is such a dead end, so busy trying to squeeze meaning our of ordinary language. Well, the world is not ordinary at all. — Constance

This may be limited characterization of Anglo American philosophy. W. V. Quine, one who belongs is such a tradition, said the following in Word and Object, "There are, however, philosophers who overdo this line of thought, treating ordinary language as sacrosanct. They exalt ordinary language to the exclusion of one of its own traits: its disposition to keep on evolving."

The idea is to consciously dismiss presuppositions that implicitly give us the familiarity of the familiar world in a perceptual event. — Constance

Please list the presuppositions that I have to consciously dismiss that give me the familiarity of the world in a perceptual event.

It is the familiar problem of explaining color to the blind person. In vain you will fumble with the heat of red and the chill of blue, the lush verdancy of green. This gets you exactly nowhere. — hypericin

To be sure, blind folk are able to talk of the warmth of red and the chill of blue. They can use colour words in much the same way as the sighted. But what they cannot do is to choose the correct word for some object that is before them, to say if it is yellow or it is green.

The content of primary sensory experiences are utterly beyond language... — hypericin

Which was so well captured by

...we cannot say objects, and so they are ineffable. But the reason we can't say objects is that they aren't words, not because we can't talk about them. — Moliere

Nothing that might be said remains unsaid.

Experience itself cannot be conveyed. — hypericin

And yet we do talk about our experiences, in detail. While I cannot have your experiences, that's not an inadequacy of language but a result of your experiences being yours.

And since we do talk about our experiences, they are not ineffable.

No wonder anglo American philosophy is such a dead end, so busy trying to squeeze meaning our of ordinary language. Well, the world is not ordinary at all.
— Constance

This may be limited characterization of Anglo American philosophy. W. V. Quine, one who belongs is such a tradition, said the following in Word and Object, "There are, however, philosophers who overdo this line of thought, treating ordinary language as sacrosanct. They exalt ordinary language to the exclusion of one of its own traits: its disposition to keep on evolving." — Richard B

On the other hand, Putnam, one of Quine’s heirs, wrote:
“Thus we have a paradox: at the very moment when analytic philosophy is recognized as the "dominant movement" in world philosophy, it has come to the end of its own project-the dead end, not the completion.”

To be sure, blind folk are able to talk of the warmth of red and the chill of blue. — Banno

Blind from birth? Reference?

And since we do talk about our experiences, they are not ineffable. — Banno

I think this is the strongest point that those who would like to say experience is ineffable hasn't been addressed -- at best I think one could say that "talking about experience" is something like an error-theory . . . but the way I can make sense of that makes other things make less sense.

Persons who want experience to be ineffable, in principle (ala not Mary's Room, but after Mary has seen red) -- well, what's going on when we talk about our experiences? What's going on when I say "I know *exactly* what you mean because I... (story)"? Are we forever trapped behind the cartesian demon, talking to ourselves, or do we -- as the seeming suggests -- actually feel something that others feel sometimes?

or do we -- as the seeming suggests -- actually feel something that others feel sometimes? — Moliere

Of course we do at times. Sometimes when a TV character I admire weeps I begin to empathize and feel a tear coming on. Partly that's old age. But watching a gymnast pull from a hang to a handstand on the still rings is something I can feel better than the casual spectator because of past experience. It's the talking about these things that fails to convey a full event.

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/02/making-sense-of-how-the-blind-see-color/

The salient bit:

...the sighted and the blind are still able to share a common understanding of abstract visual phenomena like rainbows and color.

Are we forever trapped behind the cartesian demon, talking to ourselves, or do we -- as the seeming suggests -- actually feel something that others feel sometimes? — Moliere

Why not start from the idea that talking to ourselves is already talking to an other, that the self does not coincide with itself? This will avoid the Cartesian trap of solipsism.

I think this is the strongest point that those who would like to say experience is ineffable hasn't been addressed — Moliere

Indeed, the bald insistence that something we all do, at length, does not occur.

And no in this thread, that insistence comes from at least three or four differing approaches to philosophy, each of which argues against the others...

adopts a referential theory of meaning. There doesn't seem to be much advantage in taking that on.

offers a critique of her own caricature of "anglo American philosophy". The issue for her is more spiritual than philosophical, her view untouchable by counterexamples. Monks talking about the ineffable.

has a firm grip on the wrong end of the stick. wants to talk about Himalayan politics. is still interpreting Kant. remains rigidly enigmatic.

Give folk enough rope. and also get the joke.

I don't have a reason against starting there. At least not that I'm seeing up front. I think maybe you have more in mind, though.

However, I don't see how starting there avoids the Cartesian trap of solipsism anymore than what I've said so far. But, as I said before, I'm still listening. If you're willing to say more. (I appreciate the prodding, because it makes me think -- I'm just unsure what else to say now)

...

talking to ourselves is already talking to an other — Joshs

I can imagine a private language argument. Self-talk as a back construct from public talk.

I can imagine a private language argument. Self-talk as a back construct from public talk. — Banno

Something like that, yes. And to prevent it from turning into a discursive idealism, one could integrate the feedback from the body into this interplay.

And to prevent it from turning into a discursive idealism, one could integrate the feedback from the body into this interplay. — Joshs

No idea what that adds. But taking others as granted is much the same as dismissing idealism anyway, so ok. A public language implies a public.

Why not start from the idea that talking to ourselves is already talking to an other, that the self does not coincide with itself? This will avoid the Cartesian trap of solipsism. — Joshs

I figured you'd go with: speech happens (somewhere in the motor cortex?) and when we reflect on this, we frame it as a conversation with a speaker and a listener. Posing and opposing things gives things meaning, right?

No idea what that adds. But taking others as granted is much the same as dismissing idealism anyway, so ok. — Banno

The social constructionism of Ken Gergen and others has been critiqued as a form of discursive idealism because it tries to derive all forms of experience from cultural systems of language interchange. They believe that ‘cognitive mechanisms should not to be searched for ‘within the head' of a person, but rather within the discursive or conversational interactions between persons.’ As Gergen puts it: ‘The locus of knowledge is no longer taken to be the individual mind but rather to inhere in patterns of social relatedness'.

Enactive, embodied accounts, by contrast, see the self-organization of the individual in its interactions with its environment as having an autonomy that allows it to distinguish between its own normatively organized unfolding experience and its awareness of others. We normally can distinguish between our own thoughts (internal dialogue) and thoughts from others, due to the agential nature of our own thoughts.

Thus, ‘dialogue requires the autonomous contribution of different dialogical partners, and furthermore, a mutual acknowledgment of ‘otherness'. There is a fundamental difference between others that are part of our self narratives and others to whom we tell our stories.’

Give folk enough rope. — Banno

Indeed. I am open to evolving language; however, pragmatism, parsimony, and a sprinkle of aesthetics will put pressure on what is accepted.

If what you are saying is something like that we find ourselves embedded in the world, then I agree.

I figured you'd go with: speech happens (somewhere in the motor cortex?) and when we reflect on this, we frame it as a conversation with a speaker and a listener. Posing and opposing things gives things meaning, right? — frank

The posing is itself is already meaning in that it produces a differentiation, a way in which a fresh sense of meaning is alike and differs from what preceded it in memory. The posing is inherently an opposing, a contrast and comparison with the substrate it grows out of. A thought addresses and modifies the context it emerges out of, and so this is already a kind of speaking to oneself.

Indeed. I am open to evolving language; however, pragmatism, parsimony, and a sprinkle of aesthetics will put pressure on what is accepted. — Richard B

I prefer Midgley's metaphor. The pipes are dirty and leaking and need a good seeing to.

' monks have a role in their conversation for using some conjugate of "ineffable", perhaps in achieving a deeper mindfulness or greater respect for their teachers. The meaning of the expression is found not in a reference to that to which we cannot refer, but in that deeper meditation or respect. Since it has a place in their language game, it is not nonsense, but by that very fact it is not ineffable. So Constance account of what the monks are doing might be clarified. The pipes need fixing.

Mww is still interpreting Kant — Banno

‘Preciate the noticing.

But will it proceed to the court?

↪Joshs If what you are saying is something like that we find ourselves embedded int he world, then I agree. — Banno

Yes, and thought is embedded within an affectively organizing bodily system in an even more immediate way that it is in the discursive world of other people. A cognitive system only continues to exist by making changes in itself.