I don't think I've grasped what you are getting at.

Here's what I understood.

First, you think Wittgenstein was not an analytic philosopher. Well, I and the rest of the world count him an analytic philosopher because he did his philosophy by using logic to analyse the language of philosophical problems.

Next, you think that I have not addressed the "content" presented. Doubtless this is because I have been unable to grasp what you are getting at, but so far as I have understood it, I maintain that Wittgenstein thought that any value in ethics was in the doing, not in ethical theory.

You seem to think that Quine showed the indeterminacy of meaning, rather than the indeterminacy of reference. Roughly, I agree, but think that Davidson deals with the issue better, and that, following Wittgenstein, the mooted indeterminacy is an outcome of meaning being the use to which we put language as we do things.

And I continue to think that the "phenomenological epoché" cannot be made coherent.

But the difference is that Betty can play the guitar.

You explained exactly what that difference is, you put it in words, and hence it is not ineffable. The difference is that betty can play guitar. — Banno

The difference, KGI, is a knowledge difference. It comprises a vast amount of information, all encoded in Betty's brain, which is the goal and the end result of her practice. That is not "Betty can play guitar". That is just 4 words, almost no information at all.

Can you see the difference there? That one is trivially expressible, the other not at all?

There is a difference in kind between chalk and democracy, and a difference in kind between guitar instruction books and playing guitar. — Banno

But there is no difference in kind between the knowledge in guitar instruction books and the knowledge in Betty's head that lets her play guitar. They are both knowledge.

EDIT:

Before you reply: "a vast amount of information, all encoded in Betty's brain" is not a vast amount of information, encoded in Betty's brain. It is a mere description, and a trivial amount of information on your screen. One is perfectly effable, the other, not at all.

Public narrative? The question here is the public narrative embodied in the subject, the historically constructed individual, the center of institutions embedded in language and culture that we call a self--what happens when this kind of entity examines the foundations of being a human being. We encounter phenomena first. Period. The social and the real are first order terms that begs the further foundational questions. — Constance

“We encounter phenomena first. Period.” Wow, this sounds so definitive. Can’t be argued without sounding absurd. Let me try. What do we humans encounter first? I would say a very hostile world in which we need to survive. We encounter objects that we need to run or hide from, we encounter objects that will aid in our survival. To call this ‘phenomena’ sounds like a cold abstract thing that is ruminated on rather than experienced.

“…examines the foundations of being a human being”, is this discovered like a pair of shoes hidden in a closet? Or just created by a phenomenologist that gets everyone to go along with it? Or maybe its just what Wittgenstein said about “absolute simple objects”: “But I do not know whether to say that the figure described by our sentence consists of four letters or nine? And which are its elements, the type of letter, or the letters? Does it matter which we say, so long as we avoid misunderstanding in any particular case? PI

But then, its not as if it's not a logical procedure. What is free of this? — Constance

I'd say that narrative is not logical -- or, at least, narrative brings with it its own logic, if we wish to logicize a narrative. Something along the lines of "with each sentence time progresses", or whatever -- but then there's always a storyteller out there who notices that people are logicizing stories, then changes it up to thwart the logic.

Borges comes to mind.

The real question phenomenology puts before us, I hazard, is, is it really possible for an encounter of "pure phenomena" to occur? It is not that one has to clear this with theory first, for it is really not a method to a propositional affirmation, though I am sure this is necessary part of the conscious act being conscious. — Constance

I can get along well enough with phenomenology-talk that I don't feel the need to clear it with another theory. One starts somewhere, after all. My doubts aren't based in a notion of what philosophy ought to be, as much as based in particular experiences of people claiming to have so-called special knowledge.

And sometimes phenomenology is very grounded and attending to our experience, and sometimes it goes off the deep-end and claims that everything is consciousness correlated to the special ideas the phenomenologist can see.

It's the latter that I think goes off into what Kant called noumenal speculation. Maybe to the speaker, they can see something special. That's what mystical experience is about -- seeing something others cannot, and purportedly attempting to translate what cannot be translated for people who do not have that mystical experience. And, religiously, perhaps that flies -- but I've yet to make sense of such talk in a rational manner, at least -- though I remain interested.

I don't think this puts it right because I don't know what the "non phenomenological" is. — Constance

I think that's a warning sign, for myself at least, that I've fallen into a transcendental argument -- it's valid, but it's also easy to construct and usually based on an unstated feeling (what, Kant acting on unstated feelings?! He's a being of pure reason! ;) )

When I feel I don't know what the negation of some philosophy is, I'm focusing on some universal idea -- a totality, one might say, that encompasses, explains, relates, feels, connects, guides, and soothes. Something like God, but in a phenomenological world -- so God can be replaced by Man, ala the Enlightenment, or something else, but it's all religion at the end of the day. Magical beliefs, big-M Meaning, the mystical -- these things are more important because they make life worth living.

And so the transcendental argument springs forth -- how does anyone really do/experience/say/be anything at all? Phenomenology is the only possible way we live our actual lives, and clearly we do live actual lives, therefore phenomenology is the way. To bolster the first point we must first list all the possible alternative ways, and defeat them until Phenomenology is the one that stands -- then say, abductively, "See if you can come up with a better explanation"

The problem being -- it all relies upon what sounds good to the speaker. It's just as easy to set up the exact same argument with materialism. It follows the same pattern (and is akin to the moral arguments for God's existence):

How does anyone really do/experience/say/be anything at all? Materialism is the only possible way to explain our lives, and we clearly do live ("some of us, anyway" scolding the eliminative materialists), therefore materialism is the explanation at least until something better comes along, but all these other explanations are bad for these reasons.

(EDIT: Oh, I forgot to point out -- the difference in emphasis between these two ways of seeing. One wants guidance in the life they live, the other just wants an explanation. a teleologically guided inquiry on a similar phenomena, but both sides speak past one another because of the desire)

I'm not going to claim this is the best set-up of the antinomy, but as far as I can see the phenomenological/naturalism debate follows a pretty similar pattern to the antinomies Kant pointed out in his day, but with some Hegelian patterns where people find common ground. But this time with a more complicated argument, since the transcendental argument is basically a wholesale invention of Kant's -- a progress in logic (or, for some, a deviation ;) )

In the all too busy comments I made above, all that you say here is relevant and poignant. Kant's old line of thinking is the jumping off place, because he did understand that there is something unnatural or noumenal that was intimated in phenomena. What he didn't see is that in order for this to be the case, then phenomena itself must be noumenal. The metaphysics he conceived drew a line. But this was wrong. There is no line; only being, and metaphysics has always been about the physics that stands before us. Nor did he realize, as the very fewest "philosophers" have, the the whole point of our existence is to be found in affectivity: the Good, says Wittgenstein, this is what I call divinity. — Constance

Don't tempt me with Kant interpretation. :D

I decided to skip to the end because, oi, so many threads of thought -- and I'm the same way, so no worries. It's taking willpower not to go off on tangeants about Heidegger, the aesthetics of music, more Levinas, etc. :D But I'm trying to reign it in a bit here.

I'd like an answer to one of the questions I asked, though, because I think it does get to the heart of the matter: What is the ethical dimension to Husserl's thought?

How will you show that my private first person experience is false?

How will you show that your private first person experience is false?

Think that makes my point. It's not falsifiable, and hence not empirical.

Hence

The epoche isnt in conflict with the results of neuroscience — Joshs

is right. Phenomenology is not science. It's more like prayer. — Banno

But I don't see how either are more than...

The epoché is not a falsifiable notion, so it could not be in conflict with any empirical evidence. The epoché is more like a prayer. — Banno — Isaac

The epoché doesn't purport to be falsifiable, because it is simply the setting aside of a question in order to focus on other things. It is analogous to science which is not really concerned with the metaphysical questions concerning the reality of the phenomena it investigates.

So, in making that statement and asking the inappropriate questions about the "falsity" of first person experience you commit a basic category error.

Phenomenology is simply an investigation into how phenomena are experienced; I don't see what it has in common with prayer as traditionally conceived which consists in "petitioning the Lord", although you could say it has something in common with meditation. I suppose.

But what could possibly constitute such a 'focus'? Things appear to us as they appear to us. If you look harder you don't get to some 'more real' version because you've got no external reference against which to measure this quality. — Isaac

There is a difference between noticing how things appear to us, and analyzing the results to form general principles, and simply carrying on with life, which doesn't necessarily involve noticing the general ways in which things appear, as opposed to simply reacting in accustomed ways, to appearances.

You don't need to afford empirical science an special place, but simply by accepting it (the evidence of the lab) you have a contradiction to resolve between models. your folk model and the empirical model don't knit together. You could have one or the other, but not both. — Isaac

Merleau Ponty, for one, took into account and used scientific results in his investigations. Phenomenological results may or may not be in accord with "folk models"; and they don't contradict empirical results simply because they are from totally different perspectives; the first and third person perspectives respectively. You seem to be making the same rookie error as @Banno, in assuming that there is only one "correct" perspective. only one all-encompassing "truth".

Is it even possible to achieve epoche? It sounds tricky and mystical. — Tom Storm

I can't help you with that, mate; you won't know until you try, and if you are not prepared to try, then there is no point asking the question. It's like asking whether it is possible to understand QM, since it is so difficult and counter-intuitive; you won't know whether it is possible for you unless you attempt it. I'm not prepared to attempt QM, so I don't ask the question.

Zahavi argues that phenomenology practised in psychology and the arts, and areas outside of philosophy generally ignore this transcendental expression of phenomenology. — Tom Storm

Husserl's approach is not the only one, and has been modified and critiqued by other phenomenologists, notably Heidegger. Also bear in mind that the epoché and the transcendental reduction are not the same thing.

An interesting and nuanced response. I tend to find myself thinking there is no such thing as phenomenology - there are phenomenologies - which would be congruent with the fecund approach it takes to personal experience.

How does anyone really do/experience/say/be anything at all? Materialism is the only possible way to explain our lives, and we clearly do live ("some of us, anyway" scolding the eliminative materialists), therefore materialism is the explanation at least until something better comes along, but all these other explanations are bad for these reasons. — Moliere

Do you draw a distinction between physicalism or naturalism and materialism? And do you hold materialism as a 'tentative hypothesis' given our reality presents itself to us as material (even with some modest epoche it's hard to get away from this)?

I can't help you with that, mate; you won't know until you try, and if you are not prepared to try, then there is no point asking the question. It's like asking whether it is possible to understand QM, since it is so difficult and counter-intuitive; you won't know whether it is possible for you unless you attempt it. I'm not prepared to attempt QM, so I don't ask the question. — Janus

Hmmm. I actually think it is possible to ask questions just to get other's perspectives based on their experiences. :razz: Can I do epoché is not the question I was asking. I was wondering if others could here and whether it paid off for them (to use a crass expression).

Husserl's approach is not the only one, and has been modified and critiqued by other phenomenologists, notably Heidegger. Also bear in mind that theand the transcendental reduction are not the same thing. — Janus

Do you think there's a potential thread in epoché?

Also bear in mind that the epoché and the transcendental reduction are not the same thing. — Janus

Good point.

An interesting and nuanced response. I tend to find myself thinking there is no such thing as phenomenology - there are phenomenologies - which would be congruent with the fecund approach it takes to personal experience. — Tom Storm

I agree, I think there are multiple general-experience categories -- and that we can continue to invent them. Not only can we continue to invent them, we must do so because the world changes. And as the world changes, so does experience.

Most of the time, given how abstract the topic is and how often it is close to our personal lives, I think the guesses are true in context, but false in the intended sense -- it's intended to be universal, at least if I'm understanding what I read. But as we bring context to a given phenomenologist it's not hard to see differences. Levinas, for instance -- who I've intimated I'm a fan of ;) -- is very much a masculine phenomenologist, and some of it, being honest to his own time, will not fly now. I can understand it, from a distance, but it's kinda the whole thing I didn't want to do -- so I disagree :D

But I don't know if that should count against phenomenology either. It is, after all, a philosophy rather than a scientific treatise. Science demands intersubjective agreement. Philosophy seeks it, but doesn't require it.

Do you draw a distinction between physicalism or naturalism and materialism? — Tom Storm

I did at one point, but now I'd rather say that I can. The terms just need clarification in any given conversation, and can be used to make distinctions in a conversation, but that's about it.

And do you hold materialism as a 'tentative hypothesis' given our reality presents itself to us as material (even with some modest epoche it's hard to get away from this)?

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a tentative hypothesis. That'd make it an object of knowledge. I think it's a good idea, is about it. I feel like I like both spiritualists and materialists, and that makes things awkward :D -- well, for thems who are attached to either side, at least. I genuinely just get pleasure out of thinking about this stuff.

But I'll say materialism is "winning" in my mind at the moment. And mostly for ethical reasons, rather than the usual debates. But I know materialists have done bad things, too, so.... ever and forever thinking back and forth.

Hmmm. I actually think it is possible to ask questions just to get other's perspectives based on their experiences. :razz: Can I do epoché it is not the question I was asking. I was wondering if others could here and whether it paid off for them (to use a crass expression). — Tom Storm

OK, fair enough: I guess it depends on what is meant by "doing epoché". If it means simply not focusing on the metaphysical question concerning the independent reality of phenomena, I don't see how that could be so difficult. As I said I think scientists for the most part, ignore that question: "Shut up and calculate"; in any case the question certainly doesn't seem to be a necessary part of scientific practice.

If it were taken to mean something like a radical alteration of consciousness, as, for example, satori is understood to be in Zen Buddhism, where the independent reality of phenomena might be said to be no longer unreflectively presupposed, then that might be more of a challenge, and you would need to try for yourself.

Do you think there's a potential thread in epoché? — Tom Storm

I don't know, it might turn out to be a very short one.

But I'll say materialism is "winning" in my mind at the moment. And mostly for ethical reasons, rather than the usual debates. But I know materialists have done bad things, too, so.... ever and forever thinking back and forth. — Moliere

I'd say bad things are done by ideologues, and there are plenty of those on both sides.

I'd say bad things are done by ideologues, and there are plenty of those on both sides. — Janus

Aren't there 'fine people' on both sides? (sorry)

But I'll say materialism is "winning" in my mind at the moment. And mostly for ethical reasons, rather than the usual debates. But I know materialists have done bad things, too, so.... ever and forever thinking back and forth. — Moliere

Wow. That sounds interesting, but perhaps this is not the thread for such a provocative statement.

OK, fair enough: I guess it depends on what is meant by "doing epoché". If it means simply not focusing on the metaphysical question concerning the independent reality of phenomena, I don't see how that could be so difficult. As I said I think scientists for the most part, ignore that question: "Shut up and calculate"; in any case the question certainly doesn't seem to be a necessary part of scientific practice.

If it were taken to mean something like a radical alteration of consciousness, as, for example, satori is understood to be in Zen Buddhism, where the independent reality of phenomena might be said to be no longer unreflectively presupposed, then that might be more of a challenge, and you would need to try for yourself. — Janus

I hear you and it is a fascinating matter - to me anyway. I have heard it argued that epoché is like some accounts of meditation or prayer. Do you think this is fair for some forms of epoché? You seem to be suggesting this in the second para above. I've often thought of meditation as an attempt to encounter the ineffable.

Wow. That sounds interesting, but perhaps this is not the thread for such a provocative statement. — Tom Storm

Heh, yes. I have a habit of getting off topic. I try my best :D

I'd say bad things are done by ideologues, and there are plenty of those on both sides. — Janus

Back, back foul demon! I'm trying to remain on topic! :D

I agree that's true.

But, of course, I'd complicate it. It's philosophy, after all.

Aren't there 'fine people' on both sides? (sorry) — Tom Storm

Yes, I have no doubt there are. The 'fine people' makes me wonder if your question is tongue in cheek, but I've answered it assuming it was not.

I hear you and it is a fascinating matter - to me anyway. I have heard it argued that epoché is like some accounts of meditation or prayer. Do you think this is fair for some forms of epoché. You seem to be suggesting this in the second para above. I've often thought of mediation as an attempt to encounter the ineffable. — Tom Storm

I'm also fascinated by the possibility of altering consciousness, and prayer and meditation are considered by many to be suitable anthropotechnics* for the purpose. To be transformative it would seem the epoché would have to be more than just an intellectual exercise of bracketing and shifting focus.

I do see meditation as a technique to be used for "encountering the ineffable". Hallucinogens are another 'shinkansen' way, but don't seem to yield permanent results, as meditation is claimed to be able to do by some.

As I've said, I think our experience in general is ineffable, where 'ineffable' means 'not susceptible of adequate propositional expression'..We experience particularities and speak in generalities.

* This term was coined by Peter Sloterdijk, and I encountered it in You Must Change Your Life (well worth reading).

:up:

“Since the beginning, all of his books (but first of all Nietzsche, Difference and Repetition, The Logic of Sense) have been for me not only, of course, provocations to think, but, each time, the unsettling, very unsettling experience – so unsettling – of a proximity or a near total affinity in the “theses” – if one may say this – through too evident distances in what I would call, for want of anything better, “gesture,” “strategy,” “manner”: of writing, of speaking, perhaps of reading. As regards the “theses” (but the word doesn’t fit) and particularly the thesis concerning a difference that is not reducible to dialectical opposition, a difference “more profound” than a contradiction (Difference and Repetition), a difference in the joyfully repeated affirmation (“yes, yes”), the taking into account of the simulacrum, Deleuze remains no doubt, despite so many dissimilarities, the one to whom I have always considered myself closest among all of this “generation.” I never felt the slightest “objection” arise in me, not even a virtual one, against any of his discourse, even if I did on occasion happen to grumble against this or that proposition in Anti-Oedipus…” — Joshs

I guess this quote is from Derrida's memorial note, written after Deleuze's death. Is it from 'I have to wander All Alone? The text's tone is understandable but does not shed light on their remoteness from each other, primarily due to their different perspectives on immanence and transcendence.

irreducible gesture of difference has proximities to Derridean differance — Joshs

“The concepts of difference that Deleuze develops in ‘Difference and Repetition’ –“difference in intensity, disparity in the phantasm, dissemblance in the form of time, the differential in thought”
( DR, p 145) – have a very different status than a notion of differance Derrida develops in his essay
“ Differance”. For Derrida, differance is a relation that transcends ontology, that differs from ontology…Deleuze aim, by contrast, is to show that ontology itself is constituted by a principle of difference” (Smith, Essays on Deleuze, p 275).

In what way Deleuze was close to Derrida's approach? Could you relate Derrida's perspective on power to your quote from 'Desire and Pleasure'?
— Number2018 — Joshs

I will reconstruct Deleuze's disagreement with Derrida using the question of power and desire, using their reading of Kafka.
"The law as such should never give rise to any story. To be invested with its categorical authority, the law must be without history, genesis, or any possible derivation. That would be the law of the law. One does not know what kind of law is at issue—moral, judicial, political, natural, etc. What remains concealed and invisible in each law is thus presumably that which makes laws of these laws, the being-law of these laws. The question and the quest are ineluctable, rendering irresistible the journey toward the place and the origin of law. To enter into relations with the law which says "you must" and "you must not" is to act as if it had no history or at any rate as if it no longer depended on its historical presentation." (Derrida, 'Acts of literature. Before the Law' p 192)
Derrida's account of 'The law as such', differance, has an apparent affinity with Kant's moral imperative. 'To enter into relations with the law,' one must obey and to act without any critical distance, following exclusively practical reasons. It is precisely the Law with a necessary, unconditional authority, without being true. The truth of the Law cannot be theoretically demonstrated, but its unconditional validity should be nevertheless presupposed. In Derrida’s interpretation, Kafka's scene of 'Before the Law, operates similarly to the Althusser’s scene of interpellation. The submission to the law through an acceptance of its demand for conformity should be awarded by the acquirement of a sense of "I" and social identity.
Differently, Deleuze and Guattari ultimately rejected any use of Kantian law: "Where one believed there was the law, there is in fact desire and desire alone…An unlimited field of immanence instead of an infinite transcendence...The transcendence of the law was an image, but the law exists only in the immanence of the machinic assemblage." (Deleuze and Guattari, ‘Kafka’, p 51.)
Here, desire is not conceived as an irresistible drive to enter the ineffable space behind "Before the Law'. By contrast, it animates the productive immanent field, coextensive with the singular social organizations. Machinic assemblages of desire exercise their power operating several syntheses inherent to both the mind and the social.

First, you think Wittgenstein was not an analytic philosopher. Well, I and the rest of the world count him an analytic philosopher because he did his philosophy by using logic to analyse the language of philosophical problems.

Next, you think that I have not addressed the "content" presented. Doubtless this is because I have been unable to grasp what you are getting at, but so far as I have understood it, I maintain that Wittgenstein thought that any value in ethics was in the doing, not in ethical theory. — Banno

Here's what I understood.

First, you think Wittgenstein was not an analytic philosopher. Well, I and the rest of the world count him an analytic philosopher because he did his philosophy by using logic to analyse the language of philosophical problems.

Next, you think that I have not addressed the "content" presented. Doubtless this is because I have been unable to grasp what you are getting at, but so far as I have understood it, I maintain that Wittgenstein thought that any value in ethics was in the doing, not in ethical theory.

You seem to think that Quine showed the indeterminacy of meaning, rather than the indeterminacy of reference. Roughly, I agree, but think that Davidson deals with the issue better, and that, following Wittgenstein, the mooted indeterminacy is an outcome of meaning being the use to which we put language as we do things.

And I continue to think that the "phenomenological epoché" cannot be made coherent. — Banno

Nevermind

“We encounter phenomena first. Period.” Wow, this sounds so definitive. Can’t be argued without sounding absurd. Let me try. What do we humans encounter first? I would say a very hostile world in which we need to survive. We encounter objects that we need to run or hide from, we encounter objects that will aid in our survival. To call this ‘phenomena’ sounds like a cold abstract thing that is ruminated on rather than experienced.

“…examines the foundations of being a human being”, is this discovered like a pair of shoes hidden in a closet? Or just created by a phenomenologist that gets everyone to go along with it? Or maybe its just what Wittgenstein said about “absolute simple objects”: “But I do not know whether to say that the figure described by our sentence consists of four letters or nine? And which are its elements, the type of letter, or the letters? Does it matter which we say, so long as we avoid misunderstanding in any particular case? — Richard B

Regarding the first, of course it sound definitive. I think there really is a definitive approach to the discovery of what a human being is at the level of basic questions. This doesn't mean at all that I think God just sent me a memo; it simply means that there is a method, grounding, from which more organized thinking issues. I mean, this is what it means to have a considered point of view, a defensible set of ideas. Ironically, my view emphasizes indeterminacy, not anything definitive.

The encountering first? Look at it like this, ask a scientist what existence is, and she will put the answer in the range of material substance, naturalism, the stuff atoms, quarks, and so on are made of, etc. This is a scientist's ontology. A phenomenologist will say terms like this are fine in contexts where they are common and make sense, but for philosophical ontology material substance has no meaning. I mean, what is it? for there is nothing there to fill the explanatory space. It is really just an extension of a scientist's vocabulary into a philosophical claim, but it has no empirical presence.

Phenomenology, the way I see it, simply takes what appears before us as the foundation for philosophical inquiry. In doing this, it grounds theory in what is there, simply put. Its historical precursor is Kant's "concepts without intuitions are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind."

I’m just philosophizing, from a well-versed platform perhaps, but philosophizing nonetheless. — Mww

Absolutely. It's certainly an interesting take, I'm just not sure I fully follow how you're getting there but...

In the strictest sense of the word, therein is a construct in the physical system, in that one form of energy in the sensory apparatus is transformed into another kind of energy for transfer along the nerves. So too is there a kind of construct in metaphysical apparatus, in that the matter of the perceived object is arranged in accordance with its given external space. The tail of a dog is placed on the butt end and not the nose end, legs point down….and all that. In the case at hand, that it is a word being perceived is familiar because a succession of letters which are the necessary composition of any word, is part and parcel of the perception as a whole, but the unfamiliarity of the word is not given from this arrangement of these letters, for the simple reason there is as yet no conscious awareness of it as such. — Mww

This sounds like exactly what I mean by 'construct' an image in that I'm talking about a set of mental processes, rather than, say, looking at a photo (which would be more presenting an image).

Just as there is no conscious awareness of the information in sensory stimuli traversing the nerves on its way to the brain, there no conscious awareness of phenomena in intuition on its way to understanding. So for the sake of logical consistency it can be said there is a pre-cog construct, but is useless as such to conscious awareness, being necessary, only for the brain, in determining which neural pathway leading to which area of the brain, or similarly, only for metaphysical comprehension, in how the perceived object is to be understood. — Mww

Yep. This sounds like a mirror image of the neurological process (except for one important distinction in that neurologically, what's served up is done sone probabilistically, with data noise, because of the limitations of the wetware. I doubt there's room for probability in this metaphysical process?)

So…because I am not consciously aware of the phenomena in my metaphysical system, I do not consider it a construct insofar as I have no knowledge or thought of it at all. In fact, I can say “I” haven’t yet constructed anything. That there is an unconscious part of my metaphysical system that does stuff for which the conscious part is entirely oblivious, is exactly the same as the physical system doing things for the brain with which neural networking has no part. — Mww

You're saying here that the entity, or prompt, you end up with isn't a 'construct' because it's been constructed by sub-conscious (sub-cognitive?) processes? Is that right?

In the physical system, the brain must direct the information along certain pathways determinable by the conditions of the information itself. In a metaphysical system, the understanding must conjoin the phenomenon with a conception, determinable by the conditions of the phenomenon itself. In each case a relation is formed: in the brain a mental event occurs; in a metaphysical system, a cognition occurs. — Mww

Sounds a fair enough analogy. Again, I'd say that the stochastic nature of mental processes is the main standout as a difference here.

Now comes the time of unfamiliarity, manifesting as the understanding that the letter arrangement does not permit a conception to be conjoined to it. In the brain, the information does not enable a suitable pathway. No sense can be made of the letters, hence the word is uncognizable; no pathway is enabled, no chemical reaction occurs. — Mww

And I think here is where that probabilistic nature may cause us to diverge in methodologies. There's no such stopping point in neological events, it's a continual process of prediction, data-harvesting (or manipulation of external states), re-prediction... It's all about a constant stream of best guesses with those 'best guesses' directing behaviour aimed at improving the match between that guess and the external state it's guessing. Your system seems to have understanding as almost binomial (is there a link or isn't there). Is that a fair summary?

Phenomenology is simply an investigation into how phenomena are experienced — Janus

If you're to claim "It seems to me that X, therefore X" then there's no investigation. The answer is already fully presented to you. That's the point I'm making.

An 'investigation' requires, by definition, that you accept things might not be as they first seem to you to be.

If 3 comes after 2, how is 2 constructed from 3? — hypericin

It isn't.

Whatever.

Look at it like this, ask a scientist what existence is, and she will put the answer in the range of material substance, naturalism, the stuff atoms, quarks, and so on are made of, etc. This is a scientist's ontology. A phenomenologist will say terms like this are fine in contexts where they are common and make sense, but for philosophical ontology material substance has no meaning. I mean, what is it? for there is nothing there to fill the explanatory space. It is really just an extension of a scientist's vocabulary into a philosophical claim, but it has no empirical presence.

Phenomenology, the way I see it, simply takes what appears before us as the foundation for philosophical inquiry. In doing this, it grounds theory in what is there, simply put. Its historical precursor is Kant's "concepts without intuitions are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind." — Constance

But science is useful. Phenomenology is philosophically unproductive and useless.

how is 2 constructed from 3 — hypericin

$\frac{3}{3} + \frac{3}{3} = 2$

Rather than starting from symbolic structures of power that must be resisted, Deleuze begins from change, becoming and resistance.

As Dan Smith writes:

“If resistance becomes a question in Foucault, it is because he begins with the question of knowledge (what is articu­lable and what is visible), finds the conditions of knowledge in power, but then has to ask about the ways one can resist power, even if resistance is primary in relation to power. It is Foucault’s starting point in constituted knowledges that leads him to pose the problem of resistance.

Deleuze’s ontology, by contrast, operates in an almost exactly inverse manner. Put crudely, if one begins with a status quo – knowledge or the symbolic – one must look for a break or rupture in the status quo to account for change. Deleuze instead begins with change, with becoming, with events. ” — Joshs

Based on Deleuze's text 'Desire and Pleasure,' it is not difficult to oppose Deleuze and Foucault's ontologies. Yet, in 'Foucault,' Deleuze entirely changed his position. The question of resistance
should not be reduced to a tenuous epistemological scheme: "he begins with the question of knowledge (what is articulable and what is visible), finds the conditions of knowledge in power, but then has to ask about the ways one can resist power." "There is no diagram that does not also include, besides the points which it connects up, certain relatively free or unbound points, points of creativity, change and resistance, and it is with these that we ought to begin in order to understand the whole picture."
(Deleuze, ‘Foucault”, p 37). Starting from "The History of Madness," Foucault became the leading figure between philosophers of his generation not because he 'began with the question of knowledge.’ By contrast, it happened due to his relation to the outside, his discovery of 'certain relatively free or unbound points, points of creativity, change and resistance,' embedded into the whole social field. Therefore, it is incorrect to assert that 'Foucault begins with a status quo – knowledge or the symbolic,' while 'Deleuze instead begins with change, with becoming, with events.’ “Foucault writes a history, but a history of thought as such. To think means to experiment and to problematize. Knowledge, power, and self are the triple root of a problematization of thought… In Foucault, everything is subject to variables and variation" (Deleuze, 'Foucault,' p 95).

You're saying here that the entity, or prompt, you end up with isn't a 'construct' because it's been constructed by sub-conscious (sub-cognitive?) processes? Is that right? — Isaac

I usually take “construct” to imply intentionality, and no sub-conscious faculty can be imbued with it. Perhaps it is that construct isn’t so much the wrong concept, but just not the better one.

There’s a hidden benefit in a subconscious facility. Because the representation by definition cannot be exactly the same as the given object, otherwise it wouldn’t be a representation, we can say even though we absolutely cannot prove anything about how matter is arranged into a useable form, at the same time we can say it is absurd to suppose it isn’t.

Science eventually solved this speculative impossibility by proving any change in the form of energy means some will be lost, justifying the notion that representations are never the same as…..dare I say….the thing-in-itself. Just the empirical proof that, metaphysically alleviates the necessity for the proving how. Which is good, because it’s already been understood it couldn’t be done from a metaphysical domain anyway, seeing as it’s all sub-conscious. It is logically sufficient to say the phenomenon contains all the sensation gives it, the sensation contains all the perception gives it, but the perception does not contain all that the real object has to give.
(Sidebar: hence the birth of phenomenology. Some people just could not abide with the idea there is a very important aspect, veritably the very ground, of empirical cognitive metaphysics that is nonetheless inaccessible to the conscious investigations.)
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I doubt there's room for probability in this metaphysical process? — Isaac

Not really. Metaphysics proper is the ways and means for knowledge acquisition. For the proverbial Man on the Street, Joe Cool, Mr. and Mrs. Rural America, they don’t want to probably know. Probably knowing gets folks killed, or at the very least, makes them look like an idiots. I imagine even the theoretical physicist, in the development of his thesis, won’t come up with experiments which would probably support it.

No……apodeictic certainty rules the day, caveats and all. Euclid understood it, re: geometric necessity; Aristotle understood it, re: three laws of rational thought; Descartes understood it, re: negation of irreducible doubt; Kant understood it, re: synthetic a priori truths.
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Your system seems to have understanding as almost binomial (is there a link or isn't there) — Isaac

Neither of us can describe these distinct systems as far as they go; we’d become stuck in the minutia which only works if the major premises are accepted across the board. The brain works physically due to the subtleties of its parts, we think metaphysically due to the subtleties of the faculties that make thinking possible. Neurology works with transmitters, gaps and receptors; understanding works with synthesis, judgement and reason. In short, understanding links, judgment says the link works this time, reason says whether it works in all times. Or, in other words, understanding conjoins according to rules, judgement follows those rules, reason says some principle has been violated by that judgement therefore those rules weren’t the proper ones to use in this instance. Think…mirage. Think….clouds that look like some object. Think…the duck/rabbit picture. That stupid dress or the shadow on the checkerboard.

Regarding the unfamiliar word, then, and in the interest of brevity, I said understanding couldn’t construct an image, but technically, it is that for every image it does construct, judgement will admit, but reason will overrule as being inadmissible. I did that in order to simplify, to circumvent the obvious question which would have followed if I’d said understanding does construct an image of an unfamiliar word.

And here is the system in all its speculative metaphysical glory. I did say “nothing is cognized”, implying no image made it out of that faculty to become knowledge. If understanding had so constructed, judgement did admit, and reason did say all’s well….the word would then be cognized as something, the word would be known, hence would not be unfamiliar….blatantly contradicting the given perception.

To say of a thing that it is unfamiliar, just is to say the cognitive system has already done its job. If this were not the case, every single perception ever, would be either always and only become knowledge or always and only never become knowledge, but not ever changing from one to the other. Either we’d know everything or know absolutely nothing, and, we’d never actually learn.
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It's all about a constant stream of best guesses — Isaac

I can see that. Assuming 1 x 10^11 neurons, each with 1 x 10^4 connections between them, (Nguyen, Thai, 2010), it would seem to be quite busy up there, yes. Given that exact measurement is rather impossible, with numbers that great it doesn’t make much difference.

This is a good example of the disregard for ontological predicates with respect to the physical world. All the mind….reason, properly speaking…..needs is that which is given to it, and although there very well may be infinite possibilities for things, a very finite quantity of them will be given. It follows the metaphysical mind doesn’t need to be as stochastically busy as the scientific brain, thus can escape the notion of probabilities in general. Or, perhaps, more accurately, reserve probability for particular things perceived by the senses. In other words, the mind doesn’t ask, what are the chances the thing I’m perceiving is this thing or that thing, but rather, asks, how shall this perceived thing be known as.

Based on Deleuze's text 'Desire and Pleasure,' it is not difficult to oppose Deleuze and Foucault's ontologies. Yet, in 'Foucault,' Deleuze entirely changed his position — Number2018

In ‘Deleuze, a Split with Foucault’, Mathias Schönher argues that in ‘Foucault’, Deleuze is trying to be generous to his old friend without really altering his critique from 1977:

“Whereas in "Desire and Pleasure" Deleuze ends his confrontation with Foucault's position in aporia, after Foucault's death he indicates an alternative, declaring that Foucault's books analyse a variety of historical situations and invent their own specific means to this end. However, this takes into account only half of Foucault's work, as Deleuze points out most clearly in "What is a dispositif?," a lecture from 1988: "Out of a sense of rigor, to avoid confusing things and trusting in his readers, he does not formulate the other half." Foucault formulated the other half "explicitly [only] in the interviews."

The alternative Deleuze exhibits here thus appears to consist of presuming an unwritten doctrine. In actuality, such a presumption would probably have been unthinkable for him, regardless of whether Foucault had really given such great importance to his interviews. As far as Deleuze is concerned, after all, the unwritten half of Foucault's work must be that which opens up access to the fundamental interplay of forces.

What Deleuze considers Foucault to have left out of his books is none other than philosophy, which, with its creative thinking, turns against the historical situation by setting out the starting points for the transformation of our society and our experience. To Deleuze, the alternative to the problems with which he is confronted by Foucault's thought can be none other than to presume that his own philosophy represents the outline of that plane that Foucault also viewed as having laid the foundations for the field on which the network of power was constituted, and to which Foucault attested in interviews.”

Moliere An interesting and nuanced response. — Tom Storm

Especially this:

(EDIT: Oh, I forgot to point out -- the difference in emphasis between these two ways of seeing. One wants guidance in the life they live, the other just wants an explanation. a teleologically guided inquiry on a similar phenomena, but both sides speak past one another because of the desire) — Moliere

It would however be an error to think the analytic approach does not address issues of action.

But there is no difference in kind between the knowledge in guitar instruction books and the knowledge in Betty's head that lets her play guitar. They are both knowledge. — hypericin

Tacit vs. explicit.

If you're to claim "It seems to me that X, therefore X" then there's no investigation. The answer is already fully presented to you. That's the point I'm making.

An 'investigation' requires, by definition, that you accept things might not be as they first seem to you to be. — Isaac

How things appear is not always, or even mostly, obvious. So, phenomenology calls for paying attention to experience, reflecting on the results and synthesizing insights from that process. If you've ever tried to draw or paint "from nature" you'd understand what I'm talking about. the arts are predominately phenomenological pursuits.

The empirical investigations of science are in some ways analogous and in others very different. To seek to hold one way of investigation up as the 'true one" which trumps and corrects all the others shows a narrow polemical way of thinking; it is one of the ways of the ideologue, as I see it.

All I can suggest to help you understand better is to take up meditation, or painting and drawing, or writing poetry, or music, anything to free you from a dualistic, objectivist. machine-like mentality, and perhaps try reading some phenomenology, so you at least understand it before deciding to criticise it..

If, after sufficient investigation, you find it's not for you, that's fine, but that would say more about you than phenomenology

But science is useful. Phenomenology is philosophically unproductive and useless. — Heracloitus

As a phenomenological philosopher, I have a hard time finding this comment useful. Neither would contributors to journals like Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences.