I’d like to better understand the argument that intelligibility cannot arise through purely naturalistic processes. Some naturalists will react to this idea, and I fear the discussion may end up in the somewhat tedious “how is consciousness related to a physical world?” type of threads. — Tom Storm

I think that the deepest difficulty for strict naturalism is not whether evolution can produce reliable cognition—it clearly can—but whether it can account for normativity. Evolutionary explanations trade in causal success, whereas inquiry operates under standards of correctness. Science itself presupposes distinctions between true and false, better and worse explanations, and valid and invalid inferences. These are not empirical discoveries; they are conditions under which empirical discoveries can count as knowledge at all. As emphasizes, science presupposes logical and mathematical necessity—it does not explain it.

In that sense, I agree with the spirit of Hart’s argument: intelligibility cannot be treated as an accidental byproduct of blind processes without undermining the authority of reason itself. Where I would differ is methodologically. I think the argument is strongest when it proceeds from the structure of inquiry—error, correction, and judgment—rather than from a thick metaphysical or theological picture at the outset.

With regard to the concerns raised by ’s , I think his reconstruction of Hart is directionally right but overstated in ways that muddy the waters a bit. I wouldn't agree with the characterization of Hart as a naïve pre-critical thinker who believes we simply “see” divine truths without mediation, error, or inquiry. He rejects constructivism and representationalism, but that does not commit him to an infallibilist or anti-discursive epistemology. Portraying him that way makes it too easy to dismiss his position as a retreat to pre-Enlightenment dogmatism.

In my opinion, framing the options as pre-Kantian realism versus Kantian/post-Kantian constructivism versus postmodern correlationism forces a false dilemma. There is a post-critical position that preserves what is valuable in the classical tradition—the claim that intelligibility belongs to reality itself—without lapsing into naïve realism or reducing intelligibility to historically contingent sense-making practices.

So from my perspective, the core issue can be stated simply:

• What must reality be like for beings like us to be normatively bound by truth, necessity, and correctness at all?

Once that question is in view, the debate is no longer about science versus theology per se, or about evolutionary psychology, but about whether intelligibility is intrinsic to being or merely a contingent feature of how certain organisms cope with their environments.

Speaking even more strictlly, the undisintegrated apple stands in exactly the same relationship to the light during the first interval and in the second interval. — Ludwig V

This doesn't sound quite right to me. While the distal causal history of the light may be the same across both intervals, the fulfillment conditions of the perceptual act are not. In the first interval, the act is fulfilled by the apple; in the second, it is not. That asymmetry is not captured by describing the light alone, and it’s precisely what distinguishes veridical perception from residual or empty intentionality. Treating the two intervals as standing in “exactly the same relationship” to the object abstracts away from the normative dimension that makes perception what it is, rather than mere stimulation.

Indirect realism means that (a) is false and (b) is true. The sense datum and representational theories say that (c) is true. — Michael

You are free to stipulate indirect realism in this purely negative way if you wish, but it’s unreasonable to expect others to adopt this stipulation given that indirect realism was traditionally a substantive, positive thesis about perception, rather than merely the rejection of one particular type of direct realism.

Moreover, this move overlooks the fact that there are other ways of cashing out what “direct” means that are neither dependent on the reification of consciousness nor reducible to deflationary semantics.

Finally, redefining indirect realism in this way leaves all of the substantive explanatory questions untouched—about perception, error, objecthood, and normativity. In that respect, the view begins to look less like indirect realism as traditionally understood and more like a form of quietism or eliminativism about perceptual explanation.

Your position seems to be that "perception is direct" and "perception is indirect" mean something else, above-and-beyond (a), (b), and (c), such that perception can be direct even if (a) is false and (b) is true. This is where I disagree. I think that in the context of the dispute between traditional direct and indirect realism, "perception is direct" just means that (a) is true and that (b) and (c) are false, and that "perception is indirect" just means that (a) is false and that (b) is true, and that "we directly perceive sense-data/mental representations/qualia/other mental phenomena" just means that (c) is true. — Michael

I think we agree that indirect realism means that (a) is false and that (b) and (c) are true. This is why I don't consider myself an indirect realist; I reject both (a) and (c) outright, and my acceptance of (b) is qualified by my rejection of the reification of consciousness implicit within its framing.

So yes, my understanding of "direct" means something different than what naive realists traditionally meant by the term (as I have admitted from the very beginning), but I still reject indirect realism insofar as it entails commitment to (c) and also to the reified conception of consciousness implicit therein.

You’re right that in meditation or music one can lose awareness of the object and focus entirely on phenomenology. I don’t dispute that phenomenological salience can shift. What I deny is that this shift in attention alters the intentional structure of perception itself.

Losing awareness of the object is not the same thing as phenomenology becoming the object of perception. It shows only that object-directedness can be bracketed or backgrounded, not that it was absent or secondary to begin with. A withdrawal of awareness presupposes something withdrawn from. That’s precisely why I say these cases are derivative rather than foundational.

Put differently: changes in attentional stance show flexibility in what we attend to, not a symmetry in the epistemological roles of phenomenology and object. The fact that phenomenology can become focal does not entail that it is what perception is of in the first instance—any more than the fact that I can attend to my visual field entails that my visual field was the original object of sight.

I don’t think I’ve elevated anything here. I’ve simply tried to describe the phenomenology of the event as accurately as I can.

Furthermore, I don’t deny that we can take a reflective or “meditative” stance toward experience—I explicitly conceded that in my previous post. What I deny is that this shows phenomenology to be the object of perception in the first instance. World-directed perception is the base; epoché is a withdrawal or bracketing of the world-directedness intrinsic to that base. In that sense, it is epistemologically derivative, not fundamental. I would argue that meditation and music don’t undermine this structure; they presuppose it.

It's not the indirect realist conclusion. It's the meaning of the term "direct perception" as used by both indirect realists and their direct (naive) realist opponents. — Michael

Yes, and if both sides accept that usage, then both sides are already confused in the same way.

Again, you clearly just mean something else by "direct perception" and "direct object of perception", and other than the use of the label "direct" it's not clear how the substance of your position is incompatible with the substance of indirect realism. — Michael

Yes—I mean something else, because the traditional usage is theoretically confused. We must sometimes revise or discard inherited meanings when those meanings collapse distinct cognitive operations, smuggle metaphysical conclusions into definitions, or block the intelligibility of error and inquiry.

Using this account, the naive realist must accept that the apple is not a "constituent" of the experiential episode during the second 10 seconds — because no such apple exists — and so is not the direct object of perception. My claim is that if it's not a "constituent" of the experiential episode during the second 10 seconds then it's not a "constituent" of the experiential episode during the first 10 seconds. It existed and was causally responsible for the experiential episode, but even the naive realist acknowledges above that this alone is insufficient. — Michael

I would likewise reject the claim that the apple is a "constituent" of the experiential episode during either interval, but for a different reason. To talk of "constituents" of experience is already to reify experience in a way that smuggles in the representationlist picture that IR depends on because it already assumes that intentional contents are contained within— or internal to— experience as reified.

I reject that picture. In my view, experience is not an inner entity and phenomenology underdetermines objecthood. So in the apple scenario the phenomenology continues but the perceptual intention is no longer fulfilled by anything in the world. Strictly speaking, insofar as the apple has disintegrated, there is no direct object of perception during the second interval. So while the intentional content persists, the perceptual act goes unfulfilled. Nothing in this requires denying phenomenal continuity; it only denies that phenomenal continuity fixes perceptual ontology.

But the intentional content that persists throughout the scenario does not, in my view, meet the qualifications of ontological objecthood. And it seems to me that this is, perhaps, where we diverge most deeply. You seem to want to deflate objecthood to the fulfillment of a grammatical schema, whereas I think that is insufficient to explain the normatively of perception as a public act.

You are conflating "self standing object" with "self standing object of perception". The chiming is the latter but not the former. It indicates something else. Yet it can be discussed, contemplated, appreciated on its own, independent of object. — hypericin

That doesn't sound right to me. I don't deny that the chiming can become the focus of reflective attention in its own right; I deny only that it is the object of perception in the first instance. I would argue that this reflective stance is second-order and derivative upon the original perceptual episode. To insist otherwise is, I think, to get the phenomenology backwards.

When the chiming is first heard, it is not given as a self-standing auditory object, but as a mode of appearance of something else. The experience is not "I hear a sound and infer a cause", it is "something is chiming—what is it?". The sound is already presented as the manifestation of a thing in the world, even though which thing has not yet been determined. That is to say, the object-that-is-chiming is presented as determinate in existence, but indeterminate in sense or meaning. It is precisely this structure that gives rise to the question “what is it?”

— We’re mostly on the same page here. I think the only remaining divergence concerns whether meta-reflection counts as part of the game of rational inquiry itself. I agree that hinges are not subject to the same standards of correction as empirical claims, but I maintain that their articulation and defense still belong to rational inquiry as such, of which empirical inquiry is only a subset.

Whatever is the direct object of perception during the first 10 seconds is also the direct object of perception during the second 10 seconds — Michael

This is the claim I don’t accept. Phenomenal continuity does not entail the ontological continuity of the perceptual object. Since I deny that perception is reducible to phenomenology, this shouldn't be much of a surprise.

Insisting on type-invariance rules this out by stipulation. But the only reason to impose that requirement is if one already assumes that direct objects must be internal, continuously present, and phenomenally given—which is precisely the indirect realist conclusion the argument is meant to establish.

So the apple disintegration case doesn’t show that apples are never directly perceived. It shows that if one defines “direct object of perception” in a way that requires invariant intermediaries, then only invariant intermediaries can qualify. That’s not an argument for indirect realism; it’s a restatement of it.

The observer knows they perceive Ch. If you ask them what they perceive, they would reply, "a chiming sound, I'm not sure what it is." But they do not know they are perceiving D, a doorbell. — hypericin

Take a close look at what the observer says in response to your question about what they've heard: "a chiming sound, I'm not sure what it is".

That uncertainty is doing real work here. The phenomenology of the event is such that the chiming is presented as of something else. The observer hasn't yet identified what this "something else" is, but they've clearly grasped that the chiming as-such is not it. The chiming is not presented as a self-standing object of perception, but as the manner in which some other (yet to be identified) object is presented.

— I think this is exactly right about where the temptation comes from. Once perception is understood as an embodied, world-regulating activity within a control system, the idea that it terminates in an “experience” isn’t just unhelpful—it’s a category mistake. In that setting, error and justification are inherently object-directed, embedded in ongoing action and correction. Reintroducing phenomenal intermediaries isn’t a neutral alternative description; it reinstates the very picture that made perception seem epistemically problematic in the first place.

— Agreed. Well said.

P3. The direct object of perception during the first 10 seconds is the direct object of perception during the second 10 seconds — Michael

For what it's worth, I would reject this premise as stated. What is directly perceived at one moment need not be numerically identical to what is perceived at another, even if the subject experiences continuity over that interval, since phenomenological continuity does not fix numerical identity of perceptual objects. The fact that residual stimulation or neural persistence continues after the apple disintegrates explains why the experience continues; it does not show that the apple was never the object of perception when it existed.

Likewise, changing the speed of light changes the causal conditions of perception, not its object. Otherwise we would have to say that wearing glasses, anesthesia, or retinal processing changes the object of perception, which seems obviously absurd.

Nothing in this forces the conclusion that we directly perceive proximal stimuli. Causal mediation does not entail perceptual mediation. The argument only succeeds if one assumes that perceptual objects must be invariant across causal descriptions — an assumption I reject. Rejecting that assumption allows us to accept causal mediation and temporal lag without reifying proximal stimuli as perceptual objects.

I’m not denying meta-level understanding. I’m saying the meta-level understanding changes what kind of thing you’re doing, i.e., explaining the rules of the game, not making another move within the epistemic framework (here I mean within the framework I've constructed in the paper). — Sam26

In my opinion, this is where the chess analogy breaks down. Whereas in chess there is a clear separation between playing the game and explaining the rules, I don’t think this distinction holds for rational inquiry. To explain and justify the rules of rational inquiry is not to step outside of the game, but to deepen one’s understanding of the game itself, since inquiry includes the capacity for self-reflection on its own conditions. To place meta-level reflection entirely outside of epistemic normativity is to acquiesce to conventionalism. The claim that hinges can be appropriated by reason as necessary conditions of inquiry is not a claim about how we happen to play the game, but about what must be the case for judgment, error, and correction to be possible at all, and that is much something stronger than the chess analogy suggests.

What stands out about this (excellent) breakdown is that neither interpretation is obviously wrong or incoherent. — hypericin

While I agree that IR is not incoherent in the sense of entailing a contradiction, I personally wouldn’t go as far as to say that it’s equally correct. In my view, the downstream consequences of IR are not merely distasteful but amount to genuine explanatory failures. And those failures matter because they undercut what a theory of perception is supposed to explain in the first place—namely, the normativity of perception, the possibility of error, and the criteria of perceptual objecthood.

Now, I'm wondering if this entire debate hinges on the question, "what counts as the subject?" — hypericin

It's an interesting question, but I'm skeptical that it can be boiled down in this way. The reason I would resist this framing is that, as a DR, I wouldn't wish to deny or diminish the reality of the subject-as-conscious-subset, provided that this notion is not cashed out in a way that already presupposes an IR answer to the question at issue. If anything, I would argue that the fault-line in the debate runs all the way through how the subject-as-conscious-subset is to be best understood—specifically, whether it must be characterized as an observer standing behind a curtain of phenomenal intermediaries, or as an embodied mode of world-directed access.

As such, I personally don't see this as a Type-A question, because I think that there are some clear explanatory criteria by which each position can be judged.

If you want one line: objective justification governs responsibility and standing, truth governs success, and my claim is that we can have real knowledge without infallibility because our practice of justification aims at disciplined, defeater-resistant stability, while still understanding that “how things are” can definitely surprise us. — Sam26

Nicely stated. I think this answers the question quite well.

This is why I call (and others) hinge certainty arational. It’s not that a hinge is sacred or immune by decree. It’s that hinges typically aren’t the kind of things that are decided by the ordinary routes of objective justification. When they genuinely change, it’s less like refuting a claim and more like adopting a new framework. — Sam26

I see what you are getting at, but I'm inclined to characterize "framework adoption" as a rational achievement in its own right, even if not one that proceeds directly from refutation or evidential accumulation. My worry is that this understates the capacity of reason for meta-level self-appropriation and horizon-shift.

With regard to hinges, I take it we agree that inquiry always proceeds from what stands fast; the remaining question for me is whether what stands fast is merely an arational background, or is meta-rational in the sense that the subject can come to reflectively understand why such commitments are unavoidable given the structure of knowing. If the latter, then such background hinges can themselves be appropriated into the game of giving and asking for reasons.

Thank you for these clarifying remarks. I have one additional follow-up question: in your account, is objective justification sufficient for knowledge, or is it a necessary but fallible condition whose success still depends on the independent fulfillment of conditions?

You say, quite reasonably, that epistemology cannot guarantee orientation toward reality by introspection alone, and I agree entirely. But I would be similarly reluctant to say that orientation toward reality is guaranteed by practice instead.

The residual worry here is this: practices can be corrigible, sensitive to defeat, and historically successful, and yet still fail to deliver truth in particular cases. It seems that at some point we must appeal to ‘being’ (what-is-the-case) in order to explain how a judgement can fully satisfy the norms of well-governed practice and yet still fail to be true. Practice can regulate responsibility, but success still depends on how things are. I'm not saying that you are refusing to make such an appeal, only that I didn't see it stated explicitly anywhere in your paper.

I've finished reading your paper and I think it is an excellent piece of philosophy. It's careful, insightful, and clarifies much confusion surrounding knowledge and justification. On the basis of your paper I've worked up five questions for your consideration. Some of these you've already addressed to some extent. Feel free to respond or ignore at your convenience.

1. On Justification vs. Judgment
You speak eloquently about justification within practice, but where, precisely, is judgment?

You describe justification as a public standing governed by grammar and practice, but you do not clearly distinguish justification from the reflective act of judgment by which the subject affirms that the conditions for truth are fulfilled. Do you intend judgment to be absorbed into justification, or is it an irreducible moment you have not yet made explicit? If it is absorbed, how do you avoid collapsing epistemic success into conformity with practice?

Main concern: Knowledge is not exhausted by correct use or standing; it culminates in an act of judgment that affirms being. I would argue that act cannot be replaced by grammar without loss.

2. On Fallibility and Responsible Error
Does fallibility still have a robust role in your account, or has it become merely retrospective?

You often describe epistemic failure as showing that justification was never genuinely present. But is it not essential to fallibilism that one can inquire responsibly, satisfy the norms of justification as one understands them, and still fail because the world does not cooperate? How does your account preserve the possibility of responsible error rather than reclassifying all failure as defective justification?

Main concern: Without real fallibility, inquiry loses its ethical and rational seriousness; it becomes outcome-sensitive rather than responsibility-sensitive.

3. On Hinges and Horizon-Shift
Are your ‘bedrock certainties’ merely operative, or are they immune?

You rightly emphasize that inquiry presupposes what stands fast, but you tend to treat these certainties as outside epistemic assessment altogether. How, then, do you account for intellectual conversion—those moments when what once stood fast becomes questionable and inquiry reorganizes itself at a deeper level? Are your hinges provisional horizons, or final grammatical boundaries?

Main concern: Reason is not merely conditioned by horizons; it is capable of self-transcendence and horizon-shift.

4. On Grammar and Being
You clarify the grammar of knowing, but what grounds its authority?

Much of your analysis operates at the level of grammar, practice, and use. This is illuminating. But grammar on its own only describes the rules that govern discourse; it does not explain why some practices yield knowledge and others drift into error. What, in your account, makes our epistemic practices answerable to reality rather than merely self-stabilizing?

Main concern: Normativity cannot be grounded solely in use; it must ultimately be grounded in being as known through inquiry.

5. On Understanding Without Insight
Is your ‘understanding’ sufficiently cognitive, or is it merely procedural?

You insist that understanding is internal to justification, yet you often characterize it in terms of correct use, competence, and participation in practice. Where, in this account, is insight—the act by which intelligibility is grasped rather than merely followed? Without insight, how do you distinguish genuine understanding from highly refined conformity?

Main concern: Understanding is not only knowing how to go on in accordance with practice; it is grasping why things are so.

Which is part of why I try to avoid "reality" as a term. I don't think it does much independent work. And at worst, it can blur the distinction between questions about being, and questions about thinking. — J

That's a fair worry. Like you I would resist any attempt to blur this distinction, but I would equally resist any attempt to detach truth from reality. If truth were nothing more than coherence of belief, stability within practice or endorsement by a community then the distinction between truth and opinion, or error and disagreement would collapse. I would argue that the normativity of truth requires that claims are answerable to something that is not exhausted by belief, endorsement or correct usage. As @sam26 said, this "something" doesn't have to be a full-blown metaphysical picture of Reality with a capital-R, but it does have to be robust enough to make sense of correction, learning, discovery and the possibility of being wrong.

Thoughts?

These are not metaphysical positions my guy. My point is still as strong as ever. — AmadeusD

Still missing the point, as ever. Each and every one of those positions carries mutually incompatible metaphysical and normative presuppositions that can't be adjudicated by science.

And are almost routinely vilified for such. They are definitionally unopen to review, being revelatory. This is not contentious. — AmadeusD

Again, missing the point. I'm not denying what you think I'm denying.

We're looping now and I don't think further clarification will move us forward. Thanks for the discussion.

I basically agree with 's reply here. There is a minimal metaphysical commitment that I would say is unavoidable; namely, that there is something that makes judgments true or false, independently of our taking them to be so. That’s enough metaphysics to ground inquiry — and no more than that.

I'm curious. What's fueling your "obsession" with the metaphysical question? Do you suspect that there is more to it than this?

Even if you were omniscient someone would disagree. It means nothing, don't you think? — Sam26

Ha. Indeed. I try to see disagreement as an opportunity to learn something new or refine what I already know, hence my curiosity.

This doesn’t really oppose the Witt line, it strengthens it. — Sam26

I agree with you, though many would disagree. I was curious where you would fall on the question. Sounds like we broadly agree on these issues.

haha. It's funny you think this runs for your point - It runs exactly for mine — AmadeusD

I'd say the same — in reverse — for the same reason. :smile:

Secular view points aren't "incoherent" because they don't all claim metaphysical primacy. — AmadeusD

This is false. Many secular viewpoints explicitly claim metaphysical and normative primacy.

Consider just a partial list of secular social and political ideologies:

• Liberalism
• Classical liberalism
• Libertarianism
• Social democracy
• Democratic socialism
• Marxism / Communism
• Anarchism / Anarcho-capitalism
• Civic republicanism
• Technocracy
• Progressivism
• Secular conservatism
• Capitalism / Socialism / Neoliberalism

These give mutually incompatible accounts of:

• what fundamentally exists (individuals, classes, structures, markets),
• what has ultimate value (liberty, equality, efficiency, power),
• what legitimates authority and coercion.

Their adherents routinely treat them as ultimate frameworks, not as tentative hypotheses, and science cannot adjudicate between them. No experiment decides between Marxism and libertarianism.

And contra the implication that this is harmless: non-religious actors commit violence in the name of such ideologies constantly — nationalism, revolutionary politics, racialized secular movements, state technocracies, etc. The difference is not religion vs secularism; it’s whether commitments are sacralized and insulated, whatever their source.

Calling religious reformers “outliers” just builds the conclusion into the premise.
— Esse Quam Videri

They are. That isn't my opinion. They are outliers. Religions are definitionally (most of them) unopen to revision because they are revelatory. This isn't controversial. — AmadeusD

This misses the point. I am not denying that they are outliers. I'm pointing out that you are overlooking the simple historical fact that religions do revise—slowly, unevenly, and often under pressure—and that secular institutions are often no less recalcitrant to revision once identity and authority harden.

This is a strong reply, and I agree with much of it, but I don't think it gets to the heart of @J's concern. My interpretation is that J is not questioning whether global doubt is incoherent, but is asking why grammar should be considered sufficient to settle the issue. In other words, what explains why grammar imposes the limits it does?

I would argue that Wittgenstein's anxieties over transcendental reification make it difficult for him to adequately address this question. I don’t think the deepest explanation can be grammatical. Grammar registers the limits, but it doesn’t generate them. These ultimately need to be grounded in the structure of our normative/epistemic acts themselves: to doubt, correct, or inquire is already to be oriented toward what is the case, toward conditions of fulfillment that distinguish seeming from being. An act of doubt misfires when it asks for fulfillment while cancelling the conditions of that very fulfillment.

So doubting is a form of judgment guided by reasons. Reasons presuppose the possibility of correcting mistakes by attending to data and testing insights. If you globally deny the existence of any constraint on the data of experience then you undercut the very idea of error, correction, learning and also doubt itself. Inquiry is intelligible only as a self-correcting process of answering questions about what is the case and is therefore rendered unintelligible under the assumption that there is nothing in principle that can settle such questions.

We now know both that ordinary objects are not phenomenally present and that the world is radically different to how it appears, hence indirect realism being the scientific view of perception. — Michael

This deflates the traditional claims of indirect realism to the point of triviality. Nothing you've said here is incompatible with a direct realism that acknowledges both that phenomenal qualities are not properties of worldly objects and that perception is casually mediated. Neither of these is sufficient to decide the issue.

This is because the question is not about casual mechanisms or color realism, but about what kind of thing can play the role of the object in acts of perception. Indirect realism requires that a private mental intermediary play this role, whereas the direct realist rejects this as both inadequate and unnecessary. It is inadequate because it can't explain the normativity of perception, and it is unnecessary because worldly objects are perfectly capable of playing this role themselves.

The thing that makes this discussion so difficult is that both parties accept the same underlying causal story, but interpret it in different ways.

Consider the following crude diagram of the situation you described above where D = doorbell, C = causal medium, S = sound, Ch = chiming, I = inference, H = hypothesis and V = verification:

D → C₁ → C₂ → … → Cₙ → S → Ch → I → H → V

Basically what this diagram says is that there is a causal chain originating at the doorbell (D), moving through a series of causal mediums (air molecules, sound waves, neural activations, etc.) to the production of a sound (S) that is experienced as a chiming (Ch), after which the agent infers (I) the hypothesis (H) that the doorbell caused the chiming and verifies (V) that hypothesis by opening the door.

I can't speak for everyone here, but I'm guessing pretty much everyone would accept this chain more-or-less as-is. The part where things get messy is in the epistemic interpretation of this chain. We can see this in the way that a direct realist and an indirect realist might answer the following questions:

What is directly perceived?

• DR: doorbell (D) as-chiming (Ch)
• IR: chiming (Ch)

What is the role of inference (I)?

• DR: Refines understanding (i.e. sharpens identification of what is already perceived)
• IR: Constitutes access (i.e. supplies epistemic access to the distal object)

What is the role of the hypothesis (H)?

• DR: Causal explanation (i.e. explains why the perceived object is chiming, not whether there is a distal object at all)
• IR: Route to the world (i.e. licenses commitment to a distal object rather than merely explaining an already perceived one)

What is the role of verification (V)?

• DR: Further world-directed perception (i.e. perceptual engagement that settles identification)
• IR: Further phenomenal evidence (i.e. additional experience requiring interpretation)

What is the epistemic base?

• DR: world-directed perception
• IR: phenomenal experience

I realize that my answers on behalf of the IR above will likely be seen as a straw man. That isn’t my intention. The goal here is not to put words in anyone’s mouth, but to offer an analysis of why this discussion keeps looping despite broad agreement on the causal story.

You are claiming that, unlike the body, phenomenology lacks the capacity to fulfill the role that the body plays in my example? — hypericin

I do think this is a dis-analogy, but I agree that someone can press it to its logical conclusion if they’re willing to accept the consequences. My point isn’t that no coherent position can be built on top of that assumption, but that adopting it involves a substantive philosophical commitment—namely, treating perception itself as evidential and inferential in the same way we treat our access to other minds. That move isn’t forced on us by the phenomena or by science; it’s an optional interpretation with significant costs. My claim is only that indirect realism requires taking on that commitment, not that it’s internally inconsistent.

If there is an inferential process, there must be something upon which the inference is made. The precise characterization of the ontological status of phenomenology is difficult to resolve. But does indirect realism need to make this characterization? I say it only needs to claim that phenomenology has ontology, distinct from the distal object it stands in relationship to. And, that it can be attended to, distinctly from attendance to the object. — hypericin

I agree that if there is inference, there must be something the inference operates on. What I deny is that whatever plays that subpersonal or experiential role thereby functions as an epistemic intermediary. Indirect realism requires more than ontological distinctness and reflective attendability; it requires that phenomenology be what perception is of in the first instance, and that access to the world be achieved by way of it.

My objection isn’t that phenomenology lacks ontology or structure—it’s that treating it as an intermediary rather than a mode of access is a substantive philosophical claim that needs justification. Simply asserting that inference operates on phenomenology does not yet establish indirect perception unless phenomenology is shown to occupy that mediating role rather than merely implementing perception.

I agree that there may be unconscious cue-integration or subpersonal inference involved in perceiving someone as angry. But that doesn’t establish ontological mediation. An inferential process does not by itself introduce an intermediary object of awareness; at least, not in the way required by indirect realism. The cues are not things I am aware of instead of the person; they are constitutive of how the person is perceived. So even if the perception is inferentially structured, it is still world-directed rather than mediated by an intervening object. Indirect realism needs more than hidden inference; it needs an ontological intermediary, and nothing like that has been shown.

Is there an example you can give of this kind of "mode of presentation"? A TV is a "mode of presentation" of something else. Yet it also fulfills all the criteria for indirect realism you outlined. — hypericin

A TV is not a mode of presentation in the sense I mean; it’s a mediating object. It has identity conditions, can be attended to independently of what it displays, and literally interposes itself between viewer and distal events. This is exactly the kind of ontological intermediary that indirect realism posits, and that direct realism rejects.

A phenomenological mode of presentation is different. It doesn’t add an object or act as a stand-in; it characterizes how an object is present. Seeing something as blurry or sharp, red or orange, looming or distant are not things you perceive first and then infer the object from. They are ways the object is given—features of the perceptual episode that can be thematized only upon reflection, not items that perception is directed at per se.

Is this move invalidated if the visual experience is deemed a mode of access? — hypericin

Yes, I think it is. Treating phenomenal experience as a mode of access invalidates the priority claim because it disqualifies it from playing the intermediary role that indirect realism requires it to play.

In order for indirect realism to go through it must posit something that can:

• be something you are aware of first, rather than only reflectively or introspectively
• stand in relations like priority, mediation, or inference,
• function as an intermediary

A "mode of presentation" cannot do that job. To say that phenomenal experience is a mode of presentation is to say that it characterizes the presentation of something else. This makes it derivative, non-intermediary and non-inferential.

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

Once “mental phenomena” in (2) are understood thinly—as features of experience rather than objects in their own right—then (2) becomes perfectly compatible with direct realism, and it no longer does the work needed to support (1). To get (1), one needs the further premise that only phenomenally present items can be directly perceived. That premise isn’t delivered by science; it’s a philosophical assumption that, so far, has not been successfully argued for.

There have been many appeals to science in this discussion, but the philosophical question at issue is underdetermined by the science. Such appeals will never decide the issue since both sides fully accept it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’ve been explicit about how I’m using “reference,” “mention,” and “referent”—they are components of a semantic theory on which reference is a normative achievement within a public practice. Simply insisting on a thinner, grammatical use of “refers to” doesn’t engage that theory; it just declines it.

But declining it isn’t yet an alternative. The standing issue is still unanswered: how, on your view, can something essentially private function as a standard of correctness within a public practice? Until that role is explained, the appeal to “reference” does no explanatory work.

What exactly do you think "reference" means in this context? — Michael

For me, reference is a normative achievement: a term refers only insofar as its use is governed by standards of correctness within a public practice. Whatever counts as a referent must therefore be capable of fixing such standards. The question, then, is whether private sensations can play that role. My answer is no—private sensations cannot fix standards of correctness in a norm-governed practice, and therefore cannot function as referents.

Yes they can, they're doing it right here. You're using the term "private sensations" to refer to things that you say can act as truth-makers but can't act as referents. — Michael

The use of the term "private sensations" in my sentence was an example of mention not reference. For a term to qualify as a "mention" is for it to satisfy the norms that govern the correct usage of that term. However, satisfying those normative requirements does not imply that there is also something in the world that satisfies the additional normative requirements of being a referent. This is what allows us to correctly use terms like "private sensations" without achieving reference.

Quite right. To my knowledge no one here denies that we have something ChatGPT lacks. The question is whether this "something" is an "object" or a "mode of access". Humans can have first-person experience that ChatGPT lacks without that experience being a privately identifiable entity. What ChatGPT lacks is subjectivity, not a hidden "object" to refer to.

The idea here is that objects of perception like trucks, people and virtual game-objects satisfy public, normative criteria of ontological objecthood— identity conditions, persistence, affordances, counterfactual structure—that phenomenal qualities do not. Phenomenal qualities are real, vivid and describable, but they are not the objects of perception in the same ontological sense as trucks and people. They are the manner in which an object is given in perception, not what is given. Phenomenal qualities characterize the episode of perceiving (salience, articulation, affective grip, etc.). They are not ingredients added to the world, but dimensions along which world-directed perception is organized.

But in this sense, ChatGPT understands "headache" just as well as we do, at least in the purely verbal domain. But this cannot be the relevant sense in a discussion on direct realism, can it? — hypericin

There are two things to keep separate here: (1) semantic/linguistic understanding and (2) phenomenal acquaintance. ChatGPT has the former without the latter. This actually proves the point rather nicely that semantic competence does not require phenomenal acquaintance.

You are right that direct realism is not a thesis about semantic competence or linguistic meaning. The reason we got onto this topic is because the indirect realist needs private "entities" (sensations) to do explanatory work as perceptual intermediaries. That commitment raised questions about how such items are individuated and talked about. At some point in the discussion it was stated that sensations do not satisfy public criteria for "objecthood"—re-identifiability, persistence conditions, independent checkability, etc.— and, therefore, are not best understood as "entities" in any robustly ontological sense. Pushback was given and hence the subsequent discussion about meaning and reference.

If sensation-words don't refer to private experience, then why does it seem that having the private experience oneself is necessary to understand the word? — hypericin

Because the word "understanding" has more than one sense. Having the experience may be necessary for empathetic or imaginative grasp, but not for semantic competence. The meaning of “headache” is fixed by public criteria; private experience enriches our appreciation of what those criteria track, but it is not what makes the word meaningful.

This is incoherent. If a) headaches are private sensations then b) the word "headaches" in (a) is being used to refer to things which are private sensations — those things being headaches. That's what makes (a) true. If the word "headaches" in (a) is being used to refer to something else (e.g. cats) then (a) would be false. — Michael

There is a difference between truth-makers and referents. Private sensations can act as truth-makers, not referents. Reference does not float free of meaning. In order for something to act as a referent, it must be able to contribute to fixing the correctness conditions of a word's usage. Private sensations cannot fulfill that function. Hence, they cannot act as referents.

Why would it be a problem? I don't need to see Genghis Khan for the name "Genghis Khan" to refer to the man who lead the Mongols to conquer Asia, so why the insistence that if our experiences are private then our words cannot refer to them? — Michael

Proper names like "Genhis Khan" refer via public anchoring mechanisms like historical records, testimony, chains of communication and and shared criteria for re-identification. The word "headache" is not like this. It is not publicly identifiable. There is no independent criterion for checking whether reference succeeded.

Clearly the phrase "private experiences" does, else you'd have to argue that the phrase "private experiences" is incoherent. It's really not difficult. — Michael

The phrase "private experience" does not refer by pointing to a private object. It refers by functioning in a public contrast. It's meaning is fixed by how the phrase is used, but not by anyone having access to someone else's experience. Ironically, we can only talk about private experiences because meaning is not fixed by private access.

When I say "I have a headache" the word "headache" is being used to refer to a sensation that I claim to have and when I say "you have a headache" the word "headache" is being used to refer to a sensation that I claim you have (and which I assume is much like mine). — Michael

Notice what is doing all of the semantic work here: claiming, assuming, inferring from behavior. None of that is fixed by the sensation itself. Again, an essentially private "entity" can't act as a public standard of correctness.