Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[GaryLouisSmith]

Why are you against the idea of seeing/perceiving/knowing the object directly without going through representatives?

I'm not, because I reject representative realism. As Searle stresses, sensory perception is presentational rather than representational. It perceptually presents nonmental/physical things to the subject without any representational intermediaries such as sense-data (conceived as mental objects). However, this doesn't mean that there is no experiential medium involved, through which the objects of perception are presented to the subject. There certainly is, viz. sensations. Obviously, they are the experiential medium of sensory perception: To sensorily perceive something is to experience a sensation functioning as a sensory appearance/impression of it. Note that to perceive something by sensing an appearance/impression of it is not to perceive its sensory appearance/impression but it itself!

I wrote a reply and pressed submit and then it seems to have disappeared. In that reply I attacked the idea that perception was about sensations. I mentioned that I perceive that there is a bare particular that exemplifies the form of Bed. I perceive that my bed is next to the window. That it has been slept in. That it as a bed it is a piece of furniture. Sensations are a tiny part of what I perceive. Btw, I have no problem grasping the redness of the sheets on my bed. I really don't believe in sense-data or sensa. My sheets are red. I can directly grasp the sheetness and the redness in addition to the fact that my sheets are red. Ok, I'm going to push submit again. Here goes.

[GaryLouisSmith]

As I see it we DO have direct perceptual access to nonmental/physical reality. Why not? Of course that would mean that I believe that minds exist and they aren't just a function of the brain. But you knew that already.

Are you still talking about sensory perception, or about "intellectual perception" aka rational intuition?

"The aim of this book is to elaborate and defend a view of intuition according to which it is a form of intellectual perception. The rough idea is this: while sensory perceptions are experiences that purport to, and sometimes do, reveal how matters stand in concrete reality by making us sensorily aware of that reality, intuitions are experiences that purport to, and sometimes do, reveal how matters stand in abstract reality by making us intuitively aware of that reality."

(Chudnoff, Elijah. Intuition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. p. 1)

I see no difference between "sensory perception" and "intellectual perception". Perception is perception.

[Consul]

I see no difference between "sensory perception" and "intellectual perception". Perception is perception.

Sensory perception is not nonsensory perception. If introspection is perception-like, it's unlike sensory perception, because it doesn't involve any sensations. That's why I agree with Colin McGinn that it's misleading to speak of introspective experiences. If there is such an epistemic capacity as intellectual perception, it's nonsensory too. Chudnoff also speaks of "intuition experiences", ascribing a "presentational phenomenology" to them; but I'm not aware that I've ever had such an allegedly sui generis kind of experience.

"If having an intuition experience representing that p is not a matter of judging or having an inclination to judge that p, then what is it? The natural answer is that it is a sui generis experience. That is: in having an intuition experience representing that p, it intuitively seems to you that p, and this is a sui generis experience, irreducible to other experiences."
(p. 44)

"Given the notions of intuitive seeming and seeming intuitive awareness, we can say what it would be for an intuition experience to have presentational phenomenology:

What it is for an intuition experience of yours to have presentational phenomenology
with respect to p is for it to both make it intuitively seem to you that p and make it seem to you as if this experience makes you intuitively aware of a truth-maker for p.

Just as with perceptual experiences, intuition experiences might have presentational phenomenology with respect to a part and not the whole of their content. So the view that intuition experiences possess presentational phenomenology should be put as follows: whenever you have an intuition experience, your experience has presentational phenomenology with respect to some of its content."
(p. 48)

(Chudnoff, Elijah. Intuition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.)

[Consul]

Sensory perception is not nonsensory perception.

Many believe—falsely, I believe—that there are also supernatural kinds of nonsensory perception such as clairvoyance, precognition, or telepathy.

[Consul]

I wrote a reply and pressed submit and then it seems to have disappeared. In that reply I attacked the idea that perception was about sensations.

Sensory perception is not about sensations in the sense that its intentional objects are not sensations.

I mentioned that I perceive that there is a bare particular that exemplifies the form of Bed.

A particular exemplifying a form is no longer "bare".

I perceive that my bed is next to the window. That it has been slept in. That it as a bed it is a piece of furniture. Sensations are a tiny part of what I perceive. Btw, I have no problem grasping the redness of the sheets on my bed. I really don't believe in sense-data or sensa. My sheets are red. I can directly grasp the sheetness and the redness in addition to the fact that my sheets are red. Ok, I'm going to push submit again. Here goes.

There's a distinction between perceiving things or events, and perceiving states of affairs or facts. You cannot see that p unless you have p-related visual sensations. And there's a difference between directly seeing that p and indirectly seeing that p by inferring p from directly seeing that q. For example, you can directly see that there is a bed in the room; but you cannot directly, non-inferentially see that it has been slept in.

By the way, I'm using "sensation", "sense-datum", and "sensum" synonymously; and by the latter two terms I don't mean mental objects as postulated by the classical sense-data theory.

[GaryLouisSmith]

I see no difference between "sensory perception" and "intellectual perception". Perception is perception.

Sensory perception is not nonsensory perception. If introspection is perception-like, it's unlike sensory perception, because it doesn't involve any sensations. That's why I agree with Colin McGinn that it's misleading to speak of introspective experiences. If there is such an epistemic capacity as intellectual perception, it's nonsensory too. Chudnoff also speaks of "intuition experiences", ascribing a "presentational phenomenology" to them; but I'm not aware that I've ever had such an allegedly sui generis kind of experience.

"If having an intuition experience representing that p is not a matter of judging or having an inclination to judge that p, then what is it? The natural answer is that it is a sui generis experience. That is: in having an intuition experience representing that p, it intuitively seems to you that p, and this is a sui generis experience, irreducible to other experiences."
(p. 44)

"Given the notions of intuitive seeming and seeming intuitive awareness, we can say what it would be for an intuition experience to have presentational phenomenology:

What it is for an intuition experience of yours to have presentational phenomenology
with respect to p is for it to both make it intuitively seem to you that p and make it seem to you as if this experience makes you intuitively aware of a truth-maker for p.

Just as with perceptual experiences, intuition experiences might have presentational phenomenology with respect to a part and not the whole of their content. So the view that intuition experiences possess presentational phenomenology should be put as follows: whenever you have an intuition experience, your experience has presentational phenomenology with respect to some of its content."
(p. 48)

(Chudnoff, Elijah. Intuition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.)

OK I'm lost trying to make it through all that jargon. Can you express those ideas in your own words and maybe give examples.

[GaryLouisSmith]

Sensory perception is not nonsensory perception. If introspection is perception-like, it's unlike sensory perception, because it doesn't involve any sensations. That's why I agree with Colin McGinn that it's misleading to speak of introspective experiences. If there is such an epistemic capacity as intellectual perception, it's nonsensory too. Chudnoff also speaks of "intuition experiences", ascribing a "presentational phenomenology" to them; but I'm not aware that I've ever had such an allegedly sui generis kind of experience.

"If having an intuition experience representing that p is not a matter of judging or having an inclination to judge that p, then what is it? The natural answer is that it is a sui generis experience. That is: in having an intuition experience representing that p, it intuitively seems to you that p, and this is a sui generis experience, irreducible to other experiences."
(p. 44)

"Given the notions of intuitive seeming and seeming intuitive awareness, we can say what it would be for an intuition experience to have presentational phenomenology:

What it is for an intuition experience of yours to have presentational phenomenology
with respect to p is for it to both make it intuitively seem to you that p and make it seem to you as if this experience makes you intuitively aware of a truth-maker for p.

Just as with perceptual experiences, intuition experiences might have presentational phenomenology with respect to a part and not the whole of their content. So the view that intuition experiences possess presentational phenomenology should be put as follows: whenever you have an intuition experience, your experience has presentational phenomenology with respect to some of its content."
(p. 48)

(Chudnoff, Elijah. Intuition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.)

OK I'm lost trying to make it through all that jargon. Can you express those ideas in your own words and maybe give examples.

Let me just say that I don't think sensations exist and therefore there is no such thing as sensory perception. If I look and see that my water bottle is blue, that blueness exists. It is a color. It is not a sensation. I see the blueness directly. It is out there, external to my mind.

[Consul]

"If having an intuition experience representing that p is not a matter of judging or having an inclination to judge that p, then what is it? The natural answer is that it is a sui generis experience. That is: in having an intuition experience representing that p, it intuitively seems to you that p, and this is a sui generis experience, irreducible to other experiences."
(p. 44)

"Given the notions of intuitive seeming and seeming intuitive awareness, we can say what it would be for an intuition experience to have presentational phenomenology:

What it is for an intuition experience of yours to have presentational phenomenology with respect to p is for it to both make it intuitively seem to you that p and make it seem to you as if this experience makes you intuitively aware of a truth-maker for p.

Just as with perceptual experiences, intuition experiences might have presentational phenomenology with respect to a part and not the whole of their content. So the view that intuition experiences possess presentational phenomenology should be put as follows: whenever you have an intuition experience, your experience has presentational phenomenology with respect to some of its content."
(p. 48)

(Chudnoff, Elijah. Intuition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.)

OK I'm lost trying to make it through all that jargon. Can you express those ideas in your own words and maybe give examples.

As far as I can tell, the bottom line is that intuitive perception has some distinctive qualitative experiential content or character—such that there is something it is like for its subject to have this sort of perceptual experience—, and that it perceptually presents its object to the subject. So intuitive or intellectual perception is like sensory perception on the one hand, but unlike it on the other hand, because its subjective qualitative content (its "phenomenology") doesn't consist in sensations. But what does it consist in then? I don't know. Actually, I'm skeptical about the very existence of Chudnoff's intuition experiences.

[Consul]

Actually, I'm skeptical about the very existence of Chudnoff's intuition experiences.

"Intellectual seemings typically lack the rich phenomenology of perceptual seemings. In its perceptually appearing that something is so, normally in the same event much else perceptually appears too: that various things have various specific shapes and sizes, colors, sounds, tastes, textures, smells…. Even very primitive sensations have a specific quality of their own. By contrast, in the moment of its intellectually appearing that something is so, often nothing much else intellectually appears. Although mathematical intuition can have a rich phenomenology, even a quasi-perceptual one, for instance in geometry, the intellectual appearance of the Gettier proposition is not like that. Any accompanying imagery is irrelevant. For myself, I am aware of no intellectual seeming beyond my conscious inclination to believe the Gettier proposition. Similarly, I am aware of no intellectual seeming beyond my conscious inclination to believe Naïve Comprehension, which I resist because I know better."

(Williamson, Timothy. The Philosophy of Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. p. 217)

[GaryLouisSmith]

OK I'm lost trying to make it through all that jargon. Can you express those ideas in your own words and maybe give examples.

As far as I can tell, the bottom line is that intuitive perception has some distinctive qualitative experiential content or character—such that there is something it is like for its subject to have this sort of perceptual experience—, and that it perceptually presents its object to the subject. So intuitive or intellectual perception is like sensory perception on the one hand, but unlike it on the other hand, because its subjective qualitative content (its "phenomenology") doesn't consist in sensations. But what does it consist in then? I don't know. Actually, I'm skeptical about the very existence of Chudnoff's intuition experiences.

The word "intuition" is ambiguous. In ordinary conversation it is like a feeling that something is taking place or is true. In Kantian philosophy it is something else. I need an example of what is being talked about.

[Consul]

Let me just say that I don't think sensations exist and therefore there is no such thing as sensory perception. If I look and see that my water bottle is blue, that blueness exists. It is a color. It is not a sensation. I see the blueness directly. It is out there, external to my mind.

Well, the existence of subjective sensations is rationally indubitable.
As for visual perception, there's a distinction between objective, physical colors "out there" and subjective, phenomenal colors "in here", the latter of which are visual sensations. Phenomenal bluenesses are blue-sensations, which are experienced but not seen. As adverbialists would say, for a blue-sensation of yours to exist/occur is for you to sense bluely; and your sensing bluely is an event in your mind/brain.

[Consul]

The word "intuition" is ambiguous. In ordinary conversation it is like a feeling that something is taking place or is true. In Kantian philosophy it is something else. I need an example of what is being talked about.

We're not talking about gut feelings, hunches, or guesses. We're talking about rational intuition as an (allegedly) sui generis source of justification and knowledge: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intuition/

[GaryLouisSmith]

I wrote a reply and pressed submit and then it seems to have disappeared. In that reply I attacked the idea that perception was about sensations.

Sensory perception is not about sensations in the sense that its intentional objects are not sensations.

I mentioned that I perceive that there is a bare particular that exemplifies the form of Bed.

A particular exemplifying a form is no longer "bare".

I perceive that my bed is next to the window. That it has been slept in. That it as a bed it is a piece of furniture. Sensations are a tiny part of what I perceive. Btw, I have no problem grasping the redness of the sheets on my bed. I really don't believe in sense-data or sensa. My sheets are red. I can directly grasp the sheetness and the redness in addition to the fact that my sheets are red. Ok, I'm going to push submit again. Here goes.

There's a distinction between perceiving things or events, and perceiving states of affairs or facts. You cannot see that p unless you have p-related visual sensations. And there's a difference between directly seeing that p and indirectly seeing that p by inferring p from directly seeing that q. For example, you can directly see that there is a bed in the room; but you cannot directly, non-inferentially see that it has been slept in.

By the way, I'm using "sensation", "sense-datum", and "sensum" synonymously; and by the latter two terms I don't mean mental objects as postulated by the classical sense-data theory.

Arthur Conan Doyle was a great believer in the paranormal and so was Sherlock Holmes. What Holmes did was gather "evidence", i.e. little scraps left at the scene. Then he was meditate on those things. Stare at them. Until a vision would come to him about what really happened. Psychic detectives do the same thing. I suppose that is intuition. And in that sense inference is perception.

Bare particulars and always remain bare. If they are connected to a universal form by some kind of nexus, they remain bare because relations, connectors, exist external to what they connect. This is the doctrine of external relations.

[GaryLouisSmith]

Let me just say that I don't think sensations exist and therefore there is no such thing as sensory perception. If I look and see that my water bottle is blue, that blueness exists. It is a color. It is not a sensation. I see the blueness directly. It is out there, external to my mind.

Well, the existence of subjective sensations is rationally indubitable.
As for visual perception, there's a distinction between objective, physical colors "out there" and subjective, phenomenal colors "in here", the latter of which are visual sensations. Phenomenal bluenesses are blue-sensations, which are experienced but not seen. As adverbialists would say, for a blue-sensation of yours to exist/occur is for you to sense bluely; and your sensing bluely is an event in your mind/brain.

We have a BIG difference of opinion on this matter.

[GaryLouisSmith]

The word "intuition" is ambiguous. In ordinary conversation it is like a feeling that something is taking place or is true. In Kantian philosophy it is something else. I need an example of what is being talked about.

We're not talking about gut feelings, hunches, or guesses. We're talking about rational intuition as an (allegedly) sui generis source of justification and knowledge: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intuition/

I see. It is something like seeing that a mathematical formulation is true. I categorize that under perception. Mathematics, as I see it, is objective. It is out there. Thus I perceive mathematical formulations.