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 ...
My appeal to reference is meant to constrain theoretical reification, not to deny phenomenology. A theory that treats mental phenomena as objects has ...
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 yo...
If “refers to” is exhausted by the grammatical schema “the word ‘X’ refers to X,” then reference does no explanatory work. It cannot distinguish corre...
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 normati...
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. ...
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 "mo...
There are two things to keep separate here: (1) semantic/linguistic understanding and (2) phenomenal acquaintance. ChatGPT has the former without the ...
Because the word "understanding" has more than one sense. Having the experience may be necessary for empathetic or imaginative grasp, but not for sema...
There is a difference between truth-makers and referents. Private sensations can act as truth-makers, not referents. Reference does not float free of ...
P1: accepted P2: rejected We must distinguish between what a headache is (a private sensation) and what the word "headache" does in our language. The ...
No one denied this. The issue isn’t whether sensations are involved; it’s whether private sensations are what words mean or refer to. Again, if public...
's point was to show that the use of the word "headache" is not like the use of the word "hot". The latter is a world-directed predicate, while the se...
The step you keep taking is from: "the object perceived must in fact be causally responsible if perception is veridical" to "the perceiver must know o...
has put his finger exactly on the issue. The fact that a sensation makes a sentence true does not show that the words in that sentence refer to the se...
I agree with you that “John feels hot” is true when John has a certain sensation and that “John feels cold” is false in that case. I don't deny that. ...
Yes—exactly. Admitting a causal role for sensation doesn’t entail that sensation fixes meaning or reference. Confusing those two is what generates the...
No. Direct realism says: "the object perceived is the mind-external object itself, not an intermediary". It does not say: "perception includes knowled...
I’m not introducing “hot?” and “hot?,” nor am I saying that “hot” has two meanings. The word “hot” has a single, public, evaluative meaning. Sensation...
I don’t deny that sensations occur, that they matter, or that we can talk about them. What I deny is that their occurrence fixes the meaning or refere...
It's up for debate. That's the point. “Hot” and “cold” are not names for sensations and temperatures. They are evaluative predicates whose application...
You keep asking "How does the Direct Realist know what initiated the causal chain, given that this is logically impossible?". I've addressed this mult...
Yes — and this is not controversial. On Direct Realism, acquaintance is not description-dependent. Infants, animals, and non-linguistic humans perceiv...
Pardon the interjection, but I think your reply here nicely captures the nub of the ongoing disagreement. There is a distinction that is being collaps...
— this clarifies things, and it also exposes the remaining mistake. First, I agree with you about the scientific method: it is corrigible, self-updati...
— this is a category error. “Science” isn’t a worldview; it’s a method. Methods don’t contradict doctrines. The moment you turn science into a worldvi...
No, I’m not ignoring your point; I’m rejecting the inference. You’re saying: Religious worldviews are incompatible. Therefore they’re all damned. That...
“No Christians are Muslim” is a trivial observation, not an argument. Mutual exclusivity of creeds isn't unique to religion. Secular worldviews also m...
If your comment was merely “descriptive,” then it inherits the assumptions of the argument it summarizes. And that summary does presuppose what’s at i...
— this framing just begs the question. You’re mapping “secular” onto “corrigible, evidence-constrained public reasoning” and “religion” onto “faith-ba...
- Sorry, I've been meaning to get back to this... It doesn’t need to be encoded in each link as representational content. On Direct Realism, the causa...
— This just asserts what’s at issue rather than arguing for it. Many secular worldviews do claim metaphysical primacy: materialism, physicalism, elimi...
Wow, didn't expect this discussion to get reopened. Here are my thoughts on your last post; Your OP was explicitly structured as "religions contradict...
That wasn't quite what I was getting at. The point was to acknowledge the possibility of reasonable disagreement, not to license unconstrained asserti...
I see what you are saying, but I would gently push back here. In my last post I distinguished between formal, empirical and metaphysical truth. I see ...
I don't know exactly how Allison would respond to this. I suspect he would say something like "I think my interpretation is better grounded than alter...
I actually reject this. While I would agree that phenomenal qualities are private in their occurrence, they are not private in their intelligibility, ...
I think this clarifies our disagreement nicely. When I talk about “objecthood,” I am not using it in the purely grammatical sense of whatever can occu...
Yes, perhaps this is where we must diverge. I do want to clarify that I do not deny any of the following: that phenomenology is real that experience i...
No, not as stated. I would not say that I am "aware of" these shapes, sizes, colours, and motions as objects of awareness. I would say that I am "awar...
Yes, there is a difference, but I would say the difference is not explained by positing two different objects, one worldly and one mental. There is on...
Here's one possible alternative framing that I think would be endorsed by someone like Allison. I'm not going to try to defend this framing, I'm just ...
It means that, although the existence of the virtual object is materially realized, it cannot be explained entirely in terms of the material processes...
I think we are on the same page now. I personally don't think that the axioms of ZFC are "true" in any metaphysical, transcendental or empirical sense...
I would say that the virtual game-object — the "object" acting as an intentional object — is: (1) materially realized, but not reducible to a set of m...
This seems to be the crux of the issue for you, and I can appreciate the tension that you are raising, but personally I don't see this as an issue. I ...
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