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Esse Quam Videri

['Member']Joined: November 11, 2016 at 15:46Last active: February 25, 2026 at 20:59None discussions444 comments

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@"Hypericin" I see that you are not yet a member of the new site. I will hold off on posting a reply until you join, unless you would also like to bri...
February 20, 2026 at 14:00
Understood. I'm fine with bringing it to a close as well. If you're ready to be done, then I can either try to delete the thread on the new site, or y...
February 20, 2026 at 13:58
@"Hypericin" @"Michael" I have decided to move the discussion over to the new site in consideration of the fact that this site will be made read-only ...
February 20, 2026 at 13:49
I think there's a crucial equivocation running through your response that's worth surfacing, because it's doing a lot of the heavy lifting. You're rig...
February 19, 2026 at 22:00
Taking your points in order: The burden-shifting move here doesn't quite work. The question isn't whether we can talk about the world — of course we c...
February 19, 2026 at 20:23
I actually fully acknowledge the representationalism of the user-facing visualizations in Michael’s VR goggle-scenario. Likewise, I fully acknowledge ...
February 19, 2026 at 17:27
:up:
February 19, 2026 at 17:24
Cheers :up:
February 18, 2026 at 22:16
Yep, I mean this is how most people I know feel about philosophical debate in general. And to be honest, I often feel this way myself (especially afte...
February 18, 2026 at 22:06
I don't think it's hair splitting to contest your claim that qualia are the direct objects of perception, or to press the point that determinate objec...
February 18, 2026 at 20:46
I agree that the “problem of perception” is partially a problem of identity (who the subject is supposed to be). If the indirect realist says the imme...
February 18, 2026 at 13:51
Nope. I'm suggesting that insofar as someone posits a world in which nothing exhibits identity, persistence or modal stability, then perception as we ...
February 18, 2026 at 13:41
Again, what does it mean to “hear voices,” “see colors,” or “feel pain” in a world where nothing exhibits identity, persistence, affordance, or counte...
February 17, 2026 at 18:46
I’m much less certain about this than you seem to be. What does it even mean to say that we could perceive anything in a world where nothing meets the...
February 17, 2026 at 16:07
On godless subjective idealism: I think perception becomes very difficult to sustain without some ground for normativity — whether that's mind-indepen...
February 17, 2026 at 14:54
I don't think so. Take George Berkeley as an example. He's the paradigmatic subjective idealist, but he would not deny that perception is normative an...
February 17, 2026 at 14:29
This was something that was discussed at length earlier in the thread. The TLDR is that, on my view, perception is an intrinsically normative and publ...
February 17, 2026 at 01:44
Good question — and no, nothing in what I said guarantees that there will always be only one uniquely correct interpretation, at least not in any stra...
February 17, 2026 at 01:22
Yes, indeed. In fact, I think I mentioned the Pittsburgh School as a major influence in a previous response somewhere. Of the three you mentioned, McD...
February 16, 2026 at 22:24
Cheers! For me, the diversity (and fallibility) of thought is a reflection of our finite situatedness rather than a reflection of the unintelligibilit...
February 16, 2026 at 20:38
Not entirely. I think Braver is hitting on something important with his insight that reality can disrupt established conceptual frameworks. I also agr...
February 16, 2026 at 16:36
I hope you don't mind if I press you on this point a bit. Consider the statements: (1) Reality is chaotic (2) Being is not inteliigible How would you ...
February 16, 2026 at 16:01
True, but I'd argue that there is still an irreducible asymmetry at the bottom of inquiry. To re-quote Braver: So yes, the criteria are subject to int...
February 16, 2026 at 15:14
I agree that much of understanding is interpretive, but I think this actually sharpens the realist point rather than weakening it. Interpretation is a...
February 16, 2026 at 12:38
I'm not saying there is a contradiction, I'm saying that no good reason has been given for treating "experience" itself as the object of perception, w...
February 16, 2026 at 02:20
I think we’re actually very close here. I’m completely on board with the idea that intelligibility isn’t “added from outside,” and that the world is a...
February 16, 2026 at 00:20
I think there's a distinction being compressed here that's worth pulling apart. You're right that "knowable" implies a relation to a knower — nothing ...
February 15, 2026 at 22:44
I think you’re running together causal intermediacy with epistemic/intentional intermediacy. 1) Glass/fog/glasses don’t make perception “indirect” in ...
February 15, 2026 at 21:33
I don't think my view has trouble accommodating indirect awareness. I am indirectly aware of a crime scene through eyewitness testimony; indirectly aw...
February 15, 2026 at 17:54
Yes, we have now restated our divergence (once again): you see a vacuous terminological dispute, I see a substantive metaphysical disagreement. I thin...
February 15, 2026 at 17:42
This is the core of our disagreement, and I think it's worth flagging that it's a metaphor, not an argument. It pictures the mind as an enclosed space...
February 15, 2026 at 14:32
1) On "type coercion" and inference Your framing is interesting, but it assumes what needs to be argued. You say perception produces a perception, but...
February 15, 2026 at 14:20
I would want to say something stronger than this: that intelligibility is there to be discovered — that being is the kind of thing that can be underst...
February 15, 2026 at 13:36
Braver is interesting, and I think "transgressive realism" captures something phenomenologically real — the way experience can disappoint anticipation...
February 15, 2026 at 13:31
That's fair — "subjective" and "imposed" were poorly chosen on my part. Kant's categories aren't psychological or arbitrary; they're the universal con...
February 15, 2026 at 13:28
That’s a very fair critique, and I agree my “reality pushes back” phrasing can sound Popperian — as if there were a clean dualism between framework on...
February 15, 2026 at 01:19
I agree that deductive implication is a matter of semantics: to grasp validity is to grasp what is being said. But I don’t think that dissolves the no...
February 15, 2026 at 00:45
The difference is that Kant’s transcendental idealism isn’t just the claim that inquiry has conditions; it’s the stronger claim that the fundamental i...
February 14, 2026 at 23:51
I agree that validity is formal and conditional: logic doesn’t force assent unless one is already committed to the premises. But once one takes the pr...
February 14, 2026 at 23:27
I agree: the brain does all the metabolic work. I agree: without brains, no qualia. I agree: qualia can occur endogenously — hallucination, dreaming, ...
February 14, 2026 at 18:36
Whereas I see two mutually incompatible accounts of perception that both happen to reject naive realism — one reifying phenomenal character into an in...
February 14, 2026 at 18:02
:rofl: :up:
February 14, 2026 at 17:25
Group B is not a single position. It contains at least two very different interpretations: B1 (your view): phenomenal qualities are inner mental items...
February 14, 2026 at 17:22
I think we directly perceive the distal object as colored and shaped. You seem to think we directly perceive colors and shapes (as mental phenomena) a...
February 14, 2026 at 16:16
On like and unlike types: Your reversibility argument is interesting, so let me engage with it directly. You say that in memory, the act and target ar...
February 14, 2026 at 14:28
is right. You’re treating “whatever my awareness consists in” as an intermediary by definition, but that is exactly the point under dispute.
February 14, 2026 at 14:21
I agree with the call for circumspection — but I don’t see circumspection as being at odds with metaphysical realism. Metaphysical realism, at least i...
February 14, 2026 at 14:14
I think that’s a very clear statement of your stance, and I get the appeal: naturalism (or Neoplatonism) functions more like an orienting picture than...
February 14, 2026 at 14:07
Hart is using the word "normative" in a different way. To say reasoning is "normative" is to acknowledge the possibility of error. The distinction bet...
February 14, 2026 at 14:01
Good post. I think your argument is a bit overstated, but I agree with the spirit of what you've said. Philosophers overstep when they try to legislat...
February 12, 2026 at 12:46