So if I am in pain in my knee and I extrapolate from my experience that you are in pain in your knee, I am not commenting on what is really going on?
Exactly.
You're commenting on nothing but what perceptual data is given to you, and from thence extrapolating.
...
Do you mean that when you say things about others we should not take these as comments about what is really going on with others?
Yes.
Isn't extrapolation a kind of commenting on something via postulated similarity?
Precisely.
But what one is commenting on is not something 'out there', but rather upon one's own thoughts.
I find this,well, kind of crazymaking.
Isn't it?
Are others internal to you?
If by "others" you mean other entities, other people, then, conditionally, yes.
In this sense, "others" are nothing but my thoughts. The condition is that all of this is simply epistemologically stated. In other words, though I have little reason to say I have knowledge of an external source of these others, it's much more reasonable to maintain that I am not the source.
We need not. Or we could and then, in certain contexts, withdraw it. Or one could remain agnostic. And anyway, what it is we must do? Is it not, in this case, make objective statements about what others must be like?
I think we must.
The only other option is to fully grasp solipsism, and from a pragmatic position, it doesn't take much to see how poorly that would work out for us...
It seems like with one had you say we must make claims about others - who are from their perspective 'out there' in relation to you - while saying we cannot make statement about 'out there'.
Precisely.
The first is simply due to the facticity of our lives, thus, I've characterized it above as a pragmatic concern. The second is simply a function of being epistemologically prudent.
So one avoids delusion by going beyond ones strict epistemology?
No. I'd say sticking to one's
strictest epistemology would lead (as noted above) to solipsism, and then, yes, delusion.
However, "delusion" is tricky, as it's a loaded word (ontologically speaking..).
I think this is the case. I think, but I really do not have the strength to show it, that you and I are using language differently. I am seeing your language as interpersonal and functional in this sense - not only, but including this sense - I think you are focusing on saying things that work for you as if you were the listener. Or as you put it are being solipsistic in relation to epistemology.
A neat metaphor. Yeah, I think that works.
In areas like this one, I keep coming back to Kant's notion of
apperception, where we're constantly bombarded by information, by sense-data. We are creatures that experience in
an environment, and while we can, to a degree, be selective about what we 'receive', or 'listen to', that constant barrage cannot be eliminated.
There's no doubt that all that information is mediated by us, but to me, to speak of that unmediated 'source' is highly subject to error ( in particular, if we also try to characterize that 'source' in a non-subjective, non-interpretive manner, i.e., "objective"). If however, we simply describe our experiences, and from there compose some commonalities of features, at least then we're still speaking of the experiential...
It seems to me you are conflating how one lives with how óne asserts truths or makes claims. One can refrain from making claims but continue to (at the very least seem to) live as if one is living by these claims. An orangutang is not leaving anything out when he seems to see the object as other than himself when he chews it to ingest it. In fact a number of ideas of the world could underly the act. It is not as if one must make claims. A claim I am making.
Ever the realist. I love it.
Yes, I completely agree with what you're saying here.
For the most part, we all live our lives, as if everything we
guess at is a truth. Pragmatically, this works fine, for the most part. It is only when we are questioned, when we are pressed to defend our assertions, that we come to see how poorly thought out they usually are.
I'm sure I could compose a list of at least one hundred things that on any given day I operate such that I know them to be certain. However, if pressed, I'm not sure how well I would do. Right now, I can think of perhaps one thing that I am prepared to assert as true. My overall point being that, the acts of asserting and claiming, in our daily lives, are nearly interchangeable (which of course, muddies the hell out of what we're trying to do herein..).
So I am now seeing three points of confusion between us. IOW led to confusion and my feeling of crazymaking. I suspect I disagree with you, but that was not driving me crazy. What was was that it seemed like you were contradicting yourself again and again.
Point of confusion:
1) epistemological solipsism - which affects how you see the priority when you say/write things.
2) that one must live as if - and thus in this case write as if - certain things are true even if one is technically agnostic.
3) what I referred to as meta-ontology
You'll have to explicate further for me.
I'm either totally misunderstanding you or, I don't see how these three positions are problematic if used together.
I hope I'm not contradicting myself, and I don't think I am, but if you see it, I'd rather address it.
1) How do you know? ( I couldn't resist)
haha.. nice
I simply meant that we don't
have to be restricted to such things. One can quite legitimately speak of an ontological category for say, pure mental abstractions, or emotions, etc.
...
2) so when you refer to me you are not referring to that entity my spouse will cuddle with later.
Oh how beautifully Wittgensteinian.
In short, yes, that's right.
Though this doesn't necessarily mean that I'm not. In the Fregeian line of thought on
Sinn and
Bedeutung.
Well, again remember the provisos about how we are each taking language. You are writing what fits you. But generally people view language as a dynamic between individuals. So if you say to me
You are asleep. This may work perfectly in your epistemology and experience. However, if I am not, 'actually' I am not. Not for you, but for me. So when I quibble with your estimation - and you tell me 'oh, but you just woke up' - I have no reason to accept your words, which may very well have worked for you and continue to.
In a sense I see your communication as solipsistic - not in some socially inept way, you do respond to my ideas. But on some level it is as if I should agree despite my being not in you.
Ah. OK. I see what you're saying now.
Yes, I can see how, given what I've written so far, my description of communication would seem to be more reportage, than interactive.
hmmm
OK, let me say this then: epistemologically, there's a vast difference between experiential reports, and active discussion.
(I've got to do some more thought on this for sure...)
yes. I think this is a core confusion. And really rather fascinating. I am not sure if I communicate in the way you do. Which suddenly seems a rather bold claim. I shall have to investigate.
Well, I've been told I'm excellent at communicat
ing, but not so good at communicat
ion. In other words, put me on the spot an I can recite; put me on stage and I'm mute.
But mootness does not mean one must assert the opposite.
Totally correct, that would be fallacious
a la false dichotomy.
However, it is both probabilistically and pragmatically improbable in the extreme (read: impossible).