Comments on: Can reports of how things seem to us be false? http://broodsphilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/08/08/can-reports-of-how-things-seem-to-us-to-be-false/ ....philosophical and other notes.... Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:52:51 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Tanasije Gjorgoski http://broodsphilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/08/08/can-reports-of-how-things-seem-to-us-to-be-false/#comment-2062 Tanasije Gjorgoski Tue, 08 Aug 2006 16:45:03 +0000 http://broodsphilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/08/08/can-reports-of-how-things-seem-to-us-to-be-false/#comment-2062 Thanks for the comment Eric, First, let me say that I just realized that I might have not make it clear in the post that I still take the stance that the intuition is right, that the reports of this kind are infallible... The post is an attempt to explicate (to analyze?) that intuition in more details, and provide alternative account (alternative to sense-data approach) of what that infallibility means. I had in my notepad some paragraph that said this, but seems it didn't survive the copy/past process. The core of the argument could be put like this... there is no given facts which we passively receive, so infallibility is not based in those, but it is based on the fact that when I have performed willful action, I know I have performed willful action. So, the reports are seen as reports of performed willful action, and hence infallible. Do you think that this argument can defend the infallibility of those reports? As for "seems", it seems to me that "seems to X" vs. "is X" can be used also to differentiate between things being X themselves (and possibly judged so by some infallible act), and things being X for us. It is this "things being X for us" which requires the whole cognitive act whose report is infallible (i.e. I can't be wrong in my report that I willfully did some act), and because of that's why those reports are infallible. But maybe this is theoretical account based on one of the two functions you describe. Thanks for the comment Eric,

First, let me say that I just realized that I might have not make it clear in the post that I still take the stance that the intuition is right, that the reports of this kind are infallible… The post is an attempt to explicate (to analyze?) that intuition in more details, and provide alternative account (alternative to sense-data approach) of what that infallibility means.
I had in my notepad some paragraph that said this, but seems it didn’t survive the copy/past process.

The core of the argument could be put like this… there is no given facts which we passively receive, so infallibility is not based in those, but it is based on the fact that when I have performed willful action, I know I have performed willful action.
So, the reports are seen as reports of performed willful action, and hence infallible.
Do you think that this argument can defend the infallibility of those reports?

As for “seems”, it seems to me that “seems to X” vs. “is X” can be used also to differentiate between things being X themselves (and possibly judged so by some infallible act), and things being X for us. It is this “things being X for us” which requires the whole cognitive act whose report is infallible (i.e. I can’t be wrong in my report that I willfully did some act), and because of that’s why those reports are infallible. But maybe this is theoretical account based on one of the two functions you describe.

]]> By: Eric Schwitzgebel http://broodsphilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/08/08/can-reports-of-how-things-seem-to-us-to-be-false/#comment-2060 Eric Schwitzgebel Tue, 08 Aug 2006 15:27:37 +0000 http://broodsphilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/08/08/can-reports-of-how-things-seem-to-us-to-be-false/#comment-2060 A very interesting discussion of the issue! I think I basically agree with your analysis. The act is complicated in roughly the ways you suggest, with possibilities for error that we recognize. Regarding "seems" or "looks", they seem [!] to be being used in such cases as a kind of hedge, a recognition that one could have gone wrong. I'm not sure whether you'd take the thought in this direction, but I'd suggest (e.g. with Chisholm and Jackson) that terms like "seems" and "appears" (and "looks") are ambiguous between an epistemic hedging function, to express that a judgment is tentative (cf. "It seems the Democrats are headed for defeat"), and a phenomenal function. The air of infallibility comes from the hedged epistemic sense; but it doesn't follow that unhedged judgments about phenomenology -- uses of the terms in the purely phenomenal sense -- are infallible. The philosophical use of "seemings" or "appearances" sometimes illegitimately plays on this ambiguity. A very interesting discussion of the issue! I think I basically agree with your analysis. The act is complicated in roughly the ways you suggest, with possibilities for error that we recognize.

Regarding “seems” or “looks”, they seem [!] to be being used in such cases as a kind of hedge, a recognition that one could have gone wrong. I’m not sure whether you’d take the thought in this direction, but I’d suggest (e.g. with Chisholm and Jackson) that terms like “seems” and “appears” (and “looks”) are ambiguous between an epistemic hedging function, to express that a judgment is tentative (cf. “It seems the Democrats are headed for defeat”), and a phenomenal function. The air of infallibility comes from the hedged epistemic sense; but it doesn’t follow that unhedged judgments about phenomenology — uses of the terms in the purely phenomenal sense — are infallible. The philosophical use of “seemings” or “appearances” sometimes illegitimately plays on this ambiguity.

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