This is the third and last part of my response to Luc's long, interesting posting. A principle aim of mine has been to make us all wary of abstract, generic labels, because, too often, a) such labels involve us in reifying; b) they lead us into disputes that seem fundamental but are merely label-deep; c) if the label is a familiar term, we are too likely to assume the term occasions the same notion in different readers; and d) the repeated confident use of the label lulls us into believing our notion behind it is sound even though we've never closely examined it. (For example, I mentioned I have a draft of a posting in which I make what I admit is the seemingly preposterous suggestion that no one EVER has had a serviceably clear notion of "relations".)
To go back to the "beginning": In an earlier post, Luc put this question: "Where is the aesthetic experience if sensing is non-epistemic?" Brady asked Luc to explain it. Brady was shrewd enough not to pose his question as "What IS epistemic?" In effect, Brady was asking what characteristics an experience must have to prompt Luc to call it 'epistemic'. (True to form, I resist "is" in discussions like this. I maintain it's not a question of what an aesthetic experience "IS", or whether an experience IS "epistemic". This form, "What is X?" is one of the ways our language leads us to reify objects before any reason is given to believe such objects "exist".) In evident response to Brady's request, Luc wrote: "In order to understand what an aesthetic experience might be, I am trying to understand where it is, and when does it occur. "It as been said that aesthetic involves the senses (sensorial receptors); fine. But if you believe, as I do, that sensing is non-epistemic, that sensing is not a conscious mental state, that there is no qualitative resemblance, just structural isomorphism, then you have to ask yourself the question I put forward." [I.e. "Where is the aesthetic experience if sensing is non-epistemic?"] When I looked at Luc's ostensible answer to Brady's request that Luc explain "epistemic". I noted that Luc seemed perhaps to be saying: "I call sensing non-epistemic because, 1) sensing is not a conscious mental state, and 2) in sensing there is no qualitative resemblance, just structural isomorphism." (I assume he was not saying, "and 3) I call sensing non-epistemic because it is non-epistemic." I tried to deal with 1) and 2) two posts ago by citing seeming difficulties -- or mere disagreement about terminology -- in 1) and 2). I did that in an attempt to obviate entirely the use of 'epistemic'. General words intended to convey complex notion are often literally a shield between the speaker's meaning and the reader's mind. We read them and have next to no sure idea what to think. I've found that engaging the non-philosophers on this forum is good for academics and nerdy people like me who come armored (and blinkered) with terms for general abstractions. Such terms don't work here, and we're forced to "explain" them by breaking them down, if we can, into shared OBSERVATIONS that everyone is more likely to grasp serviceably. The assumed actions of words by which they allegedly "signify", "denote", "pick out" their "meanings" -- indeed, not just "meanings" but ANY object or notion -- are chimerical. The "words" do nothing, they are inert ink on paper, but a contemplating mind will process them, largely by summoning up associations with previous encounters with the word. However, the less "concrete" the word, more "abstract" the previous notions, then the blurrier and the more ambiguously multipicitous will the new arising notions occasioned by the word be. It's a mistake for philosophically-schooled guys to depend on them, unexplained, for serviceable communication. What's in MY mind when I say "aesthetic experience" is not likely to be what's in YOUR mind -- and neither one of us is "wrong", because (without pre-use stipulated and accepted conditions) there is no mind-independent standard for determining the alleged "rightness" or "wrongness" of any word-use or notions behind a word. "Community convention" is solely a factor affecting the likelihood of a term's serviceably conveying what's on the speaker's mind. It can never "prove" that one's notion behind a word -- like 'game' or 'art' -- is "right". This is even true of a line like, "The cat is on the mat," where alleged "factuality" would seem to -- but does not -- determine "rightness" or wrongness". However, what can be persuasively conveyed, I think, is why certain word-usages or notions are fatally fuzzy, or inconsistent, or contrary to what we can believe if we examine them very, very closely. I supply below an abbreviated list of terms, some of which look deceptively "simple". But each of them has, to use a Catholic term, been "the occasion for sins" of our minds under a), b), c), and d) above. I've tried hard on the forum to expose the malignant confusion so often traceable to language-use, and to charging forward with unexamined notions too profoundly muddled to allow fruitful outcomes of discussions, and to unjustified "ontological commitments" (assumptions about "what there is" both inside our min ds and outside them). I don't say this from a great height: I've many times caught myself at blunders occasioned by these words in the last few years. -- Cheerskep WORDS AND TERMS BEHIND WHICH THERE CONSISTENTLY LURK FATALLY FUZZY NOTIONS: b Account forb b account ofb b clear ideab , b perfectly clearb b function asb b make sense ofb b what is it to b&b&b About, aboutness Aesthetic Aesthetic experience Art Artwork Because Being (as an action) Belief Belong Category Cause Clarity Class Clear Cognition Communicate Content Denote Deserve Designate Discrete Disposition Epistemic Error Experience Explain, Explanation Express, expression Fact Fairness Give Have Idea Image Important Indefinite Indeterminate Intending Intent Interpretation Is Its Judgment Life Mean, meaning, b the meaning ofb Metaphor Notion Ontic Of-ness Original Own Perceive Possess Property Purpose Quality Read Refer to, referring, referent Reify
