tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post259714157590743959..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: Illusions and Practical CompetenceRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-49724251732205044972009-03-05T20:38:00.000-05:002009-03-05T20:38:00.000-05:00Thanks, Eric! Your caution against analysing phen...Thanks, Eric! Your caution against analysing phenomenology in terms of behavioural dispositions is well-taken. I think the link is merely contingent -- so while my proposal is (hopefully) extensionally adequate for actual human beings, there's definitely more that needs to be said. In particular, I assume that there's some further story to be given about how properly internalized knowledge "penetrates the experience and changes its content" (to borrow djc's phrase).<BR/><BR/>(Perhaps there's also more to internalized knowledge than just the behavioural dispositions. Appropriate automatic behaviour may be a <I>symptom</I> of such knowledge, rather than constitutive of it. I'm very <A HREF="http://www.philosophyetc.net/2008/02/do-beliefs-exist.html" REL="nofollow">unsure</A> about all this, though.)Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-71750502756434134832009-03-05T20:12:00.000-05:002009-03-05T20:12:00.000-05:00Interesting suggestion, Richard. As your reply to ...Interesting suggestion, Richard. As your reply to Pete suggests, there's at least a little trouble (or complication) brewing.<BR/><BR/>One might think that facts about phenomenology (e.g., the phenomenology of illusion) and facts about dispositions to behave are rather different, so that an analysis of the former in terms of the latter will never quite do. But of course that's a controversial philosophical position!Eric Schwitzgebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11541402189204286449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-50577566717696346192009-03-05T17:48:00.000-05:002009-03-05T17:48:00.000-05:00Hi Pete, I wouldn't want to go so far as to deny t...Hi Pete, I wouldn't want to go so far as to deny that we can make (subconscious) inferences automatically. As my linked older post points out, we don't want to say that a Fake Barn facade is an <I>illusion</I>. Our perception itself is accurate enough in such a case; it's instead the automatic inference we draw that's faulty.<BR/><BR/>So perhaps the automaticity rule only applies with limited scope, e.g. to basic perceptual features -- shape, size, etc. -- but not to richer concepts like 'being a barn'. (Is there a principled line to draw here?)Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-16464548759002957752009-03-05T17:34:00.000-05:002009-03-05T17:34:00.000-05:00Hi Richard,An interesting way to handle these kind...Hi Richard,<BR/><BR/>An interesting way to handle these kinds of cases, and this sounds very much like what you are saying, is a kind of Sellars/Churchland line that, like your suggestion, emphasizes automaticity. If someone is trained to automatically (that is, without intervening inference) apply the concept of straightness to the oar half out the water, then they count as perceiving the oar as being straight (as opposed to inferring that the oar is straight from a crooked sense datum, or whatever).Pete Mandikhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10952230864825600992noreply@blogger.com