Reading Group: Abela on Putnam & Kant
No actual reading group this week - were just online. So I don't have the benefit of other's thoughts and, as a result, I don't have a great deal to say.
The gist of Abela's short paper is that Kant's empirical realism should be sharply distinguished from Putnam's internal realism. Three ways of distinguishing the two are considered, only the last of which is found to be ultimately compelling.
(1) "The first concerns the greater generality of Kant's account of cognition as compared with Putnam's treatment" (50)
(2) "The second involves an alleged belief constraining/informing connection between noumenal reality and phenomenal reality in Kant's account that is rejected by Putnam" (50)
(3) Kant should be viewed as "repudiating the interface model of cognition enforced by scheme content dualism", whereas this is not the case with "Putnam's internal realism, with its fundamental commitment to the interface model of cognition" (54)
I'm going to ignore (1), say a little about (2), and then something on (3).
Abela thinks that (2) misrepresents Kant, attributing to him a distinction between scheme and content that he does not in fact hold. He also suggests that only a two-world interpretation would take this view. On the face of it I don't see why either of these two claims are compelling. As I understand it, the idea is the naive one that there is some way the world is in itself and this has some role to play in experience. For instance, it accounts for the fact that I am now experiencing grey damp weather rather than blazing sunshine (and so are those around me, as opposed to those in Arizona). It is far from clear that, in and of itself, this amounts to accepting something called 'the scheme-content distinction'. Sure, we might then give a two-world spin on this, with the attendant 'construction' of the empirical world, and perhaps that would involve something like a given being interpreted/chopped up in a certain way by the subject. And perhaps that amounts to a scheme-content distinction. But, in and of itself the naive thought does not appear to force that sort of reading, and if it is something that Putnam rejects, then we do have a way of distinguishing the two views.
On (3), it is somewhat unclear to me exactly what Abela is saying. On the face of it he rejects the interpretation of Kant as proposing a scheme-content distinction. However, as I said above, Abela tends to associate this with a two-world view and so to a mentalising of appearances. So, part of his rejection amounts to rejecting the mentalising of the empirical world. But, again, I just don't see why the scheme-content distinction requires the objects of experience to be mentalised. This is especially so, given that the scheme content appears to be understood along the lines of the naive thought above. As such, my impression is that Abela throws out the baby with the bathwater. In rejecting the idea that Kant's empirical world is in some way mental, he maintains that "it makes no sense to think of something outside of judgment as having an informative, evidential, or in any way belief constraining connection to empirical knowledge" (54). If this means that the way the world is plays no role whatsoever in determining belief, then I find it impossible to believe. But perhaps I'm reading this wrong and we should understand the claim as, something like, Davidson's view that only a belief can justify another belief. This makes sense, but is surely does travesty to the role that perceptual experience plays in our cognitive lives.
But, no doubt, I'm barking up the wrong tree here.
The gist of Abela's short paper is that Kant's empirical realism should be sharply distinguished from Putnam's internal realism. Three ways of distinguishing the two are considered, only the last of which is found to be ultimately compelling.
(1) "The first concerns the greater generality of Kant's account of cognition as compared with Putnam's treatment" (50)
(2) "The second involves an alleged belief constraining/informing connection between noumenal reality and phenomenal reality in Kant's account that is rejected by Putnam" (50)
(3) Kant should be viewed as "repudiating the interface model of cognition enforced by scheme content dualism", whereas this is not the case with "Putnam's internal realism, with its fundamental commitment to the interface model of cognition" (54)
I'm going to ignore (1), say a little about (2), and then something on (3).
Abela thinks that (2) misrepresents Kant, attributing to him a distinction between scheme and content that he does not in fact hold. He also suggests that only a two-world interpretation would take this view. On the face of it I don't see why either of these two claims are compelling. As I understand it, the idea is the naive one that there is some way the world is in itself and this has some role to play in experience. For instance, it accounts for the fact that I am now experiencing grey damp weather rather than blazing sunshine (and so are those around me, as opposed to those in Arizona). It is far from clear that, in and of itself, this amounts to accepting something called 'the scheme-content distinction'. Sure, we might then give a two-world spin on this, with the attendant 'construction' of the empirical world, and perhaps that would involve something like a given being interpreted/chopped up in a certain way by the subject. And perhaps that amounts to a scheme-content distinction. But, in and of itself the naive thought does not appear to force that sort of reading, and if it is something that Putnam rejects, then we do have a way of distinguishing the two views.
On (3), it is somewhat unclear to me exactly what Abela is saying. On the face of it he rejects the interpretation of Kant as proposing a scheme-content distinction. However, as I said above, Abela tends to associate this with a two-world view and so to a mentalising of appearances. So, part of his rejection amounts to rejecting the mentalising of the empirical world. But, again, I just don't see why the scheme-content distinction requires the objects of experience to be mentalised. This is especially so, given that the scheme content appears to be understood along the lines of the naive thought above. As such, my impression is that Abela throws out the baby with the bathwater. In rejecting the idea that Kant's empirical world is in some way mental, he maintains that "it makes no sense to think of something outside of judgment as having an informative, evidential, or in any way belief constraining connection to empirical knowledge" (54). If this means that the way the world is plays no role whatsoever in determining belief, then I find it impossible to believe. But perhaps I'm reading this wrong and we should understand the claim as, something like, Davidson's view that only a belief can justify another belief. This makes sense, but is surely does travesty to the role that perceptual experience plays in our cognitive lives.
But, no doubt, I'm barking up the wrong tree here.
Labels: Empirical Realism, Kant, Putnam
posted by Joel at 10:14 am
8 Comments:
I think that when Abela says "it makes no sense to think of something outside of judgment as having an informative, evidential, or in any way belief constraining connection to empirical knowledge" (54), he is arguing that only Kant has a credible epistemological picture which accounts for how intentional content comes about at the personal level for a cognitive subject. The thought here is McDowellian: (for various reasons I won't go into here) there is no determinate intentional content without perception actualising perceptual capacities that are operative in judgement. So the thinking subject is constrained in perception by cognitive episodes that make judgemental claims about the world. Thus Abela's point, I take it, is that Kant saw clearly the difficulties empiricist epistemological models have in explaining how the world 'get's a grip' at the personal level of our cognitive lives because of their reliance on a myth of the given indulging scheme/unarticulated content picture.
However, I agree, this has nothing much to do with the transcendental question of whether differences in intentional content are indexed to differences in the way the world is in itself. One can accept the McDowellian/Kantian story about intentionality and be a one-worlder, two-worlder, straightforward realist, or even a rejector of the intelligibility of there being a way the world is in itself. So, if the point is that Putnam is beholden to an empiricist scheme/unarticulated content epistemology, and Kant isn't, then, fine, I have no problem with that (although as Abela points out, Putnam came to distance himself from such an epistemological picture). But I don't see how this claim connects with what Abela calls the standard reading of Kant (is it standard?) - that there must be a 'transcendental affinity' between mind and world at the transcendental level. For this level is not the personal one of empirical experience at which intentional content is yielded. (Putnam certainly wouldn't have any truck with talk of 'transcendental affinity', so this seems to me the wrong point on which to argue for divorce.)
In the comment I just made, 'perceptual capacities' should read 'conceptual capacities'.
I should like to (1) concur with Matt about a certain point, (2) query something he says about that first point, and (3) mark the importance of (some of) the issues involved.
(1) I agree with Matt about what Abela means (or is most interestingly read as meaning?) by the scheme-content distinction / interface model of cognition. I call that meaning the *No Boundary view* (after McDowell’s dictum that ‘the sphere of the conceptual is unbounded’). The No Boundary view might be summarised thus: perceptual experience is always and entirely conceptual and yet constrains the formation of veridical belief.
(2) Matt takes himself to differ from Joel on how Abela means the scheme-content distinction. But Matt agrees with Joel on (at least something like) the following point. The No Boundary view lacks implication for the metaphysical question of how-the-world-is-independently of us, and for the epistemological question of how we know such a world. Here is my query. Should we not at least *suspect* such implications? I can explain why I think we should whilst simultaneously indicating why I think that the whole topic has a particular importance.
(3) The post-Kantian German idealists understood the No Boundary view as a proper appreciation, or deepening, of Kant’s Copernican turn. Or at least Hegel, or, again, at least Hegel as understood by McDowell and indeed Putnam, had that understanding. On that understanding, the No Boundary view *does* have an important implication. That Implication (as I shall call it) is, at least in part, this: realism and idealism alike are out. To specify a little: we should reject both (a) the idea that the world is absolutely independent of us (‘realism’ or, in a perhaps slightly better term, ‘metaphysical realism’) and the opposite view that (b) perception is unconstrained by the world (‘idealism’ or, in a perhaps slightly better term, ‘subjective idealism’). Both McDowell and (late) Putnam accept these points as implications (or something like implications) of the No Boundary view. Moreover, both those philosophers accept the (dual) Implication. Or so it seems to me – and I conclude as follows. The No Boundary view is important because, or insofar as, Putnam and McDowell and Hegel (or least Hegel as understood by Putnam and McDowell) think it has the Implication or at least helps one reach what I am calling the Implication. And hence it seems worthwhile to try to discover what reasons there might be for taking the Implication as an implication (of the No Boundary view) and of determining whether the Implication is true or not. Yet of course these thoughts are rather hasty.
Nick (Joll)
The 'of determining' in my last paragraph should read 'to determine'. Sorry.
Perhaps you two are right that Abela's point is just an endorsement of conceptualism about perceptual content, but note that Abela doesn't say that there is no evidential input from without the conceptual, but from outside of judgement. So the reading is somewhat forced in that way.
Furthermore, whilst McDowell's point is that only conceptually articulated content can play a justificatory role, Abela says that nothing outside of judgement has an "informative, evidential, or in any way belief constraining connection". I take this to be a heavier claim - on the face of it it is more difficult to play a justificatory role than it is to play a belief constraining one, for beliefs can be constrained in non-rational ways. So the reading is forced in another way.
Which is (partly) why I read him as I did.
Two questions for Joel. First: don’t you think that Abela, following Kant, thinks concepts and judgement intimately related, in that judging is the application of concepts? Second: and even if some formulations suggest otherwise, isn’t Abela largely just *not interested* in non-rational belief constraint? (I say ‘largely’ because Abela may have the McDowellian thought that non-conceptual content could constrain only NON-rationally.) Yet perhaps I miss something.
Next I want to correct my own last post. Howsoever one reads him, Kant himself held perceptual experience always and entirely conceptual. Hence that conceptualism (or, as I put it, that ‘No Boundary View’) cannot be what absolute idealists, old or recent, think distinctive of their position. Rather that distinction may comprise the following view, the formulation of which I take from McDowell. ‘[R]eceptivity does not make an even notionally separate contribution to the co-operation [of spontaneity (concepts) and receptivity (intuition) in experience]’ (MIND AND WORLD, p. 9). We might label that idea, unexplicated as I leave it here, ‘Strong Conceptualism’. Now Strong Conceptualism might mark the ostensible breakthrough of absolute idealism. After all, Strong Conceptualism seems related to two important features of post-Kantian German Idealism. I have in mind (i) the rejection of the notion of the thing-in-itself, and (ii) the suspicion of Kantian dualisms (dualisms that include the spontaneity/concepts – receptivity/intuition dyad, and that of phenomena - noumena). But really all of this is just a request for clarification from those better informed than I.
I'm certainly not better informed than you, so I won't comment on that last bit!
Re the two questions though: First, agreeing that judgement is the application of concepts does not show that the application of concepts is judgement. If it did, then conceptualists about perception would think that perception just is judgements. But I take it that not all will want to endorse that.
Second, one of the things that Abela takes himself to be rejecting is the idea of a 'transcendental given' which would explain coherence evident at the empirical level. This transcendental given, the second world of the two-world view, would be, I have been presuming, a non-rational constraint on belief. Why non-rational? Because being noumenal it wouldn't enter into the content of experience either as conceptual or otherwise. But then why call it 'given'? I don't know - the fact that I can't really make sense of it, may well suggest that you are right.
Re Joel's point about judgement. It's true not all conceptualists about perceptual content will endorse the view that perception just is judgement, but this is certainly McDowell's view (he takes over from Sellars the idea that perceptual episodes are 'silent judgements' or 'non-verbal claims'). I would argue that it is Kant's view also, and I think Abela would agree.
Re the 'transcendental given' - I agree - and this is what I was trying to say in my original comment - the issue of a transcendental given is irrelevant to a personal-level account of intentional content yielded in perception. Presumably Putnam's scheme/content dualism is not at the transcendental level, so I don't get why the case for divorce between internal realism and empirical realism has anything to do with the former being beholden to a transcendental given.
Finally, Nick's point about the 'implication' that the 'unbounded view' leads to absolute idealism or the rejection of metaphysical realism and subjective idealism. This is tricky. I don't think it is clear that Hegel's absolute idealism is the same as either McDowell or Putnam's own balance between idealism and realism. In The Science of Logic Hegel argues something like the following: a system of (intensionally defined) inferentially related concepts (what Hegel calls 'THE Concept') is adequate to represent the essential features of things in themselves. This is so because 'THE Concept' can represent those properties of a thing which are essential for it being the thing it is. There are two ways to read this apparent adequacy of human knowledge: (1) as arguing that for the concept 'thing in itself' to have meaning, it must be a concept that has a use within experience, so that thing in itself now just means 'thing whose essence is completely determined by THE Concept'. Or, (2) as some sort of quasi-Aristotelian theory of 'immanent universals'. On the second option, reality as it is in itself is (in some sense I don't quite understand) articulated or structured by the concepts we use to chop it up, so that there is some sort of identity between conceptual system and ontological structure. On the first, Hegel is merely arguing that the term thing in itself is meaningless as Kant used it, and thus he is arguing not for (some sort of) identity between thought and thing, but rather for the view that in terms of the only sense of thing in itself that is intelligible, we are in principle capable of thinking thoughts that limn them.
Absolute idealism understood as (1) is quite close to Putnam's view, although I think still different from McDowell's. The latter is that there is no need to see conceptually articulated perceptions as not capturing the way the world is in itself (this is the point of McDowell's distinction between thinkable contents and acts of thinking). The former consists in a refusal to assign sense to talk of reality as it is in itself yet seeks to preserve a robust objectivity 'internal' to our knowledge-yielding practices.
Both these positions seem very different from Absolute Idealism understood as (2)(much more modest for one thing).
A final point: I don't see how overcoming intuition/concept dualism commits one to any particular view at the transcendental level, for the overcoming simply yields a particular picture of how intentional content is yielded in experience. So I guess I don't see the implication of the unbounded view as Nick does.
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