Firstly, thanks for engaging with the circularity argument as there, unfortunately, hasn’t been much engagement with it on the thread.
You’re asking questions of the form “which concepts are more fundamentally real”… I’d reframe “circular dependency of counterfactuals” as “counterfactuals are fundamental”
I guess I don’t see a reason to reframe it like this. Your object to circularity is:
less fundamental concepts can’t lead to more fundamental ones
But that only makes sense if you’ve already reframed it. If I simply talk about circularity and avoid defining any concept in the circle as more or less fundamental, then that argument doesn’t get off the ground. So I guess it seems stronger to leave the framing as is since that dodges the argument you just provided.
Just by asking the question (Q) you’re assuming the existence and fundamental-ness of concepts including but not limited to “counterfactuals”
I agree that asking the question involves assuming the existence of a lot more concepts, but why would this affect the claimed circularity of counterfactuals?
Counterfactuals don’t exist because X, counterfactuals exist, period
Perhaps they do, but I guess I’m challenging this by suggesting that counterfactuals only make sense from within the counterfactual perspective. Or reframing this, counterfactuals only make sense from a cognitive frame.
Here I’m guessing your usage of “because” also assumes the existence of free will / choice, and what we can do using that free will
I don’t see this as connecting to the free will debate. “Because” assumes that humans have such a thing as a will, but there’s no requirement for it to be free.
I’d say you can’t use free will to stop constructing counterfactuals. Like maybe you can stop thinking altogether, but if you switch on the part of your brain that does thinking, that part is only capable of thinking in a way that assumes counterfactuals exist.
I agree with this, although I can see why my position is confusing. I guess I believe both that:
a) Humans automatically make use of some intuitive notion or notions of counterfactuals b) People interested in decision theory intentionally try to construct a more principled and consistent notion of counterfactuals
I guess it was the later question I was referring to when I was asking why humans construct counterfactuals.
If you believe you can yourself reason (about anything) without adopting the intuitive notion of counterfactuals do tell (I don’t think you can)
Well, this is why I proposed that counterfactuals only make sense from within the counterfactual view—by which I meant that when we try to explain what counterfactuals are we inevitably find ourselves making use of the notion of counterfactuals—but perhaps you think my framing/interpretation could be improved.
I think one thing that this discussion has highlighted is that I should be highlighting and paying more attention to the distinction between our primitive, intuitive notions of counterfactuals and the more formal notions that we construct.
I guess another thing I find myself wondering about upon reading this approach is how the notion of fundamentality fits into a circular epistemology. I think they are compatible—one way this could occur is if some notions are outside of the loop, but are contingent on concepts that do form such a loop. Unfortunately, this is much harder to explain just via text—ie. without a diagram.
I’m not 100% sure on the definition of coherentism, but I reject attempts to define truth in terms of coherence whilst also thinking that our epistemological process should be primarily about seeking coherence (I want to leave myself an out here to acknowledge that sometimes forcing coherence can take us further away from the truth).
I guess when we’re searching for coherence we need to make decision about which nodes we let update other nodes, so this seems to provide room for some nodes to be considered more foundational than other nodes.
Firstly, thanks for engaging with the circularity argument as there, unfortunately, hasn’t been much engagement with it on the thread.
I guess I don’t see a reason to reframe it like this. Your object to circularity is:
But that only makes sense if you’ve already reframed it. If I simply talk about circularity and avoid defining any concept in the circle as more or less fundamental, then that argument doesn’t get off the ground. So I guess it seems stronger to leave the framing as is since that dodges the argument you just provided.
I agree that asking the question involves assuming the existence of a lot more concepts, but why would this affect the claimed circularity of counterfactuals?
Perhaps they do, but I guess I’m challenging this by suggesting that counterfactuals only make sense from within the counterfactual perspective. Or reframing this, counterfactuals only make sense from a cognitive frame.
I don’t see this as connecting to the free will debate. “Because” assumes that humans have such a thing as a will, but there’s no requirement for it to be free.
I agree with this, although I can see why my position is confusing. I guess I believe both that:
a) Humans automatically make use of some intuitive notion or notions of counterfactuals
b) People interested in decision theory intentionally try to construct a more principled and consistent notion of counterfactuals
I guess it was the later question I was referring to when I was asking why humans construct counterfactuals.
I guess I’d roughly describe it as something that forms models of the world.
Well, this is why I proposed that counterfactuals only make sense from within the counterfactual view—by which I meant that when we try to explain what counterfactuals are we inevitably find ourselves making use of the notion of counterfactuals—but perhaps you think my framing/interpretation could be improved.
I think one thing that this discussion has highlighted is that I should be highlighting and paying more attention to the distinction between our primitive, intuitive notions of counterfactuals and the more formal notions that we construct.
I guess another thing I find myself wondering about upon reading this approach is how the notion of fundamentality fits into a circular epistemology. I think they are compatible—one way this could occur is if some notions are outside of the loop, but are contingent on concepts that do form such a loop. Unfortunately, this is much harder to explain just via text—ie. without a diagram.
I’m not 100% sure on the definition of coherentism, but I reject attempts to define truth in terms of coherence whilst also thinking that our epistemological process should be primarily about seeking coherence (I want to leave myself an out here to acknowledge that sometimes forcing coherence can take us further away from the truth).
I guess when we’re searching for coherence we need to make decision about which nodes we let update other nodes, so this seems to provide room for some nodes to be considered more foundational than other nodes.
I think of truth in terms of correspondence. Of course, we don’t actually have access to the territory.
Phenomenal experience with external reality.
Phenomenal experience is technically a subset of reality.