(The paragraphs are labeled by numbers in square brackets [1] in this NOTE 13, in order to distinguish them from the ones of NOTE 12 which are given in pointed brackets <1>)

[1]
Gary Schouborg: Herbert Muller wrote 'Gary Schouborg comments (to TA1 R8) to my statement that <26>'... Ontology is the result of the endowment with unlimited validity of certain aspects of (or structures inside) experience, with the help of the force of belief' :

[2]
GS: In the Anglo-American, as opposed to the Continental, tradition ontology is simply what is implied by a particular conceptual system. Thus, there are various ontologies. Nothing is implied about objective existence. Although ontology and metaphysics are often used synonymously these days, in medieval scholastism, esp. Thomism, they are often distinguished as ontology : essences or possibilities : : metaphysics : existence.

[3]
[cut] Reply to above notes by HM (in Note 12<28>): I will start with the point made by Gary Schouborg (<26> above), who distinguishes Continental from Anglo-American ontology. In trying to inform myself on this point, the main reference I found was to Quine's work, who emphasized the use of language, and of theories, and then suggested that the use of such instruments commits one to certain views of the world (see Presley, and MacIntyre). 'We are, according to Quine, committed to the existence of physical objects because of the ways in which physical objects function in our language' (Presley p.55). This, it seems to me, is one of the possible methods of providing a rationale for materialism, and a rather instrumental (even upside down) one at that; it takes language or theories as the basis - which can only fail unless it is qualified by some validation method.

[4]
G Schouborg answers (Note 13): Quine's point is not that language tells us what reality is, but that using it commits us LOGICALLY to a certain view of reality. The corresponding PSYCHOLOGICAL / EPISTEMOLOGICAL commitment to reality is proportionate to the PSYCHOLOGICAL / EPISTEMOLOGICAL commitment to the language itself, which allows of degrees. Thus, the fundamentalist / naive realist totally identifies with the language in which she finds herself, and thus takes the reality assumed by that language to be "already out there now". One can take a Critical (Kantian) view of the language one is using and correspondingly adopt an AS-IF attitude toward its associated ontology.

[5]
HM (N12 <28>): If products of language or theory are the main criterion of reality, ...

[6]
GS: Thus, from my comments above, language is not the CRITERION of reality, anymore than film is the criterion of what we see on the movie screen. To say that would be a category mistake. Please note that my comments are what I take to be the most plausible interpretation of Quine. I am not that directly acquainted with his writings, so I don't offer this as an expert view of what he intended. If he didn't hold the above position, he should've. :-)

[7]
HM <28>: ... one of them is as good as any other one, including not only scientific theories or religious beliefs but also delusions. For instance, if someone (a person or a group of people) has the notion that they must die in order to board a spaceship, and then proceed to kill themselves, this would, in the view based on language or on theory, be just as valid as saying that the earth circles the sun, that the universe is expanding, or that the mind forms in tubules in the brain or in the liver (please correct me if that is a mis-representation of Quine's view).

[8]
GS: An ontology is the projection, if you will, of a language system or conceptual framework or way of thinking. We adopt one rather than another because of its usefulness. I don't see any significant difference between Quine's, Muller's, or my positions in that regard.

[9]
HM <29>: My main point is here that Quine's view is 'committed' to mind-independent reality and truth just as Plato or Kant were. However, due to the multiplicity of possible meanings of the term 'ontology', it may be a good idea to not use it (nor the term 'non-Cartesianism'), and rather come back to a more descriptive term such as 'belief in mind-independent reality and truth' - as I had done in my TA1 (this could be called BIMIRAT for short, not a very attractive term, but at least I don't distort someone else's).

[10]
GS: Everything you say rightly points to the fact that THE WAY we conceive of reality is mentally constructed. But you seem to conflate this with the quite different (and Kantian) point that we inevitably think of SOME reality as existing independently of our thinking about it. It is phenomenologically inaccurate to say we treat this reality AS IF it were mind-independent. Phenomenologically, I have not a doubt in the world, and neither does anyone else, that such a world exists -- even while aware that my particular take on that reality is conditioned on my own mental appropriation of that world. Phenomenologically, AS IF applies to hypotheses toward which I have no conviction. Thus, I may not phenomenologically be convinced whether light is wave or particle, and under some conditions I will therefore pragmatically treat it AS IF it were one or the other. But I am not right now writing you AS IF the computer screen existed independently of my mind.

[11]
[cut] HM <31> This brings me to a central concern voiced by Bill Adams, namely his question <14>: 'can there be epistemology in the complete absence of ontology ?' This is a difficulty indeed, and I think it is the reason why we get stuck in 'naive' objectivity, materialism, and the like: we are pulled into objectivity by a strong need for doubt-free certainty,

[12]
GS: Rather, we are pulled into ontology because epistemology is not sufficient to solve its own problems. History has now shown that, by itself, epistemology generates unresolvable paradoxes. Consider Muller's "People create ontology <13> and then proceed to believe in it. . . ." From purely phenomenological observation, there are only physical objects, images, thoughts -- no unstructured experience, beliefs, self, memory, etc. -- all of which are theoretical entities posited to make sense out of phenomenological observations. For example, I can refer to phenomenological observations only because I am directly and currently observing REMEMBERED observations, even if only a few seconds ago. I am therefore committed to an ontology which includes memory, and as I inquire into its nature, I move to cognitive and neuro- science to explain its mechanism. Thus, I cannot explain purely phenomenologically / epistemologically how I know my name; I just know it. I must go to cognitive and neuroscientific theories of memory to understand that. And if we ask epistemologically whether it is reasonable for me to rely on my memory, we again cannot answer exclusively phenomenologically; we must appeal to the reliability of memory as confirmed by behavioral, cognitive, and neuroscientific studies. The clean separation between a priori epistemology and a posteriori psychology, useful for a time in philosophical development, is now obsolete.

[13]
HM: [cut] I do agree however that all possible philosophical points of view (and indeed all possible points of view) are interrelated <19>, for the simple reason that they all are created from within the same ongoing unstructured experience - the origin is thus the same.

[14]
GS: Appeal to origin is ontological, not phenomenological / epistemological. And a necessary appeal that you rightly make.

[15]
HM: [cut]<34> If we define reality and truth as 'structures we believe in', the situation becomes more permeable.

[16]
GS: This is a variation on the category mistake I have tried to identify in my previous comments. Phenomenologically, my belief that this computer screen is mind-independent is not a belief in a structure I believe in. My Critical (Kantian) belief in the structure that constructs my perception of this screen as mind-independent is a belief in a certain ontology of mind, reality, and their relationship. I require that ontology as partial answer to epistemological questions about what I know and how I know it.

[17]
HM: [cut] Jaspers and others have not provided a (generally acceptable) description of the birth of science inside mind-nature experience, which would have been based on this insight. This still needs to be done, so far as I can see (cf. also my TA1 [31-40,54], and N9).

[18]
Yes, and my point is that this project cannot be a purely phenomenological one.

Gary Schouborg
Performance Consulting
Walnut Creek, CA
garyscho@worldnet.att.net

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DISCUSSION OF THIS NOTE by HFJ Muller

[19]
In responding to the points raised by Schouborg, I will discuss them primarily in his and/or my terms, rather than in reference to Quine, Kant, or other philosophers, which is better left to specialists who are more familiar with the respective philosophical points of view. The only exception from this will be the Jaspersian starting principle of interpreting experience out of the open rather than from a pre-determined conceptual framework.

[20]
The starting point for my discussion is the question of DOUBT.

Schouborg seems to suggest that objects are primary experiences which are 'given' in a doubt-free manner [12], and also [10] that mind-independent reality is a primary doubt-free experience, that it is 'phenomenologically wrong' to say that we treat the world AS IF it existed mind-independently. The support for this statement is that he does not doubt its mind-independence (he also claims that no one else doubts it, but provides no support for this opnion). My answer here is as follows: doubt-free belief is (within limits) anyone's privilege, but this does not mean that it is 'inevitable' (Kant's opinion [10] not withstanding), nor is it a guarantee that it will always work.

[21]
Specifically, doubt-free belief in mind-independent reality (for instance empirical objectivity with 'given' - i.e., extra-mentally pre-established - entities such as objects) is, in my opinion, the reason why discussion about 'consciousness' (and perhaps also the one about some basic notions of Quantum Mechanics) is presently caught in a dead-end situation. The mind-brain relation is the starting and focal point of my present undertaking, and so far no one has convinced me that an approach other than zero-reference, which excludes the possibility of mind-independent reality, is viable.

[22]
In my opinion, people (me too) use mind-independent reality all the time, but that does not mean that this is more than a useful (AS-IF) construct. Consider for instance the theoretical basis of Dialectical Materialism (as I discussed in TA1 R2[7-15]), which Engels said 'must be true because it works', and then made a further unjustified extrapolation by saying that it must be used by all because it is ('scientifically' in Marx's terms) true. This was faithfully followed by a lot of people, with some transitory benefits but in general stultifying results. My point here is that the same applies to all doctrines with a positive anchor (TA1[47-48]) -- with the exception that (in contrast to scientistic and similar positivistic teachings) religions tend to have a positive anchor which is mystical or paradoxical enough to allow for some degree of openness and spontaneity.

[23]
To take a specific example provided by Schouborg: the computer screen he writes [10] is mind-independently in front of him, and it would be 'phenomenologically wrong' to say that it is AS IF it were mind-independently real. This, I reply, is a statement of doubt-free belief, which in this case works quite well, and it would be indeed a waste of energy and time to think about this in AS-IF terms, and no one does that (neither do I). However, to think that this doubt-free belief is more than a useful shortcut technique is a mistake, which leads to a belief in stable metaphysics if doubt-in-principle (that means awareness of the AS-IF aspect) is abandoned. In addition, the attributes of object-perception are built up gradually, from no perception (see for instance Piaget's work), and there is no need to assume Platonic realities, aside from practical convenience in everyday thinking. (This agrees with Schouborg's position as formulated in [8]).

[24]
The underlying difficulty here is, in my opinion, an assumption of a primary subject/object split, which results in nature being excluded from personal experience. Without this assumption, the question of mind-independent reality could never come up in the first place, because mind and nature are a continuum in experience, and the distinction between them is practical rather than fundamental.

[25]
The distinctions beween phenomenology, psychology, epistemology, and ontology [12-18 above] are also secondary, and mainly practical in nature. (For instance [14], 'Appeal to origin is ontological, not phenomenological / epistemological.') My impression is that 'ontology' is mostly used to refer to aspects of mind-independent reality and truth, and thus implies a point of view which I think is not tenable. However, the term may used in somewhat different ways by others. The word 'psychology' has too many different meanings to be useful for the present discussion. 'Epistemology' is a tricky term, which means something like 'taking a stand'; this meaning does not per se imply anything (neither for nor against) about an assumption of mind-independent nature, and in principle it is compatible with the notion that 'reality' is our construction, and that 'truth' refers to our belief in that construction. But here again, my impression is that in most discussions 'theory of the knowledge about mind-independent truth and reality' is meant when the term 'epistemology' is used.

[26]
And finally, 'phenomenology', it seems to me, was used in order to get around, and to before, the dilemma of permanent metaphysics (and in this particular aim it was similar to the aims of the Vienna Circle of positivism); if it is understood in that sense, it may be utilized to examine the origin of mental structures. But in that case a statement [12] that 'From purely phenomenological observation, there are only physical objects, images, thoughts -- no unstructured experience, beliefs, self, memory, etc.' is self contradictory (i.e., not possible), because (for instance) physical objects are much later than original experience: they are built up over time (see [22] above). To say that the objects are there and we only have to built up their image in us transcends experience, and is therefore a metaphysical statement. And unless this is somehow qualified, it is a persistent (not a 'working') metaphysical statement.

[27]
The priority of language [8 above] has often been invoked in understanding experience, and this for an obvious reason: we think in it. It is the reason for the study of 'logic' [4] ('legein' is to speak, and then to reason), and St. John's gospel starts with 'in the beginning was the word'. However, language is a tool set which serves to structure experience, in itself it is not original experience. Therefore, language (like concepts, objects, etc.) does not commit us to anything, and cannot serve as basis of reality, without belief which does commit us.

[28]
Phenomenology does not 'explain' [12] anything at all, since explanations are undertakings to reduce experiences to other experiences or their derivatives - such as sunset and sunrise being caused by an ad-hoc Sky Goddess (someone like a queen with additional powers) swallowing the sun every evening and giving birth to it in the morning, or by the earth's rotating like a spinning soccer ball; or stones falling because of some 'force', similar to muscle power. Phenomenology comes before explanations, it excludes them by definition. Likewise, the starting basis of 'memory' [12] is the flow of experience, the explanation in terms of a psychological 'faculty', or of 'limbic system activity', is a (secondary) reduction to other experience.

[29]
Unstructured experience, or at least something close to it, is difficult but apparently not impossible to obtain, as those practicing meditation tell us, and it can serve as a zero-reference point (it could do that even if it could not be experienced). The derivation of science [18 above] from original experience (whether one wants to call the procedure 'phenomenology' or something else) will in my opinion have to involve: the description of the formation or creation of mental structures of a certain type, from no structure, and of their adoption, either tentatively as working structures, or more 'fundamentally' by doubt-free belief.

[30]
I would suggest that discussions of the origin of science (like those on the mind-brain relation) should always include a statement, by each of the participants, whether or not they believe in mind-independent reality and truth, and what are other basic position they have.

Herbert FJ Muller
<mdmu@musica.mcgill.ca>