"When" do we exist (or not)?

You are the internal story you tell about how you fit into the world and society. If you don't have that story, there is no You.

Reply to Kaiser Basileus
Quoting Kaiser Basileus

If you don't have that story, there is no You.

I agree; only are we just "telling a story"? (to ourselves, or from ourselves? I'm not sure why "internal") I would suggest our fitting in or pushing back obligates us to "tell a story", in the sense of being answerable for what we claim to be ours.

Even when you tell yourself your internal story, you cannot deduce that you exist, because, whenever you make use of the idea of existence, you are making use of the mental structures of your brain. You can never take control of these structures, because you cannot think of them without using them again. If you think that this is evidence that your mind and your mental structures exist, it becomes automatically evidence that you are using them and, consequently, you have no control on what you are talking about. So, at the end, talking about existence, even our own existence while we are thinking about it, is completely meaningless: as soon as you think it has a meaning, you are automatically saying that you are a machine that is manoeuvred by that meaning, so that you cannot say anything meaningful about what you are talking about.

It has always seemed to me that when talking about the self, it is important to get clear about the difference between the subject, or that which is experiencing, and the content of experience. A story one tells oneself about oneself, or any conception or representation of oneself one might have, is not the subject, but rather content. It is a structure of thought, not the one that experiences having a thought.

What Descartes was saying, in my understanding, was that whatever I am thinking can be false, but I myself cannot be nonexistent and yet believe that I am. Whatever story I tell myself or that appears in my mind can be erroneous. Its claims might not correspond to reality. But I myself, the thinker itself, that which experiences having such possibly erroneous thoughts, cannot be an illusion. Everything I see might be a hallucination, including my own reflection in the mirror, but I myself, the subject, cannot be an illusion. Even if I am deceived, I am having an experience, and so I am. I might be wrong about my form, but I as long as there is experience, however false, there is an experiencer. It is inconceivable that a nonexistent entity might be fooled in any way whatsoever, and that includes being misled to believe that it exists.

A stage magician can lead an audience to believe all sorts of false things. But one thing the magician cannot do is convince a nonexistent audience that it is there watching the show.

So there are two things that people seem to be talking about when talking about the self. Communication often fails because people think they are talking about the same thing when they are not. One is the subject of experience. The other is some kind of structure of self-representation, or a form of experience. One is awareness, the other is content. One is seer, one is scene/seen. It is important to make clear what we are bringing into question then when we question the self. Is it the subject itself, or the self-idea?

Quoting petrichor

it is important to get clear about the difference between the subject, or that which is experiencing, and the content of experience.

I think we have to add a "3rd self," namely the unconscious self. As the distinction between subject-experience and content-experience makes clear, there is nothing contradictory about a self that is not (at the moment) available to conscious awareness. Paul Ricoeur pointed out (somewhere; I can't find the reference at the moment) that "knowing that I exist" doesn't tell me what I am. The cogito is uninformative about depth psychology.

Reply to Antony Nickles
Plus, if you're a determinist, you don't stand apart from the rest of the universe. Whatever impels the universe in general impels you. You sort of disappear into a monolith.

I think the domain where the idea of you, as a thinking, feeling actor on the world stage is the most potent is the moral realm. When you're victimized or when you hurt others, that's when you materialize in four dimensions to feel the pain, regret, or for some, the joy and dopamine of being hurtful.

Quoting petrichor

One is awareness, the other is content. One is seer, one is scene/seen. It is important to make clear what we are bringing into question then when we question the self. Is it the subject itself, or the self-idea?

Is there awareness without content, or is the container produced virtually, or imagined, as the limit of the contents? "The subject itself" has plenty of emphatic repetition but if it is not part of the content of awareness, who can say anything at all about it as to existence or anything else?

Here is a good model of awareness as i find it: there is a blank space of unawareness at the centre, and the frame of the picture of which one is aware expands from the centre to encompass the observer and eventually the whole universe. Everything is the contents of awareness, even blank unawareness, and the observer is also part of what is observed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Print_Gallery_%28M._C._Escher%29

Quoting petrichor

Even if I am deceived, I am having an experience, and so I am. I might be wrong about my form, but I as long as there is experience, however false, there is an experiencer. It is inconceivable that a nonexistent entity might be fooled in any way whatsoever, and that includes being misled to believe that it exists.

But this is “exist” simply in the literal sense of, just: here; as it were: not not here; or just: alive, rather than dead. But then why is Descartes skipping over this human self-consciousness to “thought”? And why does he qualify it with “whenever” (as if sometimes he is not, and thus does not)? He goes on to say that “thought” is when he understands the conditions of a thing clearly and distinctly, not that it is just anything I say to myself. So this sense of "existing" tells us nothing other than I am a human that is alive, which is an obvious empirical fact.

What these philosophers are getting at is that “existence” is, in a sense, a mythical term, to capture that life can be meaningful or not, to “me”, that it might matter for me to make that known to others. Sometimes you don’t have an experience, in the sense that “you” do not have an experience when you, say, go to the store and nothing notable happens. “What have you been doing?” “I went to the store.” “How was your experience?” “Fine.” In your terms perhaps, if there is not “content”, there is no point to differentiate a “subject”.

Reply to Antony Nickles

It's a dense and informative OP, as expected from you. I am however a little perplexed by what the main point is, are you suggesting that the self exists only when we make propositions to others or that if we are alone, and we say we exist, we are not saying anything informative?

It's a very hard topic, hence the lack of progress for thousands of years. And there are many ways to confront the topic, one attempted solution is Descartes' and his argument that he cannot doubt that "he" is thinking, whatever "he" is.

We could also see the matter in the way you quoted Wittgenstein, which suggests that it is in the process of thinking and making attributions to others that we come to life.

We could also take Hume's approach, which allegedly echoes Buddhism, when he famously said:

"For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception."

Now, as has been commented on by several figures, he appears to deny or minimize something, he cannot help use: namely the "I". What is this referring to?

It could be that this is one of those problems in which our folk-intuition cannot do without, but which we cannot uncover through the most strenuous of efforts. Something can be an actual phenomenon, which we cannot delve into, nor explain, as I think is also the case of free will.

But I could be misreading you.

Quoting Manuel

It could be that this is one of those problems in which our folk-intuition cannot do without, but which we cannot uncover through the most strenuous of efforts. Something can be an actual phenomenon, which we cannot delve into, nor explain, as I think is also the case of free will.

Or infinity. We can't fathom it, but it's always there lurking in the contours of thought. When I think of the self I seem to fall into thinking of it as the primal dividing line: between me and not-me. All other division seem to follow, me and the perceived, the real and the not-real, the good and the bad, something and nothing, etc.

Quoting J

…there is nothing contradictory about a self that is not (at the moment) available to conscious awareness. Paul Ricoeur pointed out (somewhere; I can't find the reference at the moment) that "knowing that I exist" doesn't tell me what I am. The cogito is uninformative about depth psychology.

[quote="Ricoeur, Crisis of the "Cogito""]The extent, then, that [the "cogito"] is just as metaphysical and hyperbolical as [Descartes' radical] doubt, this "I" possesses immediately the value of an example, but in a sense of "anyone" which is without any common measure with its grammatical sense: anyone who, after Descartes, retraces the trajectory of doubt, says, as he did, "I". But, in so doing, this "I" becomes a non-person, that is to say, unidentifiable, undesignatable...[/quote]

Though this may not be the quote you are referring to above, I take it you would agree that "what I am" is done differently than that "I" am constant and always special. From my studies of Ricoeur, I took away that time was an important element to him. Specifically, that everything happens as "an event", which allowed him to see that something that I say is: to someone, at a place, under certain circumstances, knowing things, not knowing others, maybe blind to my (unconscious) reasons, knowing full well the consequences, etc. I can't but compare this to Descartes' "assertion" and Wittgenstein's "expression" of: "me". That I both stand for what I am here, now, but also that the judgment for which is: on me.

Quoting J

The cogito is uninformative about depth psychology.

As an aside, I wouldn't differentiate between a conscious and unconscious self; humans just have an "unconscious". But there is also more than psychology (e.g., repression of trauma and the resulting anxiety) to our criteria of a "self" (we are not defined or measured by our unconscious, however compelled we are to reenactment). Philosophy investigates what in our (collective) lives is unexamined, how life can be meaningful, our human condition and the resultant desires, how our practices involve our interests and our participation, and what matters to my being me.

Quoting frank

I think the domain where the idea of you--as a thinking, feeling actor on the world stage--is the most potent is the moral realm.

I agree, and would add that this understanding of the self as "asserted" (as it were along or against the backdrop of our practices and culture) is what creates the possibility of the moral realm. That, past trying to set out what we "ought" to do and beyond deciding on a goal, the sense of a place where we are lost at the edge of our culture or that our society as it stands has lost our interests, is the limit of knowledge, where we must, as you say, "materialize" our future (self, culture).

Quoting frank

Or infinity. We can't fathom it, but it's always there lurking in the contours of thought. When I think of the self I seem to fall into thinking of it as the primal dividing line: between me and not-me. All other division seem to follow, me and the perceived, the real and the not-real, the good and the bad, something and nothing, etc.

Yes, there are these kinds of intuitions, such as this is not me, or that is X not Y. Infinity too, is something we extrapolate to, without really understanding it much.

Curiously, something as murky as the self, is crucial for things like criminal law, which depend on such notions. Also, our moral intuitions come into play, in terms of, if John hit Bob, if John is provably sleepwalking, we can't blame him for such an act. But if he merely angry, then we do penalize him, etc.

Quoting Antony Nickles

I agree, and would add that this understanding of the self as "asserted" (as it were along or against the backdrop of our practices and culture) is what creates the possibility of the moral realm.

Assertion is a voluntary action, so it kind of requires a self of some kind, doesn't it? If you mean the self is drawn out of events post hoc, I think I agree? Likewise, morality is always a post hoc construction (I think) where we judge an event according to some standard or rule. That event was screwed up, so it's bad, and anything in the future that's like that would also be bad. But we can't really judge events in the future because we don't have access to them. We only have access to hypotheticals and past events.

So the self goes forward in time, propelled by a drive to live, even if it's a little organism with hardly a nervous system at all, if it moves by itself, we say it has volition, one of the cornerstones of selfhood.

Quoting Antony Nickles

That, past trying to set out what we "ought" to do and beyond deciding on a goal, the sense of a place where we are lost at the edge of our culture or that our society as it stands has lost our interests, is the limit of knowledge, where we must, as you say, "materialize" our future (self, culture).

Exactly.

Quoting Manuel

Curiously, something as murky as the self, is crucial for things like criminal law, which depend on such notions. Also, our moral intuitions come into play, in terms of, if John hit Bob, if John is provably sleepwalking, we can't blame him for such an act. But if he merely angry, then we do penalize him, etc.

So there's a conundrum. If John was sleepwalking, he did it, but he's not responsible. But what if we're always sleepwalking in a manner of speaking? Always playing out the same habits and grinding the same axes, or maybe only doing what we think we're supposed to do. That's a kind of loss of selfhood.

Quoting Manuel

...are you suggesting that the self exists only when we make propositions to others...?

Well it's not a matter of the proposition being "true" in a true/false sense, or that there is a function of a proposition like this to others that would be different from one I make to myself. I am saying your being you (individually) works through a process of putting yourself in line or against our culture (the social contract as it were), and that this happens as an event (not all the time), either moral, political, relational, etc. That you are standing behind what you say and do in a way that defines you, makes you subject to judgment, responsible to be intelligible; that you are claiming something as yours--Descartes' "must" here is because you are in a sense making that promise to yourself (and others), that you will make it true.

Quoting Manuel

...are you suggesting that... if we are alone, and we say we exist, we are not saying anything informative?

Well, let's try to imagine a context in which we would say this (not to be too Wittgensteinian about it). Perhaps if we were getting ourselves psyched or trying to get our confidence up in the face of someone treating us as insignificant (less than a person)--"I exist! I exist!"--and this would be in the sense that I matter, that I am not nothing.

Hume, Treatise on Human Nature:For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception

.

Quoting Manuel

Now, as has been commented on by several figures, he appears to deny or minimize something, he cannot help use: namely the "I". What is this referring to?

Well here Hume is actually bemoaning his situation that he only observes "perception" and never any constant "self". What he wants to find is who and how we "possess" (make specific and certain, as we might objects) our "personal identity, as it regards our thought or imagination" setting aside "our passions or the concern we take in ourselves", which I am saying these other authors take up as what we must assert and express into the world--in a way that is not self interest, but takes ownership ("possesses") of what we want our interests to be in the world (Wittgenstein will call this our "real need"), that we own (up to) them (living our shared criteria for judgment, or averse to them; extending them, revolutionizing our lives).

I appreciate your response.

Quoting frank

So there's a conundrum. If John was sleepwalking, he did it, but he's not responsible. But what if we're always sleepwalking in a manner of speaking? Always playing out the same habits and grinding the same axes, or maybe only doing what we think we're supposed to do. That's a kind of loss of selfhood.

I mean if you have that in mind, say, sleepwalking through life or drowned in consumerism or some other metaphoric use of the term, I still think the whole "reasonable person" standard applies, you would be responsible for your actions because you know what you are doing is wrong.

In the case of literal sleepwalking, as in, not being conscious of what you are doing in your "awake state" - your behavior in other words - then culpability feels wrong, there was no intent, no sudden impulse, just a reaction is sleep.

Quoting Antony Nickles

am saying your being you (individually) works through a process of putting yourself in line or against our culture (the social contract as it were), and that this happens as an event (not all the time), either moral, political, relational, etc.

Sure, I can see that. But aren't there empirical cases we could look into? As in a child being raised by wild animals in which they don't have other human beings as a reference frame, what would happen to them?

Maybe they don't have a sophisticated sense of self.

Quoting Antony Nickles

Well, let's try to imagine a context in which we would say this (not to be too Wittgensteinian about it). Perhaps if we were getting ourselves psyched or trying to get our confidence up in the face of someone treating us as insignificant (less than a person)--"I exist! I exist!"--and this would be in the sense that I matter, that I am not nothing.

I'd phrase it as "I am saying nothing", by which "saying" I intend to get across something beyond syllables, as in telling that person "I'm going to faint!", as a warning to be attended to or looked at.

Quoting Antony Nickles

which I am saying these other authors take up as what we must assert and express into the world--in a way that is not self interest, but takes ownership ("possesses") of what we want our interests to be in the world (Wittgenstein will call this our "real need"), that we own (up to) them (living our shared criteria for judgment, or averse to them; extending them, revolutionizing our lives).

Sure, he is aiming at that ownership status, as it were. Funnily enough, in his Appendix to the Treatise, he recognized that his entire system essentially collapses, when he says "my hopes vanish", when discussing the problem of not being able to find a self and not being able to find a real (as opposed to imagined) continuity in objects.

He is admitting, implicitly, that he is using in his system, more than should be allowed, under his system, namely assuming the self is unified and that objects have a real connection, despite not being able to prove it.

Extremely interesting passages often ignored. But it gets at a very important part of the issue, but it does leave the social aspect - which is crucial - outside, so, perhaps not entirely relevant to the discussion.

cc: @Manuel
Quoting frank

Assertion is a voluntary action, so it kind of requires a self of some kind, doesn't it?

Well, Austin will have a lot to say about this in his 31-page "A Plea for Excuses, which I highly recommend, but it might be hard to see his purpose in pointing out that "intention" and "volition" are only brought up in special cases (not all the time) as when things go sideways ("Did you intend to do that?"); the purpose being that, no, an "act" does not require an actor in the sense of a cause or decision, etc. What occurs in a particular situation is judged (when necessary) to be an act under different though common (ordinary) criteria for each act taking into consideration the circumstances. The "self" that these authors are pointing out is an assertion in the sense of claiming authority (over this judging) where the thing gone sideways is our shared criteria (which I must stand against), or our lives together (which may not reflect our standards for the justice we profess).

Quoting frank

If you mean the self is drawn out of events post hoc, I think I agree? Likewise, morality is always a post hoc construction (I think) where we judge an event according to some standard or rule. That event was screwed up, so it's bad, and anything in the future that's like that would also be bad. But we can't really judge events in the future because we don't have access to them. We only have access to hypotheticals and past events.

Of course, who you are is “drawn out” from, or judged from, your actions. But I make a claim to (and for) my self; I put my self forth as an standard(bearer). This is also a different vision of morality (although that is a different discussion); not something worked out in advance or based on rules or history (although that can be taken into consideration). There is a moral moment, when we are lost and don't know how to proceed, at which point my action is based not on what is "right", but on what I will take as mine, be responsible for (Nietzsche will call this the birth of the human, as it were, over deontology or teleology).

Quoting frank

But what if we're always sleepwalking in a manner of speaking? Always playing out the same habits and grinding the same axes, or maybe only doing what we think we're supposed to do. That's a kind of loss of selfhood.

And this is the sense of self to which I am claiming these authors speak to. If we never allow our words to express our self (hide from that exposure, commitment), then we merely quote others' lives (as Emerson puts it).

Quoting Antony Nickles

Well, Austin will have a lot to say about this in his 31-page "A Plea for Excuses, which I highly recommend, but it might be hard to see his purpose in pointing out that "intention" and "volition" are only brought up in special cases (not all the time) as when things go sideways ("Did you intend to do that?");

You've brought this up before, the idea that there is no intention in language use. Not sure what to make of it.

Quoting Manuel

Sure, I can see [the self as created, not existing]. But aren't there empirical cases we could look into? As in a child being raised by wild animals in which they don't have other human beings as a reference frame, what would happen to them?

You are asking for proof of what are the conditions we act under as humans (as if philosophy's issues could be answered with science). These authors are trying to get us to see that being human is sometimes beyond the judgment and criteria (and morality even Nietzsche will point out) of our cultural history, our shared ways of judging, identifying, proceeding, etc; not as an ideal but a part of our situation as humans, that our our lives are larger than the limitations of knowledge, that we are not always "circumscribed with rules"(Investigations #68).

Quoting Manuel

"[creating the self] takes ownership ("possesses") ...what we want our interests to be in the world...". — Antony Nickles

Sure, he is aiming at that ownership status, as it were.

Not sure what your understanding is here ("as it were"?), but the common picture is that there is something that is "mine" that I own (always, or in acting--a perception, an intention, a meaning) that you don't understand, or that I can't communicate (some kind of matching up with what is "me"--see Hume discussion below), rather than the sense of taking on, owning up to, whatever the judgment or consequences or need for response of a situation.

Quoting Manuel

[Hume] recognized that his entire system essentially collapses, when he says "my hopes vanish", when discussing the problem of not being able to find a self and not being able to find a real (as opposed to imagined) continuity in objects.

A little bit off topic but important in seeing his alternative "picturing" of the self, and why. Hume is important (as is Descartes), because he does take the threat of skepticism seriously: the possibility that we make mistakes, may be judged as wrong or bad, that we may not know or agree how to continue. Hume will take this fallibility as a "problem" (even with objects) and projects that onto a manufactured placeholder, "appearance", and then "internalizes" the "answer" (as Kant wants to externalize it, creating the "thing-in-itself" and then problematizing that), which makes "finding", as you say, matching up as it were, equating, my self, my perception, critical (to take the place of our role in answering for our self).

The reason for the machinations is to make our fallibility an intellectual problem (of knowledge) in the desire for the answer to meet a particular per-determined requirement, standard (predictable, concrete, "rational", universal, generalized, complete, controllable, etc.). As you say, he is "assuming the self is unified and that objects have a real connection...." (emphasis added because these assumptions are based on the desire for a knowable certainty). I am trying to show these authors take the creation of the self, thus the possibility of its not existing, not that we can't find an answer to the problem of skepticism,but that we are in the position were we "answer" for our actions and speech in ongoing various ways (not as a picture of matching up with what is "my self"--as above).

Quoting Manuel

I mean if you have that in mind, say, sleepwalking through life or drowned in consumerism or some other metaphoric use of the term, I still think the whole "reasonable person" standard applies, you would be responsible for your actions because you know what you are doing is wrong.

It is not "metaphoric" as in just language or a social commentary; there is actual import in it for the analytical workings of the conditions of being human.

See my response to @Frank above about morality (reason, standards, "right"). Although, again, that is a different discussion (though granted it is connected). You are "responsible" not in its sense that you are acting appropriately ("I'm a responsible person"); but in its emphasis on being liable for, answerable to, your actions. "Rationality" is (afterwards) giving reasons, or excuses, or contingencies. We have to justify ourselves, be intelligible, rather than rely on what has been determined as "right" (to avoid my being wrong in that I can blame: "moral ambiguity" rather than as a reflection on me).

Quoting Antony Nickles

You are asking for proof of what are the conditions we act under as humans (as if philosophy's issues could be answered with science). These authors are trying to get us to see that being human is sometimes beyond the judgment and criteria (and morality even Nietzsche will point out) of our cultural history, our shared ways of judging, identifying, proceeding, etc; not as an ideal but a part of our situation as humans, that our our lives are larger than the limitations of knowledge, that we are not always "circumscribed with rules"(Investigations #68).

I entirely agree. Still, when the occasion arises in which some of these things could be addressed, perhaps in an indirect manner, then we should use such results, it's very rare for modern science to have much to say about the lingering problems of philosophy these days. There may be some exceptions, but on the whole, not much.

A case in which a person is raised by wild animals, could give some clues. Some.

I'm a mysterian, so, I have no issue with "being human is...beyond the judgment and criteria...of our cultural history."

My intuition is that there we can't give a satisfactory action to this topic. Then again, maybe good literature could give some kind of insight.

Quoting Antony Nickles

I am trying to show these authors take the creation of the self, thus the possibility of its not existing, not that we can't find an answer to the problem of skepticism,but that we are in the position were we "answer" for our actions and speech in ongoing various ways (not as a picture of matching up with what is "my self"--as above).

Sure, I think that the "actual" existence, the real thing not (merely) a fiction of the mind, of a self is quite unclear, I do not think we can say with confidence (not certainty, of course) whether such things exist or do not.

We act as if they existed and in fact, as I mentioned elsewhere, base our law on the assumption of the existence of something like a self.

Quoting Antony Nickles

It is not "metaphoric" as in just language or a social commentary; there is actual import in it for the analytical workings of the conditions of being human.

I'm not saying it's nothing, but in a court of law the difference between sleepwalking and intent to kill has literally prevented a person from going to prison.

Quoting frank

You've brought this up before, the idea that there is no intention in language use.

It isn't that there is no such thing as intention, just that it works differently than philosophy has sometimes pictured it (socially, rather than “mentally”). It is not a cause (which would thus require a “self” to enact). The picture of a constant “self” (who intends) leads to the picture that we "use" language, as if: operate it or control it (that is not to say we don't sometimes chose what we say with the intention, as in the hope, that it have a particular outcome). The desire for philosophy’s standard picture of intention is to maintain control of what “we” mean; to imagine our duty is merely to accurately describe our (inner) “self”, rather than remain accountable to the implications of our expressions and acts in light of the expectations and conditions (criteria for judgment) of a situation. Our situation is not our selves already always present, but that “I” am dormant within our cultural roles (limited to the means of production Marx would say); I am only myself in relation or opposition to this conformity, which I stand ready to answer to.

Reply to Antony Nickles
Kind of like Sartre? "I am the situation"

Reply to Antony Nickles Quoting Antony Nickles

My claim is that the self (that you) may not exist (in an ordinary way)--that the self exists at times, defined against the usual state of conformity (chains, asleep, silent consent). (I am cribbing this from Tracy B. Strong.)

I conclude that this proposition, I am, I exist, must be true whenever I assert it or think it.
— Descartes, 1st Meditation (my emphasis added)

The popular summary of this quote: "I think, therefore, I am" has been read that my constant internal monologue demonstrates that I must constantly and knowably be me; that I "exist" as an ever-present thing. But what is lost is that Descartes says that it is only "whenever" he asserts the proposition, that he does exist; so, only at times (or perhaps not at all). And that I am contingent on the act of assertion; thinking in a particular, different sense than just talking to myself.

One only exists, when one asserts he thinks, therefore he exists. :roll: And other times, he doesn't. That sounds not valid.

Shouldn't Cogito be understood as a wider meaning such as consciousness which includes all the mental activities such as general mental awareness, perception, thinking and feeling ... etc rather than just think?

In that case, One is conscious (feels, thinks), therefore one exists.
As long as one is conscious (feels, perceives, thinks), one exists. Because consciousness requires, by necessity, the being who is conscious.

Reply to Antony Nickles If it were true that my existence depends on my asserting it, then it seems to follow that, since I can assert it any time or even, in principle, constantly, that the dependence is really on the possibility of assertion and not on actual instances of assertion, that is that it follows that I always exist—until the possibility of my asserting my existence is gone, when I am dead and no longer exist.

Reply to frank
Quoting frank

Kind of like Sartre? "I am the situation"

This is interesting to consider; my Sartre is rusty but my recollection is that he (as with Foucault) is talking about a practical response to the state of our society as it stands, as in: protest, revolution, and what I take these authors to be getting at is the structural nature of being human, how that works. Not to negate Sartre from the conversation, as he also sees something necessary between the self and something social, but these authors address the (Kantian) conditions of our basic lives together; say--analogously, as I can't think of an example involving the self right now--not judging the injustice of our current institutions, but standing against (or for) our criteria for the judgment of justice at all (uberhapt). Worth further thought (and examples). Thank you.

Quoting Manuel

I'm a mysterian, so, I have no issue with "being human is...beyond the judgment and criteria...of our cultural history.

The relegation of our humanity to irrationality is driven by philosophy's desire to only consider what meets the prerequisites it sets of universality, abstraction, completeness, etc. as reasons. Wittgenstein shows us that our ordinary various criteria for judgment, under all the different things we do, allows everything to be discussed, explained, agreed on, specific, rigorous, "normative", etc. except at the point where they fail to cover all cases (extensions into new contexts), or where they reveal that we have another relation to the world, to others (their pain), our self, than knowing it (as if the self were a thing in me that I only need know, need explain); "beyond the limits of knowledge" for the self is not a mystery, because there is nothing more to know--I step into my future (yet out of or furthering our shared history**), for which I can provide reasons, make intelligible to you. **I said "sometimes beyond our criteria" as most of the time we just follow the ordinary way of things (conformity).

Reply to Corvus
Quoting Corvus

One only exists, when one asserts he thinks, therefore he exists. And other times, he doesn't. That sounds not valid.

It might be easier to read through my responses to other posts (say here) first for the sense of "assertion" here. I'll just say that this is not proposing an argument, it is asserting myself; as: claiming authority for me, against conformity (the social contract).

Quoting Corvus

Shouldn't Cogito be understood as a wider meaning such as consciousness which includes all the mental activities such as general mental awareness, perception, thinking and feeling ... etc rather than just think? In that case, One is conscious (feels, thinks), therefore one exists.
As long as one is conscious (feels, perceives, thinks), one exists. Because consciousness requires, by necessity, the being who is conscious.

And this picture, here of "consciousness", is what I am claiming these authors are trying to get you to see past. "Consciousness" is a manufactured framework of the self as something that is mine, caused by the misconception that your "perception" is (perhaps) fundamentally different than mine (It might help to read this first). Now you will say, "but I feel this, and think, and am aware" and all that is true, but it is not the cause of the curfuffle. We are humans who have feelings and self-awareness and mental dialogue (which is not "thinking"; again, read the first post), but those are personal, not individual (we are not different by nature). The actual problem is that we sometimes just don't see eye-to-eye, but not that we can't. So if our "mental activities" are just there, without the need of their being "mine", as if special, than the need for the self as a constant thing goes away, replaced by the self as differentiated from our cultural expectations; i.e., I make myself me in relation to the past, our shared judgments, the implications of our activities and expressions, etc., or I am: a sheep, asleep, brainwashed, etc. (again, "existing" being a different matter). Good luck.

Reply to Janus
Quoting Janus

If it were true that my existence depends on my asserting it, then it seems to follow that, since I can assert it any time or even, in principle, constantly, that the dependence is really on the possibility of assertion and not on actual instances of assertion, that is that it follows that I always exist—until the possibility of my asserting my existence is gone, when I am dead and no longer exist.

First, that sounds exhausting. Now, you may express who you are by wearing clothes differently (or very well), but asking for the potatoes to be passed is not a moment for individuation. So the "possibility of assertion" is not constant, thus why Descartes says "whenever", as in: not always. Also, thinking is not our internal dialogue; I am judged as having thought about something when we have a problem (not "any time"), thus it is seen as timely, situational, deliberate, considering the expectations or implications, etc. Finally, the goal is not an argument for my "existence", as if that were a separate quality of things. It is in the sense of choosing how I will live my life, what I will get behind and what not.

@frank @Manuel It might help to read my response to Janus and Corvus above as I may have articulated better the essential difference between philosophy's standard "self" and what I am trying to point out here. I feel like I am muddling things as the act of defining myself against society could be interpreted as the same old picture that there is something about me that is unique or special that just needs to be known and then explained or communicated, rather than the act of standing for something different than the expectations of the social contract. (See I'm not sure that's any better.) I'll take a look at the texts again.

(or perhaps @bano or @Paine or @Sam26 can sort this out for me--any political philosophers?)

Quoting Antony Nickles

First, that sounds exhausting.

It's only exhausting in principle. I think the point still stands, if my existence is dependent on my being able to assert it, then I don't exist at some times and not others simply because I only assert my existence at certain times. The very idea seems absurd to me.

My view is that it is by virtue of having a sense of self (which I believe some animals also have) that I can be said to exist, and I don't believe that sense is operative only at the times that I am reflectively aware of articulating it as an assertion of self-existence.

Quoting Antony Nickles

It might be easier to read through my responses to other posts (say here) first for the sense of "assertion" here. I'll just say that this is not proposing an argument, it is asserting myself; as: claiming authority for me, against conformity (the social contract).

Why does one need to "assert" that he exists? I have never seen or heard anyone saying that in real life. Does it mean that when one is "not asserting", the one doesn't exist? That sounds nonsense.

Descartes wrote that to convince himself of the most ensuring knowledge with 100% doubt free. It was not as if he was "asserting" anything to anyone.

Reply to Antony Nickles

Quoting Antony Nickles

And this picture, here of "consciousness", is what I am claiming these authors are trying to get you to see past. "Consciousness" is a manufactured framework of the self as something that is mine, caused by the misconception that your "perception" is (perhaps) fundamentally different than mine (It might help to read this first). Now you will say, "but I feel this, and think, and am aware" and all that is true, but it is not the cause of the curfuffle. We are humans who have feelings and self-awareness and mental dialogue (which is not "thinking"; again, read the first post), but those are personal, not individual (we are not different by nature). The actual problem is that we sometimes just don't see eye-to-eye, but not that we can't. So if our "mental activities" are just there, without the need of their being "mine", as if special, than the need for the self as a constant thing goes away, replaced by the self as differentiated from our cultural expectations; i.e., I make myself me in relation to the past, our shared judgments, the implications of our activities and expressions, etc., or I am: a sheep, asleep, brainwashed, etc. (again, "existing" being a different matter). Good luck.

I am not understanding this paragraph. Could you please elaborate more?

Doesn't Consciousness cover all mental activities going on in the mind?  I am not sure why you are separating "personal" and "individual". How are they different in this context here?
Isn't consciousness private in nature, and by necessity, it has it's own bearer i.e. a conscious being? Isn't being conscious enough evidence of the self-knowledge for the conscious being?

Quoting Angelo Cannata

Even when you tell yourself your internal story, you cannot deduce that you exist, because, whenever you make use of the idea of existence, you are making use of the mental structures of your brain. You can never take control of these structures, because you cannot think of them without using them again. If you think that this is evidence that your mind and your mental structures exist, it becomes automatically evidence that you are using them and, consequently, you have no control on what you are talking about. So, at the end, talking about existence, even our own existence while we are thinking about it, is completely meaningless: as soon as you think it has a meaning, you are automatically saying that you are a machine that is manoeuvred by that meaning, so that you cannot say anything meaningful about what you are talking about.

Keep in mind, Angelo Cannata, that any talk about mental structures also belongs that personal narrative. Structures? What structures? You mean the ones that are at the causal foundation for any talk at all? This is the consequence of suggesting some physicalist bottom line: what is physical is first the narrative about what is physical. A brain is posited AS a brain, then it fits into a context of understanding.

It begins with the narrative, or story, if you like: language and culture are the historical dimension of knowledge claims. The only hope one has to go further than this lies with phenomenology (the one true view?).

Quoting Janus

I don't exist at some times and not others simply because I only assert my existence at certain times.

I am not asserting my "existence"; I am claiming what I will stand for in relation to how our community judges a part of our lives where we are at a loss as to the criteria (e.g., for what will count as being just). I "exist" in standing against (or for) our shared culture in a way that requires that I have to back it up.

Quoting Janus

The very idea seems absurd to me.

This may be getting in the way of your understanding.

Quoting Janus

My view is that it is by virtue of having a sense of self (which I believe some animals also have) that I can be said to exist, and I don't believe that sense is operative only at the times that I am reflectively aware of articulating it as an assertion of self-existence.

Your argument is duly noted. Let me know if you want any help understanding the claim I am making.

Quoting Corvus

Why does one need to "assert" that he exists? Descartes wrote that to convince himself of the most ensuring knowledge with 100% doubt free. It was not as if he was "asserting" anything.

You are thinking of "assert" as if he is arguing; this is the different sense that he is claiming authority apart from the social contract (our usual conformity)--that I am sticking myself out there and thus acting as the "maker of manners" as Shakespeare says. Of course, we are accountable for this and in relation to our shared ordinary criteria in judging whatever thing we are involved in.

Quoting Corvus

I have never seen or heard anyone saying that in real life.

No, we don't discuss it this way as if a reason why I am doing something. This kind of philosophy is an examination of the way we operate in relation to our situation as humans; here for insight into how the self is judged, how being someone (else) works (apart from our ordinary conformity).

Quoting Corvus

Descartes wrote that to convince himself of the most ensuring knowledge with 100% doubt free. It was not as if he was "asserting" anything.

And I am arguing that Descartes is not here "ensuring knowledge", he is trying to have certainty; and the only way to do that--in the case of not knowing what to do (who I am in this world), as I claim: "when" that is necessary--is to step into that gap as an authority apart from the social contract--proposing: me, what kind of person I will stand for. That my consent to our shared lives is not just withheld, but claimed as representative by my aversion to conformity.

It might help to read the responses to the other comments.

Quoting Corvus

Doesn't Consciousness cover all mental activities going on in the mind?

"Consciousness" is a made up placeholder to give feeling, seeing, thinking, awareness, understanding, the quality of being unique to me ("private"), that I can "know" them and communicate that (or not, but then that is blamed by projecting an "appearance" or complicating agreement, requiring our "experience" match). Personal is to record the fact that we can keep feelings secret, not express them. I believe I went over this elsewhere in this thread in more depth.

Reply to Antony Nickles

It might be a different conception that drives our view, I believe I follow what you are saying. But, my intuition is that there may be something there, which we cannot explain, but which could be explainable to creature with a more complex and sophisticated cognitive system.

Now, you could also be right, in that, there may be nothing there or nothing else to explain, just a confusion due to miscommunicating or misconstruing or thinking wrongly about the topic.

I can't comment to much on your reply to Corvus and frank, but I can mention that Galen Strawson makes a distinction between diachronic and episodic selves, one being the continuous perhaps more common idea that, I am the same person I was, five minutes ago or this morning. If I see a picture of me in the morning, I will (and many others) say that that person is me.

Strawson's a episodic, he does not think or feel himself being a continuing thing, so if he sees himself in the morning through a picture, he doesn't have the feeling that that is him. He recognizes the face, but doesn't feel a connection to that person. He cites a few other examples, Henry James, if I'm not misremembering, being another one.

Quoting Astrophel

It begins with the narrative

If this is true, it means, as a consequence, that what you said has a meaning exclusively inside your narrative, you are inside your narrative as soon as you think and talk. As such, what you said cannot be considered objectively true, because it is inevitably conditioned by itself. In other words, what you said is meaningless.
Consider that what I have written now, in this message, comes from agreeing with you: I started by saying “If this is true...”. As a consequence, you cannot object anything to what I have said, because objecting to what I have said would mean objecting to yourself.

Quoting Astrophel

language and culture are the historical dimension of knowledge claims.

This is true, but I am claiming that there is a crucial, essential part of the self that is different than a claim to knowledge, though also related to the "historical dimension" of "language and culture"--what I am calling our "conformity".

Quoting Astrophel

The only hope one has to go further than this lies with phenomenology (the one true view?).

This is also a very interesting point of comparison. My Husserl being basically non-existent, I looked through the "General Introduction of Pure Phenomenology" where he discusses the, as I read it, "effecting" of the self--his term: "Ego" (p. 273). I see a connection in that he takes an act "effecting" the ego as separate from an act that does not (analogous to conformity; when nothing unexpected is happening or we are not at a moral crisis). Of note for me, he also sees the assertion of the self as an event, not a constant (in our "self"); that its "existence" comes and goes, lives and dies he says.

Quoting Id.

Ego 'lives' exclusively in a new cogito. The earlier cogito 'fades away,' sinks into 'darkness'.... the Ego does not live in them as an “effecting subject.” With that the concept of act is extended in a determined and quite indispensable sense. ...the act-effectings make up the “position-takings” in the widest sense... [those] of negation or affirmation with respect to existential claims or the like would belong here.

Although Husserl is elsewhere stuck in the picture of us as an internal constant and cause (my intending etc.)--which I hope we can avoid getting mired in--I take him here to be touching on the self as "affirmed" in "taking" a "position", which I take as analogous to a position in relation to society's judgments and criteria.

Also note the image of "fades away", which is similar to Descartes slipping back into the "law of custom" and Rousseau's picture of silence as consent to the general will. This seems to match up with Husserl's "non-effecting" acts.

But this is a passing attempt to make a connection (I have more to read of his); I leave it to you to see if there is a ball to pick up in this regard. Thank you for widening the discussion.

Reply to Antony Nickles

The word "assert" gives the impression that it is an act of speech or statement forcefully and confidently made with noticeable psychological intent towards other people. But suppose it could also be used for being assertive or putting oneself forward, which are attitude words in nature. It was not very clear to me. Anyways, both case of the usage of the word "assert" seem involve other minds with the speaker or actor, which felt inappropriate in the context.

I am in a room with my books and the desk with a lamp, clock and computer. I am perceiving them without any thought or feelings or emotions. At that moment, I could perceive my existence because I could point my intentionality of consciousness to my own self without having to assert anything or thinking that I am existing.

I am seeing my hands, and hearing the clocking ticking, and looking at the books, I know I am here. This consciousness and experience of me was identical with my existence. Without the experiencer (me), the experience is impossible.

When I am unconscious by falling asleep tonight, I will not perceive my existence during the time of my unconsciousness. Maybe I will have dreams in the sleep, but my existence in the dreams will not be concrete or vivid. In some of my dreams, I am NOT in even present. I just see other people or scenes that I am unfamiliar with. What appears in my dreams are totally out of my control of my will and intentionality.

I must return to my own consciousness again when I wake up, to perceive my doubtless and concrete existence through the experience in the reality.

Quoting Antony Nickles

"Consciousness" is a made up placeholder to give feeling, seeing, thinking, awareness, understanding, the quality of being unique to me ("private"), that I can "know" them and communicate that (or not, but then that is blamed by projecting an "appearance" or complicating agreement, requiring our "experience" match). Personal is to record the fact that we can keep feelings secret, not express them. I believe I went over this elsewhere in this thread in more depth.

Reply to Antony Nickles Sure. Good definition. :up:

Quoting Antony Nickles

I am not asserting my "existence"; I am claiming what I will stand for in relation to how our community judges a part of our lives where we are at a loss as to the criteria (e.g., for what will count as being just). I "exist" in standing against (or for) our shared culture in a way that requires that I have to back it up.

Your citing of Descartes had apparently led me to think you were addressing the ontological, not the political, question of your existence; a different question altogether, and one I'm not especially interested in, so...carry on.

Quoting Manuel

It might be a different conception that drives our view

I think it is different interests that are taken as competing, as I don't mean to eclipse your interest in, say, our brain's affect on our lives, only that the relation of that project to this issue in philosophy resulted from a pre-imposed requirement (for something certain).

Quoting Manuel

my intuition is that there may be something there, which we cannot explain

My point is that this "intuition" is a desire to have knowledge (what I take as "mine" that we simply know and explain) substitute for the fact that our judgments and criteria involve our interests, what matters to us. So, at times, we must re-assert ourselves into their maintenance or extension or change. This is where the self is asserting (claims authority) as a standard against our ordinary criteria, creating its duty and responsibility to be responsive for our making a particular stand.

Quoting Manuel

[Our] diachronic... selves... being the continuous perhaps more common idea that, I am the same person I was, five minutes ago or this morning. If I see a picture of me in the morning, I will (and many others) say that that person is me.

That the "diachronic" is the popular or commonsense picture, shows that philosophy not only involves making explicit the unexamined criteria and workings of our world, but also effects our popular sense of our relation to our world (that everyone thinks in terms of (what they think they understand as) "objective" and "subjective"--thus philosophy's power to change how we think).

The necessity for "me" as an agent, for example, for a vision of "intention", is also based on the terror that I may not continue; that Descartes' fear misinterprets the truth of the beginning of the issue--that there is no fact (in me) that ensures things won't fall apart; that we may not understand each other or agree (and not based on an inability to communicate the manufactured sense of "my" experience, perception). His attempt to "solve" this fact of our condition creates the requirement that it be certain, that I "exist", or something does, as "perfect", like math. Strawson seems to record the continuing theme here that the self is only asserted at a time, and is not a continuous thing; that the need or event of our differentiating ourselves from conformity is in response to particular needs of a situation or the interests that we are willing to stand up for, in contrast to philosophy's singular "need" (requirement) that this ongoing duty be relieved from us by knowledge of a fact in us (the metaphysical conception of "me").

Reply to Janus
Quoting Janus

Your citing of Descartes had apparently led me to think you were addressing the ontological, not the political, question of your existence; a different question altogether

I always respect that we all may have differing interests, but my claim is that the "political", as you call it, is the ontological--so not "different questions". The desire for unity, simplicity and continuity creates the ontological picture of the self as a constant which we know or cannot, whereas the way the creation of self works (is judged to be "you") involves our relationship to our culture's ordinary criteria. Though, as I said, I appreciate this may not be your cup of tea.

Reply to Antony Nickles That's fair enough. I tend to think we have a political, social, cultural and historical as well as a basic physical and biological existence, and beyond all that, we simply exist. I think they are all different senses of existence.

The way I see it, the basic sense of existence or self is not a sense of existence in relation to others, but rather in distinction from everything other, and this is a quite different, simpler and yet more encompassing sense of self.

On the flipside of that existential self, there is also the even more comprehensive "spiritual" sense of self as being inseparable from the cosmos, but that comes with an entirely altered state of consciousness, not merely a different attitude.

Quoting Corvus

...[a] statement... made with... intent ... or putting oneself forward... are attitude words in nature... [and are] both cases [which] involve other minds with the speaker or actor, which felt inappropriate in the context.

The "problem of other minds" is related to the differentiation of the self, as we also imagine there is something to "know" about the other (in the same way I imagine I "know" my "self") thus the creation of "their" special: experience, perception, sensation, etc., as always different from "mine". However, as Wittgenstein will point out (PI 3rd. p. 225), we do not "know" the other's pain, we acknowledge them being in pain--we accept them or reject them, e.g., we react to their pain by helping them. This is what is meant by the limitation of knowledge, and that we have other relations to the world (and our self). Not everything works the same way (e.g., that there is a "self" that is either an object or based of the same pure requirement we want for objects; for, as you say: "[my] doubtless and concrete existence through the experience in the reality"--emphasis added to highlight the singular criteria for certainty we impose on everything).

"perceiving"
"perceive my existence"
"seeing"
"looking"
"know[ing] I am here"

All of these things have different, ordinary criteria of judgment for completion, appropriateness, etc.; and various expectations and implications in different contexts (they are not removed from a situation, abstracted, say, into: "me"). They are not all the same nor tied to "my experience" or "consciousness" (though that is not to say I don't have interests, focus, awareness, reflection, etc.). Another way to say it is that the conditions for these things (what makes them "possible") is not "me", but what we judge as seeing something (as something), looking for or at something, that I know where I am (I'm not lost), etc. As in these cases, the creation of the "self" works differently than imagining it as my self-awareness, inner dialogue; as with looking and understanding (which simply turn on my interest in different aspects of something than you).

p.s. - not sure what is meant by "attitude words in nature".

Quoting Antony Nickles

only that the relation of that project to this issue in philosophy resulted from a pre-imposed requirement (for something certain)

I mean, if you have Descartes in mind, as you did in the OP, then sure, certainty can arise in this topic. In such cases of looking for certainty, it's a kind of trap. There is some evidence that suggests that Descartes was in part motivated to write what he did to offer a defeating argument to the reawakening of Pyrrhonian skepticism during his time. Popkin writes about this.

Descartes went as far as is possible into skepticism and we know his results. Today, I think that's putting too much weight into something which has no answer: skepticism cannot be refuted, heck, not even solipsism can be.

Degrees of confidence is a more sensible approach on most topics.

Quoting Antony Nickles

that there is no fact (in me) that ensures things won't fall apart; that we may not understand each other or agree (and not based on an inability to communicate the manufactured sense of "my" experience, perception). His attempt to "solve" this fact of our condition creates the requirement that it be certain, that I "exist", or something does, as "perfect", like math.

There is no discernable fact in me. "I" cannot perceive it.

Yet, this stops short of a different issue, whether it (the self, or me or I) exists or not.

It could be a "fiction" of convenience, or it could be a real natural phenomenon, which need not introduce dualism.

Quoting Antony Nickles

that the need or event of our differentiating ourselves from conformity is in response to particular needs of a situation or the interests that we are willing to stand up for, in contrast to philosophy's singular "need" (requirement) that this ongoing duty be relieved from us by knowledge of a fact in us (the metaphysical conception of "me")

Sure. Of course, there are situations in which everybody thinks about this topic, and people tend to think about it when a particular situation arises: say you are praised or blamed for some big event. That often leads to an assessment of "oneself."

Philosophy's "need"... for some of them - this is one of those topics which fascinates the philosophers.

Invariably we are going to bring in temporality into the discussion because, it's necessary, almost by definition. We can't speak of anything absent temporality.

But now, I have the feeling that either we are in agreement, or I fail to see the problem you see. Which, if is the case, is all well and good. And if not, that's good too.

Quoting Antony Nickles

The "problem of other minds" is related to the differentiation of the self, as we also imagine there is something to "know" about the other (in the same way I imagine I "know" my "self") thus the creation of "their" special: experience, perception, sensation, etc., as always different from "mine". However, as Wittgenstein will point out (PI 3rd. p. 225), we do not "know" the other's pain, we acknowledge them being in pain--we accept them or reject them, e.g., we react to their pain by helping them.

Reply to Antony Nickles
Thinking about other minds in line with self perception sounds like a great idea. But as you say, it is impossible to see in the other minds internally. Only way we could know them is by facial expressions, language and behaviour. Maybe "knowing" other minds should be restricted to "guessing"?

Quoting Antony Nickles

"perceiving"
"perceive my existence"
"seeing"
"looking"
"know[ing] I am here"

All of these things have different, ordinary criteria of judgment for completion, appropriateness, etc.; and various expectations and implications in different contexts (they are not removed from a situation, abstracted, say, into: "me"). They are not all the same nor tied to "my experience" or "consciousness" (though that is not to say I don't have interests, focus, awareness, reflection, etc.). Another way to say it is that the conditions for these things (what makes them "possible") is not "me", but what we judge as seeing something (as something), looking for or at something, that I know where I am (I'm not lost), etc. As in these cases, the creation of the "self" works differently than imagining it as my self-awareness, inner dialogue; as with looking and understanding (which simply turn on my interest in different aspects of something than you).

I feel all those perceiving words prove the perceivers' self knowledge logically.  You see, perceive, know, look, imagine, experience, hear ... but whose perceptions are they if not the person who perceives, knows, looks, imagines, experiences and hears?

When Descartes said Cogito Ergo sum, I am sure it wasn't epistemological or ontological, but a logical reasoning.  A logical reasoning that he thinks, therefore he exists.  The thinking must have the thinker, who thinks, therefore the thinker must exist. It is not the conclusion he drew because he saw, sensed or perceived his existence visually, materially or spiritually.

Perceptions, thinking, knowing doesn't have to be tied to "my own experience" ostentatiously.  The self is already presupposed and based on all the mental events as far as I could see.

Imagine, you are told to come to the Health Centre for vaccination.  Your name, age, and all your details will be in the letter from the GP with the appointment time and date.  So you are heading to the place on the day for the time driving to the place.  Even that action is based on the self perception, that you are the one needing to go there, and get the vaccination. No one else.  So every action with motives and purposes are also embedded with self knowledge or perception.  In other words, the human consciousness is embedded with self perception.


Quoting Antony Nickles

p.s. - not sure what is meant by "attitude words in nature".

The word "assert" is an attitude describing type in nature. Because it describes the attitude of someone while speaking or putting oneself forward confidently and reassuringly. I just made-up the terminology out of my impromptu imagination. I am sure it is not an objective or accepted term.

Quoting Angelo Cannata

If this is true, it means, as a consequence, that what you said has a meaning exclusively inside your narrative, you are inside your narrative as soon as you think and talk. As such, what you said cannot be considered objectively true, because it is inevitably conditioned by itself. In other words, what you said is meaningless.
Consider that what I have written now, in this message, comes from agreeing with you: I started by saying “If this is true...”. As a consequence, you cannot object anything to what I have said, because objecting to what I have said would mean objecting to yourself.

You have put your finger on the pulse of the matter. Consider how a physicalist's reality falls apart instantly, for if experience yields to a physical reduction, then the saying that something is physical is also duly reduced! It IS absurd to think this way.

I did say the narrative is the starting place, the historical narrative that runs through all possible discussion and defines the "potentiality of of possibilities" as Heidegger put it, for each. Narratives are open hermeneutically, but then, IN this openness we have to deal with the givenness of the world that is not language and culture, like this sprained ankle I have and its pain, or the palpable encounter (as Michel Henry puts it) of living and experiencing. Language encounters what is not language IN the context of its own contingency. This is where Wittgenstein feared to go, this "world" of impossible presence. Levinas was not so afraid, for he rightly understood that this radical other and Other of the world is the intrusion of a palpable metaphysics, not merely a senseless abstract idea.

Phenomenology is the final resting place of philosophical inquiry, where it doesn't so much rest as it invites one to yield (Heidegger's version of gelassenheit) one's egoic totality in order to attend to what is there for meditative thought. What is revealed is not a finished matter at all. Quite the opposite.

Quoting Manuel

skepticism cannot be refuted, heck, not even solipsism can be. Degrees of confidence is a more sensible approach on most topics.

Yes, but even if we are not “refuting” skepticism (nor resolving it), to simple accept a lower judgment of still to impose a standard rather than see that each thing has its own criteria. So “degrees of confidence” is still an approach dictated by the desire to see the fallibility of the world as a problem which knowledge can answer (even if sorta), rather than as a truth that shows knowledge is not the only relation we have to the world, others, and ourselves. That, for example, the criteria for a self are different than we create, desire.

Quoting Manuel

There is no discernible fact in me. "I" cannot perceive it. Yet, this stops short of a different issue, whether it (the self, or me or I) exists or not. It could be a "fiction" of convenience, or it could be a real natural phenomenon, which need not introduce dualism.

The point is that there is nothing that rises to the level of factual certainty on which to base the self, but that we (might) find ourselves in the position where the only way to bridge a rift between us is for me to continue to try, to respond, rather than simply in succeeding or failing in “matching” the fantasy of a fact of (existence of) my “perception” or “experience” with yours. These are not “natural phenomena”, as vision and awareness and focus are, nor are they our ordinary criteria for judging. We both look at a tree and are aware of different things than each other, but I see it as a beautiful image, or as good firewood, and you see it as needing water. These are not individualized experiences or perceptions, but they may clash, though not as a matter of an internal something (even if not “perceived”). Our differences are be personal, matter to “me”, which may require me breaking with the judgments of our society, even reshaping the criteria or ordinary working of that judgment, but this is not a “‘fiction’ of convenience”.

Quoting Manuel

I have the feeling that either we are in agreement, or I fail to see the problem you see. Which, if is the case, is all well and good. And if not, that's good too.

Bit a this, bit of that; but I do feel I’ve been given ample opportunity to present my case, and have learned more in hearing your input, so thank you.

Quoting Corvus

Thinking about other minds in line with self perception sounds like a great idea. But as you say, it is impossible to see in the other minds internally. Only way we could know them is by facial expressions, language and behaviour. Maybe "knowing" other minds should be restricted to "guessing"?

I said that we imagine that. It might help to reread that paragraph in that light. It is not set up that we can’t “know” your “mind” “internally”, nor is it a matter that judgment is based on their expression (“behavior”) alone, but judged on the criteria of the activity happening in a particular context. And the self is differentiated not by a constant thing like “our perception” (which I have explained why we construct it this way, at least elsewhere here). As I have said, we don’t “know” the other (or don’t because there is something in them we could, but can’t), we “react” to their expression, as you don’t have a “self” by default, but in your differentiation (or defense of) the natural conformity to our culture.

Quoting Corvus

I feel all those perceiving words prove the perceivers' self knowledge logically.  You see, perceive, know, look, imagine, experience, hear ... but whose perceptions are they if not the person who perceives, knows, looks, imagines, experiences and hears?

Imagining, hearing, vision, our self-awareness, mental dialogue, are all just part of being human, there does need to be a “self”. Everyone has these capabilities (except the notable exceptions). Our awareness of our internal dialogue is not demonstration (proof) of anything, because it is our culture (influenced by philosophy) who put together this picture for a specific reason (which I have discussed). Now, this isn’t to ignore the personal, my interests, which I demonstrate in standing up for me in relation to our cultural criteria for judgment, expectations, etc. for each situation or activity. This is reflected in the texts I have provided.

Corvus;843386: When Descartes said Cogito Ergo sum, I am sure it wasn't epistemological or ontological, but a logical reasoning. A logical reasoning that he thinks, therefore he exists. The thinking must have the thinker, who thinks, therefore the thinker must exist.

This is a misconception of how thinking is judged and is recognized. “Nice thinking” as problem solving, “I am thinking I need to fight for this” which is a resolve to defy expectations. You are categorizing “think” as our self-awareness, our internal monologue, but these are just like everyone else. Descartes does desire certainty, which is why we project a requirement that this be rationally justifying or proving the conclusion that he wanted before it began (thus why we see it as logical), but he is still honest enough to recognize that the self does not work as a constant, thus the “when” of it. So we too are imposing that prerequisite which creates the picture polpularly taken from Descartes, which colors our interpretation of the workings of the self.

Quoting Corvus

Imagine, you are told to come to the Health Centre for vaccination.  Your name, age, and all your details will be in the letter from the GP with the appointment time and date.  So you are heading to the place on the day for the time driving to the place.  Even that action is based on the self perception, that you are the one needing to go there, and get the vaccination. No one else.  So every action with motives and purposes are also embedded with self knowledge or perception.  In other words, the human consciousness is embedded with self perception.

We don’t take into consideration, nor do others judge us, based on the presence of the human body’s self-reflection or internal monologue, etc; these are not the criteria for motive and purpose, which are activities just like resolve or a decision on a goal.

Quoting Antony Nickles

see[ing] that each thing has its own criteria. So “degrees of confidence” is still an approach dictated by the desire to see the fallibility of the world as a problem which knowledge can answer (even if sorta), rather than as a truth that shows knowledge is not the only relation we have to the world, others, and ourselves.

Now we are in deep waters: what would you say does not count as knowledge, which plays a role in our attempting to deal with or accept or deal with the issue of the self?

I have not thought about this deeply at this moment, but spontaneously, nothing comes to mind.
Quoting Antony Nickles

These are not “natural phenomena”, as vision and awareness and focus are, nor are they our ordinary criteria for judging.

How is this not natural?

Quoting Antony Nickles

These are not individualized experiences or perceptions, but they may clash, though not as a matter of an internal something (even if not “perceived”). Our differences are be personal, matter to “me”, which may require me breaking with the judgments of our society, even reshaping the criteria or ordinary working of that judgment, but this is not a “‘fiction’ of convenience”.

I agree that in the example provided, we can do away with the case of fictions of convenience. What's less clear is why are these differences not internal? What to me needs water, to you looks beautiful yet, it is by virtue of something internal that we recognize what we end up paying attention to.

Reply to Antony Nickles Quoting Antony Nickles

I said that we imagine that. It might help to reread that paragraph in that light. It is not set up that we can’t “know” your “mind” “internally”, nor is it a matter that judgment is based on their expression (“behavior”) alone, but judged on the criteria of the activity happening in a particular context. And the self is differentiated not by a constant thing like “our perception” (which I have explained why we construct it this way, at least elsewhere here). As I have said, we don’t “know” the other (or don’t because there is something in them we could, but can’t), we “react” to their expression, as you don’t have a “self” by default, but in your differentiation (or defense of) the natural conformity to our culture.

I am not sure "Imagine" is the right word to describe what we do with other minds. Imagination sounds like free mind play on the mental objects when you don't have the physical object to perceive in front of you.

You imagine a beach in Brazil, when you are not in the beach of Brazil, somewhere in Europe in the winter months, when the weather gets horrible, rainy and windy. You imagine being somewhere on a Brazilian beach under the sunshine, lying down and drinking cold beer looking at the sea.

You don't imagine your friend's mind when she is sitting in front of you, talking to you in real life. You guess what she might be wanting for lunch, or what she might be wanting to do after dinner. Imagine doesn't have any reasoning or thinking involved, because it implies more free acts of the visual or auditory ideas in the mind.

Guessing is more mental activity which involves thinking and reasoning trying to find the hidden or underlying truths, answers, facts or contents.

Quoting Antony Nickles

This is a misconception of how thinking is judged and is recognized. “Nice thinking” as problem solving, “I am thinking I need to fight for this” which is a resolve to defy expectations. You are categorizing “think” as our self-awareness, our internal monologue, but these are just like everyone else. Descartes does desire certainty, which is why we project a requirement that this be rationally justifying or proving the conclusion that he wanted before it began (thus why we see it as logical), but he is still honest enough to recognize that the self does not work as a constant, thus the “when” of it. So we too are imposing that prerequisite which creates the picture polpularly taken from Descartes, which colors our interpretation of the workings of the self.

I don't quite understand this passage, what it is trying to say. Could you maybe reiterate just the main point only in the paragraph? Thanks.


Quoting Antony Nickles

We don’t take into consideration, nor do others judge us, based on the presence of the human body’s self-reflection or internal monologue, etc; these are not the criteria for motive and purpose, which are activities just like resolve or a decision on a goal.

Again, not sure what this quote is trying to say.

@Janus @Corvus @frank @Manuel

Quoting Astrophel

You have put your finger on the pulse of the matter. Consider how a physicalist's reality falls apart instantly, for if experience yields to a physical reduction, then the saying that something is physical is also duly reduced!

Well I was starting to think I was (ironically) alone in the universe.

Quoting Astrophel

the historical narrative that runs through all possible discussion and defines the "potentiality of possibilities" as Heidegger put it, for each.

And this I take as what Emerson is referring to as conformity, and Wittgenstein labels “grammar”(the ordinary criteria for judgment), and what Rousseau is calling the social contract, the general will.

Quoting Astrophel

Narratives are open hermeneutically, but then, IN this openness we have to deal with the givenness of the world that is not language and culture, like this sprained ankle I have and its pain, or the palpable encounter (as Michel Henry puts it) of living and experiencing. Language encounters what is not language IN the context of its own contingency.”

And of course, as there are similarities, there are divergences (though more interesting ones because sensible in being closer). In its openness to “interpretation”, I think it is important to note there is a “when” this happens (as not all the time), and forms, structures, “grammar”, rules, morals, etc. (what I take you to mean by “IN the context of its own contingency), in or from which a divergence is only even possible. However, each thing with its own structure, measures, considerations. Thus “the giveness of the world that is not language and culture” only enters into some situations, and those do not involve my interpretation (as science’s results are the same for anyone following its method), nor always my experience (neither the opportunity for it nor because I am always “experiencing”).

And so, the criteria and circumstances of the life of the self (which may not, or not continually, happen), work and are measured in totally different ways (as pain is important to us in my response to you being in pain). This is not in my interpretation of culture (though that is a thing), but in my relation to it: pushing against it, bringing it alive again (as it can be dead also). Thus the importance of this instant (go now! Emerson seems to say), and the “power” Rousseau claims it takes, to claim my self (my future responsiveness) as authority, for example, over what we are to call “right”, how to measure the (common) “good” (as Plato could not with knowledge, as Kant could not with logic).

Quoting Astrophel

This is where Wittgenstein feared to go, this "world" of impossible presence. Levinas was not so afraid, for he rightly understood that this radical other and Other of the world is the intrusion of a palpable metaphysics, not merely a senseless abstract idea.

I take it Wittgenstein is the one thought to be only describing “a senseless abstract idea”, which is the common misunderstanding that he is concerned with language, and not that he is looking at it—specifically: what we say, when… —as his method of understanding the world (and our interests in it, what is essential about it).

Nevertheless, the “radicalness” I claim as our self’s stance to the conformity to our culture (what Wittgenstein will see as the criteria for judging each different thing, the current possibilities of its “senses”, as in: versions). Some take Wittgenstein as defending common sense, or solving skepticism, but this misses his discussion of the extension of our concepts, the seeing aspects of a thing (as it were) with a force against the norm. Though not a “metaphysical” me, but constitutive of me (a new constitution); not a “presence” of the world, as if a quality, like an imposed “reality”. Derrida and Marx thought tearing down the ordinary would was necessary to reveal a new relation to the world. Nietszche says that our morals needed to be made alive again, or reconsidered, by a new human, a me in a new defining position to the world.

Quoting Astrophel

Phenomenology is the final resting place of philosophical inquiry, where it doesn't so much rest as invites one to yield (Heidegger's version of gelassenheit) one's egoistic totality in order to attend to what is there for meditative thought. What is revealed is not a finished matter at all. Quite the opposite.

I’ve read “What is called Thinking?”, in which I take Heidegger as examining that thinking is not the violent imposing of a set requirement (the “egoistic” idea of trapping the world in a word), but being drawn into, passively submitting (as you say, “yielding”) to, what he says “calls” to us about a thing, which I take as the difference Wittgenstein makes between explanation and description, or looking at our ordinary criteria as evidence of what is attractive about a thing, it’s “possibilities”, as what is essential. And when you say this is not a “finished matter” I take it as to the future of a thing, but also to the ability of our extending our practices, our judgment, etc., and that this is the true realm of the human, that we take up and thus which defines us.

Reply to Antony Nickles

I thought I had a general idea of what you had in mind, this last post leaves me unsure:

As I understand it, one of the things you are trying to say, maybe the most important one is that philosophers often fall into a trap of trying to force or impose on the self a kind of structure - a "this-is-me" moment, which may not happen, because we are forcing certain demands made by our knowledge onto something which either fails to meet these demands or because we overlook all those other situations in which reason cannot attain what it seeks, the demand of finding this moment of "this is my self" being one way, among many, in which such an issue can arise and be discussed:

"And so, the criteria and circumstances of the life of the self (which may not, or not continually, happen), work and are measured in totally different ways..."

If I am anywhere near what you are trying to say, then yeah, the issue of self arises in many circumstances, most of these circumstances being quite foreign to the usual philosophical obsession with trying to articulate what this phenomenon is, through reason.

What's the problem then?

Quoting Corvus

I am not sure "Imagine" is the right word to describe what we do with other minds. Imagination sounds like free mind play on the mental objects when you don't have the physical object to perceive in front of you.

That wasn’t clear, sorry. I meant imagine as in fabricate; we fantasize that there is something to “know” about the other. That is the picture we create in order to have the universal timeless certain knowledge we want (“pure” “logical”, like math). Yes, we don’t imagine people’s thoughts, but also hypothesizing about someone only applies in certain situations (guessing at thoughts, is Wittgenstein’s example, as luck would have it). If someone expresses something we don’t guess and then are “right” (now we “know”), like their expression matches my “perception” of it (that’s not how understanding or misunderstanding works). If they are in pain, I don’t guess or know, I accept or deny them, I help them.

Quoting Corvus

This is a misconception of how thinking is judged and is recognized. “Nice thinking” as problem solving, “I am thinking I need to fight for this” which is a resolve to defy expectations. You are categorizing “think” as our self-awareness, our internal monologue, but these are just like everyone else. Descartes does desire certainty, which is why we project a requirement that this be rationally justifying or proving the conclusion that he wanted before it began (thus why we see it as logical), but he is still honest enough to recognize that the self does not work as a constant, thus the “when” of it. So we too are imposing that prerequisite which creates the picture polpularly taken from Descartes, which colors our interpretation of the workings of the self.
— Antony Nickles

I don't quite understand this passage, what it is trying to say. Could you maybe reiterate just the main point only in the paragraph? Thanks.

This is hard to wrap one’s head around, particularly as I’m not that good at explaining it, but also because it is a radical refiguring of assumptions our whole culture has internalized, much less classic philosophy, which created the problem. Thinking does not work the way you (and classic philosophy) picture it, it is not judged as a mental activity. We manufacture looking at it this way because we want something certain, so we create a perpetual self that has and controls our constant individual “perceptions”—of “appearances” compared to an “objective” “reality”—or compared to someone else’s different “perceptions” that they have.

Now self-awareness and our internal dialogue are mine, but only like a secret, but they don’t lead to the picture of the self that philosophy created. Those things are just how humans are, a basis fact, no further conclusion to be had from it; it doesn’t mean or prove anything.

Quoting Corvus

We don’t take into consideration, nor do others judge us, based on the presence of the human body’s self-reflection or internal monologue, etc; these are not the criteria for motive and purpose, which are activities just like resolve or a decision on a goal.
— Antony Nickles

Again, not sure what this quote is trying to say.

Well I’ll just say that motive isn’t “internal”. The legal concept of mens rea (guilty mind) is not how we convict on 1st degree murder if the circumstances allow for only one reasonable explanation. We don’t infer whether they “meant to” or “intended to”. If they planned it, took steps beforehand, etc. there is no other criteria we use, or could, to judge—as we use other types of criteria to judge other things—but there is NOT a criteria that might ensure with certainty making it unnecessary that we be the judge**. And this is not the failure of knowledge, but why a juror must stand behind their decision (and why the law must absolve them). **The desire to avoid the responsibility of judging entirely is why people want something as certain as DNA, and why the success of science has cemented its standards in our culture for everything, creating this mistaken version of action and the self.

Quoting Manuel

I thought I had a general idea of what you had in mind, this last post leaves me unsure: As I understand it, one of the things you are trying to say, maybe the most important one is that philosophers often fall into a trap of trying to force or impose on the self a kind of structure - a "this-is-me" moment, which may not happen, because we are forcing certain demands made by our knowledge onto something which either fails to meet these demands or because we overlook all those other situations in which reason cannot attain what it seeks, the demand of finding this moment of "this is my self" being one way, among many, in which such an issue can arise and be discussed

No, that’s close. I think there is something you’re trying to wriggle free to keep, but I’m not sure I’ll land on it. Yes, doubt interpreted as radical skepticism creates a trap: the desire for something foundational (or the despair of any rationality), which is the demand that our knowledge do everything for us (or that there is nothing else). So we impose the standard of certainty, logic, purity, perfection (like math) on everything, beforehand, which causes us to overlook the diversity of our criteria for our many different activities, forcing us into a certain picture, among others, of the constant, causal self. But I wouldn’t say these are “situations in which reason cannot attain what it seeks”, as our various criteria express what is essential to us about things (their “essence”).

Nevertheless, knowledge can’t do everything and is not our only relation to the world; there is a truth to skepticism: that, yes, we are separate, but for no reason, and so everything that comes between us is our responsibility. (Cavell, Claim of Reason) We fail, make mistakes, will be wrong. What this means is that the self at times must go on from knowledge, and our various criteria for judgment. “This-is-me” in the sense of: making myself answerable for what will matter to me, what I will be the measure of, what I take as mine, as founding, constituting me in this situation.

Quoting Manuel

then yeah, the issue of self arises in many circumstances, most of these circumstances being quite foreign to the usual philosophical obsession with trying to articulate what this phenomenon is, through reason.

Well here I wouldn’t say these situations would be “foreign”, but are the meat of philosophy. What is right here? How do we continue when we are at a loss (morally)? how do I judge you? How shall we form a nation? The “usual philosophical obsession” is trying to know the unknown future; replace the need at times for us to extend beyond (or bring back to life) our morals, or rules, or knowledge. So I guess I just don’t know what sets what I am saying apart from trying to “articulate (through reason) what this phenomenon is”. What do we want, or need, to explain that we don’t think we can?

Quoting Antony Nickles

This is true, but I am claiming that there is a crucial, essential part of the self that is different than a claim to knowledge, though also related to the "historical dimension" of "language and culture"--what I am calling our "conformity".

Well, did you not just "say" this? There is no escaping this nature of language as an historically evolving and contingent phenomenon (and talk about such indeterminacy, Derrida brings it all to another level). It is not, of course, that that what you say about conformity and this essential part of the self is not true; it is no less true then, perhaps, some social theory of the self or evolution. I mean it has speculative merit. But out of context, it is not as if the world is speaking what it is outside of propositional possibilities.

Quoting Antony Nickles

This is also a very interesting point of comparison. My Husserl being basically non-existent, I looked through the "General Introduction of Pure Phenomenology" where he discusses the, as I read it, "effecting" of the self--his term: "Ego" (p. 273). I see a connection in that he takes an act "effecting" the ego as separate from an act that does not (analogous to conformity; when nothing unexpected is happening or we are not at a moral crisis). Of note for me, he also sees the assertion of the self as an event, not a constant (in our "self"); that its "existence" comes and goes, lives and dies he says.

Husserl's move is Cartesian and it is worth looking into because of the nwo Husserlians like Emanuel Levinas, Michel Henry, et al, and keeping in mind that Heidegger would not have been possible without Husserl. Anyway, you might find this interesting from the text you mentioned:

.....a new standpoint must be available which in spite of the switching off of this psycho-physical totality of nature leaves something over—the whole field of absolute consciousness. Thus, instead of living naively in experience (Erfahrung), and subjecting what we experience, transcendent nature, to theoretical inquiries, we perform the “phenomenological reduction”. In other words : instead of naïvely carrying out the acts proper to the nature-constituting consciousness with its transcendent theses and allowing ourselves to be led by motives that operate therein to still other transcendent theses, and so forth—we set all these theses “out of action”, we take no part in them ; we direct the glance of apprehension and theoretical inquiry to pure consciousness in its own absolute Being.

Yes, he really did say that. What he calls transcendent is the world of things "out there," essentially Descarte's world res extensa-- things that are not me, and so epistemically transcend my reach. His priority cannot be the transcendent natural world, for this cup, this fence post, and so on, are themselves only accessed through what it is that connects one to these things. The self? It is the stream of consciousness that is intuitively and irreducibly there. This is the foundation for any knowledge claim at all.

And he goes on about his "intentionality" of connectivity. Most analytic philosophers have little patience for this line of thinking mostly because they are fed up with any hint of Kantian thinking.

Quoting Antony Nickles

Ego 'lives' exclusively in a new cogito. The earlier cogito 'fades away,' sinks into 'darkness'.... the Ego does not live in them as an “effecting subject.” With that the concept of act is extended in a determined and quite indispensable sense. ...the act-effectings make up the “position-takings” in the widest sense... [those] of negation or affirmation with respect to existential claims or the like would belong here.
— Id.

Although Husserl is elsewhere stuck in the picture of us as an internal constant and cause (my intending etc.)--which I hope we can avoid getting mired in--I take him here to be touching on the self as "affirmed" in "taking" a "position", which I take as analogous to a position in relation to society's judgments and criteria.

Well, it is the phenomenological method. Sounds like his Phenomeology of the Consciousness of Time. The value of this kind of thinking is, for me, critical for an understanding of the world. This method takes inquiry to subjective time where presuppositions of time are examined, that is, at the actual genesis of the moment's content which is laid out fully in Fink's Sixth Meditation. This thinking takes the self at its generative beginning, The self here "is the transcendental existence [Existenz] of the egological stream of life in the full concreteness of its living present. Again, the first thing that can be laid hold of in this concreteness is the flowing life of experience in its flowing present actuality." (Fink p.6)

I think the analytical direction of this is right. It is not the kind of thing Anglo American philosophy likes to think about, much to its detriment, for all claims must begin with the source if it is going to be responsible to philosophy (which is really the point, this inquiring at the most basic level).

Quoting Antony Nickles

Also note the image of "fades away", which is similar to Descartes slipping back into the "law of custom" and Rousseau's picture of silence as consent to the general will. This seems to match up with Husserl's "non-effecting" acts.

Non effecting acts? I think Husserl is here referring to hyletic data, the actual perceptual experience of the pure intuition. Kenneth Williford puts it llike this:

[i]These data are “immanent” in consciousness; they survive the phenomenological reduction. They
partly ground the intuitive or “in-the-flesh” aspect of perception, and they have a
determinacy of character that we do not create but can only discover[/i]

Do not create, that is, "effect".

Quoting Antony Nickles

But this is a passing attempt to make a connection (I have more to read of his); I leave it to you to see if there is a ball to pick up in this regard. Thank you for widening the discussion.

And thank you for that Rousseau connection. I will look into this.

Phenomenology rules!

Quoting Manuel

Curiously, something as murky as the self, is crucial for things like criminal law, which depend on such notions. Also, our moral intuitions come into play, in terms of, if John hit Bob, if John is provably sleepwalking, we can't blame him for such an act. But if he merely angry, then we do penalize him, etc.

I didn’t notice this before but I went briefly through the example of legal culpability at the end off here.

Quoting petrichor

It has always seemed to me that when talking about the self, it is important to get clear about the difference between the subject, or that which is experiencing, and the content of experience. A story one tells oneself about oneself, or any conception or representation of oneself one might have, is not the subject, but rather content. It is a structure of thought, not the one that experiences having a thought.

What Descartes was saying, in my understanding, was that whatever I am thinking can be false, but I myself cannot be nonexistent and yet believe that I am. Whatever story I tell myself or that appears in my mind can be erroneous. Its claims might not correspond to reality. But I myself, the thinker itself, that which experiences having such possibly erroneous thoughts, cannot be an illusion. Everything I see might be a hallucination, including my own reflection in the mirror, but I myself, the subject, cannot be an illusion. Even if I am deceived, I am having an experience, and so I am. I might be wrong about my form, but I as long as there is experience, however false, there is an experiencer. It is inconceivable that a nonexistent entity might be fooled in any way whatsoever, and that includes being misled to believe that it exists.

A stage magician can lead an audience to believe all sorts of false things. But one thing the magician cannot do is convince a nonexistent audience that it is there watching the show.

So there are two things that people seem to be talking about when talking about the self. Communication often fails because people think they are talking about the same thing when they are not. One is the subject of experience. The other is some kind of structure of self-representation, or a form of experience. One is awareness, the other is content. One is seer, one is scene/seen. It is important to make clear what we are bringing into question then when we question the self. Is it the subject itself, or the self-idea?

But the issue that moves further on from this is, why "I think"? Why not I believe, I feel, I care, I sense, and so on? And then there is the issue of thinking: Thinking is one thing, thinking about thinking is another. So when I am going about my usual business, I am not aware that I am thinking when I do my taxes or plan for an event or wait for a bus. I am simply doing my taxes, planning and waiting. The "I" only steps in when one stands apart from activities and posits itself. There is no "I" doing taxes, only the doing of the taxes. The I exists when it becomes an object of thought. The point is that this I never really makes an appearance at all in the analysis of everyday affairs. And when one pulls away from these to posit the I, one is no longer identified with any of this about taxes or planning something.

The real question is that when one makes this move toward the I affirmation, is this an existential move, or is it just an ordinary change of attention? It can be taken as a dramatic move toward the Real, for one thereby steps out of any possible particular object relation, and into an object free state, for the I is not presented as an object at all. It is the "presence behind" the inquiry. If such a presence is Real, it is NOT a typical case in the natural order of relating. It is a step into metaphysics.

Quoting Antony Nickles

This-is-me” in the sense of: making myself answerable for what will matter to me, what I will be the measure of, what I take as mine, as founding, constituting me in this situation.

So, the self as an accountable agent for moral decisions and broader social and contextual circumstances, a bit like becoming who you are by acting or engaging is such a way as to be responsible for who you are.

Yeah, that is another approach to the topic, I believe Kierkegaard talks about this to some extent.

Quoting Antony Nickles

. So I guess I just don’t know what sets what I am saying apart from trying to “articulate (through reason) what this phenomenon is”. What do we want, or need, to explain that we don’t think we can?

That's person-dependent, when it comes to specific details. As I understand it, philosophers are trying to elucidate, or find in experience the I, that binds everything together, not only objects in the world, but, as you mention, moral choices too.

But all have failed, to some extent or other. I think it's weakness of understanding, you seem to take a view that it is a misleading or incomplete or potentially risky way to deal with the topic, because there is so much else to consider.

As for legal matters, I do think we have differing pictures of the mind.

Quoting Antony Nickles

That wasn’t clear, sorry. I meant imagine as in fabricate; we fantasize that there is something to “know” about the other. That is the picture we create in order to have the universal timeless certain knowledge we want (“pure” “logical”, like math). Yes, we don’t imagine people’s thoughts, but also hypothesizing about someone only applies in certain situations (guessing at thoughts, is Wittgenstein’s example, as luck would have it). If someone expresses something we don’t guess and then are “right” (now we “know”), like their expression matches my “perception” of it (that’s not how understanding or misunderstanding works). If they are in pain, I don’t guess or know, I accept or deny them, I help them.

Do we fantasise other people's minds? I can't imagine ( By the way, imagine here is a linguistic usage, nothing to do with the epistemological use of imagine) doing it myself. :) Why do we fantasise other people's minds? We don't.

Normally, we don't think about other minds, because we just deal with others using language communication, texting and their attitudes and behaviours. It is when we are not clear about others' intentions, thoughts and feelings, we get puzzled, or anxious. That is the time we ask ourselves about the state of other minds. Sometimes it is obvious, you know it my common sense, and thinking, reasoning, but there are times it is not possible to know it. In that case, you would guess other minds, trying to find their unspoken or hidden feelings, intentions or thoughts about something that you were curious about.

Other people's pains? I don't accept, deny or help them. I am not a doctor. What privilege have I to accept, deny or skills to help ease other's pain? None !

If they asked me "Do you feel my pain?, then I would try to guess their pain. From my own experience of my own pain (if I had the similar pain myself), I could guess the other's pain. But it would be just guessing with no possibility of feeling the real pain by myself (thankfully :) ).

I don't accept or deny others' pain. If they asked me ""Do you accept my pain?" then my answer would be "Why do I have to accept your pain?" If they asked me "Do you deny my pain?" then my answer would be "I am not sure why you ask me to deny your pain. Could you please explain?"

I am not sure if we have different cultural backgrounds in responding to these cases in different ways, but it is clear that our thoughts are far away from each other.



Quoting Antony Nickles

Thinking does not work the way you (and classic philosophy) picture it, it is not judged as a mental activity. We manufacture looking at it this way because we want something certain, so we create a perpetual self that has and controls our constant individual “perceptions”—of “appearances” compared to an “objective” “reality”—or compared to someone else’s different “perceptions” that they have.

We don't agree on this point either. To me, thinking is a mental activity, which has intention and content.



Quoting Antony Nickles

Well I’ll just say that motive isn’t “internal”. The legal concept of mens rea (guilty mind) is not how we convict on 1st degree murder if the circumstances allow for only one reasonable explanation. We don’t infer whether they “meant to” or “intended to”. If they planned it, took steps beforehand, etc. there is no other criteria we use, or could, to judge—as we use other types of criteria to judge other things—but there is NOT a criteria that might ensure with certainty making it unnecessary that we be the judge**. And this is not the failure of knowledge, but why a juror must stand behind their decision (and why the law must absolve them). **The desire to avoid the responsibility of judging entirely is why people want something as certain as DNA, and why the success of science has cemented its standards in our culture for everything, creating this mistaken version of action and the self.

My point on the self perception embedded into all the motives of human actions was purely from the epistemological aspect. I don't know much about the legal side of affairs, nor am I interested in the legal, social or political topics.

Thanks for your replies to all my queries. It is clear that we don't agree on many points in this topic, but I believe that, it is natural that people have different opinions and thoughts on the philosophical topics. Realising and accepting this fact is also part of the study I suppose. :)

Quoting Antony Nickles

And this I take as what Emerson is referring to as conformity, and Wittgenstein labels “grammar”(the ordinary criteria for judgment), and what Rousseau is calling the social contract, the general will.

I have a very soft spot in my thoughts for Emerson. Philosophically I think lacks discipline, as with my favorite, "Nature"; he sort of toys with Platonism and casually constructs a metaphysics. But it's not that he is wrong, for this isn't the point. He invites us to think and experience like mystics, and imagines how this would go. It is his walk on a bare common and being glad to the brink of fear, and standing before nature like a transparent eyeball! This is not philosophy, but is more aligned with pseudo Dionysius the Areopagite or Meister Eckhart, but with passion.
But the Witt, Rousseau, is not quite the thinking. In Discourse on Thinking, Heidegger gives us a picture of meditative thought, something threatened by the mentality of modern technology, which tends to reduce meaningful encounters with the world to a "standing reserve" of utility (Hartmut Rosa's Social Acceleration was inspired by H. Things today are far worse than he ever imagined). His gelassenheit is something like this:

[i]That which shows itself and at the same
time withdraws is the essential trait of what we call the
mystery. I call the comportment which enables us to keep
open to the meaning hidden in technology, openness to the
mystery.
Releasement toward things and openness to the mystery
belong together. They grant us the possibility of dwelling
in the world in a totally different way. They promise us a
new ground and foundation upon which we can stand and
endure in the world of technology without being imperiled
by it.[/i]

(Memorial Address from Discourse on Thinking)

For Heidegger the general will is "the they," which is what we first encounter in the process of enculturation. It is here that we "forget" our essential self. Meditative thought is a reduction of this to a phenomenological ontology.

I think Heidegger gets some things astoundingly right (because Kierkegaard got them right).

Quoting Antony Nickles

And of course, as there are similarities, there are divergences (though more interesting ones because sensible in being closer). In its openness to “interpretation”, I think it is important to note there is a “when” this happens (as not all the time), and forms, structures, “grammar”, rules, morals, etc. (what I take you to mean by “IN the context of its own contingency), in or from which a divergence is only even possible. However, each thing with its own structure, measures, considerations. Thus “the giveness of the world that is not language and culture” only enters into some situations, and those do not involve my interpretation (as science’s results are the same for anyone following its method), nor always my experience (neither the opportunity for it nor because I am always “experiencing”).

And so, the criteria and circumstances of the life of the self (which may not, or not continually, happen), work and are measured in totally different ways (as pain is important to us in my response to you being in pain). This is not in my interpretation of culture (though that is a thing), but in my relation to it: pushing against it, bringing it alive again (as it can be dead also). Thus the importance of this instant (go now! Emerson seems to say), and the “power” Rousseau claims it takes, to claim my self (my future responsiveness) as authority, for example, over what we are to call “right”, how to measure the (common) “good” (as Plato could not with knowledge, as Kant could not with logic).

The idea of hermeneutics is a bit more radical than this. To know is to interpret. This is really the basis for all the fuss about post modern thinking, for (see Derrida's Structure, Sign and Play. For Derrida's link to Heidegger I found Caputo's Radical Hermeneutics very useful) there is nothing at all that can be said that is free of a context, for contexts give meaning its center, its meaning assignments. Outside of language's contexts, nothing at all is to be said. I suppose for Wittgenstein, it would be outside of a language game, we pass over all things in silence (as with the Tractatus). It is right to say that basic to something being said at all is structure, grammar, etc. But then, this idea is as well contextualized to the context of talk about what grammar and structure "are". Nothing escapes deconstruction, this endless deferring to other contexts of discussion to explain what one is talking about. There is, in Rorty's terms, no final vocabulary, like something engraved on stone tablets by God. The word rests, every iota of it, on metaphysics, and metaphysics is nonsense, says Rorty. Not just a bad idea, but just GHHJK#^&*&*. Saying as I did, that everything rests on metaphysics, is just nonsense. For him, only propositions can be true of false, and there are no propositions "out there".

I agree and don't agree. Rorty just couldn't see knowledge without language. I think language is the setting for knowledge without language. What is non propositional truth? An excellent question. Hard to say...heh heh. This is why I read Michel Henry.

Quoting Antony Nickles

I take it Wittgenstein is the one thought to be only describing “a senseless abstract idea”, which is the common misunderstanding that he is concerned with language, and not that he is looking at it—specifically: what we say, when… —as his method of understanding the world (and our interests in it, what is essential about it).

Nevertheless, the “radicalness” I claim as our self’s stance to the conformity to our culture (what Wittgenstein will see as the criteria for judging each different thing, the current possibilities of its “senses”, as in: versions). Some take Wittgenstein as defending common sense, or solving skepticism, but this misses his discussion of the extension of our concepts, the seeing aspects of a thing (as it were) with a force against the norm. Though not a “metaphysical” me, but constitutive of me (a new constitution); not a “presence” of the world, as if a quality, like an imposed “reality”. Derrida and Marx thought tearing down the ordinary would was necessary to reveal a new relation to the world. Nietszche says that our morals needed to be made alive again, or reconsidered, by a new human, a me in a new defining position to the world.

Philosophers talk a lot about this. The argument, as I understand it, comes down to the very simple insight that we cannot speak the world, for meaningful language requires requires predication. To say "I am" as a reference to stand alone being is nonsense because in order for a proposition to make sense one has to be able to imagine it not to be the case. Talk about being as such, not being red or being a teacher, but just stand alone am-ness, if you will, doesn't have a meaningful contradiction possible, for there is nothing that one can imagine that "is not". If nothing is being predicated of X, then saying X is makes "is" an entirely vacant concept. I think this is the idea.

Witt called "the world" mystical. And he flat out refused to talk about ethics and aesthetics in basic terms, because all of this leads one the intuitive givenness of things that is not reducible to any possible explanatory context. I think of it in terms of Derrida's difference/differance that constitutes the "trace" that is this kind of emerging quality of related meanings. Calling something a fence post doesn't really have the power to make a true singular reference. Such singularity is impossible, and this makes a mess out of science and knowledge claims in general.
Quoting Antony Nickles

I’ve read “What is called Thinking?”, in which I take Heidegger as examining that thinking is not the violent imposing of a set requirement (the “egoistic” idea of trapping the world in a word), but being drawn into, passively submitting (as you say, “yielding”) to, what he says “calls” to us about a thing, which I take as the difference Wittgenstein makes between explanation and description, or looking at our ordinary criteria as evidence of what is attractive about a thing, it’s “possibilities”, as what is essential. And when you say this is not a “finished matter” I take it as to the future of a thing, but also to the ability of our extending our practices, our judgment, etc., and that this is the true realm of the human, that we take up and thus which defines us.

Right, Heidegger was the opposite of the kind of rigor of assumptions found in technology and science (though he makes pains to say he certainly not anti science). This openness is the nothing (derivative of Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety. Reading this latter one sees exactly where Heidegger got some of his major ideas) of pulling away from beingS. Fascinating, at least to me.

Haven't read What Is Called Thinking, though I do have it, because I have everything he wrote on pdf. Wittgenstein's explanation and description sounds familiar. I can say description is the way the world "shows" itself, logic and value are shown (given) and have no explanatory possibilities at the basic level. One cannot talk about logic since it is logic doing the talking. What is required is a third pov to explain logic, but then, this would also require yet another pov to explain it, ad infinitum. Nor can one explain suffering. It is simply there, and saying "simply there" makes good sense in many contexts; but when I say it to talk about pure givennes of pain, I am talking nonsense, says Witt. The Tractatus is nonsense itself for bringing it up, so he says.

Rorty is a big fan of this kind of thing. Everything is contingent, period, he says: truth is made, not discovered. He was very fond of Wittgenstein and Heidegger. Derrida, too.

Quoting Astrophel

There is no escaping this nature of language as an historically evolving and contingent phenomenon… it is no less true then, perhaps, some social theory of the self or evolution… But out of context, it is not as if the world is speaking what it is outside of propositional possibilities.

But we aren’t investigating language, and I don’t know how an activities’ possibilities are “contingent” or “propositional” (somehow not how the world works?). The ordinary criteria come from what has mattered to us about stuff over the vast history of our lives; the “possibilities” are what count in the judgment of a thing. We define ourselves in relation to them (against, re-invigorating, etc.), so this is not a social theory but how the self is differentiated from our shared lives.

Quoting Astrophel

.....a new standpoint must be available which in spite of the switching off of this psycho-physical totality of nature leaves something over—the whole field of absolute consciousness. Thus, instead of living naively in experience (Erfahrung), and subjecting what we experience, transcendent nature, to theoretical inquiries, we perform the “phenomenological reduction”. In other words : instead of naïvely carrying out the acts proper to the nature-constituting consciousness with its transcendent theses and allowing ourselves to be led by motives that operate therein to still other transcendent theses, and so forth—we set all these theses “out of action”, we take no part in them ; we direct the glance of apprehension and theoretical inquiry to pure consciousness in its own absolute Being.

Well, kudos for reading Levinas. There is a thread of similarity here. When we are just conforming, we are “living naively” (as Plato will say, unreflectively), and just “carrying out the acts proper” and “allowing ourselves to be led”. Wittgenstein is investing the “motives that operate therein” as the fear of skepticism and thus the desire for certainty, which we turn from to realize our “real need” (PI, #108)—as we do in differentiating the self. He will similarly “set all these [he will say “metaphysical criteria”] “out of action”, not to “take no part in them”, but to understand why we desired their certainty.

Quoting Astrophel

things that are not me… epistemically transcend my reach. His priority cannot be the transcendent natural world, for this cup, this fence post, and so on, are themselves only accessed through what it is that connects one to these things. The self? It is the stream of consciousness that is intuitively and irreducibly there. This is the foundation for any knowledge claim at all.

In relation to the self, things don’t “epistemically transcend my reach”. Knowledge does not do everything; it is not our only connection to the world. We “access” apologies, and justice, and chairs each differently, through the ordinary criteria for each: for their identification, how our judgment of your acts with them work, how porous the boundaries, how change happens or not, etc. So there is nothing which connect these things; and, even if there were—say, all: objects—it would be the criteria for objects, not “me”. “I” am not “foundational”, and my self-awareness and internal dialogue are unremarkable in this regard. This picture of “me” and this conception of a “transcendent natural world” is based on the desire to have something fixed, pure, math-like, dependable, predetermined, universal, complete, generalized, etc. If our ordinary criteria are Emerson’s “conformity, the “social contract”, then I don’t only “know” those or not, I claim them, or defy them, live them, or don’t stand up for them, etc.

Quoting Manuel

So, the self as an accountable agent for moral decisions and broader social and contextual circumstances, a bit like becoming who you are by acting or engaging is such a way as to be responsible for who you are.

There’s more to it, but yes. Thank you. My OP point being that I am a self only if, but also when, we are “acting and engaging” in relation with or against the social contract, the ordinary criteria for things; thus that the self does not “exist” as a constant, and for the purpose philosophy wants.

Quoting Manuel

…philosophers are trying to elucidate, or find in experience the I, that binds everything together, not only objects in the world, but, as you mention, moral choices too. But all have failed, to some extent or other. I think it's weakness of understanding, you seem to take a view that it is a misleading or incomplete or potentially risky way to deal with the topic, because there is so much else to consider.

It all fails because there is nothing that meets classic philosophy’s predefined standard for certainty, i.e. that there MUST be an understanding of “I”, the “world”, “reality”, “experience” that “binds everything together”. To require that outcome is not misleading; it is a delusional fantasy that not only twists our vision of how things are, but blinds us to our part in the world. The danger is its desire to altogether remove the need for us (each “me” defined against us all), even in reducing us to “perception”, “consciousness”, “intention”. So, yes, everything can fall apart, but knowledge is not our only relation to the world, as everything is judged differently, as with the self and the moral realm.

Quoting Corvus

it is natural that people have different opinions and thoughts on the philosophical topics.

No, philosophy is about truth. Kant says philosophy speaks in a universal voice, as if for each of us, for us to see ourselves in it. Not everyone will have all the answers but there is merit in learning how they think to find what it is they do see. I take your responses here as not only obtuse but dismissive, condescending and disrespectful. Keep your opinions to yourself in the future please.

Quoting Antony Nickles

There’s more to it, but yes. Thank you. My OP point being that I am a self only if, but also when, we are “acting and engaging” in relation with or against the social contract, the ordinary criteria for things; thus that the self does not “exist” as a constant, and for the purpose philosophy wants.

This takes us back to the topic of needing others to create some kind of reference to one's self. To this extent, I agree. I don't find it intelligible to suppose a person would develop a concept of selfhood, nor language nor many aspects of being human absent other people.

I think this stops rather short of concluding what you are saying, that the self doesn't exist as a constant and for what the philosophers are looking for. I don't take these things to be mutually exclusive, granted we need others to develop a feeling of selfhood, but once developed, there may be something there.

Quoting Antony Nickles

It all fails because there is nothing that meets classic philosophy’s predefined standard for certainty, i.e. that there MUST be an understanding of “I”, the “world”, “reality”, “experience” that “binds everything together”. To require that outcome is not misleading; it is a delusional fantasy that not only twists our vision of how things are, but blinds us to our part in the world. The danger is its desire to altogether remove the need for us (each “me” defined against us all), even in reducing us to “perception”, “consciousness”, “intention”. So, yes, everything can fall apart, but knowledge is not our only relation to the world, as everything is judged differently, as with the self and the moral realm.

Yes, knowledge is but a small part, one could even say fraction, of our relationship with the world - there is a tremendous amount that goes beyond it, or above it or does not apply.

As for this being a delusional fantasy, that's putting it way too strongly. I mean, if you apply it to say, Descartes methodology, you can argue that he is asking for something he cannot attain, which is certainty, we can't meet this standard. We are fallible.

If you have Hume in mind, then his observations are quite sober.

But, as you observe, there is much more to the self that trying to find "it" - as it may not exist. Again, I think we lack sufficient evidence to be too confident one way or the other.

Reply to Antony Nickles Quoting Antony Nickles

No, philosophy is about truth. Kant says philosophy speaks in a universal voice, as if for each of us, for us to see ourselves in it. Not everyone will have all the answers but there is merit in learning how they think to find what it is they do see. I take your responses here as not only obtuse but dismissive, condescending and disrespectful. Keep your opinions to yourself in the future please.

Sorry if you took it personally. I didn't mean to be disrespectful at all.  My point was all about your argument.  It had nothing to do with you personally.  I don't even know who you are.  All I see is arguments and writings in the posts.

But I was just being honest with your points. If I was blindly agreeing with your points when I don't, wouldn't the hypocrite attitude be more disrespectful to you?  

Anyway, yes I agree truth is important in philosophy.  But are you claiming that all your arguments and points  were the truth for the topic, and all my points were false?

I only joined in this thread to interact with the topic, because it was the topic I was interested in before, and was just giving my own argument on your points. And I concluded that we have different ideas on the topic, which cannot be agreed, and said that to you honestly. If that was judged by you as obtuse and disrespectful, it is not a fair and definitely not sensible judgement.

Philosophy is also about expressing one's own opinion on the subject with full honesty and sincerity. If you dictate others to keep their opinions to themselves in the open philosophy forums just because he didn't agree with your points, then you are treating your debaters with an arrogance and anti-philosophical attitude.

Quoting Astrophel

Philosophically I think [Emerson] lacks discipline, as with my favorite, "Nature"; he sort of toys with Platonism”

I too have a hard time understanding Emerson as a serious analytical philosopher; to see “Fate” as about freewill, to see “Self Reliance” as wrestling with philosophy’s historic idea of the self, that he was responding to Plato and Descartes and Kant and Aristotle, trying to inherit analytical philosophy, as was Nietszche, as Wittgenstein had hoped to bring a new epistemology (about us in the world), with his new methodology. Perhaps an OP on Emerson sometime then.

Quoting Astrophel

…thought …threatened by the mentality of modern technology, which tends to reduce meaningful encounters with the world to a "standing reserve" of utility.

I was given the analogy, for “technology”, of a word’s fixed, timeless, violence cutting off any other interests we may have in the world (here, apart from teleology).

Quoting Astrophel

For Heidegger the general will is "the they," which is what we first encounter in the process of enculturation. It is here that we "forget" our essential self.

This is along the lines of what I’m getting at, although what I would say is “essential” to the self would be what is important to me in relation to “them”. I do highly recommend What is Called Thinking? as it is a demonstration, in a series of lectures, almost as if in real time along with him, on how to dig deep into all the facets of something, which is one earmark of what I call thinking. And I should brush up on my Kierkegaard for sure.

Quoting Astrophel

To know is to interpret.

It’s been a while since I’ve flown in those circles; I’d need to hear more. But, in relation to the self, it makes me want to say we don’t need knowledge (as in: information) of interpretation (as if “yours” vs “mine”). Interpretation is a kind of a guess so this sense of knowing is picking the option among the possibilities of a thing (interpreting which one) that can be shown (argued if not agreed) as to wrong or right, say, "that was a threat", "no, it was an offer", "yeah, an offer I can't refuse). The moment of the self I am getting at is when no one has any more authority to claim what is right. Then positing is creating, making alive, me and the world, extrapolating from information and possibilities.

Quoting Astrophel

Outside of language's contexts, nothing at all is to be said.

To clarify: when I speak of context, I’m referring, as I believe Wittgenstein is, to the “event” of when something is said or done (expressed, by someone)—who is there, what was the expectation, is there a confusion, offense, and all the bottomless things that could be asked or clarified or explained or brought to bear on an ongoing basis between those involved. This “context” is suppressed in being abstracted from in the process of generalization and purified knowledge that comes from imposing a singular standard of judgment. So then all that is left is the words together, which is insular and cannibalistic.

Quoting Antony Nickles

But we aren’t investigating language, and I don’t know how an activities’ possibilities are “contingent” or “propositional” (somehow not how the world works?). The ordinary criteria come from what has mattered to us about stuff over the vast history of our lives; the “possibilities” are what count in the judgment of a thing. We define ourselves in relation to them (against, re-invigorating, etc.), so this is not a social theory but how the self is differentiated from our shared lives.

It would be argued that whatever you talk about, you are always talking about language when inquiry moves to basic assumptions, which is philosophy. Wittgenstein's Tractatus' states of affairs are facts and facts are propositions in the logical grid of sensible talk. An activity? What is this? This is a predelineated event, that is, I already know what it is before I do it. We live in this always already knowing.

The point is that language is not simply in our everyday lives. It IS this. Heidegger holds that there really is no mind/body separation at all. For dasein, to see a thing is to already know it, and the knowledge is part and parcel of the thing. A human being IS a WHEN (interesting to note that the same holds for dogs and cats. I think animals have a proto-linguistic grasp of their affairs, as memory informs the present matter and establishes a sense of familiarity and habit of responding. This temporal construct is their existence), not IN a when (as might be said of objective time, when we say, you're late! or, what time is it? We speak here, rather, of Subjective time, what Augustine started in his Confessions, through Kant, and Kierkegaard, and others).

Doing a hand stand is not explaining a hand stand, this understood. But what a hand stand IS, is in the explanation. One could say that language is reducible to pragmatics, as Rorty does. But this gets into a technical discussion. E.g., if for S to know P is inherently anticipatory, and knowledge is a time event, then my knowing where to put my hands on the uneven bars is essentially like my knowing oaks trees are deciduous: no more than the forward looking engagement that anticipates an outcome.

This that you say about our "vast history" sounds very Heideggerian. All that we think is spontaneous and present issues from an enculturated education. (what Kierkegaard called inherited sin!).

Quoting Antony Nickles

Well, kudos for reading Levinas. There is a thread of similarity here. When we are just conforming, we are “living naively” (as Plato will say, unreflectively), and just “carrying out the acts proper” and “allowing ourselves to be led”. Wittgenstein is investing the “motives that operate therein” as the fear of skepticism and thus the desire for certainty, which we turn from to realize our “real need” (PI, #108)—as we do in differentiating the self. He will similarly “set all these [he will say “metaphysical criteria”] “out of action”, not to “take no part in them”, but to understand why we desired their certainty.

Not Levinas, Husserl, from his Ideas I. To understand "why we desired their certainty" is interesting. I'll have to read this in whole (having just looked here and there). I think Peirce had a good take on this in his Fixation of Belief: doubt steps in, creates unrest, then the movement away from unrest toward certainly or fixity anticipates solace. Something like that as I recall. Of course, we will be reminded that while this explanation (a good one!) intends to reduce one thing, belief, to another, the pragmatic move toward stability, we begin all of this in language. We cast our concepts at first IN language. 'Pragmatism,' say, is a particle of language prior to being about anything at all. It is not that there is nothing other than language, but our understanding is contingent on what language is and can do. Hence, hermeneutical openness.

Quoting Antony Nickles

In relation to the self, things don’t “epistemically transcend my reach”. Knowledge does not do everything; it is not our only connection to the world. We “access” apologies, and justice, and chairs each differently, through the ordinary criteria for each: for their identification, how our judgment of your acts with them work, how porous the boundaries, how change happens or not, etc. So there is nothing which connect these things; and, even if there were—say, all: objects—it would be the criteria for objects, not “me”. “I” am not “foundational”, and my self-awareness and internal dialogue are unremarkable in this regard. This picture of “me” and this conception of a “transcendent natural world” is based on the desire to have something fixed, pure, math-like, dependable, predetermined, universal, complete, generalized, etc. If our ordinary criteria are Emerson’s “conformity, the “social contract”, then I don’t only “know” those or not, I claim them, or defy them, live them, or don’t stand up for them, etc.

You would be hard pressed to argue that knowledge is not our connection with the world. I am not saying language is all there is to human existence. I am saying that when we try to understand anything at the most basic level of assumptions, THEN we face language, and the question of what language is is antecedent to anything else. Everything is a knowledge claim when we try to say what a thing is. I ask you, what IS justice? or, what IS a promise? Then we are deep in language and logic.

To claim this is not the case runs squarely into a performative contradiction, for the denial itself is a language/logic phenomenon.

There really is no way around this. The good news is that language is entirely open. God could literally appear before me and impart an intuitive wisdom of all things, and language would not be somehow undone, for the only requirement here would be a shared intuition with my interlocutor. We could talk all day about it, notwithstanding Derrida. Hermeneuticists don't deny this possibility, for they are assuming such a thing would constitute mystical knowledge and this is just bad metaphysics, that is, bad metaphysics UNTIL it actually happened. And this supposition is not logically impossible for this to happen---there are no contradictions necessarily assumed if God did this. Just something entirely other than what is familiar.

The bad news is that unless divine wisdom were intuitively deposited in one's mind, thereby establishing a true absolute foundation for understanding the world, we are bound to a world where everything is epistemically indeterminate.

Until ethics and aesthetics are considered. Again where Wittgenstein feared to go. He was right about this, and Heidegger agreed.

Quoting Astrophel

It would be argued that whatever you talk about, you are always talking about language when inquiry moves to basic assumptions, which is philosophy. Wittgenstein's Tractatus' states of affairs are facts and facts are propositions in the logical grid of sensible talk.

But philosophy does not always “talk about language”. To ask what the good is, is not to talk about the word “good”. In the Investigations, Wittgenstein just looks through language (specifically, what we say when...), that is his method to see the world, because our interests and judgments of the world are reflected by what we say in a situation (during an activity).

Quoting Astrophel

An activity? What is this? This is a predelineated event, that is, I already know what it is before I do it. We live in this always already knowing.

By “activity” I just mean what Witt terms “concepts” which is just to say, regular human stuff: pointing, apologizing, being just, measuring, excusing, following a rule, extending a series, etc., some of which he uses as his examples in the Investigations. To say “we already know it” is the same as the fact that we get indoctrinated (or, as you say, “enculturated education”) into a history of criteria and judgments for things which we operate on without reflection; I take this as the social contract and conformity. That Kierkegaard says we inherit the “sin” of it I take to record that we are compromised by conformity, comprised of nothing but our culture (the means of production) if I do not claim what is mine from it, against it.

Quoting Astrophel

A human being IS a WHEN… not IN a when….

Well, we would need to unpack this, but to be as poetic: the self IS only WHEN (in relation to conformity).

Quoting Astrophel

Doing a hand stand is not explaining a hand stand, this is understood. But what a hand stand IS, is in the explanation.

A handstand can be explained (how to do one, etc.), but what is essential to a handstand (what it IS) is reflected by the criteria we use to judge, for instance, what makes one better. or a handstand different from a… to switch examples, say, walking different than running; what goes toward counting with this activity, mattering to us. Thus the self IS only in its alignment or aversion to these terms of judgment, when those things are at issue for me.

Quoting Astrophel

if for S to know P is inherently anticipatory, and knowledge is a time event, then my knowing where to put my hands on the uneven bars is essentially like my knowing oaks trees are deciduous: no more than the forward looking engagement that anticipates an outcome.

We are far afield here, but knowledge is “inherently anticipatory” only if we require that certainty (only accept the outcome of predictability, predetermination), as if equating “knowing” gymnastics is like the knowledge of facts. Thus, in the light of this requirement for certainty, the self must be an ever-present, unique "fact".

Quoting Astrophel

To understand "why we desired their certainty" is interesting. I'll have to read this in whole (having just looked here and there).

The idea of this certainty is probably more succinct in the last paragraph here and probably better off in that discussion (of our desire for rules), or in a new one. Though the conversation in this thread with @Manuel did relevantly veer into this territory, most notable, here, and afterward.

Quoting Astrophel

You would be hard pressed to argue that knowledge is not our connection with the world. …when we try to understand anything at the most basic level of assumptions… Everything is a knowledge claim when we try to say what a thing is. I ask you, what IS justice? or, what IS a promise?

I said knowledge is not our only connection to the world. Thus the importance of an occasion regarding the self. Our understanding of what is essential about a promise are the ordinary (unreflected on) criteria for identity of a promise, the appropriateness, the completion, etc. It is when these criteria (our shared conformity) come into question (in a situation, not stripped of everything to be “basic”, contextless), that we are not making a “knowledge” claim, but a claim of what is ours, what we are prepared to live by as mattering to us in a situation where knowledge has failed, or does not rule, as in a moral moment. But there is a time and place when we are lost, as you say, “where everything is epistemically indeterminate”, which is the moment for the self to assert itself, claim itself.

I appreciate the further connections and the effort, thank you.

You put a lot of thought into this question. But we should always start with the basics. For me, the fundamental thing is to ask yourself the question "Who am I?" It's a tricky question, but without answering it, we will only dive into further nonsense of identification, including all the unnecessary thinking and ideas. Therefore, discovering who exists is the first part before we start discussing when. And as far as I know, once we discover the Who, the rest will be irrelevant.

Reply to Jake Mura
Quoting Jake Mura

"Who am I?" It's a tricky question,

Yes, a tricky question. I would agree that discovering one's self is a primary concern, but I am claiming that we may not have discovered it yet, partly because our understanding of how that works is misguided (thanks to classic philosophy). And so I am making a claim about how we "discover the Who" that accounts for this conformity, and why we want discovering the self to happen a certain way. Perhaps you have not read through all the "nonsense" and "unnecessary thinking" above, but, if we agree discovery comes first, how does that happen? (why is it: tricky?)

Quoting Antony Nickles

But philosophy does not always “talk about language”. To ask what the good is is not to talk about the word “good”. In the Investigations, Wittgenstein just looks through language (specifically, what we say when...) to see the world, because our interests and judgments of the world are reflected by what we say in a situation (during an activity).

The good is a special question. But what it IS is going to be cast in language. I don't see Wittgenstein looking through language. I do see him having the insight that propositional knowledge cannot "speak" what the good is, because this is a question that goes to value, and value is the intuitive irreducible presence. One cannot, for example, say what a pain as a pure phenomenon is. One can talk about it is many contexts, but pain qua pain is just the pure givenness of the world. But unlike qualia, it has an ethical/aesthetic dimension (Witt says these are really the same thing, for ethics and aesthetics are essentially about value).

Philosophy is about inquiring into anything at the most basic level. The Tractatus, Witt said, is mostly about what is not said. The limits of meaningful talk show us the threshold of our existence. In Culture and Values he says divinity is the good. A bold statement for someone who drew such a line between what can and cannot be said in the Tractatus.

I say philosophy always ends in a discussion about language, I mean anything that can be said is question begging. This is because saying something meaningful always gets its meaning from the "difference" and the "deference" of words, sentences, etc. Obviously we humans do more than explain knowledge claims. It is the everydayness of living that goes on people are not really interested in underlying existential assumptions at all. This is the job of philosophy and, for most, religion. Philosophy understands (say the phenomenologists) that our everyday thoughts and engagements are, in the Cartesian/Husserlian vein, wreathed in questions, if you will. This is where epistemology discovers its own foundational failure.

Analytic philosophers don't like to consider this, but this is because they despise any hint of Kant and indeterminacy. This, in my view, trivializes philosophy, and the world, this positivist insistence on clarity over meaning and content.

The world is foundationally indeterminate. This is hermeneutics.

Quoting Antony Nickles

By “activity” I just mean what Witt terms “concepts” which is just to say, regular human stuff: pointing, apologizing, being just, measuring, excusing, following a rule, extending a series, etc., some of which he uses as his examples in the Investigations. To say “we already know it” is the same as the fact that we get indoctrinated (or, as you say, “enculturated education”) into a history of criteria and judgments for things which we operate on without reflection; I take this as the social contract and conformity. That Kierkegaard says we inherit the “sin” of it I take to record that we are compromised by conformity, comprised of nothing but our culture (the means of production) if I do not claim what is mine from it, against it.

Kierkegaard analyzes Christian original sin down to hereditary sin. He uses the Bible story to do this "psychological" analysis. The Concept of Anxiety is a fascinating read! One finds Heidegger everywhere in this book. Of courwe, K is a Christian, so alienation is not going to be the nothing that beckons from metaphysics. It is going to be alienation from God. Human culture is alienation from God when one is mesmerized by day to day affairs and refuses to face the "nothing" of its foundation.

Familiarity for human dasein (Heidegger's term) is a language phenomenon. It's a big issue for Heidegger, for at its center is time, and knowledge is a forward looking affair. Indoctrinated? This term has connotations of a particular kind to learning, but learning, but more generally one could call it conditioning into a collective understanding of the world. One IS dasein, and the historical process of language's evolution and the personal acculturation are conditions that constitute being human.

Etc., etc. Long, long story.

Quoting Antony Nickles

Well, we would need to unpack this, but to be as poetic: the self IS only WHEN (in relation to conformity).

One cannot unpack Heidegger like this. His phenomenology of time is too complex. There is, though, this quite simple pragmatist account. What IS nitro glycerin? The most basic analysis is contained in a conditional proposition: If you take some quantity X of nitro travels at some velocity Y and impacts some surface, Then, the result will be an explosion of some magnitude Z. Crudely put, but it makes the point. A think IS the anticipated response in a certain environment (H calls these environments of Equipment). Everything is like this, for an encounter with a thing is always already known, anticipated, prior to the encounter, like taking a step and knowing the sidewalk will not sink but support the step.

Mind/body issues vanish, and the pragmatic time analysis is basic. This little forward looking analysis is the basis for H's hermeneutics. Massively interesting.

Quoting Antony Nickles

A handstand can be explained (how to do one, etc.), but what is essential to a handstand (what it IS) is reflected by the criteria we use to judge, for instance, what makes one better. or a handstand different from a… to switch examples, say, walking different than running; what goes toward counting with this activity, mattering to us. Thus the self IS only in its alignment or aversion to these terms of judgment, when those things are at issue for me.

That sounds like Heidegger.

All that is being said here is these "terms of judgment" belong to language, as in describing the utility of one way over another. There is the acting on judgment, the practical end of things, and this would be looking to outcomes, making knowledge forward looking. Thought itself is forward looking and our existence is a forward looking stream of events. Observing my cat is to anticipate the "potentiality of possibilities" that come to mind when I see my cat and assume it will just sit there and sleep. Obviously, my cat does the same with me, anticipating food in the morning, etc. But my cat is not dasein. Human existence is a language construct through which there is an understanding of the world, Dasein does not HAVE this. It IS this. Heidegger dismisses the duality of consciousness/object. Objects in the world ARE the language embodiment! They are something else, too, but this "something else," until this is taken up in dasein's language/culture "inheritance" (Kierkegaard's original idea on this) is nothing to us but the potentiality of possibilities.

Quoting Antony Nickles

We are far afield here, but knowledge is “inherently anticipatory” only if we require that certainty (only accept the outcome of predictability, predetermination), as if equating “knowing” gymnastics is like the knowledge of facts. Thus, in the light of this requirement for certainty, the self must be an ever-present, unique "fact".

In the doing, there is not the thinking of what the doing is. This is clear. But this, call it oblivious doing belong to what H calls preontology, our everydayness, and we live in this just as typing these words requires has nothing to do with thinking about where the fingers go or if the keyboard is in working order. This world of just carrying on is us in the ready-to-hand mode of our existence. Ontology begins when we insert the question about this world and its being. In this "movement" we see our freedom to make an unmade future (as I see it, the question, the piety of language, opens possibilities that stand before our freedom. This is existential anxiety. K said this a hundred years before H.

So knowledge is always anticipatory. This lies not in accepting the out come, but in accepting the possibilities, which seems the opposite of certainty. One creates one's existence in this consciousness of one's freedom.

Quoting Antony Nickles

said knowledge is not our only connection to the world. Thus the importance of an occasion regarding the self. Our understanding of what is essential about a promise are the ordinary (unreflected on) criteria for identity of a promise, the appropriateness, the completion, etc. It is when these criteria (our shared conformity) come into question (in a situation, not stripped of everything to be “basic”, contextless), that we are not making a “knowledge” claim, but a claim of what is ours, what we are prepared to live by as mattering to us in a situation where knowledge has failed, or does not rule, as in a moral moment. But there is a time and place when we are lost, as you say, “where everything is epistemically indeterminate”, which is the moment for the self to assert itself, claim itself.

I appreciate the further connections and the effort, thank you.

Apologies for all the writing. I have the time lately.

The knowledge claim would go to the assumptions that are already in place when one enters into a situation. They may fail, as when my car doesn't start, or they may, as is usually the case, be part of the continuing confirmation that cars start in the usual way. The car not starting imposes the question, why? This is when freedom and its indeterminacy steps in. Take that question conceive of the failure to confirm to be applied to one's own existence qua existence. Now this is metaphysics: to stand before the nothing where one's potentialities to respond a mute, and existence just stares back.

For K especially, this is an existential crisis, and sin in born.

Quoting Astrophel

I don't see Wittgenstein looking through language.

Well this is an entirely different topic (that I have addressed elsewhere—or could explain by msg) but I’m not saying he sees through language like a wall that he makes transparent, but that he examines (looks AT) the kinds of the things we say (the possible expressions) about a certain thing (at a time and place) because those are evidence of our criteria for that thing. It is a philosophical method. And taking Wittgenstein to be dividing what we can and cannot talk about is a remnant of the Tractatus; part of the point of the PI is to show how we can actually have rational, quasi-logical discussions about all kinds of things, and, thus, that the Investigations is actually an examination of why we imagine we can’t.

Quoting Astrophel

The good is a special question. But what it IS is going to be cast in language.

Yes, a moral agreement works differently than walking, or measuring an atom, or having a self. But they are all going to be “cast in language” as the means by which we communicate about them (or, meant how else?). We think we understand what “Language” is (as some general thing), but this is just to take the possibility of, and our part in, failing to communicate or reach agreement, and to project it—out of fear—onto something other than us (to put our failings onto “language”). Another way of doing this is to say we (or language) cannot communicate “me” (my “constant” self), “my thought”, what “I mean”. This mischaracterization is not a misunderstanding of “language” (to be corrected) but blindly homogenizing the world in requiring something certain (even in creating an “uncertain” fall-guy). We ignore that things are more complicated so we don’t need to be responsible for what we say, or do, or judge.

I agree that the way things “are” is how they are essential to us: what matters to us about them, the criteria by which we judge that they are what they are, the expectations, the disappointments, the mistakes involved with each, etc. As I take you to be echoing in part here:

Quoting Astrophel

A thing IS the anticipated response in a certain environment... Everything is like this, for an encounter with a thing is always already known, anticipated, prior to the encounter, like taking a step and knowing the sidewalk will not sink but support the step.

This “anticipated response” comes, as I think we also agree, from being raised into a culture, a way of living together, which comes before us, prior, “already” (though perhaps not “known” as in: not always aware of, explicated, examined; thus philosophy). But there are times where a practice moves into a new context, when there is an act which we do not anticipate. I find you basically the same place in saying “Ontology begins when we insert the question about this world and its being.” (Though I’ll just qualify, if needed, that this is not to question the “whole” world, in seeing the situational nature of our various customs, etc.). And, like any moral situation, that we have the means of addressing it, understanding it (because it is in contrast to the already-existing expectations (standing possibilities you say). This is the moment of the self, its being in relation to our history, our culture, against our conformity to it.

Quoting Astrophel

So knowledge is always anticipatory. This lies not in accepting the out come, but in accepting the possibilities, which seems the opposite of certainty.

I am not arguing for certainty, what I am saying is that humanity craves it. We are afraid of the fact that knowledge doesn’t get us all the way there, that we must insert ourselves behind our words, to stand by them; “accepting the possibilities” especially when extending those possibilities, living in a way that gives them new life, shows what it is to be, say, “just”, by being an example of it. That fear of our fallible human condition creates the desire for something that can take us out of the equation, e.g., if there are rules, then I can just follow the rules and I will be right; as if conformity absolves me. So we impose upon everything the same desired outcome which generalizes over each things’ possibilities. So the self is imagined as a constant, given, maybe unknowable thing, so I can have it (and I can keep it from you) without having to answer for my expressions and actions. I take this as Kierkegaard “sin” that is possible in this moment. Or that in not answering, we are still held to account, but only in that it doesn’t matter if it is us, because the usual expectations and answer, etc. apply, so I am unnecessary, or, that I do not exist, which I take it you mean by “failure to confirm to be applied to one's own existence qua existence.”

I should also say that reflection at these moments is the purpose of philosophy. That to have “consciousness of one’s freedom” is not a given, but an effort, a change in not knowledge, but attitude (perspective), such as contained in a paradox like: we are born free but are everywhere in chains.

Quoting Antony Nickles

Well this is an entirely different topic (that I have addressed elsewhere—or could explain by msg) but I’m not saying he sees through language like a wall that he makes transparent, but that he examines (looks AT) the kinds of the things we say (the possible expressions) about a certain thing (at a time and place) because those are evidence of our criteria for that thing. It is a philosophical method. And taking Wittgenstein to be dividing what we can and cannot talk about is a remnant of the Tractatus; part of the point of the PI is to show how we can actually have rational, quasi-logical discussions about all kinds of things, and, thus, that the Investigations is actually an examination of why we imagine we can’t.

Yeah, I will take a close look at Investigations soon. After I finish with Michel Henry and others. But two things: As to it being an entirely different topic, it certainly is thematically different, but since the issue is of the "when" we exist, is it not that this "when" lies outside discussions of epistemology. All philosophy has to pass through this, for at the basic level, all that is, is known to be, and so knowing is foundational, presupposed. The when of one's existence goes to time and time is the essential structure that receives and produces the world, then talk about a self and anything else is about time. That is, before I can talk about anything at the basic level, I have to talk about the conditions that structure and constitute that thing. This goes directly to "subjective time."

At the outset, one is greeted with a paradox: normal talk about time presupposes something that is not at all normal and familiar, which is the temporality of thought and experience itself. This is us. The paradox is Wittgensteinian: To speak at all presupposes the assumptions about the validity about speaking, but these presuppositions cannot be addressed in the speaking. This is the worst kind of question begging. But while a perspective outside of our own subjectivity is impossible (like trying to talk about the basis for the principle of non-contradiction), one has to wonder if there is anything that is beyond indeterminacy.

The second thing is this, speaking of a method as you did: In inquiring about the "when" of the self, is there anything at all that survives the Cartesian doubt that rules philosophical inquiry (per the above)? Is there not a method that is at once radically negative (or, apophatically negative, I might put it), yet radically positive as well? Something that both tears down all assumptions, yet discovers what lies beneath that cannot be torn down. This is Husserl's reduction, which is a method. As he says in "The Idea of Phenomenology":

[i]Phenomenology: this term designates a science, a complex of scientific -
disciplines; but it also designates at the same time and above all a method and
an attitude of thought: the specifically philosophical attitude of thought, the
specifically philosophical method.[/i]

The difference here is this: Husserl thought he had discovered the solution to epistemological and ontological transcendence, which was achieved through his method, the phenomenological reduction. Witt would have thought this insane.

But Husserl was qualifiedly right.

Quoting Antony Nickles

Yes, a moral agreement works differently than walking, or measuring an atom, or having a self. But they are all going to be “cast in language” as the means by which we communicate about them (or, meant how else?). We think we understand what “Language” is (as some general thing), but this is just to take the possibility of, and our part in, failing to communicate or reach agreement, and to project it—out of fear—onto something other than us (to put our failings onto “language”). Another way of doing this is to say we (or language) cannot communicate “me” (my “constant” self), “my thought”, what “I mean”. This mischaracterization is not a misunderstanding of “language” (to be corrected) but blindly homogenizing the world in requiring something certain (even in creating an “uncertain” fall-guy). We ignore that things are more complicated so we don’t need to be responsible for what we say, or do, or judge.

There is something to this, if I take your meaning. Language produces generalities that fail to speak the complexities of one's subjective world. One can thus toss out casually words and their meanings into an arena of standardized thinking, and this pretty much belies the rich interior of one's true actual world. Worst yet is that this inner world gets lost entirely, yielding to the general (Heidegger's das man), and this is a crisis of identity. One becomes this body of generalities.

Phenomenologists have the cure: Kierkegaard's qualitative leap, Husserl's epoche, Heidegger's turn to
authenticity. Of course, the Buddhists, the quintiessential phenomenologists, have their liberation and enlightenment. But it is not, as you say, things being "more complicated," presumably referriing to the complexity of one's inner world. Rather, here the brass ring is a simplicity. Sure, their philosophy is dense and alien to common sense, but the "turn" itself is simple. Fascinating the way this works if one has a mind to pursue it. Buddhists take the whole idea to its impossible end, which is an altogether termination of this world.

Quoting Antony Nickles

This “anticipated response” comes, as I think we also agree, from being raised into a culture, a way of living together, which comes before us, prior, “already” (though perhaps not “known” as in: not always aware of, explicated, examined; thus philosophy). But there are times where a practice moves into a new context, when there is an act which we do not anticipate. I find you basically the same place in saying “Ontology begins when we insert the question about this world and its being.” (Though I’ll just qualify, if needed, that this is not to question the “whole” world, in seeing the situational nature of our various customs, etc.). And, like any moral situation, that we have the means of addressing it, understanding it (because it is in contrast to the already-existing expectations (standing possibilities you say). This is the moment of the self, its being in relation to our history, our culture, against our conformity to it.

The reason I take the matter to the level of philosophy by referring to the world, and not just some particular context of categorical belonging is because the question you ask is about the self-in-time, the "when" of the self, and talk like this refers the totality of what the self is and not any of its specific, as Heidegger put it, potentialities of possibilities. The self is taken as an aggregate of these, not too far afield from Kant's transcendental unity of apperception, though here, I am not concerned with his grand reduction to structure of the rational mind. Kant's concept of the self is an abstraction from what Michel Henry (my newest infatuation) calls life, for which he has a strong phenomenological designation. One cannot "fit" the self into a box, to speak loosely, and the same goes for time, the "when" of the issue at hand. Objective time is everyday time, all to familiar. Subjective time's examination begins when we understand that all of our objective possibilities of thinking about time (the whens, how longs, what time it is, being late or early, and on and on) issue from a temporally structured self: thought and the experience it belongs to itself IS time. Kant said this, of course, but again, his "when" of the self is an examination of the mere vessel or form of our existence (per the Transcendental Aesthetic). Phenomenology conceives the entirety of the self.

I agree with what you say regarding the self historical grounding in morality. But I want to take ethics to its true grounding which lies in the metaethical issue: what is the ethical/aesthetic good and the bad? This is where the self finds its essence, for such a question goes, as do all things, to the question of the pure givenness of the world, the value-qualia, if you will: OUCH! What IS that?

This does wander away from the "when" of the self, granted. But then the when is always a when of the self. Any analysis of value-qualia, as I call it, is an attempt discover the nature of the when-self, itself. Our existence is time. AS I experience I anticipate, I summon the past, both at once to write these words. My affective being, the caring, interest, doubt, dread, and so on, built into this, making the normativity of ethics a wholly temporal affair.

Quoting Antony Nickles

I am not arguing for certainty, what I am saying is that humanity craves it. We are afraid of the fact that knowledge doesn’t get us all the way there, that we must insert ourselves behind our words, to stand by them; “accepting the possibilities” especially when extending those possibilities, living in a way that gives them new life, shows what it is to be, say, “just”, by being an example of it. That fear of our fallible human condition creates the desire for something that can take us out of the equation, e.g., if there are rules, then I can just follow the rules and I will be right; as if conformity absolves me. So we impose upon everything the same desired outcome which generalizes over each things’ possibilities. So the self is imagined as a constant, given, maybe unknowable thing, so I can have it (and I can keep it from you) without having to answer for my expressions and actions. I take this as Kierkegaard “sin” that is possible in this moment. Or that in not answering, we are still held to account, but only in that it doesn’t matter if it is us, because the usual expectations and answer, etc. apply, so I am unnecessary, or, that I do not exist, which I take it you mean by “failure to confirm to be applied to one's own existence qua existence.”

I should also say that reflection at these moments is the purpose of philosophy. That to have “consciousness of one’s freedom” is not a given, but an effort, a change in not knowledge, but attitude (perspective), such as contained in a paradox like: we are born free but are everywhere in chains.

Well said, I say to much of this. Kierkegaard's sin, there are two parts to this, historical (the sin of the race, as K calls it), and subjective sin, an existential and highly personal affair. Best book by far is his Concept of Anxiety. Couldn't possibly do it justice here. Suffice to say that metaphysics is an actuality

As to craving certainty, Peirce's Fixation of Belief fits your account, I think. Belief is the stability and freedom from doubt, and we take the pragmatic route toward fixity. But fleeing doubt is a fleeing of the discomfort of doubt, and this begs a question of value-in-the-world, or value-qualia. one analytic step further in leads to the question of value qua value, the thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to, as Hamlet said. This presence of value-in-being is by far the most important question one can even conceive, I say.

Of course, many existentialists will take this as a basic description of our religious condition, where doubt is alienation from God. A good point in this, though: What kind of doubt? Ordinary doubt in the bus arriving on time or doubt in someone's behavior in some circumstance is clearly contextual and doubt is no real mystery, in itself, because one can explain it, cast it terms that make sense. But doubt about the self is different because here we stand on the threshold of metaphysics: what is a self? Why am I (are we) born to suffer and die? And love and hope and dream? To me, this threshold is deeply profound, for it is not just an abstract issue, a premise in an argument (though it is certainly this). It is the palpable presence of the world, the "life" we are thrown into, this living vulnerable flesh "rubbing abrasively" against the brute physicality of it all. Here I take your point (as I see it) about language to heart: language and culture (the two are really the same, for one cannot speak without being IN a context of beliefs, values, assumptions, etc.) distract, ameliorate, reduce to a palatable form, this world existence. We live lives of cultural fixities with all of those concerns we deal with every day. Life is reduced to a manageable triviality. This is K's complaint, and the essential complaint of phenomenology as a social commentary.

Quite right about the effort to be free. But again, Rousseau's thinking was political, playing against Hobbes, as I recall. Inquiry will take this to the wire and I am reminded of Foucault's thoughts about Bentham's panoptical prison concept in which there is no need for guards for we possess the censure for bad or inordinate behavior. We are our own prisoners, so to speak. The question is, what is there to be free for?

Reply to Astrophel
Quoting Astrophel

it [ is ] not that this "when" lies outside discussions of epistemology

Yes, the idea is exactly that the self is not a matter of knowledge. Our relationship to others is that we accept or deny who they are, how they feel, etc. The same is true of our own feelings (we acknowledge or suppress them). This action happens as an event—so only a matter of time in that it is not a continuous state—just as we do not always have a self but differentiate from conformity as an occurrence.

Quoting Astrophel

Language produces generalities that fail to speak the complexities of one's subjective world. One can thus toss out casually words and their meanings into an arena of standardized thinking, and this pretty much belies the rich interior of one's true actual world.

Language is sufficient to share ourselves. The “rich interior of one’s actual world” is a fantasy of the self so I have the excuse of being unknowable and yet always special. We pawn our failures onto language, and make it incapable. (This is not to say we do not have personal experiences, even ineffable ones of, say, a sunset by ourselves after a hike (the awe of nature), where we cannot say it, nor paint it, nor have a picture capture it, nor even take you to see and point at it (though the difference here might be too close to matter between us). But this is the rare exception, not the general mechanics of the self.

The framework I am outlining is that the judgments and expectations and implications and all the different criteria of our society’s various ways of living may not match up with how I want to be in not being defined by those criteria, who I am willing to defy society to be.

Quoting Astrophel

My affective being, the caring, interest, doubt, dread, and so on, built into [the present], making the normativity of ethics a wholly temporal affair.

But isn’t this just to say that humans have interests, desires, fears, etc? And so does our culture, as evidenced in its criteria of judgment; and we either conform to the judgments of our culture or not, regarding ethics or art or city planning or making tea. That in general we do is because our lives together are what is “normative” in an ongoing way (from Cavell), but at times (at a particular moment and situation) we may have to cross the ethical dictates of our society as it stands, though we don’t do it in a vacuum but against (or with) our culture, e.g., the difference between society’s criteria of what a girl or boy is expected to do, and the interest of a boy or girl in either identifying with those criteria or not letting society define them, deter them.

Quoting Astrophel

doubt about the self is different because here we stand on the threshold of metaphysics: what is a self? Why am I (are we) born to suffer and die? And love and hope and dream? To me, this threshold is deeply profound, for it is not just an abstract issue, a premise in an argument (though it is certainly this). It is the palpable presence of the world, the "life" we are thrown into

Yes we all struggle with these issues. I am just suggesting the question is not who “we” “are” or “I” “am” so much as what am I willing to express interest in, and thus how this places me with or against the history, criteria, implications, etc. that I am brought up into. This would mean that neither the self (nor the world) is always “present”, nor is that particular goal necessary, but that the possibility of the self is always open, but only actualized as an event (now).

I would say that we exist when we are able to have conscious thoughts about ourselves if we are dead or sleeping I think that's when we stop existing.