{"id":55,"date":"2023-11-08T04:07:10","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T04:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calebcastaneda.com\/?p=55"},"modified":"2023-11-11T02:58:06","modified_gmt":"2023-11-11T02:58:06","slug":"against-seemings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calebcastaneda.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/08\/against-seemings\/","title":{"rendered":"Against ‘Seemings’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon\u2019s that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o\u2019er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted\u2014nevermore!<\/em><\/p>\nEdgar Allan Poe, The Raven<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t help myself. Whenever I am catching up on the literature on epistemology and come across some view that makes much ado about \u201cseemings,\u201d a little voice pops into my head, as if it\u2019s an AI assistant whose response was triggered by the appropriate words. Instead of hearing Siri\u2019s voice, however, I hear a much more grating voice, for the voice that I hear in my head is that of Jerry Seinfeld. And the schtick that he is reciting is his bit on \u201cchalk outline guy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are many different jobs in the police\u2026\u201d He begins. \u201cNo! You! Get out of my head!\u201d I shout back. But it\u2019s to no avail. He continues, undisturbed. \u201cIt seems to me\u2026\u201d he really draws that part out\u2026 \u201cthat the chalk-outline guy is one of the better jobs that you can get.\u201d At last! He\u2019s finished his performance and I can move on, at least until the author uses the word \u201cseemings\u201d again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve spent a lot of time wondering just why it is that my subconscious mind pulls this protest every time philosophers talk about \u201cseemings,\u201d and I think I\u2019ve figured it out. My mind is rebelling against what Whitehead called \u201cthe fallacy of misplaced concreteness.\u201d To borrow a phrase, seemings \u201caren\u2019t a thing,\u201d leastways, no one ever seems to be able to tell me what seemings actually are. It seems to me that seemings are just shorthand for a variety of different combinations of mental processes, which explains why it\u2019s so hard to pin down just what \u201cseemings\u201d are. They are like \u201cfreedom\u201d or \u201crights\u201d \u2014 rights talk, Peter Singer quite rightly insists, also has no referent and is just shorthand for a variety of different ethical concepts. These concepts can\u2019t be pinned down to a single definition. So we are better off ditching the shorthand and speaking specifically about what we mean, otherwise we risk confusion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my head, Janis Joplin is already warming up her voice, so I need to move on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u266b \u201cBusted flat in Baton Rouge, waitin’ for a train\u2026\u201d \u266b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

YOU!  Not another word!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So for the epistemologists who are busy writing their next Publish or Perish\u2122 article, might I suggest that you precisely define just what a \u201cseeming\u201d is? Or better yet, just ditch the language altogether and just say precisely what you mean. Are we talking Perceptions? Inferences? Memory? A priori concepts? Intuitions? Hunches? Pulling-things-out-of-our-asses? I don\u2019t intend to dispute the fact that things often \u201cseem to me\u201d a certain kind of way. It seems to me that I am wearing a gold wedding band; and it seems to me that I\u2019m needing my reading glasses more often; and it seems to me that coherentism is by far the best theory of justification; and it seems to me that there\u2019s probably no entity that can answer to the description of \u201cGod\u201d; and it seems to me that even if there is an entity that can answer to the description of \u201cGod\u201d that that entity would be morally culpable for the pitiable state of the universe; and it seems to me that Joe Biden should probably drop out of the race for President so as to avoid risking a MAGA President; and it seems to me that clam chowder \u2014 enhanced with shrimp, crab, scallop, and lobster meat \u2014 is the perfect food (New England style, obviously, not Manhattan style); and a myriad other things \u201cseem to me\u201d to be a certain kind of way. But I would claim to know some of those things \u2014 i.e., they seem like justified, true, beliefs \u2014 and other things are subjective, or else they are hunches, intuitions, or perhaps even fears that are shaping my beliefs. But I wouldn\u2019t want to claim that these \u201cseemings\u201d have the same epistemic status as my direct perceptions do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a way, I would hope that when philosophers talk about \u201cseemings\u201d they just are talking about perceptual experiences. If so, let\u2019s just drop the \u201cseemings\u201d talk and talk about perceptual experiences. But sadly, I do not think that this is what most of them mean by \u201cseemings\u201d and the whole point of the \u201cseemings\u201d talk, seemingly, (see what I did there?) is to intentionally obfuscate so that the speaker can raise hunches to the same epistemic status as perceptions by performing a verbal magic trick. I hope that this cynical trick is not what is happening, but I fear that it is. At any rate, this \u201cseemings\u201d talk usually accompanies a far more permissive epistemology than I am comfortable with. So maybe the first step is for the \u201cseemings\u201d crowd to get on the same page about what \u201cseemings\u201d actually are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sittingOn the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;And his eyes have all…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4,5],"class_list":["post-55","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epistemology","tag-epistemology","tag-seemings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calebcastaneda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calebcastaneda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calebcastaneda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calebcastaneda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calebcastaneda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/calebcastaneda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"https:\/\/calebcastaneda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calebcastaneda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calebcastaneda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calebcastaneda.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}