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p.1 appearances are frequently all that we have to judge by - and they are often a good deal better guides than nothing at all... The distinction between reality and its appearance is indispensable for any account of knowledge and its many congeners - ignorance, error, and misunderstanding included.
p.5 reality just exactly is... Properly conceived, reality is by its very nature accessible to inquiry, albeit to an inquiry which in practice will often get matters wrong.
p.6 reality can make its appearance in different guises... Certain real possibilities can be overlooked; certain impossibilities can be misjudged as available.
p.8 To find out what is real in the world we must investigate it.
[JLJ - We can observe something directly or we can construct diagnostic tests to reveal certain hidden aspects.]
p.12 the philosophically significant contrast is not that between the real and the apparent as such, but rather that between the real and the merely apparent.
p.12 we have no cognitive access to reality apart from forming beliefs about it. In saying that reality is such-and-such - that a given state of affairs actually obtains - I will accomplish no more than to convey my conviction in the matter.
p.12 In affirming something to be a feature of reality one accomplishes no more than to manifest that this is how the matter appears to be. But one also accomplishes no less. The claim that one makes is not a claim about appearance but a claim about reality.
p.15 when appearing... there need not be something that appears... Appearances may not only be deceiving, they may be illusionary.
[JLJ - We might instead notice a relationship between two things, or a possibility for action. These are not truly "things" in and of themselves. There is nothing magical or superior about reality in itself - compared with/to appearances. The living being needs to determine how to "go on", and sometimes reality does not directly suggest the best way to do this. The mind - therefore - sometimes "sees" things in a distorted kind of way that indicates or strongly hints at what we should do next. Perhaps evolution so arranged our mind to clearly see and categorize the things we need for survival, in a way that allows us to "go on". Perhaps our mind is so wired, that what is "real" does not matter so much to us, as compared with how we categorize things, in order to "go on".]
p.18 the fact of it is that things sometimes - perhaps even frequently - are substantially as they appear to be. Reality and its appearance are not two separate realms: there is nothing to prevent matters actually being as they are perceived and/or thought to be. The paramount contrast is that between how things are correctly thought to be and how they are erroneously thought.
p.19 Reality can stand by itself on a footing of its own. But appearance requires a mind - an intellect to which something appears.
[JLJ - Not really - a security system can give a false alarm when configured to report an intruder. An appearance requires 1. a sensor of some kind and 2. a set of rules for interpreting the output of the sensor, including a threshold for detection and a mechanism to prevent false or suppressed alarms. Both of these happen in the mind but do not require a mind.]
p.19 If we did not have at our disposal the distinction between reality and its appearance, we would be saddled with a decidedly strange view of the nature of the real, and would have no way to effect a viable accommodation between perception with its numerous anomalous and conception with its insistence on the rational cogency of knowledge.
p.21 There is good reason to think that language-based thought is insufficient for characterizing reality.
p.30 Imprecision and unclarity do not stand in the way of truth. For it is important to realize that a descriptive characterization need not be detailed and accurate to be true... No indeterminate (inexact, vague) descriptive truth about something real conveys an adequate or accurate account of it, but that does not stop such a statement from being true.
p.32 No matter how much imprecise knowledge we have of something, its precise detail will not be fixed thereby.
[JLJ - Unless, in certain cases, knowledge from multiple sources or snapshots, such as an MRI machine integrating multiple "snapshots" over time to increase the Signal to Noise ratio, can be combined in a way that accurately forms a clearer picture.]
p.37 every hypothetical change in the physical make-up of the real - however small - sets in motion a vast cascade of further such changes either in regard to the world's furnishings or in the laws of nature... the causality and accordingly interactive state of things in nature's realm is an interwoven fabric where the severing of any thread unravels the whole with results and consequences that are virtually impossible to discern in advance.
p.40 Reality is something too complex to be remade more than fragmentally by our thought
p.41 Talk about the real can be vague, indefinite, imprecise, approximate without sacrifice of truth.
p.44 Reality is a truth maker: it is because reality is what it is that the truth is what it is.
p.50 the properties of any real thing are literally open-ended: we can always discover more of them.
p.50-51 where the real things of the world are concerned, we not only expect to learn more about them in the course of further scientific inquiry, but also we expect to have to change our minds about their nature and modes of comportment... the item[s] at issue... we have every expectation that in the course of future scientific progress people will come to think about their origin and their properties differently from the way we do at this juncture.
p.51 The paradigmatic existents are the real things of this world. And - to reemphasize - this reality is endlessly complex in its details.
p.52 Our objective claims about real things always commit us to more than we can actually ever determine about them. Our information about things is always simply the visible part of the iceberg. There is always more to reality than meets the eye of appearance. The existence of this latent (hidden, occult) sector is a crucial feature of our conception of a real thing.
p.53 There is, after all, no end to the perspectives of consideration that we can bring to bear on things... we can never justifiably claim to be in a position to articulate "the whole truth" about a real thing... It is a crucial fact of our epistemic stance toward the real world that there is always more to be known than what we now explicitly have.
p.54 The authentic reality of things... What we can actually secure is at best an estimate of the matter. We presume that this estimate is correct - but presumption is not certified knowledge.
[JLJ - Yes, and for game theory this is why we aim to construct a diagnostic test or estimate of the adaptive capacity to mobilize coercion.]
p.56-57 With presumption we take to be so what we could not otherwise derive... presumptively justified beliefs are the raw materials of cognition... They are defeasible alright, vulnerable to being overturned, but only by something else yet more secure... They are entitled to remain in place until displaced by something better. Accordingly, their impetus averts the dire consequences that would ensue of [JLJ - perhaps... if] any and every cogent process of rational deliberation required inputs which themselves had to be authenticated by a prior process of rational deliberation - in which case the whole process could never get under way.
[JLJ - Ok, so deliberation can be thought of as a tissue or incubator of practically pondered guesses or scenarios, from which emerges a vision or direction, with each guess perhaps thought of as 'worth the time spent in pondering'. A new truth rarely looks like a truth when it is first conceived, or is in its final form. So how can we accomplish anything radical by pondering only the truth candidates? We instead ought to deliberate over those guesses or scenarios which are initially - perhaps from experience - considered or deemed as "worth our time considering". My correction to the text reflects my presumption that the word "of" is an unfortunate typo.]
p.57 The fact is that our cognitive practices have a fundamentally economic rationale. They are all cost-effective within the setting of the project of inquiry to which we stand committed by our place in the world's scheme of things. Presumptions are the instrument through which we achieve a favorable balance of trade in the complex negotiation between ignorance of fact and mistake of belief - between unknowing and error.
p.61 Though the process is cyclic and circular, there is nothing vicious and vitiating [JLJ - spoiling or impairing the quality or efficiency] about it.
p.63 Realism thus emerges as a presupposition-affording postulate for inquiry... In the end we achieve a realism all right, but one that is heavily indebted to pragmatic and idealistic lines of thought.
p.65 The potential of fallibalism is built into our very conception of reality. We cannot avoid recognition of the imperfection of our putative knowledge about reality.
p.69 We realize full well that much of our "knowledge" is not more than purported knowledge - that our knowledge is defeasible - that our claims to knowledge about reality must often be retracted in the course of cognitive progress.
p.70 one of the things we cannot avoid adding to our knowledge is the item of metaknowledge that some of our knowledge claims are mistaken.
p.71 We live in the domain of reality but act in the domain of what-we-think-to-be-so. Our decisions are made in the realm of appearance even though our thought-guided praxis unfolds in the realm of reality.
[JLJ - Yes, such is the tragedy of man, but nevertheless appearance can reveal to us cues/clues which suggest that we are best advised to try a little harder to make sure that things are truly as they seem, or that we ought to have increased adaptive capacity to deal with the unforeseen. It is wise to adopt a posture towards the future with multiple promising paths - that way if one falls through, we can select among the others. Rescher seems to miss that we also operate as part of a community of individuals in a similar predicament. We can't expect to move with any degree of effortless success towards our goals if, along the way, we upset the apple cart of someone scheming to achieve his/her goals. The drag that we feel in trying to accomplish our goals perhaps accounts for the friction of Clausewitz, and reflects the reality that our efforts to accomplish our goals hinder others from accomplishing theirs. It is our own damn fault if we accept appearances blindly without wise and intelligent diagnostic probing to determine if things are not as they seem.]
p.71 Oversimplification occurs when simplification is carried to an extent that is counterproductive in relation to the aims of the enterprise at hand. It consists in a failure to provide not all detail whatsoever (which is unavoidable), but ever only all issue-pertinent detail.
p.72 Oversimplification becomes a serious cognitive impediment by failing to take note of factors that are germane to the matters at hand, thereby doing damage to our grasp of the reality of things. Whenever we unwittingly oversimplify matters we have a blindspot where some facet of reality is concealed from our view.
Oversimplification thus consists in the omission of detail in a way that is misleading in creating or inviting a wrong impression in some significant - i.e., issue-relevant - regard. In practice the line between beneficial simplification and harmful oversimplification is not easy to draw.
p.73 Where Reality is concerned, incompleteness in information invites incorrectness... Oversimplification is, at bottom, nothing but a neglect (or ignorance) of detail.
p.74 Whenever there is a blank in our knowledge, the natural and indeed the sensible thing to do is to fill it in the most direct standard, plausible way... We willingly and deliberately adopt the policy of allowing oversimplification to lead us into error time and time again because we realize it does so less frequently than the available alternatives.
p.74 Why do we ever oversimplify? Why not just go ahead and take those suppressed complications into account? The answer is that in the circumstances we simply do not know how to do so.
[JLJ - Or perhaps, we do not want to spend the time and effort to do so. Our current predicament calls us to action, we are time-pressed and resource limited. We simplify practically, perhaps as part of a well-intentioned scheme, and in the hopes that we do so properly and do not oversimplify.]
p.76 scientific progress is a matter of complexification because oversimple theories invariably prove untenable in a complex world.
p.77 any and every human effort at characterizing reality and its modus operandi is destined to be an oversimplification.
p.81 once we acknowledge the variety of defects that even our best-formed picture of reality is bound to exhibit, we are well enroute to a realistic understanding of the nature of the real as something that transcends the grasps of mind.
p.84 To all appearances, the progress of science and technology has transformed the situation regarding such "theoretical entities" as atoms and electrons. We accept them not because we experience them but because we need them to explain and - above all - to manipulate the things we experience.
p.87 Whatever is needed to provide an adequate account for the existence or the nature of something real is itself real and, as such, actually exists.
p.88 The history of science is the story of the replacement of one defective theory by another.
p.89 Not only are we not in a position to claim that our knowledge of reality is complete (that we have gotten at the whole truth of things), but we are not even in a position to claim that our putative "knowledge" of reality is correct (that we have gotten at the real truth of things).
[JLJ - Yes, but the fundamental problem of cognition is to understand the present predicament in enough detail to be able to select and execute an effective scheme for 'going on.' It would be nice to know the truth of things, but an understanding good enough to "go on" lets us execute an effective scheme, and therefore to practically transition from the current predicament to the next (to "go on"), as it unfolds, to swim with the tides of fortune, and so our cognition accomplishes the mission it was "designed" for. Truth is for philosophers, and to be closed away in books and forgotten on dusty library shelves. Truth does not close a sale, or put food on the table, or put knowledge in the mind useful for scoring high on school tests. Truth is nice, but not really necessary.]
p.90 If there is one thing we can learn from the history of science, it is that the scientific theorizing of one day is looked upon by the next as deficient.
p.94 the very idea of error demands subscription to some sort of realism, since for error to be possible there must be something distinctively objective and real to be wrong about. The very idea of error commits us to a reality that differs from what it is thought to be and thereby requires a robust conception of reality.
p.95 Josiah Royce...
Error is... defined as a judgment that does not agree with its object.
[JLJ - Certain errors can be determined by inspection or retrospective knowledge: 3 + 2 = 6, red is blue, Hillary Clinton should have campaigned in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania in the final days of the election of 2016 instead of California. For me, error results from 1. a production scheme of some sort, even if it produces only an estimate, 2. an execution of the scheme, perhaps by a man or machine or even an agent, perhaps quickly done or possibly even with great care, which produces an actual or a tentative result of some kind, and importantly, 3. a decision to elevate such a quick-and-dirty calculation or production of sorts to a place of importance, perhaps to meet a deadline, where perhaps a claim is made as to accuracy or future decisions are based on such a result. Note that we can speculate all day without producing an error, provided that we do not elevate the tentative result to a place of importance. A Newspaper writer can write a rough draft of a story without truly making an error, provided the draft is treated as a draft and is part of the normal scheme of producing news, and is not published until it is reviewed and approved by an editor. Certain production schemes are allowed to err as a price for delivering on-demand information or product in a difficult to produce, competitive or timely fashion: a TV news announcer stumbles over words while reading a teleprompter, a newspaper misquotes a politician or sports scores from the previous day. A baseball pitcher throws the ball high and outside for a ball. A TV weatherman calls for sunshine, and instead it rains. An actor in an inexpensive community theatre production stumbles on a line in a play. These are hardly 'errors' in the truest sense, as they were merely demand-driven attempts made in good faith in a difficult situation. Other production schemes are held to higher standards and 'ought to get it right' and so produce 'errors' when execution is not double checked: A script is followed to lower a control rod in a nuclear power plant to absorb neutrons, and therefore to regulate the production of heat. A movie scene shows a microphone hanging from above the actors, retakes of a dining room scene fail to address the actors eating food or drinking water, or the clock on the wall showing time pass, as the dialog unfolds, or the reflection of camera crew in a window.]
p.96 the ultimate basis of our commitment to realism need not root in our cognitive power but in our cognitive debility - in the inexorable prospects of error and ignorance.
p.97 Whatever information we have about something, be it real or presumptive information, is always just that - information we ourselves purport.
p.99 no matter how far we push our investigation... the prospect of a divergence lying just around the corner - waiting to be discovered if only we pursued the matter just a bit further - can never be precluded.
p.104 Experience does not teach us that there is a reality, but rather what it is like.
p.106 Nothing that we do in this cognitive domain would make sense if we did not subscribe to the conception of a mind-independent reality.
[JLJ - Yes, and a reality that we need to "go on" within. The mind exists to unravel the complexity of the present moment, the present predicament, and to come up with - and execute - schemes or plans to "go on", as the present predicament plays itself out into the next.]
p.106 The very semantics of our discourse constrain its commitment to realism; we have no alternative but to regard as real those states of affairs claimed by the contentions we are prepared to accept... We need the notion of reality to operate the conception of truth.
p.112 Realism, then, is a position to which we are constrained not by the push of evidence but by the pull of purpose.
[JLJ - Yes, analyzing the real is only half of the game - it should be done as part of a scheme or part of modifying a scheme for "going on". We ought to be coming up with schemes which help us maneuver within our predicament, and in a way that moves us indirectly toward our goals. A scheme capitalizes on the fact that certain situations we will arrive at in the future are inevitable, and therefore we should be ready for them when they arise. An effective scheme manages resources so that emerging events are taken advantage of in the most productive ways.]
p.112 Realism is not a factual discovery, but a practical postulate justified by its utility or serviceability in the context of our aims and purposes
p.113 When it comes to this issue of actual efficacy, there is no choice but to proceed experientially - through the simple strategem of "trying and seeing." ..efficacy... is, and is bound to be, a matter of retrojustification - a retrospective revalidation in light of experience.
p.121 It is certainly not the case that the appearance presents a correct account of reality but rather, that a rationally revised reconstruction of the appearances affords our best-available estimate of the nature of the real.
p.122 A meaningful realism can only exist in a state of tension.
p.122 there is more to reality than what we do and can know or ever conjecture about it
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