Haha--as if that removes the ambiguity.

Senseless vs not senseless literally?--as in, involving our senses?

Cite credible scientific research. — Galuchat

Nope. It's empirical.

All evidence we have, which includes imaging, studies of brain injury patients, etc. suggests that all mental activity is a brain phenomenon. Plus the whole notion of nonphysical existents is completely incoherent.

I read your whole post, but I like to focus on one issue at a time, because that's a constant desire of mine, for folks to focus when we're doing philosophy:

However, I assert these are always going to be futile — fresco

Just curious here what you consider futility to be in this context. Is it that you're looking for consensus, and you think it's futile if we don't achieve that (this is just a guess to give you an example of the sort of thing I'm looking for in asking you)?

The issue is continually inviting the question, which in effect makes an insensible statement, the one I just gave. — AJJ

If the issue is "continually inviting a question," then continually inviting a question should be absurd regardless of the question, for any argument.

If the issue is the content of the question, then that's different.

The other option would be that the issue is continually inviting a question of x type, in which case neither (a) continually inviting a question nor (b) inviting (but not continually) a question of x type would be sufficient to be absurd.

At any rate . . .

Because it invites the question, “Ought we believe that there isn’t anything we ought to believe?” It’s like I’ve said, this question is continually invited, which in effect makes the insensible statement I gave in my previous post. — AJJ

Rather than dealing with the plethora of other problems there, let's stick to this: In telling me why it's absurd per the definition you used, you should appeal to a term that's in the definition you used. You're not doing that.

Because you’re in effect saying “there is nothing that we ought to believe, including the proposition that there is nothing we ought to believe.” — AJJ

So the issue isn't continually inviting a question, but something else.

Re your comment here, if we're saying that it's not true, it's not a fact, that there is anything that we ought to believe, why is that absurd? How does it fit your definition of absurd?

I'm not saying anything about fear. So why bring that up?

So in what way does "Continually inviting a question" fit the definition of "absurd" you're using?

The concerns you raise are real within the university. — Izat So

Inside and outside the university. It's unfortunately human nature to want to control other people in many different ways.

Will is the mental phenomenon of us controlling or directing both other mental content, including decisions, as well as actions. As such, it's located at our brains. It only occurs when our brains are in specific states. "Where it goes" when it's not present is simply the fact that our brains are not in that state. It's like asking where "our driving cars" go when the car's not driving. It's really just the car being or not being in a particular state (and relative to other things).

The reason I’ve given that it is the case that we ought to believe facts is that it’s absurd to deny it, because you continually invite the question, “Well ought we believe that?” — AJJ

First, "Continually inviting a question" is sufficient for "absurd"? What definition of "absurd" are you using, then, and what does it have to do with logical validity?

What you seem to be shooting for is a variation on the old "objective truth" argument chestnut . . . which doesn't at all work. You seem to be thinking that if someone says "P is a fact" ( where we're ignoring that facts aren't propositions, they're not things that people say, etc.), then necessarily they're implying not only "You ought to believe that P," but "It's true that you ought to believe that P," or "It's a fact that you ought to believe that P." But that's not the case. No normative (no ought/should/ought not/should not/etc.) is true or is a fact (both factually and in my view). Normatives are ways that people feel about what people should ideally do/be like.

Facts don’t depend on whether or not we believe them, sure, but I don’t see how that has a bearing on whether we ought to believe them. — AJJ

It has a bearing because there can be a fact where "we ought to believe it" is not the case, which makes the argument invalid logically. An example is where (when) no people exist.

What complicates matters is that these real concerns blend in so well with reactionary apologetics for the rule of the parasitic plutocrats. I haven't seen any genuine thought put to it on the part of the well-paid pundits who defend against PC extremism aimed at the kinds of social conditions created by bogus economic strategies that only redound to those already gorging on the rest of our efforts. Those that have lost out - due NOT TO PC but to the shitemeisters of the parasitic rentier class - feel they have allies in the scapegoating that they indulge in. I don't think that is the intention of those railing about SJWs but that is the result. They are working against their aims without realizing it ... or? — Izat So

I don't know if I really understand any sentence you wrote there, and I'm not sure what any of it has to do with my comment.

as per usual, you guys still haven’t moved past semantics. no wonder it is said that “philosophy is dead;” the philosophers today know nothing of the nature of being. — TheGreatArcanum

For one, should I be surprised that you'd reach conclusions about "philosophers today" based on posts on this board?

e.g. 'Does global warming exist ? ' only has significance if an answer implies subsequent action.
...in short, everyday usage of 'existence' is relative because it involves 'what's it got to do with us ?' — fresco

Whether you're using "significance" in the "meaning" (semantic) sense or in the "importance" (value) sense, both are assigned by individuals, with potentially as much variation as we can imagine, and neither are therefore limited, in general, to answers that imply subsequent action.

What I am reacting against by using the term 'seminaritis', are academic scenarios such as 'atheists' arguing with 'believers' about 'evidence for the existence of God'. This never happens in 'real life' where the labels 'atheist' and 'believer' never arise except in social conflict situations, like for example, in discussion of 'educational curricula'. In 'real life', believers and atheists just 'get on with it' with or without the functionality of a God' concept. — fresco

Not sure what you're talking about there. In real life, people have discussions/arguments about stuff like that often enough. It's not something most people do most of the time, but no discussion is aside from the most superficial interaction about the weather and the like.

I note that some dissenters are arguing from pov's like 'this is epistemology not linguistics — fresco

You're referring to me there. It's really just a way to point out that maybe you're trying to talk a bit "above your head." You presented a representationalist / non-representationalist dichotomy as if there was a well-established one specifically in philosophy of language. If that's the case, I'm not very familiar with it (though I am at least cursorily familiar with some representationalism talk in that field). So then you started getting a bit patronizing about that, and when I pressed you for info about it, it turned out that you were referring to phil of perception (or more broadly epistemological) representationalism vs alternatives (where the alternatives, by the way, aren't actually commonly grouped together under an "anti-representationalism" heading).

Referring to something different, where Rorty was actually doing phil of language, would be another matter of course.

However, re this:

he believed that these philosophers were all in one way or another trying to hit on the thesis that our language does not represent things in reality in any relevant way. Rather than situating our language in ways in order to get things right or correct Rorty says in the Introduction to the first volume of his philosophical papers that we should believe that beliefs are only habits with which we use to react and adapt to the world.

The second part of that doesn't cohere very well with the first part, unless Rorty was asserting that beliefs are necessarily linguistic. Otherwise comments about beliefs can't be taken to be comments about language per se.

The rest of that is Rorty commenting contra so-called "ordinary language philosophy," which would have nothing to do with a representationalism/non-representationalism divide re phil of language.

It seems like this is kind of turning out to be you commenting on Wikipedia articles are similar stuff you read on the Internet, by the way.

You’re just getting objective and subjective mixed up here. Whether facts ought to be believed or not doesn’t depend on us if they’re objective. — AJJ

So imagine there are no people. There are facts, of course. What would make it an objective fact in that situation that those facts ought to be believed by people?

If there’s a clear objection to the argument in my original post, I would love to here it — AJJ

I already gave you the clear objection. Facts in no way generally hinge on us or anything about us. There would be facts if we never existed. If we never existed, there's obviously nothing we ought to believe. But there are still facts.

This is from the Stanford Enc. Phil suggesting appropriate PMN references.
,

…Sellars and Quine invoke the same argument, one which bears equally against the given-versus-nongiven and the necessary-versus-contingent distinctions. The crucial premise of this argument is that we understand knowledge when we understand the social justification of belief, and thus have no need to view it as accuracy of representation. (PMN 170)
The upshot of Quine's and Sellars' criticisms of the myths and dogmas of epistemology is, Rorty suggests, that "we see knowledge as a matter of conversation and of social practice, rather than as an attempt to mirror nature." (PMN 171) Rorty provides this view with a label: "Explaining rationality and epistemic authority by reference to what society lets us say, rather than the latter by the former, is the essence of what I shall call ‘epistemological behaviorism,’ an attitude common to Dewey and Wittgenstein." (PMN 174) — fresco

But that's not philosophy of language, it's epistemology (and implicationally phil of perception). I'm very familiar with representationalism and its alternatives in this realm. As a direct realist, I'm obviously not a representationalist.

You initially seemed to be saying something specifically about representationalist versus non-representationalist theories of language.

Obtuse? this is as simple and straightforward as we can get while still doing philosophy.

Imagine the following. Someone gives this argument:

P1: Facts are true things.
P2: We ought not to believe true things.
C: We ought not to believe facts.

Are there any problems with that argument?

Sigh--there's no argument for P2. P2 needs an argument.

(I don't agree with P1, either, by the way. That's not what a fact is. But what's more important at the moment is that P2 would require an argument. As it is, it's just coming out of nowhere. It doesn't follow from anything.)

My ideal regime? I'm king.

If the conventional sense of fact is “something that is true”, and we ought to believe true things, — AJJ

That's not (2) it's (4). (2) would be "The conventional sense of 'fact' is thing we ought to believe."

"and we ought to believe true things" is saying (4), that it's necessarily the case that we ought to believe facts.

In other words, you're not saying that the definition of fact is "thing we ought to believe." You're saying that it follows from something being a fact that we ought to believe it.

But claiming that something follows requires an argument.

By the way, does it follow from a fact that we ought to believe it if humans had never appeared?

Can we not have facts in the absence of humans?

It can’t be entirely nominal or else how could we even have common, reliable experiences at all? At some point there must be primitive referents to which we can slap on symbols. — aporiap

Wait, is he somehow arguing that "it's all language" (a la "it's turtles all the way down") and that no language is actually referring to anything other than itself?

I’m saying there are thing we ought to believe, we ought to believe them because they’re true, and that true things are facts. — AJJ

That's fine, but it doesn't have anything to do with the problem with the argument you presented.

The argument you presented went like this:

"If there are no objective values then there are no facts (since there’s nothing that we ought to believe). "

That only works if:

(1) Objective values and facts are supposedly the same thing, or
(2) "Things we ought to believe" and facts are supposedly the same thing

OR, if

(3) "If there's a fact, then necessarily it has objective value" is true, or
(4) "If there's a fact, then necessarily there's something we ought to believe" is true

(1) and (2) are not conventional definitions of "fact." As unconventional definitions, that could work, though it would be vacuous (as a tautology--"There is no x if there's no x") and it wouldn't have any rhetorical weight, because the rhetorical weight of the argument is gained by appealing to the conventional sense of "fact."

Re (3) and (4), there's zero argument for them. The argument would have to argue for one or both of those claims.

I have PMN handy here. A lot of it isn't about phil of language or anything that Rorty is characterizing as "nonrepresentationalism" specifically re phil of language (again, I don't recall him using that term as specifically a phil of language term--but maybe I just don't recall that). Anyway, since you're ostensibly better-versed in it than I am, and it's supposedly providing support for views you agree with, could you give page or at least chapter references for the relevant part?

Do you understand the difference between what "fact" refers to and what "thing we ought to believe" refers to?

It's important that you can grasp something so basic.

I don't recall either calling any phil of language stance "antirepresentationalism." Can you be a bit more specific with a reference? (Again, I'm assuming that you're not really just talking about phil of perception, or epistemology, or something else like that)

Would you say the above is a fact? And would you say we ought to believe it? Is there anything we ought to believe? If you say no to the last two questions, ought we to believe that?

It goes on forever. — AJJ

It doesn't go on forever. "Fact" does NOT refer to "thing we ought to believe," Period. If one feels that we ought to believe facts, that's fine. But "thing we ought to believe" is not what a fact is. (And you wouldn't say "We ought to believe things we ought to believe" instead of "we ought to believe facts" would you?)

It's like saying that "automobile" refers to "Thing we ought to periodically change the oil for." Or that "dog" refers to "Thing we ought to take outside for a walk."

Would you say that there are no dogs if there are no things we ought to take outside for a walk?

Re the other comment, I wrote this above:

"What's something you'd recommend on nonrepresentationalism, though? I'll read it and comment to you as I do."

I don't know if you just didn't read that or what, but you didn't respond. (I'm assuming that you're specifically talking about linguistic nonrepresentationalism, by the way, since that's the context in which you brought this up earlier.)

You claimed that the title of this thread rejects "axioms of" naive realism.

No it does not. Because naive realism has no correlation to relative vs absolute.

Is that a response to this:

"If we don't have objective/observable expectancy, then (a) how do we have a social form of that? and (b) how are we getting to external meaning? "

If so, I take the response as you simply not having an argument for what you were claiming. Or it's at least you not being willing to get down to the details necessary to understand the discrepancies between our different claims.

I already pointed out to you that existence being relative, not absolute has no correlation to realism/idealism. Maybe you disagreed with me, but then you need to make a case for the correlation.

If there are no objective values then there are no facts (since there’s nothing that we ought to believe). There are facts, therefore there are objective values. — AJJ

?? Facts aren't conventionally defined as "things we ought to believe." Many people do feel that we ought to believe facts, but that's not what a fact IS. Facts are ways that the world happens to be. States of affairs.

This strikes me as a comment that I can't even believe would be published, because the author seems extremely confused.

ou don't ! All you have is confidence levels of expectancy. — fresco

If we don't have objective/observable expectancy, then (a) how do we have a social form of that? and (b) how are we getting to external meaning?

The thesis rejects them by definition. — fresco

Which thesis are we referring to there? And if it rejects naive realistic "axioms," is it a worthwhile thesis?

How would you have objective (or more simply, observable) expectancy?

What's something you'd recommend on nonrepresentationalism, though? I'll read it and comment to you as I do.

Since words are socially acquired — fresco

So, when the word "cat" is socially acquired, for example, what's actually acquired is the sound "cat" or the set of letters c-a-t if it's writing instead. The sound and the marks are not the same thing as the meaning.

(I'd rather focus on one topic at a time, but we're already all over the map. I'll let you choose which topic to focus on first.)

They are implying that 'meaning' resides in potentially shifting social consenus about joint projects. — fresco

I'm a subjectivist on meaning. Meaning resides in heads. It's not social. It's mental. There's no social mentality.

There have even been moves to proscribe the word 'is' as being misleadingly absolutist — fresco

Not sure what that would amount to

situations involving non physicality. — fresco

The notion of nonphysical things is incoherent.

And the limitations of static set theory, with its fixed set membership which form the basis of classical logic, have been questioned from the pov of the dynamic 'fuzzy sets' approach. — fresco

We already have three unique topics above. I'll refrain from commenting on a fourth. ;-)

maybe later. — TheGreatArcanum

I'll keep an eye open for one. I'll send you a cookie.