Thought has a transcendental logical structure. You cannot think illogically (3.03) The relations of simple objects share this logical structure. The movement of tectonic plates is accidental.

6.37 There is no compulsion making one thing happen because another has happened. The only necessity that exists is logical necessity.

6.41 For all that happens and is the case is accidental. — Fooloso4

The accidental only makes sense in light of the determined or predicted. Saying that something is accidental implies that there is a way things are supposed to be but something unintended happened that made things different. Accidents only come about when something was predicted to happen but didn't. If you dont make a prediction then there can be no accidents.

:up:
Even when philosophers say that things are fuzzy around the edges, it seems that they have determined what edges are and what is fuzzy.

Language, art, music, etc.
— bongo fury

How are language, art and music NOT mental entities? Dont you mean ink marks, paint blotches and oscillating air molecules? It seems that those would be the non-mental entities and language, art and music would be the mental intenties as that is what certain ink marks, paint blotches and oscillating air molecules are arbitrarily interpreted as being. Arbitrary interpretations are mental entities.

For instance, how do we non-korean-speaking people know that Korean is a language? It just looks like scribbles and strange sounds being made by some people to us. How can you explain the difference in how different people interpret different scribbles and utterances if not by referring to mental entities?

It seems to me that if Witt were alive today he'd contradict himself again just as his Investigations contradicted his Tractus. One could argue that philosophy is simply language use and if language use is a game then philosophy has been relegated to a game of Scribbles (not Scrabble). It does seem that way when reading many of the posts on this forum. I'm more interested in what you're referring to with scribbles, or what is the case in the world. If that isn't how you're using your scribbles, then you're really saying anything useful.

and being that thoughts are part of the world thoughts are what is the case as much as any other part of the world. The question is how are thoughts, which is one case, be about another entirely different case (not thoughts), like the movement of tectonic plates, if not by some form of causation (energy transfer, information transfer, etc.)?

If they're about things in the world, they're fine. It's mainly philosophy that tries to comment on the world from a vantage point external to it. — Tate

So does science. Science and Philosophy are about things. Is the idea of multiple universes and dark matter in the domain of philosophy or science? Are they mental entities as bongo put it, or something else?

The difference seems to be in the amount of observable evidence there is and its predictive power.

If evidence and predictive power are not mental entities then what are they? Are they something in the world?

That metaphysical claims are nonsense. — Tate

Depends on the claim. Maybe the issue is saying that you can claim any metaphysical position. Seems that you can only ponder or hypothesize metaphysical positions. A claim would change it from being metaphysical to scientific, no? Are scientific claims nonsense? Why?

That's the kind of reason I (and I claimed also W) counselled dispensing with mental entities.

I was going along with it (entities included) out of interest, while I thought I could follow. Awareness too, and I'm out of here. — bongo fury

If we dispense with mental entities then what is left?

I wonder what role does awareness play here. Is awareness a feeling or thought? In being aware of your feelings and thoughts are you feeling your feelings and/or thinking your thoughts?

It gained traction with advancements in the natural sciences which heavily depended on observation and repeatability as a ground for establishing fact verses hypothesis or beliefs. — Benj96

And then lost traction when science discovered that the world is not as it appears and that observers might actually influence what is observed.

To my mind, methodologically speaking, materialism (facticity, data) is a subset of physicalism (modeling) which is subset of naturalism (explanation). — 180 Proof

So physicalism, materialism and naturalism are concepts. How are concepts physical, material or natural? How do physical things and concepts interact, or how do physical things come to possess concepts?

As a metaphysics, it's arbitrary, even scientistic. However, as a methodology (criterion) for eliminaing "nonphysical" concepts from the construction of explanatory models of phenomena, physicalism is demonstrably more useful than any non/anti-physicalist alternative. — 180 Proof

Sounds circular. What does it even mean for a concept to be physical vs. Non-physical? Are you talking about the ontology of concepts, or what the concepts are about? If the latter how do concepts come to be about anything? Is aboutness physical or non-physical?

Interesting argument. I didn't ask or answer any such questions in 4th grade. I think most of us live unexamined lives, derive value systems unsystematically through experience and socialisation, holding onto views that are an amalgam of fallacies, prejudices and models of reality which can't be justified. I think the point is ignorance is bliss, truth seeking doesn't ususally make any real difference to survivability or prosperity and people have no idea how much of what they think is deficient. — Tom Storm

Everyone examines their lives at some point - usually in the late teens - early twenties. They question their existence and their purpose. The real question is how much of an examination does your life need before you can get on with just living it? Philosophy seems to have shown that you can never know anything, or that you have to start with some assumptions. So it would be pointless to keep asking questions for which you will never get an answer.

Philosophers are the ones that don't seem to realize that as they attempt to re-ask the same questions we asked and solved in the 4th grade.
— Harry Hindu

What are those questions? — Jackson

What are propositions? What is a language? What is science? What are numbers? etc.

When we agree on new uses for a term we are essentially creating a new context with which we use the term.
— Harry Hindu

Sure. Cherry-picking cases of past usage that help to sell our new theory.

Weren't Newton & co. rather cheekily re-purposing psychological words like force ("courage, fortitude"), inertia ("unskillfulness, ignorance"), moment ("importance")? — bongo fury

They weren't cherry-picking past usage. Read your sentence again. They were re-purposing words, which are scribbles and utterances, for new usages, just like we re-purposed bumps to use as words as braille, and arm and hand movements as sign-language.

To finish the preface: the philosopher believes that the ordinary person is either unfamiliar with the distinction or fails to apply it properly, and that if they did they too would be in the pickle philosophers are, unable to bridge the gap. Most people just don't notice, or don't understand what a big deal this is, that's the mantra of philosophy. (The other example that leaps to mind also comes from Hume: how do you know the sun will rise tomorrow?) — Srap Tasmaner

Sure, there are some uses of language that appear to be habit more than a clear understanding of what it actually means to say such things, but I've seen philosophers fall prey to the habit just as much as ordinary people. Assumptions make up the the foundation from where we build our understanding of the world. Philosophers are the ones that don't seem to realize that as they attempt to re-ask the same questions we asked and solved in the 4th grade. That isn't to say that there aren't some higher level assumptions that we take for granted that can't be questioned - like does God exist - but then ordinary people can be just as concerned about whether god exists (like when they are suffering at the hand of an unfair world) as a philosopher can.

Philosophers: Ordinary folk think too less.
Ordinary folk: Philosophers think too much.

We never hit the sweet spot betwixt deficiency & excess now do we? We're always swinging, pendulum-like, back and forth between extremes. The aurea mediocritas isn't easy to either attain or maintain. — Agent Smith

Speak for yourself. :smirk:

Philosophers: folk that use language like its a game or art
Ordinary folk: folk that use language to communicate

But a material object cannot literally be a part of a proposition and therefore cannot be part of a fact. — Art48

Depends on what you mean by "proposition". Propositions can be ink marks on a piece of paper, or vibrating air molecules when speaking.

In everyday usage, sure. — bongo fury

I don't get this distinction between everyday, ordinary usage and some other usage. Usage depends on context. Why should we consider a philosophical context any different than any other context? The idea of ordinary usage takes into account these various contexts. What is ordinary about the usage is that it is ordinary to use the terms that way in those contexts. Any unordinary usage would be a misuse of terms in that context. When we agree on new uses for a term we are essentially creating a new context with which we use the term.

Clearly an absurd conclusion. — Andrew M

Just another way of saying that it is a misuse of language.

There isn't an epistemic difference (i.e., either way, one is correct or mistaken about whether it is raining). However there is a semantic difference. With the "knowledge changes" position you can know it is raining when it isn't, on ordinary usage you can't. — Andrew M

Yet you did assert that you know when you didn't with ordinary usage. You just know something different now.

If you want to know whether it is raining then looking out the window provides good evidence. You can say that you know it, but be mistaken, as with any claim. You can also know that you know. That's just how the logic of the usage plays out. As mentioned, the standard for claiming knowledge isn't Cartesian certainty. So its possible to think that you know that you know when you don't. — Andrew M

As I already pointed out, you being mistaken is good evidence that you can still be mistaken with any knowledge claim, which is to say that you can never know that you know. So thinking of knowledge as a changing interpretation based on new good evidence resolves the issue. There can be right and wrong interpretations. A wrong interpretation is not no interpretation, just a different one based on the good evidence one had at the time. Given that evidence you had at the time, it would be a valid interpretation. So either we make knowledge a synonym of interpretation or we just omit the word from usage because it would be useless. Using knowledge as a synonym for interpretation is how we use the word in ordinary usage anyway when we take into account how we used the term, "knowledge" in the past as well as now when we say we know but can't know that we know thanks to the good evidence that our interpretations have changed in the past.

The problem of induction is also good evidence that some observation is not good evidence to support an assertion of knowledge in that it seems to call into question observations as justification for forming knowledge.

You could be wrong again and again. But that's unlikely for a given case, since you require good evidence for each iteration of the claim. The space of possibilities rapidly diminishes. Consider what it would take to be wrong that the Earth orbits the Sun. — Andrew M

Which addresses my question that I asked before about how many observations need to be made before we can claim knowledge which you responded:

But "every possible observation" is not the standard for making knowledge claims or forming beliefs. — Andrew M

How would you know that the space of possibilities "rapidly diminishes" without knowing how many observations need to be made? You are claiming to know something that you couldn't possibly know or else you would have made the correct interpretation in the beginning if you knew how many observations you needed to assert knowledge.

Our observations about the movement of the Earth took place on the Earth and out in space. What if we are able to move into another dimension and observe the movement of the Earth - could we say that it still orbits the Sun? "Orbit" might not make any sense when observed from another dimension. We keep trying dislocate ourselves from reality when making observations as if we can make an observation outside of reality. One QM interpretation is that observers have an impact on what they observe, so how do we know that the orbit of the Earth around the Sun is a product of just the Earth and the Sun, or also us as observers.

It can be a good reason at the time. It may no longer be a good reason in the light of new evidence. Also there need be no infinite regress, as suggested by the orbit example. At some level of evidence you expect to converge on the truth. — Andrew M

Which is to say that the interpretation we had was valid given the reasons we had at the time. Our interpretation can change, but that doesn't mean that we never had an interpretation in the past.

It is good evidence. If it weren't, then essentially no knowledge claims could ever be made (as Descartes discovered). Yet we do have knowledge. However what constitutes good evidence at one time may no longer be sufficient in the light of new evidence. If you become aware that your brother sprayed the window, then you retract your former claim, since the fact that you looked out the window is no longer a good reason to believe it was raining (though it was a good reason before). — Andrew M

Which is the same as saying that it was a valid reason for arriving at that interpretation. Knowledge claims can be made if we define knowledge as an interpretation (which I have already shown that the ordinary usage of knowledge is a synonym for interpretation). So we do have interpretations/knowledge. What constitutes good reasons for one interpretation does not qualify as good reasons for a different interpretation. If you become aware of new evidence then you amend your interpretation. This doesn't disqualify that looking out the window is good evidence for interpreting that it is raining. Most of the time it is, and still is even though you were mistaken once before.

Read Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. — Michael

As if Wittgenstein is the prophet of propositions. :roll:

Will philosophy ever recover from the damage that Wittgenstein has dealt it?

Read a dictionary.

What is life? I know that I’m alive and that a rock isn’t. But there’s no proper understanding of what life is, with over a hundred proposed definitions. — Michael

Which is to say that we have definitions of life that allow us to distinguish it from things that are not alive. All I'm asking is what those distinctions are. If you can't even answer that simple question then it does not follow that a chicken is not a proposition. A proposition could be anything, which makes your arguments non-sensical.

Philosophy has degenerated into a game of scribbles and utterances. Philosophers scribble and utter like they know what they are doing, but when you ask them what they are doing, they don't know.

I said I can't give you a definition of "proposition", just as I can't give you a definition of "number". But I know which things are numbers, which things are propositions, and which things are neither.

And I know that 2 + 2 = 4.

And I know that modus tollens is a valid rule of inference.

And I know that chickens are animals.

That's all that matters for this discussion. — Michael

What is a definition if not the suggested, or commonly understood way of using the term? What you're saying is that you don't know how to use the term, proposition, so it doesn't follow that you can know how they relate using formal logic.

What does it mean to know that 2+2=4 - that you've learned how to copy someone else's behavior typing that string of scribbles?

Chickens are animals and propositions are...? You didn't need to get in-depth and metaphysical with your description of a chicken, so why would you think I'd be asking for something different when describing a proposition? Seems like you just want to avoid the question by being purposely obtuse.

It's easy. Propositions and numbers are scribbles that refer to states of affairs. No metaphysics needed.

Now you're contradicting yourself. You said "I don't know" and now you're saying that you do. Which is it? If you know, how do you know? Using AndrewM's qualification for knowledge as having "good evidence", what "good evidence" do you have that you know what propositions are well enough to talk about them?

How can you tell the difference between a proposition and a chicken if you don't know what a proposition is? How are a chicken and a proposition different? You said that you know that, so you should be able to answer that question.

I can't give you any meaningful definition of "proposition", just as I can't give you any meaningful definition of "number". I can give you examples of things which are either numbers or not numbers, and examples of things which are either propositions or not propositions.

But, again, this has nothing to do with Fitch's paradox. If you want to talk about what propositions are then start another discussion. — Michael

That's not necessary. You've already shown that you have no idea what you're talking about, which is the point I was trying to make. Thanks. :smile:

I don't need to have some kind of in-depth metaphysical understanding of the nature of language and reasoning to make use of formal logic, just as I don't need to have some kind of in-depth metaphysical understanding of the nature of numbers to do maths. — Michael

I wasn't asking for an in-depth metaphysical understanding of the nature of language. It's not necessary to answer a simple question. You said, "I don't know". I'm just asking for a simple definition of "proposition". What do you know, if anything, of what a proposition is? You have to have some understanding of the nature of numbers to do maths, or else what are you doing when you do maths?. :roll:

Formal logic is concerned with the relationship between propositions. — Michael

You keep using this term, "proposition" that you've you admitted to not knowing what they are. If you don't know what propositions are, then how can you even know what kind of relationship exists between them? You just continue to post scribbles on this screen and asserting that there is a relationship between them, but don't know what the members of that relationship actually are.

Is a proposition a relationship - a relationship between some scribbles or utterances and what those scribbles and utterances are about? So formal logic would be the relationship between one string of scribbles and what that string of scribbles is about and another string of scribbles and what that string of scribbles is about. It seems to me that you'd first have to determine what the scribbles are about (like an assertion of what is the case, like the cat being on the mat) before understanding the relationship between them.

We don't. But "every possible observation" is not the standard for making knowledge claims or forming beliefs. Good evidence is. If good counter-evidence emerges, then we should change our minds and retract the former claim. — Andrew M

Which isn't any different than saying knowledge is an interpretation that changes with new evidence - not that you never had it.

What qualifies as good evidence? Isn't there a chance that good counter-evidence emerges later? If yes, then you can never say that you possess knowledge. You would never know that you know or you would know something unknowable.

You can look out the window at the moment your trickster brother sprays the window with a hose.
— Harry Hindu

In which case you wouldn't know it was raining, you would just think you did. — Andrew M

Yet we asserted that we did know and were wrong, which is good evidence that you could be wrong again, and again, and again - hence no such thing as knowledge unless we define knowledge as an interpretation that changes - not that you never had it. So, using your "good evidence" definition, you have good evidence that you can't ever possess good evidence. Your argument defeats itself.

Is it possible to believe a truth? How would that be different than to know a truth?
— Harry Hindu

Yes. To know it also requires good reason, or evidence, or justification. — Andrew M

As I pointed out, it is very possible that your good reason or evidence isn't actually a good reason or evidence, and you only find that out after you get good reason or evidence, yet it is very possible that your good reason or evidence isn't actually good reason or evidence, and you only find that out...,etc. It's an infinite regress.

How do we ever know that we have all the evidence necessary to assert knowledge over belief?
— Harry Hindu

Your question assumes a standard of infallibility or Cartesian certainty. But you can say that you know it is raining (or not) by simply looking out the window. That's the relevant standard for making knowledge claims. — Andrew M

No. It is you that assumes a standard of infallibility or Cartesian certainty by saying that "good evidence" is what is needed to possess knowledge. I'm simply asking you to define what that means, if not that "good evidence" is a state of infallibility (knowing the truth). I already pointed out that looking out the window is not good evidence because your brother could be spraying the window with a hose.

It seems to me that knowledge can only ever be a present or past state, never a future state. We can know what we know and know what we knew but never know what we will know.

EDIT:
Now that I think about it, it seems that knowledge is only a present state, kind of like the current fashion trend.

Another way to think of this is in terms of Ryle's achievement verbs. We can believe or claim that it is raining and be mistaken but we can't know that it is raining and be mistaken, since to know that it is raining is to be correct and for good reason (e.g., we looked out the window). — Andrew M

This is circular.

You can look out the window at the moment your trickster brother sprays the window with a hose.

Is it possible to believe a truth? How would that be different than to know a truth? How do we ever know that we have all the evidence necessary to assert knowledge over belief?

Indeed, and that's the point. When we discover that a former knowledge claim was mistaken, we retroactively downgrade its status from knowledge to belief. We say that they didn't know it after all, since we no longer believe that it was true then. — Andrew M

But this misses the point that what we used to call knowledge wasn't knowledge in light of new observations, but observations is what allowed us to assert knowledge that we didn't have in the first place. So how do we know that we've made every possible observation to assert we possess knowledge? Seems to me that either knowledge is not related to truth as Michael's non-omniscient principle seems to state:

some truths are unknowable — Luke

or "knowledge" is a useless term and we can only ever believe our assertions.

Or, we re-define knowledge to be a set of rules that we have adopted for interpreting some observation, like the sun moving across the sky, and the rules (knowledge) can change with new observations.

In practice it may be that asserting a proposition implies that one believes one's assertion (see Moore's paradox), but in formal logic there is a distinction between asserting that a proposition is true and asserting that a proposition is known to be true. — Michael

But A does not say either way. B tries to clarify the distinction but fails when

C no one know that no knows the cat is on the mat

C takes your principle of non-omniscience to its full conclusion

In practice, meaning it can be useful in the world with formal not necessarily so. I'm more interested in the more useful interpretation.

The non-omniscience principle states — Michael

It seems to state that knowledge and truth are not related.

You're avoiding the questions requesting the definition of the terms you're using but fail to provide any.

What does it mean to be omniscient vs non-omniscient? Don't you have to define knowledge to make sense of that distinction?

Does being non-omniscient mean that we know nothing or that we don't know everything? If the latter then how do we know that what we do know is true? If the former then knowledge is meaningless.

I don't understand what your comments have to do with anything. — Michael

You don't understand the question, what is knowledge?

A the cat is on the mat
B no one knows the cat is on the mat

A is an assertion of knowledge
B contradicts A

I might believe it to be so? e.g. alien life exists, the real part of every nontrivial zero of the Riemann zeta function is 1/2, it will rain tomorrow. — Michael

But one has reasons to believe alien life exists and that it will rain tomorrow. What reasons does one have to know that know one knows alien life exists or that it will rain tomorrow?

And then we can always cancel out the prior statement with a subsequent statement that no knows the prior statement is true. What prevents sliding down the slippery slope? Have you ever claimed to know something and found that it was not true?

How is belief different than knowledge?

a the cat is on the mat
b nobody knows that the cat is on the mat

Both a and b are true. This means that, even though a doesn't say so about itself, a is an unknown truth. — Michael

It seems to me that b renders a as a meaningless string if scribbles.

If no one knows the cat is on the mat then from from where does A follow? Why was A stated in the first place? How is it possible to positively assert that which is not known?

We could go on ad infinitium with

c no one knows that know one knows the cat is on the mat
d no one knows that no one knows that no one knows the cat is on the mat

etc.
With each subsequent statement rendering the prior statement as useless.

The question is, what is knowing? How does knowledge relate to truth? Have you ever claimed to know something and later found it was not true?

I am posting this on page 33 of the topic "Is there an external material world?", which is very close to 1000 responses!

I really wonder and cannot believe how could such a trivial and without real value or use --for me, of course-- question, the answer to which is more than obvious,, could arise such a huge interest and create such a huge discussion! — Alkis Piskas

I think most of it hasn't been to discuss whether or not an external material world exists, but what everyone means by, "external", "material" and "world". Threads like this tend to go on forever because we are all talking past each other and misusing terms. Some are artfully (not literally) using terms in playing word games and don't seem to have the intention of saying much of anything useful.

My view is that ideas already exist in the mindscape, just as trees exist in the landscape. Seeing a pair of apples may awaken our mind to the idea of two, but the idea already exists. Any being which lacks the mental capacity will never perceive the idea "two." Imagine an earthworm, for instance, crawls over two pebbles. I doubt the idea of two ever enters what mind it has. — Art48

Probably because it would be useless to its survival. Would it be useful to know that there are two birds looking to eat it for lunch? Perceiving more than one bird but less than 3 birds would be useful to its survival.

What do the ideas in the mindscape consist of? What form do they take? Can you have an idea of "tree" without having first perceived more than one tree? What is the difference between the idea of the universal tree vs the particular tree? How can you tell the difference? What does the idea of two look like in the mind independent of the scribble, "2" or "two" and independent of the observation of two particulars? How do you know that you are holding the idea of 2 in your mind independent of these forms (the scribbles and a quantity of particulars that share several characteristics)?

An analogy: Imagine indirect experience as watching a baseball game on TV, as opposed to being in the park. We don’t directly experience the tree; our senses play the role of TV. — Art48

Don't you mean our mind plays the role of the picture on TV and the cameras and microphones at the baseball game play the role of the senses? Do we directly experience our mind? What information are we missing when experiencing something indirectly vs. directly? For instance, what information are we missing by watching the game on TV vs being at the game? We know the score and can see and hear the announcer describing the plays whether we are at the game or watching it on TV, so what is missing? If you asked me about the game the next day and I was able to tell you the score, who won and about the great plays that were made, how could you tell if I was at the game or watched it on TV?

Apple is a universal. A particular apple is an instantiation of the universal called “apple”. — Art48

How did we come to understand, or possess, the idea of "particular" and its relation with the idea, "unversal"?

Without the idea of two, we cannot apply the idea of two to a pair of apples. Example, I define “xyz” as the set of all xyz things. Not a very useful definition. — Art48

What reason does one have for "applying the idea of two to a pair" of objects, if not for communication?

I think "applying" is not an apt term to describe this process. We perceive multiple objects that have a number of similarities and differences. We even notice a similar pattern among different objects - such that there can be two of every thing that is not unique. No language is necessary up to this point. It is only when you intend to communicate this latter pattern of two that you need to have an agree upon symbol to use to refer to this pattern of observations - the scribble "2".'

Moreover, the set of all existing two things is constantly changing. If I eat one of the two apples, then the “set of all existing two things” has changed. If two atoms are crushed out of existence in some neutron star in another galaxy, the “set of all existing two things” has changed. — Art48

Is the apple/atom left the only apple/atom in existence? If not, then there are still at least two apples/atoms that exist.

Ideas exist in the “mindscape.” Physical cats exist in the physical world. — Art48

How do ideas and physical objects interact? How did you come to know of the concept, "physical"? What are you referring to when you use this term?

Experience is concrete. I physically experience rough brown patches and smooth green patches, which lead me to mentally experience a universal, i.e., the idea of a tree. — Art48

How did you come to experience the universal by observing just one pattern (a particular) of rough brown patches and smooth green patches?

Without the idea of two, we cannot apply the idea of two to a pair of apples. Example, I define “xyz” as the set of all xyz things. Not a very useful definition. — Art48

From where did we get the idea of two if not by first observing more than one thing? How can we observe more than one thing if we don't already posses the category "tree" of which many similarly looking things are are a member of? Without categories there would only be one of everything.

It seems to me that the fact that there are things that share a number of similarities and differences is what allows us to create categories in the first place. If everything was different in which there was no one thing that shared even one characteristic with another thing there would be no categories, or universals.

Here’s the difference between an objective truth claim and a postmodern assertion. The former invokes a picture of the way things are. This picture consists of a specific, arbitrary content. The postmodernist is not offering a picture containing an arbitrary content. They argue that we are constant moving from one picture, one value content to another. It is not the particular claims, schemes, worldviews , objective definitions that the postmodernist is interested in describing , but the movement. And saying that they are ‘describing’ something is not quite accurate, as if they stood outside of this flow. Rather, the postmodernist is enacting change and movement in talking about it. Their assertions are self-reflexive, already caught up in and changed by the flow. — Joshs

Objectivity is not limited to static pictures. You can describe an event objectively as well. Objectivity is simply a description of how things are and is independent of other people's agreement or disagreement with you. Are you not telling us how things are for everyone even if we don't agree with you?

Subjectivity is a category error where you confuse some aspect of the world with some aspect of yourself.

If truths were subjective then what reason would you have to share your subjective knowledge with someone else? After all we would subjectivity interpret your scribbles on the screen so there is no true or false way of reading the scribbles. No one can ever be wrong if truths are subjective, which is one reason some people find solace in believing in subjective truths - so they can avoid the stress of being wrong.

Not when you're arguing against certain brands of anti-realism which deny the "trivial" distinction that realists take for granted. — Michael

It seems to me that even an anti realist can't deny the distinction between a visual of a cat and a visual of scribbles.

Intersubjectivity is different than objectivity. The former is a dynamic pattern of interconnective relationality that cannot be captured by a formula or rule capturing the whole. The latter looks for a rule, law , fixed description applying to some aspect of nature. Objectivity tries to ground fluid self-organization on some content external to it which is not fluid — Joshs

Then your posts are objective because your posts are fixed descriptions about sone aspect of nature or reality, like the relations between writers, readers, words and what they represent.

Well, I have a map of the United States which is definitely not a part of the United States. — Michael

In this instance "not part" means not in the U.S. which is a spatial relationship and "seperate" in this sense is the literal sense. I already pointed out words are not special in this regard.

Exactly what I said before; the utterance "the cat is on the mat" is separate to the cat being on the mat. — Michael

This doesn't address what I said. If you dont mean "separate" in the same way you mean "not part", then what do you mean? If you don't literally mean what you say, then what do you mean literally? The relationship between the scribbles and the cat and the mat is one of representation, not seperate. If you want to say that the scribbles are not the cat on the mat, that is trivial and useless to the conversation. Representation is what joins the scribbles and the cat and the mat, not separates them.

Philosophers create problems by misusing language.

And again, you're just being too literal in your reading. When others talk about a distinction between language and the world understand it as your oft-quoted distinction between a map and the territory. — Michael

As I pointed out before, the map is part of the territory, not separate. If the ones that are using the term, "separate" don't mean it literally, then they don't really mean that language is separate from the world, then what is it they do mean? Why use the term, "separate" if that isn't what they mean? Seems to me that there would be a different term that they could use - like what they actually do mean, if not separate.

I think you're being too literal in your reading. They're just saying that the utterance "the cat is on the mat" is not the cat being on the mat. — Michael

And neither is a table on the rug the cat being on the mat. Words are not cats. Cats are not dogs. Mats are not tables. Saying a cat is not a word is no different than saying a cat is not a mat. Words, mats, cats, tables and dogs all exist in the world and are distinguished visually and audibly. There is nothing special about words in this regard that would make one think that they are separate from the world.