• Shawn
    12.6k
    Rorty also states:

    It may be that what Hacking calls the death of meaning at the hands of Quine, Wittgenstein, Davidson and Feyerabend brings with it the death of philosophy as a discipline with a method of its own.

    --The fifty year (now 81!) history of linguistic philosophy, a history which is now behind us, suggests that such questions are likely to prove unprofitable.
  • Banno
    23.1k
    Language is a common structure for the stuff we do. Replace meaning with what we do with words. Then your "implicit assumption" is just that we do things with words.

    Well, yes.
  • Shawn
    12.6k
    Replace meaning with what we do with words.Banno

    Is this some intuitionalist version of meaning arising with what we do with words?

    If so, we might as well and say that it's all in the brain and leave the rest to science?
  • Banno
    23.1k
    All in the brain? No, the opposite - it's a public enterprise!
  • Shawn
    12.6k
    All in the brain? No, the opposite - it's a public enterprise!Banno

    But, within the realm of philosophy, the linguistic turn ended in the 1990's.

    Nowadays we have some stuff like possible worlds semantics with modal logic? So, did it end as Rorty said or what's on the roadmap for the next paradigm shift in philosophical endeavors?
  • Janus
    15.4k
    I don't think that the meaning of a sentence is given by the things it signifies.Banno

    As I see it some words signify things like trees, cars, people and son on, and other words signify cognitively basic ideas, for example and signifies addition, the, that and this signify identification, there and here signify location, then and now signify time, and so on. There are many examples. Some words signify actions or attitudes. The inherent logic in language consists in the ideas those kinds of words signifiy, which structure language and its grammar. All, or at least most, languages have equivalents of those kinds of words, as far as I know.

    If this were so there would be no need for modal logic, nor for a seperate explanation of metaphor. But propositional logic is insufficient for these tasks.Banno

    Sure the logic inherent in language may also be formalized in modal logic or other kinds of logic. Give me any example of any formal language and I will be able to translate it into English. I think formal logics are just explicitations of what is implicit in natural languages, and nothing you have said so far gives me any reason to think otherwise. Metaphor is a different associative phenomenon, and is not relevant to what I've been arguing.

    ...a common structure of experience and thought. — Janus

    Well, yes, language is that structure. This doesn't support your contention so much as mine: that logic is a development of language.

    Or implicit in your idea might be a private language of thought? Do you wish to argue for that?
    Banno

    Why do you quote a partial sentence out of context to respond to? I said there is a common structure of human experience and thought which is reflected in the commonalities across different languages; are you denying that is so?

    I don't have " a private language of thought" in mind. What makes you say that? What I am saying indicates a common implicit logic of thought (and experience) that mediates the meanings of the non-ostensive words in languages. You haven't presented anything so far at all that contraindicates what I have been saying.
  • Olivier5
    6.2k
    So, did it end as Rorty said or what's on the roadmap for the next paradigm shift in philosophical endeavors?Shawn

    I would wish that more philosophers stop hiding behind language, and seek and defend truth against all the lies.

    what Hacking calls the death of meaning at the hands of Quine, Wittgenstein, Davidson and FeyerabendShawn

    That's BS of course, meaning never died. You listed five guys who mistook their confusion for philosophy, that's all. Pretenders. We need to forget those clowns and go back to serious, intellectually honest philosophy.
  • Banno
    23.1k
    As I see it some words signify things like trees, cars, people and son on, and other words signify cognitively basic ideas, for example and signifies addition, the, that and this signify identification, there and here signify location, then and now signify time, and so on. There are many examples. Some words signify actions or attitudes. The inherent logic in language consists in the ideas those kinds of words signifiy, which structure language and its grammar. All, or at least most, languages have equivalents of those kinds of words, as far as I know.Janus
    Well, I'll agree to disagree. Too many nouns for my taste.
  • fdrake
    5.8k
    You say it like it was a bad thing.Banno

    Oh absolutely it is. If you grant that the most important thing philosophy does is reveal instances of mere philosophy ("language running idle"), the philosophical question of what mere philosophy is becomes the most important one you can ask - a kind of demarcation problem. Absent general principles that will inform on a case by case basis whether something is mere philosophy or not; which the approach rightly rejects as overly high minded and acontextual; the appropriate response is to go and look.

    Not to stop looking.
  • Banno
    23.1k
    You can answer the big questions before the little questions of which they are composed? Well, good for you.
  • Ciceronianus
    2.9k
    I'm curious, though not curious enough to read through all posts, but assuming the linguistic turn is over (I don't think it is, but what the hell) has anyone given an opinion on "what next?" I did, assuming perhaps unfairly that Being and Nothing and the Horror associated with their contemplation will once again inspire and fascinate philosophers. But is there more to come?
  • fdrake
    5.8k
    You can answer the big questions before the little questions of which they are composed? Well, good for you.Banno

    Not at all. It's not either or: if you attempt to tackle a big question, you discover a lot of little ones. If you attempt to tackle a little one, you find a lot of big questions in the background. The terrain of every problemscape has mountains, grounds, horizons, and from another's perspective the ground one stands on can be a plateau on a mountain. It's a big world of conceptual problems, and it's easy to get lost.

    In some respects you get lost as soon as you started. But there's no exterior to declare that from, it's always a declaration from within - getting lost is still finding a new path, or carving one by walking. You play the game of joyfully finding your way, or you refuse to.

    Sometimes there is no mountain. Sometimes there is. Sometimes it's a molehill.
  • bert1
    1.8k
    fdrake missed out rivers and the nitrogen cycle
  • fdrake
    5.8k
    fdrake missed out rivers and the nitrogen cyclebert1

    Sir, this is a stretched metaphor, not A Thousand Plateaus.
  • Shawn
    12.6k


    Nope, still the same with nothing new in the field of philosophy to the best of my knowledge. Pretty dull and lame.
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