When we disagree, what is it that we are disagreeing on - our use of words, or the state-of-affairs that the words refer to? — Harry Hindu

In most cases when I disagree with someone it has to do with their use of words.

If I had some cake, and you were in the same room as me, and neither of us could speak to each other in terms other than in my made-up-on-the-spot language (assuming I was consistent with grammar), I wager you'd 'get' my invitation to eat cake eventually (this would be the 'rough ground' of language - life and it's being lived, language bound up with action - that secures meaning). This is how we teach children, no? Does it matter if we teach them with an already-established - i.e. conventional - language, or not? — StreetlightX

I don't deny this, but I would add that offering cake, being in rooms together and speaking languages are all conventional ( which really just means 'shared') practices. And of course shared worldly things, dispositions and practices are inextricably bound up with the meanings of words and the utterances they constitute. That's exactly why I said earlier that I don't mean to suggest that meaning is use.

And sure, you could teach a child some 'made-up' non-conventional language; it could become a shared convention between just the two of you. Consistency of use just is conventionality, no matter what the 'breadth' of a practice is. It is also true that grammar is an essential part of conventional linguistic practices.

Incidentally, it is just this rarefied, intellectualist, and 'thin' approach to language - in which meaning can only ever find its ground in more language — StreetlightX

This is a strawman, as I haven't stated or even implied anything like what you are suggesting here.

This convention* is not of the nature of a promise: For even promises themselves, as we shall see afterwards, arise from human conventions. It is only a general sense of
common interest; which sense all the members of the society express to one another, and which induces them to regulate their conduct by certain rules. I observe, that it will be for my interest to leave another in the possession of his goods, provided he will act in the same manner with regard to me. He is sensible of a like interest in the regulation of his conduct. When this common sense of interest is mutually express’d, and is known to both, it produces a suitable resolution and behaviour. And this may properly enough be call’d a convention or agreement betwixt us, tho’ without the interposition of a promise; since the actions of each of us have a reference to those of the other, and are perform’d upon the supposition, that something is to be perform’d on the other part. Two men, who pull the oars of a boat, do it by an agreement or convention, tho’ they have never given promises to each other. Nor is the rule concerning the stability of possession the less deriv’d from human conventions, that it arises gradually, and acquires force by a slow progression, and by our repeated experience of the inconveniences of transgressing it. On the contrary, this experience assures us still more, that the sense of interest has become common to all our fellows, and gives us a confidence of the future regularity of their conduct: And ’tis only on the expectation of this, that our moderation and abstinence are founded. In like manner are languages gradually establish’d by human conventions without any promise. In like manner do gold and silver become the common measures of exchange, and are esteem’d sufficient payment for what is of a hundred times their value. — Hume, Treatise 3.2.2

* He's been talking about property.

Consistency of use just is conventionality, — John

Righty-o, well, as I've made clear with Srap, this isn't what I was talking about, so I guess we don't really disagree other than over the scope of the 'word' convention. But that's trifles.

This is a strawman, as I haven't stated or even implied anything like what you are suggesting here. — John

The examples you gave are completely meaningless unless they are given meaning as being equivalents to words as conventionally used in some language or other. — John

Seems to me like you're backpeddling on what you meant by convention (here you qualify it as that which is 'used in some language or another'), but OK, sure.

Seems to me like you're backpeddling on what you meant by convention (here you qualify it as that which is 'used in some language or another'), but OK, sure. — StreetlightX

Yeah, it seems like a misunderstanding then, because it wasn't that I was wanting to confine conventionality to language, but to assert that linguistic meaning could only be defined in some language or other. I mean, the point is that what you meant to "say' about the cake in your "made-up language" wouldn't have any specific meaning beyond something very basic like "eat cake", or even just "eat" and your intention would probably only be communicable in conjunction with clues that might be given by your bodily gestures and tone of voice (indicating "invitation" rather than command, for example). We do these kinds of things with our dogs, and it is more like general signification than precise symbolic meaning.

I agree that it is only in relation to a specific practical context, and our purposes in that context, that a death and a murder can be subsumed under the event-types (the equivalent of substance-sortals for events) that individuate them. My claim was that it isn't generally the case that they will turn out, under those pragmatic conditions, to identify the same event. And that's in part because 'event' is a dummy sortal — Pierre-Normand

What do you mean by 'dummy sortal'?

What do you mean by 'dummy sortal'? — Fafner

Consider the case of material constitution. At a given time, a particular lump of bronze can materially constitute a particular statue of Hermes. Both the properties lump of bronze and statue are substance-sortal concepts because they have associated with them (among other things) principles of persistence and individuation. When one grasps what it is for an object to exemplify a given sortal concept, one thereby grasps what the conditions are under which such an object persists in time or is destroyed. (This may of course be in large part a matter of convention regarding objects of those types). Hence, if the statue is being hammered flat, it is destroyed but the lump of bronze that was constituting it persists under a different form. We can also imagine circumstances where it makes sense to say that a statue survives the exchange of its original material constituents (through successive acts of restoration, say).

Both the statue and the lump of bronze constituting it at a time are material objects. Material object, though, is a dummy sortal because there is a need for further specification in order that a principle of identity be applied to an object that falls under it. In fact, further specification of a dummy sortal is required in order that reference to a particular material object be secured at all, even in cases where the act of reference occurs by means of demonstration rather than definite description.

For instance, suppose I were to point to a statue of Hermes and ask you whether this "object" that I am pointing at might survive being hammered flat. You can't answer unless I would specify whether I am talking about the lump of bronze, or the statue, or something else maybe. If I insist that I am thinking merely of "this material object", whatever it is, then my question is meaningless (or, at any rate, confused).

So, my view (following Wiggins and Marcus) regarding event-types is similar. The general category event, just like the general category material object, is a dummy sortal since it isn't, in the general case, specific enough to determine conditions of persistence and individuation for events.

Excellent explanation, thanks.

So, my view (following Wiggins and Marcus) regarding event-types is similar. The general category event, just like the general category material object, is a dummy sortal since it isn't, in the general case, specific enough to determine conditions of persistence and individuation for events. — Pierre-Normand

What you said about a murder and a death being two distinct events now reminds me of Wiggins' claim that two distinct objects can exist at the same place and time (like the statue and the piece bronze of which it is composed). I guess the two ideas are not unrelated?

It's not perfectly clear that what you call here the "lump of bronze" that constitutes the statue is an object at all. It feels more like a mereological sum of bronze bits. Your question might still be ambiguous, but not between two further determinations of a generic sortal, but between the object and the stuff it's made of (which is not an object).

If I tell you to move the statue, I'll expect you to keep it in intact. If I tell to clear the snow from the front walk of our museum, it's okay for you to change the configurations of the bits of snow, let some of them melt, etc. Swapping object and stuff in those examples would have dramatic and peculiar consequences.

It's not perfectly clear that what you call here the "lump of bronze" that constitutes the statue is an object at all. It feels more like a mereological sum of bronze bits. Your question might still be ambiguous, but not between two further determinations of a generic sortal, but between the object and the stuff it's made of (which is not an object).

If I tell you to move the statue, I'll expect you to keep it in intact. If I tell to clear the snow from the front walk of our museum, it's okay for you to change the configurations of the bits of snow, let some of them melt, etc. Swapping object and stuff in those examples would have dramatic and peculiar consequences. — Srap Tasmaner

No contest there. In the case of artifacts, it's very much our own interests that determine what degree of change in material constitution can be tolerated before an object will count as being destroyed. Hence, our attitude towards historical artifacts, sacred relics, or functional artifacts may vary widely. Incidentally, that's precisely how Peter Simons most elegantly solves the paradox of the Ship of Theseus in Parts: A Study in Ontology, Clarendon Press, 2000.

According to Simons, ship is something of a dummy sortal since some people may be interested in Theseus's ship qua historical artifact, or buy it in order to make use of it as a fishing boat. Those two diverging interests would coordinate with two different substance-sortals. There is, in effect, two different sorts of ship at the same place and at the same time. The planks that are making it up at a time are something else entirely. One of those ships (the fishing boat) is resilient to the replacement of the planks (and may even mandate such replacements as part of necessary maintenance), while the historical artifact isn't.

To complement Pierre-Normand's answer: if you take a slightly different example, that of a clay sculpture, I think it becomes more intuitive to think that if you crush the sculpture then what remains is a lump of clay that was identical (in some sense) to the original sculpture that has been destroyed. At least it makes sense to refer to the lump of clay as the same lump that composed the statue while it existed. And if you think about it, you really know nothing about the lump's mereological parts, and so it seems that you can identify it as the same lump only because you are referring to it as an object and not merely a sum of clay particles.

(and same can be said about a piece of bronze - e.g., imagine that a statue is melted down, and a new statue is cast from the same material - I think it is pretty intuitive to say that the new statue is made of the same piece of bronze as the old one)

And this also explains the disanalogy with your example of snow, since a heap of snow doesn't have the same unity as a piece of clay, and so we mean different things when we refer to "the same snow" as opposed to "the same piece of material X".

According to Simons, ship is something of a dummy sortal since some people may be interested in Theseus' ship qua historical artifact, or buy it in order to make use of it as a fishing boat. — Pierre-Normand

Yet again it is a question of interest and purpose. Are we sure there will turn out to be sortals that are never dummy sortals?

(I'm reminded of the exchange from Local Hero: "You wish to buy my church?" "Well, not as a going concern.")

To complement Pierre-Normand's answer: if you take a slightly different example, that of a clay sculpture, I think it becomes more intuitive to think that if you crush the sculpture then what reminds is a lump of clay that was identical (in some sense) to the original sculpture that has been destroyed. — Fafner

I think the sense of identity here is more or less just set membership though: all the bits of stuff that the statue was made of are still here.

With some materials, we imagine the material itself by imagining objects (blocks, lumps, piles, slabs, hunks) made out of that stuff, but that could be a hindrance not a help.

I went for snow to fight the intuition of cohesion: imagine taking the instruction to clear the walk as meaning I should recreate the configuration of the stuff that was on the walk somewhere else.

Yet again it is a question of interest and purpose. Are we sure there will turn out to be sortals that are never dummy sortals? — Srap Tasmaner

A sortal that isn't a dummy is a sortal that is merely good enough for the job at hand. A similar question could be asked about meanings, generally. A explanation of the meaning of a world could be a dummy explanation, in a sense, if it would fails to disambiguate two different ways this word could be used to convey two separate meanings, in a specific context. If it is unambiguous in this context, then the definition is good enough. But even after disambiguation has occurred and two senses have been distinguished and explained, we can always imagine a new context -- Charles Travis excels at this -- where the word used in one of those previously explained senses is ambiguous again.

I think the sense of identity here is more or less just set membership though: all the bits of stuff that the statue was made of are still here. — Srap Tasmaner

But you know nothing about those bits: you haven't counted how much molecules composed the statue and how much are there in the lump etc. and confirmed that they are the same. One would usually infer that it is the same bit of material just on the basis of seeing the lump emerging in the process of the statue's destruction.

What I mean to say is that, unless you can make sense of the idea of some quantity of material lumped together as a unified object, then it is not clear how could you identify all its bits as the same bits that can compose something else.

So the point is that I have to define my set by reference to the statue? Must I have an independent way of referring to it? What about before it was a statue, when it was a pallet of bronze?

Btw, I liked snow because it's more comical, but the point I was reaching for -- that it's generally clear whether we're referring to an object or some stuff -- is more clearly made with water: moving the water from a glass to a bowl means destroying the object that is a cylinder of water.

So the point is that I have to define my set by reference to the statue? Must I have an independent way of referring to it? What about before it was a statue, when it was a pallet of bronze? — Srap Tasmaner

Not necessarily, but still the particles must form some sort of unity (like calling it a lump or even a heap).

Btw, I liked snow because it's more comical, but the point I was reaching for -- that it's generally clear whether we're referring to an object or some stuff -- is more clearly made with water: moving the water from a glass to a bowl means destroying the object that is a cylinder of water. — Srap Tasmaner

Well even if you call a cylinder of water an 'object' it is certainly not an object in the same sense as a piece of ice for example.

Yes, I think that's the sort of thing I'm saying. We could say that dummyness is theory-relative, and that Travis's argument is that there is no final theory possible, in which all dummyness has been eliminated. But there is the built-in corollary that we can always eliminate dummyness by a refinement of our theory, so I'm still unclear on what conclusion is to be drawn.

the particles must form some sort of unity — Fafner

Why isn't set membership enough?

Because as I said, you know absolutely nothing about the particles that compose things like lumps of clay (you can't name them etc.), so the definition is quite useless for most practical purposes.

Why isn't set membership enough? — Srap Tasmaner

If you are a mereological essentialist then set membership is sufficient (and furthermore necessary!) But even if you aren't a mereological essentialist -- as you probably shouldn't be on my view -- then, in some cases, set membership might the relevant identity criterion associated to a sortal concept. A married couple, say, doesn't remain the same married couple through replacement of one of the spouses!

I'm not getting this.

If I refer to some stuff by referring to its current configuration as an object, I'm still referring to the stuff.

I guess we're thinking of stuff as a bunch of objects, water molecules, say. I could, in principle, name each water molecule, couldn't I? Even though I don't and it's impractical. In fact, not naming those bits is what makes water, for my present purposes, stuff rather than an object. Stuff is a collection of unnamed and interchangeable objects.

Yes, I think that's the sort of thing I'm saying. We could say that dummyness is theory-relative, and that Travis's argument is that there is no final theory possible, in which all dummyness has been eliminated. But there is the built-in corollary that we can always eliminate dummyness by a refinement of our theory, so I'm still unclear on what conclusion is to be drawn. — Srap Tasmaner

I think what you just said (including the corollary) is good enough a conclusion to be drawn!

So we're abolishing any distinction between natural and ad hoc sortals.

I guess I'm just still unclear what we're supposed to have learned about "meaning."

So we're abolishing any distinction between natural and ad hoc sortals. — Srap Tasmaner

I don't think so since the substance-sortals that we use to individuate artifacts or other sorts of objects that we care about aren't merely ad hoc, on the one hand, and also "natural sortals" (e.g. concepts of natural kinds such as chemical elements of biological species) also respond to specific theoretical and technical interests that we have, on the other hand.

If I refer to some stuff by referring to its current configuration as an object, I'm still referring to the stuff. — Srap Tasmaner

Sure, but the definition goes from the stuff to the molecules, and not the other way around. First you identify a bit of material as some kind of unity (something that you can hold in your hands etc.), and then you say that it must be composed of some set of particles. So the concept of a piece of material is the more basic one in our experience of dealing with material stuff, and therefore I don't see what is the purpose of reducing things like lumps of clay to 'mereological sums'.

(and there's a further question about which set exactly defines this or that piece of matter: If I remove one molecule of bronze from a piece of bronze, would it be no longer the same piece of bronze?)

I guess I'm just still unclear what we're supposed to have learned about "meaning." — Srap Tasmaner

I don't know. So far, I have mostly been concerned with clarifying possible misunderstandings. If there still is a mystery lurking it's quite possible that it is also a mystery for me.

(and there's a further question about which set exactly defines this or that piece of matter: If I remover one molecule of copper from some piece of copper, would would it be no longer the same piece of copper?) — Fafner

It likely remains the same piece of copper but, if it didn't belong to you to start with, that might constitute theft!

So we're abolishing any distinction between natural and ad hoc sortals. — Srap Tasmaner

Actually I think that would be a measure of how the theory refinement is done, not that it has been refined.