Of course, ships are not alive, but I don't think the question regarding whether a corpse is the same person as the living being, only now dead, is any different. It would depend on what we mean by "person'. The point I want to make is that there is no fact of the matter in these kinds of questions, but rather merely different ways of thinking and talking.
I would disagree. The way we talk about such things is not arbitrary. When we appeal to "our ways of talking about things," we just push the explanation back one step. The question then becomes: "why do we talk about things in this way?" — Count Timothy von Icarus
I must be missing something, since it seems clear enough that the sound of "dog" could be arbitrarily assigned to some different referent in each instance.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo"dog dog dog dog dog dog dog." — Count Timothy von Icarus
Yet no one would understand each other if they were always making different sounds to refer to different things in each instance, so we "cannot" have a human language that works like that. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Clear evidence that English is a barbarian tongue. :rofl: — Count Timothy von Icarus
Then even "Truman's hair is Truman-blond", if true, the negation would have to be false. So even if we aren't speaking in universal terms we can use true/false.
But don't babies without language and people with aphasia who cannot produce or understand language (or both) still perceive? — Count Timothy von Icarus
I'm skeptical of such a fusion, not least because the Sapir-Worf hypothesis is supported by very weak evidence, normally very small effect sizes and failures to replicate, despite a great deal of people having a strong interest in providing support for it. For instance, different cultures do indeed divide up the visible color spectrum differently, but the differences are not extreme. Nor does growing up with a different division seem to make you any better and spotting camouflaged objects. But moreover , aside from disparate divisions remaining fairly similar, no culture has a name for any of the colors that insects experience through being able to see in the ultraviolet range, and for an obvious reason.
Likewise, disparate cultures have names for colors, shapes, animal species, etc. They don't pick any of the vast range of options that would be available to a species that largely creates their own perceptual "concepts." I know of no cultures that mix shape and color for some parts of the spectrum, and then shape and smell for another part, etc. or any of the innumerable possible combinations for descriptions. — Count Timothy von Icarus
These words, it seems to me, give us a particular picture of the
essence of human language. It is this: the individual words in language
name objects—sentences are combinations of such names.——In this
picture of language we find the roots of the following idea: Every word
has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the
object for which the word stands.
Augustine does not speak of there being any difference between
kinds of word. If you describe the learning of language in this way
you are, I believe, thinking primarily of nouns like "table", "chair",
"bread", and of people's names, and only secondarily of the names of
certain actions and properties; and of the remaining kinds of word as
something that will take care of itself.
Now think of the following use of language: I send someone shopping. I give him a slip marked "five red apples". He takes the slip to
the shopkeeper, who opens the drawer marked "apples"; then he looks
up the word "red" in a table and finds a colour sample opposite it;
then he says the series of cardinal numbers—I assume that he knows
them by heart—up to the word "five" and for each number he takes an
apple of the same colour as the sample out of the drawer.——It is in
this and similar ways that one operates with words.——"But how does
he know where and how he is to look up the word 'red' and what he is
to do with the word 'five'?"——Well, I assume that he acts as I have
described. Explanations come to an end somewhere.—But what is the
meaning of the word "five"?—No such thing was in question here,
only how the word "five" is used.
J mentioned Gadamer earlier, and I like Gadamer, but the idea that all understanding is done through language seems suspect. It seems like the sort of judgement a philosopher focused on language would have. But does an MLB pitcher finally have it all click and understand how to throw a knuckleball through language? Does a mechanic understand how to fix a motorcycle engine primarily through language? Or what of demonstrations in mathematics based on visualization?
My thoughts are that language is a late evolutionary arrival that taps into a whole array of powers. It enables us in a great many ways. But thought also isn't "language all the way down." Nor do I think we need to suppose that non-verbal individuals lack understanding (or else that we have to suppose that they have "private languages" for them to understand anything) or any noetic grasp of reality.
To my mind, part of the problem here is the ol' reduction of reason to ratio (which is maybe enabled by computational theory of mind). But my take is that reason is broader than language and that the Logos is broader than human reason.
Yes, I agree that you could render a proposition like that. However, Aristotle's point was about judgement. So if we judge Truman's hair to be "Truman-blonde," and "Truman-blonde" is just whatever Truman's hair is, then we cannot be wrong in our judgement. Supposing we don't call it "hair" but "Truman-hair,' we also cannot be wrong that it is "Truman-hair" that is Truman-blonde. — Count Timothy von Icarus
So, Aristotle would also say that we cannot simultaneously judge that Truman's hair is both Truman-blond and not-Truman-blond, at the same time, in the same way, without qualification. Indeed, if Truman-blond is just whatever Truman-hair is, and nothing else, no evidence can ever suggest to us that Truman-hair is anything other than Truman-blond.
As respects the negation, we can speak such things in the discourse of spoken words, but not in the discourse of the soul (i.e., it does not make sense to say that someone earnestly believes and doesn't believe the same exact thing at the same exact time).
Basically meaning isn't tied to words, but the interplay of terms within the whole structure of the sentence. Hence there can be multiple valid translations all with the same final meaning (because the way the words reference each on in the structure of their translations equate to the same)...hence reference is inscrutable... because it's always changing. — DifferentiatingEgg
Thanks for posting this -- I was beginning to wonder if I'm entirely wrong and I believe that this is basically what I've been arguing for. — Moliere
What is Quine's intended conclusion? I don't think it is as radical as is being assumed. In a 1970 paper he says that the gavagai example is very limited, and demonstrates the inscrutability of terms rather than indeterminacy of translation of sentences. — Leontiskos
Quine may be saying little more than that terms are inscrutable apart from context ("holism"). — Leontiskos
Would it surprise you that I disagree with Aristotle on this? :D
The answer given previously was the Humpty Dumpty account
Basically meaning isn't tied to words, but the interplay of terms within the whole structure of the sentence.
No one would admit to such a thing openly, of course.By who? — Count Timothy von Icarus
Language is more about constructing, rather than exchanging, information. This choice of words may mark a pretty fundamental difference between those who agree with Quine and those who do not.There is a lot of information exchanged in speech... — Count Timothy von Icarus
This is indeed an important point. However, it is not unique to Quine, nor does it entail Quine's particular approach to reference. See the rest of the post above. From an information theoretic or semiotic perspective, there is a ton of information relevant to communication that is related to context (linguistic and otherwise), tone, body language, the identity of the speaker, the identity of the intended recipient, past conversation/stipulation, etc., in addition to convention. There is also a lot of signification going on in conversations.
However, signs clearly do signify according to convention, else language (and any communications convention) would not be useful for communications. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Pace Plato, Aristotle allows that weakness of will can occur, so he wouldn't necessarily be at odds with Sartre here. The point is more about predication. So, for instance, if you go outside and see a car, and it's blue, you cannot also judge that it is not-blue, in the same way, without qualification (so a car that is blue and another color isn't a counter example here).
So, once on this forum someone brought up the old duck/rabbit optical illusion as a counter example. But that wouldn't be one. That would be an example where we qualify our judgement. — Count Timothy von Icarus
↪Moliere The emphasis on "sign" is problematic, in that it supposes that the main purpose, or fundamental element, in language is the noun.
It isn't. Language is about getting things done as a group. Reference is incidental to that purpose. — Banno
Moliere The emphasis on "sign" is problematic, in that it supposes that the main purpose, or fundamental element, in language is the noun
Language is more about constructing, rather than exchanging, information. This choice of words may mark a pretty fundamental difference between those who agree with Quine and those who do not.
It even references a great medieval thinker, so I was thinking it might be more appreciated by our interlocutors.
Yes, but unfortunately not in a particularly helpful way. St. Augustine has a very nuanced view of language and his own formulation of meaning as use, but he mostly shows up in PI to present a very naive picture of language. — Count Timothy von Icarus
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