I would add that a central point of Rouse’s is that our animal nature is not pre-conceptual at all. Also, the Yo and Lo book was by Kukla and Mark Lance. — Joshs
Tying this back to the OP, Rouse replaces the concept of conceptual scheme with that of normative discursive practices. Would Rouse respond differently than McDowell and Davidson to the question of whether it makes sense to talk of individuals or communities as living in ‘different worlds’? I think he would. I think Rouse’s treatment of material circumstances as already intertwined with normative practices makes the data of perceptual experience internal to social practices in a way that it is not for either Davidson or McDowell.
But both stances seem to be consistent with the thesis apparently shared by Rouse and McDowell, that empirical content doesn't reside outside of the sphere of the conceptual. — Pierre-Normand
Since we don't create ourselves by fiat so to speak and given that we have no choice given who and what we are as to whether we are convinced by arguments or not. I'm not seeing much difference between the ideas of being convinced and being caused to be convinced. — Janus
I also want to reiterate that once we look at the world as always already interpreted, then I think the interpreted evidence of the senses, although obviously sometimes mistaken, does provide good evidence and hence rational justification for both animals and humans for at least the basic beliefs about what is observed.
This leaves me wondering just what you mean by "empirical content"? — Janus
I wonder, though, whether he believes our animal nature to be conceptual owing to it being shaped by our acculturation and language acquisition (and he is stressing the continuity of the process and substrate) or if he believes other animals and human infants to also have conceptual abilities (and he is stressing the similarities between linguistically informed and non-linguistically shaped conceptuality). If it's the former, then he would seem to be closely aligned with McDowell in that regard. — Pierre-Normand
Not only did we start out with nonlinguistic cognitive and expressive capacities alongside the emergence of language, but those capacities have also proliferated and further developed. I think that Dreyfus’s own recognition
of this important point, coupled with a mistaken inclination to equate conceptual articulation with explicit expression in language, has been an important motivation for his resistance to McDowell’s claim that conceptual
normativity is pervasive in human engagement with the world.
We can recognize why it would be a mistake to equate conceptual articulation with linguistic expression when we acknowledge that language is not a self-contained practical–perceptual domain. Our linguistic discursive practices open onto and “incorporate” other sensory/cognitive/ performative capacities, via recognitive, demonstrative, anaphoric, and indexical locutions, even while they are themselves only intelligible as an integral part of our biological capacities for practical–perceptual interaction with our surroundings.
Conceptual understanding is not something external to our practical– perceptual involvement in the world, that would then have to become “operative” in perception. Conceptually articulated discursive practice is a
distinctive way in which practical–perceptual bodily skills can develop through an extended process of niche construction and coevolution of languages and language users.
conceptual understanding not only as pervasive within
perception and practical coping with the world, but as practically–perceptually constituted. In doing so, we would follow McDowell in providing a normative account of conceptual understanding (while acknowledging
Dreyfus’s insistence that this understanding can be deployed “mindlessly” and non-thematically). Yet we would also extend Dreyfus’s account of practical–perceptual skillfulness to incorporate the capacities for conceptual articulation that accompany the acquisition of a language. We would only challenge as mistaken Dreyfus’s separation of discursive and non-discursive practical–perceptual skills as coextensive with conceptual and non-conceptual domains.
Regarding the intelligibility of placing individuals in different worlds, this may also be a matter of stressing the overlaps, following Davidson's ideas about the principle of charity, or stressing the differences owing to the (conceptually informed) empirical content being impotent to serve as a neutral arbiter for resolving the disputes (or islands of mutual unintelligibility) at the boundary. But both stances seem to be consistent with the thesis apparently shared by Rouse and McDowell, that empirical content doesn't reside outside of the sphere of the conceptual. — Pierre-Normand
So, if a dog sees something as blue or yellow (apparently dogs lack red receptors) does that count as empirical content? — Janus
I think dogs probably are smart enough to learn tasks which require them to abstract out something like color to perform it. — Apustimelogist
They don't see the ball as blue, since this abstract feature of the ball never is salient to them. — Pierre-Normand
I agree they probably don't see the ball as blue if that means they consciously conceive of it as such. Nonetheless I see no reason to think they don't see the blue ball, that it doesn't appear blue to them. Much of our own perceptual experience is like that—we don't see the red or green light as red or green we simply respond appropriately. — Janus
But unlike animals, we don't just respond to them when our immediate drives make them salient. We actively pick them up for purpose of practical or theoretical reasoning, which is possible thanks to our conceptual skills being rationally articulated. — Pierre-Normand
I recall you mentioned Eric Marcus, 'Rational Causation', who writes extensively on this theme. Could you perhaps say a little about him in this context? — Wayfarer
The dog doesn't know that the blue ball has anything in common with their blue collar or with the blue cabinet in the living room, for instance, unless its being trained and rewarded with food when it point to blue objects — Pierre-Normand
The dog doesn't know that the blue ball has anything in common with their blue collar or with the blue cabinet in the living room, for instance, unless its being trained and rewarded with food when it point to blue objects, in which case the salient affordance isn't the blueness, but the promise of food. — Pierre-Normand
Anyway, the original point at issue was whether the world is always already interpreted for dogs (and other animals), and the idea of affordances seems to suggest that it is. — Janus
I'd suggest rather that Davidson would say reference has a function only within broader theories of truth (or meaning), and there can be no coherent theory of reference per se. Reference is not free-standing.Davidson: Oh. But you have to assume that reference is fixable in order to communicate at all. — frank
However, the researchers emphasise that this statistical pattern doesn’t lead to the conclusion that whale song is a language that conveys meaning as we would understand it. They suggest that a possible reason for the commonality is that both whale song and human language are learned culturally.
Yes. There are those who cannot conceive of a non-human animal that truly shares any concepts with human beings and those who are quite sure that all animals in this world share that world, to a greater or lesser extent. Never the twain shall meet. Looks like two incommensurable conceptual schemes to me.The thread became entangled in animal intelligence, a garden path, to my eye. — Banno
The thread became entangled in animal intelligence, a garden path, to my eye.
— Banno
Yes. There are those who cannot conceive of a non-human animal that truly shares any concepts with human beings and those who are quite sure that all animals in this world share that world, to a greater or lesser extent. Never the twain shall meet. Looks like two incommensurable conceptual schemes to me. — Ludwig V
To get treats, apes eagerly pointed them out to humans who didn't know where they were, a seemingly simple experiment that demonstrated for the first time that apes will communicate unknown information in the name of teamwork. The study also provides the clearest evidence to date that apes can intuit another's ignorance, an ability thought to be uniquely human.
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