I associate the phrase 'a difference that makes a difference' with various social sciences. I didn't know where the phrase came from. Your reference to MacKay and Bateson is reassuring: at least we seem to mean the same thing by this phrase.

For this definition of information you need people to whom things already have meaning, for otherwise they cannot know what is important. Duleuze (I think) is trying to get underneath that and construct meaning from something much more minimal.

For Shannon information, a single bit conveys no meaning to the receiver unless the sender and receiver have already agreed what that meaning is. That's no use to Duleuze either. With two bits, you can convey meaning without prearrangement, and the meaning that you convey is either difference or sameness.

If you're prepared to accept 'difference itself' as a starting point you're immediately in business. The only meaning you assume is the meaning of difference. It's quite neat.

As to where I'm going: only that taking difference as foundational to meaning seems reasonable to me and I'm happy to accept that such an approach could be rigorous.


We'll have to see what @Joshs says about that.

Of course, one area where you get a lot of specificity is in scientific terms and jargon, and a common charge against Continental philosophy is that it uses these in cases that seem to fail to understand the original usage, while also not clarifying any alternative usage, which is, so the charge goes, at best a misunderstanding and at worst obscurantistism.

Catherine Belsey covers this in her book on post-structuralism for instance, and in some cases the charge does not seem misplaced. The same goes for seeming misreadings of philosophical sources, if they are to be brushed away by appeals to there being no correct readings.

So, the Sokal Affair, and it's capacity to be reproduced is obviously one of the concerns about rigor that comes up when obscurity reaches a certain level (and this can be true in the sciences as well). However, I think the concerns here can be overblown. Certainly, the high success rate of "Sokal Squared" is concerning, but you'd have to do a comparison to other fields to determine if it's not simply a larger issue unrelated to subject matter and style. Second, prima facie it would be easier to do this sort of thing not only in "litcrit" but also in analytic philosophy, or even more abstract/theoretical areas of the natural sciences, so more convincing evidence would show some real variance there.

Note, however, that some of the responses to this sort of thing seem deficient. For example, simply pointing to seemingly incoherent analytic or scholastic philosophy. This doesn't say much; presumably there can be bad scholastic philosophy, bad theoretical physics, etc.



Right, here Bohm is talking physics, which is one of the places information theory has been most influential. The "difference that makes a difference" here is any physical difference at all, which, assuming physicalism, is simply any difference. Although the qbit also becomes basic here.

But to return to my original point, it is simply that the concerns of the many phenomenologists who see a need for metaphysics aren't addressed by the response that act is posterior to difference because this seems to simply equivocate on the term actuality. Hence, their continued concerns.

Note, however, that some of the responses to this sort of thing seem deficient. For example, simply pointing to seemingly incoherent analytic or scholastic philosophy. This doesn't say much; presumably there can be bad scholastic philosophy, bad theoretical physics, etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is all very level-headed, Tim. Thanks.

I'll note that the point of Williamson's paper was very much less throwing stones at another tribe, way over there in another village, and more about throwing stones at a particular clan within his own tribe, and ― having done that ― chucking some more stones at his own tribe in general.

I'm hesitant to say this (but conscience demands it): I think it would be fair to say Williamson does this because his standards for philosophy are understood by him to be universal. (He has, elsewhere, chucked stones at the other tribe.) They needn't be. He could say, "If we are to call ourselves analytic philosophers, then we bloody well ought to act like it, and that means adhering to certain standards of rigor and discipline, which I can't believe I have to explain to you." I don't think he says that.

Now maybe that is what he's saying ― I didn't go looking for evidence in the paper either way. In the specific context, it just wouldn't matter because he was addressing his own tribe. He intended what he said to apply to them; it makes no difference if he also intended it to apply to other philosophers as well.

But it will make a difference when it comes time to debate the standards he is proposing, and the justifications he (or anyone else) is prepared to offer for those standards. I was going to say there are conditional and unconditional options, but really it's just a difference in the antecedent class: "if you want to do analytic philosophy then ..." versus "if you want to do philosophy then ..."

Of course, one area where you get a lot of specificity is in scientific terms and jargon, and a common charge against Continental philosophy is that it uses these in cases that seem to fail to understand the original usage, while also not clarifying any alternative usage, which is, so the charge goes, at best a misunderstanding and at worst obscurantistism. — Count Timothy von Icarus

We have an interesting mini-case of this in the thread, directed towards Williamson:

I think part of the problem here is that "disciplined" is being used in two different ways ― not quite two different senses. It's rather like the way we use the word "hot" in two ways: you can ask if something is hot or cold, and you can ask how hot something is (or similarly, how cold). Similarly, discipline seems to be, on the one hand, a matter of how firmly your inquiries are guided by other disciplines, and by how many; but on the other seems to be something that can be achieved, and that stands as the contrary of "undisciplined".

This is rather unfortunate. — Srap Tasmaner

Why is it unfortunate? I don't see a problem with using "disciplined" in that way, just as I do not see a problem with using "hot" in that way. This is a form of analogical predication, where we simply do not have any obvious "unfortunate" equivocation occurring. — Leontiskos

1. "Disciplined" has two interrelated meanings
2. Williamson's argument leverages both of them
3. This is unfortunate

(This is a classical case of preferring univocal predication.)

There is perhaps a useful analogy here with public policy. In the 2000s and 2010s, there was a huge effort to "bring data to bear," in public administration and military affairs. The idea was that mathematical analysis could provide rigor for policymaking. You had your metrics, you managed to targets based on those metrics, continuous data collection and improvement, etc.

The idea was in some ways similar. Use formal criteria and systems to make progress tractable, and to make nebulous issues more concrete. This was a core idea underpinning the Bush era education reforms, COIN efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and dealing with crime waves in inner cities (e.g. Citistat in Baltimore).

The problem is that many of these efforts continued to show "progress" and had their praises sung right up until it could no longer be ignored that the emperor was wearing no clothes and that the "progress" was entirely illusory. The Anbar Awakening was a great victory for data driven COIN right up until the fighters defects en masse to ISIS as soon as they had momentum. Only then was it obvious that the pattern was simply following the time-tested behavior of teaming up with whatever side is currently winning a civil war. The ANA was making progress, until that progress was revised back every few years, right up until it collapsed without a fight. But people in the field doing the training could and did predict the outcome. Likewise, Baltimore and other cities hit all time crime levels, and rigorous testing and accountability did little for education metrics in the long run, leading to many being rolled back.

My point here is that defining progress in formal terms can sometimes prove illusory. I am not sure about the claim that we "know much more about truth then we did decades ago," unless it is caveated for instance.

The amount of specificity and rigor needs to be appropriate to the subject matter, meaning it will only work in some cases. Clearly, it didn't work out great for combating insurgents or gangs, or teaching kids geometry. Might it work in some cases within philosophy? Surely, but it can also create a false sense of progress.

One example of an area I have read about extensively is the "Scandal of Deduction." I am fairly confident that it cannot be explained in wholly formal terms, but plenty of papers bang their head against the wall to do just that, because that's the methodology.

The other issue is that people very quickly learn to game metrics. I don't think this is the only reason that they have failed in many cases in public policy though. At any rate, this is relevant in that the way progress gets defined will come to determine how people do philosophy, and you will invariably get a sort of "gaming" of trends in any field (unfortunately unavoidable; the impulse to novelty for novelty's sake seems endemic to how academia is set up for instance).

Note, however, that some of the responses to this sort of thing seem deficient. For example, simply pointing to seemingly incoherent analytic or scholastic philosophy. This doesn't say much; presumably there can be bad scholastic philosophy, bad theoretical physics, etc. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is right, and it should go without saying that I agree with it. Let me bold something in my original quote:

In scholasticism the matters are rather more complicated. Generally speaking, the scholastics lacked the Russellian revisionist attitude towards natural language, and therefore they rarely explicitly challenged the obvious capacity of the natural language to refer to non-existents. Their approach was, generally, to explain and analyse, not to correct language... — Lukáš Novák, Can We Speak About That Which Is Not?, 168

The idea here is that there is a difference in approach to natural language, and that this difference is explicit in Russell, Quine, and many influenced by them. The point is not that there is no nuance to be had.

Srap responds:

Banno's position here is interesting because he is strongly committed both to the primacy of natural language and the usefulness of classical logic. The argument he often makes is that classical logic is not something you find implicit in ordinary language, as its hidden structure, say, but you can choose to conform your language use to it.

I think that view actually rhymes quite well with the description I've been trying to develop of how formal, technical language can be embedded in natural language, much as mathematical language is and must be embedded in natural language. — Srap Tasmaner

First, I would note that there is a substantial difference even here:

But isn't the claim that "mathematical language is and must be embedded in natural language," actually contrary to the claim that, "classical logic is not something you find implicit in ordinary language"? At least if mathematics is on par with classical logic? At the very least, you are claiming that some kind of formalism (mathematics) is implicit in ordinary language. — Leontiskos

Second is the practical fact that in the very thread from which these two have come, @Banno was deeply uninterested in ordinary language use. Indeed, Banno regularly argues against the very possibility of defining words and tends to appeal to "use" in a question-begging manner. So I don't see Banno as some sort of counterexample. I don't see that Wittgenstenians have any rigorous methodology in favor of their putative stand in favor of ordinary language. Philologists and linguists are usually not Wittgenstenians.

The so-called "ordinary language philosophy" was a reaction against an excessive flight from ordinary language, and what this effectively means is only that the "ordinary language philosophers" were more interested in ordinary language than their immediate antecedents. They were in no way part of a millennia-old tradition which honored ordinary language. It would be like if a whole generation eschewed headlights, and then the next generation dubs themselves "the pro-headlight people," placing a rather dim bulb in the headlight of their cars. It is true that they have headlights, but the strength of their headlight is measured against the previous generation which eschewed them altogether. The reason scholasticism is so bound up with ordinary language is because they were developing headlights non-stop for 1500 years.

Edit: I think one very sound criterion for measuring this "organic" merging of ordinary language with philosophy can be found in looking at how much someone distinguishes the meta-language from the language (for this is what Srap's "obiter dicta" vs. "decision" gets at). They were not separate for Scholasticism, and folks like Buridan even explicitly rejected their separation. For Analytic Philosophy they are much more separate; and for some, such as Russell, there is a strong cleavage.

The other issue is that people very quickly learn to game metrics. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Goodhart's Law.

I am not sure about the claim that we "know much more about truth then we did decades ago," unless it is caveated for instance. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'll have to reread if this thread continues, but my memory is that within a page it's clear what he means is the theories are more fully developed, and so brought closer to direct head-to-head comparison. There are other points in there.

Anyway, I can tell you when I read that sentence it struck me as a preposterous thing to say! Stopped me dead in my tracks. But because of his thinking about the role of theory, he means it quite literally. I don't know if it was courage, putting it this way, so removable from context, or obliviousness.

My point here is that defining progress in formal terms can sometimes prove illusory. I am not sure about the claim that we "know much more about truth then we did decades ago," unless it is caveated for instance... — Count Timothy von Icarus

Great post. :up:

I am just going to comment on one small part:

The other issue is that people very quickly learn to game metrics. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right. The object which was originally tied to premise/evidence is eventually made into the conclusion/desideratum, once it is seen to be socially persuasive. This is another case of mixing up means and ends.

The odd thing here is that philosophy is a strange dance between reasoning from and reasoning towards (and also reasoning away from). Once meta-criteria are introduced it is possible to mistake a legitimate form of teleological reasoning with post hoc rationalization (and this question came up very explicitly in the recent Supreme Court case, Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton).

For instance, is "p-hacking" permissible? Yes and no. It is very hard to identify when teleological reasoning favoring acceptable p-values crosses over into "p-hacking." It would be a bit much to try to convince someone to never calculate their p-value before finishing an experiment.

Similarly, is gerrymandering permissible? Again, yes and no. Grouping districts together according to culture or ideology is not in itself impermissible. In fact you can't have representation without doing that. But doing it for the wrong reasons or with the wrong intent is impermissible. These sorts of puzzles go deep. They would be great candidates for the Beyond the Pale thread.

In a bit (of information as in computer science), there is a difference between 0 and 1. It is a difference that does not make a difference. With a pair of bits there is a difference between pairs which contain a difference (01, 10) and pairs which don't (00,11). There's a difference between the presence and absence of difference. Now the 0s and 1s can be dispensed with entirely, never to be mentioned again, and everything can be built from difference. There was really no need to mention them in the first place.

This is how I (mis?)understand Deleuze — GrahamJ

If I place two identical letters side by side(aa) is this a difference which doesn’t make a difference? In formal logic the answer would be yes. For Deleuze the answer would be no. Formal logic assumes we can apply the notion of ‘same thing different time’ to any object without contextual effects transforming the sense of the object between repetitions. Deleuze argues instead that every time we repeat an object, we change the sense of meaning of that object Put differently, for Deleuze every difference in degree is at the same time a difference in kind. Every quantitative change is a change in quality. Qualities and extensities are mirages. As Nathan Widder(2008) explains:

“…the thesis from Deleuze's late 1960s writings holds identity to be a simulation or optical illusion…”identity and fixed markers, which may be considered natural and pregiven or contingently constructed but indispensable, are surface effects of difference. Identities and fixed markers, I want to say, are like patterns on the surface of water, which appear fixed when seen from a great distance, such as from the window of an airplane in flight: their stability and substantiality, in short, are a matter of perspective.”

“Nietzsche declares that ‘everything for which the word “knowledge” makes any sense refers to the domain of reckoning, weighing, measuring, to the domain of quantity' (Nietzsche 1968: §565); but he also maintains that ‘we need “unities” in order to be able to reckon: that does not mean we must suppose that such unities exist' (§635). Mechanism begins with unities that can be quantified or counted, but the idea of unity applies to abstract things and objects, not to forces. On a more concrete level, where there are no unities or things pre-existing their relations but only incongruent relations of force, quantity cannot be a number but only a relation: as Deleuze argues, there is no ‘quantity in itself', but rather ‘difference in quantity', a relation of more and less, but one that cannot be placed on a fixed numerical scale.

Forces are determined quantitatively – ‘Nietzsche always believed that forces were quantitative and had to be defined quantitatively' (NP 43) – and this determination takes the form of relative strength and weakness.But this difference does not entail fixed numerical values being assigned to each force, as this can only be done in abstraction, when, for example, two forces are isolated in a closed system, as mechanism does when it examines the world. A quantitative difference between forces is therefore on the order of an intensive difference à la Leibniz, an intensive quantity in which forces vice-dict rather than contradict one another.”(Widder 2012)

The problem for me -- in my language, that is -- is that none of this is about anything that could be qcalled "ontological priority." If we said "conceptual priority" instead, what would be lost? What would be gained is that we're now using a much more familiar idea, both within analytic phil and in educated non-specialist discourse. That doesn't automatically make it the best way to go, of course -- especially given the concerns raised earlier about "familiarity" -- and that's why I'm asking what "ontological priority" may be contributing that "conceptual priority" does not. — J

Let me address this by making a distinction between the content of a set of ideas and their mode of organization.
To illustrate this, I will place on one side of a divide those who offer theoretical explanations attached to a greater or lesser extent to empirical methodology (and of course, what constitutes proper scientific method undergoes shifts over time) and formal logic. This includes everyone from Freud to Einstein, Russell to Williamson. On the other side of the divide are philosophers who associate with Continental approaches, who view formal logic and empirical methodology as derived modes which fail to get to the bottom of things.

Bit since science’s understanding of what it is and does evolves over time (there is no such thing as THE scientific method) as do theories of logic and the status of Analytic philosophy, I think there’s a better way of describing the difference between the style of thinking of those on one side of the divide vs the other. I certainly do not believe that innovation and development is the exclusive preserve of Continental modes of thinking. On the contrary, within any era of culture continental and non-continental modes evolve in parallel, and it is not difficult to TRANSLATE between the two modes. Examples include the relation between Einstein and Kant, Bohr and Hegel, Freud , Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Enactivist cognitive science, Husserl and Merleau-Ponty.

In my view, the difference amounts to that between what is left implicit and what is made explicit in a set of ideas. When one stumbles upon what one believes is an original way of looking at the world, there are many styles of expression one can adopt to convey these fresh insights. One can choose poetry, the novel, the visual arts, music, science or philosophy. No one mode has priority over the others in terms of its ‘correctness’. They will all inevitably be superseded by a new set of insights (it’s up to you whether you want to call this movement a progress).

So where does ontological priority or primordiality come in here? Think of a theory in science or analytic philosophy which uses a conventionalized vocabulary. It recycles concepts that are familiar to its audience and defines its terms when introducing new ones. It may in fact be understanding the recycled terms in a new way, but doesn’t find it necessary, or perhaps isn’t up to the task of making explicit how it is using the old terms differently. In part this is because they may feel it is unwise to try and tie together every conceivable aspect of being within a unified perspective.

Continentals, by contrast, have a zest for beginning with every conceivable question that can be asked about every conceivable aspect of the world , and every domain of culture ( science, religion, art, politics, ethics) and then weaving them all together within a single unified approach, that which must be true for everyone everywhere at all times. (The thinking of authors such as Descartes, Spinoza , Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger and Deleuze have this i. common ). The result is that not a single word of the language can be simply taken for granted by way of a conventionalized meaning, and reading a work requires learning an entirely new vocabulary. Continentals do tend to evince an air of superiority with respect to the more conventionalized approaches, charging them with naïveté for believing that a piecemeal approach isn’t already relying on more global implicit assumptions. But I think that’s a bit unfair. Is poetry less rigorous than philosophy or science because it traffics in the felt, the intangible, the hidden and the implied?

I should mention, though, that I think the differences between writers like Heidegger and Deleuze on the one hand and writers like Williamson are more than just stylistic. They are also substantive. One doesnt need to look to Continental philosophers to make this argument. There are plenty of authors sticking to more conventionalized modes of explication we can draw from for a critique of Williamson’s way of treating mathematics, formal logic and empiricism.

Extremely interesting reply, thank you.

Continentals, by contrast, have a zest for beginning with every conceivable question that can be asked about every conceivable aspect of the world — Joshs

This is what I would have called genetic priority, a statement about method, and it's very true. The ordering of ideas in Anglophone phil is usually pretty clear, and not every idea -- especially the perceived foundational ideas -- is questioned or even mentioned. Whereas with much Continental phil, there is this sense that what comes first, methodologically, really matters, and has been carefully examined. So again, I'm raising a brow at calling this "ontological priority" but so what, the insight is important under any name.

The result is that not a single word of the language can be simply taken for granted by way of a conventionalized meaning, and reading a work requires learning an entirely new vocabulary — Joshs

I hope we agree that the bolded phrases are exaggerated -- this is the kind of hyperbole that can be off-putting. I'm fine with saying that most key terms can't be taken for granted, and in reading this kind of phil we have to resist our impatience, our desire to settle for a familiar meaning. Are you OK with that?

the differences between writers like Heidegger and Deleuze on the one hand and writers like Williamson are more than just stylistic. They are also substantive. — Joshs

Definitely. I've been interested in the comments on this thread which focus on aesthetics, but I don't think that's whole story, and maybe not even the most important part, though it makes me eager to continue that discussion.

When one stumbles upon what one believes is an original way of looking at the world, there are many styles of expression one can adopt to convey these fresh insights. — Joshs

I like this way of putting it because it sidesteps the tendency you noted, of throwing shade on ways of doing phil that are either "too conventional" or "too obscure," depending on one's preferences. Questions will come up about the relative value of originality, and whether the insights are in fact insightful, but that ought to be considered within the discourse, not prejudged.

Some shit we made up might even be true.

The question is, how do you decide which is which? — Banno

That does seem to be the problem. The even larger problem: many people don't wish to acknowledge that it is undecidable or even that their shit is made up, so some become victims of others' dictatorially deployed made up shit.

There's a difference between taking a bunch of straws and throwing them into the air to form novel and interesting patterns and then clutching at them with the vain hope of finding something substantive there.

Well, since Descartes there has been the idea of discarding all past thought and, through the adoption of the proper method (plus supporting assumptions, since no methodology is presuppositionless [...except for Big Heg of course :cool: ]) solving philosophy and science. This means a lot of projects involve tearing down and restarting, which allows singular principles such as "meaning is use" to loom larger than they would when pieced together with past insights that stand up to scrutiny. Eco takes this on in his book on semiotics and contemporary analytic philosophy of language.

So, this sort of thing is maybe a broader trend. But it does seem more pronounced in Anglo philosophy of language (across different "camps" within it even). For instance, the Routledge introduction to the topic doesn't mention anything before the 20th century and anything outside the analytic space (and virtually nothing outside the English language). Neither does the Oxford introduction, and having browsed some other table of contents, this seems to be the norm. Philosophy of language starts with Russell or Frege (and barely extends outside English language authors, if at all). Interestingly, the one title that bucked this trend was called something like "Philosophy for Linguists" instead.

Now, is this an unfair criticism? Afterall, the introduction to phenomenology also ignores earlier works that might qualify (e.g. Augustine's De Trinitate, Hegel's Phenomenology, etc.), although it does at least touch on its scholastic roots. Yet I don't think this is the same thing. Phenomenology, for better or worse, is recognized as a particular discipline that is sort of defined by a recent tradition. "Philosophy of language," is rather, presumably, all philosophy has to say about language.

And yes, the series I mentioned skew analytic and recent, but it's not like their epistemology texts don't mention Plato, Descartes, Kant, etc. So too for other topics like philosophy of mind or free will. Philosophy of language really struck me as an outlier, having checked out several titles.

Yet this isn't just an issue in the analytic space. "Post-modernism" is, broadly speaking, in many ways worse. This is the sort of charge David Bentley Hart lays at the feet of Derrida, Deleuze, Heidegger, Lyotard, Levinas, and Nietzsche, (and it certainly might apply to Adorno in some ways), that they are engaged in a rather aggressive and egregious version of what they criticize when attempting to boil down the history of thought to something that can then be swept aside (e.g. Derrida as very much a structuralist when taking in the history of "metaphysics," or Deleuze's claim to have recognized and set the limits of immanence paired with a conflation of Enlightenment philosophy's "transcendent" and the "transcendence" of theology, the latter of which exists in a world-historical dimension, as one plane).

I'm most familiar with Nietzsche, and the charge certainly fits there; first that I don't think anyone would want to use him as a historical authority or an authority of Plato (let alone Christian philosophy), but more damningly, that the tyranny of the same, the monochrome paintbrush, is relied upon heavily for the dismissal of vast tracts of thought. Kant was at least contentious enough to only call the bulk of prior thought "twaddle" in a private letter, not so for the Masters of Suspicion and Hume's library bonfire. There is certainly something of the Reformarion-era iconoclasm here, as opposed to a transcending of modernity.

This becomes particularly clear when one considers the vast difference between the Enlightenment attempt to have reason step outside history to grasp the eternal truths of being through a priori procedural reason and the idea that the Truth has broken into the world, in history as a Jewish Rabbi who was humiliated, tortured, and killed by humanity—and that Truth can be had because we have already been invited into it from without, not "always already" as a sort of (eternal) ontological co-constitution, but due to a distinct historical event during the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, at a distinct place, Golgotha outside Jerusalem. Even in the more mystical writings, e.g. Dionysius, the history of the cross is present, and his most famous commentators such as St. Maximus explicate him with the life of Moses and the Gospel, not a priori deductions.

The point here re method is that an absolutization of method leads towards the endless "restarting" of the entire philosophical project, which also lends itself to a cheaping and forgetfulness of history, even as historicism becomes absolutized (indeed, the two are related). I have pointed out how this tends to make philosophy chaotic, "highly sensitive to initial conditions" (i.e. the new methodology and its presuppositions). This is, of course, not really "post-modern," but in a way the definition of modernity, which begins with a similar move, the Reformer's attempt to sweep away the history of the Church, theology, philosophy, etc. and to recover that mythic, original, untainted outlook—first the Church of the first century, later Western rational culture before the "Christian Dark Ages," or "philosophy before Plato—prior to metaphysics and presence." In a way, it is philosophy trying to turn itself into one of the very many sciences it has birthed, with a clear starting point in history and structure. But I'd argue that philosophy still contains all that it has birthed, and hence can never shrink itself down properly to become one of its own parts, since wisdom itself always relates to the whole.

So, this sort of thing is maybe a broader trend. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, that's a good point.

And yes, the series I mentioned skew analytic and recent, but it's not like their epistemology texts don't mention Plato, Descartes, Kant, etc. So too for other topics like philosophy of mind or free will. Philosophy of language really struck me as an outlier, having checked out several titles. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Interesting.

...but more damningly, that the tyranny of the same, the monochrome paintbrush, is relied upon heavily for the dismissal of vast tracts of thought. Kant was at least contentious enough to only call the bulk of prior thought "twaddle" in a private letter, not so for the Masters of Suspicion and Hume's library bonfire. There is certainly something of the Reformarion-era iconoclasm here, as opposed to a transcending of modernity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right, and that attitude comes across in a multitude of areas, as you imply.

The point here re method is that an absolutization of method leads towards the endless "restarting" of the entire philosophical project, which also lends itself to a cheaping and forgetfulness of history, even as historicism becomes absolutized (indeed, the two are related). I have pointed out how this tends to make philosophy chaotic, "highly sensitive to initial conditions" (i.e. the new methodology and its presuppositions). This is, of course, not really "post-modern," but in a way the definition of modernity, which begins with a similar move, the Reformer's attempt to sweep away the history of the Church, theology, philosophy, etc. and to recover that mythic, original, untainted outlook—first the Church of the first century, later Western rational culture before the "Christian Dark Ages," or "philosophy before Plato—prior to metaphysics and presence." In a way, it is philosophy trying to turn itself into one of the very many sciences it has birthed, with a clear starting point in history and structure. But I'd argue that philosophy still contains all that it has birthed, and hence can never shrink itself down properly to become one of its own parts, since wisdom itself always relates to the whole. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Great points. I definitely agree. :up:
Note too that we are seeing the same thing with institutions, where everything must be rebuilt or re-envisioned from scratch.

I don't want to take the thread too far afield, but I do think this is something that every part of our society has to confront, namely the desire for absolute beginnings and the need to recognize our historical antecedents. Language itself is a deeply historical reality, and so there is great irony in limiting a linguistic scope or even a survey of philosophy of language to a recent epoch. Perhaps at the bottom of much of this is the stress on the individual, and the consequent desire not to "ride on the coattails" of those who have come before. There is this idea that we must "forge our own way."

I am going to come back to page 10 again, because it is there that Williamson makes the point that some of us have been trying to make for a long time now. It is very close to ' claim that wisdom cannot be wholly indeterminate.

Williamson says in effect that philosophy must be disciplined by something! We cannot "produce work that is not properly disciplined by anything." Again:

The concern is that if something is to be philosophy then it must say something. To "say something" is to offer up something which one believes, which one is willing to defend, and which someone else might deny. Even Williamson's very minimal criterion of "disciplined by something," generates this "saying something." If one offers something that is conditioned and answerable to no discipline whatsoever, then one is not actually saying something.

That's a low water-mark for philosophy, but I find it not only helpful, but also commonly accepted and commonly deployed. — Leontiskos

On TPF we often find "philosophy" which is not disciplined by anything. There are three general candidates:

1. My position is [good]
2. Your position is [bad]
3. This philosopher is [good]
   
   • Or else: This philosopher should be read

When such "philosophy" is not disciplined by anything, we end up with this: "My position is important and worthwhile." "Why?" "I have no answer to that question."

This happens a lot. Here is an example of (3):

I find reading Kimhi pretty unpleasant — Srap Tasmaner

I have gotten so frustrated with Kimhi over the past month that I've literally screamed, trying to untangle him. But I insist it's worth it. — J

Whereas I think it's all horseshit, but it's an opportunity to explore what I find so ridiculous about this way of doing philosophy. — Srap Tasmaner

According to this lowest common denominator criterion that Williamson enunciates, one has ceased to do philosophy if they can say nothing more than, "I insist it's worth it." (Note that Kimhi is an interesting case, given that he was proposed as an alternative to Fregian/Analytic philosophy.)

This is related to the idea of "standards" from the previous thread. Note that we do not even have to talk about overarching standards. Any standard will do. As long as we are adhering to some standard(s), then we are being disciplined in some way, shape, or form. As Williamson notes, we don't even need to agree with one another on the importance of a standard, so long as we can see that it is being adhered to. Mere adherence achieves the minimum criterion, even if it is adherence to an absurd standard.

Too often on TPF (1), (2), or (3) are asserted without any standard at all; without any discipline at all. The moral accusation of "authoritarianism" was but one example of this.

Note too that often enough there are accepted standards that are being fulfilled, such as the principle of non-contradiction (PNC). Usually in a dialogue the PNC is being accepted and adhered to as a standard, and therefore there is philosophical discipline. But usually (1), (2), and (3) are not related to the PNC. Most of the time, for example, both parties agree that Kimhi has not contradicted himself, and therefore this standard will not suffice as a standard to discipline the further discussion. This means that we could have a discussion about whether Kimhi fulfills the PNC, and that discussion would have philosophical discipline, but once that discussion comes to a conclusion the dialogue must find a new standard to discipline the discussion. If the dialogue continues with no discipline, then we become aimless wanderers. I will only add the caveat that, "A vague standard is still a standard."

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But it will make a difference when it comes time to debate the standards he is proposing, and the justifications he (or anyone else) is prepared to offer for those standards. I was going to say there are conditional and unconditional options, but really it's just a difference in the antecedent class: "if you want to do analytic philosophy then ..." versus "if you want to do philosophy then ..." — Srap Tasmaner

I think it is clear that he is intending to provide a standard for all philosophy, and not just Analytic philosophy. At least when it comes to these most basic standards.

I've been interested in the comments on this thread which focus on aesthetics, — J

My mention of aesthetics wasn't so much about style as about what we admire.

The even larger problem: many people don't wish to acknowledge that it is undecidable or even that their shit is made up... — Janus

See this again:

She will be huddled under blankets while I am comfortable in my tee shirt. But we at least agree that she is cold while I am hot; that this is the fact of the matter. And this will be so regardless of what the thermometer shows, it would be impertinent for me to say she was mistaken here. So let's not suppose our differences to be merely subjective. — Banno

Is it hot or cold? Or is it undecidable? Or is it just shit we made up?

None of these quite work.

Is it hot or cold? Or is it undecidable? Or is it just shit we made up?

None of these quite work. — Banno

:up: She feels cold, you feel hot. Not merely subjective, but a fact of the matter about how different bodies feel. So, not undecidable or "made up shit" either. But also not metaphysical speculation, which was what I was talking about with "undecidable".

Judgements about other minds should always be made relative to the person who is judging. Then all the philosophical confusion dissipates; if I judge someone to be cold and hand them a blanket, then I am asserting that they are cold; I cannot remove myself from my assertion, and the same is true of all of my propositional assertions which collectively express my ever-changing definition of truth, which on rare occasion coincides with public convention.

I agree, but if I also hand the guy a blanket, I'm making the same assertion you are: that he's cold.

My act of asserting can't be your act of asserting, but the proposition we're asserting is the same. No ontological implications there, it's just how we understand assertions.

My act of asserting can't be your act of asserting, but the proposition we're asserting is the same. No ontological implications there, it's just how we understand assertions. — frank

Digging a little more deeply into that: Does this understanding of assertion commit you to including both "it is true that . . ." and "it seems quite possible that . . ." as assertions? If so, do they assert the same thing?

If I place two identical letters side by side(aa) is this a difference which doesn’t make a difference? In formal logic the answer would be yes. For Deleuze the answer would be no. Formal logic assumes we can apply the notion of ‘same thing different time’ to any object without contextual effects transforming the sense of the object between repetitions. — Joshs

If I place two identical digits side by side (22) is this a difference which doesn't make a difference? In decimal notation the answer would be that it does make a difference: The first 2 represents 20 and the second 2 is just 2. I'm sure that someone could invent a grammar for formal logic with plenty of contextual effects. I don't think this is a good way of explaining Deleuze.

Thinking about this some more I was reminded of John Conway's surreal numbers. I can see from internet searches that others have drawn parallels between Deleuze's difference and surreal numbers. They all seem to focus on the way that surreal numbers enable you to extend the real numbers. I can't find anything relating Deleuze to the way in which surreal numbers are constructed, which is more relevant to the discussion here.

Suppose we put two identical nothings side by side and assert a difference between them. We could write it like $\{|\}$. No jokers to the left, no clowns to the right, but here I am. Now we have something, we can put to the left of nothing $\{\{|\}\ |\ \}$ or the right of nothing $\{\ |\ \{|\}\}$. And that's how you make 0, 1, and -1, as surreal numbers. Then you can reverberate to infinity and beyond.

Digging a little more deeply into that: Does this understanding of assertion commit you to including both "it is true that . . ." and "it seems quite possible that . . ." as assertions? If so, do they assert the same thing? — J

I don't think It's true that and it's possible that have the same meaning.

I don't think It's true that and it's possible that have the same meaning. — frank

Right. Can they both frame assertions? I would say so. Then is "the proposition we're asserting," in the blanket example, really the same? How would we state that proposition?

Right. Can they both frame assertions? I would say so. — J

A. It's true that
B. It's possible that

Some philosophers would say that anytime a person asserts a proposition (P), whether by speech, writing, road sign, stern glare, blanket handing, etc, that "P" means the same thing as "It's true that P." This is redundancy theory, or just redundancy. There are those who deny this. They think there's some subtle difference between the two, although I can't remember what their point is. Scott Soames mentions this in Understanding Truth.

If I assert that it's possible that you're cold, the proposition is that it's possible that you're cold. By redundancy reasoning, this is the same as saying "It's true that it's possible that you're cold."

Are you pointing to the ambiguity that may be there with communication, especially nonverbal? If so, I was just thinking about that yesterday, and by way of meaning as use, this is one of the ways a person can shape a social situation. Let's say you issue an insult in my direction, but it's unclear if you're joking or serious. I can shape things by my reaction. If I laugh and say "That's so true." then the ball is back in your court for what you really meant. You may have been serious, but now you're willing to let it go, so you laugh as well, and it was officially a joke. Wittgenstein's Group Dynamics.

Right. Can they both frame assertions? I would say so. Then is "the proposition we're asserting," in the blanket example, really the same? How would we state that proposition? — J

compared two people—call them Jane and Sue—who both hand Joe a blanket, judging that Joe is cold. Jane and Sue are involved in the same judgment or assertion. You are asking about the difference between Jane's (or Sue's) judgment and Joe's judgment. Those judgments are different, insofar as the Jane's judgment is made indirectly via a sign (such as, for example, Joe's shivering), whereas Joe's judgment that he is cold is made directly.

She feels cold, you feel hot. Not merely subjective, but a fact of the matter about how different bodies feel. — Janus

It merely depends on what we mean by "subjective." If we mean by it "subject-relative," then such things are subjective. Note too that someone could distinguish between, "I am cold," and, "I feel cold." For example, someone may have a neurological disorder that makes them feel cold when their body is not cold, and if they are aware of the disorder they could easily say, "I feel cold but I am not cold." Note too that in this case it is simply false to deny the possibility of, "You feel cold but you are not cold."

Judgements about other minds should always be made relative to the person who is judging. — sime

I would say it depends, given that "judgments about other minds" is an ambiguous phrase. Subject-relative claims should be made relative to the subject. Non-subject-relative claims should not.

So if we take "Joe is hot" to mean "Joe feels hot," then our judgment must take into account what Joe feels. But if we take "Joe is hot" to mean "Joe's body is hot," then we would use some kind of thermometer to measure Joe's body temperature, and we would not need to take into account what Joe feels. Usually the two senses are interrelated, and therefore we don't get precise about which one we mean.

I judge someone to be cold and hand them a blanket, then I am asserting that they are cold; I cannot remove myself from my assertion, — sime

I agree, but if I also hand the guy a blanket, I'm making the same assertion you are: that he's cold.

My act of asserting can't be your act of asserting, but the proposition we're asserting is the same. — frank

This is the example I raised the assertion problem about.

Let's allow that handing someone a blanket counts as some kind of assertion; perhaps phrased as "You look cold to me."

But sime wants their blanket-assertion to mean something different: "I judge you to be cold." They also want to say, it would seem, that there's no logical space between "You are cold" and "I judge you to be cold."

Now if you also hand the guy a blanket, we really don't know what you're asserting. Is it more like the general version I was suggesting?: "You look cold to me." Or might you be claiming something stronger, like sime?: "You are cold" or "I judge you to be cold." Or some third thing, perhaps, "If I were you, I'd be feeling cold"? (Let's not even bother with examples like "I thought you might like to have a look at this blanket," or its infinite cousins. We'll assume both of you can read the (cold) room!)

Hence my question: Are you two really asserting the same proposition? You may be. But the concept of assertion is just too elastic for us to know for certain.

That's all the question amounted to. Nothing tricky, I hope, I just wondered whether, in this case, you saw some way in which an assertion is automatically pegged to the same thing both are "saying".

Are you pointing to the ambiguity that may be there with communication, especially nonverbal? — frank

Sort of. I'm pointing not simply to ambiguity about communication, but ambiguity about how we understand assertion. As you say, many philosophers want to nail this down, but doubts have been raised, I think rightly. We could have you and sime speak very precisely to the cold guy and there would still be issues about 1st-person assertions.

Can they both frame assertions? — J

Both are second level predications, perhaps.

It is true that the cat is on the mat
it is possible that the cat is on the mat.

Both have the form X(the cat is on the mat), or X(p) were p is a proposition.

But they are payed out in very different ways. "the cat is on the mat" will be true IFF the cat is on the mat, but "the cat is on the mat" will be possible if the cat is on the mat in at least one possible world.

"the cat is on the mat" is the same in each. That this is so is a stipulation that allows us to talk about possibility and truth sensibly. That's to stipulate that we are playing by Frege's rules, keeping "the cat is on the mat" constant in order to look at "it is true that..." and "it is possible that...". We might alternately stipulate Wittgenstein's approach from PI, and look tot he use of "the cat is on the mat" - a hedged assertion, or an expression of hope or fear, or a counter to someone's denial.

This is much the same point as I tried in your thread p and "I think p".

It's just not the case that one and only one of these ways of talking must be the correct one in all circumstances.

They also want to say, it would seem, that there's no logical space between "You are cold" and "I judge you to be cold." — J

There's clearly a logical space between the two. If the first is true, the second may be true or false. If the second is true, the first may be true or false.
The odd bit is that I cannot logically assert "I judge that you are cold but you aren't". There's no logical space between the two conjuncts when I assert them. This is just Moore's paradox.
But that so-called paradox is also the reason why if you assert "That person is cold", I can infer that you believe that person is cold (normally).

I'm pointing not simply to ambiguity about communication, but ambiguity about how we understand assertion. — J

There's ambiguity about assertion, but, IMO, there's a great deal more ambiguity about propositions. Philosophers talk about them all the time and apparently understand each other most of the time. But don't ask them for a definition.

Well said.

's point perhaps stands, in that the judgement (belief, act of making an assertion) can be seen as an association between the speaker and the proposition.

There are those amongst us who apparently seem to see no distinction between the syntactic structure and the illocutionary act.

The syntax of "the cat is on the mat" is that of a statement, to be contrasted with "Is the cat on the mat?", which has the syntax of a question.

But each may be used to the same ends. One can use "The cat is in the mat" to ask if the cat is on the mat, and one can use "Is the cat on the mat?" to make an assertion.

We must take care not to equate sentences with beliefs without anchoring them in a speaker's use.