Indeed. Though I'm still trying to find the words for it. I'd say think of a conversation with a lover or a friend. Think of those two faces communicating and the complex play of meaning, the flexibility.

Or I like to think of my cat in her living complexity. I can analyze this or that sub-system, but her living complexity is something else. I am not saying to stop looking for better accounts. I don't think we can help. We just naturally synthesize accounts. And even we are part of this with our meta-accounts. — macrosoft

Nah. Don't give up on the idea of getting it right yet.

Draw and maintain the aforementioned distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief. Use the earlier method I presented...

Take it for spin. I'll be here.

The first example was one that is ripe with very complex language use, countless connections...

The second seemed to wave the white flag before it got started...

So, we agree that we can get some knowledge of pre-lingual thought/belief. That's good. Is there any good reason to hold that we cannot acquire knowledge of what all thought/belief consist in/of?

That certainly does not require omniscience.
— creativesoul

What comes to my mind is 'nothing is hidden.' We already live and experience these phenomena. Beyond that we can articulate them better with superior formal indications. — macrosoft

Not following this...

:worry:

I also think I am not grokking one of your main points.

Which one? Could you quote me? I'll gladly elucidate wherever necessary as best I can.

I'm thinking of basic structures of consciousness. The inarticulate sense of a shared world with others, the animal faith we live by when we say what is-for-us. So 'truth is correspondence' has to 'correspond' somehow to 'truth' in this shared space, for example. But the point is that the person touting truth-as-correspondence does so from a deeper, vaguer sense of truth that makes the assertion meaningful as an assertion--the sense that inspires explicit truth-as-correspondence.. They are trying to do something like point at pure presence. 'Look, here, in our shared space. It's the idea of truth, visible as correspondence.' What's the problem, then? Am I not talking about correspondence in the space? True, but is this the space of their explicit theory?

What is this space in which this shared idea of truth can be pointed at? This space makes truth possible. It's not the physical world in some simple way. Because people debate about whether this is a world, or whether it idea or stuff, etc. But again they point at the world as idea or the world as atoms 'within' this world where truth happens. It's as if our sociality and sense of being linked outstrips our most radical metaphysical theses, all of which suppose others for whom these theses can be true.

Maybe I thought (and still think?) explicitness must fail do to the elusiveness of this world. I think this is close to Heidegger's being-in-the-world-with-others, a basic structure that we can't get behind, the wheels and axle of intelligibility.

one sec

The critics point applies here when we consider what method of approach could lead us to such knowledge. We have to start at the conventional notions, all the ways we use the terms "thought" and "belief". We have to discover, determine, and/or otherwise clearly establish that they share the same set of basic elemental constituents. Then we have to consider this set of basic elemental constituents in a different light. — creativesoul

Can you put this in another way?

Sure...

Gimme a minute or two, I'm making some Peet's decaf!

:wink:

The critics point regarding the emphasis upon the fact that how we use the terms is an influencing factor upon meaning applies here when we consider what method of approach could lead us to such knowledge(of pre-lingual thought/belief). We have to start at the conventional notions, all the ways we use the terms "thought" and "belief". We have to discover, determine, and/or otherwise clearly establish that they share the same set of basic elemental constituents. Then we have to consider this set of basic elemental constituents in a different light.

Can we sensibly say that non-linguistic thought/belief consist of them as well? If not, then we surely have no good reason to call both sets of thought/belief by the same name.

We're discussing whether or not it is possible to acquire knowledge of pre-lingual thought/belief. I suggested a method of approach earlier. That method begins by virtue of looking at all the different uses of the terms "thought" and "belief" in an attempt at discerning whether or not they share some set of common denominators that make them what they are.

That would be the first step.

A reminder...

The goal is to discover and/or establish pre-lingual thought/belief.

So, whatever we discover that all linguistic thought/belief consists in/of, we must be able to confidently, intelligibly, and sensibly say that those same elemental constituents make up and/or are also adequate for pre-lingual thought/belief.

That is the strongest justificatory ground for calling them all(these pre-lingual mental ongoings) by the same name... "thought" and "belief"...

Consisting of language or shared meaning is not acceptable, for pre-lingual thought/belief if there is such a thing, cannot consist of either.

Propositions?

Not on my view. Propositions are existentially dependent upon language.

That method begins by virtue of looking at all the different uses of the terms "thought" and "belief" in an attempt at discerning whether or not they share some set of common denominators that make them what they are. — creativesoul

For me all the different uses would be (potentially) infinite. Context dominates. Maybe you can just make your case and I'll just really open my mind.

Consisting of language or shared meaning is not acceptable, for pre-lingual thought/belief if there is such a thing, cannot consist of either.

Propositions?

Not on my view. Propositions are existentially dependent upon language — creativesoul

I'm not convinced there's a sharp line between language and non-language. For instances: a peace sign, a wink, a salute. Are these that different from 'hi' or 'uh' or 'hmmm'?

I wonder if you are pointing at thought independent of language/words?

I say the meaning-space I have in mind includes words and gestures, really everything that is interpret-able in terms of either other thoughts or other gestures or actions. The world, I guess, but the world as phenomenon or lifeworld.

All attribution of meaning is existentially dependent upon something to become sign/symbol, something to become significant/symbolized, and a creature capable of drawing a correlation between different things.



All correlation presupposes the existence of it's own content(regardless of subsequent later qualifications).



All utterance of "thought" and "belief" is predication. All statements of thought/belief is predication. All predication is existentially dependent upon a plurality of creatures drawing the same(or similar enough) correlations between different things. All use of "thought" and "belief" is existentially dependent upon a creature capable of drawing correlations between different things.

I'm not convinced there's a sharp line between language and non-language. For instances: a peace sign, a wink, a salute. Are these that different from 'hi' or 'uh' or 'hmmm'? — macrosoft

Shared meaning.

A plurality of creatures drawing the same(or similar enough) correlations between (the same or similar enough)different things.

That is the only line, and it's razor sharp.

All utterance of "thought" and "belief" is predication. All statements of thought/belief is predication. All predication is existentially dependent upon a plurality of creatures drawing the same(or similar enough) correlations between different things. All use of "thought" and "belief" is existentially dependent upon a creature capable of drawing correlations between different things. — creativesoul

Oh, well I can relate to this. This predication is something like being. Existence of things is presupposed. And thinking is something like their meaningful presence or making them present, pointing at them in the space. Don't know if that's what you mean, but I can relate it to my theory. Objects in the shared space are referred to, connected in relationships. Relationships themselves are therefore pointed at as a kind of ideal public object (a shared meaning).

Shared meaning.

A plurality of creatures drawing the same(or similar enough) correlations between (the same or similar enough)different things.

That is the only line, and it's razor sharp. — creativesoul

In this context I see why you want it sharp. I think that's justified by your interest here in brightly-lit linguistic belief specifically. We might call sitting in a chair without thinking about it belief in the chair. A wink is not a belief or an assertion of a thesis. So I withdraw that as relevant to a different issue.

If I am getting you, we were just focusing on different issues and yet with some kind of similar intent.

Do you not see the unveiling?

I tried to slip into your worldview a little, and I realized something important (to me anyway.)

Semantic holism becomes important only as sentences get either complex or appeal to abstractions. If we make simple assertions ('your coat is hanging up in the closet'), the context is so automatic that a particular coat in a particular closet appears. If we believe the speaker, we 'see' that coat just hanging there. We act on it as we would when going downstairs to get an apple from the counter where we last saw it. Thinking of this kind of communication would make the holist issue secondary at best. At this level of familiar purposes and familiar objects we are most clear.

On the other hand, I've been thinking about interpreting Nietzsche and Hegel, which is language at its most self-referential. The meanings and tones shift constantly and radically. In this case a line taken out of context is the limb of the dead cat that you didn't find convincing. Basically the holism I was talking about has been operating in this conversation. We are both trying to say strange things about saying things. We find something that sounds promising in what the other says. 'Wait a minute! I see that in the space.' And yet other words don't compute yet, don't feel right. So we prod one another with questions, elucidations, and subtle gestures of goodwill as a kind of lubricant against the natural friction of being challenged to interpret and not just see the coat in the closet--and maybe just the willingness to share the space so that we keep our eyes peeled and don't hide from the sharing. Slowly the other's total point or mini-language becomes intelligible as a whole. (And I hope this paragraph did exactly what it described in our case, filled in my view a little more.)

Do you not see the unveiling? — creativesoul

You tell me. Do you recognize your view in my words? I see the positing of objects and thier relationships in a shared space. Is it like that? I think I see what you mean.

All predication is existentially dependent upon a plurality of creatures drawing the same(or similar enough) correlations between different things. — creativesoul

If I read you correctly, this underlined part takes into account the vagueness I'm interested in. We just ignore a certain vagueness as unimportant. I mean we really ignore it. If we search out some final exact meaning, we can't give it. Images are at work on the level of ordinary objects. Named images. Philosophers, however, sometimes obsess over winning arguments to the neglect of such seeing the object under consideration in its vagueness. Instead of looking around in the space, they want a particular relation between real or abstract objects (relationships) to be the center of attention --a natural part of the desire to communicate that can backfire.

I tried to slip into your worldview a little, and I realized something important (to me anyway.)

Semantic holism becomes important only as sentences get either complex or appeal to abstractions. — macrosoft

So much the worse for it...

Sentences are existentially dependent upon written language. Written language:Spoken language. Spoken language:Pre-lingual thought/belief.

Pre-lingual thought/belief must be meaningful to the creature; capable of being so; and consist of correlations drawn between different things.

If I read you correctly, this underlined part takes into account the vagueness I'm interested in. We just ignore a certain vagueness as unimportant. If we search out some final exact meaning, we can't give it. Images are at work on the level of ordinary objects. Named images. — macrosoft

The content of correlation is sometimes easier to ascertain than others.

Do not conflate our report with what we're reporting upon. The latter is pre-lingual thought/belief and as such it is not existentially dependent upon the former.

That Feuerbach grasped this so directly still impresses me.

But if friendship and love, which themselves are only subjective realizations of the species, make out of singly imperfect beings an at least relatively perfect whole, how much more do the sins and failings of individuals vanish in the species itself, which has its adequate existence only in the sum total of mankind, and is therefore only an object of reason! Hence the lamentation over sin is found only where the human individual regards himself in his individuality as a perfect, complete being not needing others for the realization of the species, of the perfect man; where instead of the consciousness of the species has been substituted the exclusive self-consciousness of the individual; where the individual does not recognize himself as a part of mankind, but identifies himself with the species, and for this reason makes his own sins, limits and weaknesses, the sins, limits, and weaknesses of mankind in general. Nevertheless man cannot lose the consciousness of the species, for his self-consciousness is essentially united to his consciousness of another than himself. Where therefore the species is not an object to him as. a species, it will be an object to him as God. He supplies the absence of the idea of the species by the idea of God, as the being, who is free from the limits and wants which oppress the individual, and, in his opinion (since he identifies the species with the individual), the species itself. But this perfect being, free from the limits of the individual, is nothing else than the species, which reveals the infinitude of its nature in this, that it is realized in infinitely numerous and various individuals. — Feuerbach

I love Nietzsche, but it's hard to imagine Nietzsche writing this. Feuerbach writes from a very open and synthetic point of view. He doesn't see masters types and slaves types, even if such exist, because he's not interested in seeing himself as a master in this attunement. He had two brothers who were very successful in their fields, as impressive in his eyes as he was. Nietzsche was the lone boy genius in a family of women with a dead father. Who's the better writer? Who is more acute? Nietzsche, I think. But the passage above is wiser and more balanced than much of what Nietzsche writers.

In Nietzsche we see the 'wicked' potential of the mangod symbol, 'beyond good and evil,' a transgressive ecstasy. This is 'God' in a man, not 'God' in men. Given his genius, he had a lively enough inner monologue to sustain himself this way. He had a community in his chest and between his ears. One reads him with mixed feelings, though at times with a transgressive ecstasy that understands him.

Feuerbach, on the other hand, despite some blindspots and sentimentality here and there, has a fundamental grasp on the human as essentially social. He is a man with a wife and friends who understand him. He knows the space because he lives in the space, and not just in books and his own vast soul.

Feuerbach, unlike Strauss, never accepted Hegel’s characterization of Christianity as the consummate religion is clear from the contents of a letter he sent to Hegel along with his dissertation in 1828.[7] In this letter he identified the historical task remaining in the wake of Hegel’s philosophical achievement to be the establishment of the “sole sovereignty of reason” in a “kingdom of the Idea” that would inaugurate a new spiritual dispensation. Foreshadowing arguments put forward in his first book, Feuerbach went on in this letter to emphasize the need for

the I, the self in general, which especially since the beginning of the Christian era, has ruled the world and has thought of itself as the only spirit that exists at all [to be] cast down from its royal throne. (GW v. 17, Briefwechsel I (1817–1839), 103–08)

This, he proposed, would require prevailing ways of thinking about time, death, this world and the beyond, individuality, personhood and God to be radically transformed within and beyond the walls of academia. — SEP

The content of correlation is sometimes easier to ascertain than others. — creativesoul

Ok. That makes sense.

Do not conflate our report with what we're reporting upon. The latter is pre-lingul thought/belief and as such it is not existentially dependent upon the former. — creativesoul

For me this gets tricky when we report on the nature of truth for instance. If I associate truth and correspondence, then what is that?

The content of correlation is sometimes easier to ascertain than others.
— creativesoul

Ok. That makes sense. — macrosoft

That is where perception does not require being informed by language. The content of a language less creature's thought/belief must be perceptible to a non linguistic creature. The content of correlation is perception. Perception is existentially dependent upon a plurality of things and a creature capable of drawing correlations between different things.

That is where perception does not require being informed by language — creativesoul

I am open to this idea. Indeed, it goes along with my suggestion that the language/world distinction is not sharp.It's also examined in Groundless Grounds (a sort of intelligent direct perception and not the usual concepts glued to sensation.)

This is more proto-Heidegger.

Feuerbach made his first attempt to challenge prevailing ways of thinking about individuality in his inaugural dissertation, where he presented himself as a defender of speculative philosophy against those critics who claim that human reason is restricted to certain limits beyond which all inquiry is futile, and who accuse speculative philosophers of having transgressed these. This criticism, he argued, presupposes a conception that reason is a cognitive faculty of the individual thinking subject that is employed as an instrument for apprehending truths. He aimed to show that this view of the nature of reason is mistaken, that reason is one and the same in all thinking subjects, that it is universal and infinite, and that thinking (Denken) is not an activity performed by the individual, but rather by “the species” acting through the individual. “In thinking”, Feuerbach wrote, “I am bound together with, or rather, I am one with—indeed, I myself am—all human beings” (GW I:18). — SEP

Looking back, I think this encouraged my holism. Mortals come and go and participate in a form of life, sustaining it with a certain drift, with technology accelerating that drift perhaps. While we are 'literally' in individual bodies and brains, language has a 'feel' as described above. The self is mostly inherited from this form of life. Minor invention does happen, extending the form of life, opening this same invention for those not yet born. Other inventions can mostly die out, perhaps preserved in books for a potential resurrection.

Language/World???

Never considered it.

I could name a few dichotomies than are inherently useless for taking proper account of that which is both... and is thus... neither.

Language/World???

Never considered it.

I could name of a few different dichotomies than are inherently useless for taking proper account fo that which is both... and is thus... neither. — creativesoul

I mean bodily acts like perception and movement. I chose the wrong word. This goes along in some ways with the image of the coat in the closet. It's not terribly conceptual. It's gather as a unity. That's about it. Otherwise it's a visceral imagining, I think. And I suspect cats and dogs grasp objects like this.