I say have at it, keep going, and all that. "Model" was the word I was focusing on in my thoughts, so I might be one of the ones who dislikes that. :D But without more I can't judge.

Any strenuous objections so far? — Srap Tasmaner

Seems like a good angle of approach to me. I think it's a good way into the role truth - or like concepts such as accuracy and felicity - might play in explaining how language touches the world.

You seem to be suggesting that you can't create a bowl without a language. I'm sure that pre-linguistic man created bowls of some sort, or maybe you're referring to a particular kind of bowl, say plastic bowls. Even if you're right, it seems like a stretch to the conclude that because a thing (maybe stove is more appropriate), is created by language users, that the cat's belief is dependent upon language. — Sam26

It's all about the content of the belief Sam. I think you would agree that believing a mouse is under the stove depends upon the prior existence of a mouse, a stove, and the spatiotemporal relationship between the two from the vantage point of the believing creature(regardless of whether or not the creature has language). There may be other elements as well, but for simplicity's sake alone, we can just focus upon those main elements of this particular belief. The belief is existentially dependent upon all of those elements. All stoves are existentially dependent upon language. All belief involving stoves must be as well.

When I use the phrase "dependent upon language," I'm referring to the use of concepts as part of a statement of belief. So, the cat is not dependent upon language in this sense.

The cat is not dependent upon language. We certainly agree there. I completely agree that cats do not use linguistic concepts. However, they can and do directly perceive some things that emerged into the world by virtue of our use of linguistic concepts; stoves and sofas are precisely such things. All belief about such things is existentially dependent upon those things. Those things are existentially dependent upon language. All belief about those things is existentially dependent upon language.

You're adding another sense of "dependent upon language" that doesn't involve the direct use of concepts, which seems to be an indirect dependence. Am I understanding your point, or not? Mostly I'm talking about concepts, in particular the concept truth. The difference maybe in our focus.

I do not think that I'm adding another sense of "dependent upon language" - as in a completely different sense - so much as expanding the sense you've put to use here in such a way that it includes spatiotemporal considerations pertaining to the direct dependence upon language use that some things require for their initial emergence. I mentioned earlier to someone here how I thought that logic's lack of spatiotemporal consideration was a fundamental flaw. The approach I use includes keeping spatiotemporal considerations in mind. I see no other way to arrive at a scientifically and philosophically respectable position regarding how belief emerges and subsequently evolves given time and mutation. This ties into truth and meaning both, because it is via thought and belief formation that both truth and meaning first emerge onto the world stage(that's a topic in it's own right).

That being said, you're right to take note of the difference, because to the best of my knowledge, it is unique.

This ought help you to understand my use of "existential dependency".

utterly sterile and un-insightful in grappling with why and how humans actually use language. — Joshs

Probably. The principal assumption here (since we're headed for truth) is that language can be used as a medium for making models of the world; if model making is interesting, that would make language interesting.

There are no words or sentences outside o f their actual context use — Joshs

That's literally false, for obvious reasons.

and in their use a word does not point at an object, it creates the object in that it produces a new sense of meaning. — Joshs

Not sure how producing a sense creates an object, but whatever that means it is far more controversial than I was going for.

If you think there is no sense whatsoever in which language can be used as a medium for modeling the world, I won't be saying much that makes sense to you.

But without more I can't judge. — Moliere

What me? I just assumed someone else would pick it up from here...

a good way into the role truth - or like concepts such as accuracy and felicity — fdrake

Yeah that's all I'm going for. Language is other things too, but I'm waiting to see if anything else makes a difference to this discussion.

Back in a little while.

There are no words or sentences outside o f their actual context use
— Joshs

That's literally false, for obvious reasons. — Srap Tasmaner

How do we demonstrate the existence of these alleged words and sentences that nobody is actually using? By pointing to a dictionary or other book? What you have in mind is not some actual realm with any coherent reality apart from immediate context, but how we make use of memory and history in actual situations of sense-making.

James Conant writes:

‘the meaning of an expression’ (if by this we mean the meaning that the expression has when employed in a context of significant use) is not something which an expression possesses already on its own and which is subsequently imported into a context of use:

You say to me: ‘You understand this expression, don’t you? Well then – I am using it in the sense you are familiar with’. – As if the sense were an atmosphere accompanying the word, which is car­ried into every kind of application.”(PI)

What we are tempted to call ‘the meaning of the sentence’ is not a property the sentence already has in abstraction from any possibility of use and which it then carries with it – like an atmosphere accom­panying it – into each specific occasion of use. It is, as Wittgenstein
keeps saying, in the circumstances in which it is ‘actually used’ that the sentence has sense. This is why Wittgenstein says in On Certainty, §348: the words ‘I am here’ have a meaning only in certain contexts – that is, it is a mistake to think that the words themselves possess a meaning apart from their capacity to have a meaning when called upon in various contexts of use.

The philosopher takes there to be something which is the thought which the sentence itself expresses. The only questions considerations of use will raise for such a philosopher (in an account of what we mean by our words) will be questions concerning the relationship
between ‘the meaning of the sentence’ – which we grasp indepen­dently of its contexts of use – and the various contexts of use into which the sentence can be imported. Questions can be raised about why what is said is being said and what the point is of its being said
on a particular occasion of use. But the very possibility of asking such questions presupposes that it is already reasonably clear what thought is expressed, and thus what it would be for truth to have been spoken on this occasion of speaking.”

If you think there is no sense whatsoever in which language can be used as a medium for modeling the world, I won't be saying much that makes sense to you. — Srap Tasmaner

All of our experiences ‘model’ a world in the sense
that in order to have even the most minimal
perception is to connect an event with a rich, integrated network of constuals that anticipates into , and thus, interprets experience. Everything we recognize as intelligible is a product of the way we organize what appears to us on the basis of its role in a web of relations.
In doing so, we don’t simply force appear xes i to our pre-existing schemes but also adapt those schemes to the appearances. Using a word is the application of a scheme In its use , the sense of meaning of the word changes in accord with the novelty of the context. Prior rules and conventions of word meaning will not help us here since they also alter themselves in the context of actual word use.

Scientific models function the same way.They are not backward looking templates designed to
simply represent by forcing novelty into a pre-existing framework. Our models are projective, anticipatory. Models change our interactions with our world and thus are thus reciprocally changed by the world they modify.

If I say "Pat's house is green," and you say, "Pat's house is aqua," can we still be considered users of the same model? Do we have different models, or do we disagree about which sentence is part of the model? — Srap Tasmaner

I think disagreement is a natural way into the question of truth; maybe neither of us is right but at least one of us is wrong. (Those colors don't contrast so clearly as I wanted, sorry.)

Is that enough, to get at what being wrong is, and being right is not that? We're accustomed to doing this the other way because of the asymmetry: there's one way to be right but an infinite number of ways to be wrong.

This is an odd case, because it's clearly true (if I had picked better colors) that we can't both be right, even before we give any more substance to what being right is. Without disagreement, you're forced to give an account of being right directly, I think.

Do we need an account of how disagreement is possible? I'd like to assume, to begin with, that we don't, and that even a very minimal sort of disagreement, like one of us misspeaking, will be good enough. We'll find out.

So I'm going to proceed from a scenario like this, to start with, and nothing else, however this situation arose. The question stays, what is the nature of such a disagreement? About what do these two people disagree?

I get that you would prefer another approach. Maybe I would too -- I'm undecided.

But this thread has overwhelmingly been about redundancy and T-sentences. All I've done is provide a sort of test-bed that I hope will clarify that conversation. I have already indirectly described both, and I believe most readers here recognize that.

I get that you think this entire approach, and most of this thread is wrong-headed. I hoped one of the virtues of my presentation would be that it is explicit enough, without becoming pedantic, that disagreement with the model could be tied to something I said explicitly. Not just, "here you shouldn't do that but this other thing," but "if you do that, here's the problem you won't be able to solve."

Can you point to something like that? These posts have a very specific purpose, and it's not to provide evidence of whether I think something you approve of.

Nice post. A compelling presentation of language as a model of reality, the sort of thing that Wittgenstein set up in the Tractatus, only to rethink in latter years. Doubtless it sits behind much of the thinking hereabouts. I suspect it's what he had in mind when he wrote:

You say: the point isn’t the word, but its meaning, and you think of the meaning as a thing of the same kind as the word, though also different from the word. Here the word, there the meaning. The money, and the cow that you can buy with it. (But contrast: money, and it's uses). — PI §120

Paraphrasing: "You think of the model of the house as the same kind of thing as the house, though also different from the house, here the model, there the house. the money and the cow you can buy with it."

Language, of course, is far more complex and varied than this, Stick with the model and we end up with the simplistic notion of language as no more than reference espoused by @Harry Hindu.

When I (or anyone here) writes critically, the result is of course that folk get their backs up and double down. So I'm wondering if instead you might address the limits of the notion of language as a model.

Do we need an account of how disagreement is possible? — Srap Tasmaner

One of the issues is the object of agreement. Propositions work for that role, but some reject the existence of such things.

I think their only recourse is something like behaviorism. Agreements are nothing more than a certain kind of behavior.

The question stays, what is the nature of such a disagreement? About what do these two people disagree? — Srap Tasmaner

Actually thinking now I shouldn't have thrown in the second question. We don't absolutely need it yet -- that is, we don't need to pose this as a question these two people might be expected to answer. This way of posing the question is ambiguous between our description of what's going on and what they might think is going on. The latter is interesting, but I think we can wait.

We have one person saying "Pat's house is white," and the other saying, "Pat's house is black." (Definitive colors.) What are we to make of that?

I said we know immediately that at least one of them is wrong. Why? Presumably because we have accepted the limitation on models that they be consistent, which here means that there can be no model they might rely on that includes both "Pat's house is white" and "Pat's house is black."

Is that reasonable? If it is, we may have no choice but to give an account of how (a) the model I use, (b) the sentences I utter, and (c) the occasions upon which I utter them, are related. There are multiple possible explanations for the utterance of a sentence not in the model.

The issue here is not, how do we flesh out our account of language, because this isn't intended to be a complete account. It's that the only definite path toward truth we have found so far is an account of being wrong (which we hope will be useful). So far we've only established that one of these guys is wrong, but we don't know what that really means. For instance, it needn't mean diverging from the previously accepted model; it could be the divergent sentence is a correction, and wrong is staying with the given model.

(1) Are we really either entitled or required to say there is a model here at all, or are we really only talking about what people agree to say and not say?

If you argue first that being a user of a model just is saying certain things not others, and nothing else, you can quickly reach the conclusion that the model itself is unnecessary. — Srap Tasmaner

Ah, I see you have already done some critique. Excellent. Here you move towards my view; that there is no model.

But I'll let you continue, at least for a bit. Good stuff.

But roughly, I'd use something like Davidson's argument in On the very idea... to show that there cannot be multiple models; and hence that the notion of a model is superfluous. But that might be where you are going...

But roughly, I'd use something like Davidson's argument in On the very idea... to show that there cannot be multiple models; and hence that the notion of a model is superfluous. But that might be where you are going... — Banno

There's no model? Or just one model? Which is it?

https://www2.southeastern.edu/Academics/Faculty/jbell/conceptualscheme.pdf

Read "model" for "conceptual scheme".

We use models all the time. Physicists regularly compare models, so it doesn't seem to be superfluous.

I'm wondering if instead you might address the limits of the notion of language as a model. — Banno

Yes and no.

No, in the sense that I'm not trying to build a complete model of language use, just enough to clarify questions about truth.

Yes, in that, if there are problems with such a partial model of language, we should land clearly and unambiguously right on top of them.

OK; please continue.

I might hold off on interjections and objections as you write, and await the conclusion.

Perhaps you would find it helpful to adjust your expectations regarding what we can do with language. — creativesoul

I'm not suggesting that we can say nothing at all about our pre-linguistic experience; after all it is our experience. I believe we can understand it very well, but that when we attempt to articulate it in a precise way we are left with static representations that don't do justice to the dynamic actuality of experience..In the poetic vein we can also talk about how we imagine different animals might experience.

It is the languages of art, music and literature, particularly poetry, and not discursive analysis, which best evoke the living experience, in my view.

Oh good lord no!

I mean, suit yourself, if you just want to see how it plays out.

But I wasn't planning on doing it all myself. I'm not dribbling out something I've already got all of. I just wanted to do some setup people might agree to so disagreements could be clearer and a way to resolve them might be possible. Was hoping others would be pitching in once I got that out of the way.

How do we(or you) avoid anthropomorphism?

I can be more specific.

Can you offer a no-models account of disagreement, while I'm working (you know, for money) and mulling over what to say next, and others are thinking about -- and maybe even posting! -- their own accounts of disagreement?

How do we(or you) avoid anthropomorphism? — creativesoul

Since it is always we who imagine or posit this or that about what we think or imagine animals might experience, can we avoid anthropomorphism?

Ok, so on your two folk with different models of the whole neighbourhood, and following the argument in One the very idea..., we start with incommensurate models, and then consider partially commensurate models. In outline, we might proceed as follows.

Suppose they have radically, incommensurably, different models of the same thing.

How could we tell? What basis could we have for saying they were both models of the neighbourhood, if they had nothing in common?

It seems, then, that the models must have something in common if they are to be considered models of the neighbourhood. We must be able to say that this house, in one model, is the same as that house, in the other. There must be some basis for our being able to translate between the models, if we are to say they model the neighbourhood.

And inversely, if we can translate from one model to the other, then the models are in a sense the same.

Suppose instead that there are some small differences between the models, along the lines of the colour of the various houses Srap describes. In order to recognise that the colour of this or that house differs between models, we must be able to recognise that they represent the same house. To do this we perhaps recognise the streets, and the other buildings thereabouts. Overall, if we are going to recognise a difference between the models, we must be able to see the overall similarity.

We must conclude that the models cannot be so different that we cannot see the same things in both. We will make the most of the models if we interpret them in ways that maximise their agreement.

I'll pause there for a bit of ruminating.

I'd use something like Davidson's argument in On the very idea... to show that there cannot be multiple models; and hence that the notion of a model is superfluous — Banno

There's no model? Or just one model? Which is it? — Tate

For Davidson there is just one model (conceptual scheme), which he calls empiricism, the data of sense, although he doesn't realize that this supposed common coordinate system is one among many possible conceptual schemes, thinking instead that it is the way the empirical world speaks to all of us, regardless of our language. Contrary to Davidson, there are many conceptual schemes-models , not because of a presumed split between language and empirical world as he claims all conceptual relativists believe , but because the inseparability of model and world means that there are as many empirical worlds as there are models.

Contrary to Davidson, there are many conceptual schemes-models , not because of a presumed split between language and empirical world as he claims conceptual relativists believe , but because the inseparability of model and world means that there are as many empirical worlds as there are models. — Joshs

But how do we know any of this? What's our vantage point? Why not be satisfied with phenomenology?

...while I'm working (you know, for money) — Srap Tasmaner

I've managed to fall into a place where I get money enough for tea and biscuits while doing whatever I want. What's curious, in such circumstances, is how this alters what one wants.

So a slight sidestep.

Consider neighbourhood relativism. Suppose we do not have access to the neighbourhood, but instead only to the models of the neighbourhood.

In such a case, the difference between colours for a particular house cannot be held up against some common standard - the house - in order to decide which is preferred. Any differences become differences of opinion.

The argument above for substantial, indeed overwhelming, agreement, still holds. If you say the fence between our properties is brick, and I say it is wood, our models agree on things such as property and fences. We might proceed by comparing such inconsistencies as whether the fence was made of the same material as your house, but again this process assumes overwhelming agreement*.

Indeed, the agreement must be such that we might talk as if we access the same model, with some small differences.

Now the assumption was, in this post, that we do not have access to the neighbourhood. And our conclusion is that the models to which we each have access must be overwhelmingly the same.

And the final step, back in line, is to point out that the shared model we each access just is the neighbourhood.

Can you offer a no-models account of disagreement... — Srap Tasmaner

That's it.

Again, this is a child's version of the argument in On the very idea..., and while I am confident that Srap will recognise the parallels, if others do not follow the argument here, they ought take their differences up with the actual article rather than this post.


Time for more ruminating.

Edit: I might also simply decide that you use the word "brick" in the way I use the word "wood", that they have the same use.

But how do we know any of this? What's our vantage point? Why not be satisfied with phenomenology? — Tate

I’m very satisfied with phenomenology( of the Husserlian sort). For Husserl the vantage point is always subjective.

“...one of the main tasks of pure intentional psychology is to make understandable, by way of the progressive reduction of world-validity, the subjective and pure function through which the world as the "world for us all" is a world for all from my—the ego's—vantage point, with whatever particular content it may have. ...”(Crisis, p.256)

Banno would argue that a vantage point implies a common coordinate system, but common is not the same thing as identical.

Ah, I see you have already done some critique. Excellent. Here you move towards my view; that there is no model. — Banno

That's right, there is no model. Even I might agree with you on this. But this is because each particular instance of use is unique to itself. Adhering to this principle leaves what is in the mind as very difficult to understand. However, the solution is not to deny that there is anything in the mind.

It seems, then, that the models must have something in common if they are to be considered models of the neighbourhood. We must be able to say that this house, in one model, is the same as that house, in the other. There must be some basis for our being able to translate between the models, if we are to say they model the neighbourhood. — Banno

I thought you were rejecting this talk about models. What giives?

And the final step is to say that the shared model we each access just is the neighbourhood. — Banno

Big mistake here. I thought you were rejecting models. But you just couldn't, you had to allow the model back in. Now, since you booted it out of the mind, it must be in the neighbourhood. What kind of nonsense is this? A model is artificial, constructed, fabricated, what do you make of all those parts of the neighbourhood which are natural?

Cool. That ego's vantage point won't allow you to say that model and world are one, will it?

↪Joshs
Cool. That ego's vantage point won't allow you to say that model and world are one, will it? — Tate

Not the way I read it.

Not the way I read it. — Joshs

It looks like you're going beyond phenomenology to system building.