But unlike others, he had the acuity not to say more. — Banno
By referring to "the nature of morality" you identify it as a thing, and so are trapped into thinking of it as if is one. Why should we do that? — Ciceronianus
It is the nature of words to objectify what they are referring to, to identify as a thing, whether it be "mountain", "pain", "searching" or "wanting".
If a philosopher wanted to understand a topic, such as morality, without objectifying it, then they would have to use something other than words. Philosophers use language because there is no other way. The alternative is not even to try, and that would be a dead end. — RussellA
"But let's not forget that a word hasn't got a meaning given to it, as it were, by a power independent of us, so that there could be a kind of scientific investigation into what the word really means. A word has the meaning someone has given to it" — Richard B
Is language so inhibitive? — Constance
Words objectify what they are referring to. "Morality" identifies morality as a thing, "mountain" identifies mountain as a thing. This is how language works, and this is how we can use language to communicate — RussellA
But as you say "If God were actually God, and this was intimated to you in some powerful intimation of eternity and rapture that was intuitively off the scales, would language really care at all?" No, language wouldn't care. I don't need language to have the private subjective experience of morality or a mountain. Humans experienced these things pre-language. — RussellA
On the one hand, language imposes restrictions on what can be said. My understanding of a "mountain", my concept of "mountain" has grown over a lifetime of individual experiences, and is certainly different to your understanding and concept of "mountain", built up over a lifetime of very different experiences. Yet we both use the same word when using language to communicate, seemingly inhibiting what we can say.
For me, the word "mountain" is a label to a set of private subjective experiences. A single word can label a set of experiences. A single word is an object that refers to a set of experiences. When I think of a word as a label I am thinking not of a single thing but of a set of experiences linked to that word. When I think of a word I am thinking of the set of things that that word refers to
When we use the same word in conversation, we will be thinking of very different sets of experiences, but providing we have agreed beforehand with the definition that "A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock.", although our language may restrict what can be said, it doesn't restrict what we can think. — RussellA
"Love" is a thing, but I don't think of it as one thing, I think of it as labelling the vast set of things that it encompasses. Language is not that inhibiting. — RussellA
Lastly, from Philosophical Investigations, "'But you will you surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behavior accompanied by pain and pain behavior without pain?'- Admit it? What greater difference could be there be? - 'And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is a nothing." - Not at all. It is not a something, but not a nothing either! The conclusion was only that a nothing would serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said. We have only rejected the grammar which tries to force itself on us here. " — Richard B
The point would be about that dubious assumption that there is nothing to say: keep in mind what it takes to speak meaningfully, which is to have interlocutors who have shared experiences. In Tibet, it was (is?) common for monks to speak in extraordinary ways, by our standards, to one another about experiences of deep meditative states. It was rather standardized to them. Such conversations included intimations of things we might call impossible if we were to attempt to fit them into our language's contextual possibilities. — Constance
So, I would say there is no discovery of what "Ineffable" really means, however, we certainly can give it meaning such as "She felt ineffable joy at the sight of her children". However, if we start philosophically analyzing "Ineffable", we start going down the path of a grammar trying to force itself upon, like in the "pain" example, in which nothing could be said. — Richard B
No you don't, not until your thought is used. Only then does it take a place in the world.I think a thought and thereby "give" this to the world. — Constance
Some fundamentally disapprove of clarity. They suggest that being candid removes something (What?) from the discussion. A more pejorative explanation is that their suggestions will not bear open critique. There are those so critical of Wittgenstein's clarity that they cannot see that he is directly addressing their concerns.You ever wonder if the bottle is amber? Something like a cave? — Moliere
Exactly. Or the Tantras of Gyütö. We may also dispel the presumptive monopoly on Eastern Wisdom.I think I might get more by learning a Gregorian chant. — Richard B
For me, the word "mountain" is a label to a set of private subjective experiences. — RussellA
This is disanalogous.
— Luke
No, it's spot on, but you insist on misunderstanding, again. — Banno
If trying to get “straight” our concepts about our shared reality is a dead end, I will enjoy the fruits as I build roads to new frontiers. If the alternative is listening to some phenomenologists talk about a privilege and private realms of deep insight, I think I might get more by learning a Gregorian chant. — Richard B
But this just puts the burden on the term "objectify" — Constance
Sartre had this concept of radical contingency: when we encounter the world, the world radically exceeds what language can — Constance
Are you claiming that, that of which these monks speak is ineffable? I invite you to contemplate how that could be. If it is ineffable, then they cannot b speaking about it; and whatever they are speaking of, it is not ineffable. — Banno
A word such as "mountain" is a physical thing as much as a mountain is a physical thing. The "mountain" is as much an object as the mountain. Somehow, "mountain" means mountain, is linked with mountain and corresponds with mountain. The "mountain" came after the mountain, in that "mountain" has only existed for less than 100,000 years whereas mountain has existed for at least 4 billion years.
As the "mountain" came after the mountain, as the "mountain" is an object, as the "mountain" somehow relates to the mountain, in that sense, the "mountain" has objectified the mountain. — RussellA
The limits of our concepts
I have learnt the concept of "mountain". On arriving in Zermatt for the first time, the reality of mountains far exceeds my concept, but on leaving, my concept will probably have changed, hopefully giving me a better understand of the nature of mountains. Yet no matter how much my understanding improves, my understanding of the true nature of mountains will always remain insignificant. Metaphorically, my understanding of a mountain will be that of a horse's understanding of the allegories in Hemingway's The Old Man and The Sea, not because of a lack of trying, but because of the natural limitations of its brain. I am sure that if a superintelligent and knowledgeable alien race arrived on Earth, and tried to explain the true nature of time and space, we wouldn't have the foggiest idea of what they were saying. Not because we didn't want to know, but because of the physical limitations of our brain. — RussellA
Sartre and existence
If knowledge and understanding is limited by the inherent structure of our brain, and similarly our use of language, then it follows that there will be a natural limit in our understanding of the reason for our own existence. In Sartre's terms, the "for-itself" may exist without ever finding a reason for its own existence. Existing without any justification or explanation, which is, for Sartre, a tragic existence. Without an explanation for our own existence, to exist is to simply be here. One experiences a groundlessness, existing without ever knowing why. An existence that is accidental and subject to chance, We may search for meaning, but ultimately there is no meaning in "being-in-itself", as there is no meaning in the world waiting to be discovered. — RussellA
The limits of language
Language is a product of the brain, and is therefore limited by the brain. If our understanding is limited by the brain, then what can be achieved by language must also be limited. Language cannot be used to escape the "for-itself". Language can only mirror our limited understanding of the world, a world that radically exceeds that which can be explained in language. The chasm between the world and what can be explained in language is insurmountable because of the limited nature of the brain
Language as a mirror of the intellect is limited in its description of the world by the limits of the intellect, which is limited by the physical structure of the brain. Consequently, our understanding of the world is more about how the world appears to us, rather than how it actually is. — RussellA
This is what many folk (perhaps ↪Constance?) think analytic philosophy suggests. That could not be further from the truth. From at least Russell's theory of descriptions, philosophy has whole-heartedly rejected this idea, and with good reason: If "mountain" is a label to a set of private subjective experiences in each of us, we are never, when discussing mountains, talking about the same thing. But meaning is public. Better to talk of use. — Banno
As I see it, philosophy is going to be the new religion, and phenomenology will be its method. — Constance
Physical limitations of the brain; what an interesting assumption — Constance
Hemmingway likely never intended any allegorical reading of his work — Constance
This chasm, how do you know about it? — Constance
Words are public yet meaning can be private — RussellA
My concept of "mountain" is private and subjective, inaccessible to anyone else — RussellA
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