The point is that the norms for applying concepts are impersonal, public.

'I fucking hate getting wet, so I ran naked into the rain' does not make sense in any but the most outlandish context. — plaque flag

That's not the point. The point is that I can talk about your first person experience even if your first person experience is hidden from me, whether in practice or in principle.

That's not the point. The point is that I can talk about your first person experience even if your first person experience is hidden from me, whether in practice or in private. — Michael

Yes, I think you can intend my private experience (manifest image talk). You can speculate about my concealed feelings. Such concealed feelings make sense (I claim) inasmuch as they can function in inferences.

'He's late for the meeting, so perhaps he resents me forgetting his birthday, even though he's too proud to come out and say it.'

It's like toy blocks that we are only allowed to stack in certain ways. It's like a hyperdimensional game of inferential chess.

Words can intend private states (her feelings rather than mine), but their meanings are public (manifest in which inferences involving them are allowed.)

I find this neorationalism beautiful. We philosophers were right along to obsess over logic.

Yes, I think you can intend my private experience. You can speculate about my concealed feelings. Such concealed feelings make sense (I claim) inasmuch as they function in inferences. — plaque flag

And this isn't exclusive to emotions; it's also true of so-called "qualia" (whether reducible to some physical phenomena or not). Just as words like "sad" and "happy" can refer to your concealed feelings, words like "red" and "sweet" can refer your concealed sensory experience.

words like "red" and "sweet" can refer your concealed sensory experience. — Michael

Yes, within inferential limits. Stop signs and firetrucks and blood are red.

'I can't make out that sign, but it's not red, so it isn't a stop sign.'

'I was afraid I started my period early, but then I noticed the stuff on my pants was blue. '

I agree that such terms aim at personal experience, but their meaning is public.

What do we make of inverted color spectrums ?

I reject the Chinese room argument. I can tell you that much.

You might find this interesting.
https://sites.pitt.edu/~rbrandom/Texts/Inferentialism_Normative_Pragmatism_and.pdf

What do we make of inverted color spectrums ? — plaque flag

It’s perfectly coherent. The example of the dress that some see as white and gold and others as black and blue shows that we can have different sensory experiences to the same external stimulus. The case of tetrachromats are another example. There’s empirical evidence that women can distinguish a greater number of hues than men. As personal evidence, the colours I see in my left eye are more “full” than the colours I see in my right eye.

So it’s easy to understand, both in principle and in practice, that the sensory experience you call red might not be the sensory experience that I call red.

And so it’s easy to understand, both in principle and in practice, that the sensory experience you call red isn’t the sensory experience that I call red. — Michael

I guess, if one is careful (we are verging on the ghost here.) Perhaps a colorblind person would use a detector to answer the question or answer 'gray.'

I grant that different people can report different colors (fill out surveys) upon being presented the same object. And it's safe enough to use 'sensory experience' in the ordinary way.

No objection --- until folks start to say that meaning is private and hidden, because (among other reasons) it's a lurch into irrationalism (which is easily overlooked.)

That's where he shows those with eyes to see that meaning is public, concepts are norms. Beetles don't supply meaning. Back then, it made more sense to think Wittgenstein was crazy. — plaque flag

Without private meaning and private concepts there would be no public meaning and public concepts.

If no one ever had the private experience of pain, no one would have any concept of pain, and pain would not mean anything to anyone. In that event, pain would never be discussed in any public language.

Pain is only discussed in a public language because of the private experience of pain..

Wittgenstein's beetle in the box analogy explains in part how private experience is linked to public language.

Without private meaning and private concepts there would be no public meaning and public concepts. — RussellA

There are no private concepts.

But I think I know what you are trying to say.

We give a damn. We're alive. We feel things in some elusive sense. So we create norms together. People write weird poems. Memes can catch on. So a private experiment can be promoted. I'll give you that much.

I'm not saying there isn't a beetle in your box. I'm just saying the concepts are public. You don't get to make up your own language and your own logic ---and that's what oxymoronic private concepts would entail or mean (inasmuch as I can parse the phrase at all.)

I'm not saying there isn't a beetle in your box. I'm just saying the concepts are public. You don't get to make up your own language and your own logic ---and that's what oxymoronic private concepts would entail or mean (inasmuch as I can parse the phrase at all.) — plaque flag

And why not?

There are no private concepts. — plaque flag

So I learnt my concepts of time and space, good and bad, red and green, easy and difficult, slow and fast, love and hate, freedom and subjugation, clarity and confusion, hot and cold, loud and quiet, justice and inequity, truth and falsity, etc. from society.

But where did society get its concepts from if not from the members of that society ?

But where did society get its concepts from if not from the members of that society ? — RussellA

What is the difference between an individual uttering noises or drawing figures on a piece a paper to himself vs an individual uttering sounds or presenting written symbols to another individual?

A concept, a word becomes alive with meaning when a community has a use for it.

And why not? — sime

Jj asdoin asdmoi valfm capicasdjknca p spdmcsd l sd p p m[ o [o,asdcvvdflmvdf.

A concept, a word becomes alive with meaning when a community has a use for it. — Richard B

:up:

A stop sign is treated a certain way. One stops at a stop sign. One [das Man] is the personified form of life, what Everybody knows performs.

Just to be clear, no rudeness intended in that last post.

The point is that semantic norms are what link us in a 'space of meaning.' Our brains store our training, but the normal use of the signs is (primarily) independent of any given individual. When 'I' think, it's just as much the impersonal language system thinking, since even inferences have a normative basis. From P, one derives Q. 'I' think (the individual thinks ) only in the sense that we give the hardware credit for the algorithm --- and, crucially, in the sense that the individual is tracked for claim coherence.

But where did society get its concepts from if not from the members of that society ? — RussellA

Excellent question ! Hegel wrote about this. Brandom's interpretation is very clean and updated for people with AP leanings and background.

You might think of our society as a kind of organism. All of us as individuals we can introduce novelty, make a case for the shifting of norms. Philosophy imposes itself normatively, claiming that it's better to do it this new way and not that old way. You can think of us also as symbolic termites. We build symbolic structures (like marriages and promises ) and live 'in' them. More than any other animal we live in a symbolic realm that we cocreate copreserve and codestroy. If concept are socially performed (I claim they are), then they aren't exact or perfect. But somehow we manage.

More than any other animal we live in a symbolic realm that we cocreate copreserve and codestroy. — plaque flag

The idea that more than any other animal we live in a symbolic realm is something a supporter of Indirect Realism would say, something that I would say.

@plaque flag

A concept, a word becomes alive with meaning when a community has a use for it. — Richard B

I agree that a concept becomes alive when a community has a use for it, but a concept may still have a private meaning even if a community doesn't have a use for it

If Wittgenstein can use the analogy of a beetle, I will use the analogy of the desert island. Suppose there is someone who has lived their life alone on a desert island. If it is the case that "There are no private concepts.", he has never had the private concept of pain, and has been putting his hand into the fire badly burning it over the years. This is not something that has concerned him if he has no private concept of pain.

Unbeknownst to him, someone else had also been living in isolation on the far side of the island and one day by chance they meet up in the middle of the island.

Now that there are two people, there is a community, a society. Because there is a community, the concept pain takes on a public meaning within the community.

My question is, where exactly is this public concept of pain, if neither of the individuals has the private concept of pain ?

The idea that more than any other animal we live in a symbolic realm is something a supporter of Indirect Realism would say, something that I would say. — RussellA

My view will make more sense if you grasp the claim-making self as a social convention, as part of that enacted symbolic realm. So the person that sees (which is the person that talks about what is seen) is not stuffed in a brain, not trapped behind or as sensations.

My question is, where exactly is this public concept of pain, if neither of the individuals has the private concept of pain ? — RussellA

There was a tribe of mute jellybears once, and when one jellybear pinched its own nose while looking at another, that second jellybear would give the first a long hug. Eventually some teenaged jellybears started pinching their noses (seemingly ironically, because they fled attempted hugs) at frustrating peers.

Suppose there is someone who has lived their life alone on a desert island. — RussellA

Human babies don't survive without help. If a human doesn't learn a language, I don't know how much we can say about them in this context (they would be almost like wild animals?).

So the person that sees (which is the person that talks about what is seen) is not stuffed in a brain, not trapped behind or as sensations. — plaque flag

That's the problem. The self is this side of our senses, and society is the other side of our senses.

How can we know what exists on the other side of our senses independently of our senses, when we can only know what is on the other side of our senses through our senses.

If a human doesn't learn a language, I don't know how much we can say about them in this context (they would be almost like wild animals?). — plaque flag

I hope you are not inferring that it is ok to kick dogs, in the event that dogs don't have the concept of pain because they have no language.

Jj asdoin asdmoi valfm capicasdjknca p spdmcsd l sd p p m[ o [o,asdcvvdflmvdf. — plaque flag

Are you implying that a public language must be decipherable? What about encryption?

When the public cannot agree on a linguistic convention, as is so often demonstrated when debating the philosophy of language, where does the authority of meaning reside then?

Consider Humpty Dumpty's famous proposition

`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.' — lewis carroll

If meaning is considered to be use, as Humpty is suggesting, then how can meaning-as-use be grounded in linguistic convention?

Also consider the fact that any explicitly defined linguistic convention can only be finitely specified, implying that there is always uncertainty as to the intended meaning of a convention. (which is another of Lewis Carroll's remarks that argues against the grounding of meaning in convention).

Suppose there is someone who has lived their life alone on a desert island. If it is the case that "There are no private concepts.", he has never had the private concept of pain, and has been putting his hand into the fire badly burning it over the years. This is not something that has concerned him if he has no private concept of pain. — RussellA

This is very odd to say that if someone does not have a “private conception of pain” he would not avoid the fire. Animals of all sort have no conception of pain but do a good job of avoiding fire.

Consider a bird. If one visited that same desert island and came across a nest full of eggs, one would wonder if the bird had blueprints for such a design, had to attend classes to get educated to engineer such a construction, or a language handed down from bird generation to bird generation. In fact, no such culture need exist to achieve such a feat.

Humans have natural expressions of pain: crying, moaning, and wincing. As a child, human adult will help the child replace these expressions with words from the language, like “I am in pain.”

We will need to rely on natural expressions and reactions to particular situations that humans typically harmonize to develop this concept of pain.

If meaning is considered to be use, as Humpty is suggesting, then how can meaning-as-use be grounded in linguistic convention? — sime

I suggest checking out that paper by Brandom. The big picture is pragmatic rationalism. Ethics is first philosophy. A person is an essentially temporal social-conventional entity, a focus of responsibility for claims and other actions --a normative avatar in the space of reasons.

You challenge me (within the norms of politeness too, another ethical frame) in the name of inferential norms, calling upon me to defend my claim. Indeed, in making that came, I have indeed committed myself to its defense. If I can't defend a strong challenge, it's my duty to withdraw or modify the claim. I am also not allowed to contradict myself, for the self is the kind of thing (almost by definition) that ought not disagree with itself --- must strive toward coherence, to perform or be a unity.

One supports this approach phenomenologically, which is to say by simply bringing us to awareness of what we have been doing all along. Scan this forum. See us hold one another responsible for keeping our stories straight. See which inferences are tolerated, which rejected. Bots can learn this stuff from examples, just as children do.

Also consider the fact that any explicitly defined linguistic convention can only be finitely specified, implying that there is always uncertainty as to the intended meaning of a convention. — sime

:up:

This idea is central in Hegel, as I understand it. Our concepts are never complete or perfectly articulate and never completely internally consistent. The system is always falling 'forward' and gathering determinate negations, increasing in complexity, evolving. This includes the forging of metacognitive and logically expressive terms. Brandom talks about what he himself is an example of, our ability to make our rational nature explicit to itself by the introduction of metacognitive concepts.

The self is this side of our senses, and society is the other side of our senses. — RussellA

But it's not. I claim that you've simply adopted bad assumptions from a more primitive era of philosophy.

We will need to rely on natural expressions and reactions to particular situations that humans typically harmonize to develop this concept of pain. — Richard B

:up:

Right ! So words are just one kind of deeds in an inferential predictive explanatory nexus with others.

'Her back hurt when she woke up, so I served her breakfast in bed.'