• Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    To me, many of these conclusions seem like the conclusions of a reductio argument.Count Timothy von Icarus

    That could well be the case. (BTW the Problem of the Many is absolutely brutal form a purely intellectual standpoint, it's like the problem of material constitution, i.e. the case of the clay statue and the piece of clay that it co-incides with).
  • Banno
    26.1k


    Do you think I hold that view, Tim?

    Edit: Or that such a view is implied by linguistic philosophy generally?
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    The section in the link ↪Arcane Sandwich provided on eliminativism covers some of the theories I am talking about.Count Timothy von Icarus

    Right, but eliminativism in this sense is a metaphysical thesis, while mereological nihilism is a thesis about the part-whole relation (hence, van Inwagen's SCQ: when do two objects A and B compose a third object C? The nihilist answer is "never", hence there are no cats, no mats, no trees no dogs, etc. So, nihilism in the mereological sense arguably entails eliminativism in the metaphysical sense, though some nihilists have attempted to resist this entailment).

    Van Inwagen himself was an eliminativist in the metaphysical sense, but he was a particularist in a mereological sense. He believe that the only case in which composition occurs is when there is a plurality of objects (a plurality of "x"s, he called them) such that their activities constitute a life (understood as the composition of an event, rather than the composition of an object), in which that life, as an event (it would be more like a process, really) imposes sufficient unity on the parts that compose it as an event, and in such a sense, that life as an event constitutes a new object, a whole, which would be an organism (a living being).

    So, according to van Inwagen, only two kinds of objects exist, in a metaphysical, ontological sense: fundamental particles, and organisms. Stones don't exist, neither do tables. It's just "quarks and animals" to use a metonymy.

    Personally, I don't agree with such metaphysical views, nor with such a restricted answer to the Special Composition Question. I'm a particularist about composition, but I think that it occurs in far more cases than just organisms. I think that stones and tables exist just as much as quarks and animals do.
  • frank
    16.4k

    I very much doubt you'd find any of my thoughts about this interesting, but I'll say it anyway.

    When we think about a world, the whole thing is supposed to hang together spatially and temporally. A single moment in a world implies the rest of it. So we always use the same epistemological principles for pre and post human sections of a world. It's just crazy nonsense to say that there were no divisions before humans, but divisions existed afterwards.

    So in order to avoid turning the topic into something only a lobotomy patient would understand, we will jettison talk of how the world was before humans. Instead, we'll talk about what we know of the world beyond our own conceptions of it. And many a great mind has decided that the answer to that is: diddly.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    This strikes me as an odd framing of "naturalism," as if naturalism is defined by a commitment to the linguistic turn.Count Timothy von Icarus

    An odd interpretation of what I said:
    (Quine) rejected Aristotelian metaphysics. In general, he rejected the idea that objects have an intrinsic nature, independent of our web of belief. This follows pretty readily from naturalism, with our understanding of the world embedded in science and language. What we might think of as intrinsic to the stuff around us is dependent on the other beliefs we bring with us, and not to some presumed but cryptic intrinsic nature.Banno
    Quine accepted naturalism, but is not much considered not part of the "linguistic turn" - although Semantic Ascent is included in Rorty's book. Semantic ascent is the move from talk about things to talk about the language of those things. The aim is to attempt to reframe metaphysical issues as linguistic issues, at least to achieve some confidence in the language we are using, and potentially to dissipate some metaphysical issues entirely. The Gavagai fable is an example, where the ontology of rabbits and rabbit parts is considered by examining the referent of "gavagai".

    Nothing in that implies what you suggest.

    It's a simple courtesy to use the quote and mention functions in order to let someone know you have been discussing their ideas. You've missed doing so a few times. I'm sure you would not want people to think you were avoiding my replying to your comments on my suggestions.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    It's just crazy nonsense to say that there were no divisions before humans, but divisions existed afterwards.frank

    Yup, I agree. But some philosophers would still argue with you, for theoretical reasons (i.e., mereological universalists, who also happen to be metaphysical permissivists).
  • Banno
    26.1k
    Last example of equivocation: "to exist is just existential quantification."Count Timothy von Icarus

    Another ambiguously attributed post - did I say that? I do make use of Quine's joke, "To be is to be the value of a bound variable". It's another useful example of semantic ascent, were ontological issues can be understood in an informative way by treating them as issues of semantics. Do you need an explanation as to how it works?
  • Banno
    26.1k
    At some point the web has got to include statements -- beliefs -- about how propositions connect with that world.J
    I quite agree! But what will these be like?

    One solution is that they will involve some sort of stipulation; that this counts as an "a".

    That's the point of ' example, chess. Yes, a meaning may be stipulated, perhaps explicitly, sometimes more by acceptance or convention.

    And yes, language games - things we do with words - do involve the stuff that makes up the world around us. That much of what we do is linguistic just does not imply that it is not embedded in the world - although @Count Timothy von Icarus seems to think otherwise.


    There's no denying that the two learnings -- of tigers, and of "tiger" -- can go hand in hand. I'm just holding out for there being a difference.J
    Sure. Not in contention, for me.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    ...trying to cram the idea into the frame of philosophy of language as first philosophy... leads to continually conflating and collapsing the sign vehicle by which something is known, the interpretant (i.e. the knowing), and the referent (what is known).Count Timothy von Icarus
    :blush: You say that like it was a bad thing...

    But this is a mischaracterisation. There is a problem with utterances such as <Paris is a city in France> and <"Paris" is a city in France> - a "conflating and collapsing the sign vehicle by which something is known, the interpretant, and the referent" (few!). That's not a general characteristic of linguistic approaches to philosophy - indeed, quite the opposite.

    Since philosophy is done almost exclusively by making use of language, words are the tools of philosophers. Shouldn't the philosopher, like all honest tradesmen, have a care for his tools?
  • J
    1k
    One solution is that they [statements about how propositions connect with the world] will involve some sort of stipulation; that this counts as an "a".

    That's the point of ↪frank' example, chess. Yes, a meaning may be stipulated, perhaps explicitly, sometimes more by acceptance or convention.
    Banno

    So the interesting question, if we wanted to pursue it, is whether there are grounds for a given stipulation that are justified by the world itself, as opposed to what we want to do with the terms we stipulate. "Justified" may not be quite the right word, but I'm trying to keep it as neutral as possible. Typical annoying example: Do we have any reason besides linguistic pragmatism to say that "tiger" corresponds to a metaphysically noteworthy feature of the world, whereas "tiger + my left thumb" does not? I absolutely believe that "tiger + thumb" can be an item in good existential standing, should a use for this mereological monstrosity ever occur and get quantified. But there's something desperately wrong, it seems to me, about saying that the only reason this item is rarely mentioned (and will never be again, if I have anything to do with it!) is that we don't have a use for it. We want to say -- I do, at any rate -- that (paraphrasing Sider) the person who believes this item is as perspicuous about the world as "tiger" is, is making a mistake.

    A big subject, no need to continue here unless it helps with Quine and reference.

    There's no denying that the two learnings -- of tigers, and of "tiger" -- can go hand in hand. I'm just holding out for there being a difference.
    — J
    Sure. Not in contention, for me.
    Banno

    So that means we ought to agree that studying the tiger's paw can tell us more about tigers, whereas studying the word "tiger" likely will not. There's a "connection with the world" that is presupposed by any language-based approach to philosophy. Gadamer has some good things to say about this if I can find it ... will look tomorrow
  • Banno
    26.1k
    ...whether there are grounds for a given stipulation that are justified by the world itself, as opposed to what we want to do with the terms we stipulate.J
    And then...
    we don't have a use for it.J
    But...
    the person who believes this... is making a mistake.J

    Well, yes, interesting. So what is the mistake here? Not grasping the essence, if grasping the essence is just using the word; not intending, since one can as much intend tiger-and-thumb as tiger.

    Maybe have another look at the rejection of atomism in PI, around §48. How far can the argument there be taken?
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    words are the tools of philosophersBanno

    Are they, though? From the POV of ordinary language, a word is not a tool. A hammer is a tool. A word isn't.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    It isn't? Ok, then that's about your use of the word "tool", such that you do not use it to talk about words... :wink: there's that semantic ascent again.

    You use tools, and you use words. It's a metaphor, maybe, pointing out that philosophers perhaps should take a bit of care with their language. Or will any words do? Dog up the pillow and oligarchic trench, then.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    You use tools, and you use words.Banno

    I use fire to cook my food. Doesn't mean that fire is a tool, or a word.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    Linguini on tap. Yep.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    Fruit flies and so does time. The old man the boat. The horse raced past the barn fell.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    Now you're getting it. One pertinent thing about a tool is that it is used to do something. We do things with words. Watching what philosophers do with words can be quite enlightening. That's all.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    Now you're getting it.Banno

    Oh, so I didn't get it before, but now I do? It's not possible that I got it, and I just happened to disagree with some of the premises that lead to the conclusion of the argument in question? Ok. Sure, you can believe that. You can believe whatever you want, everyone has the basic human right to have mistaken beliefs.
  • Leontiskos
    3.7k
    : At some point the web has got to include statements -- beliefs -- about how propositions connect with that world.

    : I quite agree! But what will these be like? One solution is that they will involve some sort of stipulation; that this counts as an "a".

    : So the interesting question, if we wanted to pursue it, is whether there are grounds for a given stipulation that are justified by the world itself...

    -

    Or in other words: stipulation is no solution at all. J is quite right: what is at stake are propositions, not terms. This is also the manner in which one dispenses with considerations of "metaphysical superglue." From SEP:

    That is to say, properly speaking, it is only an act of judgment that can be false, by which we think something to be somehow. But a simple act of understanding, by which we simply understand something without thinking it to be somehow, that is, without attributing anything to it, cannot be false. For example, I can be mistaken if I form in my mind the judgment that a man is running, whereby I conceive a man to be somehow, but if I simply think of a man without attributing either running or not running to him, I certainly cannot make a mistake as to how he is.[12]The Medieval Problem of Universals | SEP

    Klima's conclusion is salutary (my bolding):

    These developments, therefore, also put an end to the specifically medieval problem of universals. However, the increasingly rarified late-medieval problem eventually vanished only to give way to several modern variants of recognizably the same problem, which keeps recurring in one form or another in contemporary philosophy as well. Indeed, one may safely assert that as long as there is interest in the questions of how a human language obviously abounding in universal terms can be meaningfully mapped onto a world of singulars, there is a problem of universals, regardless of the details of the particular conceptual framework in which the relevant questions are articulated. Clearly, in this sense, the problem of universals is itself a universal, the universal problem of accounting for the relationships between mind, language, and reality.The Medieval Problem of Universals | SEP

    Note that the perennial question of how mind relates to reality through language can in no way be solved by mere stipulation. Which term-token gets associated with which concept makes no difference at all. What makes a difference is, as J said, propositions, namely the combination of terms through a copula.

    Similarly, stipulative reference presupposes the ability to recognize linguistic/conceptual terms in reality; it presupposes a knowable mapping between language and reality. But that relation between mind, language, and reality is the whole problem in the first place. No one was ever confused about our ability to stipulate what a term means, and this ability to stipulate in no way solves any of the substantial issues at stake.

    (@Janus)
  • Banno
    26.1k
    It was a proposal for addressing reference, rather than universals. Nor was it offered as a complete solution. Though it could also work for universals, for what they are worth. "That counts as a tree for the purposes of horticulture" at least moves the issue on to indexicals.

    Connecting propositions to the world is one of the things we do with words, when we use them to talk about stuff. I don't see that as especially problematic.

    Telling, it seems to me, that the problem of universals does not have an entry in the SEP - except for the historical article. Blame Austin, especially Are There A Priori Concepts?

    I liked that equated statements and beliefs. We'll make a Davidsonian out of them yet.
  • Leontiskos
    3.7k
    "That counts as a tree for the purposes of horticulture"Banno

    The whole question is about unpacking the word "that." You are begging the question. The word "that" does not solve the age-old philosophical question of how the mind knows reality. It presupposes the limb that you think you have successfully chopped away.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    I pointed exactly to the limb - the issue of indexicals. I had in mind Kaplan's Demonstratives.

    Cheers, Leon.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    A good rule of thumb for everyone is to keep in mind that, during a conversation, if it just so happens that good common sense needs to be praised, then something about the conversation has gone terribly wrong. At least that's my admittedly ignorant opinion on such matters.

    (Edited for clarity)
  • J
    1k
    I liked that ↪J equated statements and beliefs. We'll make a Davidsonian out of them yet.Banno

    :smile: No, at best a small-d davidsonian. There are problems with background beliefs and even unconscious beliefs. "I believe that p" is only one way in which our beliefs surface. Can they surface non-linguistically? A tricky question, off topic here.
  • Banno
    26.1k
    Can they surface non-linguistically?J
    Of course they can. That's one of the things they do - explaining our actions. An example from my Bio

    If an agent acts in some way then there is a belief and a desire that together are sufficient to explain the agent's action. Banno wants water; he believes he can pour a glass from the tap; so he goes to the tap to pour a glass of water. — Banno

    But if some posited "belief" cannot be put into the form "x believes that P", then I think that is good grounds for discounting it as a belief. That goes for background and unconscious beliefs, too. Unstated is not unstatable.

    Small 'd' will do.
  • Leontiskos
    3.7k
    So my next question is, Can you imagine a situation in which resolving the disagreement between the two scientists would result in changing the meaning of the word "tiger"?J

    Maybe it will help if I offer my own answers. No, I can't imagine a case where further knowledge about what a tiger is -- even knowledge about its essence, if any -- would change what we mean when we use the word "tiger."J

    See, I disagree. But let's distinguish the term in your conclusion, namely "the meaning of the word 'tiger'."

    I bought my nephew a National Geographic book filled with photographs of animals. He can't read yet, but he loves animals. Let's suppose that the picture in the book is his first encounter with the animal and his first encounter with the word "tiger." We say to him, "That is a tiger." So "tiger" is for him the animal pictured in the book (and if he were younger it might be the picture itself). Suppose we then take him to the zoo, and he spends 10 minutes watching real tigers through the glass. Has the meaning of the word "tiger" changed for him? Of course it has. Now when you say "tiger" he thinks of something quite a bit different (and more accurate) than what he thought of before he visited the zoo.

    But if your term is meant to be abstract, such that "the meaning of the word" means the denotation of the word "tiger" for all 1.5 billion English speakers, and in all of the literature since the middle 12th century when tigre is first documented in Old English, then no, "the meaning of the word" has remained unchanged, or at least my nephew has not altered it in any noticeable way. Nevertheless, a linguistic community develops its language in the same way that my nephew develops his understanding of the essence of tigers. Zoologists, for example, advance the meaning of words like 'tiger', particularly in the early stages of development.

    For purposes of comparison: Is Pluto still a planet?J

    And no, Pluto is no longer a planet, because the scientific community has changed the reference of that term, and provided good reasons for doing so. We should ask, What is the difference between the tiger case and the Pluto case?J

    I don't think your explanation is an explanation. "No, because the scientific community has changed the reference of that term." Does that tell us anything? Ironically, it sounds like a claim about metaphysical superglue, namely that a metaphysical superglue operation was conducted to change the meaning of "planet," and voila!, Pluto is no longer a planet. (And I assume you are talking about the reference of the term 'planet'.)

    The question you ask is loaded, "Is Pluto still a planet?" It implies that the definition of "planet" has remained stable. We might similarly ask, "Is Jupiter still a planet?," and the answer is not obvious. Hopefully we both understand that our solar system has nine planet1s and eight planet2s, and that in 2006 there was a push to redefine "planet" from planet1 to planet2.

    What arguably happened in 2006 is that the nature of a planet was better grasped, and this improved understanding changed Pluto's status (although I don't know much about the details of the case). But talking about inanimate astronomical bodies is not a great way to get into the topic of essences. Tigers are much better.

    Similarly, my nephew might consistently mistake a Savannah cat for a tiger, but then at some point grow in personal knowledge and learn to distinguish them. Reality, concept, and word are all interrelated, and therefore by coming to understand that the reality of a Savannah cat is different from the reality of a tiger he is utilizing different concepts to understand each reality, and he in turn learns that we have a different word for the Savannah cat. He will be proud, and will say, "That's not a tiger, it's a Savannah cat!" And well he should be, for he grew in knowledge. His understanding of the essence of a tiger was improved, and his understanding of the essence of a Savannah cat was birthed. If the Savannah cats he saw did not have a different nature than the tigers he saw, and Savannah cats did not have a different essence than tigers, then he could never have come to his new knowledge. That is, if Savannah cats are not different from tigers then we cannot know them as two separate kinds. The idea of an essence is really not much more complicated than that, which is why @Count Timothy von Icarus and I find it so odd to see people hell-bent on impugning it. It is the abstracted common nature of a natural kind, which is signified by a common noun. Those who do the most work with essences are biological scientists, not purple-haired, crystal-wielding "metaphysicians."

    -

    My suspicion is that you think that a referent remains fixed even as meaning changes or grows. I think that commits us to the very strange view of bare particulars that <Spade speaks to>, one which closely mimics the incoherencies of accurately referring to possible-world entities which have no necessary properties. It is the strange idea that referent and meaning are clearly separated, an idea that naturally follows upon the weird way that modern logic conceives of bare property-bearing entities. But I wonder why we would want to let modern logicians set the standard for how language works, given that their logic wasn't much interested in language at all? In fact often castigating it?
  • Leontiskos
    3.7k
    But if some posited "belief" cannot be put into the form "x believes that P", then I think that is good grounds for discounting it as a belief.Banno

    That is very close to what Rödl thinks. McDowell uses Aristotle and Anscombe to show why it is wrong.
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