Somewhat interesting, frustratingly annoying thread.

I’m still stuck on how one can speak to another about anything, and uses more than one word to form a sentence, without reference to, without invocation of, without admitting, without assuming, essence.

Arguing that essences aren’t knowable is like using words to argue that there are no such things as letters.

Essential distinctions are present in every move we make, be it a movement of speech, or a lump of magma distinguishing itself from the earth’s core and the volcano that tossed it.

Movement and essence - or simply distinction - undeniable. Unless one stops speaking. And breathing.

Whether we ever know the essence of anything correctly, that is another matter; but we know something of the essence of knowledge when we admit motion (being, becoming) and quiddity (distinctions measured) are what can be known.

A proper noun such as "Neil Armstrong" successfully refers to Neil Armstrong. A Russellian definite description such as "The first person to walk on the Moon" successfully refers to Neil Armstrong. When Buzz Aldrin says to Neil Armstrong "Hey Neil, how's it going?" he is successfully referring to Neil Armstrong. — Arcane Sandwich

Again, there's a presumption that if there is a name then there has to be a something named. After all, it has a noun; and nouns name things, so there must be a thing that any name names.

It strikes me as an error to suppose that becasue there is a name there must be a thing named.

So "Neil Armstrong" succeeds in referring to Neil Armstrong, but what of "Pegasus"?

When I say "that rabbit", and I point to a rabbit, I am successfully referring to that rabbit that I am pointing at. — Arcane Sandwich

What's your criterion for "success" here? That you understand what it is you are referring to? That seems inadequate. That someone else understands what you are referring to? That how will you be confident that they understood you completely? Perhaps they think "rabbit" is the name of the creature you saw, or the word for an attached rabbit foot. How will you find out?

By continuing the conversation and checking for understanding.

And on Quine's account, you can never be quite certain that they have understood you.

I’m still stuck on how one can speak to another about anything, and uses more than one word to form a sentence, without reference to, without invocation of, without admitting, without assuming, essence. — Fire Ologist

How familiar are you with the notion of a family resemblance?

Is there an "essence", common to all and only the members of a family, that makes it what it is?

What is assumed, in "assuming essence"?

What do all games have in common, in virtue of which they are properly the referent of "game"?

What is a things essence?


(Edit: But this is not Quine's criticism of essence. That's described elsewhere. )

It strikes me as an error to suppose that becasue there is a name there must be a thing named. — Banno

If that's what you think, then you run directly into the following metaphysical problem, known in the literature as a Debunking Argument against Ordinary Objects:

(DK1) There is no explanatory connection between how we believe the world to be divided up into objects the how the world actually is divided up into objects.
(DK2) If so, then it would be a coincidence if our object beliefs turned out to be correct.
(DK3) If it would be a coincidence if our object beliefs turned out to be correct, then we shouldn’t believe that there are trees.
(DK4) So, we shouldn’t believe that there are trees. — Daniel Z. Korman

And the best strategy here is to deny the first premise. There is indeed an explanatory connection between how we believe the world to be divided up into objects, and how the world actually is divided up into objects.

So "Neil Armstrong" succeeds in referring to Neil Armstrong, but what of "Pegasus"? — Banno

You have two options here: to trace a distinction between conceptual existence and real existence, or to only recognize one type of existence (real existence). Bunge prefers the former. I prefer the latter. I would say that the word "Pegasus" successfully refers to the winged horse of Greek mythology (that would be the Russellian definite description here), and that such a creature, is just a fiction while it does not exist as a fiction (it exists, instead, as a mere brain process). In other words, I don't need to make any ontological commitment to fictional entities here, for the purpose of defending a non-Quinean account of how reference works. But, for all intents and purposes, I will say that "Pegasus" successfully refers to Pegasus (and that Pegasus does not really exist).

Perhaps they think "rabbit" is the name of the creature you saw, or the word for an attached rabbit foot. How will you find out? — Banno

By speaking the same language. If someone points at something and says something in another language, I don't know what they're referring to. But that's not because those words have inscrutable references. It's just because I don't speak the language of that person. And I don't even need to learn the entire language. I can learn just those few words that the other person just used. For example, if both of us speak English, and the other person points to a small piece of paper with some pictures, and says Briefmarke, and I don't know German, I can ask him: "What does that mean in German?", the other person says "it means stamp". The reference has ceased to be "inscrutable", if by "inscrutable" we simply mean, at the end of the day, that I didn't know what the reference was, instead of saying that it's unknowable.

By continuing the conversation and checking for understanding.

And on Quine's account, you can never be quite certain that they have understood you. — Banno

Why is this such a big deal in the first place? Why do I need my interlocutors to fully understand everything that I'm saying, 100% of the time? Ordinary language contains vague expressions. So? That doesn't mean that references are inscrutable.

(DK1) There is no explanatory connection between how we believe the world to be divided up into objects the how the world actually is divided up into objects. — Daniel Z. Korman

Do you think Quine somehow posited this?

In simple terms, there is an "explanatory connection between how we believe the world to be divided up into objects the how the world actually is divided up into objects", given by holism. We use names so as to achieve the best fit to all our beliefs. We can't just divide the world up willy nilly - it has to be self- consistent.

But moreover, the presumption that there is a "way the world is divided up" that is distinct from our conventions concerning rabbits and legs looks very much like "the myth of the given".
So Quine would perhaps join you in rejecting DK1.

There's also perhaps a presumption here that either the way the world divides up is entirely independent of our language, or it is entirely and arbitrarily dependent on it. Why not a middle ground, where we divide the world up using language in accord with how things are?

You have to options here: to trace a distinction between conceptual existence and real existence, or to only recognize one type of existence (real existence). — Arcane Sandwich

Or drop "existence" altogether in favour of quantification. To be is to be the value of a bound variable. Which is Quine's approach.

Or drop "existence" altogether in favour of quantification. To be is to be the value of a bound variable. Which is Quine's approach. — Banno

Philosophers have the moral obligation to vindicate ordinary speakers when they say that tables exist and that Pegasus doesn't.

By speaking the same language. — Arcane Sandwich

And how will you be able to tell that you and your companion are indeed "speaking the same language"? Indeed, what is "speaking the same language" apart from the sort of agreement Quine is using?

Why is this such a big deal in the first place? — Arcane Sandwich

Quine's point is that we don't.. All we need to do is get on.

Philosophers have the moral obligation to vindictive ordinary speakers when they say that tables exist and that Pegasus doesn't. — Arcane Sandwich

Sure. And they can do this by pointing to the difference between being made of wood and being a myth. That is, by quantifying over wood and mythology.

And how will you be able to tell that you and your companion are indeed "speaking the same language"? — Banno

You and I are speaking the same language right now. It's the English language.

Indeed, what is "speaking the same language" apart from the sort of agreement Quine is using? — Banno

Something far more complex than the deluded beliefs of a philosophical Tax Lawyer.

Quine's point is that we don't.. All we need to do is get on.
2m — Banno

What a laudable, important point. Almost as important as finding the cure for cancer.

Sure. And they can do this by pointing to the difference between being made of wood and being a myth. — Banno

That's not good enough. Quarks are not made of anything.

You and I are speaking the same language right now. It's the English language. — Arcane Sandwich

How do you know? Take the question literally - what information do you have tat hand that shows that you and I are speaking the same language?

The suggestion is that what this amounts to is our ongoing agreement as to the overall topic - that we are not here talking in German or about V8 engines is shown by our overwhelming agreement - that we are discussing philosophical issues concerning reference in a forum for that sort of thing. That is, we can be confident we are speaking the same language becasue of the holistic context.

What's the alternative?

That's not good enough. Quarks are not made of anything. — Arcane Sandwich

Quantification is not about what something is made of. That table exists because it is made of wood; and therefore something is made of wood. And that something is now the value of the variable bound by "something is...". The table is the value of a bound variable. And Pegasus is a greek myth, therefore something is a greek myth, and so Pegasus is the value of a bound variable.

Putting this in your common sense terms, when we say Pegasus does not exist, but the table does, we meant that Pegasus is not the sort of thing that is made of wood, but it is the sort of thing found in a greek myth.

How do you know? Take the question literally - what information do you have tat hand that shows that you and I are speaking the same language? — Banno

:roll:

The suggestion is that what this amounts to is our ongoing agreement as to the overall topic - that we are not here talking in German or about V8 engines is shown by our overwhelming agreement - that we are discussing philosophical issues concerning reference in a forum for that sort of thing. That is, we can be confident we are speaking the same language becasue of the holistic context. — Banno

:roll:

What's the alternative? — Banno

The alternative to what? To Quine's nonsense? Science in its entirety.

Quantification is not about what something is made of. That table exists because it is made of wood; and therefore something is made of wood. And that something is now the value of the variable bound by "something is...". The table is the value of a bound variable. And Pegasus is a greek myth, therefore something is a greek myth, and so Pegasus is the value of a bound variable. — Banno

Existence is a property, not a quantity. You represent it with a predicate, not with a quantifier.

Putting this in your common sense terms, when we say Pegasus does not exist, but the table does, we meant that Pegasus is not the sort of thing that is made of wood, but it is the sort of thing found in a greek myth. — Banno

Then what you're saying to the common person is mediocre at best. They deserve better from philosophers.

But moreover, the presumption that there is a "way the world is divided up" that is distinct from our conventions concerning rabbits and legs looks very much like "the myth of the given".

Sellar's myth of the given argument, even if one accepts it, respects epistemology. It doesn't imply that the existence of a rabbit as a whole/organism cannot be distinct from our conventions.

(DK1) There is no explanatory connection between how we believe the world to be divided up into objects the how the world actually is divided up into objects. — Daniel Z. Korman

Do you think Quine somehow posited this? — Banno

Quine would not have rejected DKI. He would have rejected DK2 instead. Why? Because of this:

In simple terms, there is an "explanatory connection between how we believe the world to be divided up into objects the how the world actually is divided up into objects", given by holism. We use names so as to achieve the best fit to all our beliefs. We can't just divide the world up willy nilly - it has to be self- consistent.

But moreover, the presumption that there is a "way the world is divided up" that is distinct from our conventions concerning rabbits and legs looks very much like "the myth of the given".

So Quine would perhaps join you in rejecting DK1.

There's also perhaps a presumption here that either the way the world divides up is entirely independent of our language, or it is entirely and arbitrarily dependent on it. Why not a middle ground, where we divide the world up using language in accord with how things are? — Banno

There is no middle ground. If you reject DK1, as I do, then you are effectively saying that we, human beings, apprehend objects and/or facts directly, the way they are, instead of merely "how they appear to us". Is it a perfect access to the things themselves? No, it's slightly distorted, in the manner of a map-territory correlation. And I mean that in a Meillassouxian way.

If you reject DK2, you have (at least) two very, very different options. One is to embrace deflationism. This is Quine's position. The other one is metaphysical permissivism: you concede that it's a triviality that ordinary objects exist, and you claim (by parity of reasoning) that extraordinary objects such as trogs and incars exist. This seems to be your own position.

Yes, I'll agree with that.

Sellars might well caution that access to or articulation of this division is mediated by our frameworks, this doesn’t necessarily entail rejecting the claim of independence itself.

Is there an "essence", common to all and only the members of a family, that makes it what it is? — Banno

I would ask “Is there (in the same form as you said above) an experience you call “makes it” without making a “what it is?” There is the motion that undoes all family resemblance on the fringes, and there is the family, the essence, that is undone.

So simply put, there is “is to be” and there is “what” is to be; never can these be separated, except in words, as I have referred to the motion of “is to be” as if it was a separate moment from “what it is to be.”

Is there an "essence", common to all and only the members of a family, that makes it what it is? — Banno

Simply put. No. The essence doesn’t come first from over there and then make some member over here one who has this essence. There is the thing. And there is the essence, the form, the distinction, that is this same thing, now spoken, or “known” for what it is.

There is.
So there is it.

It.
So it is.

What is assumed, in "assuming essence"? — Banno

Because we are asking about things as we simultaneously talk about talking about things, the words of your question are the answer to the question:
“What” is assumed in assuming essence.

I'm not able to follow what you are saying here.

Sellars might well caution that access to or articulation of this division is mediated by our frameworks, this doesn’t necessarily entail rejecting the claim of independence itself. — Banno

Ok @Banno, this is to your Quinenean point, actually. What you just said there about Sellars is an example of what I personally call "Alien-like Language". That's what it sounds like, to my ear at least. It sounds more alien-ish than Ordinary English.

If that's all the proof that you have for Quine's theory of reference, then it graves me to say that Quine does not have much to tell us, about any substantial worldly matters. Sounds about fair?

Is there an "essence", common to all and only the members of a family, that makes it what it is?
— Banno — Fire Ologist

Simply put. No.

You place the essence of a thing apart from the thing in order to form your question. The thing is its essence; it is what it is to be it.

You asked is there a “X” common to all and only the “Ys” of a family that makes “it” (presumably one of the “Ys”) what it is?

(Aside, what do you mean by “what it is?” as you just said that?)

No. The essence doesn’t come first from over there and then make some member over here one who has this essence and shares it’s own essence with the other members. That’s too many ontological/ metaphysical pieces.

There is the thing.

One thing.

We can categorize the thing as a member of a family if you want but that can be a separate question (about universalizing a particular..). That’s advanced identification of a thing, its identification of many things as a family so they all can be distinguished at the same time as if they were one thing.

One thing is the question in the first place, so I don’t think adding family resemblance helps sort this out.

There is the thing.

And like any thing, while it remains a thing, it makes some form, is being some essence, that words alone can recapture in reference to what “it” is.

Forms/essences come and go, just as things are all moving. Things and the essence spoken of those things do not make two kinds of things. There are just things. Things distinguished as “this” from “that other one” reveal what come to spoken of as their essences, the distinguishing lines that form the thing like they inform our words and thoughts of the things.

But none of this conversation has even happened without all of us fixing essences and putting them in motion. It’s too late for us to avoid the punch in the face of an essential difference between even this sentence and my next.

Essence happens where happenings happen. It is not simply motion that is happening.

There can not be relations without relata, be they identified particular unique individual relatives, or familiar resembling relatives.

Motion is only found where fixed things are moving and fixed things only rest long enough to be carved out as “things” as they are moving into place.

Heraclitus said it best: “It rests from change.” There is peaceful harmony in warring tension.

Part of the tension here is knowing we are talking about actual things, experiencing phenomenal appearances hiding things in themselves, knowing the epistemological impossibilities involved, positing a thing such as “tiger” as if an objective, mind independent thing, and then speaking about speaking and language using “essence” as if we are not referring to a real tiger, sinking its teeth into your leg, because we aren’t…

It’s a precarious conversation at best. Going on for thousands of years now.

But it’s only a conversation, a communication, if there is some essentially common ground, apart from us we are sharing.

(This is why we all fall into referencing universals - because where two agree about a thing, they have created a universal common ground. So many simultaneous topics at this moment in philosophical thinking.)

Sellar's myth of the given argument, even if one accepts it, respects epistemology. It doesn't imply that the existence of a rabbit as a whole/organism cannot be distinct from our conventions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes.

This conversation is at once one of physics, metaphysics, and epistemology. And if we do not address all three at once, and focus only on one of these aspects, the others unaddressed undo whatever we say.

This is physics in that we are referring to access to tigers. (Positing content).
Metaphysics in that we are referring to distinctions among multiple, distinct things (using language such as “same” and “different “ to draw tigers distinctly from the things tigers are not. And metaphysics in that we have to speak about language itself as if it is a metaphysical object.
And epistemology in that there is no certainty our physics and our metaphysics have merely been constructed to align despite possibly having nothing to do with things in themselves (a metaphysics of illusions based on a physics of appearances in motion).

Bottom line for me, each word we utter refers internally to its essential meaning, as it refers externally to all of the forces that make it impossible to define absolutely.

Snow and sleet may demonstrate the confusion of knowing essences (is sleet really just snow depending on what snow is…like rain or a wintry mix…??); but the differences between snow and fire demonstrate the confusion of not knowing essences (snow is never burning and fire never freezes still).

There either are differences, be they phenomenally constructed or mind independent objectivities, or there is no difference between snow and fire and no distinctions to speak of.

Essence, like decay causing motion, is undeniable.

Beliefs are curiously foundational in regard to actions. That I went to the tap to get a glass of water is explained by my belief that the tap was a suitable place to obtain water together with my desire for water. That I believe the tap a source of water is sufficient, regardless of of whether the tap works or not. While it makes sense to ask why I believe the tap a source of water, it is somehow incoherent to ask if I believe the tap to be such a source, given my actions and assertions. — Banno

In computer science, the problem of inverse reinforcement learning can be thought of as the problem of determining what an agent believes on the basis of the regularity of its actions. It is for example used by retail store websites for predicting what consumers want on the basis of their browsing behavior.

There is a chicken-and-egg problem; for any hypothesis as to what an agent believes is relative to a hypothesis as to what the agent is trying to achieve. And any hypothesis as to what an agent is trying to achieve is relative to a hypothesis as to what the agent believes. But in the end, the notions of beliefs and goal-states are only used for determining a causal model for predicting or controlling agent behavior that only employs the concepts of causation and behavioral conditioning; for once the causal model has been determined, beliefs and goals can be dispensed with entirely, along with the teleological illusion of future-directed behavior.

So at least according to the algorithmics of machine learning, beliefs and goals aren't foundational when it comes to explaining behavior, rather they are concepts concerning model-fitting strategies for determining behavioural causes and behavioural conditioning.

So at least according to the algorithmics of machine learning, beliefs and goals aren't foundational when it comes to explaining behavior, rather they are concepts concerning model-fitting strategies for determining behavioural causes and behavioural conditioning. — sime

Maybe belief is a psychological construct. It's something unobservable, but we use it to explain and predict behavior. I think the more complex the behavior is, the more likely it is that we'll explain it in terms of belief. Simple behavior could be instinct, but something like plotting revenge needs propositions for the explanation.

It strikes me as an error to suppose that because there is a name there must be a thing named.
— Banno

If that's what you think, then you run directly into the following metaphysical problem, known in the literature as a Debunking Argument against Ordinary Objects:

(DK1) There is no explanatory connection between how we believe the world to be divided up into objects the how the world actually is divided up into objects.
(DK2) If so, then it would be a coincidence if our object beliefs turned out to be correct.
(DK3) If it would be a coincidence if our object beliefs turned out to be correct, then we shouldn’t believe that there are trees.
(DK4) So, we shouldn’t believe that there are trees.
— Daniel Z. Korman — Arcane Sandwich

I'm still stuck on this. What does this argument, valid or not, have to do with names and the alleged things they name? Do you mean that to "divide up" the world is to assign various names?

Nothing here should be construed as suggesting that there are no such thing as beliefs. And I'd even go along with reifying them, when we use them as explanations for actions, for example, so long as we are aware that this is what we are doing. — Banno

This would be a happy place to leave the issue, except . . . isn't there a way of posing the question "What are beliefs?" that doesn't have to involve either reification or essence-talk? Do beliefs have an ontology? Is there any sort of noun-form, or are we saying that beliefs are simply acts of believing -- about which we can say a great deal?

I think this is a good candidate for Witt's observations about the bewitchment of language and all that, and I'm open to that perspective, but I'd like to look at it more closely.

In particular, I'm still troubled by background beliefs. If I say, "I [background] believe that the earth is round," what am I claiming?

My preferred solution, as many of you know. I've seen you refer to this as Quine's "joke" about being, but it's about time we took him seriously. And to the question of "vindicating ordinary speakers," I find it's relatively easy to explain what this means to an intelligent non-philosopher, especially once they understand that it's a wrangle about terminology. It leaves the obvious difference between Pegasus and a table unaltered.

Is there any sort of noun-form, or are we saying that beliefs are simply acts of believing — J

There's a thought that your body responds to speech without any intellectual filtering, so if you're coaching someone, it's better to tell them what to do rather than what not to do. The body's only response to "no" is to stop. The body can't understand "not." The intellect has to handle the issue of being wrong or mistaken because it involves imagining something and then negating it.

So maybe there's the intellect's version of belief, which is an attitude toward a proposition, and the body's version which involves unconscious testing and responding.

- Great posts. :up:

Perhaps the nature of language and its relationship to reality is not as uncertain as it might seem. Again, there is a presumption that the division between individuals must either be in the world, or if not then in our language. But perhaps what divides individuals is instead an interplay between the world and our language.

The intertwining of physics, metaphysics, and epistemology can be seen as a result of this interplay. The long argument between idealism and realism is a symptom of the false dichotomy of world and word.

To be is to be the value of a bound variable. Which is Quine's approach. — Banno

My preferred solution, as many of you know. I've seen you refer to this as Quine's "joke" about being, but it's about time we took him seriously. — J

We know it's a joke because we know it's wrong. But if you don't have anything better, I guess you just assert it while laughing.

isn't there a way of posing the question "What are beliefs?" — J

That's one of the reasons why we know Quine's approach is wrong. We know that when Quine proposes a logical sentence a thought or belief of Quine's is involved in that proposal, and we know that that thought is not nothing, but we also know that on Quine's theory it cannot be anything. We know that even for Quine the I think is able to accompany his representations.

The reason "ordinary speakers" balk at these theories is because they are bad theories:

What is interesting in the smoothness of this transition is how easy it is nowadays to have an unreflected, and accordingly deep conviction that whatever more restricted meanings existence may have, the full scope of being is that of the possible range of reference of the expressions of our language.[7]

In medieval thought, this certainly was not the prevailing idea. According to the medieval view, inspired originally by Aristotle’s Perihermeneias, reference, following meaning, is a property of linguistic expressions only insofar as they express thoughts, i.e., mental acts of users of the language. Accordingly, linguistic expressions refer to what their users intend by them to refer to in a given context, that is, what they think of while using the expression either properly, or improperly.[8] So referring was held to be a context-dependent property of terms: according to this view, the same expression in different propositional contexts may refer to different things, or refer to something in one context, while refer to nothing in another. As it was spelled out systematically already in the freshly booming logical literature of the 12th century in the theory of ampliation[9], terms that are actually not true of anything may have referents, or in the current terminology, supposita, in the context of intentional verbs, such as “think”, “want”, “imagine” and the like. But, to be sure, these referents are not to be construed as beings (entia), or objects, simpliciter, but as objects of thought — according to 13th century terminology, beings of reason, entia rationis.[10] — Gyula Klima, St. Anselm's Proof: A Problem of Reference, Intentional Identity and Mutual Understanding, 2

See also:

So, it might seem that Buridan’s semantics, represented by this semantic system, is equally committed to mere possiblia, that is to say, Quine’s possible charges are justified. But the tricky thing about Buridan’s semantics is that it makes no distinction comparable to the modern distinction between object-language and meta-language, so it has no meta-language comparable to the meta-language in which we see Quine’s charges justified.

Buridan has only one language to talk about the world as well as about the language and its semantic relations to the world. And in that one language we cannot truly say that there are mere possibilia, or that something that is merely possible exists. Accordingly, from this Buridanian perspective, the issue of ontological commitment in terms of a meta-linguistic description of the relationship between language and the world is radically ill-conceived.

From this Buridanian perspective, one cannot make claims about the relationships between language and reality from some external, God-like position, from the position of the user of a meta-language, who has a certain “context-free” or “context-neutral” access to the object-language and “the world”, both as it is in itself and as it is conceived by users of the object-language, that is to say, the totality of semantic values of items in that language. We only have this one language we actually speak (where, of course, it doesn’t matter which particular human language we take this one language to be), and we can speak about those semantic values only by means of the context-dependent ways of referring that are afforded to us by this language. — Gyula Klima, Quine, Wyman, and Buridan: Three Approaches to Ontological Commitment, 10