I’m thinking that pretty much all a child has is the essence of mum. No words or definitions. Mum may mean security, nourishment, and the like, on an instinctual or just ‘feel good’ level. — praxis

Something like that is perhaps correct. The babe understands the essence of mum, but not yet the details.

Is that the same use of "essence" as that of the Philosophers hereabouts? "that which makes a thing what it is and not another", or whatever?

It's a tempting thought, but what exactly does having the concept "mum" amount to, apart from being able to tell mum from Aunty Jean and getting her to come by calling her name and so on? Some neural net, perhaps, that is active when one thinks of 'mum'? Or a form of "Mumness"?

What is it to "have the essence" of mum, beyond what one does?

If we can identify something we must have some conception of it... — praxis

What is it to have "some concept of it" beyond being able to identify it?


And essences are a bit different to concepts...

Dogs don't know things? A bit harsh on the pup?

...he does not know what is 'sugar' or what is 'intruder'. — Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism

He doesn't use the words, perhaps; but his reactions show something....

So why are 'sugar' and 'intruder' in quotes?

First, I didn’t think you could understand me, so why bother. — Fire Ologist

And yet here you are.

Second, There are fifty things prior to my posts with Leon that you didn’t respond to. — Fire Ologist

Again, if you want me to respond, link my name. A common courtesy. I'll not be going over your posts looking to see if you ask me something. You are not that interesting.

Third, Seems muddle-headed for you expect courtesy from me. — Fire Ologist

I agree. Seems I erred in expecting curtesy from you.

Fire, I honestly havn't been able to follow most of what you wrote. I gave it a go. It didn't work. I'll leave you to it.

Well, philosophy tries to get at the underpinnings of empirical thoughts and thoughts in general. That makes it different to the empirical sciences, and also considerably more difficult. Unlike scientists, philosophers don't have the benefit of being able to look around to see if they are right.

Or perhaps they do. The language and logic uses in philosophy is there for all to see.

It is an article of Banno's faith than anything like religious faith has no place at the table of philosophical discourse — Wayfarer

:blush:

Almost. I've writ about it at some length. What's philosophically illegitimate is dependence on divine writ.

And yes, the fora do much resemble the plight of Sisyphus.

Well, perhaps there is some hope for our finding agreement.

The question surely remains as to what the posited "intellectual consideration" in an intuition might be. And the argument I gave previously convinces me that neither intuition nor self-evidence will provide a suitable "Intellectual consideration". In their place I'm offering those specifiable speech acts that inaugurate our language games - those involving "counts as...".

I gather this is all quite foreign to your way of putting things.

If your first point is that rule-following alone does not equate to content, then we might agree. I'd answer this problem by again pointing out that one's understanding of any rule is to be found in the actions seen in following it or going against it. And here we might add that the action is what you call "content".

And this is much the same as my answer to your second point. Whatever "first principles" you might cite will be secondary to what one does with them. The vital difference between action and the "elevation of the will" is that action is public, whereas what one wills is private. What one does can be seen by others, and so can be a suitable basis for the common action of providing explanations and accounts.

Human knowledge is shared. Which is why private intellectus on its own is inadequate.

Are there parts of this with which you might agree?

Demonstrable failure to communicate. — Fire Ologist

Yep.

If you are interested in my responses, please, as a common courtesy, link my name in your posts.

Otherwise, enjoy Leon's company.

I don't want it to be aporetic at all. — J

:smile:

Whereas I don't much mind. Better to not reach a conclusion than to jump to the wrong one.

Oh, and the obvious reason that LNC is taken as a metaphysical or epistemic principle is that it is a grammatical principle, and our language is common to both. Language underpins both.

The leap from "no determinate causes" to "no reason at all" in particular still eludes me, too, and in particular becasue it "raises the unpleasant spectre of there being only one reasonable way to think and do". The idea that the world would be unintelligible without strict casual explanations ignores the great difficulty of setting out exactly what a casual explanation is. It seems arse about; the way the world is, is not intelligible thanks to causation, so much as that causation is intelligible thanks to the way the world is. Perhaps it's not that the world becomes intelligible because we uncover its causes; rather, we see things as caused because the world is already intelligible to us. Causation is not the ground of intelligibility, but an expression of it.

Good chat.

Thanks for a considered and sympathetic response.

Here are a few points I've taken form what you said:

1. that p v ~p is a logical law. There's of course a large literature on the nature of laws or rules, but perhaps there is some consensus that Wittgenstein was correct in pointing out the vicious circularity of claiming that our actions are determined by a rule. Now I'll go along with the tradition that says that the answer here is that ultimately a rule is grounded in a practice, in what we do. I think this is both found in the PI and an adequate answer to Kripke's scepticism.

So better, perhaps, to say that agreeing with either p or ~p is what we do, rather than a rule.

2. There's this, about (p v ~p): "My puzzle is: How is it that these are two phenomena, which resemble each other so closely yet have such different objects?" The trite response is that p and ~p are not phenomena. What they are has been answered at length and in different ways. But further, what is salient, and what we discussed in our previous conversations concerning Frege, is that we read (p v ~p) as about one thing, not two. That's part of the function of "⊢" in Frege.

Now there are puzzles here - perhaps most recently presented in 's recent thread. But I'll stand by this interpretation.

Our difference may be that I think there is a point at which our spade is turned, a point at which the only answer is "It's what we do", but that you would try to dig further. I take the "counts as..." function to be sufficient, so that putting the ball in the net counts as a goal, no further explanation being possible. You seem to me to want to ask why it counts as a goal, to which the answer is it just does.

Does this seem a fair characterisation?

So I'll throw the ball back - can you convince me that there is a further issue here that remains unanswered?

That would be very interesting.

It just doesn't seem all that far from saying "they would not be participating in the same activity" to saying they would not have the intuitions—the experience of the agreement of logic with what we do—that people have when they successfully do x and y. — Jamal

Interesting, and methodologically sound, to have a think about such counter instances.

It's uncomfortable to do what is counterintuitive, of course, so we gravitate to what is intuitive. But also, we begin to intuit by learning an activity. Consider how intuitive driving is, compared to when you were learning.

And the same is the case with logic. You might recall long conversations in introductory logic classes in which folk puzzle over simple syllogisms. Consider:

All roses are flowers.
Some flowers fade quickly.
∴ Some roses fade quickly.

A student says "That seems right—roses are flowers, and some flowers fade quickly, so it makes sense that some roses might be among those that fade quickly." But the intuition that the argument is valid, is misplaced.

Or alternately,

All unicorns have horns.
Charlie is a unicorn.
∴ Charlie has a horn.

were the student replies “But unicorns don’t exist! How can Charlie have a horn?” - examples such as this can be found on these forums. The argument is valid, but for some, counterintuitive.

Point being, what is intuitive is not fixed. Our practices change our intuitions.

So it remains quite problematic to attempt to ground logic on an intuition. Much clearer to ground it on practice.

Also important here, and perhaps this cannot be emphasised enough: while intuition is private, practice is public. We share our practices more easily than out intuitions.

So we might grant your point and still find intuition wanting as a grounding for rationality.

Them as I said in previous posts, I cannot make much sense of what you are saying.

I don't understand what you mean by "attaching some sort of causal priority to definitions/essences" nor how you are using "definition".

So back to diminishing returns.

If I'm misrepresenting you, surely you can lay out what determines usefulness then. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Usefulness isn't determined by some rule. That's kinda the point.

Pick one that does the job you want done, or that will extend and enhance the conversation.

If we do not accept that the frog can be both alive and dead, then a logic that allows this is not suitable.

I've asked this question to Banno many times and never received anything but deflection. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I answered the question quite directly. appears to see this. You insist on misrepresenting that answer. "We decide if a frog can be both living and not living at the same time based on how useful this is to us" has nothing in common with what was suggested.

Perhaps Davidson's Nice derangement of epitaphs goes here. Linguistic competence, and hence our explanations of how things are, cannot rely on fixed conventions or shared meanings, but depend on radical interpretation and charitable understanding in particular contexts.

And this in turn is a corollary of PI §201: '...there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which is exhibited in what we call "obeying the rule" and "going against it"
in actual cases.'

Now you are misrepresenting what I have said.

And again showing that you have not understood possible world semantics.

Meh.

I'm not sure that qualifies as an answer, even generously. — J

It's not so much an answer as an attempt to show how the question misfires.

You seem to be in the position of someone who asks how it is that their key just happens to fit their front door and no one else's.

First, we do not need to have at hand the essence of some thing in order to talk about it. See the "mum" example given previously. We use words with great success without knowing the essence of whatever it is they stand for. Demonstrably, since we can talk about faith wiothout agreeing on the essence of faith.

Thinking we can't use words unless we first fix their essence is muddle-headed.

Second, we can of course delineate and describe the way a word is used. I did as much using ChatGPT for "faith" a few pages back. We do not, in our usual conversations, use "faith" to mean corned beef, for example. But in other less usual circumstances, we might. So tow things: words do have ordinary uses about which we can chat, and words can nevertheless be use din all sorts of odd ways.

And here again, it is the use that is... useful.

Third, we do far more than just speak about... we command, question, name, promise... Unless you want to use the term in a very odd way, not all words are about; what's "and" about? Or "Hello"? or an expletive? Or your "yes"? Such words do not name anything, but instead do something. "Yes" does not pointed to or named the function of "agreement" (whatever that is); it is to agree.

Forth, I do not think that persons of faith are all of them irrational. What I have argued is that faith can bring about irrationality. Here it is again: when a belief is under duress, one can reconsider or one can double down. Faith can be characterised as doubling down when one ought reconsider.

Fifth, written a reply such as this exemplifies the law of diminishing returns. I'm not getting much out of your repeatedly misunderstanding what I write. Hence, perhaps, what you interpret as sniping.

Yes, but there is a physical relationship present that exists irrespective of us putting it into intelligible terms. — Relativist

's response is spot on. What is a "physical relationship"? We sometimes say the force caused the body to accelerate, but that force just is the change in velocity. There's an odd circularity in attributing causation to forces.

Sure. But there is an (un)natural match between Rinehart and Price.

So worst case would be Rynhart funding her? It might make for dramatic viewing. Supose they were to take the Liberals further into conservative-using-liberal-memes territory... would they win votes?

I think they both overestimate their influence and understanding of Australian voters.

...but it also identifies a physical relationship among force, mass, and acceleration — Relativist

Well, not quite. A force just is the product of mass and change in velocity - in mechanics, at least. So it's more that F=ma defines the physical relationship between mass and change in velocity.

Yes, it is predictive.

Jacinta?

Many contradictions. But her maiden speech is worth a read..

and it's not as if what we are doing on indigenous issues is working.

Both the principle of sufficient reason and determinism are misunderstandings. As pointed out, neither actually does anything.

I claim F=ma is descriptive only and has no power in itself to make anything happen. — tim wood

I'll differ here - it's what I do. And lead the thread off on an aside.

F=ma is a definition, not a description. There were no forces sitting around, waiting for Newton to describe them. Rather he defined force as the product of mass and acceleration, as the change in an objects motion.

And treating it this way actually makes your point contra stronger. The force is defined as the change in velocity times mass, which is quite different from the reification of saying that force causes the change in velocity times mass.

A can of worms.

...why do some of us feel a need for Universal Concepts, when others find Particular Percepts sufficient for survival? — Gnomon

This might be the key here. Those who "feel an need for Universal Concepts" will make an unjustified jump to them. It'll be a transcendental argument: things are thus-and-so; the only way they can be thus-and-so is if this Universal Concept is in play; therefore...

Btu that's perhaps psychology rather than philosophy. The philosophical response will be limited to showing that the second premise is mistaken, that there may be other ways that things can be thus-and-so, or perhaps that they just are thus-and-so, without the need for further justification.

For me, Meaning is not what we do (act on things), but what we think (manipulate imaginary notions). :smile: — Gnomon

The admonition is that in order to understand meaning, look to use. In order to understand what folk think, look to what they do. And here, include what they say as a part of what they do.

So it's not either-or; not a choice between what we do and what we think. Rather it's a method to clarify and clean up the mess of words that constitutes philosophical conversation.

See 's post, which brings out further your observation that forms do not much help us.

Thanks for that post. A different take, but perhaps not too dissimilar to what I have been suggesting.

Interesting that you mention strange loops. You've read Hofstadter, I presume?

Wittgenstein pointed out that we can't know the answer, but he admitted that he couldn't resist being pulled back into questions like that — frank

Did he? I'm not so sure. Where did he say this?

I've a lot of sympathy for the stickiness of philosophical problems. Seems I keep allowing myself to be drawn into the same issues. But what exactly was it to which he said we cannot know the answer? Was it really "can logic really be just a tool rather than a map?"

Becasue I think I've given a roughly Wittgensteinian answer here, after the spirit of PI §201, and with a bit of Austin, Searle and Davidson thrown in.

What is the overlap between logic and the world — J

If, as I suspect, we hold to modus ponens not becasue it is self-evident or intuitive - although it may be both - but instead becasue it is what we do, then the overlap between logic and the world is that logic is a grammar for our talk about how things are.

So we might have instead chosen a grammar in which both a p and ~p are true, but then while our language would have been coherent, anything could be both true and false. Such a language would not be of much use.

So instead we choose languages in which p is true, or ~p is true, and not both. This gives our conversations quite a bit more traction.

And to this we can add some complexity. That's when we start to study logic.

Now we might be tempted to ask why p v ~p is so much more useful than p ^ ~p. But isn't one answer here just that we can do more with it? That it is more useful becasue it is more useful? That is, if instead we accepted p ^ ~p, we would not be able to have this conversation?

Asking why p v ~p and not p ^ ~p is like asking why the bishop stays on it's own colour, or why putting the ball in the net counts as scoring a goal. It's what we do.

I'm now not sure where you stand. You seem to be defending intuition in other areas - your dream being a case in point. And that's fine. Do you still think that intuition is enough to justify acceptance of logic?

I'll try to put this in as stark a contrast as I can. We all accept modus ponens. Is it, on the one hand, that we accept that if the antecedent and the conditional hold, then we intuit that the consequent also holds? Or is it that the accepted use of antecedent, conditional and consequent is that if the antecedent and conditional hold, then the consequent holds? Is logic to be grounded on private intuition or public practice?

And he argument I gave earlier seem to show that a private intuition cannot serve to ground logic in the way we may want.

Or perhaps you think that your intuitions correspond to the public practice?

I've not said there are no definitions, just that there are few good ones. We've seen numerous stipulated definitions in this thread. I've argued that they are insufficient. A stipulated definition cannot set out the necessary and sufficient conditions for the use of "faith", and that a better approach is to look at how the word is actually used.

You seem to agree with this, somewhat adamantly.

So I can't quite see what it is you disagree with. There is this:

Words name concepts. — Fire Ologist

Which is muddled. Not all words are nouns, so not all words name something. We do a lot more with words than just name concepts.

But to see this one must stop and look at how words are actually used.

What we have here is an incompatibility between a group of Aristotelian syllogisms that assume individuality requires an essence, and a modal logic that is consistent and extensible while avoiding an ontology that requires essence.

Basically, if Aristotelian logic is incompatible with PWS then so much the worse for Aristotle.

But that's not what happens in the real world, as opposed to the simple world of PF. Rather that the absurd assertion that PWS is inconsistent, Aristotelians reinterpret Aristotle's ideas so as to maximise compatibility with PWS. But that would requirer understanding modern modal logic, so it's not happening on PF.

We still have the same conclusion, the fundamental laws are violated by this conception of "individual". — Metaphysician Undercover

You keep repeating this absurdity. PWS logic is consistent with a=a. End of story. The rest is in your imaginings .

Further discourse is only encouraging your confabulations. Cheers.

Sussan Ley.

Rynhart won't be happy with a "moderate".

:rofl:

That's just a misunderstanding of what it is to be an individual. Rigid designation and counterpart theory both deal with this. PWS at least shows the issue, whereas Aristotelian modality is incapable of even framing it.

In rigid designation (Kripke), names refer to the same individual in every world where that individual exists. Identity is preserved; variation in properties does not threaten self-identity, so long as essential properties remain fixed. In counterpart theory (Lewis), identity is world-bound; talk of “Socrates in another world” means “someone like Socrates.” The law of identity is untouched, because Socrates is never numerically identical to his counterpart.

There's one now.

And yet there are folk here who stand behind that straw man.

So if I am, more fool them.

Not at all.

Forms are only one of a variety of ideas about the nature of universals, which are in turn just one of many approaches to predication. Other approaches include pragmatism, speech act theory, formal semantics, and particularised properties.

2: Forms and universals are the same thing — frank

Not so much. Forms might be a type of universal, or a theory about universals. But universals need not be perfect or idealised, nor exist in a world distinct from our own, nor cause the properties of particulars.