A feature of this thread from its beginning is that no source of information has been accepted as a common ground for differences of opinion to take as points of departure.

Maybe our grandchildren will be able to piece together the different parts.

Language and Death: The Place of Negativity by Giorgio Agamben

An interesting philosophical view of linguistics in contrast to the scientific theories being discussed lately around Chomsky's work.

The Tomasello lecture is excellent. His observations are noted in a larger challenge to Chomsky presented by Brian MacWhinney and Elizabeth Bates.

I agree, sentient life must evolve through interaction with the world in which it exists, which is why it has taken 3.7 billion years for life to have evolved to its current form. — RussellA

That does take the long view of what 'development' involves. I suppose the development of children has to be seen in the context of that larger one. In regard to language, it prompts me to question the clean separation between the 'innate' and the 'environment' as put forward by Chomsky.

Beyond the specific theory put forward by Vygotsky, I think the issue needs to include his observation, "From this point of view, learning is not development."

It is sophistical for Harris to use the diversity of religious expression to bolster his simple unitary view.

His emphasis upon the propositions of what is believed reflects the ritual importance of reciting the creed in many versions of Christianity. To cancel all religions on the basis of this model is oddly as chauvinistic as those who insist that it is the only truth. No sincere effort to compare religions can afford such baggage.

During a discussion of his predecessors, Aristotle said Plato included two of the four Aristote worked with and why it was not enough:

And that for the sake of which actions, changes, and movements take place they speak of as in a way a cause, but not in this way—that is, not in the way in which it is its nature to be a cause. For those who speak of understanding or love (philia) posit these causes as good, but they do not speak as if anything is or comes to be for the sake of these things, but as if movements arise from them. In the same way too those who say that the one or being is such a nature say that it is a cause of the substance, but not that anything is or comes to be for its sake, so that in a way they do and in a way they do not say that the good is a cause, since they do not say it is so unconditionally but coincidentally. — Aristotle. Metaphysics, 988b5, translated by CDC Reeve

The addition of the fourth cause (efficient) comes from not being able to treat the eternal beings and what comes to be and passes away the same way. A step toward that method was to get past the monism of Parmenides:

But then if there is to be some being-itself and one-itself, there is much puzzlement as to how anything else will exist beyond these—I mean, as to how beings will be more than one. For what is other than being is not, and so, according to Parmenides’ argument, it necessarily follows that all beings are one, and this one is being. Either way, it is difficult. For whether the one is not substance or whether there is some one-itself, number cannot be substance. We said earlier why this holds if the one is not substance, but if it is substance, the puzzle is the same as that concerning being, For from what, beyond the one-itself, will there be another one? Indeed, it must be not-one. |1001b5| But all beings are either one or a many of which each is one. — ibid. 1001a28

In this respect, the Prime Mover is the beginning of the series of causes but not the 'first' of that series because its principle is not the same species as the "moved." I would not call that a denial of the 'existence of absolute time' but a limit to what we can be thought about it.

It comes down to the debate between Chomsky, who argued that language is founded on innate concepts biologically pre-set and the Behaviourists, such as Skinner, who argued that that all language is learnt during one's interaction with the environment. — RussellA

The relationship between the learner and the environment can mean very different things. In the Skinner model, stimulus is always on one side and response the other side of events. For Vygotsky, for example, there is a dynamic where the stimulus becomes modified by changes in the learner:

The acquisition of language can provide a paradigm for the entire problem of the relation between learning and development. Language arises initially as a means of communication between the child and the people in his environment. Only subsequently, upon conversion to internal speech, does it come to organize the child's thought, that is, become an internal mental function. Piaget and others have shown that reasoning occurs in a children's group as an argument intended to prove one's own point of view before it occurs as an internal activity whose distinctive feature is that the child begins to perceive and check the basis of his thoughts. Such observation prompted Piaget to conclude that communication produces the need for checking and confirming thoughts, a process that is characteristic of adult thought. In the same way that internal speech and reflective thought arise from the interactions between the child and persons in her environment, these interactions provide the source of development of a child's voluntary behavior. Piaget has shown that cooperation provides the basis for the development of a child's moral judgement. Earlier research established that a child first becomes able to subordinate her behavior to rules in group play and only later does voluntary self-regulation of behavior arise as an internal function.

These individual examples illustrate a general developmental law for the higher mental functions that we feel can be applied in its entirety to children's learning processes. We propose that an essential feature of learning is that it creates the zone of proximal development; that is, learning awakens a variety of internal development processes that are able to only operate when the child is interacting with people in his environment and in cooperation with his peers. Once these processes are internalized, they become part of the child's independent developmental achievement.

From this point of view, learning is not development; however, properly organized learning results in mental development and sets in motion a variety of developmental processes that would be impossible apart from learning. Thus, learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing culturally organized, specifically human, psychological functions. — Vygotsky, Mind in Society, page 90

This approach does not cancel the domain of the 'innate' but neither does it make it a realm where 'e-language' can be clearly separated from 'I-language'.

No. A closed loop does not answer Aristotle's quest for an explanation of Causation itself — Gnomon

I don't think Aristotle would have described his work that way. He was surrounded by those who rejected the idea of an intelligible whole. He fought them tooth and nail.

*Defining it formally with E-languages at least. But I'd include logic as within the E-language category. — Moliere

This element is what confuses me trying to sort out what is 'innate' versus an imposed condition. Are all environmental factors to be dubbed 'structural' factors in contradistinction to what happens in an individual?

I don't get the either/or here. Cognitive psychology has plenty of theoretical claims that differ from the 'taxonomy' Chomsky has objected to throughout his career.

I actually meant the idea that view that is critical of all religion, specifically on the basis that they're irreconcilable and that schisms aren't based on any kind of underlining logical framework. — Hallucinogen

That framework sounds like what one would need to compare religions with each other. Are there critics of religion who reject such comparisons?

I was not agreeing with your analysis of the circumstances but only observing that Ukraine cannot afford to just wait out the present situation if it is to have a chance of stopping the Russians.

You have been saying that resistance is futile since 2/22. We will see.

Yet this never satisfied the philosopher, namely Aristotle. Hence the proposal of first cause or the uncaused cause. — invicta

For Aristotle, the problem with infinite regression is that we would not be able to learn anything theoretical in such a universe:

At the same time, however, it is also impossible that the first [cause], since it is eternal, should pass away. For since coming to be is not without a limit in the upward direction, [a] the first thing from (ek) whose passing away something came to be must be non-eternal. And since the for-the-sake-of-which is an end, and the sort of end that is not for the sake of other things but rather other things are for its sake, it follows that if there is to be a last thing of this sort, the series will not be without a limit, but if there is no such thing, there will be no for-the-sake-of-which. Those who make it unlimited are unwittingly getting rid of the nature of the good (and yet no one would try to do anything if he were not going to come to a limit). Nor would there be any understanding present in beings. For someone who has understanding, at any rate, always does the actions he does for the sake of something, and this is a limit, since the end is a limit. — Aristotle. Metaphysics, 994b5, translated by C.D.C. Reeve

Time is not on Ukraine's side. The Chechens thought they had won for a bit but were crushed eventually.

If the annexations stand, they become 'facts on the ground'.

I can't answer your challenge to bert1 regarding the scientific theory of consciousness as a development that started without it and appeared after some time. Bateson approached that in a paradigmatic fashion where Chalmers is trying to rank different kinds of reduction.

On the other hand, the Aristotelian interpretation of structure you have presented does bring the problem of time front and center as a matter of principle.

Aristotle did not have a "hard problem" because he had an unmoved mover contemplating what it had set into motion.

Noted.

Language has to be embedded far more widely in cognition - to the point where cognition and language use are much the same thing. — Banno

In a nutshell, I can't see why generative grammar requires analyticity. — Banno

Language surely must be closely linked to cognition. But the devil is in the details. The range of theories between what the brain does and what social interactions do suggest they are only 'the same thing' when some conditions are presumed to be the case.

That prompts me to ask about how you see the scientific method in relation to 'analyticity', as you coin the phrase. Chomsky located linguistics as one of the enterprises of cognitive psychology. Do you conceive of the 'analytic' as prior to such theoretical endeavors?

Thank you. I fully understand why you want to see the remarks in the context of his views as they changed over time.

These debates seem odd to me because I don't see what the opposition is. It sounds like these things are debates to the extent at what is learned and what is automatically generated (or rather, automatically being computed in some sort of cognitive apparatus). — schopenhauer1

I look at it through the lens of developmental psychology. The dynamic between the 'innate' and the environment points to neither aspect being the only process or ground of personal experience.

When Chomsky says: "Still, this approach seems reasonable to me; to give it some real content, it would be necessary to discover something comparable to a generative grammar in the domain of factual knowledge, which is no small task", that is asking for a science that goes beyond merely noting the dependence upon a repeatable experience of the world for the 'meaning' of propositions.

But it also goes beyond presuming a mechanism such as behaviorism does where different outcomes can be reduced to particular inputs.

I am not sure if this counts as 'hedging' in regard to what is innate or not but the following (written in the late 70's) suggests Chomsky is not putting the 'logic' of syntax as making or breaking the argument for a 'preexisting' structure in the way he opposed behaviorism, for example.

To be sure, someone who believes in a level of representation of the type proposed by Katz can reply: “In doing so, I propose a legitimate idealization. I assume, with Frege, that there exist semantic elements common to all languages, independent of everything except language and thought. In rejecting this idealization, you make the same mistake as those who confuse pragmatics with syntax.”

Certainly, this objection has some force. But I doubt that it will wholly withstand further reflection. Whenever concepts are examined with care, it seems that they involve beliefs about the real world. This idea is not new: Wittgenstein and Quine, among others, have emphasized that our use of concepts is set within a system of beliefs about lawful behavior of objects; similar ideas have been attributed to Leibniz. Thus, when we use the terms chair or table, we rely on beliefs concerning the objects to which we refer. We assume that they will not disappear suddenly, that they will fall when they are let go, and so on. These assumptions are not part of the meaning of chair, etc., but if the assumptions fail we might conclude that we were not referring to a chair, as we had thought. In studying semantics one must keep in mind the role of nonlinguistic systems of belief: we have our expectations about three dimensional space, about texture and sensation, about human behavior, inanimate objects, and so on. There are many mental organs in interaction. To repeat an observation of Wittgenstein’s, we would not know how to name an object if at one moment it looked like a chair, and a moment later disappeared, that is to say, if it does not obey the laws of nature. The question: “Is that a chair or not?” would not have an answer according to strictly linguistic criteria. Admittedly it is difficult to establish such conclusions. Too little is understood about cognitive systems and their interaction. Still, this approach seems reasonable to me; to give it some real content, it would be necessary to discover something comparable to a generative grammar in the domain of factual knowledge, which is no small task. My own speculation is that only a bare framework of semantic properties, altogether insufficient for characterizing what is ordinarily called “the meaning of a linguistic expression,” can be associated correctly with the idealization “language.” — Chomsky, Noam. On Language: Chomsky's Classic Works: Language and Responsibility and Reflections on Language (p. 152).

The Business Party is not challenged by the focus on culture wars as long as property laws are enforced and debts are paid. A lot of the changes frightening the 'replacement theory' crowd have come about because of the expansion of corporate power and the weakening of local forces in relation to larger ones.

Let's all gather at a Target parking lot to stop them from selling butt plugs! Don't forget to bring your guns in case antifa shows up too.

The comment quoted by EricH does show Chomsky qualifying his general framework to acknowledge the transgressive inversion of the political institutions practiced by the GOP.

The general framework restricting the development of a more participatory democracy are a convergence of the structure built at the founding of the republic with the growth of corporations with legal rights and the 'virtual' senate created through international production and exchange:



A politics that would take on this infrastructure would be a major change in our way of life.

Why assume "the simulation" had a "creator"? — 180 Proof

A quality of Baudrillard's idea that the films do not connect to is how the 'real' is seen to have been removed as the result of a crime. The ways he points to clues obviously runs into the problem of starting without the realm of 'facts' as given because his claim of what was the result.

But it does give a weird intention quite different from fooling everybody for some specific purpose.

Yes, De Anima along with On Memory.

Your description is one of the interpretations of Aristotle's view of phantasia.

That is a good question. I think Jung would say yes, the pattern is there. Vygotsky is more circumspect. A pattern is underway. We do not know what it means.

I am attracted to Vygotsky's model of the self as coming about from structures that are not given in personal experience but make it possible. We have to treat the self as an object but that does not mean the quality is preconfigured by the restriction. Vygotsky says that reports from persons do not produce sufficient information. That view is sharply different from making it different than what it seems to be.

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I guess I was not expected to give a cogent account but to wrestle with the problems without a particular result showing I got it or not.

I was assigned to read primary texts. I came to appreciate commentary later on. But I am glad I did not start with that.

What draws you to philosophy?

In regard to the relationship between language and the organic beings we are, the range of developmental psychology is worth considering. There is Behaviorism at one end of the scale where the experience of self is an epiphenomenon of other processes while the other end is like Jung who sees the evolution of instincts being incorporated into the architecture of symbols.

The range brings forward the question of what can be accepted as a given on the mater.

This is an interesting curve in the Bossa Nova genre:

I think some of the anxiety came from the revolutions of 1848 where institutions accepted some democratic reforms in exchange for protecting the status quo. The anti-liberal reaction to the revolutions became the grounds for the ultra-nationalist movements that followed.

Nietzsche tried a few lines of this when he was young. His rejection of Wagner signaled the end of that party. To my knowledge, Heidegger never addressed that part of Nietzsche's teachings despite the considerable effort to interpret other parts.

The aspect of cause and effect says to me that there is not a sentient being tallying up a person's score but rather there is a structure that is changed immediately by the 'good' or 'bad' act but the different effects play out in different ways over time. A sort of action at distance that seems accidental but is not.

I think of it like the Picture of Dorian Gray, where the canvas is constantly being updated but cannot always be viewed. The idea that one is reborn under that condition is a tragic one. The song Born under a Bad Sign comes to mind.

It seems to me that generations of humans have dealt with being a self. It has been framed in different ways, but I am pretty sure we all are in the same pool, treading water. The recognition of isolation is interwoven with different ideas about connection.

The situation is not self-explanatory. Very different kinds of investigation, philosophical and psychological, have and are being pursued.

The tiny boat is not close to any shore.

Yes, I can see how the gap between evaluations involves the experience of being lost. I brought up the gap, however, in order to address this challenge in regard to the politics involved:

Nietzsche has played that role for decades. Apart from the political aspect, the question is, is there any evidence that such readings get the philosophy right? — Joshs

Whatever Heidegger hoped for or feared in his political actions, the interim between the point of departure and the true "abode" provides no register for taking responsibility for any 'compulsion to malignancy' he may have participated in.

That gap is there in the things he said, not merely an interpretation of what he meant.

Is there a concern for the human things in this more originary thinking? Where do we see it? — Fooloso4

In Heidegger's Letter on Humanism, he puts the matter this way:

The thinking that inquires into the truth of Being and so defines man's essential abode from Being and toward Being is neither ethics nor ontology. Thus the Thus the question about the relation of each to the other no longer has any basis in this sphere. Nonetheless, your question, thought in a more original way, retains a meaning and an essential importance.
For it must be asked: If the thinking that ponders the truth of Being defines the essence of humanitas as ek-sistence from the latter's belongingness to Being, then does thinking remain only a theoretical representation Being and of man; or can we obtain from such knowledge directives that can be readily applied to our active lives?

The answer is that such thinking is neither theoretical nor practical. It comes to pass before this distinction. Such thinking is, in so far as it is, recollection of Being and nothing else. Belonging to Being, because thrown by Being into the preservation of its truth and claimed for such preservation, it thinks Being. Such thinking has no result. It has no effect. It satisfies its essence in that it is. But it is by saying its matter. Historically, only saying [Sage] belongs to the matter of thinking, the one that is in each case appropriate to its matter. Its material relevance is essentially higher than the validity of the sciences, because it is freer. For it lets Being-be. — Basic Writings of Heidegger, translated by Capuzzi and Gray, page 259

The above would seem to place us on the verge of a kind of quietism but this is shown not to be the case shortly afterwards:

And yet thinking never creates the house of Being. Thinking conducts historical ek-sistence, that is, the humanitus of homo humanitus, into the realm of the upsurgence of healing [des Heilens].

With healing, evil appears all the more in the clearing of Being. The essence of evil does not consist in the mere baseness of human action, but rather in the malice of rage. Both of these, however, healing and raging, can essentially occur only in Being, in so far as Being itself is what is contested. It it is concealed the essential provenance of nihilation. What nihilates illuminates itself as the negative. This can be addressed in the "no." The "not" in no way arise from the no-saying of negation. Every "no" that does not mistake itself as willful assertion of the positing power of subjectivity, but rather remains a letting be of ek-sistence, answers to the claim of of the nihilation illumined. Every "no" is simply the affirmation of the "not." Every affirmation consists in acknowledgment. Acknowledgment lets that toward which it goes come toward it. It is believed that nihilation is nowhere to be found in the beings themselves. This is correct as long as one seeks nihilation as some kind of being, as an existing quality in beings. But in so seeking, one is not seeking nihilation. Neither is Being any existing quality that allows itself to be fixed among beings. And yet Being is more in being than any being. Because nihilation occurs essentially in Being itself we can never discern it as a being among beings. Reference to this impossibility never in any way proves that the origin of the not is no-saying. This proof appears to carry only if one posits beings as what is objective for subjectivity.

[Skipping to next two paragraph to reduce typing]

The nihilating in Being is the essence of what I call the nothing. Hence, because it thinks Being, thinking thinks the nothing.

To healing Being first grants ascent into grace, to raging its compulsion to malignancy. — ibid. page 260-261

The benefit of grace and the suffering of a compulsion to malignancy seems to be a "human" thing but Heidegger says we will not benefit from knowing about this condition until we reach one not yet experienced:

More essential than instituting rules is that man find the way to his abode in the truth of Being. — ibid. 262

It can be a long time between trains.

Christianity has come to be different things at different times to different people. Placing Feuerbach in a more specific context was a thought I had about how the personal became something different than what was expressed before.

The basis upon which that observation is made is not the same as how I see the matter by myself. I am not going to do that here.

Or a beginning of a new one required more work than originally anticipated.

Project Management is born.

One does not have to decide about the limits of the law (in regard to Paul's view) to see how Augustine made the issue about a personal choice.
— Paine

Can you explain ? — plaque flag

Paul expected the world to change forever and the sooner the better.

By the time of Augustine, waiting for the change required an adjustment of expectations. A dual citizenship of sorts was encouraged. The cleanliness of the inside of the cup compared to the outside is now entangled with the future of the world.

Did Christianity contribute to a tradition of radical interiority? — plaque flag

One does not have to decide about the limits of the law (in regard to Paul's view) to see how Augustine made the issue about a personal choice.

And the idea that a person was a locus for changing or not changing things became a thing, set against a background of relentless continuity. The City of God versus the City of Men.

I am not ascribing to that view but think it is closer to what Feuerbach was talking about than the Gospels taken by themselves.

Okay. I see we are at the boundaries of the other's perspective.

Yes, another thread.

I will read your selected essays if you read The Concept of Anxiety.

Kierkegaard was pretty clear about what conditions he laid out required of an individual.

You will have to enlighten me how and where Heidegger 'generalized' that.

One challenge in that regard is how to see Heidegger as a bridge Kierkegaard saw Hegel unable to build.

Let me put it another way. The emphasis upon the Single Individual versus a 'person in their situation" is not a difference unless it is one.

Is that not the question?