I think people will be utterly confounded if we start trying to say that the word "dog" doesn't have anything that could be called a meaning the moment the last user of the word dies. That just seems like nonsense to me, so I'm immediately curious as to what advantage people think that way of talking has. — Isaac

I agree. I don't think that they necessarily accept that it has an advantage over our ordinary way of talking. I think that that is lower down their list of priorities. Their priority is "being right". And some do not appreciate how large a role our use of language has to play here, instead dismissing this and thinking that they're just "doing ontology".

If no one understands it then the meaning is lost. What is your point? This is obvious? — I like sushi

That's a better way of wording it. There's a meaning, only it's lost to us.

He's a slowcoach at getting to the point. I often have to try to make an informed guess at the logical connections that he leaves inside his head instead of making explicit. Prepare to be disappointed, as it will probably just be the trivial point that if there are no users of the language, then there's no meaning by his definition.

By his definition, you couldn't rightly say that there's a meaning, but it's lost to us. There just wouldn't be a meaning at all.

His definition isn't very useful. It's limiting and counterproductive.

True, but as far as the most prevalent (nearly universal) and most important moral preferences are concerned, we're all so similarly positioned that in practice it doesn't really matter that we're basing morality on human preference (its human morality after-all); most of our moral dilemmas and efforts in moral suasion concerns how to socially accommodate our existing values, not how to force our own preferences on others. There need not be moral conflict on the grounds of different preferences unless they are somehow mutually exclusive.

Furthermore, merely acting on personal preference lacks such a significant component of how most people conceptualize "morality" that it is basically antithetical. Under most definitions, morality only begins when we consider the preferences of others, whether for greedy, strategic, or empathetic causes. Impulsively acting on our hedonic urges (as "mere preference" might be boiled down to) seems antithetical to what it is we do when we do morality.

For most people, morality isn't fundamentally "personal preference", it's "personal preference in world of others' preferences, which pragmatically demands consideration" — VagabondSpectre

I agree with much of that. It doesn't matter! It doesn't matter in the sense that morality would be no less important. The problem is getting the other side to see it that way. I see the same errors repeated over and again. They seem to see preference as some kind of affront, and try to trivialise it as "mere" preference. It's a quite ridiculous and unproductive way to react.

To believe something is to be convinced of it. I originally got that from a dictionary definition, and I think that it works very well. I can't think of any counterexamples to it. It also doesn't suggest doxastic voluntarism like the wording of "choice", and "acceptance".

To a large degree it depends on how we define "morality". If human preference is the locus of a given definition, it's wielders will go around equating morality with preference. But if, for example, "serving human preference" is instead the locus, then it's wielders might go around equating morality with objective strategy.

Both views can be simultaneously true, and even complimentary, with a bit of effort. Human preferences (especially shared preferences) (eg: the desire to be free and unmolested), can form the basis of our moral objectives, agreements, and actions, but at the same time empirical truth must also play a part in our determinations of what to do next. According to human preferences, some moral schemes are objectively inferior to others because they might not effectively serve those preferences. — VagabondSpectre

But that would still boil down to preferences, so at the most fundamental level morality would be subjective.

This from another thread:

"Morality isn't anything other than how people feel, whether they approve or disapprove, etc. of interpersonal behavior that they consider more significant than etiquette."

I do not agree with the thought expressed, but I've shot my bolt at the writer and he is unaffected. I suppose first question is, is he alone or does he have company? — tim wood

He has company. In a practical, meaningful sense, that's more or less what it is.

Second question, in as much as I've failed to educate the writer, can anyone do a better job? — tim wood

That's arrogant. Maybe you're the one who needs educating.

My view is that morality is evolved thought, and in that sense is a something and not a nothing, certainly more than an individual's mere opinion. — tim wood

There are two problems with this straightaway. Firstly, opinion is no more nothing than evolved thought is nothing. Secondly, your use of "mere" is an example of loaded language and a poor representation of the position that you're supposed to be criticising. A mere opinion makes me think of the opinion that salt and vinegar flavour crisps are better than cheese and onion flavour crisps. This is clearly not what was intended. Your characterisation is uncharitable.

I'd even argue that to some degree morality is sure as arithmetic, but the world from time to time and here and there lapses into such barbarous immorality that either humanity is at times collectively both stupid and ignorant, or morality ultimately lacks apodeictic certainty (but that has some other kind of certainty). — tim wood

There's nothing there that explicitly contradicts the position you're supposed to be arguing against. You're expecting us to read between the lines in what you're saying? Okay. So you're just assuming that morality is objective morality, and that there's an objective right and wrong, and that there are obvious examples of this. Yawn.

Belief is what you choose to hold to be true without requiring objective evidence. — Txastopher

Here we go. That's a philosophical position called doxastic voluntarism. You are talking as though it is established fact, when it isn't.

I have no idea what you're referring to here, so I suppose I have no option at the moment aside from "ignoring" it. — Terrapin Station

Yes, no option at all! It's impossible for you to put any more effort in on your end, so that you actually pay attention to what I'm saying, so that I don't have to repeat myself. At least take this as a lesson and learn from it.

I'm fed up with, "I don't know what you mean because I wasn't paying attention. Do all of the work again for me". It's bad form.

Maybe it would help if you didn't just quote one little bit of a reply to you, as you did in this case. It's okay to do that in my book, but not if you don't pay sufficient attention to the important parts which you left out, as seems to be the case here. How about you try a little harder? How about you just scroll up the bloody page? No? Is that asking too much? You're a nightmare at times.

I'd have no idea what "it's the case" is supposed to refer to if it's not a synonym for facts a la either states of affairs or the colloquial "true proposition" sense.

But okay, I guess just assume that I must know. — Terrapin Station

So you're just going to deliberately ignore what I said earlier on this very point? This is what I mean when I say you're not being helpful.

How would I help you help me? I haven't the faintest idea how you're using the term "fact" based on what you've said you don't have in mind with it. — Terrapin Station

Yeah, well, I don't think I'm going to humour you, because I believe that you know what I mean enough to understand me when I say, for example, that it's the case that I'm alive. You do understand my meaning, in spite of any protestations to the contrary.

The question of what this thread is about has been foremost in my mind from the beginning. I still haven't figured it out. It may be there is no figuring it out. It may all be a dance of the defensive. I think I stepped into an ongoing argument and will step out. — Fooloso4

Jamalrob hit the nail on the head early on. It is and it isn't. It depends.

Nevertheless, I have no idea what you'd be referring to by the term, exactly. Do you want me to just pretend that I do because you don't want to try to explain it some other way? — Terrapin Station

But you're not helping me to help you. What can I do? It feels like you're just throwing your hands up in the air instead of working with me.

First, I don't even have any idea what you're referring to with "fact," because per your claims, you're neither using it in the state of affairs sense nor in the colloquial "true proposition" sense.

Facts aren't about anything except if one is sloppily using the term to be a synonym for "true proposition." — Terrapin Station

I've already shown you what I mean and explained my position. This reply from you doesn't help us move forward at all. So unless you have anything else, we're done here.

I don't know. What do you believe it is? It's funny because you understand the question, and you're effectively asking us the same thing.

Calm down, dear.
— S

Too late, you missed the bonus.

You were given an opportunity to play your favorite role, Grammar Nazi, and you missed it. You must be getting old or maybe you just spend too much time not proof reading. — Sir2u

You can't kid a kidder.

You ignored it. You offer gratuitous assertions. — creativesoul

However, all you've done is fallen prey to confirmation bias. — creativesoul

So much projection. Anyway, I think I'll join the bandwagon by vacating this discussion and leaving you in peace to argue with yourself. Have fun!

Reading a text and looking at marks.

The difference?

Understanding the meaning. — creativesoul

And the relevance...? :yawn:

The text has meaning, whereas the marks could either have meaning or not, but that can't be known either way if all we know through your unclear comment above is that they're marks. The marks could be text. They could even be the text: the one you're referring to. The text could be in English. It could be meaningful. Or it could just be random meaningless marks. You'd need to clarify.

The last point is the problem. It depends on the meaning of 'use'. I use it in the same sense that Wittgenstein does - use in practice. Reading a text is not practicing a language. A dead language is by definition no longer practiced. — Fooloso4

I agree, except that I don't actually think that it's a problem either way in the broader context of what this discussion is supposed to be about, because the text would continue to have meaning, in my sense, either way. It doesn't have to be read or practised if the meaning depends on the language rules, and the language rules don't die with the language, which is just to say that it has fallen out of use. I still go by "meaning is use" when suitably interpreted or qualified. I count historic use as a use. That would be what it means in this case. A simple and easy resolution. Meaning by language rules and meaning by use are compatible. You can't have meaning as use without implicit language rules.

Calm down, dear.

And I know precisely what the topic is about. It's about crocodiles. That's what I've been talking about this whole time. The rest of you have been talking past me.

The fact that you are alive is the fact that your body is undergoing metabolism, cell division, etc. — Terrapin Station

It relates to that fact. I am alive because of that.

But what of it? That still doesn't address my point. My point is that facts are not what they're about. So agreeing over bodily systems doesn't do anything at all. A fact is not a bodily system in my view.

Please keep in mind what I said elsewhere. If this is a dead end, be explicit about it, and don't keep pushing on to no avail. Think ahead.

How could you think that being alive is not a process, for example? — Terrapin Station

No, you need to follow my wording precisely. I didn't say that being alive is a fact. The fact is that I am alive. By my view, it is proper to state a fact in similar way to stating truth-apt statements. "Being alive" is not truth-apt. "I am alive" is truth-apt. It is a fact that I'm alive. It is the case that I'm alive. It doesn't make any sense to say that it's a fact that being alive, or that it's the case that being alive.

Am I sounding like an analytic philosopher now? :grin:

Are you alive if you're not experiencing metabolism? Cell division?

How could you think that you're not a system and part of other systems? Are you alive sans a circulatory system? — Terrapin Station

All of these questions do not indicate an understanding of my earlier point where I explained what I do and do not doubt. I don't want to keep repeating it, so perhaps you could go back and try again without me having to do so.

Sigh. Thanks for repeating this, I had overlooked it the first 500 times you said it. — Echarmion

You're welcome. It's called psychological conditioning. It's for your own good! :lol:

It wasn't intended as an argument. It was intended as a thought exercise to try to bridge the apparent failure to communicate. To perhaps bring out the hidden premises, as you call it. Oh well. — Echarmion

I really don't need a thought experiment. I know exactly where you're coming from. I just don't agree with you. The thought experiment is a failure before it even gets off the ground.

And you should know my premises by now without the need of me repeating them 500 times or more. What's left that's "hidden", except what you were getting at with that thought experiment? You could've just explicitly stated the relevant premise instead of going down the thought experiment route. It's just the same old idealist logic you had in mind behind that thought experiment. Same logic, same problem.

It certainly would not harm you to try. :smirk: — Sir2u

That expression suits me better. You should use this one: :fear:

Some of us do try, unfortunately some others that consider themselves more as Oracles than participants try to force us into believing that their way is always right and that they are never wrong. — Sir2u

I should be humble like you. :rofl:

Nothing says humble like, "That's 'Sir' to you!".

We've been over this already. I gave argument. You ignored it. You offer gratuitous assertions.

Reading presupposes understanding the meaning of a text. One cannot possibly understand the meaning of a text without using it. One cannot possibly read a text without already understanding the language it is written in.

All readers of a text are users of it's language. — creativesoul

@Fooloso4, apparently you can't understand a text without reading it or knowing the language, and reading it makes you a user of the language. I know, I don't see the logical relevance either. At least not outside of his little world with all of his implicit assumptions that not everyone shares.

His argument is a success... so long as you share all of his implicit assumptions, which you and I and others do not.

And yet they're still meaningful. And that's the problem with interpreting "meaning is use" in this awful idealist way.
— S

Wittgenstein is often implicated but is not guilty by association. — Fooloso4

:up:

But, like you go on to suggest, you can take away the "for us" and there's still a meaning.
— S

I think creativesoul agrees with this but thinks it requires an argument to demonstrate its truth. But then again, although I am a "user" of English, whatever it is he thinks he has so clearly stated evades me. — Fooloso4

The problem isn't that it requires an argument, because prior to this discussion there have been at least three discussions with pages upon pages of argument for just that. It has been the hot topic on the forum for weeks. Two of my discussions on this topic are the two most viewed discussions of the month, and my third more recent one is the most viewed of the week.

You guessed. You asked about the guess. I answered. — creativesoul

@Isaac, the Oracle has given his answer. Do not pester the Oracle with your guessing and requests for explanation. The Oracle doesn't explain. The Oracle pronounces.

Who writes in hieroglyphs? Who writes or speaks in Demotic or any form of ancient Greek? There are a few people who know how to read these languages but no one "uses" them. They are dead languages. Their use is ancient history. Unlike living languages the meaning of the terms are fixed by how they were used when they were used. — Fooloso4

And yet they're still meaningful. And that's the problem with interpreting "meaning is use" in this awful idealist way.

If no one is experiencing it right now, then it doesn't exist? If no one is using it right now, then it has no meaning? No and no.

They are for us meaningless. — Fooloso4

For us, yes. But, like you go on to suggest, you can take away the "for us" and there's still a meaning. Unless you merely define meaning as the "for us", which would be trivial and misguided.

If someone were able to decipher the texts, however, then some sense of their meaning would be understood, unless they never had a meaning to begin with. — Fooloso4

Indeed. Their meaning. The meaning of the texts. (Unless they never had one to begin with).

8.1k :party:

...to go.

You still have a long way...

But only slightly.

Your humour is improving.

Probably not at this stage, to be honest. — Isaac

Well, to be fair, it is now 24 pages later. Some people go off course far sooner, and sometimes right off the bat.

And you'd be absolutely right to ask, but it's a very big topic and each fork splits a thread like this in half making it very difficult to follow. I'm happy for now just to put the idea out there and relate it the problems of this topic. If people don't find it immediately appealing without a conclusive argument that's fine, a thread on each aspect is probably most appropriate. — Isaac

Fair enough.

Apologies, I will try to be clearer. You seem happy to say that meaning 'really is' a property of the word, blue 'really is' a property of the cup, but 'having a tendency, among humans wishing to drive nails, to be used to drive nails' cannot be a property of the hammer. I've not read yet anything I understood as a description of the factor(s) your using to make these categorisations other than that they seem obvious. — Isaac

Okay. So I'm applying whatever criteria make sense based on how the claims fall into different categories. That does seem kind of obvious to me, but I'm trying to think how I can explain it beyond what I've already said. You accept that "it has" can be used in a loose, non-literal sense, right? That's basically all I think is going on in some cases but not others. So that the word has meaning is of a loose, non-literal sense. I'm just saying something along the lines that it means something relative to the corresponding language rule. And that it has a use is like this also, in that it doesn't have such a property, it just means that it is such that it could be used for something or other. And even the blue cup is a bit like this, because it is more complex than the properties of the cup, it is about the wavelengths of the light reflecting off of it. I don't go as far as the early Wittgenstein and say that the world is composed of facts. I'm not sure what facts are, ontologically. And use is more conceptual or linguistic, not like a physical property. But the blue is a physical property. It is a physical property of a physical entity, light. That it is blue is that it is of a certain range of wavelength.

I meant that it really is the case that the word means something, and that the circumstances of the cup mean that it is correct to say that the cup is blue.

But it isn't really the case that the hammer has a property which we can rightly call its use. Not unless we adopt that funny way of speaking which I decline to adopt precisely because I find it to be a funny way of speaking. It has properties, and because of those properties, we can loosely talk about it "having" a use in a non-literal way. And that's the end of it, as far as I'm concerned. I can't stop other people from using language however they want to.

Kant-Schmant.

Anyway, the moral of this story is to stop bloody conflating two distinct things, because - surprise, surprise - doing so causes problems.

Now I've made that point, you can all go back to ignoring my good advice and doing this anyway. Philosophy is doomed so long as ways of thinking like this are dominant.

But I don't know how it makes sense to say of anything that it's not part of a system that it's not a process. — Terrapin Station

But I doubt it when you say things like that, because to me it seems like you make your own self-fulfilling prophecies.

I'm saying that to say that it's a fact that I'm alive at the time of typing this is not to say anything about a system or process, but only to say that it is the case that I'm alive at the time of writing this. We both know what that means. If it wasn't the case, then how could you be reading this?

That I'm alive is not a system or a process. It is just a fact. And pointing out systems or processes related to the fact won't change that. That I'm related to my mother doesn't mean that I am my mother. That my mother is at her home doesn't mean that I am at her home. And that I talk about myself doesn't mean that I'm talking about my mother. The connections you seem to be making seem illogical.

It seems in form to be the same logical error of conflating an orange with related things, like our experience of an orange. People should just stop doing this.

Right. In colloquial speech, "fact" is often used as a synonym for "true proposition" (although "proposition" in colloquial speech isn't nearly as well-defined as it is in analytic philosophy, and almost no one would define in as analytic philosophers do). Analytic philosophers, and by extension the sciences, etc., do not use "fact" that way. And there are reasons for this, due to analysis, the utility of making certain distinctions, etc. — Terrapin Station

No, I don't think that it has anything to do with that. It's not that it is commonly used as synonymous with a true proposition, it's that they have things in common, as early Wittgenstein noted with his picture theory of language.

If you're not using them the same, but facts are somehow about something in your view, however you're using the term would be a mystery to me, Maybe it's stemming from unfamiliarity with the analytic phil sense of proposition, though. — Terrapin Station

You can see it straight away when I talk about them. Here is a true statement: "I am alive". And what is the corresponding fact? That I'm alive.

Which is a fact on the analytic phil and standard scientific usage. — Terrapin Station

Then I guess I reject that usage. *Shrugs*.

The only thing I can offer you at this point is a bit of armchair psychology, namely that I think your problem is that you are imagining a scenario without humans, but when you are then trying to look at that which remains, you are looking at it from a human view (in this case, literally imagining a yellow sign with text on it).

As an exercise, let's imagine the only humans left are blind, and have been for generations. How would you explain to them what a yellow sign with text on it even is? — Echarmion

But I think that your problem is imagining that it's a problem that I'm imagining it, when that isn't a problem at all, it's actually just an old Berkeleyan argument which is deceptive and illogical.

And no, if you try to make my position subjective, with all of this "looks like" and "yellow" and whatnot, then you're doing it wrong. I'm not a subjectivist, so I don't go by a subjectivist interpretation. I'm an objectivist and go by my own objectivist interpretation. You'd have to apply the right interpretation to avoid drawing an irrelevant conclusion.

Why would it supposedly matter whether I could or couldn't explain it to them? I don't accept that anything of relevance hinges on that to begin with. If you manage to justify this hidden premise of yours then I'll accept that it matters, but until then, this does nothing.

And how can we possibly judge how to "best see" meaning if no true statements can be made about what meaning is?
— Echarmion

By which works best to achieve our goals. — Isaac

It's actually the opposite of it being the case that no true statements can be made about what meaning is, and that's where I have some sympathy with this pragmatic approach. There's nothing stopping me from adopting the definitions of others, which would logically lead me to trivial truths, except that I don't think that it would be very helpful.

Yes, and I've asked you several times now for an explanation of how we judge which arguments are true, if not by empirical methods. — Isaac

I go with whatever explanation seems to do the job and is plausible enough. My method is to consider things like ordinary language use and logical consequences.

Obviously, I think that these arguments represent "knowing when we've got there".
— Echarmion

Yes, but others don't, so now what? — Isaac

It then becomes about what criteria for knowledge works best. I had this in my other discussion, where someone seemed to be suggesting that our experience plays a bigger role than I judged to be necessary or productive, and also that we require certitude or greater certitude where again I didn't judge that to be necessary or productive, given where it leads.

You'll have to spell out the connection there as I'm not seeing it. As far as I'm concerned, I've just said that it is unproblematic to refer to the use an object is generally put to as a property of that object, wheras Heidegger made up a load of shit about 'being' and then tried to claim German was the best language because he was a Nazi. Not seeing the similarity. — Isaac

:rofl:

Well, you made me doubt myself, so I googled "Heidegger" and "hammer" and stuff came up. The hammer is apparently a "ready-to-hand". :rofl:

But this is exactly what your opposition here are doing with words and meaning.

I don't get why you're turning this molehill into a mountain. It has properties which could make it a {meaningful word}, like almost {any other pattern of marks}. But the properties of the object and what the object could {mean to a language user} are two distinct things. I prefer to be clear and logical, so I reject a conflation of the two. — Isaac

I don't doubt that! I don't doubt that even if you replace {mean to a language user} with {mean}! I never said that they weren't two distinct things!

Do you remember what the issue here is actually about? Or what my position actually is? Because that doesn't seem to address it.

I'm trying to argue that the meaning of a word is a property of the word, by showing how the reaction of other objects is essential to the definition of loads of properties which we routinely call properties of the object. I'm thus saying that the fact that words require humans to interpret need not prevent us from treating their meaning as a property. — Isaac

There's a lot in there that I simply don't accept at face value, and I would therefore need to see your support.

It seems to me that your argument is that for some properties, the fact that they require some interaction to manifest them is trivial, for others it is non-trivial but irrelevant to possession of a property and for a third group it is very relevant and effectively prohibits us from treating the property as a property of the object in question. Your basis for this seems to be "that's just the way thing are... obviously!". — Isaac

I judge these things on a case by case basis. And merely pointing out that it seems to you as though my basis is, "that's just the way thing are... obviously!", is about as helpful as being handed a bottomless bucket in a boat that is overflowing with water. If it were so that that's my basis, then how do you expect me to rectify that? You'd have to be a lot more specific for starters. It's not at all clear what exactly you're even talking about.