This is why he states that the person might gaze at those words trying to find out a common factor. — javi2541997

Yes. I think that's right.

It is similar to a metaphorical use. — javi2541997

I agree with that. But what you say implies also that this use is also different from the paradigm cases that are usually offered to explain what they word means. "Metaphor" is a slippery word, so I don't think there is any future in arguing about whether it is correct or not to classify this use as a metaphor or not. We seem to have a pretty much common understanding of what it going on here.

my commitment is absolutely minimal; so that in principal nothing could show that I had made a mistake, — Antony Nickles

The shift from worrying about true or false to commitment and retraction is definitely helpful. One would have to how this works in the context of incorrigible first person statements of experience. The assumption that the language is being used in standard, or at least shared, ways would be one point. The possibility of self-correction is another. (Austin mentions both of these.)

Isn't there a doctrine - it is present in my memory, but I've lost any sense of where it can be found - that logical truths are true in all circumstances and consequently empty and trivial. In other words, I'm not sure that this idea is distinctively Austinian. I believe that Wittgenstein relies on a similar point in his argument about "I am in pain". It is not only first person statements that are incorrigible.

Much discussion of this seems to rely on a clear distinction between statements that are true or false and statements that are neither. I doubt if either Austin or Wittgenstein would really want to defend the usual binary (simplistic, context-independent) position. Certainly, it seems to me that "I am in pain" has similarities to both. On the one hand, it is like "Ouch" (an expression) and on the other, it is like "He is in pain" (true/false). Wouldn't a similar point apply to "I see a turquoise patch"? There are differences, of course. For example, I don't know what the equivalent of "Ouch" would be for "I see a turquoise patch". Not sure where this goes.

The point being that philosophy hasn’t wanted to know the truth, or knowledge, but just to never get egg on its face — Antony Nickles

That is certainly the outcome of philosophical practice at least since Descartes. But I'm not sure it is fair to put it in that way. I would rather say that philosophers have become so focussed on avoiding error and so fascinated with a particular truth-game, that they have lost perspective and tried to deny the truths that they cannot pack into their box.

his approach just didn't seem to me to get off the ground; — Banno

I was inclined to think that Carnap is not actually particularly interested in Ayer's problem, but focused on the practices that we call science. What he says makes sense in that context, but it is true that in Ayer's (and Austin's) context, it falls apart.

Plato does not conclude that all we see is shadows, he presents that as a symbolic representation to elucidate how the average person is wrong in one's assumptions about the nature of reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, he is cautious about it presentation of it. He's no fool. But that caution is eerily reminiscent of Austin's remark "There's the bit where you say it and the bit where you take it away". Only Plato gets the bit where you take it away in before he says it.

Perhaps it is a symbolic representation. If so, it is a representation like the Escher staircases.

Surely Plato does differentiate between the Forms and the ordinary world? The traditional view, as I understand it, is that he believes that the Forms are in some sense superior to the ordinary world. How would you describe that difference?

And as I explained, it is the common way of using language which misleads us in this way. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm afraid the question is whether it is us or Plato who is being misled.

Sentences can be used in "utterances", somewhat of a term of art for philosophers, — Banno

Forgive my pedantry, but "utter" in this sense seems to me to be a revival of the classic and original use of "utter", which survives in the law. When one uses a forged £5 note, in law, one "utters" it. When one presents a forged passport, one "utters" it. And so on. Creating the forgery is distinct from using it and the creator does not necessarily use it. So the distinction matters.

When one utters "I name this ship" in the right circumstances, one uses the words. We're not used to it, but it isn't a philosophical invention.

This reminds me of Austin's arguments on chapter VII, — javi2541997

There's a intricate issue here. There's no doubt that the meaning of "cricket" is being extended but I don't think it is being transformed in quite the way that a metaphorical use would extend it. "Cricket" is defined as a noun and we understand how it is constituted. But "cricket" in Austin's example is being used as an adjective, in a different category. This change, or stretching, is different from a metaphorical use.

The point though is that ordinary language misleads us when we discuss the nature of reality, therefore the philosopher must be very wary about this. — Metaphysician Undercover

Whether ordinary language misleads us is precisely the question. Though there's no doubt that language can mislead - as it is clearly misleading Plato when he concludes that all we see is shadows.

What really happens in the act of seeing is that the brain produces an image, — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm afraid I don't agree that the brain produces an image. If it did, there would be a question how we perceive the image that the brain produces.

Clearly, the first is meant literally and the second metaphorically. — RussellA

I can only see the front of it. — RussellA

If you know that there's another side to the apple, you know that you are looking at a three-dimensional object, so you are not seeing in two dimensions. Seeing in two dimensions occurs when you see a picture of an apple. You do not confuse the image of the apple with an apple; you do not confuse the back of the picture with the back of the apple, (except when you are deceived and do not know which you are seeing). Hence seeing in two dimensions is the metaphor, not the reality.

I'm not here to help you understand Austin's Sense and Sensibilia, — RussellA

I'm sorry if I misunderstood. I thought that helping each other to understand Austin's text was the point of the thread.

Therefore, both the following statements are true: "I can only see in two dimensions" and "I can also see in three dimensions", dependent on whether the word "see" is being used literally or metaphorically. — RussellA

Which use is literal and which is metaphorical?

Metaphors are a legitimate part of language. — RussellA

I don't think there's any doubt of that, though "metaphor" is a somewhat slippery term. I'll put the book on my wish-list.

But how does this help us understand this topic?

And this demonstrates why, when doing philosophy, we must adhere to rigorous philosophical meanings of the terms, — Metaphysician Undercover

Perhaps there can be specialized philosophical terms. But they can only amount to a dialect of English. So ordinary language is inescapable.

Consider precisely what "good" means in the context of Plato's philosophy. — Metaphysician Undercover

An interesting line of argument. But I can't engage with it without reading or re-reading the texts and I'm afraid I simply don't have the time to do that. Sorry.

Yep, but it is perhaps a minimum achievement for an interpretation or translation of a statement in one language into another. — Banno

It applies well enough to the kicked wood/door. But it might be more complicated to apply to the duck-rabbit. It is satisfied in an objective sense, but not everyone always sees both interpretations straight off, so you would have to phrase it carefully.

There was a recent, very odd discussion in the Case for Transcendental Idealism thread - ↪Gregory, ↪Corvus and ↪RussellA apparently insisting that they see only in two dimensions, only imagining the third... I couldn't make sense of it. — Banno

Perhaps they are not aware that our ears deliver spatial information about the source of the sound "directly"; however, the information is deduced from the difference between the information from one ear and the other. That's why the sound from earphones often sounds as if it were located in your own head. Binocular vision delivers spatial information in the same way as an old-fashioned range-finder; however,, that method only works at limited distance. Further away, we use internal clues.

However, I'm sure that we learn about space and that action in space is critical to understanding it. But ideas about what is perceived are also important, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone who was convinced by the arguments "saw" in two dimensions; but it is an interpretation, just as seeing in three dimensions is an interpretation.

That's not a coherent view, I know.

But the reason I drove her home was that I promised - an ought from an is, in a manner of speaking, that at least superficially contradicts your "Reason cannot get an ought from an is...". There's more here. — Banno

That sounds like an interesting discussion.

Which raises the question, who is actually doing the reading? — Banno

We'll never know.

Distribution lists are tricky. I usually leave someone off and get rebuked.

If the person acts on it, it must be a "real" good, because it caused the person to act. Whether it is later judged as being a mistaken act is irrelevant to whether or not the good which is acted on is "real". It is necessary that this "good" the one which is acted on, is real in order that it may be said to cause action. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, that's one way of putting it. But I can't see that it is Plato's way. Surely, for him, there is only one real good, i.e. the Form of the Good? The good things of this world may participate in the Form, but they are "shadows" of the Good and so not real (really) good. I accept that the addict who pursues their addiction believes that it is a good thing. But for the rest of us, before and after the action(s), it isn't. This is the problem of akrasia. I don't see why you insist that alcohol is a good thing for an alcoholic, just because the alcoholic believes that it is - though that could be said if one had a thoroughly subjectivist view of what good is. But that would be incompatible with any Platonic view, so I don't suppose it will appeal to you.

I agree that the alcohol can be regarded as a cause of the alcoholic's actions (in some sense of "cause"). But nothing follows as to whether it is a good thing for the alcoholic or not.

I can see that you are trying to develop a solution to a key problem with the theory of Forms. But your concept of cause is very different from modern usage, though it may fit with the Greek concept of aitia. However, there are other problems with the theory of Forms that make it hard for me to see much benefit in "solving" this one.

I'm inclined to think that this discussion, interesting though it may be, does not fit well with the main topic of this thread. So perhaps we should leave this there, until another opportunity arises.

On the two languages issue, Austin reports Ayer as saying that "..they find it 'convenient' to extend this usage (sc. that what is experienced in delusive cases is a sense-datum) to all cases', on the old, familiar ground that 'delusive and veridical perceptions' don't differ in 'quality' and that he is disposed to accept the recommendation with the comment "'it does not in itself add to our knowledge of empirical facts, or even make it possible for us to express anything that we could not have expressed without it. At the best it enables us only to refer to familiar facts in a clearer and more convenient way.' (P 87 Sense and Sensibilia. This is hardly a ringing endorsement. One wonders why he is so cautious.

Translating "I see a table" into sense-datum language (a patch of colour of this shape here and a patch of another colour of that shape there) would be extremely cumbersome and the only advantage that I can see would be to maybe remove the possibility of being wrong. I don't rule out the possibility that such a representation might be useful in some circumstances. But clarity and convenience are hard to discern.

"You kicked the door" IFF "You kicked the painted piece of wood" — Banno

Yes, of course. I'm only saying that having the same truth value isn't the end of the story and so isn't the same as equivalence for all purposes. A Plea for Excuses does indeed take the point further.

And so, “…there will sometimes be no one right way of saying what is seen…”, not a “surface” or a sense-data. Or, as Ludvig puts it: “it isn't clear that there is any description that is truly neutral” perhaps forgetting that there is always a context for a case. I will only point out that at other times there will be a right way of saying what is seen. — Antony Nickles

Yes, I agree with both points.

May I gently point out that there seems to be a typo here. There is a member called "LUDVIG" on this site, but that isn't me, but you were quoting me. I wouldn't want to miss something.

It's just how often the term appears in Google Books, — Banno

Thanks. That makes sense.

It is odd, though, that "J. L. Austin" is apparently mentioned in 1900, when he was born in 1911. I know - it's someone else with the same name. But since, so far as I can see, the same is happening for both the others, it seems that even full names are much more common that one might have thought.

Comparative Ngrams — Banno

These are quite fun and I'm guessing they show something about their work through the decades. But I don't know (and don't understand the Wikipedia article) about Ngrams. Is there a layperson's explanation anywhere? One axis is years, so that's clear. The other is a percentage, but percentage of what?

However, no thanks. — Antony Nickles

Is the offer you are declining the project

we could investigate the mechanics and criteria of those practices in various contexts. — Antony Nickles

. I confess I don't feel tremendously enthused at the prospect in the abstract.

Having removed ourselves from the “empirical propositional” and only relying on different methods of “descriptions”, “we cannot properly claim that it is either true or false.” — Antony Nickles

what I take Ayer to be doing is abstracting the discussion from a factual one so we are always correct, despite it only being about our description, with the actual goal that we are never wrong about what we see (sense-data). — Antony Nickles

Do you mean that Ayer represents the question as which "language" to use so that he can choose between the options on the grounds that sense-datum language cannot be wrong and for that reason is more "clear and convenient" for the special purposes of philosophy? That makes sense. But I think the two languages are not equivalent precisely because one is true or false and the other is incorrigible.

Now "I kicked the wooden door" might well be logically equivalent to "I kicked the painted piece of wood". — Banno

In some sense of "logically equivalent" that's probably true. But the different descriptions might make a serious difference. "I shot the target" and "I shot the heir to the crown" are not by any means criminally equivalent. But it would be odd, wouldn't it, to say that "the wooden door" and "the painted piece of wood" are interpretations of anything.

But it is harder to say "I see a rabbit" is equivalent to "I see a duck". — Banno

The point here is that the two descriptions are logically not equivalent and yet both duck and rabbit are valid interpretations, so both "I see a rabbit" and "I see a duck" can be said when what I see is a single picture. Rorschach images are a different kind of case with some of the same features.

So in the end, I think that Austin hasn't thought these examples through. I can see the general relevance to perception, but the exact points are not clear.

Austin shows how logical positivism grossly oversimplifies the things we do with words, — Banno

Yes, he certainly does that. The pity of it is that no-one seems to follow his example. Philosophy still loves its classifications and its doctrines.

Proper understanding reveals that "the real good" is the good apprehended by the individual, as one's goal or objective. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't know what makes this understanding "proper". It is defensible as a view. But people often do things that they think are in their interests, but actually bring them harm. Moreover, it clearly wasn't Plato's view. (Only philosophers can understand what the real good is)

The passage you quoted from me

My suggested explanation doesn't even eliminate the counterfactual phenomenon; it simply provides a fully explanation of the causes that produce it. — Ludwig V

has a typo. It should have read "My suggested explanation doesn't even eliminate the counterfactual phenomenon; it simply provides a FULLER explanation of the causes that produce it". So I'm not arguing that the kind of explanation I'm citing explains potential away.

Hume seems to be in the position that inductive reason (because it is based on habit and custom") can only offer us probable knowledge of the world, hence it cannot be a good ground for believing in the world. — Corvus

I didn't realize that your question to me was in the context of Hume. You did drop a hint, but I didn't pick it up. My fault. That does change things. However, your sketch above is an abbreviation of his argument, which does not reflect what he thought he was doing.

Hume was happy to employ sceptical arguments against the idea of "hidden causes" or "hidden powers", as he refers to them. But he was scathing about what he calls "pyrrhonist" (radical sceptical) arguments. Not that he thought that they could be refuted; he just thought they should be ignored. His argument about association of ideas, habit and custom was intended to provide, not a refutation, but a basis for ignoring such arguments. He relies on past experience, for example, as a "full and complete proof" when he argues that a naturalistic explanation of a supposed miracle will always be more plausible than the supernatural one. As Austin says in Sense and Sensibilia "There's the bit where you say it, and the bit where you take it back".

So I agree that there's no deductive argument for positing that things you don't perceive continue to exist (A). But there is a considerable weight of (reasonable) evidence against it. In my opinion, it is at least enough to put the burden of proof on the your idea that things cease to exist when not perceived - the contradictory of A. Curiously enough, there's no deductive argument for that, either. Stalemate. In another discussion, we could ask each other what's next, but perhaps that will do for now.

it's not true of Russell and Moore, nor of the Oxford Realists or Popper's intellectual children, and Quine naturalised metaphysics but would not call it that. — Banno

Yes. I'm afraid I over-generalized.

So what is it all about? It's about certainty. All this frippery hides Ayer's actual interest, which is to find (or invent) firm grounds for our statements about the way things are. — Banno

I found it very hard to get to grips with IX, but I think I've finally got my head more or less round it. I was not entirely happy with the discussion of " see as", especially in the context of "The speck is a star" (and is the star a speck - I suppose so.) Austin cites Wittgenstein here, but W is not as comprehensive here (at least in the PI as he so often is. This links to the point that Austin also makes, that the "same" object can be described in more than one way (as in the example of kicking the door and kicking some painted wood.) I was also reminded of Kripke's discussion of Hesperus, Phosphorus and Venus.

There's a lot more to be said here and I'm not sure that Austin totally excludes the possibility that the idea of sense-data, or something quite like them may not have a place.

Calling seeing the duck-rabbit as a duck (or a rabbit) an interpretation is not quite right, but captures the point that the same object can be seen in two ways. We know it is the same object because we have the third description as a mediator - actually, there are two mediating descriptions. One is the duck-rabbit. The other is the description of the marks on the paper. But these, I think, are yet more interpretations. In fact, it isn't clear that there is any description that is truly neutral. In the "ordinary" practice of interpretation, there is something that counts as the original, which is what is to be interpreted.

In most ordinary life, we can sort out how to proceed. But when our access is so limited as it is in astronomy, I'm not sure that things are so easy. It's very tempting to interpret the specks we see, from which we deduce the reality that lies behind the appearances, as data. I suppose we can classify these cases as exceptional, but still, we've given Ayer his first move. However, there is, so to speak, a real speck that we see, so this is not the incorrigible data that Ayer was looking for.

Still - on to X and incorrigibility. It was interesting to see a solid argument that the philosophical use of the term is technical, or specialized.

I know too much to want to get into color and shape here (I take it back, can we call them qualities and be done with it?) — Antony Nickles

I also know too much to want to argue with you. I had in mind only the cautious idea that "abstract" might have its uses. As so often, we ought always to consider the meaning of "abstract" in a particular context and in the light of what counts as "concrete" in that context.

As Austin might say:- "This discussion of appearance and reality is too abstract. We need to consider some concrete examples".

The use of "quality" as a classification of "colour", "shape", etc. is arguably a philosophical invention (Aristotle?), which survives only by it's contrast with whatever "part" of an "object" is not a quality. "Relation" is a similar term. "Object" here could mean "substance" or "essence" or, in more recent times, as whatever is named when a name is bestowed or referred to when a referring expression is used. (The point is, of course that "quality" in this use, as in all the other uses you identify, is part of a language-game, only not a natural or ordinary language game - context again.)

Of course, I see the cup when I turn and look at the cup. — Corvus

You still don't answer the question. So you still believe that you would have to accept the counterfactual if you did and that you would then have to admit that it is a ground for believing it exists when you don't perceive it.

The next question is whether you accept that you exist when you are perceiving an object and whether you perceive yourself when you are perceiving an object.

But here I am talking about generalization from a single case or two (in the sense of without objects). Abstraction is a harder practice to justify. — Antony Nickles

Oh, I never intended to imply that generalization from a single case or two was not extremely rash (to put it mildly).

As to abstraction, I intended an "ordinary language" sense of the word, not a view of the debate about nominalism. The Cambridge Dictionary definition is "existing as an idea, feeling, or quality, not as a material object". This, to me, fits with, for example, Austin's insistence that not everything is a material object. Numbers would be an prime example. The Cambridge Dictionary gives, truth, beauty, happiness, faith and confidence as examples of abstractions. I have always understood properties like colour and shape to be abstractions, but perhaps I'm wrong. I noticed that you said that it was a "harder practice to justify" rather than

Not taking into consideration multiple examples (the practice in multiple situations, contexts), as it were, of how things "are" (as Dewey might say I believe), is to intellectually theorize separate from actual cases (an event with attendant circumstances). — Antony Nickles

Yes, quite so. And theory without application to cases is empty. But theory with application is not. So it's not an issue about theory in itself.

After all, saying it is "meaningless" to even talk of certain things is, in an important way, to make a metaphysical claim about them. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Quite so. That's the essence of what the "analytic" philosophers believed, and explains why they spent their time talking about language.

A rather famous quote on this problem: "....Therefore it is possible that I walk around the ostensible apple and discover that there is no apple...." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Does Sebastian Rödl consider the possibility that I might walk round the apple and discover that there is an apple?


You repeat your claim three times but don't answer my questions.

Do you accept that if you were to turn and look at the cup that is holding your coffee, you would see it? Is that not a reason for believing that it still exists? — Ludwig V

. I take that as meaning that you think there is something wrong with the question. Could you explain?

These arguments both, can only remove the potential of the underlying matter or substance, by replacing it with something actual. This is the actuality of God. The problem though, is that the reality of potential cannot simply be replaced by the actuality of God, because this produces determinism, which is inconsistent with our experience. Therefore to maintain the reality of free will we must maintain the reality of potential. However, since the concept of free will in human beings cannot account for the agent involved in the selection from the possibilities which underly the natural dispositions you refer to, such as molecular structures, we do not avoid the need for the Will of God. — Metaphysician Undercover

Why would I want to remove the potential of the underlying matter or substance? All I want to do is to explain it, by giving a fuller account of what happens when one billiard ball strikes another. My suggested explanation doesn't even eliminate the counterfactual phenomenon; it simply provides a fully explanation of the causes that produce it.

There's nothing wrong with determinism. It is the idea that free will is inconsistent with it that is problematic.

I don't see any need for the Will of God. What, exactly, do we need it for?

The desire to anticipate the implications of our actions is also a motivation for a general explanation. If there is anything Austin is good at, it is showing that abstraction is the death of truth. It seems clever to find one criteria to judge everything by (true or false? Real or not?) because it doesn’t change, which makes for predictable outcomes. But a general account also flattens out distinctions, which are exactly what will inform us of what might happen in a particular instance. — Antony Nickles

Yes. But I think that abstraction and generalization (which, despite Berkeley, I do not think are the same thing) are also sources of truth. So let's not over-generalize about it. Pragmatism is probably the best policy here.

We are talking about the basis for scepticism regarding the external world. — Corvus

I agree that scepticism is a fundamental starting-point for this debate. But there's a question of the burden of proof. Your challenge to me is to provide a reason for believing that the cup that holds your coffee exists when you don't perceive it. Do you accept that if you were to turn and look at it, you would see it? Is that not a reason for believing that it still exists?

You either don't accept the counterfactual or don't accept that the counterfactual implies that the cup exists when you don't perceive it.

Remember the part about how words don't affect the world? If you think that the cup exists when you perceive it and doesn't exist when you don't, you believe that your perceiving affects the world. Most people, I think, believe that it does not - at least in paradigm cases like your cup of coffee.

I think the counter-factual is a reason for believing that your cup of coffee exists whether you perceive it or not. So I think that the burden of proof is on you. So I ask you what reason you have for not believing that the cup exists whether you perceive it or not?

You might also like to look up Berkeley's argument for believing that he does not perceive himself when he perceives the cup and yet believes in his own existence, and then for believing that his perceptions must have a cause, that he is not the cause and hence that God exists even though he does not perceive God. (You don't have to be a theist here. You could just believe in external objects as the cause of your perceptions instead of God.)

For Ayer, statements about objects just are statements about sense data. — Banno

Exactly. But it depends on the linguistic version of the issue. The question is, whether the two versions are equivalent. However, sense-datum language implies a general scepticism about external objects. Ordinary language does not. So can we not conclude that the two versions are not equivalent and hence not inter-translatable?

This is the case even when I pick up a cup with my hand and look into it. — Corvus

You have put you finger on what gets left out of the debate. I think that even Austin accepts the dissection of perception out of our lives and to a large extent overlooks the huge contribution that our actions in the world modify how we perceive it. Our perceptions are not like images on a screen. There is a feed-back between perception and action. Ayer nearly gets there when he says that prediction is crucial, but misses the point that predictions are not only based on sense-data but on the results of actions.

I think that what needs to be said about the tree is 1) you can't cut down a tree (in one sense of "cut down") with 1) words, 2) a fishing net, 3) a screwdriver ... More generally, there are things we cannot do with words, and there are things we can do with words. The problem then arises with the philosophical division between words and things. That's the bit that creates unnecessary problems. But words are also part of the world and words are also things in the world. The distinction between the two may have uses for certain purposes, but if misapplied, just generates false puzzles.

Oh good. — frank

Careful, now. I also think that the idea that I'm living in a Matrix situation is an implausible fantasy. In particular, I know that the truth of the matter is far stranger than Matrix proposes
.

As I put this above, Austin is pointing out our sufficient ordinary criteria in order to normalize how we address the situations involving "real" vs. "appearance"; in the instance of the other essay, rather than addressing everything as subject to the question: true or false? — Antony Nickles

Actually, if you are saying that perhaps in this context "real" and "unreal" are more important than "true" or "false", I think you may have a point. After all, part of the problem is that it seems that everything we want to describe can be equally well described in sense-datum language and in ordinary (natural) language. So truth/falsity is arguably not the issue.

You've been watching too much Amy Schumer. — Antony Nickles

I've never even heard of her. Who is she? Is she a suitable life model for a ancient retired male WASP philosopher?

It's not illogical. If you think it is, could you show how? — frank

I'm not sure what "it" refers to here. I thought my question suggested that I thought that my view that I am a brain in a vat is not illogical. That was intentional.

However, perhaps I haven't understood what you mean by "illogical". ?

Or perhaps you think that I think that the concept of a brain in a vat is illogical. I don't. It is a very odd description, somewhat like describing music on a violin as the sound of catgut vibrating. The overtones are clear - and no doubt deliberate.

Just assume that terrible things are going to happen at any time, and then when they do happen you won't be surprised. Does that help? — Antony Nickles

Thanks for your concern.

I'll just make sure that my back-ups are up to date and then get on with it.

As you don't quite say, bad things happen - and not only on the internet. Get Plan B in place and then get on with it.

Austin’s response was something like, “see the beetle is a something and a nothing, a clear contradiction.” — Richard B

That's interesting. But it is curious that Austin's reaction would suit Wittgenstein fine. The idea of private experiences makes them a something and a nothing, which is a contradiction. Ergo, the idea of private experience is self-contradictory. QED.

There is a difference between having no logical ground of believing in the existence of X, and the actual existence of X. — Corvus

I think the problem here is that you do not believe in the existence of unperceived objects and need an argument to prove them. I believe in the existence of unperceived objects and expect you to give me a reason not to. It's not a promising start for an argument, is it?

Berkeley doesn't do much better, either.



I think I'll wait and see what happens in VIII ff.

how would one know they are hacked when the point is for the hacker not to reveal they are hacking someone? — Antony Nickles

Well, that's a question. My antivirus does notify me about trackers, though. And ransomware needs to draw attention to itself.

Thanks for this.

Nothing's perfect. I find it reassuring that someone else has used the site and not come to visible harm. There's no guarantee that the anti-virus software is always right, either.



Thanks for the reassurance.

I will download the book.

Whatever you may say about brain in vat, it's not illogical, and neither is indirect realism. — frank

I am a brain in a vat. How could it be illogical?

I know I'm breaking the rules.

But we've retreated to dogma and playing games. However, the orthodox "brain in a vat" thought experiment is just a game as well, only it has a pompous name. That's my point. It works if, and only if, you follow the rules. But the rules are deliberately designed to force you to a conclusion. So it is not argument, as such. An argument proceeds from agreed premises to a conclusion, not from an assumed conclusion through a set of rules designed to enforce it.

Which makes me consider that one of Austin's motivations, that I grant appear hidden, is to find (or defend) a truth between metaphysical certainty and radical skepticism (which would make his concerns less than trivial). — Antony Nickles

That's a very interesting way of putting it. Austin has to be familiar with the doctrines. But it has to be part of a more complicated version of the official programme. That's not an objection.

If the context doesn't make it clear, [only] then I am entitled to ask 'How do you mean? . — Austin, Other Minds, p.87 (emphasis in bold added)

Somehow I think that Austin has not quite got his act together. I take it that he is concerned about, for example, the difference between appearance and reality, where there is a claim that nothing is real except appearances and the distinction between between the real and the unreal has been (in our view) over-generalized. He wants (needs to) rule that distinction out, (i.e. show that the question "How do you mean?" cannot be answered in this context). But he doesn't quite get that far.

There is no logical ground for me to believe the world exists during my sleep, because I no longer perceive the world until waking up to consciousness. — Corvus

Well, if you are asleep, I would have thought that you are not in a position to believe (or disbelieve) anything.

Well, what about dreams, you say? If dreams prove anything, they prove that if you do believe anything in your sleep, you would be well advised to review it when you wake up.

"because I no longer perceive the world until waking up to consciousness." You'll enjoy Berkeley's Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human knowledge or Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. You'll be disappointed in the end, though. The thing is, given that you cannot prove that things exist when you do not perceive them, you cannot prove that they don't, either.

I don't say that there are no cases where things cease to exist when I no longer perceive them. But I do say that there are some things that continue to exist when I no longer perceive them. On your account, you have decided that "exists" and "perceive" mean the same thing. I accept what I understand to be normal usage. We use the words in different ways. Why does it matter?

It is not something a priori problem. — Corvus

Sorry, I don't understand this. Typo somewhere?

I think the back of my head exists when I don't perceive it - which is most of the time. I think the other side of the coin I'm holding exists even though I don't perceive it. Will that do?

Therefore you cannot change the world or objects in the world with your words. — Corvus

Hey! There is something we agree on. So can we also agree that how we think about (conceptualize) our world changes us and therefore it? Or are we not part of the world?

But that was the impression being created and propagated by his blinded followers. — Corvus

OK. I have no brief to speak for his followers. Either we deal with them separately, or we ignore them.

There is connection between words and mental events and activities. — Corvus

.. and mental events are not part of the world?

If you're contemplating the possibility that you're in the Matrix, you can. — frank

If I'm contemplating the possibility that I'm in the Matrix, I'm also contemplating the possibility that the Matrix doesn't work. In fact, all those clever scientists have already informed me that the world is very different from what I think it is, so I know it doesn't work. But then, the whole business gets upset because I'm already in a brain in a vat.

See your imaginative conjectures? Who are "we"? Do we always change the world? With language? Can you change the tree on the road with your words? — Corvus

Well, the answer to your last question must be No. If you define the problem as the connection between words and the world, you have built that answer in to the question.

But what is at stake is not merely words and things, but how we think of things, and how that affects how we live. The concept of "the lived world" or, better, "the world as we live in it" is helpful here.

I suggest that we can recognize that the distinction between words and things may be useful and appropriate in certain contexts (A rose by any other name would smell as sweet) and that a generalization to everything in every context is extremely dubious, not to say puzzling.

Words are not separate from the world, but part of it; they are also things in the world. In any case, the focus on the relationship between words and (other) things is not always helpful. Not all words, to put it as constructively as I can, stand in the same relationship to things. How do you apply this idea to "and", "if", "not"? Anyway things are not the only things in the world (events, states, processes, etc. etc.). Are mental objects things in the world? Numbers? (No, they are not just words. Different languages use different words to refer to the same numbers.)

I note here that Austin also refers to "non-verbal" reality. In one way this is perfectly natural, and is provided for in natural (ordinary) language. In another way, it is very puzzling, because it can be taken as suggesting that no language can "fully describe" or "fully capture" the whole of reality. I'm sure Austin is fully aware of all that, so I assume that he intends to take advantage of what is provided for in natural language without saying anything about the generalization. I don't have an answer here and suspect that there can't be one. My preferred solution is that this is a false dilemma, but I don't know how to prove it.

You are right to point out that words don't do things. People do. But communication can only take place because they use words in the same way. Humpty Dumpty was partly right (think of that rose again) but also partly wrong. Communication would break down if you decided to use "platypus" in the way the rest of us use "rose" (without telling us) - and so on. Call it objective or inter-subjective, it is meaningful to talk about what "rose" and "platypus" mean.

The revolutions of Copernicus and Newton were not simply discoveries. They involved thinking about things in a different way. The effect on how (Western European) people thought of themselves in the world was dramatic. The revolutions of QM and Relativity also involved changing how we think of things and also profoundly affect how we think of ourselves in the world. Nor is it just a question of science. Religious and cultural movements can also bring about profound change and change the world that we live in. Luther's Reformation. Paine's defence of the common man. Capitalism. Marxism. That's where philosophy comes in.

Here, one cannot fail to notice the impression that the whole motivation seems to prove the opposing interlocutors views are either confused or wrong, rather than trying to see the issue from a fair, reasonable and constructive point of view. — Corvus

I think that is a bit unfair. Austin undoubtedly thinks that he is treating Ayer's view in a fair and reasonable way. "Constructive" is a bit more complicated. If someone claims to have devised a perpetual motion machine, what is the constructive way to treat their idea? (BTW, I think that Austin goes to impressive lengths to consider Ayer's views carefully, but, for the most part, is also right to criticize them.)

There's a copy of Ayer's Foundations at https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.46395/ . — Banno

There it is!

But I'm running Norton's Anti-virus software. It warns me that connections to this site are not secure. Can you re-assure me that nothing disastrous will happen if I follow the link anyway?

I'm sorry, but I'm risk-averse, especially in the environment of the internet.

Thanks.

Of course you can ask that. But you are asking whether your cell phone as real. Maybe it's a dummy or a toy. But you can't ask if everything you see is real.

The classic case is produced by Ryle. You can ask of each coin in your pocket, whether it is a forgery. ;But you can't ask if all coins are forgeries. Because no coin can be a forgery unless there is a definition of what it is to be not forged. Actually, and more relevantly, you can't ask in general whether all x's are imitations, because what an imitation is, is defined by defining what is not an imitation.

I did try to explain here and here why Austin and Wittgenstein do not overtly argue for a certain case. — Antony Nickles

I'm sorry. Things go so fast here that I sometimes don't check as carefully as I should.

One point, however, is that we all want to get at the truth, find (explicate) something illuminating about ourselves and the world. — Antony Nickles

You make a good point in this paragraph.

Has anybody here actually read any Ayers? — frank

Good question. I've read various things that he wrote, but not this specific text. Now I know where to get hold of it. I will certainly read it - and I expect to change my views somewhat.

How would you characterize his metaphysics? — frank

Actually, that is a more difficult question than you might have thought. His first book, Language, Truth and Logic introduced Logical Positivism to the UK. That was already a movement that rejected traditional metaphysics and proposed logical analysis as the new method for philosophy, so Ayer would himself have claimed that his theory is not metaphysical. Nor was he the first to do so. Both Berkeley and Descartes made the same claim.

PS. On reflection, I think there is something important in the observation that Ayer also rejected (traditional) metaphysics. That means that we should look more carefully at Austin's critique of Ayer's "two languages" theory. I don't have time to do this now, but it seems to me now that his suggestion that Ayer assumes that the sense-datum language is more fundamental, more accurate, preferable to what he calls "material object language". He sees it as a version of traditional (i.e. metaphysical) views and references Berkeley. But Berkeley was against (traditional, for him) metaphysics and arguably also has a "two language" version of his theory. I don't have time to work this out right now, but it is more complicated that I had recognized. (Hume, so far as I recall, doesn't have a "two language" account of his system.)

What metaphysical truth do you see in that? — frank

None whatever. That's the point. What Ayer wants to do, can't be done. He wants to ask the question about anything that we see (in the normal sense of "see") whether it is real. Can't be done.

If someone tried to escape a check-mate by making a knight's move with the king, you don't make a counter-move, you protest that what he wants to cannot be done.

For me the key here was Davidson's A nice derangement of epitaphs. — Banno

Thanks. I'll add it to my reading list.

I don't think there are much in the way of metaphysical implications from Austin, — frank

Austin is denying there is "reality" (directly addressing the metaphysical), — Antony Nickles

all this dismissive talk of "just language" and "quibbling" — Antony Nickles

I think there is an elephant in the room. People do seem to have picked up the puzzle about why, if Austin wants to deny reality, he doesn't just come out with it. He seems to dance around the question with marginal and trivial comments on how the word "real" is used, and so forth. I think someone should at least try to explain why.

Metaphysical claims, if true, are necessarily true, which means that their contradictions are necessarily false; Epistemological claims are a priori true and hence a priori false. This undermines any idea that one can simply assert or deny such claims. True claims, whether they are necessary or a priori, exclude nothing and hence are trivial and empty; false claims could not possibly be true and hence are meaningless. So one cannot simply deny the claim that "the moon is made of green cheese" or "that 'twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe" or that "John is a married bachelor". Denying those claims requires that they be possibly true; but a metaphysical truth, if it is true, is logically true and there is no possibility that it is false, and vice versa. All you can do with any of those three examples is point out that they are meaningless. Similarly, if someone asserts that all we ever perceive is directly is sense-data all we can do is point out what "direct" and "indirect" mean in this context.

Philosophy is extremely difficult because it needs to establish common ground where there appears to be none. But for some reason one keeps on trying.