If another group’s norms and beliefs don’t ground our system of validation, then we can’t refute those norms and beliefs because we won’t be able to understand them. Refutation only makes sense when it is based on normative criteria provided by the same Wittgensteinian hinge proposition as that which is to be refuted. — Joshs

That's not quite right. Obviously, if you want to refute a belief in order to persuade the believer to give up their belief, then you must, as it were, speak to/with their norms and beliefs. But it is perfectly possible to refute someone's belief to one's own satisfaction without speaking to them at all. I mention this because I suspect that situation arises much more frequently than it ought to. BTW, it may seem a bit pointless to refute someone's beliefs only to one's own satisfaction, but there is a point. You prevent the other side recruiting your own followers, which is much more important than convincing the opposition.

On the other hand, there is a process of - let me call it - conversion. Communists becoming capitalists and even vice versa. So far as I can see, this is not, and cannot be, a rational process. Certainly psychologists have taken an interest in it - no doubt for practical reasons. This is extremely uncomfortable for philosophers. Sadly, I'm going to have to leave that there - I'm falling asleep as I write, which is not a good way to philosophize.

You may be groping your way towards Bayesian statistical decision theory. As I have said before, there are 4 components: model, data, prior, utility. That is enough to make a 'rational' decision. I'd prefer to say it provides a principled or formalized decision-making process. It doesn't stop you having an unreasonable model, prior or utility. — GrahamJ

I'm not sure what the model is, but the other components are pretty obvious. Perhaps the Bayesian theory works - I wouldn't know how to assess it. Can we run the process in a lab and assess whether it gets the answer right - or what?
The thing is, it runs decision to action. The question here is whether you can run it backwards to read from action to decision. The difficulty is that most readings will be underdetermined, I suppose.

That our deliberations rarely fit propositional or predicate logic clearly and unambiguously does not undermine the use of propositional or predicate logic. It may still provide a model for our reasoning. — Banno

I didn't know I was challenging it - though one might have thought that a two-valued logic would have a problem - not with the probability of a coin toss, but with degrees of confidence.
I don't quite understand the concept of a model for our reasoning.

He shifts the question from “Is this belief true?” to “Is this belief coherent with my other beliefs and actions?” — Banno

I see. Do we care whether the two are the same thing?

So will you go to the fridge or keep watching the game? Your choice showsyour preferences and what you think is so. — Banno

Only if you can read it correctly.

I agree it is a skimpy version of the idea, and it is a fragment of the practice itself. I was thinking to highlight the history, the origin and purpose the idea represents, rather than its manifestation as a practice. — Mww

So we are not really in conflict - just talking about different things. Fair enough. As it happens, I regard the history, origin and purpose of ideas as of interest, even importance, in understanding their meaning. However, if your quotation is indeed from Kant, I'm not equipped to do more than try to follow the conversation. For the record, I think I'm talking about what it is to act rationally in the context of probability, an issue that puzzles me greatly.

“The usual test, whether that which any one maintains is (…) his firm belief, is a bet.” — Mww

It is indeed a test that is often proposed in real life. So it is relevant to say, not that a bet is no test of confidence, but that interpretation of a given decison is complicated by the fact that a bet is the result of weighing risk (disutility) against reward (utility) in the context of one's confidence. Confidence alone does not determine a (rational) decision.

Furthermore, in Kant, there are those beliefs in the purely empirical domain of which maintaining the firmness of them is irrational in which case some tests are failed, but there are others in the purely moral domain, the firm maintenance of them is necessary, in which case every test is passed. — Mww

I sort of understand this and don't disagree with it.

When push comes to shove, it seems to me elaboration of the idea into a practice degrades the dialectic regarding it, to a psychologically-bounded exhibition, when it started as a metaphysical idea. — Mww

I'm not sure I quite get this. Mind you, my grasp of what people mean by metaphysics is, let us say, weak. I don't quite see why what I am saying about betting degrades anything that you are doing. After all, you know it all already and don't seem to have any problem putting it aside for the purposes of your conversation.

And this is what happens when skimpy versions are filled out. Or….bloated, as some might say (grin) — Mww

Well, your reaction is not unhelpful to me, so thank you for that. I won't bore you any further on the subject.

quote="neomac;1000226"]The fact that there are beliefs universally shared doesn't spare us from the predicament of non-shared beliefs. And attributing these non-shared beliefs to evil intentions or stupidity (or ideology, in a derogatory sense) shows an ideological attitude which can suffer from analogous accusations.[/quote]
I agree with all of that. I was, rather, suggesting that what we can agree on might be a basis for working out a way of co-existing in spite of the things we do not agree on.
After all, different ideologies will either compete or co-exist, and we might all do better if we worked as hard at co-existing as we do at competing.

The relativist's plea for universal acquiescence can't be a long term solution — Kym

The interesting question is what makes universal acquiescence impossible. I suppose it is possible that two different ideologies might be compatible, in the sense that it is possible for them to co-exist in the same society. One way is for an agreement to be struck, or worked out, which recognizes the other and makes room for them; I have in mind something rather stronger than passive toleration. One problem is the tendency for one ideology to define itself against the other.

Too bad it went sour, because it would otherwise be a useful word, to describe the necessary set of ideas and ideals one needs to organize one's life. — BC

Ah, well, once we have acknowledged that we also have an ideology, we will inevitably be drawn into thinking differently about all those irrational other people. That might be very healthy, but, unless the others make the same acknowledgement, it may be rather dangerous.

If the method of validation is grounded on a set of norms and beliefs, such norms and beliefs can not be refuted, since the refutation must presuppose them (like Wittgenstein’s hinge propositions). — neomac

That is a most uncomfortable thought. What Wittgenstein regards as our ground turns out to be something quite different. My form of life, my facts turn out to be the other guy's ideology.
I'm consoled by the thought that what Wittgenstein was gesturing at was something shared by all human beings. If we could delineate that, we might, just might, find a basis for unity (within diversity, of course).

In the first, what is described is the agreement amongst people, as to what they believe, and this constitutes their "ideology". In the second, we acknowledge that not only is there agreement amongst people as to what they believe, but their is also disagreement between people, and this produces a multitude of social groups with distinct "ideologies". — Metaphysician Undercover

I think that is correct.

So the first describes a general concept, "ideology", while the second describes what distinguishes separate, distinct and specific, ideologies. — Metaphysician Undercover

I can't disagree with that, except that, at least as things are, the distinction between ideologies is extremely obscure. The lines are drawn on the level of praxis rather than intellect.

Do you have more? Didn’t mean to shut you off. — Mww

Thank you. But it is better not to bore on about something to someone who is not interested. But since you've opened the door.... Even if you are not interested, there may be others who are.

Those conditions incorporated in a bet I make, what kind and how much, or even the one I wouldn’t, give YOU the evidence of the degree of my belief, and the confidence in it. This becomes quite apparent, when I admit you are more justified in betting greater on the sun rising tomorrow, than I am betting there is life on other planets we can see. — Mww

I don't have a problem with the general idea. But I do have a problem with the skimpy version of the idea that we have here. It is a fragment of the practice of betting - a gesture towards something that could be much more illuminating if it were taken out of the arm-chair and into real life.
1. The measure is not a measure of confidence alone. A bet is a combination of risk and reward and a decision to bet is the result of balancing, one might say, the disutility of one outcome against the utility of the other outcome in the context of the likelihood of each outcome. Confidence in the outcome is only one factor. The one virtue of this idea is that it takes a step to articulating what it means to act rationally in the context of probabilities.
2. Utility and disutility are the result of a wider context. For example, if you have 20 units of currency, the utility of 1 unit is one thing, but if you have 100 units, it is quite different. That can work in artificial situations, such as a laboratory experiment (or an armchair or seminar room), but in real life the context is much more complicated.
3. It is one thing to explore probability or confidence in the context of a decision about a single specific action, but there are subtler effects on rational action that also deserve to be taken into account. If the probability of rain is 80%, you may well decide to go to the gym rather than your walk/run/bike ride. If it is 50%, you may well decide to go out, but take an umbrella or wet weather gear in your back-pack. The most prominent example of this is the practice of insurance. Here, one bets on an outcome that is unlikely, but has high disutility, not because one wants to win, but to provide for that eventuality.

Ehhhhh….dialectical precedent has it that responses to a quote are subjectively more honest without the influence of the author’s name, which is often detrimental to the message on the one hand, or tautologically affirms it on the other. — Mww

I can see that. On the other hand, it can help to know the context....

That, and my clandestine supposition that 1787 would be a sufficient clue. — Mww

Not enough for me. But I can manage without that information.

There need be no inner fact about belief that can diverge from one’s consistent actions. — Banno

Believe me, there is no chance that I am going to knowingly posit anything "inner" or "private" in the sense that Wittgenstein was talking about.

It seems that for Ramsey the degree that one is willing to bet constitutes the partial belief. A belief is not "private" or "subjective", but measurable, and comparable with other beliefs. — Banno

In one way, that's fair enough. But if you think it through, you find a world of complication and illumination. At least, I do, because I keep returning to the puzzle what probability actually means. (I'm particularly interested in what probability actually means in a single case.) The betting issue brings that out. Hower, Ramsey is only taking a first step. See above.

The relationship, then, is not between "degrees of belief and belief in probabilities", but between degree of belief and willingness to act. Consider willingness to act as an extensional substitute for degree of belief. — Banno

Yes. I was talking about something else. I think I can be a little clearer.
It seems crystal clear to me that we know, for sure, that a toss of a coin has a 50% chance of coming down heads. It's not even empirical knowledge, but an "analytic" result of the rules. We also know that the empirical probability will be only roughly, and not exactly, the same. I think that we also know that various empirical probabilities (I think the mathematicians call them estimates) based on past experience. The proportion of smokers who get lung cancer is higher than the proportion of non-smokers, etc. etc.
All this is quite different from my confidence in, for example, that I have 6 cans of beer in my fridge. It is a binary question, and perhaps I remember that I bought a pack on my way home. But I also know, perhaps, that my memory is not what it used to be, so my confidence is less than 100%.
Of course, there is a relationship between the two. Insofar as I am rational, I will adjust my confidence to conform with objective probabilities and also to conform with my evidence for my beliefs. All I'm saying is that the two are not necessarily co-ordinated and are, let me say, different states of affairs. Ramsey is presupposing a perfectly rational being with access to all relevant information.

But enough of this, yes? I was only pointing out the peripheral notion of bets in historical metaphysical investigations. — Mww

As you wish.

I would very much like to know who wrote the passage you are quoting. Just curious.

The nature of and how much the bet, and by whom the validity of the ground of the bet is judged, is irrelevant, with respect to its occurrence. — Mww

Yes. But those details are what give you the evidence of the degree of belief, or confidence.

Hence the implied correspondence to induction, which serves a subject as sufficient rational justification a priori for the construction of his empirical beliefs, while not being sufficient for their proofs. — Mww

Yes, I can see that - roughly. But Ramsey, apparently is not doing that. Ramsey is by-passing induction

altogether.

The point being, of course, all of this has been done before, in which case should be found, if not the congruent thesis, then at least a conceptually similar initial condition, merely clothed in new words. — Mww

Well, given that it was written in 1787 and Ramsey was writing in the 1920's, it would seem to follow. Which would be interesting, but I don't think it would change any of the arguments.

I'm sorry but who wrote that - I can't work it out.

My response is to point out that betting £1000 on the truth of a given proposition is a very different matter if your annual income is £10,000 or £100,000. It is also a different matter if you are single or have a family to support. And so on.

I am willing to bet a very large amount of money indeed (everything that I own or can beg, borrow or steal). that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. Who will take my bet, and at what odds? Should I be prepared to trust anyone who did take it?

we can have degrees of belief, and deal with them in a rational fashion. — Banno

There's an intricate relationship between degrees of belief and belief in probabilities, which I find confusing. It looks to me as if "S has a x degree of belief in p and S believes that p has a probability x. Are they equivalent? If there's a difference, what is it?

What makes you say that Bayes is rational? If you are prepared to call Bayesian epistemology rational, how is induction any less rational?

You've probably seen customer satisfaction surveys that ask people to assign a number to their degree of satisfaction with a service or product. Once you have a number, you can do all sorts of interesting things with the statistics. But if the number is little better than arbitrary, what is the significance of the statistics? Well, there's an empirical test. If predictions based on those statistics are accurate, then the methdology does have at least some validity (meaning). But what outcome confirms or refutes a Bayesian prediction about a single case?

I'm torn about Bayes. Intuitively, there's at least some justification for assigning a probability to a single case. We do it all the time. So Bayesian epistemology seems to me to work on the same sort of basis that one can assign a number to my degree of satisfaction. But it is very hard to know how to factor any probability in to decisions about individual cases. If there's a 10% chance of some side-effect from a medical treatment, 1 in 10 patients will suffer that side-effect. How do I rationally factor that in to my decision about whether I accept the treatment, bearing in mind that accepting the treatment is all or nothing? Making a bet is one thing, because if one loses a bet, one can just make another bet. But getting ill from a medication is not necessarily like that. (yes, that's from the heart and live experience).

He's not claiming that "induction is really just about probability" so much as dropping induction as a justification and instead considering degrees of belief. — Banno

Do you mean "He's not claiming that "induction is really just about probability" so much as dropping induction as a justification and instead considering degrees of belief as a justification." or "induction is really just about probability" so much as dropping induction as a justification and instead considering degrees of belief as a datum even though it is arbitrary from a rational point of view".

He's not saying that f(a) and f(b) implies f(e) is a better bet than just f(a). He;s not saying anything about f(a)'s truth or falsity at all. He's instead talking about the degree to which you and I believe f(a). — Banno

Shouldn't that sentence end with f(e)?
But he might find that people do in fact bet more on propositions that are backed by inductive evidence. (And, yes, he might not.)

You are right that there is a lot going on here, and plenty more to be said. People do not act rationally. Leaving aside the question of whether they ought act rationally, Ramsey has given us a part of the way to understanding what it is to act rationally. Not a theory of how people actually think, not a theory of what beliefs are true, but a framework for what it would be to act coherently, given one’s own beliefs and preferences. — Banno

I don't understand your enthusiasm for Ramsey. (Not that I've actually read him!). But the idea that induction is really just about probability is not that uncommon.

For two reasons
First, if you would bet more on f(e) given f(a), f(b), f(c), f(d) than you would on (f)c given f(a), f(b), then aren't you just betting on induction?
Second, if we need to find some sort of account of how we behave, what's wrong with Hume's custom or habit, based on our general heuristic of association? Or Wittgenstein's "This is what I do."

Or we could just stop treating induction as a poor man's deduction. We've given deduction this hugely special status as the only form of rationality. Given how limited deduction really is, it seems a bit irrational.
In practice, induction is more complicated than "the future will resemble the past". We know darn well that it won't - what we're trying to do here is to get a grip on how things will change as well as how they won't. I'm sure you know about J.S. Mill's much more complicated, and realistic, account of the methods of induction.

(sc. the tortoise) challenges Achilles and us to force his agreement. — Banno

So he does. So I think that Dodgson's focus is on the force (!) of the logical "must", which we all take for granted. One might perhaps think that this scenario suggests that it is not what settles disputes but a paper tiger.

This relates to Wittgenstein's answer to the problem he raises of what it is to follow a rule. — Banno

Yes, indeed. Though I think that Dodgson is suggesting that the tortoise knows perfectly well what it would be to follow the rule and is deliberately misbehaving - which is quite different from misunderstanding the rule. Again - it's about what it is to be forced to do something in this context. The best that we can do is to say that if you don't follow the rule, you aren't playing the game.

And again, "If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do." (PI§217). — Banno

One is inclined to say that the tortoise needs training in a drill, rather than explanations. Once the tortoise has mastered the drill, it will be possible to explain things to him.

Clarity is not final - but if things are sufficiently clear for us to move on, that'll do? Seems to be so. — Banno

Perhaps it is. But I think this creates room for doubt about the meaning of, for example, "perspicuous representation", which is somehow meant to be final. Contrast the ways in which a teacher might try to clarify or explain something to a student; it's entirely a pragmatic practice, with no pretence that what works for one will work for all.

The point of the practice - expressing belonging and individuality? - has been lost, the purpose and rules being followed now sit elsewhere. — Banno

I've read stuff that claims that the modern practice of introducing new designs to stimulate the market rather than anything else was actually invented and first practiced by Wedgwood in the market for china. That was the real basis for his success. But fashion worked in much the same way before modern industrial practices came along. Naturally. the practice flourished more or less exclusively among the rich and in social contexts like the royal court.

I think Williamson wishes to describe something like an experimental approach to philosophy, and that's what his whole competition between theories business is meant to be. Is it really similar to how science does this? If it's not, does it still make sense? — Srap Tasmaner

If you look at his chosen example, the answer must be yes. But his list of things that might/do discipline philosophy is varied, so I don't think he wants empirical data as a universal constraint. Empirical philosophy has been around for a while now, I think. I've seen some interesting work. Not sure.

Same boat here with academic presses, but do you have interlibrary loan? My public library got me the Rodl book and let me keep it for months. — J

The short answer is No. Inter-library loand is available in the universities and similar institutions. I don't have access to them any longer. It was available in public libraries some years ago. But, alas, no longer.

We might do something similar with progress and clarity. If we agree that there has been progress, then what more do we need? If we agree that there is clarity, what more do we need? And if we disagree, then at the least we can agree that we disagree - we might agree that you think some idea clear while i disagree, That I think progress is being made while you do not. — Banno

There is much to be said for this.
On clarity, I agree that clarity that no-one perceives as clarity seems something of a self-contradiction. However, Dodgson's article on Achilles and the tortoise seems to show that there are limits to the explanations that can be given to clarify an argument - and some of Wittgenstein's remarks point to the same conclusion. Something needs to be said about that. I'm also impressed by the fact that people can think that something is perfectly clear and yet be persuaded by argument that that is not the case. Perhaps Euclid's parallel postulate is an example.
Well, yes, it does seem that progress that doesn't look like progress to people is again, self-contradicting. But see next comment.

That framing imports a teleological structure into the practice, as if its value or identity depended on a fixed aim or destination. But metaphysics, as I understand and teach it, is not defined by its conclusion—it’s revealed in the doing. We start in the middle: with questions, distinctions, and confusions—not with a final cause or overarching purpose. — Banno

I agree with you on two counts. First, it seems to me obvious that most academic disciplines do not have a fixed aim or destination. Each new development immediately becomes the ground from which the next new development will come and the criteria of success are changed so that progress can be claimed. The history of physics shows this in operation. There is no necessary end or conclusion that would enable people to say that the job is now done.
But if the next step is revealed in the doing, what are the criteria that enable us to classify the next step as progress? In the case of physics, there are some criteria that enable us to make that judgement. In the case of the arts, not so much - though of course each new step is accompanied with exactly that claim. For example, each new fashion seems better than the last, but can we really identify progress here? (The abolition of high heels would be progress, but more in public health than fashion as such.)
However, there is one criterion that might work. What counts as good and appropriate in one set of circumstances may become a burden and a hindrance when things change. Adaptation to new circumstances may be the kind of criterion one looks for. But that is not improvement that accumulates, so only provides a local criterion for progress, not a global one.

Now that's a can of eels! Do you think the psychologist can ask questions about psychology that are, at the same time, bracketed by psychological explanations of how questions come to be asked? What does that say about the psych's conception of psychology's explanatory powers? — J

I have no idea. Perhaps someone will pop up with an answer.

Yes, that's just the sort of further dialectic I was picturing. It doesn't have to follow that "consensus wins" will always be the final decision -- even when that decision is itself made by consensus. — J

I'm glad I hit that nail fair and square...

In Self-Consciousness and Objectivity, Rodl says: — J

That sounds very much like my cup or tea. It's time there was a backlash. Sadly, at that price, it will be Christmas before I get my hands on it.

My thought of judging that things are so is a different act of the mind from my judging that they are so. The former is about my judgment, a psychic act, a mental state; the latter, in the usual case, is not; it is about something that does not involve my judgment, my mind, my psyche. It is about a mind-independent reality." — J

It's funny how one can lose sight of things that are actually quite obvious, if only one could see them. On the other hand, one wants to say that there must be something going on between them - a relationship of some sort.

I appreciate all your thoughtful replies. — J

Thanks. It takes two, so I thank you also.

I don't think you have to talk about propositions. It's not a bad idea to know what it is, though. — frank

I agree with that. It's part of the jargon, so you will miss out if you have no idea what it's all about.

A proposition is along the lines of content. — frank

Yes. I know roughly what you mean. But making it clear is another question, and not an easy one.

A philosopher of art whom I respect, Susanne Langer, has pointed out that we can often learn more about an art by noticing what it does not have in common with other arts, rather than trying to find similarities and possible shared properties. — J

That's good advice. I find it particularly important when I'm confronted with sweeping statements beginning "Art is...." (or whatever).

So with philosophy, perhaps. We can discover many commonalities between phil and literature, phil and science, phil and logic, phil and rhetoric, ad infinitum. But what we should be noticing is what makes philosophy different, unique. — J

I don't disagree. But I do find that most philosophers are very much inclined to focus on what makes philosophy unique anyway. It's a balance - mapping similarities and differences (in an informal and pragmatic way).

And what is that? The candidate answer I like best is that philosophy inevitably questions itself, without leaving the frame of its own discipline. — J

Yes. It may be unique in not leaving the frame of its own discipline. Psychology, perhaps is also self-reflexive, in a way.

Yes, this is the type of "understanding" we want to highlight, over against knowledge. And to me, it's a feature, not a bug, that "perspicuous representation" requires some sort of consensus. When we discover that Phil X finds something brilliantly illuminating, while Phil Y finds it clear as mud, we are being invited into a critical moment in philosophical dialectic. What separates them? What discussion is needed to bring them together? Is it a framing problem? Just a misunderstanding? A confusion about evidence? A logical flaw? etc. etc. — J

Whether the two senses are a problem or not depends on the context. If you are talking to an individual, you will probably want to focus on what helps that individual. There are times when that runs out. One of my favourite articles is C.L. Dodgson's Dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise after their race. Achilles claims the victory on the grounds that he crossed the line first. The tortoise refuses to concede. I won't spoil the story which shows Achilles trying to get to the end of another infinite regress. The moral is that if Achilles crossed the line first, he won the race. There's nothing subjective about it. Consensus? It matters. But I'm not sure how much. I notice that one can contradict it, if one has a very clear argument. If there was a consensus against Achilles, then the question will be who misunderstood the rules - Achilles or the rest of us.

However, the SEP article seems to want to say that a proposition is what is in common between a number of sentences or statements. That's what I don't get. — Ludwig V

That's exactly the standard analysis. The bolded part that follows the word, "that" is a proposition. — frank

You're offering an ostensive definition, and your problem is that when you point to a proposition "the bolded part", I see a sentence. If you think about it, it isn't possible to "bold" a proposition - it's like trying to italicize an apple. Wrong category.
Not sure whether mine is the standard analysis, but it may be. It's a work in progress, anyway.

We're expressing the same proposition by way of two utterances and two sentences. If you look back at your own analysis: "How about "collection of sentences that enable us to say that the cat is on the mat in different ways" — frank

Yes, but to the extent that the two sentences are different, you give me grounds for wondering whether it is the same proposition. I would prefer to stop talking about propositions, but it's too well embedded in philosophical discourse for that to be realistic - it's tilting at windmills. The formula I've offered does avoid some of the worst problems.

Tricky stuff. .....But in the end I cannot agree with the suggestion that our study is will be like the art students, primarily about a doing and producing. I do think there is a real and meaningful distinction between the productive arts (including the "fine arts') and science and wisdom, and philosophy is heavier on the other side of this division. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Very tricky. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "productive arts", but I didn't mean to suggest that philosophy should be counted alongside painting and music and literature. I would say that philosophy is centrally interested in truth, but, arguably, in some ways, so is painting and literature. Many people want to classify it with science, but that misrepresents it, IMO. I was just suggesting that something that works well in painting and music and literature, also works well in philosophy.
In science, do students learn a definition of a theory or an experiment and apply that, or do they learn to do science by getting into the lab and reading up on various theories?
Most disciplines are practices and, as a result have things in common, and, at the same time, each discipline is a distinctive collection of sub-practices or "games".

This works for me. The reason for reading the cannon is to improve on it. But in order to "improve" on it, one does not need already to have an idea of the perfect or ultimate item. — Banno

That's one reason. But the concept of progress in the arts is very tricky, particularly because, for me at least, the idea of the perfect novel or picture or song is meaningless. Perfection does have some application in the arts, but only in a way that does not imply finality. However, I don't see finality (whether perfection or truth) in philosophy or, indeed, in science.

“Understanding” in this context often refers to a kind of clarity—seeing how language functions, how confusion arises, and how philosophical problems dissolve when we attend closely to our forms of life and linguistic practices. It’s not about accumulating true propositions (knowledge in the epistemological sense), but about achieving perspicuous representation. — Banno

That's definitely my page. I do worry, though, about the unselfconscious use of "clarity" to identify some sort of objective property (as in "perspicuous representation") and a psychological state. What is clear to one person is not necessarily clear to another. Sometimes it is just a question of learning how to interpret, but not, I think, always.

The debate, as can be seen in the many threads on the topic in these fora, gets nowhere, does not progress. — Banno

Light bulb! That's how progress in philosophy happens. The debate makes no progress, gets boring, so people move on. Group dynamics, I suppose.

The phrase "If meaning is use, then use must have an end" equivocates on “end.” It reads “end” as telos—as if every use must aim at a final goal or fixed purpose. — Banno

It seems that one cannot point out too often that Aristotle distinguishes between actions that have a purpose external to themselves and others are done for "their own sake". This is logically necessary to avoid an infinite hierarchy of purposes. So one needs, hastily, to go on and say that this does not necessitate one supreme good at which everything aims.

:up: If you note the part I bolded, that's what we call a proposition — frank

Um - forgive me. But that's what I call a sentence; I would say that when it is used - to tell someone where the cat is, for example, - it becomes a statement in that context. However, I've learnt the philosophical dialect and so I know what you mean, in one sense. However, the SEP article seems to want to say that a proposition is what is in common between a number of sentences or statements. That's what I don't get.

Quite right.

How about "collection of sentences that enable us to say that the cat is on the mat in different ways"
or "collection of ways to say that the cat is on the mat".
Suggestions welcome.

Right, that was more or less my point. It's not a logical entailment or something that's true by definition. We have to agree on it. — J

Yes. There are two points that one can make to articulate the difference. The first is that the relationship is what is called "defeasible". That means that sometimes, in particular cases, there is that evidence that the speaker is lying, or joking, or intends the statement ironically or sarcastically. In those cases, the link is broken. The second is that it helps to think of an assertion as what is called a speech act, and the link with "X judged that..." or "X believes that..." is part of what is done when one asserts - one gives the audience a basis for recognizing that I have judged, or that I believe. That would be, I believe, an example of illocutionary force.

Defeasibility, speech acts and illocutionary force are ideas that are quite well established in philosophy. But you may not. So if you have come across them, please forgive me if I seem to be teaching my grandmother to suck eggs.

So the moral of the story is: don't ask questions you don't already know how to answer, or don't just already have the answer to. — Srap Tasmaner

More like: Look for questions that look answerable, or at least for which you have some way of recognising the answer. — Banno

Well, there is the possibility of working out how to answer a question, if you don't know. But it will help to answer the questions you do know how to answer, and approach the big question through them.
But it's also worth setting aside the possibility that the big question will ever have a final answer. There's a sense in which the big question here - What is everything made of? - has still not been answered. It would seem that each version of the answer generates a new version of the old question.
This is a bit vague, but I take it that it is obvious that I'm writing in the context of the question that Williamson describes as "one of the best questions ever asked".
BTW, Williamson doesn't mention the fact that an atomic theory was developed in the 5th century BCE, and there are, apparently, even earlier precursors. The modern theory is, of course, a very different thing, but these earlier theories could count as precursors. He paints a picture which is not exactly wrong, but which suits his purpose. But then, it's only an introduction.

"Professor Banno, can you please explain what makes some conceptualizations and systemizations of our language better than others?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

It may help here to steal an idea from the study of the arts. There, you don't get an answer to the question what makes some novels or pictures, etc. better than others. What you do get is a collection of examples which have been widely accepted as good examples. The expectation is that you will not be limited to imitating them (although that might be a useful exercise). The expectation is that students will be enabled to create new work by developing a critical judgement from those examples. The examples are collectively known as the canon.
True, there are various theories about what makes one work better than another, and students are taught these, or some of them. But they are taught as theories, subject to criticism. Again, the expectation is not that those theories will dictate what students will do. It is that those theories will be the basis of developing new ones.

They're not. The point is that the scope of the "⊢" takes in all the propositions, so as to maintain extensionality - and this is so whether we understand "⊢" as "It is true..." or as "I judge..." or as "perhaps..." or even "quite likely...". — Banno

I'm inclined to think that some concept rather like that of the proposition, as usually understood in philosophy, may be useful or even necessary. But I'm also inclinded to think that a definition along the lines of "a proposition is a sentence with its use" has potential. So maybe it will help if I try to disentangle what I think it wrong with the usual understanding.

Two quotations from Stanford EP - Structured propositions:-

Proponents of propositions hold that, speaking strictly, when speakers say the same thing by means of different declarative sentences, there is some (non-linguistic) thing, a proposition, that each has said.

The grammar here slips. One can't say a non-linguistic thing. It is true that there is a collection of sentences that say that the cat is on the mat in diffferent ways. I deliberately do not say the same thing, because actual synonymy is very rare in natural languages, so "the same thing" is not appropriate. Compare the argument that because there are many shades of red, there must be something in common - the universal. But the universal is a metaphysical object and so nominalism is born. I repeat - all we need is a collection of sentences that say that the cat is on the mat in different ways.

A declarative sentence is true or false derivatively, in virtue of expressing (in the context in which it is uttered....) a true or false proposition.

I really don't see why one should not say that a declarative sentence is true or false. Natural language has a commonplace variation of this - "It is true that the cat whose name is Jack is on the mat". I think we can manage with that and the variant of nominalism I outlined above.

So today, to speak of ends in the Aristotelian sense is to reinvigorate a discredited metaphysical picture. Best left alone, unless one explicitly defends that framework. As, indeed, some do. — Banno

I'm afraid I think there is a lot to be said for Aristotle's hierarchy of purposes and actions done for their own sake. But not for his idea that there is only one such hierarchy, topped off by The Good. Ryle makes use of the former idea quite unself-consciously. Peters famously builds the latter idea into his philosophy of education.

The substitution between seperate judgements is not countenanced. — Banno

I've heard of the judgement stroke, but no-one has ever explained to me what it does before. Thank you for that.
I can see that this allows one to express what happens when we form a number of sentences into a valid argument. It gets round the uncertainty about whether P and Q are two propositions or one when there is a logical implication between them. Is that the point of the notation?

All this talk of assertions is making me think about speech acts. There are two ways of referring to the cat. What rules or habits might there be in choosing to say "Jack is on the mat" or "The cat is on the mat"? It's not a question of logic, really, but of pragmatics or perhaps semantics.
It seems reasonable to suppose that one consideration is which way of referring to this animal the person I am talking to will understand best. One might also suppose that referring to Jack or the car expresses something about the relationship I have with the animal.

I think I could assert a sentence without also judging it to be true. — J

I don't see any problem about that. We have some words for that. "Suppose that...", "Imagine that...", "Consider whether..." and possible "entertain the idea that..." - and so forth. Given that, I think that in natural language "assert" is normally taken to imply "assert to be true". Asserting to be false is usually called denying.

Seems Moliere agrees, but perhaps you do not. That's fine. Perhaps at the least we might agree that some folk value clarity, and not just as a means to an end. Then we might wonder if Williamson is one of them. — Banno

Could we not say that clarity has more than one value? It seems to me that clarity has moral value because there is a duty to tell the truth without obfuscation or evasion. It is also has pragmatic value, because clear communicaton is more likely to succeed. And, yes, there is an aesthetic dimension as well.

So we have
The cat is on the mat
The speaker believes that the cat is on the mat
The cat=jack
And by substitution,
the speaker believes that Jack is on the mat
Which is not the case. I'm just pointing to the opacity of propositional attitudes. — Banno

Yes. None of that is in question. Though you are assuming/presupposing that the speaker does not know that the cat = jack.
Question - suppose that the speaker does know that the cat=jack. Then, by substitution, the speaker believes that Jack is on the mat. Is that not the case?

Well, there's the issues of substitution. If the cat's name is "Jack", does the speaker also believe that Jack is on the mat? It seems not. And yet Jack = the cat. — Banno

Well, I do see this as a puzzle. I'm inclined to say that if the speaker knows that the cat's name is Jack, then they do also believe that Jack is on the mat; if they do not know, they do not also believe that Jack is on the mat. Implicit in this is the question of the identity of individual propositions. Are "the cat is on the mat" and "Jack is on the mat" two propositions or one? If the former, they do also believe .... However, if the latter, they do not also believe.

The classical definition of intentionality, in my view, is not incorrect, but could, and should go further. If we consider the speech-situation, we find that these contexts are not rigidly separate, but are often mixed. Suppose I'm telling a story about my cat. Yesterday, I was with a group of people who do not know that my cat is called Jack. Last week, Jack, who is fond of chasing his tail, accidentally caught it, and bit it. You should have seen his reaction; he was furious with the tail, but couldn't work out what to do about it. Obviously, I will tell the story, not about "Jack", but about "my cat". This morning, I was with a group of people who know my cat's name. I told the same story, but not about "my cat", but about "Jack". Choosing the appropriate one of inter-substitutable references depends on one's audience. This works for "believes" and a number of other concepts classified as intentional.

Davidson was not able to give up the search.
— Ludwig V
I missed something. — Banno

You didn't miss anything. The problem is that I failed to delete that sentence from a draft.

Pholsophers got board with the lack of progress and moved on. — Banno

Quite likely. It's quite a common phenomenon - and not irrational. Perhaps people concerned with lack of progress should take not.

But does this get us to "I judge that the cat is on the mat" or "I judge that it is true that the cat is on the mat"? Are these formulations also meant to say the same thing? How? — J

Those two statements do not assert the same thing, in my book. The link between them only holds in a very special situation.

Do you think that "learning" in philosophy amounts to becoming clear about what you already know? Or can philosophy provide us with knowledge we did not have before? — Srap Tasmaner

I think Wittgenstein, for one, would say that philosophy amounts to becoming clear about what you already know, or perhaps learning to find one's way about in circumstances that are confusing. But perhaps becoming clear about what you already know (or don't know) is, in a sense, acquiring new knowledge.

Yes. My question is whether "I judge that sentence to be true" ever follows from "That sentence is true"? If I assert the latter, have I also committed myself to asserting the former?
I say not. However, one could say that when I assert that the cat is on the mat, I'm expressing my belief or judgement that the cat is on the mat. — J

no astronomer (or even social psychologist) has ever said, "Whoa, have you seen the new data? We're gonna need a philosopher. — Srap Tasmaner

To be fair, I don't think that scientists ever say "hold on, this is a philosophical issue. We need to call an expert."

I really don't. That's right in SEP's wheelhouse though. I think of it primarily as a "recent literature review" for grad students. — Srap Tasmaner

As someone who was away from philosophy for fifteen years or so before I joined TPF, it is also very handy for me.
I'm going to have to work out how to present my case here. This stuff is an excellent starting-point. There's another article devoted to the thesis that propositions are structured objects. Another complicated confusion.

Yeah that's fair. My memory of the paper is probably colored a bit by knowing which side Williamson is on. — Srap Tasmaner

I wouldn't say that. I reckon that Williamson makes it pretty clear which side he's on right through th meat of the article (say pp. 4 - 9). It's a bit of a giveaway that he presents developments in logic which seem to him to give a lot of support (though empirical linguistics may be a bit of a stretch for philosophy) to one side and goes into great detail about the weakness of assertibility-conditions in relation to sentences not known to be true and not known to be false.
What I can't discern is whether he thinks his audience is open to conversion - in which case, I would have expected much more detailed argument - or he is frustrated no-one is paying him enough attention and he's declaring a plague on both houses, without expecting much change. Do you have any impression what's happened since 2004?

Or, more interestingly, our entire understanding of what a proposition is supposed to be -- as Ludwig V suggests above -- is in need of revisiting. — J

If you want an overview, try Propositions - Stanford E. P.

No, we're actually in agreement here. The difficulty with posting is that it's hard to convey the tone of voice, or the fact that something is being proposed for consideration rather than asserted as true! I also think the Fregean conception is, if not a mess, at least deserving of hard questioning. The "contextless sense" of assertion has been critiqued, fairly recently, by both Kimhi and Rodl. — J

I'm sorry if I over-reacted. I'm a bit obsessed about the need to kill the idea of a meaning-object. It's called a proposition in standard philosophese, but the name doesn't matter. It's the role that's the problem.

That said, I do think the "utterance/assertion" distinction is useful, as a place to start talking. After all, we need some way to acknowledge that something said by me at time T1, and something said by you at time T2, can assert the same thing, on one reasonable understanding of "assertion." As long as it's 3rd personal. — J

The vocabulary around this is incredibly rich and therefore compicated and difficult to organize. I don't think that there are answers waiting in natural language - anything we do would be a specialized use of the terms. Utterance/assertion for the distinction you have in mind might well work; the same is true of sentence/statement or a version of the type/token distinction. There was an idea around at one time that a proposition should be defined as a sentence with its use, which would be better. I don't have any answers. We could try to agree a list of issues, like this one and then try working down it. Perhaps others might join in.

This has a lot of consequences when scientists tend to be publishing many of the more philosophical best sellers. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Oh, yes, indeed. It can be very frustrating. But scientists have established first claim on knowledge and, for some reason, on wisdom as well. I have the impression that philosophers, since around the sixties, are confined to niche labelled "oddball". When I had a job in philosophy, from time to time people would ask me what I did. "Philosophy" was a real conversation-stopper.

Economics is a fine example, the texts I've taught are filled with properly philosophical presuppositions about politics and philosophical anthropology. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Economics has managed to establish itself as the most like "proper" science of the social sciences. It's all illusion. Fortunately, there are some cracks where economics is recognized as the result of human behaviour.

Since they refuse to get in the game, as he sees it, they have discredited not their ideas but themselves. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, but how do they see it? You can't have an argument or negotiation, decide on a winner or anything else unless the other side is in the game. If they won't play your game, you can just play by yourself or go and get involved in the other guy's game.
But in fairness to him, his actual complaint is that neither side takes seriously what he takes seriously - or is the following quotation not clear?

Surprisingly, however, most participants in the Dummett-inspired debates between realism and anti-realism have shown little interest in the success of truth-conditional semantics, judged as a branch of empirical linguistics. Instead, they have tended to concentrate on Dummett’s demand for ‘non-circular’ explanations of what understanding a sentence with a given truth-condition ‘consists in’, when the speaker cannot verify or falsify that condition. — Must Do Better p.3

I read this as saying that Williamson's problem is that most participants on both sides are ignoring what he thinks is important. It needs an argument to show how and why it is important, which is missing here. The other half of the problem is that most participants are concentrating on Dummett's demand. On the face of it, and without an argument, that does seem reasonable. The beef here is in the arguments, which Williamson does not discuss.
I am not particularly hostile to what Williamson wants to do and I'm not sufficiently well read to comment on it. But I don't think this is likely to resonate with anyone who does not already share his presuppositions.

Yes. I was using "we want to imagine" with a skeptical accent. Can we really imagine it? How much of formal logical structure depends on this imagining? — J

Well, Frege built his logic around the concept of a proposition, and I believe that Russell &co followed him. If that concept is a mess, answering your question is going to be difficult. I think it is a mess.

This is another way of showing the issue. In one sense of "assertion" -- the "contextless" one -- any statement asserted as true would carry with it all the logical consequences. But if "assertion" is understood as a perspectival, 1st-person activity, then no, just as you say. — J

Ah, but I don't think that the contextless sense makes any sense. An assertion is an action, an event, and requires an agent.

And perhaps a good way to talk about that is to distinguish between assertion and utterance. You and I have made two utterances of a single assertion, not two assertions. More in line with Fregean "thoughts". — J

Your difficulty is that the more you align with Frege, the closer you will get to propositions, and the less you will do anything to remedy the mess. (I'm a bit heterodox here. Frege deserves great reverence for his achievements, but in the end, he is just another philosopher.)

Williamson is advocating explicit and clear lines of reasoning. He's doing this in order to move past the discussion being a mere quarrel. — Banno

He is recommending that and also more than that.

But when philosophy is not disciplined by semantics, it must be disciplined by something else: syntax, logic, common sense, imaginary examples, the findings of other disciplines (mathematics, physics, biology, psychology, history, …) or the aesthetic evaluation of theories (elegance, simplicity, …).

This is a remarkably heterogeneous list. He discusses two cases. "technical work by philosophical and mathematical logicians ..... on how close a predicate in a language can come to satisfying a full disquotational schema for that very language without incurring semantic paradoxes" (p. 4). and "the success of truth-conditional semantics, judged as a branch of empirical linguistics" (p.6). in the context of Dummett's programme for realism vs anti-realism. He bemoans the lack of interest in these developments without telling us exactly why we ought to find them of interest. I found that disappointing. Perhaps I'm missing something.

The vision of philosophy being supported by other disciplines is certainly very interesting and makes an excellent change from the more traditional (and markedly unpopular outside philosophy) view that the role of philosophy is to police the other disciplines. Inter-disciplinary work has developed well in recent decades, but is difficult and complicated. An approach that suggest that one academic department should discipline another is unlikely to go down well. I suspect that a lead department calling for help as required from other departments as required is much more common. In the end, each department needs to discipline itself.

And he claims that there was no resolution, or even much progress, because the anti-realist side, in particular, did not develop their theories to a sufficient extent. That is, they were never clear enough for specific arguments to take hold and produce even local, partial answers. — Srap Tasmaner

That's how I read him at first. But

Surprisingly, however, most participants in the Dummett-inspired debates between realism and anti-realism have shown little interest in the success of truth-conditional semantics, judged as a branch of empirical linguistics. Instead, they have tended to concentrate on Dummett’s demand for ‘non-circular’ explanations of what understanding a sentence with a given truth-condition ‘consists in’, when the speaker cannot verify or falsify that condition. — Must Do Better p. 6

It seems that the problem is that most participants decided to concentrate on Dummett's demand.

Williamson's paper argues that if we don't do better (which would include your "clarity") we'll never learn anything. — Srap Tasmaner

It's not as bad as that.

We should not be too pessimistic about the answer, at least concerning the broad, heterogeneous intellectual tradition that we conveniently label ‘analytic philosophy’. — Must Do Better p.3

That fits with the title of the paper, though it doesn't explain the force of the "must".

He might write ""The speaker holds true the sentence 'The cat is on the mat.'" This makes clear that the speaker is doing something with a sentence. — Banno

I sympathize with Davidson's project. But I can't see that "The speaker holds true..." is at all helpful. What's unclear about "X believes that the cat is on the mat"?
There was a time, long ago, when a proposition was defined as the meaning of a sentence. That was at least based on an actual practice. (You say "the cat is on the mat" and I can ask what you mean and you can explain,) But once we have lost interest in meaning-objects, thanks to Wittgenstein, we feel the need to give that definition up. Some people proposed to define a proposition as a sentence with its use. But that seems more like a definition of statements, which didn't provide the expected unity. It seems, Davidson was not able to give up the search. I think you put me on to his article "On saying that", in which he argues that "that the cat is on the mat" (a noun-phrase) is what I assert. Perfectly straightforward. I though it was a helpful analysis and did something to escape from the prison of the standard usage.

We want to imagine a proposition as independent of a context of assertion. — J

But the meaning of an assertion is often, if not always, determined to a greater or lesser extent by the context. For example, whether "the cat" refers to Felix or Tiger or... is determined by the context. So is the reference of "the mat". Then what does the unity independent of the context of assertion amount to?

Rather, the issue is that if I assert "You are cold," I must also be asserting, "I judge that you are cold." — J

The implication is that every time I assert P, I am also asserting every logical consequence of P. I don't think that works at all. When I assert that the cat is black, do I also assert that the cat is not white, not red, not blue, etc? No, they are different assertions, linked by a logical relationship.

I was wondering how two individuals might separately use an assertion about the cat -- or the blanket. — J

There's no straight answer. If we both assert that the cat is on the mat (in the same context), we are both making the same assertion - . At the same time, because you asserted it and I asserted it, there are clearly two assertions. It just depends on what criteria of identity you choose to apply.

I get that. Science is not the primordial understanding of anything. The primordial understanding must be the understanding I have when I start the science. That's why I thought the present-at-hand was the primordial understanding. — Ludwig V

Sometimes my typing is an embarrassment. I should have said "That's why I thought the ready-to-hand was the primordial understanding." So Descartes' methodical doubt could not be the foundation of our knowledge and understanding of the world.

We must take care not to equate sentences with beliefs without anchoring them in a speaker's use. — Banno

Quite so. Statements, not propositions.

Thanks very much for that. I think I can follow most of it.

We can think of a metaphysics as a totality of relevance which is mistakenly reifed. — Joshs

OK. Mischievous questions. Does the totality of relevance include what Derrida calls bricolage (which I understand to mean, roughly, non-standard uses. Using a screwdriver to fish out a small object that has got into a space I cannot get my hand into. Does it include accidents, as when I trip over a screwdriver or drop one on the cat?

He is critiquing our thinking of it in reifying terms. — Joshs

I don't quite see what it is that is being reified. In fact, if it is a mistake to reify it, there is nothing to reify and "it" has no place in that sentence. I can't even ask my question. Do you mean thinking of the screwdriver as an object?

But the ready to hand doesn’t constitute the most primordial understanding of Being. — Joshs

I get that. Science is not the primordial understanding of anything. The primordial understanding must be the understanding I have when I start the science. That's why I thought the present-at-hand was the primordial understanding.

They also want to say, it would seem, that there's no logical space between "You are cold" and "I judge you to be cold." — J

There's clearly a logical space between the two. If the first is true, the second may be true or false. If the second is true, the first may be true or false.
The odd bit is that I cannot logically assert "I judge that you are cold but you aren't". There's no logical space between the two conjuncts when I assert them. This is just Moore's paradox.
But that so-called paradox is also the reason why if you assert "That person is cold", I can infer that you believe that person is cold (normally).

I'm pointing not simply to ambiguity about communication, but ambiguity about how we understand assertion. — J

There's ambiguity about assertion, but, IMO, there's a great deal more ambiguity about propositions. Philosophers talk about them all the time and apparently understand each other most of the time. But don't ask them for a definition.

You’re right that Wittgenstein equates philosophy with metaphysics and metaphysics with theory, but the situation is different with Heidegger: — Joshs

I must have misunderstood something. Heidegger understands our cognitive, theoretical, stance as "present-at-hand" and our real-life experience as "ready-to-hand". He analyses Descartes approach through presence-at-hand (which I'm equating to a theoretical stance and therefore methodical doubt) as implying a model seeing us as subjects, the world as object and knowledge as what links the two. These are what Heidegger calls ontological presuppositions and he therefore points out that this mode returns metaphysics to First Phiilosophy. Now, here's my confusion. Doesn't he also criticize this model because it does not begin to explain our everyday lives as active and engaged in the world - ready-to-hand? So, isn't the return of metaphysics part of his working through of a model which he does not deny, but which he wants to limit the role of to specialized occasions, positing "ready-to-hand" - as the model for our "real" lives.

Seems to be straying into the mystical there. Requiring understanding and knowing not just through the lens of the mind. But from other parts of the being. — Punshhh

Yes. I understand the parts of Heidegger that I understand. But there's much I don't understand and that I skirt round, hoping to avoid sinking into any marshes that are concealed there.

It’s not just that the duck-rabbit game may eventually no longer be playable, but that to play it is to use the meanings established by it, and to use the meanings is to reawaken and reinterpret its sense. — Joshs

Well, it will certainly be playable for as long as we (and the people we teach to play) are around, because we are the players. I agree that we cannot know what may happen afterwards. Nobody plays push-pin any more. No-one can rule out the possibility that the concepts necessary for duck-rabbit will disappear or change in such a way the game will no longer be played. But, by the same token, no-one can rule out the possibility that ii may last as long as human beings, or life on earth or till the heat death of the universe.

I'm sorry I've not been here for so long.

I’m getting this concept of metaphysics from contemporary Continental authors, who apparently treat the term in a less technical and more encompassing way than the writers you are drawing from. — Joshs

H'm. Well, there's no stopping people using a term like metaphysics in a different way. But I can't set aside the difference between a theoretical stance, which seems baked into the concept and essentially different from a form of life which is the engagement of a living being with needs and desires (and hence values) in the world. Certainly, for Wittgenstein (though he doesn't put it this way) and for Heidegger, insistence on the latter is a fundamental part of their philosophies - IMO.

Does D have to say that he should not have doubted the "eternal truths"? Or that he should not have been inattentive to them? Does this amount to the same thing, if they're irresistible? — J

The difficulty is that "irresistible" seems to mean that he could not have doubted eternal truths. Well, only in the way that he can utter the sentence "I doubt the Law of Non-Contradiction". My complaint is that he can't follow through with the consequences of that doubt. It's the follow-up that makes it real. (I'm sure that you are thinking, "Oh, but one can doubt the LNC". In a sense, yes. But think about what one would do and say that puts flesh on the bones. Descartes doesn't give us that, on the excuse that his doubt is (merely methodical). I say that it's not a real doubt.)

Do you mean that we should acknowledge that someone, somewhere, could be taught to see a lion in the duck-rabbit?" If that's the idea, I agree; it is not strictly impossible. — J

We can utter the words. But we can't put any flesh on the bones. (If we could, we could see the lion in the picture.)

I think Ludwig, and maybe Moore, mean the first; my hand, when seen, has the property of self-evidence. — J

I'm doubtful about the concept of self-evidence. I think the point here is that a claim like "This is my hand" explains what it is to have a hand. If you insist on doubting that, I shall ask why. You don't have any reason beyond repeating "That hand might be an illusion", I shall not be impressed. I'll think you just don't understand what it is to have a hand or to see a hand. Contrast the situation when I explain that I have a prosthetic hand, not a real one.

I suppose I could see my hand but not be sure that "this is a hand," because I don't know the concept. — J

If I have a hand, it is part of my life. You might think differently and not have the same concept, but the hand will show up in your thinking in one way or another. Your supposition that it might not is empty - just a form of words.

So, is there a difference between "not being able to see the lion" and "not being able to not-see my hand"? Does either one equal "simply true"? I'll keep mum. — J

Well, I'm not sure what to say, either. But those cases are clearly not the same as the duck-rabbit, because there is no coherent alternative interpretation. So I'm driven to say, on the one hand that there's no reason to withhold "true" from either and that our seeing involves a process just like interpretation.

But it is important to appreciate that it will never be the exact same sense, because the form of life or hinge making Moore’s assertion intelligible in the way that he means it is slowly morphing over time , but much more slowly than the empirical assertions and language games that it authorizes. — Joshs

That's just like Heraclitus' river or Theseus' ship. I don't exactly disagree. But I also insist that I am the exact same person as I was 20 years ago. It's normal for things to change over time without losing their identity. However, one could say that we now see hands differently from Moore's day, because physics has revealed that solid objects are not what we thought they were.

They are agreeing that it is a drawing, that their task is to identify what it resembles, that the figure within it can be interpreted in different ways, they see enough detail in the image to recognize a duck or a rabbit. — Joshs

Yes. But I don't think that any of that is metaphysics. But those practices are embedded in our form of life.

or enough to produce the ‘odd fact’ of actually seeing something as something. — Joshs

H'm. I'm reluctant to say that seeing something as something is an odd fact. It seems normal to me. I would say that the odd fact is the puzzle picture.

I’m equating metaphysical system with paradigm , worldview or Wittgensteinian form of life. — Joshs

Poor old W - he must be spinning in his grave. I can see that, in some ways, metaphysical systems may play a part in our lives similar to the part he attributes to "forms of life". But insofar as they are theoretical, in the sense that physics is theoretical, they can't be forms of life.

Is the duck-rabbit’s not being a lion is simply true, is it simply true in the same way as Moore’s declaration that ‘this is a hand’? — Joshs

I think the duck-rabbit's not beiing a lion is simply true. I'm not sure what to say about a picture that has, or at least appears to have just one interpretation - like my picture of my mother. We have to say, I think, that the puzzle pictures are a special case. But seeing my mother in the picture must also be an interpretation. I'm really not sure what to say about this.
I'm not sure what to say about the comparison with Moore's hand. However, one of the points about Moore's hand is that we would not know what to say to someone who insisted on doubting that he himself did not have a hand. We would have to work out what he meant. In that way, I think the two statements are comparable.

So, it seems reasonable to me to think the Presocratic speculations about cosmic constitution made sense to them in terms of what were thought to be the basic elements and the everyday experience of finding things to be made of different materials. — Janus

Certainly they made sense to them. But they don't make sense to us. Now, are we going to worry about whether they made sense simpiciter or in a non-relative sense of making sense. I hope not.

It's easy to dismiss their theories. But some of their questions survive to this day, in the form of logical paradoxes. (It's just that we don't draw the same conclusions from them.) They weren't idiots.

Hmm. What to make of this? It sounds like a flaw in the process of methodical doubt, though Williams doesn't go that far. — J

Fascinating. It looks like a flaw to me. Inattention is feeble. But it is possible to make mistakes in calculations and draw incorrect inferences, though philosophers seem curiously reluctant to mention the fact. No doubt any evil demons around will be only too happy to help that tendency along. So Descartes can maintain his usual premiss and sustain his methodical doubt. But then he faces another challenge, to explain how come those truths that he doubted a little while ago are now seen as are irresistible. There's a possible answer. I guess one could argue that seeing something clearly and distinctly requres that one pay attention to it.

But since such standards apply only WITHIN that metaphysical system, it has nothing to say about an alternative metaphysical stance within which it makes sense to say that a duck-rabbit may also be a lion. — Joshs

My remark that the duck-rabbit can't be a lion was not, so far as I'm aware, a metaphysical claim. It's simply true. The idea that it could be a lion really passes my imagination. What do you mean here by a metaphysical system? Kant versus Berkeley, vs Aquinas etc? Can you elaborate?

It is the impossibility of closure that leads me to say there can be no certainty in relation to metaphysical speculations. — Janus

Well, yes. In a way. But in case like this, you may find that people will infer that metaphysical speculations are always uncertain. But that's misleading. Better to say that metaphysical speculations are neither certain nor uncertain. But that doesn't mean that it's an open house. Interpretations do have to meet standards before they are acceptable. You can't interpret the duck-rabbit as a picture of a lion. That's why one talks of interpretations as valid or invalid, (or plausible or not, etc.) rather than true or false.

I say again that "amply demonstrated" and "impossible" are too strong. I'm agnostic, leaning toward skeptic, about metaphysical certainty, but the debate is hardly over. — J

I'm afraid that I have never understood exactly what metaphysical certainty is, so I'm not going to express an opinion.

Perhaps I am more skeptical than you in thinking that it is not possible that the debate could ever be over. I mean the situation seems quite different than in the sciences where new information can always come to light―in the context of purely rational thought, wherein it seems to be writ that empirical findings have no demonstrable metaphysical implications, where is any new information going to come from? — Janus

I agree that it's not a question of new information. But that doesn't mean that new ways of thinking about the problem, especially new ways of interpreting what we already know, are ever entirely impossible. I tend to see what are labelled metaphysical questions as questions of interpretation. So the developments that started the analytic tradition bring a new perspective to old questions and enable debates to radically change. Questions of interpretation don't have closure in the way that questions of information or even rationality sometimes do.

To give the most charitable hearing to Descartes' project, I think we ought to agree that this is what he meant. Consider a memory -- say, of the Brooklyn Bridge. When it comes to mind, do we say that I have "thought" the Brooklyn Bridge? Not really; in English, that's awkward. But such an example would surely serve for Descartes' point -- if I can have such an experience, I must exist. Whether we call it an English "thought" or a French "pensee" or simply a mental event doesn't really affect the point. — J

The quotation from the Principles does confirm Williams' reading. That reading is also at least compatible with the Meditations. I'm convinced. I've never been keen on the dancing around with Descartes' self. It all seems a bit gossamer, even subjective.