Aristotle's claim in the Metaphysics that to speak truth is to say of what is that it is or of what is not that it is not is very close to the truth predication question. — Leontiskos

Yes, quite close, and Kimhi is a hard-core Aristotelian if he's anything you could put a label on. But I assume Aristotle did not describe truth as a property that could or could not be predicated; that way of thinking wasn't available to him. Is there something he did say that would be more or less the equivalent of "To say of what is that it is, is not to provide additional knowledge about it"? Or maybe: "To assert of what is that it is, is the same act as identifying the being/existence of what is"? This is roughly what Kimhi wants to claim -- but again, I'm sure someone has done work on the "emptiness" question involved in predications of existence and truth, I just can't remember who.

Thanks, we certainly find the existence question in Kant. (That's why I chose "a hundred thalers" as my example.) What I'm trying to pin down is whether anyone has addressed specifically the apparent parallel between "Existence is not a predicate" and "Truth is not a predication." Does it ring any bells?

Gosh, I seem to have riled you re Haslanger, which was certainly not my intention. I said this about her: "Sally Haslanger (and others, I'm sure) has suggested a useful way of schematizing possible approaches to this kind of inquiry." I don't think it's fair to say that "suggested a useful way" involving "possible approaches" equates to "imposing her as an authority" or claiming that she's given a "metaphysical taxonomy of all the mutually exclusive ways of using terms" in a way that's "more or less on par with divine revelation."

I'd hoped my use of Haslanger would be helpful in teasing out some of the intricacies of "What is F?" questions. I'm sorry it wasn't, for you.

It sounds like you're asking Pat if he wants to be happy at the cost of naivete, and he says no. Naivete is for him a very pronounced form of unhappiness.

Of course, in our culture "happiness" has become much more psychological than eudamonia. For example, lots of people will skip the "happiness pills," but it's not because they don't want to be happy, it's because they don't think the pills produce happiness. They don't think psychological ease is happiness. Pat seems to fall easily within this group. — Leontiskos

We seem to be inquiring into, and differing about, the meaning of the term "happiness" here. As you know, Sally Haslanger (and others, I'm sure) has suggested a useful way of schematizing possible approaches to this kind of inquiry. Here’s a quick summary, with liberal unattributed quotes from Haslanger.

When asking about the meaning of F, we can broadly take three approaches:

Conceptual analysis elucidates “our” concept (that is, the concept as employed within a certain group of language users) by exploring what we we take F-ness to be. It is, more or less, a priori, or at least armchair; the assumption is that the analyst is already in a position to know how the relevant community uses the term. A more genealogical approach here would include considering the variety of understandings and uses of F-ness over time, and among different individuals.

Descriptive analysis elucidates the empirical kinds into which “our” paradigm cases of F-ness fall, in an attempt to derive a definition of F-ness through examples. For this, we usually have to do some research, especially if the question of “natural kinds” is involved. (To jump ahead a little bit, a descriptive analysis of “happiness” would probably include paradigm cases like “contentment,” “satisfaction,” “fulfillment,” “pleasure,” “sense of meaningfulness to others,” etc.)

Ameliorative analysis elucidates, more or less, what F should mean, what it ought to mean in order to best serve our philosophical needs – even, perhaps, our moral needs. It’s a normative approach, and usually results in recommendations to precisify a term, or to reorganize a series of related terms in a new way, so as to add perspicacity to what they can say.

Very rough and ready, but let’s see how it applies when F = “happiness”. Back to your original statement: “In our culture ‛happiness’ has become much more psychological than eudaemonia. For example, lots of people will skip the ‛happiness pills,’ but it's not because they don't want to be happy, it's because they don't think the pills produce happiness. They don't think psychological ease is happiness.”

This, on Haslanger’s view, reports a confusion of approaches. The statement begins by offering a (partial) descriptive analysis of “happiness”: “in our culture” the word is used to pick out certain psychological states (probably including the ones I listed above). You’re not saying that this is what the concept in fact entails – that would be a conceptual analysis – nor are you recommending (or not) using the word “happiness” in this way – that would be an ameliorative analysis. You’re simply pointing to an empirical fact about language users right now.

But next you say that many people will skip “happiness pills” -- that is, refuse to be made allegedly happy by some reliable means – because they don’t believe such means do produce happiness. So the people in question have performed (in some loose sense) a conceptual analysis of the term “happiness” -- they know what it means to them – and are disputing whether “happy-pill happiness” is in fact covered by the definition of happiness, properly understood. And of course by bringing in a judgment like “properly understood,” we reach ameliorative analysis; the pill-skippers may want us to reform our thinking on the matter and stop using the term “happiness” in this inferior way.

In conclusion, “They don’t think psychological ease is happiness.” But we’re entitled to ask, given the blurring of approaches used so far, in which sense do they disagree with this? Are they saying that they don’t believe psychological ease is enumerated among happy states by language users in our culture? (descriptive approach) This would mean that a person who says “I feel happy because I’m at ease” is using the language incorrectly, and others would have trouble understanding why he would say this. Or are the deniers saying that, upon analysis, happiness can’t be reduced to psychological ease? (conceptual approach) This would mean that the person who declares “I feel happy because I’m at ease” is not wrong about language use; this is in fact how people talk; they’re wrong per se, about the concept of happiness, and this can be demonstrated analytically. Or, lastly, are the deniers saying that one shouldn’t equate psychological ease with happiness? (ameliorative approach) – that there are good reasons for recommending a different use of the term and/or understanding of the concept. This would mean that “I feel happy because I’m at ease” can be both coherent and true, but on the recommended revision that would no longer be the case.

I’ll stop with a bit of generalization. I think the discussion on this thread, and throughout much of moral philosophy, is largely ameliorative, and rightly so. What we have here are competing recommendations for how a cloudy term like happiness might be better understood and used. Indeed, one recommendation is to abandon entirely its common usages in philosophy and substitute eudaemonia. The reason for this recommendation is important: It’s because “happiness” in English is found philosophically wanting. It doesn’t seem up to the job that we’ve asked it to do. Using it, we’re led into contradictions and unlikelihoods. Eudaemonia, in contrast, offers much more clarification – the claim is that it better captures a coherent moral stance, fits better into a larger metaphysics, and great philosophers like Aristotle are brought in to testify to this.

I say this is the right approach, but with a caveat. We need to keep Haslanger’s analysis in mind, and be very careful when we seem to say that English users “don’t know what happiness is,” or that someone “really wants to be happy” even if we can’t find any examples on the ground of how to use “happy” in this way. The language, and the way people use it, is what it is. Speakers aren’t (usually) making mistakes. My character Pat doesn’t want to be happy, on either a descriptive or a conceptual understanding of the term. At best, you might convince them that they ought to ameliorate what “happiness” means (call it “happiness*”) in order to include the kinds of things they do want – but then you can’t also say that they really wanted “happiness” all along. Competent English users would begin scratching their heads. The whole point of ameliorative analysis is to show that “happiness” and “happiness*” are not the same thing, and that one is preferable to the other -- if not morally, then at the least in terms of philosophical usefulness and insight.

Thanks, very helpful. No need to run this into the ground but I still feel there ought to be a separate category other than merely "state of vice" to describe people like Robbie. You say this involves "the enjoyment and pursuit of vice," and this is indeed how we think of wicked or vicious people -- but Robbie isn't like that. Robbie hates the condition they are in, and has no desire to keep pursuing it . . . or so they say. Do we need to say that Robbie "secretly" or "deeply" enjoys being stuck in misery, in order to explain their condition? I'm not sure that's right. But in any case, I would hesitate to judge Robbie by the same yardstick I'd use to judge the typical, "standard" person in a state of vice.

The point is that people pursue some good when they act — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes indeed, but that good may not be named as, or experienced as, happiness; we see this in Pat's case.

Robbie's behavior seems pretty well summed up in the Ethic's discussions on virtue versus vice and incontinence. It is not the case that Aristotle thinks we always prefer virtue. One can fall into vice. One can also recognize vice as vice and still prefer it, even as one knows they should try to rise to virtue. When a person is unsuccessful at overcoming desires they know are wrong this is incontinence, — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think you're right to place Robbie in this general context, but I don't think their situation is quite described here. Robbie has "fallen into vice," yes. But they don't recognize vice as vice, because they don't believe they are making wrong choices. Nor is Robbie failing to overcome self-acknowledged "wrong desires," for the same reason; so Robbie's not incontinent. The missing piece from this attempt to describe Robbie is lack of self-knowledge. What does Aristotle say about this? Is there a term, or an ethical condition, that can describe a person who has "fallen into vice" but not only doesn't know it, but is convinced that they desire the exact opposite?

Yes, these are interesting points. You're saying that, IF the satisfaction of a desire matches my expectation, then I am, ceteris paribus, happier than I was before. So we need to modify the original thought to reflect this. It's not "getting what we want" that would automatically make me happier, but rather the getting + the match with expectations. The takeaway here would be that "what I want" is not something that necessarily produces happiness when achieved.

Fair enough. But this pushes us back to the question of whether any of this should be phrased in terms of happiness. And, considering the Aristotelian framework of this thread, we have to ask: "English-language happiness" or something more like eudaemonia? It seems true enough that I experience something positive when a desired expectation is met, but in English, at any rate, I really don't think "happiness" is going to cover it a lot of the time. I don't mean to pick a controversial example, but it seems well suited to capture the problem: If Ellie finds herself unwillingly pregnant in the 1st trimester, she has a choice to make among (at least) three options. Even granting that the result of whatever choice she makes does meet her expectations, can we say she is "happier" without doing violence to the language? She may believe, correctly, that her condition would be worse if she had chosen either of the other two options, but simply being "better than the other alternatives" doesn't equate to happiness, I would say. Especially in a fraught case like this, happiness seems a bridge too far.

Interestingly, I think you can make a much stronger case for the result of Ellie's decision (no matter which it is) promoting her eudaemonia, her overall well-being. Sometimes doing the right thing doesn't, and can't, make us happy, though we may see that it is the right thing, and will work toward our eventual good. But here is where my example becomes controversial, so perhaps ill-chosen, because in order to acknowledge that Ellie's eudaemonia could be furthered regardless of which decision she makes, you'd also have to agree that giving birth, early abortion, and adoption are on a moral par, which many do not.

Some philosopher once said that, while common sense doesn't necessarily get the last word, it should certainly be given the first word. So I'm trying to take the contention "Humans necessarily want to be happy" on its common-sense merits, and read "happy" as what most English speakers would mean by happy.

I completely agree that this was not what Aristotle meant, but of course Aristotle did not speak English. Eudaemonia is close to untranslatable, but "flourishing" or "good spirit" will have to do, and it's a far cry from English-language "happiness." It's much closer to that sense of harmony within the human being, the identification of inner well-being with outer virtue, that I tried to hint at. And that's why I gave Aristotle that cryptic question at the end of my post, seeking to remind his interlocutor that happiness and the good are not separated in the way that English speakers believe they are.

When we get what we want, doesn’t that automatically make us happier than we would have been had we not achieved that thing that we wanted? — Joshs

This is a psychological question, not a philosophical one, I would say. For what it's worth, my answer is No. All too often, as I know from my own experience, getting what you want can be a bitter disappointment (and bad for you too!).

I'll do another post about Pat and Robbie later today, responding to Count T's placement of them in an Aristotelian framework.

More simply, the objection asks why one ought to want to be happy. For Aristotle this is sophistry. Humans do want to be happy, just as fish do want to be in the water. It's just the way we are. "We don't necessarily want to be happy," is nothing more than a debater's argument. — Leontiskos

I don't know . . . possibly I've hung out with the wrong people but the idea that "humans necessarily want to be happy" is extremely implausible to me. Here, for instance, is a person named Pat. Pat suffers from a variety of psychological, physical, and spiritual maladies that produce a kind of chronic frustration, depression, resentment, and lack of ease -- in short, what we mean by "unhappiness." If you ask Pat if they "want to be happy," the answer you will get is: "Nonsense. What you call 'being happy' is for sheep. I operate on a higher plane. Of course I'm miserable, but that is what happens when a person of true intellect sees the world aright. I wouldn't trade one minute of my unhappiness for a fool's paradise of Smiley Faces." Pat, you could say, would rather be Happy (their sense) than happy, but surely that's stretching what "happy" means. Let's face it: Pat just doesn't want to be happy, and they can give you their reasons why.

Or here, for another instance, is a person named Robbie. Robbie suffers from the same brood of ailments that Pat does. When we ask Robbie the same question -- "Do you want to be happy?" -- the reply is: "Of course I do! I'd give anything to be happy." We then recommend some basic steps that might begin to relieve Robbie's misery -- a thorough medical evaluation, perhaps, or therapy, or philosophical study, or more exercise and pleasant activities -- to which Robbie replies by explaining in great detail why none of those suggestions are options that would work for them. We go around this circle several more times and finally conclude what we must: that Robbie, despite what they say, doesn't really want to be happy. Robbie has a false self-image, that of a person who truly desires happiness, but it's easy enough to see through it.

I submit that neither Pat nor Robbie are extraordinary types, or even all that unusual. But perhaps the more important point is this: Aristotle doesn't mean "everybody" when he talks about the human desire for happiness, and we mustn't misunderstand him in that way. I believe he's speaking about a telos of the type or species "human," and asking us to conceive of a person in harmony with themselves. Such a person would understand the relation between the good and happiness; would desire both; and would have the practical knowledge to achieve them. This is very different from "All fish necessarily want to be in the water."

If we could bring him into this conversation, I think Aristotle might say: "Yes, sadly, there are those whom you have to actually convince to desire their own good, but that doesn't put the idea of 'the good' up for grabs in any important way." But wait a minute, Ari, we reply; we're talking about happiness, not the good. Aristotle smiles serenely . . . "Oh, are you?" he asks.

Yes, some fascinating connections here. I want to hold off and continue following this thread so I can learn more about Przywara, whom I haven’t read. And some day I may be bold enough to try an OP on Kimhi’s Thinking and Being, which is square in the middle of this discussion (and very difficult).

I took it that the "formal question" is about where any methodology must begin re metaphysics. Are we to begin our investigation with being or the mind? - essentially. Basically, we can't start saying things about being until we first resolve what we need to start investigating first. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, good. My concern is with the further, reflexive problem: Is that question (“Are we to begin our investigation with being or mind?”) a metaontic one – that is, is it a question about being? Or is it metanoetic, a question about knowing? (I think it would be too simple, though tempting, to say: Neither one, it’s about methodology. At this extremely abstract meta-level, I don’t think we can introduce a third category called “methodology.”)

The reasons I think this is an important puzzle are, first, that it immediately points us toward a praxis, under the rubric of “methodology,” and second, it shows how quickly the issue of the identity of thinking and being becomes crucial. Can we raise the question of methodology without positing certain things in common between thinking and being?

But first we might consider, is this really the first, most formal problem of metaphysics? It certainly seems dominant. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thanks for starting this thread. I will follow it with interest. But just to be clear, could you state what "this" refers to, in the quoted sentence? Is the "first, most formal" problem the difficulty of saying whether the first problem is metaontic or metanoetic? If so, is that question metaontic or metanoetic?

A very interesting OP and discussion. A salutary reminder that analytic philosophy doesn’t necessarily provide the correct framework for all important philosophical problems.

The phrase “this feeling ‛yourself now’”, and your identification of this subjective experience with subjectivity itself, puts me in mind of the notorious Kierkegaard passage that opens The Sickness Unto Death. There’s a new translation from Bruce H. Kirmmse, but the canonical Walter Lowrie version seems clearer to me:

What is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation [which accounts for it] that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but [consists in the fact] that the relation relates itself to its own self. — Soren Kierkegaard

I think SK is pointing to the same slippery fact that you are trying to articulate – that something uniquely difficult to describe or explain happens when we make our subjective experience an object of our own reflection. Must this attempt fail? Does the experience’s existence in a kind of perfect present tense doom any attempt to grasp it, as you suggest? SK says, on my understanding, that what characterizes a self is an activity, a relating. It is not a relation – that would make it an object – but rather an activity or experience that allows, or results in, the “relation of self-reflection,” which can be grasped, more or less. Whether this activity can yet be objectified in some other way, through some further reflection, perhaps through memory, I don’t know, and it’s not clear to me what SK thought about that.

Writing this, I experience the same difficulty that I assume SK and you experienced in trying to articulate this crucial yet elusive moment of thought. I well remember colleagues in grad school who used this passage from SK as a kind of exemplar for everything they thought opaque and phony about continental philosophy. Au contraire! Difficult though it is, we have to keep trying to push the limits of language in order to learn what we think about the self, about ourselves. And it may well be the case that -- again, uniquely to this problem of subjectivity -- what we think about the self constitutes the self.

Haven’t we conflated two different problems here? The first – the one raised by Locke – is whether there are innate ideas, which are presumably concepts, or contents of thought, or something equally non-physical. The second is whether there are innate physical traits, like having hands or growing leaves, that can be partially explained through concepts of potency and telos (and, I suppose, DNA).

Before I take this thought any further, let me ask whether you see these as in fact the same problem? Does “innate human qualities” cover both these categories? I didn’t read Locke as arguing for the latter.

But just stating the trivial fact that "numbers are something humans use," or "words are things we say," as if this pivot to activity makes the explanation an unanalyzable primitive strikes me as essentially a non-explanation. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I understand what you're getting at, but it's a bit of a strawman, isn't it? "Unanalyzable primitive" doesn't seem to capture what philosophers mean when they talk about numbers and words as instances of human activity, though I suppose a deeply pragmatic view might support that. On this thread, and pretty generally, I think, we're merely trying to make some ontological sense out of numbers and quantifiers. If numbers aren't "out there," Platonically, if they represent a human construction based in the activity of doing mathematics, they can still be as real as you'd like them to be. We mustn't fall into the trap of believing that nothing could be real, or be said to exist, that isn't "out there" with or without humans. And yes, I fully agree that there are versions of scientism that encourage such a belief.

The kind of explanation you want, if I'm understanding you, is one that would show us one of two things: either why numbers are so marvelously suitable to our human inquiries, or why they correspond to features of the world that aren't arbitrary, and hence are part of saying true things about that world. Ideally, an explanation of their correspondence to reality would also explain their usefulness.

Sider is indeed arguing for a privileged ontological structure, and so is Nagel, and so am I. What isn’t privileged is the terms associated with that structure -- not even seemingly rock-bottom terms like "exist". Maybe it helps to try to imagine a whole new vocabulary that we could use to describe said structure. Some areas get called “Gorp”, others “Vulp”, others “Cheeb”. These areas are, let’s say, definable in terms of their structural relations to each other – terms that would include “fundamentality” and “necessitation” – and are discoverable, and people can be right or wrong about which is which. So we lay out our map. Now the question is, “Which of those areas match with the terms ‛exist’, ‛real’, and ‛object’?” (There might be many more key structural elements; choosing three is just for purposes of example.) This is where the seemingly endless debate begins. But I think we need to get clear that a debate about terms is not a debate about structure, and it doesn’t follow that doubting privileged terms is the same as doubting privileged structure.

Of course this can feel counter-intuitive because we really want to believe that, once we lay out the “map,” it will obvious which of our ordinary terms must correspond to Gorp, Vulp, and Cheeb. Surely it will be obvious which of them “exists”? Maybe Gorp is the most fundamental bit, so that’s the one that “exists”? Or maybe we ought to call the most fundamental bit “real” -- is that a better match with our concepts? But there’s just nothing we can point at (within philosophy, anyway) to settle it and say, “Obviously, this area is what exists” or "Since Vulp depends on Cheeb, Vulp must be our 'object'." As I said before, in a phrase I quite like :wink: , “To argue for a common-sense meaning (or any other) for 'exist' is done in a natural language, not Logicalese.” And that argument can go on, in terms of pragmatics, even as we work to figure out the metaphysical structure we believe is most accurate.

Thanks, that's helpful, and I will mull my response to this. But just one thing . . .

To simply assume that disagreements of fact are impossible is to have begged the question in favor of pluralism or Sider's, “in essence, quantifier variance.” — Leontiskos

No one is assuming that such a disagreement is impossible. The puzzle goes deeper than that: We want to know how we could recognize or describe this kind of fact, so as to have something to disagree about, without stipulating a meaning for "existence" that would also be disputable. I'm sure you're not saying that there is a plain fact of the matter as to whether mereological items or universals exist, but I admit that I'm not sure just what you are saying. Is there a sense of "fact" you're wanting us to understand and accept? Is it related to the Quinean "To be is to be the value of a bound variable"?

(And for the record, this isn't about skepticism concerning everyday objects. It's about how to divvy up metaphysical structure.)

There's a lot here, and in your recent previous posts. I want to reply, but first I'd like to make sure I'm understanding you. Is there any "second-order equivocation" going on in the example I originally gave from Sider?

Borrowing an example from Sider, let’s say I am a non-native English speaker who has recently learned the language. I mistakenly believe that the word for “number” is “fish”. You and I have a conversation in which we discover we’re both nominalists. You say, correctly from our shared point of view, “numbers do not exist”. I agree with you, saying “fish do not exist”. Sider claims, I think rightly, that this is not a “verbal dispute” in the classic sense of two people talking past each other because they use words differently. You and I both mean the same thing – we are each thinking the same thing about numbers – but I have made a verbal mistake. Presumably, genuine disagreements between languages can’t be analyzed and resolved in this way. And what about disagreements about quantifiers? (This is me now, not Sider.) If I say “mereological composites exist” and you say “there is no such thing as a mereological composite”, which kind of dispute is going on? Are we disagreeing about concepts, while using the same words? Or are we holding the concept of “existence” steady, while (someone is) making a mistake in terminology? How could we know which of us is making the mistake?! — J

I would have thought "first-order equivocation" would be "the classic sense of two people talking past each other because they use [the same] words differently," but maybe that's not what you mean. And in the follow-up situation about mereology, the question would be: Is "disagreeing about concepts while using the same words" an example of first-order equivocation, while "holding the concept of 'existence' steady while (someone is) making a mistake in terminology" second-order equivocation? Note that we don't need to talk in terms of "mistakes," in this situation; it's enough that there be a difference.

Oh, and this bit is salient:

What all of this illustrates, is that in tying quantification to existence, two distinct roles are ultimately conflated:
(a) The quantificational role specifies whether all objects in the domain of quantification are being quantified over or whether only some objects are.
(b) The ontological role specifies that the objects quantified over exist.
These are fundamentally different roles, which are best kept apart. By distinguishing them and letting quantifiers only implement the quantificational role, one obtains an ontologically neutral quantification. Ontological neutrality applies to both the universal and the particular quantifier (that is, the existential quantifier without any existential, ontological import).
— Quantifier Variance Dissolved — Banno

Yes, good spotting. "Ontologically neutral quantification" (which I bolded, above) is exactly what we want. It's a good way of describing the difference between the "exists" of quantification and the "exists" of ontology.

Your claim that "Ǝ never actually changes its meaning" is refuted by the simple fact that there are different forms of quantification available in different kinds of logic; thus falls the first, univocal horn of the dilemma. — Leontiskos

Is this really right? I haven't worked with modal logic deeply enough to say. Certainly I had in mind the standard use of Ǝ in non-modal logic, and I was under the impression that 'Ǝx' means 'Ǝx' no matter what may then be done to it in terms of possibility and necessity. But I'd welcome any help with this, as it's germane to the QV issue. (Is there a reason Finn and Bueno don't cite modal logic as an instance of QV?)

Frege was trying to reduce mathematics to logic . . . this isn't necessarily a deformation of logic by focusing on a limited domain, so much as an idealization of logic by focusing on the domain that most cleanly, we might say, represents human thought. And as it happens, I think Frege thought so as well. I think he was mostly of the opinion that natural languages are too much of a mess to do sound work in. — Srap Tasmaner

This thread has developed far and wide, with the discussion quality very high, and I don’t mind at all the divagations from my OP. Unsurprisingly, thinking about quantifier variance opens the door to basic questions about existence and the nature of philosophical thinking itself.

So, just a few responses: The above statements about Frege are right, I believe. Responding to the messiness of natural language, he/we’ve gone on to develop the quantificational apparatus and the ability to speak Logicalese, which really does clear up some of the mess, quite often. But it leaves us with puzzles too, like this one about whether quantifier variance is a coherent idea. The underlying problem doesn’t go away just because we declare (as I think we should) that Ǝ never actually changes its meaning, or, better, its use. If I say, in English translation, “Numbers exist,” and you say, “Numbers do not exist,” we’re disputing what it means to exist, not how to use the quantifier correctly. This is even clearer with a mereological example such as “There exists an item composed of my left nostril and the planet Venus”. We very much want to deny that such an item exists, but we can’t do it by claiming it’s impervious to quantification. To argue for a common-sense meaning (or any other) for “exist” is done in a natural language, not Logicalese.

What's asserted in an existentially quantified formula is not really, say, "Rabbits exist," but the more mundane "Some of the things (at least one) that exist are rabbits." Or "Not all of the things that exist aren't rabbits," etc. — Srap Tasmaner

This makes the same point well. To say that "Some of the things that exist are rabbits" doesn't tell you a thing about what "exist" means.

To take the example of the OP: quantifier meaning is not unconditioned by ontological commitments — Leontiskos

This would be the pro-QV position, but suppose we said instead, “The meaning of ‛existence’ is not unconditioned by ontological commitments.” This seems unproblematically true – in fact, if we’re not careful, it becomes redundant. But I’m recommending it because it rids us of the assumption that quantifier meaning is about ontological commitments – the very point that needs to be demonstrated. (And no, I don’t think simply saying “To be is to be the value of a bound variable” demonstrates it, catchy though that is.)

Does QV amount to a claim that no one can be mistaken? — Srap Tasmaner

It had better not. But it’s not the only position in the neighborhood that threatens that consequence, so denying QV is only a beginning. As I was saying to Banno previously, the real question is ontological pluralism, which at the very least seems to imply that, if you are mistaken (about basic ontological questions), you’d never know it.

basic logic is the fundamental tool of everything done in mathematics, absolutely everything -- it's just taken as given at lower levels of learning, without any suggestion that you're actually borrowing from some rarefied advanced field of mathematics. — Srap Tasmaner

One of my friends is a distinguished physicist who also knows a lot of philosophy. He is adamant that logic precedes math, in just the way you suggest. (I’m trying to get him to opine about Reality-with-a-Capital-R but he’s being coy. Claims he doesn't understand the question . . . what a cop-out.)

This is great, thanks! Didn't know the sample was available online.

The more I think about this, the more I'm persuaded that this is the right line to take. It makes the most sense of some difficult concepts. So on to ontological pluralism? Would you agree that we can have that (or the threat of it) regardless of whether QV is workable?

"Numbers are something we do," suggests the question: "why are numbers something we (and animals) do?" All activities have causes, right? — Count Timothy von Icarus

With all respect to @Banno, the formula "Numbers are something we do" could use some clarification. For one thing, it lends itself to the interpretation you're querying here -- that "doing numbers" is just a practice, something we might have chosen to do differently, or not do at all. I don't think this is right, and I don't think Banno needs to hold this position in order to make his point -- though he can tell us if that is so.

I read his position as saying that we wouldn't have numbers if we didn't have mathematics as a whole; that is, numbers "come into existence" as they assume their place within mathematical practice, which is a doing, an activity. You can't "find" 3 but overlook or do without 4, to put it crudely. With numbers, it's all or nothing.

But that understanding, if expressed as "Numbers are something we do," doesn't distinguish between two sets of alternatives, two different questions. The first set of alternatives is: Numbers are either a) found or b) invented. (Let's not worry about getting this more precise, for the moment.) The second set is: Numbers are either a) reflective of the basic structure of reality, or b) arbitrary/pragmatic. (Same caveat here.)

Now if we say "Numbers are something we do," this could mean that we perform them -- or, to put it in more ordinary talk, do mathematics -- as a kind of invention, rather as we might dance or sing. This would be option B of the first set of alternatives. Then again, "Numbers are something we do" might mean "Numbers are [just] something WE do" -- they are indeed arbitrary choices that might have been made differently, had we practiced a different mathematics. This would be option B of the second set of alternatives.

I want to hold out for option B in the first set, and option A in the second set, and I don't know whether "Numbers are something we do" represents a disagreement with me. It needn't, as I'm trying to show. My assertion could mean that numbers as such -- numerals, individual items with names like '7' -- aren't "out there," they aren't found, but nevertheless our choices within mathematics are far from arbitrary or free. This latter clause could be extended to the point of claiming that math (or logic) is perhaps the most basic structure there is, absolutely ontologically fundamental.

The challenge to that position is, How could something so basic not be "out there"? What do I mean by "structure" and "fundamental"? Yeah, that's worth a tome or two, and fortunately Theodore Sider is trying to help us out . . . see his Writing the Book of the World.

So i think we can pass the argument back to those who might support quantifier variance, and ask them to set out explicitly what it is they might mean. — Banno

Yes, since the discussion needs a natural stopping place, we could certainly toss the ball back to the friends of QV. And yet . . . haven't they given us a pretty good explanation of what they mean? To re-quote:

Quantifier-Variance is the doctrine that there are alternative, equally legitimate meanings one can attach to the quantifiers – so that in one perfectly good meaning of ‛there exists’, I may say something true when I assert ‛there exists something which is a compound of this pencil and your left ear’, and in another, you may say something true when you assert ‛there is nothing which is composed of that pencil and my left ear’. — Bob Hale and Crispin Wright

I think a lot of our discussion on this thread has focused on whether these "equally legitimate meanings" are attached to the quantifiers at all. The best anti-QV position is that the existential quantifier always means the same thing, it's the predication of "existence" that changes. So let's say that's true. With a wave of the hand, we can eliminate quantifier variance strictly understood. But as I was saying in a previous post, I don't think we've laid to rest, or explained, the doubts that Hale and Wright express. They want to know whether the "perfectly good meanings" of "there exists" are equally legitimate, equally assertive of truths, equally undistinguished in terms of how well they correspond with or describe reality. They propose QV as a possible explanation of how this could be. Even if we reject that view, the real problem remains, which is, I suggest, ontological pluralism. But that can wait for a new OP.

If someone is sincerely attempting to stay within communicative rationality, then they could not be engaged in performative contradiction, right? If this is right, then to say that his sincerity is unknown is also to say that his status as dictator is unknown. This is a large part of what is tripping me up. — Leontiskos

Yes, it's complex. I keep thinking, though, that a "sincere dictator" isn't impossible. Consider two scenarios: 1. A rational egoist of some stripe enters into dialogue and lays out a case for an essentially first-personal approach to ethics. In the process of doing this, it becomes clear that a consequence of their case is that there's nothing irrational about trying to get people to do what you want. This puts the dictator in performative contradiction, but it doesn't mean that their sincerity breaks down. The dictator sincerely believes that using duplicitous arguments is OK. 2. The first-person dictator isn't intelligent enough to understand the implications of their theory. The dictator sincerely believes that there's no contradiction, but that's wrong. When it's pointed out, the dictator doesn't understand, and persists in trying to make the case. Here the dictator is in contradiction and perhaps revealed as not much of a philosopher, but again, is their sincerity really in doubt?

To summarize, you keep picturing the dictator as wily and manipulative, fully aware of what they're doing, but that may be giving them too much credit, in a way.

Well, if you consider your "apophatic approach" above, it seems that his judgment will be to a large extent inscrutable. It surely cannot be arrived at by any guaranteed decision-procedure, any ready-made method. — Leontiskos

OK, I understand now. And this would be different from how the referee makes his judgments in a basketball game, I presume. Maybe we need to soften words like "inscrutable" and "incorrigible" (as in "the truth which the judgment discerns will presumably be 'incorrigible'"). Rather than "inscrutable," I think your description that disavows "any guaranteed decision-procedure, any ready-made method" is much closer to the mark. And I don't see incorrigibility as really obtaining here. Communicative action is meant to be reliable, resilient, ethical, useful, truth-discovering, etc., but these results are neither certain nor incorrigible -- at least that's my reading of Habermas.

the first question I would ask is whether Rawls could be seen as providing the first move in a dialogical exchange; or on the other hand, whether a dialogical exchange will always require a Rawlsian- (or Kantian-) like argument to set it into motion; or finally, whether a dialogical exchange will always ultimately conclude in a Rawlsian- (or Kantian-) like argument. Again, feel free to ignore this if it is too far off topic. — Leontiskos

Good questions, and I wonder about them too. It's all very well to oppose a Habermasian "actually carried out discourse" with something more abstract, like the Original Position, but what is Habermas really picturing here? Who calls the meeting into session (seriously)? What sort of time commitments are the participants imagined as having? Is there a kind of pre-nup that specifies the normative commitments? My only experience with an "actually carried out discourse" that resembles this somewhat is Quaker governance at my college.

“Every speech-act-immanent obligation can be made good at two levels: immediately, in the context of the utterance, through indicating a corresponding normative context, or in discourse or in subsequent actions. If the immediate justification does not dispel an ad hoc doubt, we pass to the level of discourse where the subject of discursive examination is the validity of the underlying norm.” (Habermas “Communication and the Evolution of Society”p 67) So, when the ‘underlying norm’ is not immediately apparent, one needs to proceed to the more complicated process of exposing the inherent normative nature. — Number2018

Very interesting, thanks.

He views his philosophy as opposing the radical critique of Reason in contemporary poststructuralism. He argues that Nietzsche, Derrida, and Foucault are exclusively focused on the role of power, and they cannot escape the ‘performative contradiction’ involved in using Reason to criticize Reason. — Number2018

Agreed. Richard J. Bernstein, in Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, says this:

Despite his manifest break with the Kantian tradition of transcendental argument, [Habermas] nevertheless leads us to think that a new reconstructive science of communicative action can establish what Kant and his philosophic successors failed to establish -- a solid ground for a communicative ethics.

Interestingly, Bernstein believes this is only one way to describe Habermas's project. He argues that the emphasis should fall more on "pragmatic" than "transcendental," and that Gadamer, for instance, is essentially an ally in this approach, despite their differences. But overall I think you're right to locate Habermas in the tradition of seeking transcendental grounds for our allegiance to Reason. As I was saying in the OP, the valuable progress I see in Habermas is his expansion and analysis of what reason is and does, in actual communication.

I wonder what you mean when you say that numbers are real.
— Janus

That they have a common reference, that the value of a number is not a matter of opinion or choice. — Wayfarer

I'm sympathetic to that view, and offer a homely analogy. We can say true and false things about Sherlock Holmes. That he had lodgings in Baker Street is true. That he wore a long beard is false. Etc. Now we also want to say that, in some important sense, Holmes didn't exist at all. So how can we make T/F assertions about a nonexistent item? This is where "reality" becomes a tempting term to introduce. Holmes didn't and doesn't exist, but he is real if we let "reality" mean "capable of T/F predications".

The analogy with numbers breaks down, though, when we acknowledge that Holmes is without question nonexistent, whereas a mathematical Platonist (not @Wayfarer) would disagree with the way I'm divvying up the terms -- for her, numbers also exist, just not as empirical objects . . . and the dispute goes on. (Perhaps Holmes himself also exists, as a Form, on this view.)

See Popper
— J
I don't recall this - where is it? — Banno

I had in mind his Three Worlds conception, where Russell's individual brain-events would be thoughts in the World 2 sense, whereas the universals or objects of thought would be World 3 items. I like Popper's discussion because he recognized that the World 2/World 3 distinction isn't just about universals, but concerns any "contents of thought" or propositional meaning. That said, I don't know how seriously we need to take the talk of "Worlds".

That's one way of using ∃ as a quantifier and as a predicate - in this case, ∃!, such that ∃!t=df∃x(x=t). — Banno

Yes, good, and that does help me recapture my puzzle about using ∃ that way. One picture: The existential quantifier is austere, a mere operator, and doesn't add anything to whatever terms it operates upon. This matches up with the traditional arguments for why existence can't be a predicate. Another picture: When we make a statement in Logicalese to the effect that ∃x(x=t), we are indeed providing new information; we are predicating existence of 't'. And in that case, if we go on to say ∃!t=df∃x(x=t), we're having it both ways -- quantifier and predicate. This looks right, but . . . what does that commit us to, in re quantifier variance? We'd been exploring the idea, above, that ∃ doesn't actually vary, but rather the sentences differ in what they pick out as existing, i.e., having the predicate 'existence'. We're supposed to be able to hold some sense of 'existence' steady, and my puzzle is, Which one? Existence as ∃, or existence as the predicate 'exists'? What's worse, the more I try to put this into words, the less certain I am that the question is even a good one. I may have merely muddled the terms.

Perhaps relatedly, the "two domains" question is still murky for me. I'm not a strong enough logician to have a worthwhile opinion.

Thanks, it does look interesting.

Isn't there variation in the domain, in what we are talking about, while quantification remains constant? — Banno

I think this is a version of the question that was worrying me, about whether " ‛Ǝ’ is uniquely troublesome in that it’s used to refer to both a quantifier and a predicate." I've tried several times to sort out what I mean but I can't seem to nail it down. If you have time, can you expand on your question? Maybe it will jog my brain.

If we are even to recognise that there are two domains, we must thereby hold quantification constant. — Banno

Yes, that would follow. Are there two domains?

My intuition about the matter is simply that numbers are real but that they don't exist. — Wayfarer

Sure, that's a perfectly good intuition, based on restricting "existence" to a certain range. All the problems come up when someone then asks you, Why make that choice? I don't mean just you, I mean anyone who wants to say something using words like "real" and "exist". What sort of case are philosophers supposed to make for their choices here?

Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts.

-- Russell

Russell's distinction here is good to keep in mind. See Popper for an even better explanation of how thoughts differ from the objects of thought.

"We shall find it convenient only to speak of things existing when they are in time."

--Russell

Back to the point above, notice Russell's justification for his choice about "existence": convenience! I think most of the good arguments for how to use words like "existence" are pragmatic -- we want to use the words in the ways that will help us frame the questions we're trying to ask. There is, arguably, some sort of "best way" to do this, but it doesn't start by sending a team of metaphysicians to beat the bushes and bring back an actual sample of "existence" or "reality".

↪J Oh, that thread dropped off my list. I didn't see your last reply. Still the most annoying question on the forums. — Banno

Do I get a prize? :halo:

↪Wayfarer's is not just a "terminological question". It's (potentially) a choice between grammars, between languages. Which implies quantifier variance. Which I think we (you and I) are inclined here to deny. — Banno

You're right, the question expands beyond terminology to language itself. I was trying to keep it snappy. As for QV, I'm still plumbing the depths of the arguments. Though yes, at this point I'm inclined to deny it, or at least doubt it strongly, for Siderian reasons (see that other OP).

"The eternal Thompson gunner, still wandering through the night" . . . there's a Schopenhauerian thought for you.

I have only a terminological question. . . You say that the 'truth about N is deemed to exist independently of any mathematical systems'. My terminological question is, is 'exist' a correct choice of words in this context? — Wayfarer

Only a terminological question? By no means -- it's the question. @Banno is getting at the same thing:

N exists independently from PA.
— Tarskian
I don't have a clear idea of what you mean by "exists" here. Same for "preexisting" in the next paragraph. — Banno

Absent an agreed-upon use of the existential quantifier, you can read the "ontology of numbers" question pretty much any way you want. I started a thread here a while back that might be of interest.

‘Clear cognitive commitment’ means that the speaker and her hearer, involved in the speech act, can offer a socially justified account of their communicative action. The intention should have the possibility of making it public, transparent,
and defendable: — Number2018

Thanks, that makes sense.

The point I defend here is that even if "in general, we "read" each other's illocutionary stances very well," in most cases, we cannot accurately account for our performative situations. When asked about our or other intentions, we usually quickly resort to standard explanatory schemes. Habermas admits the necessity of covering the gap. "In order to make necessary statements, we need to change our perspective…We need a theoretically constituted perspective." Yet, the rationality of verifying procedure remains at the level of the logical-positivist constative utterance. In fact, Habermas's commitment to communication verification requirements means resorting to the dogmatic question of reference or constative truth. He has pushed the philosophy of performative forces back to the search for the founding transcendental conditions. — Number2018

There's a lot to unpack here.

- Could you give an example of how a person would resort to standard explanatory schemes concerning their intentions?

- How does the issue of necessary statements arise in this context?

- T/F is certainly one way of deciding a verification question, but why must the verifying procedure remain at this level? Why would the procedure be (necessarily) dogmatic?

I agree that Habermas is searching for transcendental conditions. Are you placing this in opposition to a particular understanding of performativity?

Again, I appreciate your willingness to break this down for me.

I suppose this brings us back to the same question of what the "first-person dictator" even is, and it feels like we are going in circles. I think the problem is that we have no definition of what 'rational' and 'irrational' are supposed to mean. — Leontiskos

I agree that there is a kind of circle happening here, or perhaps better, there are two possible paths toward understanding what the dictator is doing, and we keep going down first one, then the other. Down the first path, Dictator 1 remains in communication with others, and tries to justify himself. He attempts (with what sincerity we can't say) to stay within communicative rationality. According to Habermas, this is a performative contradiction because the dictator can't rationally do this. Like it or not, whether he acknowledges it or not, his performative contradiction takes him outside communicative action.

Down the other path, Dictator 2 makes no attempt to justify himself -- or perhaps, his justifications make no use of rational argument. Here we want to say that this person has never even entered the arena of communicative action. He might just as well refuse to respond at all (another type of Habermasian irrationality, as we know).

I think we do have definitions, or at least descriptions, of what "rational" and "irrational" mean. We just have to constantly bear in mind that for Habermas, communicative rationality is not the same thing as standard strategic or goal-oriented rationality -- but nor does it replace it. It's an expansion of what it means to be rational.

Now you keep raising the possibility that the dictator rationally justify his actions. — Leontiskos

Not quite. The possibility I raise is that the dictator may attempt this (again, with what sincerity we can't say; see the discussion with @Number2018 above). If Habermas is right, the attempt must fail, as you point out. But I see a difference between trying to make a case for first-person dictatorship, and simply trying to be one. What I don't know is what kind of difference -- that is, whether the distinction is trivial or irrelevant to the overall conception.

I think what you are saying is that Habermasian judgment is bound up with transcendental reason itself. . . . The implication here would be that the first-person dictator is fundamentally irrational, and that therefore his use of reason is really a faux-use of reason; a performative contradiction.

Personally I think Habermas is more or less correct in this. — Leontiskos

Yes, me too, and I think you've got Habermas right.

Still, there is no way to pragmatically test whether a "Habermasian definitive judgment" is true. — Leontiskos

Can you say more? I'm not quite following.

I am still unclear about how Habermas is supposed to have improved on Kant. — Leontiskos

I alluded above to their different conceptions of how practical reason operates. Habermas opposes what he calls "monological" reasoning toward universality. He claims that Kant (and Rawls) do this. Instead, he favors actual dialogue, not thought experiments, an "actually carried out discourse." He wants, for instance, a genuine attempt to learn what exchanging roles would mean when we discuss fairness or justice, not merely the Rawlsian imagining of an Original Position. I would call this an improvement because it truly opens the discussion to the unexpected, and thus emphasizes the equality (not egalitarianism) of communicative action.

There's more to be said about Kant and Habermas's conceptions of reason overall (not just practical reason), but I'll pause here.

I appreciate your patience in trying to understand my posts. — Number2018

And I appreciate yours, in sharing your understanding of Habermas, which may well be more extensive than mine. (I only discovered him a few years ago.)

for Habermas, the claim for rationality is non-separatable from the binding force of reciprocal recognition of validity claims: "With their illocutionary acts, speaker and hearer raise validity claims and demand they be recognized. But this recognition need not follow irrationally, since the validity claims have a cognitive character and can be checked" — Number2018

Right. The contradiction is indeed between content and illocutionary act.

Both stances do not satisfy this description of communicative action. One cannot demand recognition of the validity of her egoistic, self-selfish intentions. — Number2018

OK, though maybe better to say "argue for" rather than "demand"? The contradiction as such would come with the attempt at argumentation, would it not?

For Searle, any language usage is precluded by the communication of intended meanings. On the contrary, for Derrida, communication is carried along not by clear subjective intentions but by impersonal performative forces. — Number2018

(Just confirming, you probably mean "any language usage is defined by" or "limited to," rather than "precluded by"? Searle argues for intentions, Derrida for . . . well, whatever performative forces are.)

The stance may be incorporated within endless performative recontextualizations so that Habermas's requirement of the clear cognitive commitment to communication cannot be univocally verified. — Number2018

Excellent point. Does it damage Habermas's theory? It may well, if we insist on understanding "clear cognitive commitment" as being the same as having an intention, and bring to bear some of the standard puzzles about intention.

the performative nature of the participants' illocutionary force remains opaque and undetermined not just in the discussed examples but in most non-normative social situations. — Number2018

Why do you say this? Again, I may not be understanding clearly, but I would have said that "opaque" is much too strong, "undetermined" usually not the case, and that in general we "read" each other's illocutionary stances very well. The question I see being raised is more along the lines of, "But doesn't Habermas assume intention as trumping performance?" How we then go on to determine intention is a separate and, I'm saying, generally easier question. Could you say more?

You place on the one hand the dictator who "tries to get the better of others by using rhetoric, specious arguments," and on the other hand the dictator who uses, "shabby, irrational pseudo-arguments [as] a completely rational means to his ends." They seem like the same thing, not two different things. — Leontiskos

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear about the difference between the two. Dictator 1 makes a genuine argument for his ethical stance -- he tries to show why it's rational to get others to do what he wants -- and in the course of making that argument, he mentions (not uses) the shabby pseudo-arguments that are part of his tactics, and perhaps explains why there's nothing wrong with using such rhetoric in service of his rational ends. Dictator 2 merely deploys the bad arguments. Does that help? I'm trying to highlight the difference between making a rational case for using irrational arguments, and actually using them. One could be quite sincere in the first case, but never in the second.

I would welcome the idea that Habermas is open to transcending intersubjectivity and/or consensus, but it remains true that if Habermas is not able to definitively judge someone like the first-person dictator then I don't see how the transcendental part will help him. — Leontiskos

The rules need to be enforced, else they may as well not exist. — Leontiskos

I think I see where you're coming from with the judging idea, but enforcement is separate. Concerning judging, "definitively" may be key here. To return to the basketball game, the referee/judge makes absolute and authoritative decisions. Let's call those "definitive." We know that the referee, if he's a good one, must make those decisions. The rules allow for no others. Turning to communicative action, you ask whether Habermas can assume the role of a referee/judge and declare the first-person dictator "out of bounds," as it were.

Two answers suggest themselves. The first is, Yes, of course he can. That is exactly what a performative contradiction is -- a violation of the rules.

The second answer is less certain but more interesting, and perhaps closer to what you're asking about. In what sense will Ref Habermas's call be "definitive"? Can we ask, in fairness, "Definitive according to what or whom?" With a basketball game, there's a ready reply: The rules were laid down by a group charged with laying them down, and that's that. Rational discourse is different. Habermasian communicative rationality begins from the intersubjective origins or constraints of rationality itself. So Ref Habermas, in appealing to rules like "no performative contradiction," isn't appealing to something that transcends intersubjectivity itself. Nor is it something he could have discovered by himself, in solitary transcendental reflection (that would be missing the pragmatic turn). But nor is he saying, "Well, you guys decide and we'll go with the majority opinion." If "definitive" can describe this, then I think a Habermasian judgment can be definitive.

But what happens next? That's the "enforcement" part, I suppose. What you say about the dangers of not enforcing rules is no doubt true, but it's a bit outside the scope of what Habermas is arguing for. To carry that thought further, I think we would need to get more precise about what sort of group is engaged in this communicative action. I'm not sure there can be an abstract explanation of how to enforce a rule; not even Kant tried to do that (perhaps by suggesting that the liar should be shunned at universities? :wink: )

And so the question recurs, "In virtue of what does Habermas' obligation apply to the dictator?" — Leontiskos

In virtue of the dictator's desire, if they have one, to be rational. This sounds weak, but we have to remember that Habermas doesn't think you can just remove yourself from dialogue. That too is, for him, unreasonable. Stephen K. White puts it well: "A refusal by the first-person dictator or the free rider to justify himself requires a systematic renunciation of communicative action which throws his rationality radically into question."

Beyond this, we arrive at questions about what, if anything, could constitute an obligation in ethical theory, and that would take us far afield.

I take it that this more specific kind of [first-person] dictator is a sophist or propagandist, engaged in duplicity or dissimulation, which are often included as a form of lying. — Leontiskos

For the sake of argument: Why couldn’t the dictator genuinely believe that it’s rational to advocate dominance over others? In that case, he’d be offering what he perceives to be genuine arguments in his favor. The other case is the one you’re imagining: The dictator tries to get the better of others by using rhetoric, specious arguments, etc.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think Habermas wants us to imagine the first, “genuine” type of dictator. Remember, the key point is the rationality of the position. Anyone can try to dominate others by false rhetorical tactics, and those tactics needn’t be rational in the least. What we want to know is, if the dictator is willing to argue for his actual ethical stance, and claim that his use of shabby, irrational pseudo-arguments is a completely rational means to his ends, could he do it without contradiction?

The difficulty with the sophist is that they are slippery, namely because they wish to appear to be engaging in "communicative action," when in fact they are not. — Leontiskos

This would be the dissimulating type, above. But consider Thrasymachus again – is he dissimulating? (He’s not a sophist, of course.) I read his arguments as entirely sincere. Indeed, if he’d thought about them more carefully, and taken a better measure of Socrates, he’d have either kept silent or come up with another plan to get his own way (or show off his rhetorical chops!); being sincere didn't work. I’m not too comfortable saying that Socrates reveals a performative contradiction in Thrasymachus’ position, but he certainly reveals that position as undefendable, at least by Thrasymachus, and even causes him to blush with shame.

The integrity of the intersubjective project will paradoxically depend on the ability of participants to make definitive—and to that extent non-communicative—judgments. — Leontiskos

Very interesting. For me, this raises a characteristically modern ethical problem: To what extent is this kind of judgment possible? The analogy with a basketball game places the referee above the intersubjective system (the game), but is this really the case? In one sense, he’s the judge, and his call on a particular play is authoritative; he doesn’t require everyone to agree with him. But in another sense, the referee is completely at the mercy of the rules, to the extent that he’s an accurate and fair judge. And those rules we have to imagine being generated intersubjectively; here the game analogy breaks down, but that’s OK. Habermas wants the rules of his “game” to arise from “transcendental/pragmatic” intersubjective agreement. The transcendental part is important. This isn’t just a matter of consensus. We’re supposed to understand communicative rationality as invoking certain background conditions that are necessary (though perhaps not sufficient) for rationality to exist. It then becomes pragmatic, because we agree on ways to apply such rationality in our time, in our circumstances.