that feeling is not evidence of the occurrence of “understanding” somewhere in us, — Antony Nickles

Right. One interesting feature of the aha! experience is how strongly it causes us to believe we have understood. I'm guessing this is because, taken all in all, it is usually a good predictor of actually having understood. In my own case, I'd estimate that the times it has led me astray are perhaps 1 out of 10. (Naturally, my aptitude varies enormously depending on the subject!)

"The occurrence of 'understanding' somewhere in us . . ." That can't be right, of course, but the difficulty we have giving a satisfactory explanation of what's actually going on shouldn't blind us to the fact that it is our experience, it is something we do.

The assertion would technically be “I know that there are bacteria on my left shoe.” — Antony Nickles

Must it be? I'd call that a higher "certainty quotient" than just "There are bacteria on my left shoe." Do you think an assertion must claim knowledge? The difference I'm pointing to would be shown by two different answers: Are there bacteria on your left shoe? "Yes." Do you know there are bacteria on your left shoe? "Not strictly speaking, not certainly. I think so, I believe so, it seems very likely to me. That's why I said they were on my left shoe."

Maybe we should say that a simple claim like "There are bacteria on my left shoe" is capable of multiple interpretations, ranging from "I believe so" to "I damn well know it," depending on context.

Honestly I think I'm inclined to push this sort of inside-out approach just because so much of our tradition presumes the opposite. — Srap Tasmaner

And that is by and large a good idea, which I appreciate. We don't want to be taking words like "private" or "mental" to imply some lonely kingdom we inhabit and populate by ourselves, as if it (and we) were something new on the Earth. That never happens.

What is the response then? Things aren't as they are? Things are as they aren't? — Count Timothy von Icarus

"Things are as they are to us."

. . . . should not lead us to conclude that the rock is not actual (existing as it is) prior to our knowing it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The idea is that "the rock" is a construct, a very useful and non-arbitrary and important one for us. But for all we know, God doesn't see it that way at all; perhaps God sees an astonishing interplay of quantum phenomena.

As you say yourself: "this doesn't mean we make them up or that they could be any which way." Yet what determines interpretations? Something must first be something determinant before it can determine anything else in any determinant way. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's fine. But that "something" may not much resemble what we call a rock. See above -- God and quantum beauty. Do you really believe you know "what things are"? Everything I manage to learn about physics shows me that the physicists themselves are no longer able to use such a concept, and remain baffled and fascinated about the ultimate structures, if any, of reality.

That is, crude relativism would assert this without apparently noticing that it's contradictory.

Or they just don't mind contradiction. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's why I call it "crude relativism," somewhat derisively, and contrast it with a relativism worth reading and thinking about. Yes, I suppose there are thinkers who don't mind contradiction, but if you've read any actual relativists, and especially people like Gadamer and Habermas and Bernstein who try find interpretive middle ground between totalizing critique and unworkable foundationalism, you see that the issue of contradiction is very much on their minds. The idea that relativism -- one of the most influential philosophical positions of the previous century -- was espoused by philosophers who "don't mind contradiction," just doesn't stand up under even a cursory reading of their work.

Wittgenstein's thesis about hinge propositions . . . — Count Timothy von Icarus

I've just been following along in that discussion. I don't know enough firsthand about what Witt says on that subject to be entitled to an opinion.

we only have something we call "reference", the thing that we do with referring expressions like names and descriptions, so that we can talk about things with other people. — Srap Tasmaner

Our posts just crossed! So, as to this: That's what I'm questioning. Why couldn't it be true that we need reference equally to talk to ourselves? I'm not even sure that your version would be true as a genetic account -- who knows which came first, private naming or public discourse, or whether they were simultaneous?

It depends on how one is defining "refer" and "language". Is referring and language the same thing, or can you have one without the other? — Harry Hindu

I think this highlights the question we're discussing. I'm just thinking this through myself, but there has to be a difference between "private language" and "private reference," doesn't there? As frank says, we don't need a private language to refer privately. We can use the community language we all know. That's not what's private about private reference -- rather, I'm arguing that it's the independence from "triangulation" or the need to have a listener comprehend the speaker's reference. I read Srap as talking about language, not reference, and if that's so, then what Srap says is clearly true: Robinson Crusoe needs to have inherited and practiced a non-private language before he can make up any designations for the flotsam that washes up on his beach. But once he does that, why would we deny that he's referring to said flotsam when he thinks about it, or perhaps makes a list of tasks?

whatever it is I'm doing, privately, is not an example of referring.
— J

I just don't think that follows from anything. — Srap Tasmaner

That's certainly how it seems to me, and for the same reasons you cite, but I want to understand why @Banno might think otherwise.

Say you were the only person in the world. Why would you even consider drawing scribbles to refer to other things that are not scribbles? Well, maybe you might want to keep track of time, like how many days passed since the last rain, or when the deer migrate, etc. — Harry Hindu

Same point. Surely Robinson Crusoe did some private referring! But again, let's hear more about the "no private reference" case. I do think it's crucially different from "no private language," which may be where Banno is coming from.

“Everything is relative. There’s no true or false. There’s no right and wrong.”
“But I don’t agree with that.”
“Then you’re wrong!”

In an earlier thread, I called this an example of "crude relativism," and said that I didn't think anyone who was familiar with philosophical inquiry could take it seriously. The relativist is obviously contradicting themselves.

I'm wondering whether this is the same position you're alluding to when you say:

Even saying “there is no one truth for all” is a truth for all. — Fire Ologist

That is, crude relativism would assert this without apparently noticing that it's contradictory.

Tell me what you think about this. Could this really be what relativism comes down to?

Things are as they are, and our existence only changes that insofar as our existence includes considerations of truth. — AmadeusD

I think it's a little more radical than that. Consider any physical object - the ever-useful rock example, let's say. But now wait a minute . . . what makes it a solid object for us? Is being the discrete, solid thing that it appears to us to be a feature of "things as they are", which we have only to note and make true statements about?

Rather, isn't it the case that our particular needs and capacities as humans allow us to perceive and group items in the world according to categories like "discrete" and "solid"? This has nothing to do with whether they "really are" this or that. Now I'm not a proponent of anti-realism. For our purposes, certainly they are, and atoms are real, etc etc. My point is that we don't approach the world as a collection of neutral phenomena which hold still for us as we go on to discover what is true about them. We have a large role to play in constituting the phenomena we then say true things about. Again, this doesn't mean we make them up or that they could be any which way, or that the things we say aren't true. It means that "things as they are" should probably be reserved for a particular reductive conception of physics, and even there viewed with some doubt.

Also, if you wanted to confine "things as they are" to terms of intersubjectivity, that would work well for me. It might capture your idea, which I agree with, that the rock is going to appear discrete and solid to any normal human, and it would have this appearance even if, per impossibile, there could be an appearance with no one to appear to.

What other “types of understanding” don’t fit this? — Antony Nickles

I'm able to distinguish, in my own mental experience, a type of (purported) understanding that is best pictured as "the light bulb going on." It doesn't involve words at all. I was contrasting this with the subsequent possible performances that would attempt to demonstrate this understanding -- and in the course of which I might discover that the understanding was indeed only purported.

It's crucial that we see this "mental experience" type of understanding as not being criterial for understanding, since I may be wrong. The light bulb may be functioning faultily. Indeed, if you wanted to call the experience by a different name that doesn't invoke "understanding" at all, that's fine. We could just call it "the light bulb experience." But I do insist that the experience occurs, under whatever description, and that it isn't the same thing as talking (to myself or others) about what I believe I've understood.

Well, a cognitive neuroscientist is happy to talk about conscious and unconscious contents. The word consciousness refers to both. — I like sushi

Yes, but Witt's point, if I'm understanding him, is that we're looking in the wrong place if we look for the location of beliefs in the unconscious. He wants us to break away from the whole idea that a belief refers to a mental content. In the case of background beliefs, I think this is right. That's part of why we're so puzzled about how to talk about all this, as Banno points out:

But it seems equally odd to call such a belief a disposition. A disposition to do what? To confirm certain statements about shoe bacteria? — Banno

maybe it is that we are disposed to fulfill the requirements (criteria) associated with what we believe (or claim to) — Antony Nickles

I can't do any better than that either. Or maybe just say that "I believe there are bacteria on my left shoe" is simply the assertion, "There are bacteria on my left shoe." An assertion is no more certain than a belief, so degrees of certainty wouldn't be an issue. "I believe" = "I assert that" seems to work for this kind of belief, but not all.

Going back over this, it seems to me that the reference is now fixed by the indexical, "the man over there", and not by the description "He has champagne in his glass". — Banno

I think it's yet a third thing: The reference is fixed by the description "the man about whom I say . . ."

This is interesting, thanks. My question to @Banno focused on something a little different. If we say that reference, as a matter of fact, requires triangulation, then it would follow that whatever it is I'm doing, privately, is not an example of referring. That's one way of setting it out conceptually. The second way would be to say that the question is not a factual one at all. We have a term, "reference," and we're considering how best to use it in order to carve up the conceptual territory. So it might be that we want to reserve "reference" for the cases where triangulation is involved. In that case, we need another term to describe what I'm doing, privately. I was asking Banno which of these outlooks he favors -- hope that makes sense.

Yes, but you would be using the criteria we share to judge whether you get the joke, just as we would. Thus the ability to also use them to demonstrate it to others. This makes it no more, but no less, reliable or possible to myself than others. — Antony Nickles

Good, I was making the same point -- neither more nor less reliable.

This is classic distinction between saying and knowing, or it being the case, which is tied to the desire for something more certain (ahead of having to demonstrate it). — Antony Nickles

I don't think so. The distinction I'm making isn't about degrees of certainty. It's much more experiential. I can name two distinct experiences: (purporting to) understand X; and saying (to myself or others), "I understand X," perhaps followed by some performance of this. (As we discussed above, not all types of understanding will fit this, but many do). Certainty aside, I claim them as distinct, based on my own self-reflection, as best I'm able to practice it. It makes me curious: Do you not have these two kinds of experience too? I'm often surprised by how differently thoughtful people experience their "insides."

At least start with "describe," especially if some analysis and discrimination of terms is likely to be needed. Having done that as best we can, I'm fine with suggestions for improving how we talk about difficult subjects. What I particularly don't like, in contrast, are endless wrangles about what is the "right term" or the "correct definition" for something that's been used in countless different philosophical traditions . . .

I would suggest that our actual emotions are just one subsection of the expression of our interests, and that they belong to only part of them, which we could classify or at least characterize as “individual” interest (normally only considered “self” interest). — Antony Nickles

Yes, this is more like it. I wasn't comfortable with privileging "emotions" quite so centrally.

if reference is a product of triangulation, and I think it is, then it is not private. — Banno

Not to put you on the spot, but are you saying that reference in fact requires triangulation, or only that we should reserve the term "reference" for that particular type of reference-fixing, and call my private version something else? I assume you're not denying that I do have the private experiences I'm claiming.

I'm holding out for reference as a potentially private game. Talking, so often, is talking to ourselves, and we need all the apparatus of talking-with-others to do it.
— J
seems to me to be mistaken, becasue we do not usually need any "apparatus" in order to check who [or what] it is we are thinking about. Indeed, the idea is odd. — Banno

Perhaps it is, rather, but I'm certainly familiar with it. As in my "pile of papers" example (which the bolded addition is meant to capture), I find I often have to come up with a system of reference in order to keep straight what I'm trying to think about. Also, more simply, I do in fact talk to myself, both out loud and "with words in my head." Maybe "apparatus" isn't the right word, but I don't find much difference between how I do this, and how I converse with others -- including, as I say, sometimes reference-fixing.

You might ask the same person these two questions in a row, and they are likely to give these answers. — hypericin

I think so. I could imagine something like a "moment of belief" and/or a "moment of consideration" that might actually present to consciousness in that way, but it would be unusual, and not how we ordinarily speak about such matters.

This is not bad language at all . . . — hypericin

Maybe it's fine. But it's always appropriate for a philosopher to suggest that some example of language use could be ameliorated. If that's what @i like sushi has in mind, I'd welcome hearing why.

One still believes that the Earth is round, even when not giving it conscious consideration.
— Banno

How so? How can you believe something if you are not consciously (as in the agent) believing it. That seems to fly in the face of how we use language in a rational manner. I think 'background belief' might be a better term for that, but it could possibly give the wrong impression of what we generally mean when talking about belief. — I like sushi

I'm not an ordinary-language-first guy, but this is a case where I think we have to start by considering what we do say.

If you ask me, "Do you believe the Earth is round?" my answer is yes. I don't think anyone who speaks English would misunderstand this to mean that, at the very moment I was asked the question, something occurred in my brain/mind that constituted "belIeving Earth is round," whereas before it wasn't there and I didn't believe it. We know what we mean by such a "background belief": It's part of our web of mental constructs, a set of propositions we assent to if asked -- there may be many other ways of putting it (including more behavioral construals), but the main point is that it is not something that requires "consciously (as in the agent) believing it." The belief remains, in this way of speaking, whether I am conscious of it or not, as Banno says.

Now you may feel this isn't a good way to talk. You may feel the ontological commitments are suspect, and we can do better with our terminology when it comes to a big concept like "belief," which has to contain so many different usages and interpretations. And you may be right. But I don't think you can begin by denying that we do talk this way about some beliefs, and are virtually never misunderstood.

. . . studies relating to political beliefs over the past few years — I like sushi

Makes sense that these would be quite emotion-laden, but what about studies of beliefs about Chaucer, or algebra? I'm still dubious about the claim that there is a necessary connection between all beliefs and emotion. Have there really been studies of that?

You are critiquing a "naturalistic," purely immanent explanation of the human good for not including a dimension of ethical/moral goodness, yet you've also expressed disapproval for the notion of any values transcending man and his culture, no? — Count Timothy von Icarus

No. I was trying to understand how you could regard a telos as strictly humanistic or anthropological in some way, not involving transcendent elements. (You said that "such a view of man's telos does not seem prima facie unreasonable.") Personally, I think that if we're talking telos, we're talking transcendence. That is not how I understand the origin of values, because I'm not happy with talking about telos at all. But -- and again, this is the either/or thinking that is so discouraging -- that doesn't leave me in the position of reducing values to purely immanent explanations.

I really think our previous conversations about ethics have gone into this thoroughly.

Yes we have “a-ha” moments, but that does not happen every time we understand something, — Antony Nickles

This suggests to me that we should treat "understanding" as a cluster of concepts and (perhaps) events, and not try to generalize more than necessary about it.

In what circumstances is someone said to get a joke? They laugh, they could tell it, paraphrase what is funny about. — Antony Nickles

But I could do all that to myself, in which case I am the one who gets to say whether I (believe I) understand. Are you saying that translating it into behaviors and having others see them makes them more reliable? That others would be less likely to be fooled, or mistaken? Hmm, maybe, but it sounds a little thin. The possibility of error is always there, and I don't see that "going on" in some way, as opposed to just thinking about it, increases or reduces the possibility.

We have to remember that the question isn't -- or shouldn't be -- "When do we say that someone has understood?" It's "When has someone understood?" You're right that we couldn't say someone had understood without the behavioral signs, but that doesn't mean they haven't; it just means we'd have no way of knowing; we couldn't say.

As I've said, we've been here before!: The equivocation on "good." What is good for a human, using the same sense of "good" as we'd use for a rat, has no bearing on ethical good. Rats don't have ethics, humans do.

I understand that virtue ethics collapses this difference.

But I'm happy to let it go, as I know this is one of those deep and significant differences in interpretation.

Aw, you should keep following this, you have really good insights and questions.

But, supposing we deny that man is a rational being (at least in this sense) and instead claim he is something more like a very clever rat or fox, then it would still be the case that man has a nature that determines the human good — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, that's the difficult leap. Yes, we might be able to discover human "nature," if that is something that science can reveal. (I'm not sure it is, but let's say so.) But learning what such a nature is can't tell us what the human good is. But you and I have been here before! :smile: "Human good" is simply not an anthropological term. Unless you equate it with "survival and flourishing of the human species," which I don't think you do.

It has an indexical in it. I think that rules it out from the jump. — Srap Tasmaner

No, Kripke and Kaplan say indexicals can be rigid designators:

It was part of my view that 'this', 'I', 'you', etc. are all rigid (even though their references obviously vary with the context of utterance. The rigidity of demonstratives has been stressed by David Kaplan. — N&N, 10, ftn

Unless you think the "demonstrative / indexical" distinction is important here? I think my example uses a genuine demonstrative. And in any case, I'm pretty sure indexicals are generally accepted as rigid. @Banno?

What you seem to want is really an in-between category of "rigid-for-you". — Srap Tasmaner

I don't think so, because I don't yet see how my designation differs from the standard model. In what way would it not be rigid for anyone, once accepted?

But, to clarify, is it wrong to rape someone just for fun, who was otherwise just an innocent bystander. — Hanover

OK. But in fairness, what you said was, "Are you willing to go out on a limb and say 'rape is wrong, anytime, anywhere, and regardless of the consensus'?" This inevitably pushes to the foreground the question of the hierarchy of moral rules. I don't think it's possible to say that "getting into" how we prioritize these rules is optional, that we can achieve some kind of moral clarity without doing so.

Also, much as I wish I could agree with you that "gun to the head" dilemmas are "absurd" and "strange examples," in the world I see around me they are irrefutable facts of ethical life. Moreover, I have a hunch they always have been. Humans can be cruel to a degree that will challenge any moral system.

All I’m saying is if you want to have the opinion “all is arbitrary” you can. But if you want to correct me, about anything, you are actually saying something is not arbitrary, or you are lying, or contradicting yourself. — Fire Ologist

Given this, I think your dictum could be phrased more clearly as: "Opinions are plural; anyone can have one. But if your opinion happens to be that there is nothing beyond opinions, no truth, no fact of the matter, then it is meaningless for you to also tell me I am wrong about something."

Does that work for you? It's less snappy, but it captures the self-contradiction you're claiming, which the original version does not. "Can't have" is confusing.

I agree it's not arbitrary, there are frameworks and values underpinning our discourse. What they are not is universal or scientifically binding. — Tom Storm

Yes. Something can be far from arbitrary -- it can have good reasons and justifications -- without needing a universal, cross-cultural explanation.

The idea of a human telos doesn't require anything that transcends man. It merely requires something that transcends man's current sentiments, norms, and beliefs. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm having trouble understanding how that "something" would not transcend humans. Is the idea that we could discover such a telos by only studying humans as a species, the way anthropologists do? Or understanding humans' role in relation to other species and to the planet as a whole?

So, is rape wrong? That is, regardless of how a society values women, regardless of what some dictator might say or do, are you willing to go out on a limb and say "rape is wrong, anytime, anywhere, and regardless of the consensus."

If you're not, tell me the scenario where it's ok. — Hanover

If by OK you mean, "Something I might feel ethically obligated to do": Sure. A foul regime imprisons me and my family and indulges its jailers' sadistic fantasies. (This example actually happened in Nazi Germany.). "Rape your daughter," they tell me, "otherwise we'll torture your entire family to death before your eyes." I emphasized might, above, because I don't presume to know what would seem right to me under the circumstances. But I might well decide that the rape was the lesser of two evils.

This highlights two important points. First, if that's not what you mean by OK -- if, rather, you mean "Rape becomes a good thing in this scenario" -- then I agree, this can never happen. Second, while we are helpless in the face of circumstances to rely on rules, that doesn't meant that teaching our children that rape is wrong should always be contextualized. I am not a utilitarian, but this is one area where the distinction between act and rule utilitarianism is useful.

So talk about stipulation and teaching all you like, but it doesn't get you to that level of originary reference you're chasing, the intentionality you cannot be mistaken about. It relies on that; it doesn't explain it or even describe it. — Srap Tasmaner

This is helpful, and I think you're right, except I wan't really looking for such a level of reference. My chain of thought was mainly an attempt to do better than "That man over there with champagne in his glass", which has all the problems of mistaken reference that you and Kripke and many others have pointed out. And I think there's a valid distinction to be made between a property that we use to designate something rigidly, and a statement we use to do so. Or perhaps I should back up and ask whether the statement-type designation -- "He is the person about whom I say . . ." -- is rigid.

Consider "Let's agree that this thing is Blork". Who teaches who here? Isn't the choice to use "blork" an agreement, if not a commitment? — Banno

Well, yes, but it's fair to say that, in many cases, there is an originator, a teacher, and one who learns. If I wish us to refer to a certain tree outside my window, I have to do the pointing. Then, of course, we can agree.

True. But I still referred to the tree. I don't need your buy-in for that. — frank

This is getting to some crucial questions about the "game" of reference. (OK, sometimes "game" is the right word! :smile: ) Like you, I'm holding out for reference as a potentially private game. Talking, so often, is talking to ourselves, and we need all the apparatus of talking-with-others to do it. Now it may be that a criterion for successful private reference would be that, if challenged, the person could introduce others to the game. Arguably, if you can't make it clear to someone else, you aren't clear about it yourself. But that's a different point. If there's a pile of papers on my floor and I say to myself, "Right, that's the pile I need to file tomorrow," I have performed a very common and useful act of reference. I can now think of the pile that way, compare it with other piles, etc. We could, I suppose, deny that this is an act of reference, and argue for using "reference" in a different way, one that must involve others, but what would be the warrant for that?

You're presuming the entire system of conceptualization and language usage is at your disposal, and then all you're doing is in effect introducing a word by stipulation. — Srap Tasmaner

Well, yes, but isn't that what Kripke is interested in too? He wants to know how we fix the reference of a new term -- a proper name, say. The baby's name is a stipulation, if anything is. And with a proper name, no less than with a shriek, we find ourselves in the middle of a "conceptualization and language system." Don't we have to presume that?

Again, I feel I must be missing something very obvious. Why is the question about teaching others the meaning of my shriek a non-starter? Words of one syllable, please, I'm floundering here! :wink:

independent of all interpretive conditions . . . — Banno

This is a really interesting fulcrum for different styles of philosophy. One might ask a proponent of any philosophical perspective, "Could you specify what conditions, if any, guide your interpretations of the key terms you're using?" You might find some who would claim that interpretation is not an issue at the level of first philosophy, and that would be an important way of categorizing their method.

You can have any opinion you want. But if you are trying to tell me I’m wrong, then you can’t have any opinion you want. — Fire Ologist

Do you mean wrong as in mistaken about something, or wrong as in morally wrong? Or both?

I would extract “disposition” farther away from anything like a sensation, emotion, or internal predilection. I would look at it as a circumstance (PI #149), like a possible state of affairs. — Antony Nickles

Pretty much what I was getting at with "background belief," wouldn't you agree? The important thing is that a background belief really can't be said to cause anything.

So when I understand, it is not a change in my body (that “affects” it), but an opportunity. I may continue or not, but it is only when I do, that we (and even me) can actually judge that I “understand”. — Antony Nickles

But this still seems murky to me. Let's say someone tells a joke, and at first I don't "get it." Then all at once, I do. I have now understood the joke. Are you saying that until I continue in some fashion -- perhaps by making a witty reply -- I can't judge that I have understood the joke? Why would that be?

That something is judged to be blue is dependent on the object judged. Why would it be different for beauty? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, because there is universal agreement on how to recognize and judge blue, and nothing similar in regard to beauty. But in any case, I see the context for the Hamlet quote, thanks.

You want to have in hand an association between an object and something, a name, a referring expression, or a bit of behavior, and for that association to be something you can't be wrong about. — Srap Tasmaner

even if I am making important mistakes about the properties of that thing, even if I misidentify it, I cannot be wrong about it being the object of my thought (or intention). — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. Both of these are what I'm aiming at.

Moreover, I want to take this out of "private reference," which would apply only to me, and make it what you're calling a successful reference -- one that I can use with others.

At this point I'm fairly sure I'm not grasping what you see as problematic here. Probably something simple I'm rushing past. Would you mind explaining a bit more? Perhaps using the shriek example? If I teach others that my shriek refers to Mr. Champagne, in what way could this reference fail for others, or be mistaken on my part? What could go wrong in a statement like "The man who I shriek when I see is a really nice guy"? (other than doubts about my sanity) The identifier is my behavior, not anything about him, and I can scarcely be wrong about whether I'm shrieking.

I'm puzzled by this reply because the post says this follows from Hamlet's position, not from a lack of "transcendental or foundational basis." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Didn't you mean Hamlet to be articulating the position that there is no transcendental basis for values?

If Hamlet is right, if "nothing is good or bad (beautiful or ugly) but thinking makes it so," we are left with the question of why anything should be thought beautiful or ugly in the first place. Such notions should be uncaused, and thus random — Count Timothy von Icarus

Others here have focused on this as well. It simply doesn't follow that, because there is no transcendental or foundational basis for aesthetic values, our notions of value are therefore uncaused or random.

No no, that's a duck -- or a rabbit. Witt will explain.

These are all good examples of what might go wrong, if the issue were one of meaning. But I don't think it is.

I was using "glunk" to try to de-fang the meaning question entirely, but perhaps I didn't go far enough. How about this: "The man over there who I make this noise [hideous shriek] when I see is . . . " Now are we outside of possible mistakes and ambiguities of meaning? All that matters is that the shriek fixes the reference.

As I said up here, the category of dispositions are not judged prior to an act, and so do not “affect” them, say, in a causal way. They are determined afterwards by external criteria such as whether I do in fact continue (this distinction separates someone judged to be thinking from the internal self-talk commonly taken as “thought”; or demonstrating my understanding as different from picturing it as a lightbulb that goes off in my head). So the distinction of conscious or unconscious does not apply (PI #149); it is an entirely different matter than turning inward more. — Antony Nickles

Good stuff. But some questions:

- Why would it follow that, because we don't judge a disposition prior to an act, said disposition could not affect whether the act took place or not? (And yes, I'm with you in believing we need to be very careful about invoking "cause" here.)

- My distinction of conscious and unconscious wasn't necessarily pointing to some subconscious mental process going on when we believe or understand something -- the "turning inward more". Rather, I'm thinking of what are often called background beliefs. It's a truism that I continue to believe in, say, the theory of evolution regardless of whether I happen to be thinking about it at the time. This might include a disposition to act on that belief, again without requiring some conscious mental event called a "disposition." This seems different from a "thought", which we do want to say is a particular mental event at a particular time (Fregean "thoughts" aside). If I have a thought at T1 and am no longer having it at T2, we say "You're no longer thinking thought X." This is clearly different from how we talk about beliefs and dispositions.

So I'm agreeing with you (and perhaps Witt) that we need a separate account of what beliefs and dispositions amount to.

Right now it is possible to read someone's brain and have a general idea of what they are thinking about and feeling. It is still low resolution, — I like sushi

I agree with the thrust of this, though even "general idea" seems too high a resolution. Let's just say that Chalmers' "easy problem" -- mapping mental events to areas and activities of the brain -- is a doable project, one of these days.

But this still leaves the issue of what we now know about emotions. I'll repeat my question:

Are you saying that any conscious experience I have will, upon examination, reveal something emotional? Or that it presents as emotional? — J

Has that been shown somehow in the research you're describing?

All sorts of problems with meaning as speaker intent. The most significant one is that we do not have access to what you intend, only to what you say. — Banno

But couldn't we get around that in the way I suggested earlier?:

We could rewrite "The man over there who I think has champagne in his glass" as follows: "The man over there about whom I say, 'He has champagne in his glass'." — J

This way, it's a behavior, not a mental intention, and the speaker still can't be "wrong about the reference", because it doesn't depend on whether the man really has champagne, only on whether the speaker says he does. The man is being identified as the subject of a statement, not as a person with a drink in his glass.

But then there's Srap's problem:

This is such a great example because the reference of the word "champagne" is regularly disputed. Are you using the word "champagne" "correctly"? Are you sure? Is there definitely a correct way? — Srap Tasmaner

In this case, I don't think the ambiguity of "champagne" matters. We know what the speaker is saying: "The man over there about whom I say, 'He has champagne in his glass' is . . . " and then presumably he fills it out with whatever he wants to claim about the guy ("is happy," "is an asshole" etc.). Whether the speaker knows what champagne is, and is conforming to an ostensibly correct usage, is surely beside the point of using the statement about the guy to pick him out.

Compare "The man over there about whom I say, 'He likes glunk' is . . . " We don't need to know a single thing about glunk in order to use the speaker's statement to successfully and incorrigibly fix the reference. All that matters is what he says. Turns out he's wrong about glunk? Turns out there's no such thing as glunk? The guy is still the same guy about whom the speaker made his statement.

And we can conclude that the reference was a success, despite the description being wrong. — Banno

That's why I was suggesting that maybe a better way to understand this is "The man over there who I think has a glass of champagne in his hand." That way, the description is not wrong -- he's being identified as being the object of a thought of the speaker.

EDIT: Or no, better to say, "He's being identified using a thought of the speaker." He's the guy I think has a glass of champagne.