States of affairs are not equivalent to whatever can potentially be stated. Falsehoods can be stated. True statements as well. States of affairs aren't capable of being true or false. You said so yourself. So...

We do need to draw the distinction between states of affairs and what can be potentially be stated. You are not. — creativesoul

If there is some state of affairs, then there can potentially be a statement that picks out that state of affairs. Symbolically, x and "x" pick out the same x. And that is what is meant by a true statement. (To say of what is that it is, etc.)

Of course we can speak falsely, which just means that we failed to describe the world as it is (i.e., there was no such state of affairs).

Also, if need be, we can say that a state of affairs obtained or failed to obtain (just as we can say that an event happened or not, or a relation holds or does not hold, etc.).

Language less belief and the content thereof. You are focusing upon irrelevancy.

You? — creativesoul

I don't follow your comment. What irrelevancy?

Is omniscience a fashionable aim these days? — creativesoul

No, it's a post-truth world...

Whatever else can potentially be stated?

:brow:

That's the same conflation between statements and events(states of affairs) that I reject from Banno. — creativesoul

No, that's a distinction between the world (which we can potentially talk about) and our talk about the world.

So, as with events, states of affairs can't be true (or false). Instead they are what make statements true (or false).
— Andrew M

Part of what makes statements true or false anyway... — creativesoul

What else do you have in mind?

Do you believe that it's a property of the world that whatever happens in it can potentially be stated? — fdrake

Yes.

(1) - as an event - cannot be true, whereas (1) - as a statement about those events - arguably can. — creativesoul

:up:

I would add that as I use the terms, events are states of affairs, as are relations such as Earth being the third planet from the Sun (and whatever else that can potentially be stated). So, as with events, states of affairs can't be true (or false). Instead they are what make statements true (or false).

It may be well worth setting out the agreements, or similarities between our views. I had hoped that that would take place a bit in the debate, but it did not. — creativesoul

For me, the debate hinged on how you and @Banno regard states of affairs (which I raised here). It seems to me that you were not really rejecting states of affairs so much as using different terminology, such as events, or perceptible things and their spatiotemporal relations. So there may be more agreement than it seems.

Consider a scenario where a cat watched a mouse run behind a tree and then chased after it.

Here are three statements we might make:

(1) The mouse ran behind the tree.

(2) The cat believed that the mouse ran behind the tree.

(3) The cat believed that the proposition "the mouse ran behind the tree" was true.

I think both of you would agree that (1) and (2) is true. And, on the assumption that (3) meant that the cat explicitly formulated a linguistic sentence and assented to it, that (3) is false.

If so, then your differences would be over whether (1) (as an event) should be considered propositional, and how (3) should be best understood (i.e., as assumed above or else as being equivalent to (2)).

Fair enough. I should have used the word "existing" instead of "referring"
— Andrew M

Cool. The opposite sense of subject to Strawson's sense, but fine if you are careful not to mix in that other usage without notice, or without noticing. Ah, but you see no such requirement.

(or even better, omitted the qualifier altogether).
— Andrew M — bongo fury

I think I see how you're reading my sentences now. I used the qualifier to distinguish between an existing and non-existing subject (e.g., the present president of France versus the present King of France, say). But given the context, it wasn't necessary to qualify it, since the subsequent sentence dealt with the non-existing subject case.

Whereas you seem to see the qualifier as distinguishing between claims about the world and claims about words (e.g., snow versus "snow"). If the qualifier is removed, you see my sentence as ambiguous. Is that correct?

You instead immediately resume the confused (Aristotelian?) insinuation of some benign parallelism between the two, which the philosopher has just clarified, if only we followed the clear logic. — bongo fury

There is a parallelism between words and the world, as well as important differences between the two. Which we discussed a while back, as you may recall.

Or the ball (the subject) is being kicked by Alice (the object). [...] it is the ball that is being described (i.e., in subject-predicate form).
— Andrew M

The philosopher has no robes. — bongo fury

I don't see a problem with what I wrote. Feel free to be more specific.

It seems to me that both sentences are describing both things, because both sentences say the same thing, just from different views. — Harry Hindu

Yes that seems right, since one logically follows from the other. That is:

(1) Alice is kicking the ball
(2) Alice kicking the ball is equivalent to the ball being kicked by Alice
(3) Therefore the ball is being kicked by Alice

Yaneer Bar-Yam provides a great summary of the COVID strategies that countries employed during 2020. Hopefully the lessons can be learnt for 2021.

I have been working on pandemic outbreaks for 15 years. There is a misunderstanding of the difference between the response in much of the West, versus successful countries (including New Zealand and Australia)

Summarizing:

1. Reactive versus proactive and goal oriented.

2. Mitigation (slowing transmission) versus elimination (stopping transmission)

3. Gradually responding to increasing levels of infection by imposing greater restrictions which enables the infection rate to grow (red zone strategy), versus starting with high restrictions to arrest transmission and relaxing restrictions only when the number of new cases is so low that contact tracing or localized short term action can stop community transmission (green zone strategy, including localized “fire fighting”).

4. Trying to keep economic activity and travel as open as possible but perpetuating the economic harm and imposing yoyo restrictions, versus making an initial sacrifice of economic activity and travel in order to benefit from the rapid restoration of normal economic activity.

5. Focusing attention on the few individuals resistant to social action because of shortsightedness or selfishness, versus recognizing the vast majority do the right thing if given clear guidance and support, which is what matters for success, as elimination is a robust strategy.

6. Incorrectly thinking that this is a steady state situation where balance between counter forces must be maintained versus a dynamic situation in which rapid action can shift conditions from a bad losing regime to a good winning one.

7. Naive economic thinking of a tradeoff between economics and fighting the virus, versus realizing a short time economic hit will enable opening normally and restoring the economy (as recognized by McKinsey, BCG, IMF and other correct economic analyses)

8. We have to “live with the virus” versus we can eliminate the virus and return to normal social and economic conditions.

9. Waiting for high-tech vaccination to be a cure all, versus using right-tech classic pandemic isolation/quarantine of individuals and communities to completely stop transmission

10. Considering the virus as primarily a medical problem of treating individuals and individual responsibility for prevention of their own infection, versus defeating the virus as a collective effort based in community action, galvanized by leaders providing clear information, a public health system engaging in community-based prevention of transmission, and the treatment of patients is, by design, as limited as possible. — Yaneer Bar-Yam, Unsuccessful versus successful COVID strategies, New England Complex Systems Institute (December 13, 2020)

Because, the only obvious reading of "(referring) subject" is to have it mean "word or phrase that refers". — bongo fury

Fair enough. I should have used the word "existing" instead of "referring" (or, even better, omitted the qualifier altogether).

subject:
1. A person or thing that is being discussed, described, or dealt with.
— Andrew M

So subjects are nouns? Looks like objects and subjects are synonyms, unless you're saying that objects can't be discussed, described, or dealt with. — Harry Hindu

Depending on the context, they can be interchangeable. Alice (the subject) is kicking the ball (the object). Or the ball (the subject) is being kicked by Alice (the object). In the first, it is Alice that is being described. In the second, it is the ball that is being described (i.e., in subject-predicate form).

Very generous of you to explain correspondence theory to me, but it's wrong, Tarski knew it was wrong, and did not propose to define truth. — frank

If you're referring to Tarski's undefinability theorem, then that's true for the object language, but not for metalanguages. And for that reason it doesn't apply to Aristotle's definition since, in effect, a metalanguage hierarchy is built in (i.e., statements presuppose a world but not vice-versa).

So, just to be clear, do you at last see why

(referring) subject
— Andrew M

would have to be a typo? — bongo fury

I don't. Feel free to say why you think so.

Why the stubborn attachment to "subject" at all? — bongo fury

It's ordinary English. From Lexico:

subject:
1. A person or thing that is being discussed, described, or dealt with.

Truth is undefinable. IOW, if you don't know what it is, no one could explain it to you. — frank

Tarski's definition is, admittedly, abstract. However Aristotle's definition was:

To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true. — Aristotle, Metaphysics 1011b25

I could explain that if need be.

But that's not a fault of the rule. It's just the fact of human fallibility even when we're being careful. So we develop pragmatic rules to help with that relating to the reasons/justifications for making assertions.
— Andrew M

What does the T-sentence rule have to do with justifications? It's usually associated with deflation of truth. — frank

Nothing. I mean we develop other (pragmatic) rules.

How about:

"The point here though is that we normally use a sentence to assert something about a subject (where the subject exists)."

I wonder if that would work as an argument against Davidson: we can't tell if a sentence is truth apt unless we know the context of utterance.

"S" is true IFF S

That may be nonsense? — frank

It's a rule (or definition) that states what it means for a statement to be true. We may not always correctly see how the rule applies. We might think that a particular statement is true that is not. Or we may think the rule applies in contexts where it doesn't.

But that's not a fault of the rule. It's just the fact of human fallibility even when we're being careful. So we develop pragmatic rules to help with that relating to the reasons/justifications for making assertions.

States of affairs are a bit tricky. They can contain hidden perspectives like "behind X". — Marchesk

Quite right. There's no view from nowhere.

That's how it works, and drawing and maintaining the distinction between believing a mouse ran behind the tree, and believing that a description of those events is true does not in any way, shape, or form deny that some statements are about the way things are. — creativesoul

It seems to me that you're describing a state of affairs. So in this case, the state of affairs (or the ways things are) is that the mouse ran behind the tree.

A state of affairs is, at least, like a proposition. But perhaps different in the sense that no-one needs to have stated or believed it. Presumably mice ran behind trees before humans emerged to notice that kind of thing. Another difference is that states of affairs obtain (or fail to obtain) rather than being true or false.

So, on your view, can the content of belief be a state of affairs?

And for Banno, would a state of affairs count as propositional?

So

if (france.king.hairstyle == "bald") {polish his head} else {do nothing}

will result in nothing being done, because france.king.hairstyle is a null reference (since france has no such property as king) and so comparisons against it universally return false. — Pfhorrest

Yes, that's a nice example where the language creators have designed it that way.

Whereas other programming languages don't permit null references at all, so that scenario can't arise.

With languages that do allow null references, one approach is to design classes that provide the appropriate context when instantiated. For example, by restricting the evaluation of a French King's baldness to those contexts where there is a French King. Which, in turn, simplifies reasoning about the code.

Plus the sentence could become truth apt (if we grant that sentences can be) if you named your dog 'The present king of France'

Still have to look to use to discern meaning. The meaning is the proposition (kind of). — frank

Yes, it's not enough to look at the words in isolation, you also have to look at the context they are used in.

Asserting that the snow outside is white isnt useful, as it is basically redundant information -as if snow could be another color. — Harry Hindu

I'm making a comment about failure of reference. If that example doesn't work for you, then see the earlier "the present king of France is bald" example.

(referring) subject.
— Andrew M

was a typo? — bongo fury

No, I meant it in the sense of "existing" or a successful reference, as opposed to a failure of reference (such as the present King of France).

It's just not truth apt, right? — frank

:up:

"Snow" or snow? — bongo fury

Snow. If I assert that the snow outside is white, then I am (purportedly) referring to snow outside and saying something about it. If there is no snow outside then that is a failure of reference. Hence, on Strawson's view, my assertion is neither true nor false (i.e., it's not truth apt).

but that doesn't make the sentence have some kind of indeterminate truth value, because its strictly logical content can still be evaluated to false. — Pfhorrest

The point here though is that we normally use a sentence to assert something about a (referring) subject. If there is no subject, then we can't be asserting something about one - so the question of whether our assertion is true or false does not arise. Thus the sentence has no use, except perhaps to deceive, or (as you note) in situations where we wrongly thought there was a subject. But that doesn't change the fact that there was no subject to assert something of.

The issue is, as Strawson puts it:

We are apt to fancy we are talking about sentences and expressions when we are talking about the uses of sentences and expressions.

This is what Russell does. Generally, as against Russell, I shall say this. Meaning (in at least one important sense) is a function of the sentence or expression ; mentioning and referring and truth or falsity, are functions of the use of the sentence or expression. [italics mine] — On Referring, p327 - Peter Strawson

In the same way that "all of my children are dead" pragmatically implies that I have had some nonzero number of children, all of which have died, but strictly logically equates to "there does not exist any x such that x is my child and x is not dead", which is true because there does not exist any x such that x is my child. — Pfhorrest

Strawson has comments about the use of those kinds of sentences as well in "(c) The logic of subjects and predicates" on p343.

Anyway, just a different point of view to consider! The broader theme is discussed at SEP's Descriptions.

the sentence "the present king of France is bald" does express a proposition -- that there exists exactly one x such that x is presently king of France and x is bald -- and that proposition is false, because there is no x that is presently king of France. — Pfhorrest

The underlying issue is that the subject term has no referent. Your comment is one proposal for handling such sentences.

That is, on Russell's view (and yours) the sentence entails that there is a present King of France. The entailment is false, therefore the sentence is false.

However on Peter Strawson's view (and my own and, I assume, Banno's), the sentence presupposes that there is a present King of France. The presupposition fails and so the sentence is not evaluable as either true or false. So the sentence does not express a proposition.

On a presuppositional view, one cannot evaluate a sentence as true or false when the subject term has no referent. For a programming analogy, to attempt to evaluate it is like attempting to dereference a null pointer.

Pragmatics is neither syntax nor semantics. — Pfhorrest

Yes, so it's not enough that "the present king of France is bald" is grammatical and meaningful. There also needs to be a context such that it is evaluable.

Could we say that the meaning of "the world as it is" depends on the context? The world has perceptible and imperceptible aspects, and on a day to day basis we usually want to talk about the world we perceive. — Daemon

Yes, that seems fine.

I'd add that knowledge (whether everyday or scientific) builds on what we ordinarily perceive.

One aspect where philosophical claims and distinctions can go wrong is when they deny that premise - in effect, sawing off the branch that they rest on.

The tetrachromats are interesting because it means all men and most women are colour-blind. So if you've ever wondered what it's like to be colour-blind, now you know. — Daemon

The question is, by what standard? By normal standards, we are not color-blind. By tetrachromat standards we are.

Similarly consider a six-foot basketball player. Are they tall? By normal standards, they are. By basketball standards they are not.

And by giraffe standards, nobody is tall. But that's not a useful standard for human beings.

Similarly, if seeing the world requires perceiving every possible difference, then that standard has no use for human beings. We would all be blind. Or, as Plato put it, imprisoned in a cave.

Andrew then added something about "standards", Platonic or Idealised standards, versus creature specific standards.

I guess "Idealised" is the same thing as "the world as it is ("in itself"). — Daemon

That sums up the philosophical dispute. Is "the world as it is" that which human beings ordinarily perceive when not mistaken (i.e., per a human standard)? Or is it an ideal that transcends human perception?

A concrete object is what any human being knows. If you take a billionaire from New York and a priest from New Guinea, they have the same understanding of concrete objects that everyone else has! What we call reality is what presents itself to human beings. — Rafaella Leon

Exactly.

This is one of Kant’s mistakes, he thinks that all of these are limitations of our knowledge, that we cannot know things in themselves, however, I assert that what I’m talking about is things in themselves! — Rafaella Leon

Yes. And as you suggest above, you're talking about those things from a human point-of-view (yours). You're not asserting a Platonic (or idealized) point-of-view.

So if there aren't any creatures about, there isn't a way things are? — Daemon

There is. But we can only describe it from a human point-of-view. That is, we start from what we observe. Our theories of the universe (along with the rules of logic and mathematics) don't emerge in a vacuum.

[3] Can we see a suitable portion of the world as it is described truly?
...
Answer: [3] ... reject [4] and [5] for the same reasons as [1] — bongo fury

:up:

Ah, but the demanded condition for being able to see the world as it is, is to be able to see it free from all perspectives; which would mean being able to make absolutely true, that is completely context independent, statements about it. The true statements we are able to make are all relative to various contexts, which just isn't good enough, dammit! :rofl: — Janus

:100:

I notice that not everyone saw your comment as it really was...

I would say we are capable of being mistaken about anything. — khaled

Yes, that's been my conclusion from observing humanity too...

I am not saying that a stick that looks bent in water is actually bent, but that whether or not the stick is "actually bent" is found out by employing a creature specific standard. — khaled

:up:

That there is no "direct access" if that makes sense, we see things through fallible senses and fallible reasoning. I find people forget this often. — khaled

OK. The way I would put it is that we are capable of being mistaken about what we perceive.

But in a world where most people are not color-blind, the color-blind person has to adapt to the color-normal use (say, learning how to navigate traffic lights by noting the light intensity at a bulb position). With regard to this very specific distinction (and the color-normal standard), they would not be seeing things as they are.
— Andrew M

Just seems to define "the way things are" as "the way things seem to most of us" Andrew M — khaled

No, that's a naturally arising distinction. For example, we learn to distinguish a straight stick from a bent stick. But then a scenario arises, such as the straight stick partially submerged in water, where the straight stick seems bent. So things aren't always as they seem.

The key point to note here is that there is a natural standard in play. That is, we are comparing one human-observed scenario to another. We are not applying an idealized (Platonic) standard about what constitutes a straight and a bent stick.

Perhaps there are other creatures that don't perceive things in that same way (perhaps they see things in a distorted way compared to us, and us to them). So they would have a different standard. But, again, not an idealized standard, but a creature-specific standard.

This idea can be extended to animals that perceive colors differently. Are they seeing the world as it is? Yes, in relation to their perceptual capabilities. But not necessarily in relation to ours as human beings.
— Andrew M

What about in relation to as things are, or at the very least, as modern science describes those things? — Marchesk

That is as things are. It takes into account what grounds the language being used, namely, the prominent features of the environment. Hence the reference to focal points.

That relationalism is very much a part of modern science. Most obviously with Einstein's relativity where the characteristics of observables can vary depending on the frame of the observer (length, time, mass/energy, simultaneity).

A natural extension of this idea is that a reference frame for a person fixes not just the relative spatiotemporal features of the environment, but also the relative qualitative features of the environment.

So two people travelling at the same velocity will perceive the same length for an observed object. Similarly, two people with the same perceptual systems will perceive the same color for an observed object.

I conclude that nobody can see the world as it is. — Daemon

According to a Platonic (idealized) standard, sure.

But not according to a standard that arises from what is observed in the world.

Are you really saying that how things are is determined by majority vote? — Daemon

No, I'm not saying that at all. Let's look at that passage again:

In game theory, a focal point (or Schelling point) is a solution that people tend to choose by default in the absence of communication. The concept was introduced by the American economist Thomas Schelling in his book The Strategy of Conflict (1960).[1] Schelling states that "(p)eople can often concert their intentions or expectations with others if each knows that the other is trying to do the same" in a cooperative situation (at page 57), so their action would converge on a focal point which has some kind of prominence compared with the environment. However, the conspicuousness of the focal point depends on time, place and people themselves. It may not be a definite solution. — Focal point (game theory)

It's not the agreement that is the standard. It is the focal point - the aspect of the environment that has some kind of prominence.

See also the picture of the coordination game example. Is there a square that stands out to you? That it stands out is not a function of your agreement with others that it does, but of the way you perceive things in the world.

If it so happens that other people perceive things in the same way as you, then the distinction between that square and the other three squares will result in language that the community will use. Per this example, the words "red" and "blue".

Now suppose you were color blind (often this is between red and green, but I'll stick to the example). In that case, the red square won't stand out. So if everyone were color-blind, there would be no red-blue distinction. Language would instead arise around other (for them) prominent features of the environment. But in a world where most people are not color-blind, the color-blind person has to adapt to the color-normal use (say, learning how to navigate traffic lights by noting the light intensity at a bulb position). With regard to this very specific distinction (and the color-normal standard), they would not be seeing things as they are. But if language instead emerged according to the distinctions that they would naturally make, then they would be seeing things as they are.

This idea can be extended to animals that perceive colors differently. Are they seeing the world as it is? Yes, in relation to their perceptual capabilities. But not necessarily in relation to ours as human beings.

Indeed that can and does happen. But we are still capable of seeing things as they are, no?
— Andrew M

That is the explicit mission of science, but since Galileo, there's something that's been left out. In the attempt to exclude subjectivity, the subject itself becomes excluded; science as now practiced has tended to put exclusive emphasis on the quantitative, what can be specificed mathematically, excluding anything qualitative - hence this debate! — Wayfarer

Science can include the qualitative. Not in the mind as qualia, but in the world as the qualitative characteristics of the things we encounter.

Aristotle discusses this. Along with substances (individuals), quantities, relations, positions and actions, there are also qualities.

3. Qualification or quality (ποιόν, poion, of what kind or quality). This determination characterizes the nature of an object. Examples: white, black, grammatical, hot, sweet, curved, straight. — Aristotle's Categories

Agreed, though I would say that [objectivity] is grounded in human experience, rather than human subjectivity, which I think captures the empirical nature of the enterprise.
— Andrew M

I would say subjective experience. It helps show that objectivity stems from subjectivity, rather than be the opposite of it. — Olivier5

I was actually referring to ideas, not objectivity (in the brackets above).

Anyway, I appreciate that you're taking an embedded approach rather than viewing objectivity and subjectivity as opposing duals. I can agree with that.

Is a colourblind person capable of seeing things as they are? — Daemon

That depends on what one's standard is for seeing things as they are.

In game theory, a focal point (or Schelling point) is a solution that people tend to choose by default in the absence of communication. The concept was introduced by the American economist Thomas Schelling in his book The Strategy of Conflict (1960).[1] Schelling states that "(p)eople can often concert their intentions or expectations with others if each knows that the other is trying to do the same" in a cooperative situation (at page 57), so their action would converge on a focal point which has some kind of prominence compared with the environment. However, the conspicuousness of the focal point depends on time, place and people themselves. It may not be a definite solution. — Focal point (game theory)

Or, we can't see the world as it really is, because we take delusory appearances to be reality. Which is much more likely, given our cultural context. — Wayfarer

Indeed that can and does happen. But we are still capable of seeing things as they are, no?

You want to say that a feeling is of something "in the world", and not of something "in your mind". Okay, but you are either aware or not aware of being touched, and it is the awareness (or not) that makes it a feeling (or not). You are aware of the experience; you are not having an experience of the experience. — Luke

No, I was aware of being touched on the shoulder. That was my experience.

It's not that a person touched me on the shoulder (an external occurrence) and then I felt it (a subsequent internal occurrence). It's that I felt a person touch me on the shoulder. That was my experience - a relation between myself and the world. If I hadn't felt it, then my experience would have been different - an alternative experience that didn't include an awareness of being touched on the shoulder (although I nonetheless was).

This is an example of how we're using the word "experience" differently. Dichotomizing it into internal and external occurrences creates ghosts, or shadows on the cave wall.

What about the feeling of pain - is that a feeling of something "in the world"? — Luke

Suppose I stub my toe. I feel pain in my toe. And my toe is in the world. Or, in another case, I might feel a generalized pain. But I am also in the world. So the Cartesian theater doesn't arise.

If so, then what is the distinction between the feeler of pain (i.e. the person) and the world? Do you consider a person to be identical with their physical body? — Luke

The distinction between a person and the world is one of perception and conceptualization, not one of ontological separation. That is, a person is embedded in the world that they are perceiving. A person is materially constituted by their body, but we conceptualize a person differently from their body (i.e., as having a higher level of structure and organization).

Consider an analogy between a statue and the stone that materially constitutes it. The conceptual difference between the statue and the stone is the form of the stone (i.e., the structure and organization that makes the stone a statue).

...then there are those who insist in talking about how the word is for us, as opposed to how it really is; as if that helped. — Banno

:100:

Stove's Gem. We can't see the world as it really is because we have eyes.

Anyway, it sounds to me like that Cyrenaics and other ancient skeptical schools anticipated much of the modern debate around qualia, minus the physicalism and neurological part. I do recall that one criticism of ancient atomism was that atoms and the void couldn't create sensations of color and taste. — Marchesk

Yes, they are great examples and I agree it looks like much the same debate. The following passage encapsulates what I see as the whole issue with both the Cyrenaics' and the atomists' positions.

The Cyrenaics note that the same object can cause different perceivers to experience different sensible qualities, depending on the bodily condition of the perceivers. For instance, honey will taste sweet to most people, but bitter to somebody with an illness, and the same wall that appears white to one person will look yellow to somebody with jaundice. And if a person presses his eye, he sees double.

From the fact that the wall appears white to me and yellow to you, the Cyrenaics think we should infer that we cannot know which quality the wall itself has on the basis of our experience of it, presumably because we have no criterion outside of our experiences to use to adjudicate which one (if either) of our experiences is correct. — Cyrenaics - i. The Relativity of Perception - IEP

The obvious response (to me) is that why should they think that there would be a criterion outside of experience? That framing seems to be shared by both the Cyrenaics and the atomists. If, instead, the criterion is in experience, then who or what is the obvious candidate here? The ill person? The person with jaundice? The pressing eye person?

How about the healthy person under normal conditions?

What I find interesting in this view — which must have many precedents — is that the Platonic world of ideas is not ‘out there’ and objective; rather it is grounded in human subjectivity, and built by our intersubjective dialogue and intellectual efforts generation after generation. — Olivier5

Agreed, though I would say that it is grounded in human experience, rather than human subjectivity, which I think captures the empirical nature of the enterprise.

OK. I think of dualism as an ontological separation thesis, where each dual has its own nature and principles for understanding them.
— Andrew M

Fair. But ontology is elusive. We don’t really know what matter ‘is’, for instance. Personally I try to stay away from it. (ontology I mean, not matter, as staying away from matter would be difficult) — Olivier5

For Aristotle, what matter is depends on what you're specifically investigating. An example he uses is of a house - it can be analyzed into form and matter (or material) where, for a particular house, the matter might be bricks. A brick, in turn, can also be analyzed into form and matter, where its matter is clay. And so on, pursuing this hierarchy down until you get to the fundamental elements. While Aristotle's theory of elements was wrong [*], he nonetheless provided a useful schema for investigating the nature of things to whatever level required.

Aristotle applied this same hierarchical schema to living things, both in terms of genus and species, and also in terms of composition. So for humans (and living things generally) the body is the material. And the body, in turn, can be hierarchically analyzed into form/matter components (say, organs, cells, molecules, elements).

In this way, dualism doesn't arise. Everything observable, including living things such as human beings, is a candidate for natural investigation.

--

[*] But still an empirically-grounded theory (and thus scientific in the usual sense):

I show that Aristotelian physics is a correct and non-intuitive approximation of Newtonian physics in the suitable domain (motion in fluids), in the same technical sense in which Newton theory is an approximation of Einstein’s theory. Aristotelian physics lasted long not because it became dogma, but because it is a very good empirically grounded theory. The observation suggests some general considerations on inter-theoretical relations. — Aristotle’s Physics: a Physicist’s Look - Carlo Rovelli, 2014

Long story short, I think kicking happens out there in the world, not in people's minds (it's a kind of relation, which is part of the physicist's toolkit). However it doesn't follow that it has an independent existence apart from individuals. Which is why it is abstract, not concrete.
— Andrew M

That makes sense. But I think the same thing applies to individuals. An individual is a being (be-ing) in the sense of the term as verb, yet being, like kicking, does not have an independent existence apart from individuals.

So for me an act of kicking is as concrete as the individual doing the kicking and the object being kicked. And kicking in the general sense, is no more abstract than being or existence in the general sense. — Janus

Yes agreed, and well put. Kicking is concrete when those relational dependencies are met (i.e., when someone is kicking something).