You could feel that this makes it uninteresting or not worth bothering with, but why should the person forwarding the view that meaning and casuality are synonymous care that you feel that way? It's not as if what's the case in the world is determined by whether you like a particular way of approaching philosophy or not, or whether it's the conventional way. — Terrapin Station

If you want to persuade other people (and not just talk with yourself), then you ought to care about what they think and believe in, and attempt to present your views in such a way that they would find them plausible from their own perspective. Otherwise why should you bother with arguments in the first place? (or write anything on a forum for that matter). If someone is happy and satisfied with his own definitions and doesn't care about what others think, then he shouldn't bother other people with his 'ideas' in the first place.

Sure you can say that meaning is synonymous with causality, and that's what I believe it's saying.

That's not saying that "causality means causality." Because under this view, "means" doesn't denote identity or synonymy. — Terrapin Station

It doesn't change my point. Synonymy is a trivial thing however you understand it - it doesn't prove anything if you substitute one word for another (whether 'substitute' means identity, or "sameness of meaning" or whatever).

A person claiming this can be claiming that the normal concept is misconceived, or that people have what meaning is wrong, etc. It doesn't have to conform to the normal concept. — Terrapin Station

As I said, in this case, it would be an entirely different discussion. But don't pretend to offer an analysis of something if what you really mean is to deny the existence of that thing.

I get what you're doing now. You're thinking of meaning in the way that you usually think of meaning--so that representation counts, for example, and then you're seeing the theory as attempting to say that representation (and everything else you take meaning to usually be) is somehow causality.

But I don't think it's saying that. I think it's rather saying that meaning is causality in the way that you usually think of causality, and that it's not the same thing as representation. — Terrapin Station

But you can't say that meaning is synonymous with causality, because that will make your claim vacuous (then you will be saying in effect that causality means causality - a claim hardly worth defending). So in order to give an informative or substantive philosophical analysis of a given concept, your analysis must satisfy some pre-theoretical desiderata, which means that you first got to assume that the concept you want to analyze behaves in such and such ways (something that even people who don't agree with your analysis are likely to accept), and then show how your analysis supposed to explain why it behaves thus; otherwise you will not be offering an analysis of an existing concept (or an explanation of a phenomena) but just a pointless stipulation about words.

So in our case, I think the plausible desiderata for the concept of 'meaning' is that it involves things like representation or reference, but even if I'm wrong about this, the point is that you must assume something about the thing which you analyze before you actually offer the analysis, otherwise it will not be an analysis of anything but an arbitrary stipulation. (another strategy is to simply deny that anything in the world actually satisfies the pre-theoretical desiderata for a given concept - which in our cases will be do deny that there is such thing as 'meaning', but I don't think that this is what the op meant).

(also I'm not assuming that my account of analysis is without problems - there's the well known "paradox of analysis" - but at least this is how typically most theories or explanations proceed in the philosophical literature, and therefore I would expect from anyone who offers an analysis of a concept or an explanation to at least accept something like this framework as a background for discussion)

Where would causality enter into that? — Terrapin Station

Are you asking me? It's not my theory. Ask the op.

Representation is causality on your view you're saying? — Terrapin Station

No, because I don't accept the casual analysis. I'm saying that if you define representation in casual terms, then you are in trouble (but the same argument applies to meaning if you don't like representation).

The problem with this is that represntation, reference through language, etc. is not at all meaning on a theory where meaning is causality. — Terrapin Station

I use the terms interchangeably so it doesn't matter.

It wouldn't make any sense to object based on observations being necessary, because the theory would be saying that we know causality based on observations. — Terrapin Station

"objecting based on ..." simply means that you are using something as a premise in your argument, and since it is true (and you seem to accept it) that we know causality based on observation, then there's nothing illegitimate in basing my objection on this premise.

in a case like a paper getting "swept" off of a table meaning that there's wind, which is known because of empirical observations in the past, you'd argue that meaning can't be causality in that case because_______? — Terrapin Station

Because to know empirically that the wind causes the paper to move you must first be able to observe the wind, and being able to observe the wind means that you can identify it as a wind; and if you can identify something as a particular thing (as opposed to something else), it means that you can mean it/represent it/refer to it through language or somehow in your thoughts. Thus we get into a circle:

1. Meaning can only be established by observation (since meaning=causality, and causality is an apostriori disclosable relation).
2. Observation depends on meaning (as I explained above).
3. But you cannot know the meaning of anything prior to observation (from (1))
4. So you cannot make observations (from (2) + (3)).
5. Therefore you cannot ever know what you mean by anything (or premise (1) is false).

I hope the argument is clearer now.

It seems to me like what I wrote is very straightforward. If meaning is causality, the way you know meaning is by making observations. That would be part of the theory. So no one would be saying that you know causality a priori. I don't know where you'd even be getting that idea from. — Terrapin Station

But I just quoted you where you contradict what you just said "The objection can't be that you can't know that without observing the correlation between the wind and the paper" - so can I object on this ground or not? Which way is it?

That would be part of the theory that meaning is the same as causality. — Terrapin Station

I don't see how it is relevant to your objection. You wrote:

The objection can't be that you can't know that without observing the correlation between the wind and the paper, because that's part of the theory. — Terrapin Station

But the mere fact that the theory analyzes meaning in casual terms doesn't mean that you are entitled to simply assume that we somehow know the casual relations between phenomena in advance, because clearly knowing what causes what is an empirical matter, and therefore you need observations - you can't have this for free.

Could you explain your objection clearly? — Terrapin Station

First let's see what premises you don't agree with. I can't really formulate it more clearly than I already did.

The objection can't be that you can't know that without observing the correlation between the wind and the paper, because that's part of the theory. — Terrapin Station

What theory?

I have no idea what that's saying really. What are "the causal regularities which obtain between X and events in the world?"

Why wouldn't simply repeated observations of Y being antecedently correlated with X be enough? — Terrapin Station

Yeah I meant something like that. Of course in actual science there are many complications when it comes to determining that two phenomena are causally related, but the general idea is that to know that X causes Y it is at least necessary (though probably not sufficient in most cases) to know that Y always follows X, all things being equal.

He wasn't saying that meaning is only about whether A is really the cause of B, was he? — Terrapin Station

He was, quote "I have already stated that "meaning" is the causal relationship between causes and their effects".

On a view that meaning is causality, what does mentally representing Y have to do with meaning? — Terrapin Station

It really doesn't matter how you call it; you can replace 'represent' by 'mean' without affecting my argument (though the concept of representation (or even that of reference) is much clearer in my opinion than meaning).

Okay, but needing to know what causes Y seemed to be your objection to his argument. — Terrapin Station

No it wasn't, where did I say this? All I said is that we need to know that a causal relation obtains between Y and X.

I don't agree with his view--I would say that meaning is a mental association, but I wouldn't frame it as anything about causality--but I don't understand this objection to his view. If meaning is causality on his view, why would he have to know the casuality of Y in order to know that Y causes X? — Terrapin Station

This is because causes cannot be inferred apriori from their effects, but only established by empirical observation (as Hume has thought us). So if a certain event in the world Y causes a mental state in your mind X, you can't know what causes your mental state without observing the causal regularities which obtain between your mental states and events in the world. But if this is the case, then you already must have a way of identifying the relevant cause Y in order to know that it causes X; and if so, then your ability to represent Y must be independent of your knowing what causes your mental state X (either this, or meaning is inscrutable: you simply cannot know anything about the meaning of your mental states).

Let's say that Y is the wind and X is a paper blowing off of a table outside. The wind causes the paper to blow off the table outside. So if that's what meaning is--the meaning of the wind is that is causes the paper to blow off the table outside, then why would you have to know what causes the wind to know this? — Terrapin Station

No that's not what I said. In my example X (the paper blowing off the table) means Y (there is wind) just in case Y causes X, and so it doesn't require knowing what causes Y.

And I keep pointing out that if meaning were use then we could never say what we don't mean. We could never lie. But everyone on your side seems to ignore that. — Harry Hindu

We ignore it because you don't understand the view that you try to attack, and therefore your arguments simply don't make any sense.

The 'use' conception of language doesn't equate between meaning something (or sincerely believing it) and saying it out loud (therefore you can have the two at the same time). This argument shows that you simply don't understand what the position even mean.

I have already stated that "meaning" is the causal relationship between causes and their effects. Minds, which are just sensory information processing systems, are able to establish associations with different experiences. Hearing a voice speak is no different than hearing the waves of the ocean. It's all just noise until you establish some link, or association, with some cause of hearing some thing. Once I hear and see the waves crash, or a person speak, then I'm able to establish to a connection between the sounds and what I see. — Harry Hindu

Meaning cannot be a causal relation. If X means Y because Y causes X (X being some mental state in our heads, or whatever you like), then you can't know that X means Y, since causality is something that can only be known through experience, but you cannot learn from experience that Y causes X, unless you already know the meaning of Y, so you get a circle here (in other words, you already need a language that can represent the causes of your mental states in order to know them, but if this is the case, then you cannot know what means what since knowing the causes of your representations requires a prior ability to represent them).

I keep making the argument that every time you write or say anything you are simply making noises or referring to some state of affairs. No one has yet been able to prove otherwise. — Harry Hindu

This is simply not true. What about false sentences or negative truths? They don't 'refer' to any states of affair by their very nature. For example: "Bernie Sanders is the president of the united states" (the sentence is false but meaningful despite the non-existence of the state of affairs which it represents), and "Bernie Sanders in not the president of the united states" (which is true and meaningful, despite again the non-existence of the state of affairs which it describes).

Actually I don't think that he ever did, he just changed his method of logical analysis (and his views on what it means to do a logical analysis).

(I remember reading that he told his pupil Rhees that the Investigations is a book about logic as much as the Tractatus).

I don't think that it really matter that much (philosophically at least), and it's not clear exactly what 'concepts' are to begin with... Maybe this is one of the reasons that Wittgenstein coined the term 'language game' so that we will consider the phenomena simply as they are, without trying to force them into this or that philosophical preconception.

You may not perceive it as a length, as something falling under a concept, but critters without concepts perceive things, know things, etc. — Srap Tasmaner

Well it depends on what sorts of creatures we are talking about (and there is a sense of 'perceiving' which is not conceptual), but why shouldn't we say that the more sophisticated creatures do have concepts despite lacking language?

So it's a sociological explanation of meaning. — Marchesk

Not quite. When it is 'decided' that this and that would count as 'a length of an object' then it's not merely a claim about the society (though it certainly in some sense is), but also a claim about how objects are (say) measured, which by itself has nothing to do with sociology but the things in the world.

Where did I link concepts to linguistic competence? I brought up this whole topic about the standard meter to illustrate how something which is not linguistic can nevertheless symbolize.

That's why I reference Kant earlier, and how he showed that certain categories of thought were necessary to make sense out of the noise of sense impressions. Empiricism can't get going without that. — Marchesk

Perhaps, but what Wittgenstein clearly saw (and perhaps Kant didn't) is that innateness or aprioricity cannot make something into a concept, but instead we should consider its use, and so having a concept is not a matter of psychology, as if it is something that we can find ourselves born with (and I think that Kant already understood this); but rather concepts is something the we shape and create, and they cannot be forced on us from 'outside' (whether by experience or innate nature), because otherwise they would cease to be concepts in the logical sense and will be nothing more then behavioral instincts.

Evolution would weed out concepts too out of sync with the environment. But it's probably more of an ability to form and build upon fundamental concepts, such as space, time, other minds, etc, which allows for a great deal of flexibility. — Marchesk

But I'm asking what would it mean for our concepts to be out of sync with reality? A concept is simply not something that you can either get right or wrong, so all this talk just doesn't make sense.

Okay, I'll bet you could devise an experiment that would show that dogs can pick out the longest of a set of levers, or the shortest, or whatever. I don't see a concept here, but there's something. What is it? — Srap Tasmaner

But I'm not arguing for the innateness of concepts.

I would argues this is innate, not something language communities create. Some ability for making sense of perception must exist for language to employ concepts. And meaning would in part be built out of that. — Marchesk

The same problem arises for innate concepts as well. How do you know that the concept of length is to be applied to the length of the table and not to its color or weight? Do we hear a voice in our heads that tells us that this is how we must think about the table? And besides, is it merely a coincidence that we happen to be born with the 'right' concepts to describe reality? Is it conceivable that someone could be born (as a result of a mutation or whatever) with the WRONG sorts of concepts? Do we have a method for checking this?

Right. So tying it back into what I've been trying to argue, the concept of length is not something created as part of a language game. It's something we cognate (perceive?) about objects. How we make use of length to measure things is part of language games. — Marchesk

Of course the concept of 'length' is something the we have created. It really doesn't make sense to 'perceive' a length in an object as an empirical discovery, and for a simple reason: you must already have the concept of length in order to perceive something as having a length, otherwise how could you know that what you are perceiving is 'length' and not some other property? (is it merely an hypothesis that when you are seeing the length of a table, you are not mistaking it for its color? And if this question sounds like nonsense, then the claim that we have 'discovered' empirically that objects have a length is also nonsense.)

but this is not to say that we 'decide' or it is 'up to us' whether this or that object is so and so meters long - once we decide what would count as being '1 meter long' then experience can teach us what things are and what things aren't this length.

Agreed. That's why it's not helpful for him to say, there's one thing that's neither a meter long or not a meter long. It is one meter long, not because we measured it, but because we say it is. It's one of those cases where saying it's so makes it so. — Srap Tasmaner

I think that what you say is actually less helpful. Saying that the standard meter is "1 meter long" really says nothing about the use of the stick as a unit of measurement, because it appears like an empirical statement about the length of the stick (analogous to "the table is 1 meter long") which could easily lead into confusion. For this reason Wittgenstein says that its length is neither so that we will not treat the proposition as a description of the stick itself, but rather look at its use in the system of measurement.

I cannot resist quoting from Wittgenstein again:

"Every rod has a length." That means something like: we call something (or this) "the length of a rod"--but nothing "the length of a sphere." Now can I imagine 'every rod having a length'? Well, I simply imagine a rod. Only this picture, in connection with this proposition, has a quite different role from one used in connection with the proposition "This table has the same length as the one over there". For here I understand what it means to have a picture of the opposite (nor need it be a mental picture).

But the picture attaching to the grammatical proposition could only show, say, what is called "the length of a rod". And what should the opposite picture be? ((Remark about the negation of an a priori proposition.))

PI 251

But it's simply not true that the 1 meter stick has no length. It most certainly has a physical length, and can be measured by all sorts of means, including non-arbitrary ones found in nature. — Marchesk

Of course it has a physical length, but this claim has to be distinguished from saying what exactly its length is in some unites of measurement.

You have to distinguish between the method of calculating length (which belongs to the "system of representation") and factual question about the length of this or that object. There's nothing wrong according to Wittgenstein (and this is something that Diamond stresses in the cited paper) in saying that "the meter stick is 1 meter long" (or 2 meters, or whatever number that you wish), as long as you don't confuse the logical role of this proposition with an empirical proposition such as "this table is a meter long", which is what he means by saying that it is or it isn't 1 meter long.

If you wish to define the standard meter as meaning "2 units of 1 meter" then Wittgenstein would say that what you have done is not described the physical length of the stick as an empirical proposition, but you gave a rule for how to use the stick when comparing it with other objects for describing their length.

I'm not sure that I understand.

I don't know, but in this case the method of measuring with the stick will probably be more complicated and cumbersome. Why is that important?

And btw, I also very strongly recommend reading Cora Diamond's "How Long is the Standard Meter in Paris?" on this topic (PM me if you want a copy) - in my opinion, one of the best papers on Wittgenstein's philosophy ever written.

There is one thing of which one can say neither that it is one metre long, nor that it is not one metre long, and that is the standard metre in Paris.--But this is, of course, not to ascribe any extraordinary property to it, but only to mark its peculiar role in the language-game of measuring with a metre-rule.--Let us imagine samples of colour being preserved in Paris like the standard metre. We define: "sepia" means the colour of the standard sepia which is there kept hermetically sealed. Then it will make no sense to say of this sample either that it is of this colour or that it is not.

We can put it like this: This sample is an instrument of the language used in ascriptions of colour. In this language-game it is not something that is represented, but is a means of representation.--And just this goes for an element in language-game (48) when we name it by uttering the word "R": this gives this object a role in our language-game; it is now a means of representation.

(PI 50)

It depends on whom you ask...

Perhaps, but I read Quine through Wittgenstenian glasses 8-)

This is true, but I think that never in his career he was at ease with the idea of apriori knowledge (think about "epistemology naturalized" etc.).

OK. The argument I mentioned is in Truth by Convention. Peace out:) — Mongrel

OK I see what you mean, but I wouldn't put the point he is making in terms of apriori knowledge, because he wants to argue in the essay only that definitions in some sense presuppose logic, and thus logic cannot be conventionally defined, but this is a weaker claim than saying it is "apriori knowledge" (he famously argued in his "Two Dogmas of Empricism" that even logic is not apriori, that even the rules of logic are not in principle immune from revision if some weird sort of experience comes along).

edit: I noticed now that you say "apriori know-how" and not simply "knowledge" (which by itself is fine ascribing to Quine), though I'm not sure what does "a priori" mean in this context.

OK. It sounds like you're saying that once you master the skill of turning your brain off, you'll understand that rule following doesn't require an explanation. — Mongrel

On the contrary, he urges his reader to think hard about all sorts of different cases and examples of the sort that usually are ignored in philosophy, which he thinks is the only way to clarify philosophical difficulties. So he says that actually philosophy is the place where we turn our brains off - we have in mind simplistic pictures of how things should be in reality, but we fail to think about the details of the application of these pictures to reality.

You really should read the book though, I can't really summarize it for you. One must go through the text by himself to really see the force of his reasoning.

What way is that? — Mongrel

As I said, without laying down philosophical requirements that say how things must be for rules to be possible.

Yes, I mean what is your source, because it sounds to me like a very un-Quinean thing to say.