I think it boils down to this.

There is a concept of agenthood. Like most concepts it is not binary, it is a continuum. Humans are highly agent, though debates over free will attack this. Rocks are not. Animals are, although their degree varies with the animal and with the person considering them.

Events and objects are similarly the product of agents, by proxy, to various degrees. Paintings are very agent-by-proxy. Cities are as well, though perhaps somewhat less, as there is an element of blind process in their development over time. Thunderstorms are not agent-by-proxy at all.

To be theist is to adopt a radical worldview where, in the deepest sense, agent-by-proxy is applied to everything, to the maximal degree. To be atheist is the opposite, nothing is agent-by-proxy in the deepest sense, everything ultimately results from blind process. There is a whole spectrum of worldviews in between.

cheerleading different linguistic conventions that emphasize different semantics for different purposes. — sime

I wouldn't put it that way. It is about our concepts. "Meaning" is a word for a concept. What is it? Specifically here, does it include features of objective reality, even ones we are unaware of?

The debate is factual to the extent you consider the contents of our concepts as matters of fact.

To think otherwise is to grant linguists powers of omniscient authority. — sime

Not sure what you mean here.

Would we all be wrong who say "Joe Biden is president?" — hypericin

I just did it. It is conflation.

In this case, yes we would be wrong, at least legally. Nonetheless we (by "we" I emphatically exclude batshit Trumpies) all mean Joe Biden, not Kamela Harris, not Trump, by "The President of the US".

See the SEP article on names — Michael

If this is true, then meaning is divorced from extension. Names have extension, but according to this no corresponding intension.

Let A and B be any two terms which differ in extension. By assumption (II) they must differ in meaning (in the sense of "intension").

must be wrong. Two names differ in extension, but have the same (absent) intension.

Arent we condemned to a world of ideas? — Joshs

Yes, this is why I disagree with Putnam. Putnam believes that differences in the thing in itself, differences which we have no access to, can impose change on our meaning. These differences can only impose changes in the absolute facticity of our claims.

the term "the President" refers to Joe Biden. — Michael

This is grounded in community usage, as well as in this case legalisms. My argument is that meaning derives from community usage, not objective reality. (A more analogous example would be, suppose there was some bylaw which meant that legally Kamela Harris was in fact president. This law was so obscure that on one ever noticed, now or in the future. Would we all be wrong who say "Joe Biden is president?").

In 2000BC, "The center of the universe" generally had the extension of "The earth". Factually this was incorrect. Nonetheless, that is what people meant by it.

You have to divorce the concept of meaning from factual. How would you otherwise understand the history of science? When ancient philosophers mentioned "substance" did they mean all the details of quantum theory? Factually, that is what they were referring to, but their meaning contained no trace of wave equations.

And in such a scenario if you were to say "this is a glass of water" you would be wrong because it isn't a glass of water, it's a glass of twin-water. — Michael

Suppose this change happened in 2000BC? Would everyone suddenly be wrong when they said "this is a cup of water" in their language?

That's a proper name. "Michael" doesn't really mean anything, it's just an identifier. — Michael

What is a proper name if not a word that means a particular thing?

The same example can be made without using a proper name. Suppose all the world's water was suddenly replaced with twin water. Until I learned of this replacement, I would still mean water when I said "water". Only when I learned would I mean twin water. While still acknowledging that the people who were naïve to the change still mean water.

n other words, there's no such thing as what I mean by the word "water", there is only what the word "water" means. — Michael

Imagine you were killed and replaced by an evil doppelganger. Your friend George, unaware of this, says "Hi Michael". George doesn't mean the doppelganger, he means to greet Good Michael. Only for those who learned of substitution would "Michael" mean the doppelganger.

Let A and B be any two terms which differ in extension. By assumption (II) they must differ in meaning (in the sense of "intension").

Seems very dubious when applied to differences in extension which the speaker is unaware of.

I think I agree, and I think you hit on the mistake of my op.

The full meaning of a sentence can only be gotten with it's context. The context free part, the part you understand just by knowing the language, is only part of the meaning. The other part of the meaning is the part gotten from context. This contextual meaning may include referent(s), though the actual, physical (or mental) referent is of course not a meaning.

I was confusing contextualized meaning and referent.

Hmm, good point. I think you're right.

My current thinking:
From our omniscient perspective of the posers of the thought experiment, "water" and twin "water" mean something different, for us. Nonetheless, when earthlings and twin earthlings say "water", they mean the exact same thing, for them. You can see this by imagining an earthling being transpose into twin earth, or vice versa. The alien's extension for water will exactly match the natives.

Putnam unjustifiably projects the perspective of the thought experiment onto its subjects.

I suggest they're interchangeable. — bongo fury

Compare the four sentences:

S1: The water is cold.
Meaning known, referent unknown

S2: ទឹកគឺត្រជាក់។
Meaning unknown (unless you are Cambodian), referent unknown

S3: The water in Lake Michigan is cold.
Meaning known, referent known

S4: The water in Lake Michigan is ironic.
Meaning unknown, referent known


Meaning and referent can each be independently known or unknown.

If you prefer. The point being that it clearly distinguishes meaning and reference, in contrast to your title. — Banno

You got the argument totally wrong, nothing to do with my preference.

It would be silly to suggest that someone like Putnam would be naive to the distinction between meaning and reference. Nonetheless I'm claiming that he conflated the two in his conclusion.

I suggest they're interchangeable. We all know that your sentence S refers to water in general, and cold things in general. We just don't know which bit of water you mean. — bongo fury

The use of the definite article means that S refers to a specific bit of water, not water in general.

If meaning and referent were interchangeable it would not be possible to know the meaning but not the referent.

didn't quite get it until I thought of "our only point of contact" in a sort of Flatland way -- imagine that all you know of the line is what you know as a point on it, take its point of view, and to be such a point is to see a neverending expanse of line to either side of you — Srap Tasmaner

Similarly, philosophers in Flatland will conclude that there can be no third dimension. Every point in their experience has only a left and right, forward and back. A point with additional directions would be outside of their experience, and so not a point at all.

Here is another example:

S2: "The point on the ground two feet in front of you"

This has the same meaning for everyone who reads it. I would translate it into the same words in French no matter where I was standing. And yet, for every reader, the referent is a different point.

Same meaning, different referents.

Please explain where I go wrong. :chin: — jgill

Putnam is setting up an artificial scenario where two people's mental states are identical when they use a term, and yet the term is referring to different things. Therefore he concludes that meaning must involve more than just mental state, it must be located in the state of the world.

In your case, your mental states are different when you are using the same terms, and they are referring to different things. This is just ambiguity.

So reference is to some particular item (e.g. glass of liquid), whereas meaning is reference to a wider class or extension (e.g. of water)? — bongo fury

I'm not using any philosophical jargon here.

Simply, we English speakers all know what S means. It is basic English. But we don't know to what it refers.

Therefore, meaning and reference are distinct concepts, and must not be conflated.

Therefore, it makes sense to say that water means the same thing on Earth and Twin Earth, and yet it refers to different substances.

Same meaning in each case, but different referent. Hence, the argument goes, the meaning of "water" is not its chemical composition. — Banno

Trouble is, this just isn't what Putnam says.


From the paper:

Let W 1 and W 2 be two possible worlds in which I exist and in which
this glass exists and in which I am giving a meaning explanation by
pointing to this glass and saying "this is water." (We do not assume
that the liquid in the glass is the same in both worlds.) Let us suppose
that in W 1 the glass is full of H20 and in W2 the glass is full of XYZ.
We shall also suppose that W 1 is the actual world and that XYZ is the
stuff typically called "water" in the world W 2 (so that the relation between English speakers in W 1 and English speakers in W 2 is exactly
the same as the relation between English speakers on Earth and English
speakers on Twin Earth). Then there are two theories one might have
concerning the meaning of "water."
( 1) One might hold that "water" was world-relative but constant in
meaning (i.e., the word has a constant relative meaning). On this
theory, "water" means the same in W 1 and W 2; it's just that water is
H20 in W 1 and water is XYZ in Wz.
(2) One might hold that water is H20 in all worlds (the stuff called
"water" in W 2 isn't water), but "water" doesn't have the same meaning
in W1 and Wz.
If what was said before about the Twin Earth case was correct, then
( 2) is clearly the correct theory.

No, meaning is social. It is stable whatever or whether we think of it.

Interpretation is what is in the head.

The two claims are not contradictory, so no.

My correction:
1) The symbols themselves are not concept-independent, as if sounds or markings were not already interpretive meanings.
2)The meaning of symbols can’t be divorced from its interpretation by an individual in a given context.
3)Interpretation doesnt just compare itself to an extant set of rules for meaning. It is the only place where meaning actually arises.
4) We can’t speak of objects in the world outside of the objects that we form through our conceptual interpretations — Joshs

1) Are you speaking of the difference between the physical markings and their interpretation as letters or phonemes? I agree, this should be distinguished.
2) No, it is absolutely divorced. You can see this by looking at an incompetent language user. A poor English user might understand "Water is wet" to mean water is slippery. This interpretation does not impact the meaning of the sentence, which remains water is wet
3) Languages users don't just compare, they have to actively construct an interpretation. As above, this construction is distinct from the meaning of the sentence.
4) But then, cf. the Twin Earth you cited to me.

But there seems to be an inconsistency in that you agreed "meaning is something like a social reality" then recanted with "Sentences are just tools used to induce thoughts in others". — Banno

Not inconsistent, I didn't recant. Sentences, whose meanings are something like social realities, are tools used to induce thoughts in others.

Another tack:

Sentences are just tools used to induce thoughts in others (or represent thoughts to ourselves, when thinking). It is the thoughts themselves which are true and false. A sentence is true if, when interpreted correctly, it induces true thoughts.

This is helpful because it removes the ambiguity of language which otherwise confounds the concept of truth, when truth or falsehood is applied to sentences themselves.

I agree. But meaning then must be distinguished from interpretation, which is in the head.

I see four distinct components to a sentence:

1: The symbols themselves: The sounds or markings.
2: The meaning of the symbols: This is determined by language rules and context, and may be more or less ambiguous. This is not in the listener's or reader's head.
3: The interpretation: this is the mental schema the listener or reader conjures up, using the language rules and context as best they can, attempting to match the meaning.
4: The referent: The object in the world, the phenomena, or the abstract idea the sentence is referring to.

Yep, why not? — bongo fury

If I imagine that there is a dragon on Neptune, that imagining is in my head, not Neptune. Are you claiming that meaning is something like a social reality which is not localized in any one person's head?

Eh? — bongo fury

You just claimed that meaning and reference were synonymous.



I'm not sure how your earlier post pertains.

We may or may not pretend some corresponding bolt of energy passes between the symbol and object themselves.

But I'm treating meaning as synonymous with reference — bongo fury

So meaning is both purely imaginary and not in the head, an imaginary lightning bolt from symbol to object which is also the object? This does not strike me as a particularly coherent account.

And recommends dropping it. — bongo fury

Then how does he deal with sentences with no referent? "The cat in the hat" has meaning but no reference in the world. If the meaning of "The cat in the hat" is in your head, then mustn't all meaning be in the head?

It is invented, or pretended, by people using their heads, but that doesn't locate it in the head. — bongo fury

Then where is it located?

The meaning of "the water is cold" is not about chemical composition. It is certainly not about some covert inaccessible property of water. It is about the everyday water we experience. This is the same in both worlds. Only the referents are different.

If the meaning of "water" was swapped with "fire", then of course the meanings of the sentences would be different. And then the sentence would translate into different foreign sentences on the two worlds.

He illustrated this with his twin earth experiment. — Joshs

I'd come across this at some point before, I found it very unconvincing, then and now.

I would say that Putnam is conflating meaning and referent.

The meaning of "the water is cold" is the same on Earth and Twin Earth. We can see this by the fact that it would translate to the same sentences in other languages on both planets.

It just so happens that the worldly referent on Twin Earth is different.

What are interpretations? I would say: sentences that help us construe symbols as pointing at things. What would you say? — bongo fury

Interpretations are the meanings we construe from sentences. Meaning is what the sentence points to, not the sentence itself. It is the signified, not the signifier.

Meaning is not something in the world either, it is something in the head (otherwise, how can we make sense of abstractions, lies, or fictions?).

We can express meanings with sentences in one language or another, with body language, with pictures.

Sentence, meaning, worldly referent are all not identical, do you agree?

My feeling is that it is a mainly a combination of this and 5. Where a civilization would have slipped through the cracks of one, the other snuffs it out.

The rare civilization that would survive it's self extinction period would not commit itself to the extraordinary and costly endeavor of space travel. Seek within, not without, and all that. And the one which would have committed itself would have done so ultimately out of an intense drive to dominate the universe, and so can never survive its self extinction period .

And if 4 is true, if civilizations are deeply improbable, then it is just hopeless.

I believe that understanding is always liberating. Ignorance is not bliss, false concepts can only lead to disappointment and depression.

Life may have no meaning, but only in the false conception where meaning is something bestowed on it from without. In truth, meaning is something you invest your life with.

Eternal life of an individual, family, society, or species is a false concept that cannot be realized and so can only disappoint and depress. To understand life is too understand that it is temporally bound. This is not depressing, it is just the nature of things.

P is true is just fancy talk for P. — Pie

This is just not true. P paints a propositional picture. By stating P, in some languages and contexts, it might be assumed that the same speech act is also affirming the propositional picture as being true(whatever that means). In other languages or contexts it might be assumed that P is short for "consider P", "it might be that P", etc.

Three things must be distinguished:

1. The spoken/written sentence
2. The proposition the listener/reader derives from 1
3. The state of affairs relevant to 2.

Truthhood obtains to 2 alone. 1 is inherently ambiguous, and is not in itself true or false.

Are scrawlings on a page or vibrations in the air true? Absurd, this is an obvious category error. They are symbols, only their interpretations can be true or false.

9. Sentient life has a tendency to destroy itself. — praxis

From the perspective of our point in history this possibility has a huge appeal. Especially when you consider that it can be argued that prior civilizations mostly or uniformly ended as a result of environmental degradation (see Collapse by Jared Diamond). Prior civilizations were local, but with our current global civilization, the collapse will also be global.

There is a basic problem: before a civilization can attain interstellar travel it must endure a period of time where it has the capability to destroy it's host planets capacity to sustain it. We are in that period now. As we now understand to are regret, restraining that capability is not so easy. Will we reach even one exoplanet before we destroy our own? It seems unlikely.

Truth only ever admits of degrees... of truth. — Banno

Not sure what this formulation is supposed to mean.

If what is suggested is an attempt to escape truth, then it fails. — Banno

Whew, glad I never once hinted at suggesting that.

So... that's partially true? — Banno

Sure, in some contexts, propositional logic for instance, truth is binary.

Your argument, of course, applies to your own remarks, and so if it undermines everything, it undermines itself. — Banno

So it cannot be the state of affairs that truth has degrees, because if it did, it would be impossible to state that truth had degrees? Sophomoric argument.

In the real world we get by just fine without running around proclaiming absolute truths and falsities. My post is no different. To attempt to pigeonhole all propositions into T and F is to miss almost all the nuance of actual communication.

The issue though is whether truth is a property in the first place. — Pie

If truth can admit to degrees, which it does, then it must be a property.

I use P as a symbol for the semantic payload of 'P'. — Pie

There is not one definite semantic payload corresponding to a given sentence.

I think that they sometimes to, due to ambiguity primarily. But let us differentiate carefully here between imperfectly true statements (fuzzy logic, etc.) and the confidence we have in our beliefs. — Pie

What's special about our confident beliefs?

Language is nothing if not ambiguous. Statements may be true, within a temporal window. They may be true, only within certain spatial coordninates. They may be true from some physical or mental perspectives, but not others. They may be true within the framework of some cultures and ideologies, but not others. They may be true in some perfectly legitimate interpretations, and false in other perfectly legitimate interpretations.

Even trivial toy examples, "The sky is blue", admit to this ambiguity. In one sense it is true. Yet is the sky itself a blue object in the way other blue objects are? No, the blue is a result of light scattering in the atmosphere, in a manner totally unlike blue objects in our everyday experience.