Count Timothy von Icarus is using determinate/indeterminate as a contradictory pair — Leontiskos

Exactly!

Thanks for your help. :lol:

Socrates is a man.
All men are mortal.
Therefore Socrates is a mortal.

Is about the words "man" and "Socrates" and not ever about men and Socrates? Wouldn't this lead to a thoroughgoing anti-realism and an inability of language to signify anything but language, such that books on botany are about words and interpretations and never about plants (only "plants")? — Count Timothy von Icarus

What makes the syllogism valid is that whatever you substitute for "Socrates" "Man" and "Mortal", the syllogism holds. That's why we can write it as ((f(a) & U(x)f(x)⊃g(x)) ⊃g(a).

It is not about Socrates and Man, it is about the structure of the three sentences. It is about the language used.

Logical validity is a property of forms, not of names or referents. This formal property does not imply that logic is only about language, nor that language is only about itself. In fact, the ability to generalize over arbitrary constants (like “Socrates”) is what allows logic to apply to the world. Far from anti-realist, this is precisely what gives logic its extensional power.

Banno has helped me understand Davidson and Wittgenstein -- without his efforts on these fora I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have cracked that nut on my own. — Moliere

Cheers. You are most welcome.

If I wanted to formalize it a bit... — Srap Tasmaner

It's overkill, no doubt, but we might formalise it a lot.

Supose we have a list of sentences, A, B, C...

The assumption, from Tim and others, is that each of these sentences is either true, or it is false.

We list all the true sentences: { A & B & ~C & D....} and so on. Tim's objection, so far as I can make sense of it, is that if we allow a case in which it remains undecided if some sentence is true or false, then the concatenation of sentences contains a contradiction and anything goes.

So Tim sees the existence of an undecided sentence as leading to a contradiction. {A & B & C &~C & D...} implies C and ~C, and so anything goes.

But what is being suggested is that rather than a string concatenating every sentence, we can have instead groups of sentences that are consistent with each other, even if not consistent with the whole. That is, we can have (A & B & C) as consistent with each other, and perhaps (B & ~C & D) as consistent with each other, without contradiction. {(A & B & C) v (B & ~C & D)} does not imply (C & ~C).

{(A & B & C) v (B & ~C & D} is consistent, despite including both C and ~C.

So in 's example, (A & B & C) may be how we evaluate Beethoven's music, while we evaluate his contemporary Hummel, as (B & ~C & D), and we do this without contradiction.

Tim's insistence that a contradiction must follow is simply invalid. We can happily insist on a sentence being true in one circumstance, and false in another, without contradiction.

And all this in propositional calculus, without resorting to non-classical logic.

@Count Timothy von Icarus, I do not think that you have yet addressed this. "Explaining why the distinction is not truly contradictory" is exactly what the above argument does.

You can intend to create an obligation for someone to stop when you say, "Stop!" but when they don't did you actually create an obligation? — Harry Hindu

Well, yes. If your commander gives an order, you are thereby under an obligation, even if you do not follow that order.

but your response was that you simply didn't like what I was saying. — Harry Hindu

That's right. When I say "Hello" to someone walking towards me on the mountain path, I'm not informing them that we intend to start a conversation. I'm too focused on getting up the mountain and don't really want a chat.

I am greeting them.

So I don't like your response because it is wrong.

If you say, "Hello" to someone and they ignore you, did you greet them? — Harry Hindu

Yes. We say "They ignored my greeting".

Are you saying that you don't have reasons to get married or scratch your nose? — Harry Hindu

Are you saying all behaviour must be explained algorithmically? I won't agree.

And I think the counter, the demand for universality, permanence, certainty -- which will attack even what I'm saying here, "Are criteria always and everywhere like this? Then you're contradicting yourself!" -- should just be ignored as juvenile. This is not how serious people think. It's like lecturing Jerome Powell after taking Econ 101. — Srap Tasmaner

Yep.

Well, you can have some of my stew if you so choose. It's up to you.

Instead of addressing the criticism you choose to hide from it with a mere caricature. Not a rational or honourable response.

Nice. Do you have thoughts as to how to go about doing this?

My first reaction is that of course there need be nothing in common between the various language games. My second, that not all language games involve justification.

You are moving too quickly. You ask the question and then jump to the conclusion. A more careful approach might serve you better.

What presumptions do you make, in asking "Where does logic come from"? And what is logic, in the first place? Is it better to think of it as a thing, or as an activity? Is it better to think of it as how the bits and pieces in the world are related to each other, or just how the bits and pieces of our language are related to each other?

Folk here are too hasty.

Very very good. Your explanations of both Wittgenstein and Gödel are clear and crisp. That is, there's an admirable brevity to both, without loss of import.

While I still have some reservations about thinking of Gödel sentences as foundational, I have great sympathy for your conclusion. The belief in an ultimate grounding for our rational systems is fundamentally flawed, such that there must always be things taken as granted rather than demonstrated.

You set out clearly an issue that is fundamental to rationality.

It was a scattershot.

What makes an argument valid? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not much to do with utility. Each formal system has it's own definition. Which logic is your account valid in, then? I was using prop calculus.

Why are you asking? Is it that you think you and I might have such differing accounts of validity that an argument that is valid for you is not valid for me?

Can you see why, to me at least, this change of topic might look a little bit like an avoidance strategy?

I'm not even sure what this "Great List" is supposed to be. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's apparent. Hence, my

But don’t you think there are true statements—and that, taken together, these tell us about what is real? — Banno

@Count Timothy von Icarus — maybe we could take a step back. You said you didn’t make use of a “Great List.” But don’t you think there are true statements—and that, taken together, these tell us about what is real?

This question is a trap, of course.

This looks to me as if you would avoid the issue rather than address it.

I would suppose that we might find a point of agreement at least in preferring valid arguments to invalid ones. But from what you've just said here, my preference for validity seems to you to be a kind of personal quirk—a peccadillo.

I gather that's meant as some sort of rhetorical flourish, but you lost me in there.

Again, it seems to me that there is a structural flaw in your response; that it depends on a logical fallacy, which I have attempted to set out for you. But I can't make you see it.

tom111's whole argument is based on distinctions between aspects of the world, i.e. separate Cartesian substances. — T Clark

Ok - but isn't making that distinction an application of logic? So it can't server as the justification for logic...

I don't usually read Leon's posts. The last few show why. When faced with a counter argument, he doesn't address the criticism, but instead insults the critic.

, .

Very down to earth posts.

In my usage, a narrative has a truth value - it sets out how things are, or at least it sets out how they are supposed to be. A narrative ought be consistent, and truth matters.

A myth, in contrast, is neither true nor false, but shows something. It's truth value is irrelevant.

Narratives are not bad things, unless they are taken to be beyond criticism.

In a sense the OP is offering a demarcation criterion, for separating philosophy from religion or fiction. It's that philosophy involves this conscious and wilful exposure of the narrative to dissection.

If we follow this approach, then any narrative on offer is open to criticism, and so there can be no "final" narrative; at least, if there is one, a narrative that is beyond critique, that's an end to doing philosophy.

So philosophy is a process, and not a narrative.

Your approach, of taking transcendental leaps from mundane science, is always going to be open to philosophical criticism. But that does not make it not worthwhile... indeed, that's what we are doing. There's glory in the process, not just in the result.

So keep going.

:up:

It had me reaching for the antiseptic... to whip down the furniture.

I think Banno has said most of what I would want to say about that... — J

Thanks for that.

I want to be clear that, in contrast to your much more interesting response, I think there is a formal fallacy in the argument on which Tim relies. I'd hoped to show him the problem with the Great List account, but apparently he can't see it there.

An inability to present a complete system of justification does not entail the impossibility of a partial, situated, local justification.

That there are mathematical conjectures for which we do not have a proof does not entail that there are no mathematical proofs. Likewise, that we cannot rank all narratives against some final infallible standard does not entail that we cannot give good reasons for rejecting this narrative, and accepting that one.

From the absence of a universal criterion, Tim concludes that no valid judgment can be made. That doesn't follow.

the poster who shows up with a project is giving us something to test. — frank

Yep.

Commanding and asking are conveying information about one's intent. — Harry Hindu

Sure.


But that's not all there is going on here. A command also creates of an obligation, a question seeks a reply. That's more than just a transfer of data.

Examples? — Harry Hindu

"hello". It doesn't name a greeting, it is a greeting. And I know you will object to this, saying it names an intent to greet or some such. But it doesn't name an intent to greet. It greets.

I would need an real-world example of a "solution" that was reached without an algorithm. — Harry Hindu

Marriage? Scratching your nose?

Thanks for chiming in, with a very Hegelian response, no less. And being Hegelian, of course it's right.

I do hope my account is incomplete. Otherwise this might be too short a thread. Onward...

Oddly accurate.

the more charitable act isn't to always interpret within your bounds, but recognize when there's a genuine difference — Moliere

Nice. I think I see where you would go.

And I guess all I can do here is point to the basic liberal principles of accepting the differences that make no difference. If someone wants to be referred to as "they", why not just oblige? And were it makes a difference, to seek accomodation before violence.

And of course there is much, much more to say here.

they seem to have in mind that there is an endpoint, or at the very least that there could be, but we do not now know what that will look like, nor could we possibly. — J

I'm not sure what you mean here. That there could be an end to philosophy, a point where we have finished the Great List of Facts?

Perhaps, but I don't see why. Could there be a point where there was nothing more to say about mathematics? Could there be a point at which there could be no new songs?

Is philosophy so different?

Thanks but isn't it just how we talk? — J

Well, yes. That's why it's brilliant. The simple observation that we can do more than one thing with the words we use.

@Wayfarer and others are right that philosophy as a practice has meant many things over the centuries. — J

A fair point. Yes, we can say more, and yes we just can't say more in rational discourse. What happens when the more said outside of rational discourse is taken back in to that discourse? When Way, for example, claims that all there is, is mind? When Hanover objects to putting oysters in the stew?

Nice.

Do dolphins have a language that is so different to ours that we cannot recognise it as such? Good question. I do not know the answer.

But you are not a dolphin.

And when you are not looking up to the heavens, when you get hungry or cold, and look instead to what is going on around you now, then we may find agreement, and maybe work together to build a fire and cook some food.

And then your metaphysics will not be nonsense, but only relevant in how it influences what you put in the stew.

Kosher, I presume? I'll go with that, if you keep it gluten free.

I think we have to make a case for, rather than assume, incommensurability between language games. — Moliere

I am tempted to go a step further, and suggest that we assume commensurability. That, after all, is what the Principle of Charity implies. You and I are talking about the very same world, in which we are both embedded. Our points of agreement overwhelm our points of disagreement. But our disagreements make for longer threads.

I didn't imply anything about a great list. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So you don't think that god knows everything? Or that every statement is either true, or it is false, and hence there is a set of truths, and all other statements are false? Ok.

Are you happy with that answer, or are you looking for alternative views?

Your question, for example, "Where does logic come from?", supposes that logic is a thing that comes from somewhere. If you presume such an ontological status at the get go, it should come as no surprise when you find that logic has just such an ontological status...

Have you presumed your conclusion?

Or take a look at this:

When you point at anything and say "this is a chair," you're automatically doing several things: identifying the chair as itself (law of identity), implicitly distinguishing it from everything else in the room (negation - "not-chair"), and treating it as definitely either a chair or not-a-chair with no middle ground (non-contradiction and excluded middle). — tom111

All good stuff. But notice that these are all things you do. Don't these at least hint that logic may be something we do rather than something we find?

We can pursue these ideas further, if you like. Just don't reply, if you are not intersted in thinking criticaly about your OP.

Some folks don't - perhaps can't - get it

Sometimes you have to walk away.

Right, I agree the distinction is a valid one and is useful. — Janus

Good. I'm pleased with the attention it has garnered. Yes, 'dissection' is pretty much 'analysis' but I went with the former both in order to leave behind some bagage, and to take advantage of the alliteration.

Banno, is asking you, "how does your system not lead to 'anything goes?'" really a leading question ? You cannot offer any answer to this? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep.

Here's were this line of reasoning spits off from the thread:

Hubris, to presume on has access to the one true narrative. That, and a certain deafness. One might cultivate a sustained discipline of remaining open to what calls for thought. One might work with others on developing a coherent narrative while not expecting to finish the job. Something to sit between "I have the truth" and "Anything goes". — Banno

See if I have this right. I've said "it's not the case that anything goes". You understand this as implying that there must therefore be, amongst the Great List of statements, those that go and those that don't. And that further, if we know that there are some that go and some that don't, there must be a criteria for sorting the Great List in this way. And you chide me for not setting out that criteria.

How's that? Is that along the lines that you propose?

If so, then here's the presumption: that there is indeed such a Great List. That's why the question is leading. That Great List is the presumptive Theory of Everything. What I'm questioning is, why must we make that presupposition? Why not, instead of a Great List, a series of short lists, each perhaps consistent within itself?

And this, looking around, seems to be what we do have. Discrete areas of expertise, either unrelated to each other, or addressing the same things in different ways.

We can model this approach more formally. The supposition of the Great List is that there is a series of sentences, the conjunction of which is The Truth. G={A & B & C & D...} and so on, until the Truth be known.

Your question to me is, we know that for some sentence, say C, C is either in the Great List, or it isn't. It can' t both be in the Great List and not in the Great List. And Banno, from what you have said, it seems that it is both in the Great List and not in the Great list, from which it follows that anything goes.

It's a valid point. But it presumes that the list is a series of conjuncts. What if instead it were a disjunction of conjuncts? What if, instead of {A & B & C & D...} we had {(A & B & C & D) v (A & B & ~C)...}? Since (C v ~C) is true, {(A & B & C & D) v (A & B & ~C)...} can also be true.

This alternative list contains no contradiction.

Now this is but an outline, and there is much left to do. But I hope perhaps it shows you why I can't give you a direct answer.

, The relation between language games is a central problem here.

Feyerabend was all set to do his Doctorate under Wittgenstein, who unfortunately up and died, forcing him to settle for Popper. Whole fertile acres of philosophical discourse lost to fate.

If Language games are incommensurable, all sorts of problems ensue. So I think we have to go with Davidson here, and reject the idea of incommensurability in such things.

When we truly have different views of the world (i.e. not a shared view), then rejection of the results brought about by the tools of other traditions isn't inconsistent. If my world is not conducive to examination by an atomic microscope, it doesn't bother me what results it might show. — Hanover

There might be a Scotsman lurking here...

At the risk of oversimplifying, best I make explicit that I did not deny having a world view, nor suggest that having a world view was a bad thing. I said that my worldview is incomplete, and that this is a good thing, since it allows for improvement, whereas those who have complete word views have no such luxury.

So back to the Scotsman. Is it that we truly have different world views when and only when we reject the results brought about by the tools of other traditions?

Otherwise, how do we tell that we truly have different world views?

The danger is that “different worldview” becomes a way of immunizing one’s beliefs from critique—you only truly have a different worldview if you reject mine outright. But there's that Scotsman, no?

Which is the same as saying that the program was written incorrectly and/or is handling input that is was not designed to handle. — Harry Hindu

Or, perhaps, the solution is not algorithmic.

Thanks, . I was writing a longish response, only to have it deleted whiel refreshing multiple windows. Bugger.

It was a list of the various points you made, and how I agreed or disagreed. The upshot was that I pretty much agreed with all you said, except for a few thigns.

Not everything we do with words is communication, if communication is understood as the transfer of information. We also command, ask, promise, and so on. To be clear, I do not see how these can be reduced to just the transfer of information, and also, if they were, it would be very inefficient to talk about them in those terms.

And not every word is either a noun or a helper word.

Generally, it seems to me that you are setting out much the same sort of approach as is found in the Tractatus, an approach that needs to be superseded for the same reasons that that book was superseded by the Investigations

Brilliant post.

Why is it so hard for some to see that not every statement has assertoric force? Or that a negative statement may have assertoric force? Puzzling, from a psychological point of view.

The analytic tradition was merely the next necessary moment in the push towards Absolute Freedom. — Moliere

Indeed.

Hegelian rhetoric can be brilliant, as in the mouth of that salivating Slav, Žižek. And our own @Tobias, of course.