Not so much.

It's rather that given a conflict of evidence concerning mental life, whaat process can we employ in order to settle our differences?

Not unlike The Dress, it's not that those who saw it as blue/black were wrong - that is indeed what they see. And the colour of the actual dress.

Relating this back to the OP, what grounds is there for insisting that Pat is wrong in how she understands her own experience?

Inclusive logic is much the same as free logic, but allowing for an empty domain.

SO we have :
Classical logic
Existence is not a first order predicate
All singular term refer to members of the domain
The domain is not empty

Free logic
Existence is a first order predicate, and hence
Singular terms can refer to things which are not members of the domain
The domain is not empty

Inclusive logic
Existence is a first order predicate, and hence
Singular terms can refer to things which are not members of the domain
The domain may be empty — Banno

In Free Logic or Inclusive Logic, the existential quantifier explicitly asserts existence when paired with a predicate like ∃x(x=t), and existence becomes a property rather than a background assumption tied to the quantifiers. However, the universal quantifier can still range over both existent and nonexistent objects, depending on the framework.

A general response.

Note the passage you quote was given as an objection to Rödl. — Wayfarer

Sure.

“Banno goes PoMo”. — Wayfarer

:wink: Never gonna happen.

I had in mind the revelation that some folk do not have an inner monologue, and the lesson that it is not safe to assume that other folk have a similar mental world to oneself. That Ródl has a certain mental life does not imply that everyone else has the same, nor that they ought.

The point is methodological, and perhaps cut to the phenomenological basis of this thread.

Not just I; free logic is a respectable part of logic. But I am no expert.

If Ux(Sx⊃Bx) then ∃x(Sx⊃Bx) follows, in prop logic, and so presumably also in free logic, but it does not follow that ∃!x Sx - that Sirens exist; so the idea is that free logic allows Sirens to be beautiful and yet not exist.

https://www.umsu.de/trees/#~6x(Sx~5Bx)~5~7x(Sx~5Bx)

Quine may be saying little more than that terms are inscrutable apart from context ("holism"). — Leontiskos

The dawn of a new day.

That's pretty close to what is going on here. Reference takes place within a holistic context. Certainly Quine should not be understood as arguing that communication is impossible.

A few notes on treating existence as a predicate. We can of course do this, with some cost. The result is a logic that ranges over things that exist and things that do not exist. That is, it in effect has two domains, one of things that exist and one of things that... do not exist.

The notation used is ∃!t for "t exists". Considerations of extensionality give us the definition ∃!t = ∃x(x=t).

The result is Free Logic, forms of which may be axiomatised and shown to be consistent but usually incomplete. Nonexistent things can nevertheless have properties in a free logic. It's a cut-down version of possible world semantics.

There's issues as to how to understand and interpret Free Logic. It is a good example of how a formal structure can help us understand what it is we are claiming when we say things like "Pegasus does not exist".

In "Pegasus does not exist", Pegasus fails the quantification in ∃x(x=t), and therefore cannot accept the predication " ∃!".

and again, it's about quantification.

That's an excellent post. well done.

I'm stealing ‘The Puerto Rico Effect’ for my own use.

I'm not here to be Quine's lawyer (neat expression), either, having mainly a secondary interest in his ideas as a precursor to Davidson. I entered in to this thread because the Op expressed a misunderstanding of Quine's argument.

seems to have left the thread to us now. I don't say I blame them.

One approach might be to look for a minimalist understanding of the Inscrutability of Reference. Something along the lines I have expressed a few times, most recently ; that Quine has pointed out that we might get our stew even if our references misfire. A pragmatic approach. We might thereby avoid the somewhat absurd view that Quine argued communicating is impossible.

My thought of judging that things are so is a different act of the mind from my judging that they are so. The former is about my judgment, a psychic act, a mental state; the latter, in the usual case, is not; it is about something that does not involve my judgment, my mind, my psyche. It is about a mind-independent reality.
— Rodl, 38, my emphases — J

Hmm.

If someone disagrees with this, if they perhaps insist that their thought of judging that things are so just is judging that things are so...

What are we to do? How are we to settle such an issue? Are we to say they are mistaken? Wrong? Misunderstanding the issue?

Is it not at all possible that one person be correct in holding to the first view for their mind, while another is correct tin holding to the second view, for their own mind? Why presume that all minds function in the same way in this regard?

Why presume there is even some fact of the matter?

Interesting read, especially the comments on capitalism. For the moment supporting Trump seems to be conducive to making a profit. As the rule of law is removed, so is market predictability and stability. I suspect there may already be some pressure from other billionaires for that dancing clown to tone it down a bit after his salute.

That people "get on" does not negate the fact that "rabbit" and "New York City," or "Donald Trump" are not determinant references referring to a particular species, municipality, or person. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Take out determinate and I don't think Quine would disagree. Sometimes we may be mistaken as to what someone is referring to, but the gavagai fable shows that we might still get our rabbit stew.

(The recently crowned orange man may be Pompey rather than Augustus - he's showing how popular support may be used to bypass the traditional power structure, but it may be those who come after him who take full advantage of this).

There'll be far more personal consequences, too, of course not involving @Tzeentch.

Donald Trump ends security deal for Anthony Fauci, says he'd feel no responsibility if harm befell him

This conversation is the heart of philosophy. — Fire Ologist

Yes, close to it.

I think the best language to speak standing on this precipice is mystical, sort of pre-logical. — Fire Ologist

This is close to the sort of mystical view attributed to Wittgenstein, especially after the Tractatus, where he developed a precise logical language and then concluded that what is most important is what remains unsaid.

He later expressed the view that the important stuff was expressed in our actions more than in our words.

This is a part of the reason he is sometimes misunderstood as not having said much about ethics and aesthetics.

Fine.

...this objection... — Leontiskos

It wasn't an objection. Minutes after I posted I re-wrote that as:

The trouble Bunge draws attention to starts when... — Banno

I am agreeing with what Bunge says here, becasue it seems to me to be much the same as what Quine says, but in set-theoretical language. That would explain why Quine was so impressed.

Nice summation.

Quine himself thought very highly of Bunge — Arcane Sandwich

There views are very, very similar. Quine was also critical of "psychoanalysis, phenomenology, existentialism", and was overtly scientistic.

DEFINITION 3.30 Let Θ be the set of all things and [Θ] its aggregation. — Bunge (1977: 161)

There's obvious and well-known problems with the set of all sets, so presumably Bung had a way to deal with this. He says the set of all things, so does he explicitly disallow sets of sets?

A property P is real = df There is at least one individual x ∈ S, other than the null individual, that possesses P (equivalently: (P) ≠ ∅). — Bunge (1977: 99)

And here he sensible removes empty sets. Can I point out that this is very close (perhaps identical?) to a set-theoretical version of Quine's "to be is to be the value of a bound variable"?

((P) ≠ ∅) ≡ ∃(x) (Px)

Surely most contemporary philosophers hold that ∃ formalizes both the logical concept "some" and the ontological concept of existence. I shall argue that this is a mistake. Consider the statement "Some sirens are beautiful", which can be symbolized "(∃x)(Sx & Bx)". So far so good. The trouble starts when the formula is read "There are beautiful sirens". The existential interpretation is misleading because it suggests belief in the real existence of sirens, while all we intended to say was "Some of the sirens existing in Greek mythology are beautiful". — Bunge (1977: 155)

This is excellent. The trouble Bunge draws attention to starts when "Some sirens are beautiful" is treated as a non-empty set; and the conclusion is reached that there are beautiful sirens". A good example for us to work with. And the answer given is much the same as that offered by first-order logic. If our domain is the set of physical things, there are not sirens. But if our domain is Greek myths, we are welcome to say that "There are beautiful sirens", on the condition that we do not thereby expect them to be physical - we won't mee them on the street.

Bung and Quine have a lot in common.

(How is "Bunge" pronounced? )

Laura Tingle has a piece on the ABC today about long-term results of the recent coronation.

If the US produces more gas, then there will be more competition for Australian NG. As the US pulls out of cooperative agreements - WHO, Paris, banking, tax and so on, it leaves space for China to fill.

The Albanese response has been to show a steady hand - "Keeping us out of recession. 1.1 million jobs. Getting inflation from a six to a two. Making sure that people's living standards are looked after — from a six to a two. Completing the NBN. Finishing Gonski … Turning the decline in Medicare around and, importantly, moving towards — just as Labor governments have created Medicare, [and] universal provision of superannuation — we're taking the steps, and I announced in December, for universal provision of childcare".

A taste of what we might expect in the run up to the election. All more or less true. How will it fly in the face of an opposition interested only in Australia Day, Auschwitz commemoration and business lunches?

Thanks for the update. I hadn't seen this on our news.

I'll repeat this link for folk that may have missed it:

Thought Experiment 1: Gavagai

Those wanting more might look to the SEP section on the topic in the Quine biography.

Cheers.

In analyzing the way a cat interacts with the world, we translate it into human. — frank

Yep.

It seems a simple point, but quite a few folk have misunderstood it in various contexts in these forums.

If I say of Joe, 'He believes that water is H20', when "believes" is understood to refer to background belief of Joe's that he is not currently entertaining, am I ascribing a propositional attitude to him? — J

Well, if Joe is consistent, he will agree that water is H2O. Perhaps he will say something like "I know water is dihydrogen monoxide, but it's not H2O"? In which case the issue is not with his belief about water but his belief about the equivalence of "dihydrogen monoxide"and H2O. And we are back to the extensional opacity of beliefs.

What Joe believes is not the proposition, but the fact. So "ascribing a propositional attitude" is problematic.

My thought is that a belief can manifest in various ways, but that in order to count as a belief, one should be able to set out what it is that is believed - some truth, and hence some proposition. So, at the risk of opening yet another can of worms, the cat cannot hold some proposition to be true, and yet believes the mouse is behind the cupboard. We can put its belief in a propositional form.

I'm interested in working out the implications of this.

A agree with your point as to the third person.

No psychologism :razz: — J

Form the last few post, it's too late.

"There are things that exist which we have never conceived." — Leontiskos

There is an x such that x has not been conceived. Clearly a quantification.

There are things that exist which are not attached to any variable. — Leontiskos

There is no need to presume that in order to be "attached" to a variable, a thing must first be "conceived of". To "conceive of" things that have not been conceived of is to make them available for "attachment".

Scare quotes, because these are your words, used in order to track your argument. In more logical terms terms we might say that we can include in our domain of discourse things of which we have not yet conceived; or in "common sense" terms, we can talk about things we might not have yet though of, if only in the most general sort of way.

"But how can you include something in the domain if you haven't even conceived of it?" Well, we just did. Notice that we haven't predicated anything else to such "unconceived" entities, nor do we need to in order to say that they are "unconceived".

Analytic procedures give us formal structures that set out how our language hanges together consistently. I just gave an example of how this works.

...we must engage an understanding of existence that goes beyond our own narrows ideas — Leontiskos

Which Quine builds in to his account, using Holism, and which Davidson extends with Charity.

Quantifier variance is an issue within the scope of quantification. To enter into that discussion is to already accept that existence can usefully be thought of as quantification. At issue is how we might think about differing domains, in particular if they are commensurable, as Carnap might argue, or incommensurate, as Hirsch posits. Ontological commitment becomes a discussion of what is and isn't included in the domain - of what we are talking about. And the discussion is ongoing. The recent discussion is not so much about whether domains are commensurable as what are the consequences if they are or are not. And again, this is an example of analytical procedures give us formal structures that enable us to understand our natural languages better.

The democrats are convincing young girls that being a liberal means that you have an higher IQ than the rest of the society/world, though all the data show that since 1975 (when the liberals and pacifists took over the western world) IQ has dropped sharply, — Eros1982

It's brilliant arguments such as this that convince folk to support Trump.

Who'd like to take me up on a bet that in 4 years nothing of particular note will have happened, — Tzeentch

Well, perhaps not to you. But they are already happening to others.

Just think of all those taxpayer funded business lunches you will be able to enjoy...

Sorry, still trying to eliminate duplication. — kazan

Too many windows? Good thing is you now can go back and edit those duplicates to add more stuff as you think of it.

Try to make a habit of looking on the bright side.

~~

And a suggestion for another issue that might be an election priority... not.

Prisons don’t create safer communities, so why is Australia spending billions on building them?

Just anther example of our main political parties adopting evidence-based policy...

Education and medicine have long moved to explicitly evidence-based policy. Why not politics? Who knows what might happen. Independents might be the answer.

In particular, I'm still troubled by background beliefs. If I say, "I [background] believe that the earth is round," what am I claiming? — J

I'm reasonably happy with two sorts of background beliefs. First, those that are constitutive, Searle's status functions - the "counts as". Second, and less securely, certain first-person beliefs, such as that you have a pain in your foot or a love of Vegemite. These appear indubitable.

There may well be others. But I'm not sure "the earth is round" is amongst them.

And having said that, I have also previously argued that being a background belief is a role taken on by a proposition in a language game rather than a property of some beliefs. So for certain purposes - navigation, perhaps - that the world is round is taken as indubitable.

This would be worth exploring further, particularly in this context in relation to Quine's rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction - a similar argument might be found against certain propositions always being foundational.

On holism...

Quine's student, Davidson, supplemented Quine's holism by introducing charity, while moving form a descriptive to a normative position. Charity deals with the indeterminacy of meaning by assuming a shared background of congruent beliefs.

Some more about the growth of independents, from ABC News today:

Inside the community independents movement targeting key marginal seats at the next federal election

Local, female and liberal, with a strong interest in climate, 'with a message to "stop Trump-style politics in Australia"'.

Not all bad. Yet.

Your reply here is much the same as the one I gave to 's question previously.

...quantification is only one part of the explanation offered - it includes predication and equivalence and domains of discourse. Quantification tells Brutus and Cassius that we can talk about ghosts. Predication might be used to further say that ghosts are immaterial, imaginary or superstition. Cassius is mistaking quantification for predication. — Banno

I agree, but I suspect that this thread will not be the place to progress these ideas - others here appear to be misconstruing Quine's account. We are a long way from the Gavagai.

Do beliefs have an ontology? — J

Perhaps they are a folk=psychology term for a reward function being processed in our neural nets...


(this is only half facetious)

Maybe belief is a psychological construct. It's something unobservable, but we use it to explain and predict behavior. I think the more complex the behavior is, the more likely it is that we'll explain it in terms of belief. Simple behavior could be instinct, but something like plotting revenge needs propositions for the explanation. — frank

Again, the parallel between a belief and a reward function is striking.

A different approach! In the most direct behaviourist account, a behaviour is rewarded and so reinforced. Am I correct that in IRL the reward is used to predict the behaviour? Very interesting. The reward function is the hidden variable, the "belief" that is used to predict future behaviour, while remaining hidden.

I'm struck by how similar this is to the discussion here with @J...

"What are beliefs?" — J

Both the reward function an the belief are understood and inferred from behaviour and outcomes. The reward function might indeed be an analogue, model or metaphor for belief. I'm not sure I would call them equivalent, but I might be convinced.

It's those damn Markov blankets again. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

Perhaps the nature of language and its relationship to reality is not as uncertain as it might seem. Again, there is a presumption that the division between individuals must either be in the world, or if not then in our language. But perhaps what divides individuals is instead an interplay between the world and our language.

The intertwining of physics, metaphysics, and epistemology can be seen as a result of this interplay. The long argument between idealism and realism is a symptom of the false dichotomy of world and word.

Here's an uncomfortable read... this article about Paxton's book on the Vichy regime. I noted this:

In demonstrating that France’s leaders actively sought collaboration with the Nazis and that much of the public initially supported them, he showed that the country’s wartime experience was not simply imposed but arose from its own internal political and cultural crises: a dysfunctional government and perceived social decadence.

Australia has a long history of collaboration with the US, which, given the recent coronation is moving along an all to familiar path. Sky news and friends manufacture an Australian "internal political and cultural crises", for Dutton to take advantage of. How far that might go depends on any real crisis that arrises at some time during the perhaps probable forthcoming Dutton government, a government which would finish its first term before the US changes it's monarch.

Well worth another look at Paxton's list, given the recent coronation in Washington.

I'm not able to follow what you are saying here.