But having said that, I remain unclear as to the "very original move", so let me reflect it back to you, see if I have it right.

Our problem: If philosophy allows that some other discourse - science, religion, mysticism, revelation... provides an absolute account of the truth, then what is left for Philosophy?

Well, the come back is that philosophy still has at least that it's science, religion, mysticism, revelation or what ever that provides an absolute account of the truth... this becomes the last bastion of philosophy.

But then philosophy does lead to at least this little bit of absolute knowledge... and so philosophy's having allowed that some other discourse is the source of absolute knowledge is itself an absolute knowledge...

But then the "very original move", that even if philosophy provides a conception that includes the idea of absolute knowledge, this doesn’t entail that philosophy knows that the conception is itself true in an absolute sense. It's still presumably the science or religion or revelation or mysticism that performs this task...

How is that? Is that close enough?

Then this seems to me very close to what we have been discussing concerning philosophy as plumbing.

There's the obvious point that we do compare aesthetic judgements. They are not private.

There's the further point that our discussions of aesthetic judgements change those very judgements. Out aesthetics are not fixed in stone.

Calling an aesthetic judgement subjective often serves to stymie the discussion. Worth avoiding.

So back to the account I gave previously, and how it goes astray:

So an aesthetic opinion. will amount to a choice we make in our actions. Vanilla over chocolate. The preference is individual - we do not expect others to agree, and are happy for her to have chocolate rather than vanilla. — Banno

I'll maintain that our aesthetic is shown in our choices. But we do expect others to agree with our aesthetic choices, and are surprised at the choices others make...

Much to do here.

Looks like you are not going to get the science toothpaste back in the tube.

Could have been worse; it might have read

He points to a familiar problem: We would like some sort of absolute knowledge, a View from Nowhere that will transcend “local interpretative predispositions.” But what if we accept the idea that religion aims to provide that knowledge, and may be qualified to do it? What does that leave for philosophy to do? — J

:wink:

added: or
"what if we accept the idea that revelation aims to provide that knowledge"
or
"what if we accept the idea that mysticism aims to provide that knowledge"
and so on.

And again, your argument does not meet your conclusion.

Have fun.


Added: Just to be clear the Kimhi quote is against writing ⊢(⊢p → ⊢q), not ⊢⊢(p→q).

More from elsewhere...

A double judgment-stroke would make no sense for Frege. It is precisely a syncategorematic expression, and therefore cannot be nested in that way.
— Leontiskos
Syncategorematic means it has no meaning in isolation, only in context (like logical connectives), but that doesn't automatically rule out meta-level use — i.e., a second-order application about a judgment. Your argument again does not arrive at your conclusion.

"~" is also syncategorematic; yet we can write ~(~(A)). Necessity is syncategorematic; yet we can write ☐(☐(A)).

In Grundgesetze, Frege does not propose nesting judgment-strokes, but he does engage in meta-logical reflection — talking about what is asserted, and about the act of asserting.

A nested judgment-stroke would not violate Frege’s logical vision; it simply belongs to a different level — a meta-logical one — where judgments themselves become the objects of analysis. — Banno

Google, for those from foreign parts:

In Australian slang, "stirring the possum" means to provoke, instigate, or cause a disturbance, often by raising controversial topics or engaging in heated debate. It implies deliberately riling things up or causing a reaction, much like disturbing a sleeping possum would likely result in a negative response. The phrase can also be used to describe someone who is a "stirrer," someone who enjoys causing a bit of trouble or debate.

A noble activity.

Perhaps.

I'm not seeing a problem here. Seems @bongo fury is stirring the possum, which is fair enough. Something might come of it.

has the same post in two places, so some of the context was lost. My reply:

There's a difference between understanding what it would take for "the cat is on the mat" to be true, and asserting that the cat is on the mat.

Between "p" and ⊢p".

One might, somewhat redundantly, further assert that one asserts that the cat is on the mat. If the need arose. — Banno

Oh yes, those. You say it (a proposition) is only a description (of a state of affairs) until asserted of reality? Until then, proposed but not yet carried, I suppose? — bongo fury

There's a difference between understanding what it would take for "the cat is on the mat" to be true, and asserting that the cat is on the mat.

Between "p" and ⊢p".

One might, somewhat redundantly, further assert that one asserts that the cat is on the mat. If the need arose.

moved his post.

There's an intricate relationship between degrees of belief and belief in probabilities, which I find confusing. It looks to me as if "S has a x degree of belief in p and S believes that p has a probability x. Are they equivalent? If there's a difference, what is it? — Ludwig V

It seems that for Ramsey the degree that one is willing to bet constitutes the partial belief. A belief is not "private" or "subjective", but measurable, and comparable with other beliefs.

The relationship, then, is not between "degrees of belief and belief in probabilities", but between degree of belief and willingness to act. Consider willingness to act as an extensional substitute for degree of belief.

There need be no inner fact about belief that can diverge from one’s consistent actions.

Kant, Critique of Pure reason, A825 / B852.

Kant is not measuring degrees of belief but critiquing overconfidence and metaphysical presumption. It's not to do with explaining belief so much as measuring it. The belief remains for Kant a piece of mental furniture.

Ramsey is closer to saying that the belief just is the disposition to act. The disposition to act is the degree of the belief. His axioms are then used to build a model of rational action.

You might see the difference between Kant and Ramsey if you consider this:

One way to highlight the difference between this view and representationalism is this: Imagine that we discover an alien being, of unknown constitution and origin, whose behavior and overall behavioral dispositions are perfectly normal by human standards. “Rudolfo”, say, emerges from a spacecraft and integrates seamlessly into U.S. society, becoming a tax lawyer, football fan, and Democratic Party activist. Even if we know next to nothing about what is going on inside his head, it may seem natural to say that Rudolfo has beliefs much like ours—for example, that the 1040 is normally due April 15, that a field goal is worth 3 points, and that labor unions tend to support Democratic candidates. Perhaps we can coherently imagine that Rudolfo does not manipulate sentences in a language of thought or possess internal representational structures of the right sort. Perhaps it is conceptually, even if not physically, possible that he has no complex, internal, cognitive organ, no real brain. But even if it is granted that a creature must have human-like representations in order to behave thoroughly like a human being, one might still think that it is the pattern of actual and potential behavior that is fundamental in belief—that representations are essential to belief only because, and to the extent to, they ground such a pattern. Dispositionalists and interpretationists are drawn to this way of thinking. — SEP Article on Belief

Gilbert Ryle might have more in common with Ramsey than with Kant.

Although we arrived at Ramsey from critique of Kant and induction, it has another place in the discussion, since it provides us with a model for comparing constraints of the sort discuss at around p.17 of the Must Do Better article.

Ramsey doesn’t start with an absolute scale of belief or value. Instead, he begins with cases of indifference — where outcomes or propositions are treated as equally preferable or equally likely — and uses these as anchor points to infer a system of degrees of belief and utility that is coherent, even if it is partial, subjective, and shifting.

Now a point of indifference in a philosophical debate is a point of agreement.

An alternative method might be, rather than demanding an absolute resolution, begin with points of indifference or agreement — shared constraints, overlapping commitments, common ground. From these, construct a framework of reasoning that remains coherent, though incomplete or evolving.

Ramsey shows the formal consistency of such a method, given the axioms of his system.

Some fairly vague thoughts, prompted by

Is it possible to tie it into Williamson's concerns? — Moliere

My "enthusiasm" stems from my reading Davidson's Truth and Predication, where Ramsey is mentioned. I'm not advocating Ramsey so much as exploring some ideas I haven't given much attention too until now.

It's not what I expected. He's not claiming that "induction is really just about probability" so much as dropping induction as a justification and instead considering degrees of belief. So while we might not know what is true and what isn't, we can have degrees of belief, and deal with them in a rational fashion.

...you would bet more on f(e) given f(a), f(b), f(c), f(d) than you would on (f)c given f(a), f(b)... — Ludwig V

...isn't the sort of thing that Ramsey is claiming, from what I can work out. He's not necessarily basing the bet on some series of accepted truths but on degree of belief, measured through betting behaviour, and arguing in favour of follow the axioms of probability to avoid incoherence.

...what's wrong with Hume's custom or habit, based on our general heuristic of association? Or Wittgenstein's "This is what I do." — Ludwig V

It's more that this is an implementation of "what we do" that is coherent; or perhaps better, shows is what coherence might look like.

Or we could just stop treating induction as a poor man's deduction. — Ludwig V

I think that's pretty close to what Ramsey is doing - moving past the problem of induction, getting to the point of how it is we behave.

He presents us with a tool that allows us to navigate uncertainty.



_____________
Added: Yeah, I said

Ramsey instead says given f(a) and f(b), how much would you bet that f(c)? and develops a logic around this. — Banno

but that's not quite right. He's not saying that f(a) and f(b) implies f(e) is a better bet than just f(a). He;s not saying anything about f(a)'s truth or falsity at all. He's instead talking about the degree to which you and I believe f(a).

Thanks for the question - working out the answers is a great help in working out what Ramsey was doing.

Ask Dummett to join a betting circle?

Yes, it's just a game, in much the same way as predicate calculus is just a game.

Can it be used to model some of the things we do? Can it show us how we can act more coherently?

Well, yes. It shows us how a Dutch Book reveals an inconsistency, for example.

You are right that there is a lot going on here, and plenty more to be said. People do not act rationally. Leaving aside the question of whether they ought act rationally, Ramsey has given us a part of the way to understanding what it is to act rationally. Not a theory of how people actually think, not a theory of what beliefs are true, but a framework for what it would be to act coherently, given one’s own beliefs and preferences.

Ok.

is it a metaphor or a mechanism? — Moliere

Quite literal.

Good, bad, indifferent, what is it we are judging when judging a philosophy on aesthetic grounds — Moliere

Does it have to be one thing? Does it even have to be specified?

what is it we are judging when judging a flavour on aesthetic grounds?

I think of Bayesian epistemology I think that it's the attempted "cure" to induction. So rather than a truth it's part of the myth. — Moliere

It bypasses induction - it doesn't make use of induction.

Induction tries to show that, given some beliefs f(a), f(b), and so on, we can induce Ux(fx) for some domain. This is invalid.

Ramsey instead saysgiven f(a) and f(b),* how much would you bet that f(c)? and develops a logic around this.

There's no claim that U(x)f(x) is true - no induction.

It replaces belief in a general law with a degree of belief, as used for an action.

This parallels the other discussion in this thread, again showing that we need not work with the general law, but can instead work with the local belief, contra Tim's apparent suggestion.

*There's no need for this, so struck through... Ramsey is just asking, apart from or including other evidence, how much would you bet that f(c)?

Ramsey's assumptions are pretty specific. We could finesse the betting process in all sorts of ways. But the point is not the bet so much as the ability to compare partial values - from simple preferences among hypothetical bets or wagers, we can uncover both the subjective probability a person assigns to a proposition and the utility they assign to outcomes.

Truth And Probability (1926)

Anyway, here we are moving into the whole area of Bayesian epistemology, not a small step.

That sometimes folk sometimes bet poorly is as relevant as that folk sometimes will argue invalidly.

I'm prone to thinking of induction as a kind of myth. Not the bad kind, but the good kind -- that is still a myth. — Moliere

Sure.

suppose philosophers formed a sort of betting ring on their particular philosophical ideas.... Does this make for a rational activity? — Moliere

Very much so. Ramsey can be seen as providing a way to compare partial beliefs. If we treat beliefs as things that come in degrees, then betting behaviour provides a way to compare and measure those degrees. The degree of a belief is measured by the degree to which we are prepared to act on it.

No, sorry. You seem to be simply restating your position. — J

Yes. There doesn't seem to be much point in going over this again.

you were too busy projecting your own preconceived beliefs on everyone, instead of learning from Kimhi, Rombout, and Frege himself about Frege’s logic. That’s why you still don’t know what you are talking about now. — Leontiskos

That made me laugh.

If you reject the notion that philosophy has aims... — Leontiskos

Again, I don't

You are a long way from the topic of this thread.

...what I want to focus on is the aesthetic judgment of the philosophy itself. — Moliere

There needs to be some general discussion of aesthetics, and how it fits with ethics and other explanations. Here's a case for your consideration - my usual spiel, of course.

Aesthetics and ethics involve a direction of fit such that we change the world to match how we want things to be. This should be read as the reverse of what we do when talking about how things are, when we change the words we use to match how things are.

So an aesthetic opinion. will amount to a choice we make in our actions. Vanilla over chocolate. The preference is individual - we do not expect others to agree, and are happy for her to have chocolate rather than vanilla.

Ethics differs from this in that we do expect others to comply. Not kicking puppies is not just a preference - not just my choice, but a choice I expect others to make, too.

Given this framing, we can address the place of aesthetics in philosophy,

Some bits of philosophy are about how things are. On these, we should expect some general agreement. Other bits of philosophy may be how we chose things to be. And we might variously expect that others will agree, an ethics of philosophy; or we might simply be expressing our own preference: an aesthetics of philosophy.

There's a start.

Mohism — Banno

Might push this. Both Davidson and the Mohists offer a vision of explanation and rationality that is causal but not mechanical, normative but not law-bound, and grounded in use and interpretation rather than metaphysical speculation.

Worms. Cans thereof.

Briefly and dogmatically, we can be pretty sure about our deductions; induction is deductively invalid; calling induction "abduction" doesn't make it valid. (There goes most of the philosophy of science, especially for the pragmatists, especially especially Peirce’s logic of science.)

But Ramsey's solution gives us something to work with. Instead of seeking justification for induction, he explains how we act as if inductive reasoning were valid. Wanna bet? If you say you believe the sun will rise tomorrow, wanna bet? How much? At what odds? Your willingness to stake something reveals your degree of belief, not some abstract epistemic warrant. Rationality, for Ramsey, isn’t about justifying beliefs from first principles, but about maintaining consistency between your beliefs and actions.

Davidson makes use of this in his latter work.

Mohism.

"inference to the best explanation" — Moliere

Poor mans' induction.

Bleh.

I think it is worth the pain — Fire Ologist

I'm unconvinced.

May you not have dreams of Descartes' evil daemon...

'cause you are still not sure... not until you act.

Point is, of course, that we can't check to see if we do all use the same categories...

Perhaps Kant's categories might be seen as a precursor to charity.

For my part, I just don't much like Kant's transcendental arguments. Fraught.

Genreral structure:

• The only way we can have A is if B
• We have A
• Therefore, B

And that first premise is very hard to substantiate, very easy to break.

when I make up my mind about X, I generally know it, and if I change my mind, I know that too, — J

So you say... but as Wittgenstein points out, what if it constantly changes, but that you do not notice the change because your memory constantly deceives you?

:wink:


It's a bugger of an argument.

Unless you want to fine-tune what "making up one's mind" amounts to? — J

That's what Wittgenstein would do - look at how we use "making up one's mind". Was my mind actually made up? It was. And then it wasn't. So was it ever? The only way to decide this is if you get up and go to the shop... the act.

A bugger of an argument.

Gotta love it.

It simply isn't credible that I don't know whether I've made up my mind on some subject unless I do something in public about it. — J

Prima facie, yep.

But consider: what is it to have made up your mind? Your choice remains open to reconsideration until you act.

You might change your mind. Right up until you make it so.

So sans action, have you actually made up your mind? Or is there still the possibility of your deciding otherwise?

Is “best” conceptually required for comparison?

• You can have purely relational comparisons without a fixed ideal. Saying “X is better than Y” only requires a comparison between X and Y, not a fixed “best” somewhere else. Even if no “best” exists, you can still say one thing is better than another.
• Is “best” always explicit or cognized when we judge better? Often, we don’t have a clear idea of what the “best” is—no ideal painting or solution clearly in mind. We just compare what we have. The notion of “better” can operate locally without a global “best.”
• The ideal may be an asymptotic or regulative concept, not a concrete one: Perhaps “best” is a kind of horizon we approach but never fully reach. We use it as a guide, not necessarily as a fixed known point.
• Practical usage often doesn’t require the best: When choosing between two apples, you don’t need to know the best apple in the world; just which one tastes better.
• The “scale” might be constructed post hoc: Sometimes we impose a scale after seeing the comparisons, rather than having it given beforehand.

Do you see how you evade? Over and over you say, "That's not what I said," but you simultaneously refuse to say what you did say. — Leontiskos

:rofl:

I already said what I did say...

And yes, I am evading you. There are better things to do, even here in this thread.

A double judgment-stroke would make no sense for Frege. It is precisely a syncategorematic expression, and therefore cannot be nested in that way. — Leontiskos

Syncategorematic means it has no meaning in isolation, only in context (like logical connectives), but that doesn't automatically rule out meta-level use — i.e., a second-order application about a judgment. Your argument again does not arrive at your conclusion.

"~" is also syncategorematic; yet we can write ~(~(A)). Necessity is syncategorematic; yet we can write ☐(☐(A)).

In Grundgesetze, Frege does not propose nesting judgment-strokes, but he does engage in meta-logical reflection — talking about what is asserted, and about the act of asserting.

A nested judgment-stroke would not violate Frege’s logical vision; it simply belongs to a different level — a meta-logical one — where judgments themselves become the objects of analysis.

Though I think that Dodgson is suggesting that the tortoise knows perfectly well what it would be to follow the rule and is deliberately misbehaving — Ludwig V

I suspect Kripke was again doing much the same as the tortoise.

"perspicuous representation", which is somehow meant to be final. — Ludwig V

Not final, so much as enough...?




Fashion's main anthropological purpose might be to distinguish us from them.

Furthermore for Kant these are supposed to be universally applicable "rules" such that all thinkers will share the categories. — Moliere

Don't you find that quite distasteful?

Davidson undermines this again, by denying one leg of the transcendental argument that leads to it. In this case, he'd say that it's not categories that are held constant, but truths. We interpret the utterances of others so as to maximise their truth. We don't need shared categories.

So it's not that we must think alike, but that we can try to understand others as if they were saying the same things we would. That’s a much more humane model of reason.

Would you agree that Rödl also wants to call to our attention that "making up one's mind" is necessarily 1st personal? That there is no objective form of this? — J

Should we go along with him here?

First, seperate out what is being done here. There's the trite logical point that "my making up my mind" is about me, so trivially in the first person. But there is also "our making up our mind", first person plural; "you making up your mind", second person singular; "they made up their mind" second person plural and Fred Blogs making up his mind - third person. We might share a collective deliberation.

But also there is the proof of the pudding - how is it shown that one's mind is made up? That's seen in what one does, and so is public.

Following Wittgenstein, we

Always get rid of the idea of the private object in this way: assume that it constantly changes, but that you do not notice the change because your memory constantly deceives you. — PI IIxi

Supose you made up your mind then changed it but didn't notice. The evidence of you having made up your mind is in what you do.

Rödl doesn't get to where he thinks he does.

Yes, good. And I can imagine Rödl being frustrated with this, because of how thoroughly it leaves out the 1st person, whether construed as singular or plural. — J

Yep. So much the worse for his account. :wink:

Because you keep saying best. We all do. — Fire Ologist

Do you see that this restates your position, but does not answer the question? I hope so.

If one is better than the other, then one is best. — Fire Ologist

This outlines an argument. Better.

This would be so provided that we are dealing with a closed and complete set. If you consider the cardinals up to ten, then there is a biggest cardinal - ten. But if you consider all the cardinals, there is no biggest.

It's not just infinite sets that have this characteristic. Any set that is not closed - to which we can always add another item - may behave in the same away. That this painting is better than that one does not make this painting the best, nor does it imply that there is, somewhere out there, a best painting.

Your reasoning trades on a slide from relative to absolute. But comparative judgments don’t always entail global rankings. Just because some things are better than others doesn't mean there's a best. “Better” only implies “best” under artificially limited conditions. Otherwise, the concept of “best” isn’t required.


Yep.

Again, misses what is being claimed, and argues against something other. :grimace:

Dodgson's article on Achilles and the tortoise seems to show that there are limits to the explanations that can be given to clarify an argument - and some of Wittgenstein's remarks point to the same conclusion. — Ludwig V

Glad to meet someone else who appreciates What the tortoise said to Achilles.

The argument there proceeds as follows.

We have
(A) Things that are equal to the same are equal to each other.
(B) The two sides of this Triangle are things that are equal to the same.
(Z) The two sides of this Triangle are equal to each other.

You, I and Achilles will suppose that if A and B are true, one must accept Z.

But the Tortoise has a different idea. He doesn't yet accept Z. He doesn't accept:

(C) If A and B are true, Z must be true.

And challenges Achilles and us to force his agreement. He points out that (C) is a hypothetical, and hence that before he accepts (C) we must first show him that if A, B and C are true, he must accept Z:

(D) If A,B and C are true, Z must be true

...and so it begins.

Now I think the Tortoise makes an interesting point, but that there is something very important that is missing from his thinking. — Banno

This relates to Wittgenstein's answer to the problem he raises of what it is to follow a rule.

Separately, the Tortoise here is a precursor to Kripke's scepticism.

The answer to Dodgson is that while we might not fully state the rule, there is a way of understanding the rule that is not found in such an interpretation, but but which is exhibited in what we call "obeying the rule" and "going against it" in actual cases (PI§201)

And again, "If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do." (PI§217).

people can think that something is perfectly clear and yet be persuaded by argument that that is not the case. — Ludwig V

That's a very interesting point. Clarity is not final - but if things are sufficiently clear for us to move on, that'll do? Seems to be so.

The example of fashion reveals a sort of 'churning" that is worth paying attention to. Fashion no longer serves it's own purpose, but instead the need for an industry to sell more product. Each "new" fashion contradicts the last - novelty, not consistency, driving the process, no “rule” being followed except the imperative to create difference for profit. The point of the practice - expressing belonging and individuality? - has been lost, the purpose and rules being followed now sit elsewhere.

Same for pop music and Spotify.