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.

Oh, that's very good.

So we have a transcendental argument in Kant, something like: The only way we could make judgements is if we have a unified objective experience; we make judgements; therefor our objective experience must be unified; hence the "I" in "I judge...". (An outline of the argument only; we might spare ourselves detailed exegesis if we mutually accept that there will be variations and things to finesse, rathe than go in to detail?)

And that might well bypass my reservations concerning private language. I'll give it some more thought.

The other thread hanging loose here is Davidson. he might be more problematic. Kant's argument assumes a separation between world and thought that Davidson might well have rejected. For Davidson the world is not the manifold of intuition against which we have experiences - that would both be too individual, and involve a separation of world and word, a notion of an uninterpreted world of which we can make no sense. Rather than "I Think..." as the only option in the transcendental argument, Davidson would reject a transcendental subject, having instead a triangulation between belief, world and meaning.

My apologies if that is not so clear. Kant is not my area. I'm suggesting in effect that Davidson might deny the first leg of the transcendental argument, that the only way we could make judgements is if we have a unified objective experience, and say instead that our judgements arise from the interplay of our experiences and beliefs, together with our place in a community of language practice.

Anyway, that'll do for now.

I still don’t think one can use ‘better or worse’ without invoking ‘best and worst’ — Fire Ologist

Why not?

But I do know that neo-Kantians like Sellars, McDowell or Rödl have well absorbed the situated/socially scaffolded Wittgensteinian ideas on mind and language, — Pierre-Normand

Yeah, I agree with that, there should be an answer here.

But if we take "I think..." as a formal unity of judgement, it's just taking the place of Frege's judgement stroke.

And that would be at odds with Rödl, so far as I can see. The contrast with Rödl hinges on whether the “I think” (Kant) or the judgment stroke (Frege) is best understood as a mere formal marker within a shared, impersonal space of reasons, or as something more fundamentally self-involving, reflexive, or identity-constituting.

The latter, not so much.

Again, and generally, we don't need an absolute standard in order to be able to say that one thing is better or worse than some other.

I would suggest that it's going to prove impossible to justify any standards while denying philosophy any purpose or ends. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There's a difference between a standard and an end.

My objection is to setting up what metaphysics is in terms of where metaphysics ends.

That framing imports a teleological structure into the practice, as if its value or identity depended on a fixed aim or destination. But metaphysics, as I understand and teach it, is not defined by its conclusion—it’s revealed in the doing. We start in the middle: with questions, distinctions, and confusions—not with a final cause or overarching purpose.

The I think must be able to accompany all my representations; for otherwise something would be represented in me that could not be thought at all, which is as much as to say that the representation would either be impossible or else at least would be nothing for me. That representation sound like a.that can be given prior to all thinking is called intuition. Thus all manifold of intuition has a necessary relation to the I think in the same subject in which this manifold is to be encountered. But this representation is an act of spontaneity, i.e., it cannot be regarded as belonging to sensibility. I call it the pure apperception, in order to distinguish it from the empirical one, or also the original apperception, since it is that self-consciousness which, because it produces the representationI think, which must be able to accompany all others and which in all consciousness is one and the same, cannot be accompanied by any further representation. I also call its unity the transcendental unity of self-consciousness in order to designate the possibility of a priori cognition from it. For the manifold representations that are given in a certain intuition would not all together be my representations if they did not all together belong to a self-consciousness; i.e., as my representation (even if I am not conscious of them as such) they must yet necessarily be in accord with the condition under which alone they can stand together in a universal self-consciousness, because otherwise they would not throughout belong to me. From this original combination much may be inferred. — Critique of pure reason, B131-2

Around about there-ish?

Notice the circularity - of course my representations must be accompanied by "I think..."

What if we were to ask what we think?

I can't help but regard this playing with private judgements with great suspicion.

I was using the turnstile as a shorthand for Frege's judgement stroke, so read "⊢⊢the cat is on the mat" as "I think that I think..." or "I think that I judge..." or whatever. Not as "...is derivable from..."

I know you are aren’t meaning to say it, or meaning to mean that, but you actively avoiding aims, telos-speak. — Fire Ologist

That there is no one aim that is the goal of all metaphysics does not imply that no meta physical activity has an aim.

The very idea of an overarching framework in which art takes place and is to be judged is anathema, to be immediately challenged. The framework becomes the target. — Banno

This seems to be the very same error you and Leon made in the other thread. It's as if, were I to say that not all cars are driven on the road, you were to argue that if that were so, no cars would be driven on the road.

"My thought of judging that things are so is a different act of the mind from my judging that they are so." — J

⊢⊢the cat is on the mat

is different to

⊢the cat is on the mat

Sure. What's the issue? Isn't this exactly what is recognised by the use of the judgement stroke to mark the scope of the extensionality of each?

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

Oh, Leon. That's so far from what was actually said.

"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." — J

I can't get past this as a misframing.

A) I think: "I judge that the cat is on the mat."
B) I think: "The cat is on the mat." — J

There's so much ambiguity in this!

As he says, A is about my judgment, something I do or think, while B is about the cat. — J

B is not about the cat - it is plainly about a thought. It will be true not if and only if the cat is on the mat, but if and only if I think the cat is on the mat.

...that "perspicuous representation" requires some sort of consensus... — J

...and requires nothing more. That consensus might be all we have.

the concept of progress in the arts is very tricky, — Ludwig V

And

I do worry, though, about the unselfconscious use of "clarity" to identify some sort of objective property ( — Ludwig V

Earlier I used this example:

She will be huddled under blankets while I am comfortable in my tee shirt. But we at least agree that she is cold while I am hot; that this is the fact of the matter. And this will be so regardless of what the thermometer shows, it would be impertinent for me to say she was mistaken here. So let's not suppose our differences to be merely subjective. — Banno

This is a triangulation, between her, the thermometer and myself. We reach an agreement, a level of mutual comfort.

Consider it along side Quine's gavagai and the indeterminacy of translation. The lack of agreement does not prevent ongoing interaction.

We might do something similar with progress and clarity. If we agree that there has been progress, then what more do we need? If we agree that there is clarity, what more do we need? And if we disagree, then at the least we can agree that we disagree - we might agree that you think some idea clear while i disagree, That I think progress is being made while you do not.

Again, while there is no fact of the matter that we can use to decide the issue, and no overarching aim, we have reached an agreement that might allow us to move on.

What we have here is not an agreed doctrine, but a method, a heuristic.

Group dynamics, I suppose — Ludwig V

the two sides crashed in the middle — frank

Hence this:

The realist/antirealist debate petered out in the first decade of this century. Part of the reason is Williamson's essay. The debate, as can be seen in the many threads on the topic in these fora, gets nowhere, does not progress.

The present state of play, so far as I can make out, has the philosophers working in these areas developing a variety of formal systems that are able to translate an ever-increasing range of the aspects of natural language. They pay for this by attaching themselves to the linguistics or computing department of universities, or to corporate entities such as NVIDIA. — Banno

Things moved on.

Pretty close.

But look at "A nice derangement of epitaphs", were conventions are rejected in favour of interpretation - an active process! And so closer to Dummett's group dynamics, but keeping the primacy of truth.

Yep. The very idea of an overarching framework in which art takes place and is to be judged is anathema, to be immediately challenged. The framework becomes the target.

Much the same in philosophy. It questions the framework (aim) rather than submits to it.

, pay attention.

He mentions Davidson in relation to "systematic application of compositional truth-conditional semantics to natural languages", suggesting that it might be helpful if those who follow Dummett made use of such an approach. Not sure that amounts to claiming Davidson as a realist. Maybe.

The core difference is that for Dummett truth concerns verification, but for Davidson truth is a primitive notion. For Davidson, world, belief and interpretation are inseparable. Davidson collapses the distinction between scheme and content on which Dummett depends.

To call something misleading is to say it leads somewhere—but crucially, somewhere we didn’t intend, or that doesn’t fulfill the function we took ourselves to be engaging in. That’s not the same as saying there is a metaphysical end-point we ought to be led to; rather, it’s to say that a particular use diverts us from how the practice normally works or what it aims at internally.