In the context of the discussion in 508->516 in On Certainty, knowing is situated in a context alongside other things rather than standing apart/alone from linguistic contexts as a judgement which can be made of an isolated proposition. This is a recalibration of knowing as something other than deliberate judgement in the court of reason, exercising norms of language use comes equipped with knowledge of how they work, and this 'knowing' is much different from, say, judging whether a scientific hypothesis is true or well supported.

If suddenly a house turned into steam, the know-how of house identification (what counts as a house) changes, along with all the things that would lead to that identification - including the web of linguistic norms and concepts which allow us to identify a house as a house or to say 'I know that's a house.'. Wittgenstein looks at this as a perturbation of context which allows us to doubt things which before made no sense to doubt. He gives another similar example in 515:

515. If my name is not L.W., how can I rely on what is meant by "true" and "false"?

This kind of hard-hitting perturbation of interpretive habits is exactly the kind of thing mapped out in Street's original post.

No need to apologise. I still think your Wittgenstein quote was appropriate. We have to take a lot of stuff for granted in order to express anything.

All this seems to be straying from what it is to exist. What does it matter to my existence what mode of expression best expresses the truth? When I am sharing an experience with a friend, the last thing on my mind is the mode through which we are directly able to relate, I am too busy relating — Merkwurdichliebe

I don't think the conversation between @Banno, @StreetlightX, @csalisbury, @unenlightened and myself was ever about questions of existence, they're all questions of meaning/significance/sense. Specifically I believe we're talking about schemes or habits of interpretation adapting themselves to expressions, and the relationship between this adaptation and the context or 'background' of the interpreted expression.

Could you please rephrase your explanation, I didn't understand ? — Merkwurdichliebe

Ok.

If you can assume the truth or falsity of X, then X must be able to be true or false. This means X is 'truth apt', where there are conditions under which it is true, and conditions under which it is false. If 'X' is 'It is raining here now' (for here, now being my location), X is true just when it is raining and false just when it is not raining. 'It is raining here now' is the kind of expression that can be true or false.

Consider 'Get me some water please', it is a request, it is not a statement of fact even if it is an expression of desire. 'Get me some water please' is never true or false, since it is a request. Therefore, since it can't be true or false, assuming it is true cannot help you interpret it.

Consider 'In Heaven I am a wild ox, in Earth I am a lion', on the face of it it could be true or false; it's true just when the person saying/writing it really is a wild ox in Heaven but also really is a lion on Earth. and false when one or both of these these conditions does not occur. But, assuming the truth or falsity of it does not help you interpret it one bit. The use of language is figurative, allegorical, metaphorical and so on, the literal truth doesn't matter a drop. What does matter is how it functions in its own context as a metaphor.

]Do we dare to open
Our minds and souls to even
Analyze it? Or should it rest in
Secrecy? All I know is that I can't
Deny its licentious attraction,
So I want the spirit to speak.

"In heaven I am a wild ox.
On earth I am a lion.
A jester from hell,
And the shadows almighty.
The scientist of darkness
Older than the constellations.
The mysterious jinx and
The error in heavens master plan." — Vintersorg, the Enigmatic Spirit

There's no way someone would ever come up with the context of a song about a spirit that fled from heaven because it felt powerless there. In Heaven, the spirit was just an angel among angels, on Earth, it was a mighty predator of unfathomable intelligence and significance. It chose to sacrifice the vulnerable ecstasy of heaven for the power it would have in the mortal realm. The principle of charity isn't going to give you that, because the truth conditions of the statement 'In Heaven I am a wild ox, on Earth I am a lion' provide little to no information about its sense outside of the context of the song.

Edit: even within the song, it's uttered as a metaphor which summarises the reasons why the spirit fled from heaven and its opinion of Heaven and humans. You can 'assume it is true for the spirit' in a sense, but notice that it doesn't actually matter whether the spirit really was a wild ox in Heaven and transformed into a lion on Earth, what matters is the two symbolic dyads of wild ox/lion prey/predator interacting with the other dyad of Heaven/Earth.

Of course, when my friend told me he prefers to hang around with people dumber than him because 'on Earth I am a lion', I understood, because we both knew the song.

The only universal condition is that of the subject, which is about as particular as it gets. — Merkwurdichliebe

Those questions were rhetorical, assuming the truth of an expression in order to ascertain its meaning only makes sense for those expressions which are truth apt; to connect sense to truth (of a proposition) requires a truth value, not just the possibility of a truth value under an interpretation.

Sometimes we must assume that what has been said is true in order to work out what it meant - the Principle of Charity. — Banno

Provisional belief that P is different from belief that P, P iff ("P" is true) has no bearing on that. Edit: moreover, we're not just talking about propositions, under what conditions are 'Get me a glass of water please' or 'Go away' or "in heaven I am a wild ox, on Earth I am a lion" true?

Convincing to whom? And what are the consequences in the bigger picture? — S

Convincing to the idealist (or correlationist). If you adopt that perspective, you're not going to find your way of using the word 'objective' convincing, even if you're pointing out something which is obvious. Typically people arguing from that perspective find mind-dependence of everything (or a qualified Kant-derived substitution-of-the-concept-of-the-thing for every thing) just as obvious as you find its falsehood. They're just going to say, if they're sufficiently developed idealists anyway, whatever you say is question begging because you 'smuggle in' the mind-independence with the concept of objectivity without demonstrating that the concept has any scope or application.

I dunno. How useful is it to ask an idealist about mind independent properties or objects? You kinda need to implode the position to make a convincing rebuttal IMO.

Banned @Proctor because their posts were getting deleted or constantly caught in the spam filter for good reason.

Let me be a cynic here. What's the distinction you're trying to highlight? And how does it differ from these banalities:

(1) The literal truth of a phrase isn't always interesting.
(2) Imaginary circumstances don't have to follow the usual rules.
(3) Interpretation comes prior to truth value assignment.

That's the point: it's not facts that are stake here — StreetlightX

Well, it could be, if the interpretive context is examining the literal truth of the phrase. Just as in the other grammars we'd fit the world to it, we can fit it to the world.

Quick moral because I've written too much: facts are given against a background of meaning and significance by which they count as facts of a certain sort - in our example, 'houses turn into flowers', if true, could not be true of 'our' houses and flowers. And importantly, neither could it be false of our houses and flowers. — StreetlightX

I don't really buy this. Framing devices and their rhetorical background/discursive-conceptual structure/philosophical grammar could possibly have 'houses turn into flowers' as a metaphor or allegory - perhaps a poem that charted a human extinction event and ended on a hopeful note of the beauty of nature without humans. But such an expression's sense comes from a non-literal meaning of the phrase.

When we say that a meaning is non-literal, we are able to (implicitly anyway) quantify over philosophical grammars, discursive contexts and so on, and the reasons why the phrase could only be given a sense allegorically are precisely the same reasons why 'houses turn into flowers' is literally false.

It isn't as if one simply summons a single discursive context along with an expression which vouchsafes the uniqueness, or otherwise singularly determines, the sense of the phrase, and moreover we can allow our inquiry to range over such contexts to the extent a phrase has multiple interpretations with fuzzy boundaries between them.

So even though firing Scruton might be motivated by the need to protect the veneer, he was still fired. The veneer is intact. The US is going down a more virulent path where the veneer is getting scuffed up, — frank

:up:

Trump removed the need for a lot of euphemisms, you're right.

That adds up to power in the hands of the whistlers, which inspires the question: who fired him? And why? — frank

The usual function of dogwhistles is to go largely unnoticed and tacitly accepted, they're supposed to create a consensus or work through the myth that the 'average person' agrees with the connotations of the whistling. Scruton's remarks contain dogwhistles that are already known, so regardless of personal belief in what he said (some politicians are like that, others probably aren't), the party has to distance themselves from the person who made the problematic remarks for PR reasons; to present a veneer of respectability.

Edit: they also work to normalise the connotations. People sometimes resist this fact, but it's the same kind of thing that happens when people think quantum observers are humans from pop-sci articles or that eggs both cure and cause cancer at the same time from the vulgarisation of scientific studies.

It is not like people voted purely on immigration (which wouldn’t effect immigration from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh in the slightest as they’re not EU countries). — I like sushi

I know that. UKIP voters and the worst parts of the Tories didn't.

"The ragheads and Pakis are worrying yer dad but yer dad's favourite food is curry and kebab...'

Eh, people voted for the dogwhistle parties, Brexit leave campaign was full of racist dogwhistles, not so surprising really. There's a coalition between the populist right and the (possibly latent) racists which is rather unpleasant and certainly bodes ill. Half of the reason Brexit legislation keeps failing to go through parliament is a bunch of Tory assholes who don't want the bloody rag-heads coming in from Europe.

Nothing formal yet, but still pretty bad.

Yes. Especially since Brexit negotiations started.

Edit: usual disclaimers about causation, correlation, post hoc, observational data and so on.

There's still the question of the content of names. Clark Kent and Superman despite being co-referring can suggest different courses of action. Even if this content is non-descriptive, it can still carry information.

There are shades of this in Kripke, the a-posteriori necessity of water = H2O isn't given a complete account by co-reference (though it is still sufficient for the a-posteriori necessity for Kripke IIRC), what the equation also does is allow, say, people studying the thermal properties of water molecules to apply that to climate change.

I'm not saying that the semantic content of a name is necessarily descriptive, mind, I'm saying that there's more to a theory of reference than the fact of reference. Reference brings a chunk of sense along with it too. Invoking quietism here does little to answer any of the problems that Kripke thought were important in writing the book. It's as if you back-project the theory into the behaviour of linguistic communities and render such a projection moot in the same breath; with the same rhetorical device.

This is my view also. But no, you are willing to go with sentence that Scruton is a right-wing racist anti-semite islamophobe, which is so obvious to you that you want to stop the conversation now. — ssu

To be honest @unenlightened, @Maw and @andrewk have made me a lot more suspicious of his behaviour. I had him pegged as a benign, educated version of a racist grandpa. He still might be, but I think he's sufficiently rhetorically aware to know how to avoid the problem statements if he wanted to. I'm left with the opinion that he knew precisely what crowd he was playing to.

Rather than trying to undermine relativity using classical or folk-theoretic intuitions about motion, space and time, isn't it more honest to update the accounts of all of them to be consistent with relativity? Time dilation has already been demonstrated experimentally, as has the constancy of the speed of light in all reference frames.

The majority of humans have little to no climate footprint, rather than the unconstrained growth of people, the more important category of analysis for climate impact is the unconstrained growth of production and consumption. The world can support many more crofters than rich consumers in capitalist economies.

Is a starfish a subject or an object? — Harry Hindu

You read what I wrote very literally, 'human' can easily be replaced with 'experiencer' in what I wrote without damaging the meaning.

But in answer; it (starfish) can be both, depending on how it is considered. It has an umwelt or sensorium dominated by temperature gradients and the textural elements of water currents. The water around it is structurally similar to our own environment (in terms of the S/O distinction), impressing itself upon its sensory apparatus in a manner that reflects environmental properties.

That a starfish has these sensory capacities is not dependent upon its study, nor is their high degree of rotational symmetry.

Subject and object are in a weird hinterland between the everyday use of language and philosophical constructions. Subjective things are typically aligned with taste; relational properties of humans and non-humans, predicates that have one term being human. Objective things are typically aligned with predicates that do not involve humans as a term, properties of the 'things themselves' that do not depend on human relation with them, or like the relationship between acceleration and unbalanced force.

In my experience with the 'everyday' use of the terms, the only way I've seen them used without reference to anything academic, is to furnish an epistemological distinction in a folk-theory of tastes, opinions and the like. People can say 'that's just my opinion!' and vindicate it using something like the distinction, people can suspend criticism of others' tastes under the banner of them being subjective.

What we get out of analysing the everyday use are that subjective and objective are actually properties of properties - predicates which apply to predicates- rather than things themselves. 'Subject' resonates with this by being the term in a predicate that relates to a human or human property, such as a mental state or a brain state, or the presence of a neural correlate, all of which are a necessary constituent of a 'subjective' property. Object resonates with this distinction by denoting the terms in predicates which have no human or human derived term in them. Often these properties are immediately equated with the distinction between primary and secondary qualities; the former being non-sensory or non-perceptual properties of things, the latter being sensory or perceptual properties of things.

The equivocation between the two is another problematic wrinkle of the opposition between object and subject, but it is flawed in much the same way. We are often in states where perceptual, sensory or cognitive content reflects the nature of a thing. A sphere will be seen as round, sticks in water are seen as bent due to the refraction of light, things which are far away have less visual angle to map their extent than things which are nearby; sharpness and smoothness are opposed, a cut feels different coming from a serrated blade or a non-serrated blade, the variable roughnesses of sandpaper through its grain can be felt as textures. For cognitive ones, an account of something always tries to capture the nature of a thing. All of these are relations between humans and non-humans in which non-subjective properties of things are transformed through our bodies and minds; providing a perceptual or sensory expression or representation of the non-sensory or non-representational.

Edit: TL;DR everywhere subjective and objective inter-permeate in a manner which undermines the utility of either term.

Edit2: If you want to generalise subject to be possibly non-human, replace any instance of 'human' with 'experiencer'.

Guess that means I'll close the thread. :)

I mean, I don't want to downplay how inauspicious the remarks are, but I don't think Scruton is actually as prejudiced as the connotations suggest. A vehicle for systemic injustice, which could be used to normalise such prejudice through a bait and switch, and close to dogwhistles for their vulgarisations, but I'm going to stop at attributing personal prejudice to Scruton for the role Scruton's remarks might play in discourse. Without that distinction you end up treating garden variety liberals and conservatives as far right.

Sure, but I didn't say that, I said that he described accusations of antisemitism against Orbán as "nonsense". I would also add that suggesting Islamophobia isn't real is more than having "little sympathy" for Muslims, especially when you add other comments of his, such as, "sudden invasion of huge tribes of Muslims from the Middle East," when describing refugees and immigrants. — Maw

The connotations of those things aren't particularly good, I agree. And yes, I also agree that it is quite unfortunate that he said those things and also that those things could be dogwhistles. I just think this is more of a case of an educated bloke being an unwitting vehicle for prejudice he would sincerely condemn if asked about it.

Having an antisemitic friend doesn't make you an antisemite, though I do agree that it is weak evidence (not in a derogatory sense, it is still evidence) in favour of Scruton having little sympathy for Jews, which is in turn weak evidence for him having little sympathy for Muslims.

Though I don't buy the inference, I can understand why someone would be suspicious, and such suspicion probably warrants his sacking.

The topic and Scruton's remarks could be used for the purpose you're suggesting, since skilful dog whistling does usually look like that. Though in this case I do doubt that their original intent is like that though.

In the unsympathetic/outrage ladened media narrative and most reactions there won't be much of a distinction between Scruton's remarks and their vulgarisations, however. In that regard they're already co-opted and should be treated with suspicion; though how much suspicion depends heavily on the context of discussion.

That's ok if someone unbans him I'll just ban him again.

I think you have to give space for people to have that kind of discussion, if someone does actually have suspicions of Muslims or developing prejudice, seeing how @Mr Phil O'Sophy conducted himself or other peoples' counterpoints might have done something.

I was pretty suspicious of Muslims as an edgy teen 'rationalist' watching Dawkins and Hitchens, it took a long while to get over, reading discussions like that actually helped.

Anyone who does the knee jerk reactionary bile thing can at least be modded into oblivion while allowing the discussion to stand, predictable problems in the issue framing yielding predictable responses doesn't mean we should shut down that space for debate.

I posted in the mod board about it, I'd prefer he stayed banned. I'm the only one on duty at the minute though, so had to act.

You were doing good work with the outreach, remarkable really. Regardless, that kind of crap doesn't belong on the site.

Edit: Baden logged in in the interim between me banning sunlight and this post.

Deus vult! Deus vult! Deus vult!

Remind me not to give rope to strangers as a present. :broken:

I'd rather just close the thread.

Oh yes you do. You say that I'm not allowed to express my belief that mumammad was a pedophile and that many moslems continue to marry kids because of that. — sunknight

If you don't see why this is the kind of statement that mods have to curtail I'm afraid you probably won't be able to stick around here for long. Discuss what you like, respectfully, the more inflammatory the topic the more effort you have to put in to provide a nuanced representation and critique.

@VagabondSpectre is particularly good at doing this. Look at the discussions he creates if you would like to see a good way of dealing with highly charged material, and how Vagabond responds to interlocutors who disagree with him on the issues, even when they are ragey or suffer an aggressive misunderstanding, is a model of good conduct.

Oh yes you do. You say that I'm not allowed to express my belief that mumammad was a pedophile and that many moslems continue to marry kids because of that. — sunknight

I don't know what else to say. Write well and respectfully, and don't ruin the opportunity you have to discuss things with Mr Phil just because you can't reign in your zeal.

I'll criticize islam whichever I like. Try not to misread what I write and ignore it if you don't like it. — sunknight

Of course, write what you like, with the provision that you will be moderated as every other member would.

Note - I am not saying that you cannot criticise Islam, I am saying that your post was a disrespectful hatchet job and was deleted for its content and structure regardless of the pure and noble intentions you probably had. Write a more nuanced post, argue it well, argue it respectfully, and it will stick around.

Then don't read it. — sunknight

Edit: alas, I am a mod, and unfortunately I have to read many things I don't like.

Yes, there was more nuance to his intentions, but not enough finesse or nuance in his words. If he said something like "The idolisation of a prophet whose actions in the Quran are sometimes quite immoral' and backed it up with a nice argument that links these moral failings to a criticism of practicing Muslims, the post would still be there. Alas, he did not, and he simply pivoted on expressing that the Prophet was a paedophile.

We treat Catholics with enough respect to believe they do not support the child rapists in their institutions, and criticism can be made respectfully here by linking the taboo of sex in the church to this behaviour (as Stephen Fry once did in a debate (paraphrased) 'The attitudes of upper members of the Catholic Church towards sex resemble eating disorders; the anorexic and the morbidly obese.') or with other strategies.

There simply wasn't enough expression, specifically nuanced argument, in the post to make it more than reactionary drivel.

I responded to you in the original thread before I saw this, please post your responses here rather than in thread. You can contest the decision all you like here, similar posts in the previous thread will be treated the same.

Again, try to criticise Islam like Avicenna would. Respectfully and insightfully. Use that intellectual grace in your heritage to reduce the foaming spit at the corners of your mouth.

It was deleted because it was incredibly inflammatory. You wrote something which could easily be read as claiming that all Muslims would be paedophiles without their religion.

If your critique of Islam boils down to referencing the Prophet Muhammed's sexual relationship with Aisha, your critique isn't worth reading. It's like claiming all Christians are stupid because their God forbade eating lobsters and was totes fine with destroying a city of arrogant scholars.

Got a wee bit reading to do then. The link I gave is a place to start.