You can take a further step and claim that there is nothing more to the book being in Michael's room than people who hold the belief that it is honestly expressing that belief by saying, or being disposed to say, "The book is in Michael's room."

Now what does this mean, that there is "nothing more to it"? That suggests there is a biconditional that looks like this: — Srap Tasmaner

That just seems way too convoluted and theory laden...

Seems to me like there's nothing more to the book being in Michael's room than the book, the room, and the spatial relation between the two.

Seems to me that we're perfectly capable of understanding what sorts of thoughts are exclusive to humans and what sorts are not.
— creativesoul

You seem to think I have disagreed with this — Janus

That's how to avoid anthropomorphism.

The notions of 'linguistically mediated thought' and 'language capable beings' don't - ahem - can't.

Seems to me that we're perfectly capable of understanding what sorts of thoughts are exclusive to humans and what sorts are not.

It would make no sense to say that a parrot danced as a way of showing its appreciation for the aesthetic beauty of a particular song unless it had personal taste regarding music. It would make no sense to say that my cat is jealous of the way my other cat looks unless she had a beauty standard for her to even be bitter about because it is one that she feels she has failed to meet whereas she feels her roommate has succeeded.

The gecko on my outdoor table was not thankful to me for leaving bits of butter mochi and juice for it - and could not possibly be - without having a meaningful sense of gratitude. The pheasants in my yard cannot respect the individuality of each other simply for the sake of doing so unless they have some socially derived moral/ethical sense of respecting the individuality of others simply for the sake of doing so. The male peacock does not have all his hopes and dreams wrapped up in successfully 'courting' females unless he has thought and belief(hopes and dreams) about what has yet to have happened(the future).

In principle, thoughts exclusive to humans would be(consist of) correlations including written language use. In practice, we do not attribute such thought to non human creatures.

Since it is always we who imagine or posit this or that about what we think or imagine animals might experience, can we avoid anthropomorphism? — Janus

I think we can in both principle and practice.

It takes knowledge of what the difference is between language less creatures' belief and language users'. We need a standard for what language less animals can and/or cannot think and/ believe. One thing is certain; language use is the key for establishing what they cannot.

How do we(or you) avoid anthropomorphism?

You seem to be suggesting that you can't create a bowl without a language. I'm sure that pre-linguistic man created bowls of some sort, or maybe you're referring to a particular kind of bowl, say plastic bowls. Even if you're right, it seems like a stretch to the conclude that because a thing (maybe stove is more appropriate), is created by language users, that the cat's belief is dependent upon language. — Sam26

It's all about the content of the belief Sam. I think you would agree that believing a mouse is under the stove depends upon the prior existence of a mouse, a stove, and the spatiotemporal relationship between the two from the vantage point of the believing creature(regardless of whether or not the creature has language). There may be other elements as well, but for simplicity's sake alone, we can just focus upon those main elements of this particular belief. The belief is existentially dependent upon all of those elements. All stoves are existentially dependent upon language. All belief involving stoves must be as well.

When I use the phrase "dependent upon language," I'm referring to the use of concepts as part of a statement of belief. So, the cat is not dependent upon language in this sense.

The cat is not dependent upon language. We certainly agree there. I completely agree that cats do not use linguistic concepts. However, they can and do directly perceive some things that emerged into the world by virtue of our use of linguistic concepts; stoves and sofas are precisely such things. All belief about such things is existentially dependent upon those things. Those things are existentially dependent upon language. All belief about those things is existentially dependent upon language.

You're adding another sense of "dependent upon language" that doesn't involve the direct use of concepts, which seems to be an indirect dependence. Am I understanding your point, or not? Mostly I'm talking about concepts, in particular the concept truth. The difference maybe in our focus.

I do not think that I'm adding another sense of "dependent upon language" - as in a completely different sense - so much as expanding the sense you've put to use here in such a way that it includes spatiotemporal considerations pertaining to the direct dependence upon language use that some things require for their initial emergence. I mentioned earlier to someone here how I thought that logic's lack of spatiotemporal consideration was a fundamental flaw. The approach I use includes keeping spatiotemporal considerations in mind. I see no other way to arrive at a scientifically and philosophically respectable position regarding how belief emerges and subsequently evolves given time and mutation. This ties into truth and meaning both, because it is via thought and belief formation that both truth and meaning first emerge onto the world stage(that's a topic in it's own right).

That being said, you're right to take note of the difference, because to the best of my knowledge, it is unique.

This ought help you to understand my use of "existential dependency".

I'm just saying what we all know; that we know, in the most basic sense, pre-linguistic sensory experience, which our language cannot capture without losing its living quality and distorting it into a world of fixed entities and facts; which, in other words our language cannot adequately capture even though it can express linguistic truths and falsities which pertain to that collective representational schema we call the world.

To say otherwise would be to claim that animals do not experience anything at all. — Janus

That first sentence is very long, but the more I read it over, the more it looks like a partially formed incomplete thought. Be that as it may, I've thought long and hard about what you've been saying and I think, but I'm not at all certain of it, that you seem to be claiming - roughly mind you - that language doesn't do any justice(so to speak) to language less creatures experiences. You seem to also want to say that it cannot, despite our being able to use it to make true claims about our shared world, which you call "that collective representational schema".

The last sentence clearly suggests that we only have two choices when it comes to talking about the thought, belief, and/or meaningful experience of language less creatures. We can either hold the view that you hold or claim that language less creatures do not have any experience at all.

That's not true.

The approach one takes towards setting out the meaningful experience of language less creatures is pivotal to one's understanding, assuming one maintains coherency by avoiding self-contradiction and/or equivocation. Different approaches often lead to different consequences. Our respective approaches are remarkably different. Being a charitable reader, the one you've employed/adopted leads you to believe that language cannot capture the meaningful experience of language less creatures.

Whereas my approach leads me to first question what it takes to 'capture' the meaningful experience of language less creatures. What are we expecting to be able to do with language? Language cannot reproduce meaningful experience. We're just offering reports and/or accounts of meaningful experience. We're not attempting to accurately reproduce each and every aspect of meaningful experience in our report/account of it.

Perhaps you would find it helpful to adjust your expectations regarding what we can do with language.

One consideration worth mentioning...

An overlap happens between language less creatures' belief and belief of language users. The overlap could be rendered as a Venn diagram with the commonalities being directly perceptible things. Trees, sofas, stoves, fridges, mice, and spatiotemporal relationships, for instance, are directly perceptible things within the aforementioned overlap. This overlap could be talked about in terms of the world shared between cats, mice, and humans.

There is, as a kind of ground to all our propositions, truths and facts, a pre-linguistic actuality to which they must submit. Analysis and conceptualization cannot gain purchase on that actuality, because to do so is to bring it into the linguistic domain, and there all we have purchase on is our communal perceptions and conceptions of what is the case, — Janus

The "pre-linguistic actuality" I have in mind is our basic experience of images, smells, sensations and impressions as well as recognition of repetition and pattern. — Janus

In the bottom quote above you are doing what you said we could not do in the top quote. In addition, we've also arrived at incoherency/self-contradiction by virtue of equivocating the notion of "pre-linguistic actuality". The top quote sets it out one way. The bottom another.

It is very hard to talk about the subject matter at hand when we do not avoid such results and/or situations. I think we can nix the notion of "pre-linguistic actuality" altogether and by doing so, increase clarity while losing nothing. While "pre-linguistic" seems potentially useful, "actuality" does not.

I think we agree that a cat's belief that a mouse is under the sofa includes a mouse, the sofa, and a spatiotemporal relationship between the two from the cat's vantage point... right?

Things such as the tree being, say, 11m tall, will be true regardless of their being stated. — Banno

Only after we first stipulated what counted as eleven meters. Not before. The fact that the tree is eleven meters tall is existentially dependent upon language. The fact that the mouse is behind the tree is not.

The tree we are talking about is outside of language? — Banno

We may be talking about different trees. The one in my front yard is most certainly outside of language.

The term "tree" consists of meaningful marks. The term "tree" is not outside of language. What I'm picking out of the world to the exclusion of all else by using that term most certainly is.

Some facts involving trees are existentially dependent upon language. All statements about trees are.

One issue here is what a "linguistic fact" is, so that we can understand what a "nonlinguistic fact" is.

It seems to me that it doesn't make sense to say that (1) is a linguistic fact. If someone thingks it does, then it is up tot hem to provide some account. — Banno

I'm not defending that use of "linguistic fact" or "non-linguistic" fact.

All kettles were, are, and will forever remain to be, existentially dependent upon language. If they were planned originals, then all meaningful marks involving kettles emerged in the planning and fabrication of the first kettles, as well as accounting practices of kettles thereafter. If they were accidental originals having resulted from ingenious on the spot novelty of use, then all meaningful marks involving kettles emerged after the original kettle.

Statements involving kettles. Situations involving kettles. Circumstances involving kettles. Belief involving kettles. Knowledge involving kettles. Everything involving kettles came immediately prior to, during, and/or after the first kettle emerged into the world.

All facts involving kettles are existentially dependent upon language.

1. The kettle is boiling
2. "The kettle is boiling"
3. "The kettle is boiling" is true
4. '"The kettle is boiling" is true'
5. '"The kettle is boiling is true' is true

Previously I've felt obliged to explain that 1, 3 and 5 in this list are facts.

Arguably, since they are directly about sentences and not about kettles, 3 and 5 might be called linguistic facts. But on that criteria, 1 is directly about kettles, not sentences. — Banno

Makes sense to me thus far...

There are, it seems, folk who think that we need an item 0 in this list, a state of affairs or an exterior thing in itself, outside of language or perception or belief or some other; and that it is this item 0 that is the fact, which is represented (or some such...) in item 1.

The tree is outside of language, perception, and belief is it not?

A kettle? Not so much.

Obviously linguistics played a part in the stove's creation, but the fact that stove exists, is just like any other fact of existence for the cat, and the cat's belief. What if we removed all humans from existence, but there still existed stoves, would there still be an overlap between the cat's belief and language? What if someone created a stove, ceased to exist, then cats came into existence later, would you still say that the cat's belief overlapped language? I don't see any reason to think that the cat's belief has a linguistic component simply because some language user created the stove. The stove is just another fact of reality, like a tree or the moon... — Sam26

Hey Sam, sorry about the delay. Doctor visit.

I think we agree much more than the above seems to suggest. Could you re-read that post and tell me at what point exactly you begin to disagree?

Just to be clear, I haven't posited an "actual world"; I've talked about the distinction between experienced actuality, meaning actual experience, which I'm saying is of images, sensations, impressions, and the world, which I'm saying is the idea of the totality of things, facts and relations that we think gives rise to actual experience. — Janus

There is, as a kind of ground to all our propositions, truths and facts, a pre-linguistic actuality to which they must submit. Analysis and conceptualization cannot gain purchase on that actuality, — Janus

That's the bit directly above that seems to be untenable in the same way that Kant's Noumena is.

The object that the concept refers to is not dependent on language... — Sam26

When and where there has never been language there could have never been stoves.

That sums up the difference between our views it seems. The object that "stove" refers to is existentially dependent upon language on my view, but not yours.

Understood. I do strive for agreement with myself though.

:wink:

Indeed. Gives me time to do this though! lol. Cannot move around as usual, otherwise I would not be doing this. There are more real life results based things I would be doing if I could.

It's like an itch that won't go away — Sam26

Like the shingles virus that I'm currently suffering from...

:yikes:

(And again, that is what creativesoul misses in his account.) — Banno

I do not completely agree with Davidson or Witt. There are important differences at a fundamental level between their views and my own. My and your view differ in much the same respect, I think. Yours is more in line with theirs, whereas I disagree with all three of you on some basic tenets. It could be summed up with "truth and meaning are both prior to language".

:wink:

We just are never going to get the kind of precision out of language that some philosophers want. It's like an itch that won't go away. — Sam26

I may or may not be one of those philosophers, but I do think common language is capable of being precise enough. Language can be honed.

For example, the terms/adjectives "linguistic" "non-linguistic" and "pre-linguistic" have been employed in this discussion by a variety of different individuals. Those uses were mainly talking about kinds of facts or something like that. For different reasons in the past, I used them myself, because they seemed like a commonsense easily understood distinction. I wanted to draw and maintain a meaningful distinction between language less creatures' belief and language users' belief. Naturally, I saw the difference to be language. So, I began by saying that language less animals have non-linguistic(or pre-linguistic) belief and language users have linguistic belief. Seems fairly straight forward. Makes perfect sense. I later found that that particular simplicity, which I always strive for, was deceptively so.

Turns out that that was a very useful distinction for me, but not for the reasons I initially began using it. I wanted to clearly demarcate two categories of belief as mentioned heretofore. I called them "linguistic belief", which was meant to pick out all belief that is existentially dependent upon language, and "pre-linguistic" or "non-linguistic" belief, which was meant to pick out all belief that was not existentially dependent upon language. Seems all well and good right up to the point when we want to set out cat's belief about bowls in terms of the content of the belief.

A non-linguistic belief cannot be existentially dependent upon language. If a bowl is existentially dependent upon language(and they are) and the content of the cat's belief includes the bowl(and it does) then that particular belief is existentially dependent upon language, and there's no way around it. All belief about bowls is existentially dependent upon bowls. Even illusions of bowls are not possible without bowls. So, I had arrived at incoherence and/or self-contradiction without being guilty of equivocating terms. This forced me to re-evaluate my position and what I was aiming to take proper account of. I want to offer a notion of belief that is philosophically and scientifically respectable. Such a notion ought be able to sensibly bridge the gap between language less belief and the belief of language users in a way that belief as propositional content has been found sorely lacking.

I had - and remain to have - no doubt whatsoever that some language less creatures have belief, but realized that we could not make sense of those sorts of belief by using the terms "linguistic" and "pre-linguistic" if I wanted to also hold that non-linguistic belief cannot be existentially dependent upon language. Some language less creatures' belief includes content that is itself existentially dependent upon language. Believing that a mouse is under the stove for example includes the stove. This makes perfect sense given that the overlap between their world and ours includes things that we created via language use; some of which are perfectly capable of being directly perceived by language less creatures and thus could be sensibly said to be part of the content of their belief.

So, I had no choice but to abandon the idea that a language less creature's belief could not be existentially dependent upon language, because some of them clearly are. This line of thought led me to realization that the difference between language less belief and the belief of language users could not be properly set out by using such terms. While language use is the difference, it was not whether or not the content of the belief was existentially dependent upon language use that determined the difference between language less creatures' belief and language users'. Rather, it was whether or not the content included language use.

Thus, we can make sense of the cat's belief that a mouse is behind the tree, or that a mouse is under the sofa, or that the food bowl is empty, or that a duck is under the car because none of those beliefs have language use as content. The correlations being drawn do not include language use. However, my cat also has some belief that includes language use as content, not because she asks, "you want some treats?" each and every time in the same tone prior to giving her treats, but because I do, and she has come to believe that she is about to get treats when I say that as a result of drawing correlations between my language use and what happens afterwards. She has attributed meaning to the language use by virtue of drawing correlations between it and eating treats. This points towards language acquisition and what it takes to go from language less creature to language user.

Now, if we go back to my granddaughter, we can also sensibly say that she believed stuff was in the fridge, and her belief was true because stuff was in the fridge. So, when she heard someone say otherwise, she knew that the claim was false on it's face, because she knew what was being claimed(she knew what it meant) and she had true belief to the contrary. The claim made no sense to her! Her belief included correlations between language use(which is directly perceptible, but includes things that are not - meaning) and other directly perceptible things like the fridge and its contents.

I'm not convinced there is a coherent account of belief that doesn't rely on knowledge as a separate category... — Srap Tasmaner

Are there beliefs that do not rely upon accounts(language use)?

I was just pointing out that the absurdity of carving initials on a perception, which creative was attempting to use against what I had said, is inapt since the whole experience: carving, initials, tree and all the rest are all of the same perceptual fabric. — Janus

Not necessarily use against what you said so much as attempting to makes sense of how the 'actual world' posited earlier fit into the carving. You've also said that we don't see the world, but rather our perceptions, conceptions, impressions, and things of a nature which sound like a denial of direct perception.

Here though, you've posited the tree, and not your conception or perception of the tree, so at least the tree is included. I've little interest in nailing down flaws in people's positions for the sake of exposing them alone, so I'm not going to push on this or make any charges. My replies are more for my own understanding.

Your asking me to explain your own terminology — Banno

That's a common scenario around here.

I think the problem lies in the vagaries of language, and trying to fit language into a very precise medium, like mathematical logic. Logic is a guide for our reasoning, but it has it's limits. The two mediums of logic and ordinary language are very different, and it's this difference that may contribute to the problem. — Sam26

I would agree.

Are you carving your initials into a tree or your perception, conception, and/or impressions?

The problem for some is that this one in particular injured political symbols and tribal pride rather than the homes and businesses of ordinary citizens — NOS4A2

The problem for others is conspiracy to defraud the US, seditious conspiracy, obstructing an official proceeding, amongst others....

I’ll just say I wouldn’t put it past them. — NOS4A2

Would not put it past 'them' to steal an election...

Right.

Especially given how they had replaced as many of the decision makers as they possibly could before and after election day in all the right places to be able to steal it! There has been first hand testimony setting out the plan on Jan 6 to steal the election. I mean, some of these replacements even lost all the phone records leading up to and through Jan 6 somehow, despite being in charge of the institution that specializes in exactly how to recover such information. Certainly looks like that's exactly what they were planning to do, and they were making concerted efforts to cover their tracks all the while.

:smirk:

Given the strict chain of custody standards concerning the information itself, it can be known if anything is still missing. If that ends up being the case, and the missing information is important enough, given the way the Mar-A-Lago events unfolded, I would think that there will be more searches to come. Rumor has it that there are still some records missing.

Another important bit...

An unusual number of agents and informants have been killed and/or turned up missing since Trump left office. If the seized or missing information pertains directly to any of that, Trump will be in so much more hot water than he already is.

America first!

our everyday language is insufficient. — Sam26

Sam, do you think our everyday language is insufficient for explaining the Liar and/or all its permutations?

...we never perceive the world at all, but just images of the objects we understand to constitute it... — Janus

If that were the case, then there would be no substantive difference between illusions of trees and perception of trees.

The whole world? What does it look like? — Janus

Looks a lot like a cool marble from a vantage point far enough away in space. We have pictures. I'm surprised you haven't seen one. Maybe you've forgot? Up close it looks like trees and mice and stuff. We have pictures of that too. Pretty unremarkable really when you think about it.

I insist that what you call prelinguistic truths or beliefs can be put into propositional form. But I'm tiered of that argument, and hope we might leave it as moot. — Banno

I agree that language less belief can be put into propositional form. That's how we present it to one another. Our ability to render language less belief into propositional form says nothing about the meaningful content of the language less belief aside from it is part of our shared world(clearly a plus), and thus we can talk about it. Trees and mice and spatiotemporal relationships are part of the world we share with Jack and Cookie, as are food bowls and food.

No problems with privacy or mental anything.

How else can you know that the one is not the other if not by performing a comparison/contrast between the two purportedly distinct things? In order to compare the two things, you have to know what they both are. The problem, of course, is that you've defined the one in such a way as to suggest that it is impossible to know. — creativesoul

How do I know the world is not my experience? — Janus

You posited an actual world then clearly stipulated a forbidden access/purchase to/upon that actual world. You then posited your experience as another entity completely unto itself as distinct from the aforementioned 'prelinguistic actual world'. If we have no access to that world, if our words cannot gain purchase upon it, then we cannot possibly compare anything to it.

In order to know the difference between the two, we must have access to both. You've already said that we cannot. That is a problem called untenability.

...we never perceive the world... — Janus

I do.

The world is a static idea of the totality of facts, things and relations. — Janus

How can you know that if you cannot access it, if your perception and conceptions cannot have purchase on it?

Suppose we have a true sentence of the form
S is true IFF p
where S is some sentence and p gives the meaning of S.

What sort of thing is S? well, it's going to be a true proposition (here, continuing the convention adopted from the SEP article on truth of using "proposition" as a carry-all for sentence, statements, utterance, truth-bearer, or whatever one prefers).

And what sort of thing is p? Since the T-sentence is true, it is a state of affairs, a fact. — Banno

Facts give the meaning of true sentences?

I don't see the benefit in what you're doing. Maybe I do not understand.


Getting rid of the distinction between scheme and world sounds right to me, but I suspect for very different reasons than you hold. Belief consists of both external and internal elements. That cannot be made sense of if one divorces belief(scheme) from the world. Belief about trees includes trees. Divorcing the two leads to sense datum and all that sort of garbage instead of keeping us directly connected to the world.

we know that all our identifications and definitions are static abstractions derived from, filtered from so to speak, our actual experience which is an evershifting succession of images and impressions. Our experience is the territory and the model we have evolved of the world of facts and things is our map, and as the old saw goes 'the map is not the territory'.

The map is tied to the territory by long consideration, historically speaking, of human experience, and conjecture about it, and its meaning, and so forth. But we cannot discursively set the map and territory side by side so to speak to examine the connections, whether purported to be rational or in some sense merely physical, between them.

But we don't need to do that anyway, — Janus

How else can you know that the one is not the other if not by performing a comparison/contrast between the two purportedly distinct things? In order to compare the two things, you have to know what they both are. The problem, of course, is that you've defined the one in such a way as to suggest that it is impossible to know what it is.

The position reminds me of Kant's Noumena, or any other position that denies direct perception.

Earlier you said it was difficult to talk about these things. I found it to be much easier after abandoning those kinds of frameworks.

Analysis and conceptualization cannot gain purchase on that actuality... — Janus

That pulls the rug out from under our own analysis, does it not?

There is, as a kind of ground to all our propositions, truths and facts, a pre-linguistic actuality to which they must submit. Analysis and conceptualization cannot gain purchase on that actuality, because to do so is to bring it into the linguistic domain, and there all we have purchase on is our communal perceptions and conceptions of what is the case, — Janus

Submission of all our propositions to an unknowable actuality?

Too many replies, and I'm off to the hardware store. Good to see a consensus developing, even if it is "Banno is wrong..."

Now, if you folk could just agree as to where I am wrong... — Banno

This presupposes that such an agreement is not already complete in the making aside from making it outwardly known.

:wink:

From where I sit Banno, you equivocate the term "fact" by virtue of vacillating between "fact" as propositions/states of affairs/the case at hand and "fact" as true statements. You also practice rendering all belief in terms of propositional attitudes which has the inevitable logical consequence - on pains of coherency alone - of limiting the very ability to acknowledge the brute fact that some meaningful true belief exists in its entirety prior to common language. You know the drill...

Meaningful true belief exists in its entirety prior to common language creation. Either both meaning and truth emerge prior to common language or meaningful true belief exists without meaning or truth.

That's our differences in a nutshell. Aside from that...

The large bulk of what you argue for, particularly the bits involving direct perception(although you never use those terms) is in perfect accord with my own position which, I believe, dovetails nicely not only with portions of your position, but also many other philosophers with whom you agree. I also nod towards the outright rejection of anything remotely resembling a category of stuff that is totally and completely unknowable but somehow the purveyor of such an approach want to then use this completely unknown empty category of things as a measuring device. In order to know that that is not a tree in and of itself, one must know what a tree in and of itself is. Such an approach is untenable. Things like that are also rejected by us both. Hell, even the rejection of private language is shared. The rejection of the conventional view on language that Davidson was arguing against using Mrs. Malaprop and other intuition pumps(thank you professor Dennett) is also a commonality between our respective viewpoints.

The main flaw I seem to see in your view could be roughly described as placing too much of the wrong kind of value upon language use.

You also seem to want to puke at the mention of anything remotely metaphysical, which is perhaps why you cannot even set aside your own current presuppositions in order to grasp how meaningful true thought and belief exists in its entirety prior to language.

Funny that almost a decade ago you and I participated in a much better debate than our recent one:Truth is prior to language. I argued in the affirmative. My view has evolved a bit since then as has your own.