I'm not following why you suggest a theory of language as a means to establish what language less belief consists of?
— creativesoul

What I had in mind was your mention of behaviorism. To me, behaviorism is clear on the right track, but too rigid, insufficiently sensitive to just how ridiculously verbal and inferential we are. So I offer a theory that is also wary of ye old ghost theory, while making plausible sense of the talky part of our doings. — Pie

Okay.

Inferentialism makes a good case for building a theory on assertions. If irony is the trope of tropes, we get lots of mileage from a little spin on an assertion. We philosophers especially might want to consider how central inferences are in the lives of the 'rational' animal...and what are premises and conclusions ? How do we explain ourselves to one another ? To ourselves ? Inferences. — Pie

Key word "explain"...

A language less child can learn that touching fire causes pain. Do they infer?

Above you suggest a box that cannot be looked into by others, an approach I consider to have been shown wanting. — Pie

You've misunderstood then. All I've done was point out the fact that outwardly observable behaviour - alone - is not always a reliable means to know what the candidate under consideration is thinking. Don't get me wrong, it's not always unreliable, and there are definitely situations and behaviours that are sufficient. Just not always. Some cases, sure. Not all. That has nothing at all to do with Witt's beetle.

...behaviour alone cannot always reliably inform us of anothers' thought and belief.
— creativesoul

I suggest inferentialism — Pie

I'm not following why you suggest a theory of language as a means to establish what language less belief consists of?

What would inferentialism tell you about the content of my cat's belief when she believes that a gecko is under the stove?

The issue seems to be whether beliefs are best understood or not in terms of propositions. — Pie

We have no other way to contemplate our own thought and belief save common language replete with naming and descriptive practices. That brute fact has given rise to all sorts of different language games. Throughout the history of Western civilization there have been scores upon scores of individuals creating and/or inventing new ways to talk about human experiences. From Plato through Dennett there have been ingenious individuals employing some accounting practice or another, that they themselves 'invented', as a novel way of talking about human thought and belief.

The shared fatal flaw of them all is that none of them draw and maintain the distinction between thought and belief, and thinking about thought and belief in terms of their basic elemental constituency and existential dependency.

I am quite curious to see exactly what you're going to do differently than me.
— creativesoul

Lately I find Sellar's myth of Jones illuminating. Note that Jones lives in a implicitly behaviorist society. They don't even think of themwselves as such, because it's Jones who first postulates 'internal speech' or 'talking without talking.' In the same way that the atomic theory could prove itself with increased powers of prediction and control, Jones' peers come to embrace thoughts as useful fictions. With practice, they even get good at guessing what they are thinking.

On behaviourism...

Given that there are any number of possible reasons why we may exhibit some behaviour or another, behaviour alone cannot always reliably inform us of anothers' thought and belief. The sheer volume of people on social media telling the viewer what this or that behaviour means would be better sized if most everyone already knew that outward behaviour alone does not constitute sufficient reason to believe and/or adequate evidence to conclude that the observer can be certain what the candidate under consideration is thinking. Rather, it's more along the lines of good evidence that is not quite strong enough. Reliably true conclusions about the thought and/or belief of others requires more than just outward observable behaviours.

Now Jones could even extend his theory to creatures who never talk at all, explaining the beaver's movements in terms of its belief that food was waiting on the other side. Note that beliefs are still propositional] here, without us being committed to the animal 'having' them 'directly ' (inside their postulated ghostly consciousness.)

Above emphasis is mine.

That's a common practice across the board! I've participated in countless discussions, and been a participant in a debate on this very forum concerning that very idea(that the content of thought and belief is propositional). It makes perfect sense for us to go through such a stage in our development. I mean that's how we learned to talk about others as well as ourselves. We talk about how happy our dogs are upon our arrival. We talk about how our cats' behaviour differs significantly from our dogs in those same situations. Nature show narrators often talk about how species of male birds 'perform for the females', 'hope to get the females attention', and other such things.

We say things like our cat believes that it's food bowl is empty. There's certainly no good reason to deny saying such a thing. People talk like that all the time, and few if any have qualms about doing so. The results can bring about positive change in that such conversations bring people closer together, develop friendships, etc. Common ground and all. So, it's not a horrible thing - in and of itself. However, talking about language less minds can also result in fostering language games that inhibit the users' ability to acquire understanding of themselves and/or other animals by virtue of false belief formation and/or the subsequent perpetuation each time people talk like that. That seems to be the case, writ large, right now. Anthropomorphism was inevitable. I mean, we had to have already been guilty of attributing human features and/or characteristics to things not human in order to become aware of our having done so. The only way to avoid such a practice is to develop some sort of good idea regarding what the nature of language less thought and belief amounts to. We know it cannot consist of propositional attitude(s).

When we try to parse the cat's belief in propositional terms, we're confusing the contents of our report with the content of what we're reporting upon. unless we draw and maintain the distinction between the cat's belief and our report thereof in terms of their respective elemental constituency. Our report is language use, and as such consists of words. Language less belief does not - cannot - consist of language and/or words! The same critique holds good if we replace "words" with "propositions". So, those are accounting malpractices when inappropriately applied to things incapable of developing an attitude towards some proposition or other.

We can do a great job of talking about language less creatures' belief so long as we go about doing so in the best way we know how. When we say that a cat believes that a mouse is behind a tree, we are not saying that a cat has an attitude towards the proposition "a mouse is behind a tree" such that it takes it to be the case(or true).

What are we saying then, about language less belief? What could it possibly consist of?

What is needed is a bare minimum criterion for what counts as thought and/or belief. This bare minimum would need to be simple enough to include the initial emergence of the most rudimentary thought and belief, rich enough in potential to be able to exhaust the most complex sorts of thinking such as thinking about our own thought and belief as a subject matter in its own right, and each and every thought and/or evolution thereof in the meantime. That seems like a taller order than it is. All we need is an adequate outline that has good bones, like an elemental structure capable of covering all that's important...

We're still in the early stages of properly taking account of meaningful human thought and belief.
Anthropomorphism is much more common than not! Most people do not place much, if any, value upon avoiding such mistakes. It's a fun way talk! All sorts of people attribute thought and belief that only humans are capable of forming, having, and/or holding to non human creatures. I've watched countless 'nature' documentaries about all sorts of different kinds of fauna and flora. I've more recently witnessed writers claim that certain species of crows somehow performed some sort of language less 'Bayesian reasoning'.

If a language less creature is capable of forming meaningful true belief, then meaning and truth are prior to language, and not all belief is equivalent to a propositional attitude.
— creativesoul

Another implicit premise here seems to be that languageless creatures can't have propositional attitudes. To me the question arises...how could we tell ? — Pie

Good eye!

All propositions are existentially dependent upon(emerge via) common language use. They all consist of words. Language less creatures do not have language, do not understand words, and thus cannot understand propositions. Propositions are utterly meaningless to language less creatures. They cannot have an attitude towards some proposition or another such that they believe it to be true, and/or take it to be the case.

Can we, locked in language, help but attributing such 'attitudes' in trying to understand such creatures ?

When it comes to ourselves, we ought not try to stop doing that, at least, whenever it's appropriate to do so. I mean the belief that approach has proven quite useful. S knows that P... is as well.

Generally speaking, if we wish to acquire knowledge of how human thought and belief initially emerges, we must begin with ourselves, and when it comes to describing much of our own thought and belief in terms of propositional attitudes we can do so quite successfully. So, the practice has some very good use, and has led to acquiring knowledge about ourselves and/or the world which can help us to much better situate ourselves and/or one another in the world. However, like many - arguably most - useful practices, this one too has a limited scope of rightful/sensible application. It is only capable of properly accounting for some of our own complex belief, and it's completely incapable of taking account of language less creatures' belief. Most cannot even admit of such belief!



Imagine a white sheet hanging over a wire fence in the middle of an expansive meadow where sheep are commonly found grazing. Someone two acres away from the sheet mistakes it for a sheep. That person believes that the sheet is a sheep. The person does not - cannot - believe that "the sheet is a sheep" is true.

The same type of critique holds good regarding Russell's stopped clock. The person believed that a stopped clock was working. They most certainly did not have any attitude at all towards the proposition "the stopped clock is working" when and while they trusted what a stopped clock said about the time.

Again, this leads to saying that there is no meaning prior to language, that meaning is a language construct, that language is necessary for meaning, and/or that meaning is existentially dependent upon language.

Some language less creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding belief that is meaningful as well as true or false.
— creativesoul

Your view seems reasonable to me, but I prefer to use/understand some of your keywords differently. — Pie

Which is to prefer doing different things with the very same words/marks. There's nothing - in and of itself - wrong with doing that, and I am quite curious to see exactly what you're going to do differently than me.

The philosophers who want to find truth and meaning in full-fledged language are reacting to problems in their context, naturally trying to make sense of claims that a play a role in inferences --- of what they themselves, already at a high level of development, are doing.

Indeed.

They were taking account of their own thought and belief while attempting to sort out the differences between true and false belief/statements/propositions as well as what ought to count as good/adequate enough reason to believe something or another. Any and all philosophical positions are the result of metacognitive endeavors such as these. They knew they were fallible. The general aim was to minimize the likelihood of being mistaken(of forming, having, and/or holding false belief) while increasing the likelihood of better understanding the world and/or themselves . This, in turn, required pinpointing exactly how they could be mistaken to begin with, what sorts of things they could have been mistaken about, as well as in what sorts of ways.

An admirable endeavor, even to this day...

However, when that endeavor results in holding a philosophical position that - when maintained - leads to an outright denial of language less creature's ability to form, have, and/or hold belief, then it's clearly wrong somewhere along the line. Language less creatures are capable of having meaningful experiences(of forming thought and/or belief), it's just not the sort of thought and belief that could be appropriately described and/or characterized as having an attitude towards a proposition such that they hold it as true(believe it).

I don't think philosophers must or even do insist that other understandings/uses of 'meaning' are invalid.

Whether or not they are invalid isn't under consideration. That is determined by how consistent their language use is, as well as whether or not any argument given follows the rules of correct inference.

Language less belief negates/falsifies current conventional understanding. If there is such a thing as meaningful language less thought and/or belief, then current convention is wrong. It has nothing to do with validity(consistent language use that follows the rules of correct inference), and everything to do with truth and/or contradicting what's happened and/or is happening. We already know it's valid, that's how we arrived at the logical consequence that shed light upon the inherently inadequate framework. It's where it leads that is problematic.

Some of them made serious mistakes. I'll grant you that readily. — Pie

All of them have...

...gotten human thought and belief, meaning, and/or truth wrong. Not all positions are wrong in the exact same way. Just to be clear. Some are wrong about the origen/nature of meaning, some are wrong about the origen/nature of truth, others are wrong about human thought and belief. All of them have gotten meaningful human experience wrong as a result.

There are all sorts of underlying problems stemming from overestimating the appropriate usefulness of dichotomous frameworks such as subject/object, subjective/objective, mind/body, internal/external, subject/world, individual/world, self/other, real/imaginary, real/fiction, etc. In addition to that, the very notion of proposition has led us even further astray.

Epistemology(JTB) suffered blows that it has yet to have recovered from(Russell's clock, and Gettier's paper). The failure of recovery is as a result of treating propositions as though they are equivalent to belief to begin with. They are not. Those problems were fostered, were made possible, by virtue of working from an emaciated notion of thought and belief to begin with. They are easily dissolved within an adequate account of meaningful human thought and belief.

Current discourse remains trapped by the sticky residue of those frameworks as well as other accounting malpractices. Postmodern thought works from the basic argument that truth is a property of true claims/propositions, and that propositions are language constructs, therefore truth is a construct of language, for example. It only follows that truth cannot exist prior to language. From that we arrive at saying that there can be no true thought and/or belief prior to language acquisition. If truth is a language construct, then a language less creature would be incapable of forming, having, and/or holding true belief. The problem, of course, is that some can and do and none of the conventional approaches are capable of making much sense of them. So, those who hold that truth is existentially dependent upon language(including but not limited to postmodern thought) must either deny language less true belief or be faced with defending how true belief could exist without truth.

Conventional understanding regarding theories of meaning are also found wanting and/or sorely lacking as a result of not having gotten human thought and belief right to begin with. Current convention has two primary schools of thought when it comes to theories of meaning. Both of them presuppose, are based upon, and/or work from the hidden, undisclosed tenet that meaning is to be found in language and/or linguistic expressions. Again, this leads to saying that there is no meaning prior to language, that meaning is a language construct, that language is necessary for meaning, and/or that meaning is existentially dependent upon language.

Some language less creatures are capable of forming, having, and/or holding belief that is meaningful as well as true or false. It's truth-apt in that they can be true or false. The difficulty is in attempting to set this out in a philosophically respectable manner, despite abandoning many and/or much of the historical frameworks.

Language less true and false belief is easily explained, old problems are dissolved, and doors of understanding previously nailed shut with consistent inadequate language use are thrown open wide when and if we understand how human thought and belief works(how all things become meaningful to creatures capable of attributing meaning).

Meaning and truth emerge as a result of thought and belief formation, and nary a one philosopher has ever gotten meaning and truth both right. All are wrong about meaningful human experience, because it consists entirely of meaningful human thought and/or belief, some of which exist in their entirety prior to language acquisition, and they are true.

If a language less creature is capable of forming meaningful true belief, then meaning and truth are prior to language, and not all belief is equivalent to a propositional attitude.

what is concrete is what has immediate affective impact phenomenologically speaking, what affects us predominately in terms of being a sight, a sound, a smell, a taste, a bodily sensation, regardless of whatever story we might tell about the underlying machinery.
— Janus

Right, this is what I’ve characterized as the concreteness of bodily felt sensation. — Joshs

I think we’re taking about the same thing. What I’m claiming is that, in addition to this bodily sensation there is another aspect of feeling which is not concrete, not bodily and not a sensation

You're clearly not talking about the same thing.

Janus set out a criterion that does not include the 'aspect of feeling' that you've set out.

I'm curious what this other 'aspect of feeling' could possibly be if it's a bodily sensation that is not concrete, not bodily, and not a sensation. Looks like nonsense to me.

The absurdity of the question is readily apparent to anyone and everyone first hearing it.
— creativesoul

I grant that most people, even philosophers, see its practical nullity. But it really seems to be a big part of the tradition that we work from the ghost outward, with only the ghost truly, securely known, leaving all the rest a mere hypothesis, however likely.

So the challenge is to make its absurdity apparent to philosophers... — Pie

It already is. No philosopher believes there is no such thing as an external world. The confusion comes as a result of attempting to take account of our own meaningful experience and failing miserably at doing so, as a direct result of employing linguistic frameworks that are/were themselves inherently incapable of successfully performing that task.

Such questions are absurd upon first hearing them because the answer is so obviously undeniable that it's impossible to take seriously by common language users that have yet to have begun using terms like "external world" according to traditional philosophical accounting practices. Common use comes first, and that's when, where, and how the terms "internal/external" first become meaningful to the community of language users.

With just an inkling of mastery, one can say a number of meaningful things about specific kinds of spatial relationships by learning how to use those words. When we endeavor to use the terms "internal/external" to describe the spatial relationship between an orange's seeds and the fruit stand upon which the orange is being displayed, we may sensibly do so in relation to the orange. We would say that the seeds are internal(within the physical bounds of the orange), and that the stand is external(not within the physical bounds of the orange).

It is when philosophers began attempting to take account of meaningful human experience that things went awry.

All meaningful human experience involving oranges includes oranges and our biological machinery. If we consider what would be left if we remove either, then we realize that what remains is not enough. It takes both biological machinery and oranges in order for an individual to have a meaningful experience involving oranges. Biological machinery is internal. Oranges are external. Meaningful experience involving oranges consists of both, internal and external things.

' Is there an external world? ' The challenge is making the absurdity of this question conspicuous. — Pie

The absurdity of the question is readily apparent to anyone and everyone first hearing it.

It is possible... — Michael

If...

The mind that matters, the mind that figures in reasoning and explanation, is not and cannot be radically private. — Pie

Hear, hear!!!

'Tell me about the world that no one can tell me about. See, it's impossible ! Henceforth idealism...' — Pie

:lol:

Yup.

Insofar as "self" is a binary concept: if there are not any others for the solipsist, then there isn't even a/the/"him" self to talk to. — 180 Proof

One finger cannot point at itself.

Try this for a line of reasoning. Descartes supposed he could doubt everything, and decided that he could not doubt that he was doubting, and hence that the doubter must exist.

Have a think about what it was he was doubting. To doubt is to doubt the truth of some proposition. But a proposition is an item of language. And there are good reasons to think that language must involve other folk - that there can be no private languages.

Hence in order to make use of propositions one must be part of a language community. The very doubting that Descartes made use of seem to already involve other people.

What do you make of that? — Banno

Yup.

What you are doing is taking the constructed idealization we create ( the ‘tree’) , ignoring the fact that it is a combination of actual appearance, recollection and expectation, and then treating the derived idealization (the object we call ‘tree’) as if it were the true and actual basis of the name ‘tree’, and our job as perceiver is merely to accurately represent it as it is in itself.
— Joshs — creativesoul

Yeah, that's weird coming from someone who has been describing how trees become meaningful to complex language users like us, and doing so by setting out conditions that require very long periods of time. I do not even agree with the description that you've given for how we see trees. Toddlers do not have that kind of time. It does not make any sense at all to say that I'm attributing your description to toddlers.

I'm saying trees are detectable by toddler eyes, so they see trees. I mean, they see all sorts of things that are meaningless to them.

The implication that seeing a tree requires a "constructive process" is an interesting line leading to very different places in thought, depending upon whether or not we're talking about 1.)an intentional deliberate consciously chosen process such as what we're doing now, 2.)a total and completely autonomous toddler sized version, or 3.)one of the linguistically informed ones in the middle that bridge the two extremes. The autonomous version comes first, learning how to talk about trees comes next, and learning how to think about our own 'mental ongoings' as subject matters in and of themselves comes last. That's a basic, albeit rough, outline that makes good scientifically and philosophically respectable sense if put to good use.

If we're talking about an intentionally and deliberate constructive process, we must first remember that toddlers cannot possibly conceive of anything so steeped in language as any given one of us can. They cannot join us in conversation here, nor have they been influenced by language use. When it comes to those things we've long since called "trees", each of our individual notions of "tree" is as exactly different from one anothers' as the difference between the respective individual correlations drawn between the term and other things unique to each of us. That's how all things become meaningful to us. Where correlations are shared(where we draw the same ones), we have shared meaning... use of "tree" notwithstanding. Each and every time we've endeavored to use the term, each and every time we've entered into a discussion about using the term, each and every time we've silently pondered the term, we were steeped in the circumstances and/or situations required for adding just a bit more meaning to our terminological tea(pardon the flowery language).

:yum:

Toddlers most certainly do not 'see' the tree like that!

I'm willing to whole-heartedly agree that we see the tree as a tree. Seeing the tree as a tree is to be able to pick it out as a result of knowing it by name. Toddlers cannot do that. Neither can any other creature incapable of naming and descriptive practices.

So, to circle back around to the re-examine the assumption/logical implication that seeing trees requires changing contextual relationships of sense along with a constructive process...

If we are talking about a constructive process like naming and descriptive practices, then the answer is "no", trees do not exist 'for' one-year-old toddlers in the same way they do for us, because the do not have that capability... yet. Trees most certainly exist for toddlers, it's just they must exist in a way that is much different than that way. They definitely see trees. They just do not think about them the way we do, nor can they. The trees have very little to no meaning at all to/for the toddler.

In fact , everything to do with the concept of a spatial object requires a sequential process of construction. We don’t originally directly see objects as solid unities.. — Joshs

I agree. Seeing objects as solid unities requires understanding what sorts of things count as such. That's irrelevant. It's not necessary for a toddler to be able to see a tree as a solid unity in order to watch a butterfly slowly exercising its wings upon one. It need not see the butterfly as a solid unity in order to ever so curiously watch one.

We concoct the idea of a unitary object like ‘tree’ from concatenations of memory, expectations and the meager data that we actually see in front of us. The notion of a tree as this thing in front of me is thus a complex synthesis of what we actually see... — Joshs

Unless you're claiming that we actually see concatenations of memory, expectations and the meager data, you've just contradicted yourself.

...what we remember and what we predict we will see... — Joshs

I cannot do this anymore. The above is nonsense on its face.

Most of the ‘tree’ is filled in this way. And the most important element is that we have to interact with the ‘object’ in order for it to exist for us. Animals deprived of the ability to move and interact with their surroundings do not learn to see objects. When we passively see a thing, we are understanding what it is in terms of how we can interact with it, how it will change in response to our movements. This is the standard model from developmental perceptual psychology. — Joshs

I see no room for the toddler.

the notion of a tree is not the tree. We actually see the tree, not our notion. My notion of trees is not out in my front yard. The Kukui nut tree is though. What we believe about the tree is our notion. The tree is not equivalent to our belief about it. We can be wrong about the tree. The same is true of all that exists in its entirety prior to our picking it out to the exclusion of all else.
— creativesoul

We actually see an idealization or abstraction. Without our ‘notion’ filling in for what is not actually presented to us , in the form of memories and expectations, what we would ‘actually’ see is a disunified flow of perceptual phenomena, not the idealized object we define as a ‘tree’. — Joshs

Ah, there we go! So, is it safe to say that toddlers see "a disunified flow of perceptual phenomena" when they are watching the butterfly on the tree? Or is it possible for a toddler to see a butterfly land close by and then watch it closely as it slowly opens and closes its wings?

What you are doing is taking the constructed idealization we create ( the ‘tree’) , ignoring the fact that it is a combination of actual appearance, recollection and expectation, and then treating the derived idealization (the object we call ‘tree’) as if it were the true and actual basis of the name ‘tree’, and our job as perceiver is merely to accurately represent it as it is in itself. — Joshs

I think there's much overlap between our views, despite the remarkably different frameworks and the horrible misunderstanding you've expressed above regarding what I'm doing when claiming that toddlers can see trees.

No object simply exists for us as what it is outside of changing contextual relationships of sense.

Key words being "for us"... Does that include the toddler in the crib under the tree?
— creativesoul

If the toddler is young enough, they will not yet have attained the level of object permanence. To recognize an object as something which remains when we are no longer looking at it , or when it is covered up , requires a constructive process. — Joshs

I should have asked a better question. I wanted to see you set out the changing contextual relationships of sense that are rightfully and sensibly applied to the toddler. I wanted to see you use that framework. If no object exists for us as what it is outside of changing contextual relationships of sense, then either a toddler has what it takes, and objects exist for them, or they do not, and no object does.

Does the tree exist for the toddler in the same way it does for us(as what it is within changing contextual relationships of sense)?

it is on you to show that 'human experience' is not such a grouping (like 'cell') so as to support your claim that it's contents (both internal and external) is a fact of the world and not a fact of our language use. — Isaac

It's always peculiar to me when one handwaves away and downright neglects several different arguments, examples, and lines of reasoning while gratuitously asserting the opposite only to later act as if no justification has been given...

Perhaps you may want to re-read the exchange I had with Janus.

The notion of a tree as this thing in front of me is thus a complex synthesis of what we actually see , — Joshs

Well sure, but the notion of a tree is not the tree. We actually see the tree, not our notion. My notion of trees is not out in my front yard. The Kukui nut tree is though. What we believe about the tree is our notion. The tree is not equivalent to our belief about it. We can be wrong about the tree. The same is true of all that exists in its entirety prior to our picking it out to the exclusion of all else.

The tree is a group of cells, the cell is a group of organelles, the organelles are groups of molecules, the molecules are groups of atoms...

And all such groups are in constant flux, molecules from one group entering and leaving, becoming part of, and then excreted from...

And all such groups change over time such that their actual constituent parts are never the same... — Isaac

I've little to no issue with any of the above. The question is whether or not those 'actual' parts existed prior to their being named. However, what's below does not follow from what's above...

There's not a thing in the world which is not brought into being, from the heterogeneous soup of hidden states, by our conceptualizing, and constant reconstruction of it.

So much for discovery huh?

If I group some cows into 'herd1' the cows still existed prior to my naming them 'herd1' but whether daisy the cow was in or out of herd1 did not pre-exist my naming. — Isaac

The grouping did not exist in its entirety prior to your 'christening'. I'm talking about things that did. You're talking about things that did not. That's the difference.
— creativesoul

All things we name are such groupings. — Isaac

Now you're contradicting yourself.

If I group some cows into 'herd1' the cows still existed prior to my naming them 'herd1' but whether daisy the cow was in or out of herd1 did not pre-exist my naming. I declared it to be the case by grouping the herd that way. — Isaac

Exactly.

The grouping did not exist in its entirety prior to your 'christening'. I'm talking about things that did. You're talking about things that did not. That's the difference.

Is there an external material world? (....) Such questions are the bane of philosophy. They are consequences of placing (...) the wrong kind of value upon consistent language use.
— creativesoul

What would the right kind of value look like? — Mww

Less like truth, more like meaning.

Confidence and/or certainty that is grounded upon consistent terminological use alone can and should be tempered according to what we already know. A model, story, narrative, worldview, report. accounting practice, and/or philosophical position can be perfectly sensible, consistent, understood, commensurate with current convention and yet still be... dead wrong! Absurdly so even. Scopes. Thus, consistent language use alone is insufficient evidence to conclude that what's being said is true, and thus does not justify any subsequent truth claims about the story, narrative, worldview, report, accounting practice, and/or philosophical worldview under consideration.

Apply this to any philosophical position resting its laurels upon logical possibility, coherence, and/or consistent language use alone. This is nothing new. Falsification, verification, and justification(some notions anyway) are all tempered accordingly. Not to mention Kant's own critique on 'pure reason'. :wink:

l

The idea that all we have access to is our perception of the tree, and not the tree("Stove's Gem", it is often called) pervades academia to this day.
— creativesoul

It's strange.

For one thing, we could just grant that we don't know things as they are in themselves, adding also that we don't know what the hell it's supposed to mean to know something as it is itself. We understand (well enough) the idea of a warranted statement or a true statement. But knowledge of something as it is independent of knowledge is like the taste of ketchup without the flavor, or music that is 'better than it sounds.' What's the turn on ? The mirage of surprisingly easy eternal 'knowledge'?


Another thing, whether something is 'real' or an 'illusion' or 'true' is a fundamentally social issue. So there's something weird in reasoning about whether or not others exist in the first place. — Pie

:up:

The consideration I've been trying to coax some kind of agreement upon is that humans had experiences long before the term "experience" was coined.
— creativesoul

Indeed. — Isaac

Human experience existed in its entirety prior to the term "experience". That is a true claim with considerable consequential power. It only follows that what we say about human experience could be mistaken. This becomes even more obvious when we acknowledge that many of the different senses of the term are mutually exclusive and/or in some clear conflict with one another. They cannot all be accurate depictions and/or characterizations of what existed in its entirety prior to them. They are all attemting to take account of something that emerged, evolved, and existed in its entirety long before our awareness of it, and hence long before not only the term, but common language as we know it.

So, when competing notions of human experience are under consideration, at least one is mistaken. Since the notions can be mistaken, it cannot be the case that what constitutes human experience is up to us. It also cannot be the case that whether or not human experience consists of both internal and external things depends upon the definition of "experience" being used. Nor is it the case that the constitution of human experience just a matter of definition alone and nothing else.

It's a matter of what existed in its entirety prior to, and thus regardless of, all accounting practices thereof thereafter.

Any notion of human experience worthy of assent will consist of the simplest terms possible so as to be able to adequately explain emergence at the earliest stages possible, prior to language use, during initial acquisition, as well as throughout the rest of the individual's life. It needs to be universal in the sense of consisting of basic statements that are true of all individuals regardless of subjective particulars because they pick out the basic elemental constituents at the core of all individual meaningful experience.

But you additionally claimed that those experiences constituted both internal and external features.

I did and have offered argument and reasoning for those claims that has been given neither just due nor adequate attention. As just argued above, whether or not human experience consists of both internal and external things is not a matter of definition and nothing more.

The counter was that what experiences constitute depends on the definition being used.

It would follow that the basic elemental constitution of all human experience prior to the term somehow depended upon that which did not even exist at the time.

Not very convincing from my vantage point.

If I see a tree, I am not passively observing hat appears to me, I am deconstructing it. And what I am deconstructing is not an object , — Joshs

What appears to you is not a tree, or trees are not objects, or you're not seeing what appeared to you?

Colorful regardless of exactly what you mean. If I forego intense criticism and grant poetic license...

That makes total sense if we're talking about someone so steeped in such language use that they've come to think like that. It makes no sense whatsoever however if we're talking about a young child whose crib is in the shade under the tree. Whatever that child is doing, whatever is going on in that young mind, if that child is thinking about the tree, then we must be able to take proper account of that child's thought.

It's not doing what you're doing.

...it is a way of relating to something,- me that way of relating never repeats itself identically from context to context.

Okay.

When I use a word in front of someone else, their response establishes a fresh sense of meaning of that word. ‘Tree’ has an infinity of senses that depend exquisitely on the context of a shared situation. In a situation of usage of the word ‘tree’ I am not creating a new physical object , I am enacting a new pattern of relationship with it.

Colorful.

No object simply exists for us as what it is outside of changing contextual relationships of sense.

Key words being "for us"... Does that include the toddler in the crib under the tree?

Someone once told me long ago, a decade maybe, that what I wrote was "too tricky".

:razz:

Words mean whatever a community takes them to mean, that's the gist. — Pie

I agree.

When a community uses words in certain ways, it can be detrimental to the community knowledge base. It can lead to big problems.

Word use can be both sensible(in the way we're talking about here) and dead wrong.

This is particularly the case when discussing that which exists in its entirety prior to our awareness of it.

Are you familiar with the later Wittgenstein? He argues that words do not refer to already existing objects. Strictly speaking , they do not refer at all. They enact relationships by altering prior relationships. If I see a tree, I am not passively observing hat appears to me, I am deconstructing it. And what I am deconstructing is not an object , it is a way of relating to something,- me that way of relating never repeats itself identically from
context to context. When I use a word in front of someone else, their response establishes a fresh sense of meaning of that word. ‘Tree’ has an infinity of senses that depend exquisitely on the context of a shared situation. In a situation of usage of the word ‘tree’ I am not creating a new physical object , I am enacting a new pattern of relationship with it. No object simply exists for us as what it is outside of changing contextual relationships of sense. — Joshs

While I do appreciate some of the changes Witt helped to get going, as well as some of his simple approaches, overall I'm not all that impressed. After having skimmed through "Cambridge Letters", which I took to be correctly translated copies of the original correspondence between him and others, one of whom was Bertrand Russell, my opinion of Witt changed remarkably. It was the conversations with Bertrand Russell that interested me most. All that being said...

What you say above reminds me of Heiddegger, Derrida, Saussure, or something along those lines, much moreso than anything I've taken away from my limited readings of Witt. My personal library includes probably four or five posthumous books, still unread. I've read four to five different publications including Tractacus, Remarks on Color, Brown Book, Blue Book, On Certainty, Philosophical Investigations(about half anyway) and others that were more about Witt rather than writings of Witt.

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Regarding the claims made above by you...

A bit of that stuff - as written - is false on it's face. However...

Some of it looks to speak towards how worldviews evolve as a result of how meaning does.<-----That part is interesting... to me.

...the name refers to a concept... — Metaphysician Undercover

Could be an interesting endeavor. Earlier you wrote the following...

A "cell" as commonly defined can be either a complete living organism, or a part of a living organism. How is it, that in some cases an entire living organism is "picked out" as a cell, and in other cases, a part of a living organism is picked out, and called by the same name.

The same way two different people may share the same name.

One is an entire living organism, the other is not, yet they are both said to be the same independent thing, a cell.

They are both called by the same name. They are not said to be the same thing. You've already said as much directly above. One is an entire living organism, and the other is but a part thereof. Sometimes "cell" is used to pick out an entire organism, sometimes it is used to pick out parts of an organism.

Obviously, the term "cell"... ...is used to pick out two completely different types of things, one being a whole living organism, the other being a part of a living organism.

Exactly.

What we pick out with "cell" is up to us.
— creativesoul

Right. That's the point Janus and I have been trying to communicate.

What 'experience' picks out depends on how one uses the word. Could be internal, external, or both.

Just like the word 'cell' could pick out all the phagocytised proteins in the cell vacuole, some or them, of none of them. It all depends how we use the word. — Isaac

There's never been disagreement regarding that much. It comes as a surprise to know that you thought I did not agree with that much.

What made no sense was to deny the existence of what was being picked out before being picked out. 14th Century humans had glial cells, because glial cells existed before the 1800's, despite their not having yet been picked out by name. To deny that they did, because the term had not been coined, is to confuse our language use with what is being picked out. Glial cells are biological structures picked out by the term "glial cells". Glial cells do not consist of words. "Glial cells" does.

The consideration I've been trying to coax some kind of agreement upon is that humans had experiences long before the term "experience" was coined.

Is there an external material world?

If by "external" we mean not within the physical bounds of our skin, and by "material" we mean detectable stuff, then all we're asking is whether or not any detectable stuff not within the bounds of our skin exists.

Such questions are the bane of philosophy.
— creativesoul

Here's my version. At some point in the philosophical tradition (Locke or Kant or implicitly in Democritus even), it made sense to think of human experience as f(X)f(X) where XX is reality in the nude or raw or completely apart from us and ff is the universal structure or mediation of human cognition. The important bits of this insane but charming theory are that XX is impossible to access directly and that f(X)f(X) is private experience (plausible initially because we each have our own sense organs and brain, according to our sense organs anyway, which are in that sense their own product ? And the brain is the dream of the brain is the dream of the brain ? But we must carry on...). — Pie

The quote function did not transfer the symbols correctly...

I am in agreement. The framework treats human thought and belief(human experience) as though they(it) are(is) completely independent and/or separate from the world. They(It) are(is) not. You've also noted how the framework treats human experience as private. It is not, and cannot be given what we now know about how language effects/affects human thought and belief. The idea that all we have access to is our perception of the tree, and not the tree("Stove's Gem", it is often called) pervades academia to this day.

About three years ago, I received a phone call from my better half's youngest child who as an undergrad took Introduction To Philosophy as a means to meet his curriculum humanity course standards. Stove's Gem was the beginning of course! So, because he knew how much philosophy I've studied and done in my spare time, he calls me up and says something like "Hey, uncle <snip my name>, can you help me to understand what in the hell this is supposed to mean?" Then, he goes on to read the typical lines that lead to saying the same stuff we're talking about in this exchange. A few phone calls and he maintained his perfect grade history. Very bright, practical, driven, and considerate young man. Great kid! I digress...

Dennett's paper "Quining Qualia" is the most convincing piece of writing I've been fortunate enough to have read with regard to the purportedly private parts of human experience. His approach is admirable as well as his attitude, even towards people whose approaches and attitudes are anything but.

What we pick out with "cell" is up to us. Whether or not what we're picking out existed in its entirety prior to being picked out is not. If those things mentioned are now considered parts of cells, and they are parts of all cells, then I see no reason to deny that 14th Century humans cells included those things.

"14th century humans had cells."

That's my answer.
— creativesoul

Good. Now what about the phagocytised or excreted proteins in the cell vacuole. Were they part of what makes up these 14th C cells or not? — Isaac

I've no clear idea whether or not those terms pick out things that existed in their entirety prior to being picked out. If so, then those things were part of what made up 14th Century human cells. If not, then they were not.

If what is being picked out by the name exists in its entirety prior to being picked out then it does not matter one bit if those different uses conflict with one another. My point remains.

Oh, for fuck's sake...

The tree in my yard is not a name. The term "tree" is. The term "tree" is used to pick out trees. The same holds for cells and "cells"...

I think the point is that at that time, the word "cells" was not in use, nor was the concept which the word refers to. So at that time it is impossible that human beings had "cells" because there was no such thing as cells. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's what I took him to be saying.

"Cell" is a term used to pick out specific biological machinery. That machinery does not need to be picked out in order to exist. The names pick out the machinery. Humans in the 14th century had all the machinery that we later picked out to the exclusion of all else by virtue of using the term "cell" as a means for doing so. The machinery is the cell. The name is not the cell. Humans had the machinery without having the words. Thus, 14th century humans had cells despite not having "cells".

Simply put, understanding that we use the term "tree" to pick out the thing in my front yard suffices
— creativesoul

Naming things with words is more than just sticking a symbol in front of a sign. Words are not just tools that we use to refer to an independently existing universe... — Joshs

As if this somehow applies to what I've been putting forth?

...they are ways that the world we interact with modifies our engagement with it.

Sure. We're not interacting with things contained within the physical boundaries of our skin. The tree in my yard is one such thing. Which is the point. The tree is detectable and not within my skin(material and external).

Using a word changes us at the same time that it changes something in our environment.

We are in our environment. Word use changes us. How exactly does using the word "tree" as a means to pick out the thing in my front yard change the thing in my front yard?

Perhaps you have an example of a situation when language use changes something in our environment. I mean, I agree with that. At least when I take it at face value. Word use helps to create many different parts of our environment.

Words only exist in their use , and their use reveals new aspects of things.

I'm struggling to see the relevance.