:smile:

"Is truth a property of sentences (which are linguistic entities in some language or other), or is truth a property of propositions (nonlinguistic, abstract and timeless entities)? — Pie

Is that the only two options?

It adds the ability to explain how some meaning is not existentially dependent upon language use; how language is created; how naming and descriptive practices work; how rigid designators work; how reference works; how new meaning is formed; how meaningful language use transcends the individual speaker; how users of different languages can say much the same thing about the same things using remarkably different syntax and semantic structures. It's how meaningful language use(marks) becomes utterly meaningless and uninterpretable when all the users have long since perished; how the Rosetta stone became a translation device as a result of having enough shared meaning with at least one language still used; how all meaningful things become so; how symbolism works; etc.
— creativesoul
:up:
All great issues. — Pie

Just the tip of the iceberg.

I wonder to what degree exactly such an investigation can avoid attributing postulated linguistic beliefs — Pie

Properly implementing the approach requires drawing and maintaining the distinction between language less thought and belief and thought and belief that includes language use. That also serves as the basis for calling out anthropomorphism. As mentioned heretofore, it involves setting out thought and belief in terms of their elemental constituency and existential dependency.

If such modelling is a part of psychology currently, perhaps there are more recent philosophers who have integrated this fact into their thinking? — Pie

Perhaps.

You say you are right where all philosophers up till now are wrong...on an important issue. That's a strong claim, for which a strong case ought to be made. — Pie

Indeed! Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof/justification/warrant. First things first though.

I've already offered a simple easy to understand distilled version of what convention has been wrong about. Convention has it that both truth and meaning are existentially dependent upon language.<-------That's true, and the basics.

If truth and meaning are existentially dependent upon language, then language less creatures either cannot form thought and belief or language less thought and belief is neither meaningful nor truth apt(capable of being and/or becoming true or false).

There are also all the problems surrounding language use itself and how it emerges. Banno referred to Davidson's paper on malapropisms and the clear refutation of conventional understanding that they posed at the time of the paper. There's a thread about that paper on this site. I think Banno linked it. It's well worth reading!!

A child that has just been burned as a result of touching fire forms the belief that touching fire caused the pain solely by virtue of drawing a correlation between what they did(touch the fire) and the pain that ensued. We can know this much as a result of their absolute refusal to touch it again.
— creativesoul
What does this proposed drawing of a correlation add to the situation? — Pie

Drawing correlations between different things is a basic outline that adds elegance and explanatory power where it's been found lacking(in our accounting practices of meaningful human experience as well as human thought and belief). It adds a means for arriving at a scientifically and philosophically respectable position when it comes to taking account of the origen and evolution of meaningful experience. The scope of rightful application is as broad as it can be. It applies to everything ever thought, believed, spoken, expressed, and/or otherwise uttered. Well over a decade ago, when I first began delving into this, the scope was daunting. It's much less so now that certain pieces have fallen into place, so to speak.

It adds a bridge for explaining how meaningful thought and belief first emerge and subsequently evolve into our own metacognitive endeavors via language creation and use. It adds the ability to explain how some meaning is not existentially dependent upon language use; how language is created; how naming and descriptive practices work; how rigid designators work; how reference works; how new meaning is formed; how meaningful language use transcends the individual speaker; how users of different languages can say much the same thing about the same things using remarkably different syntax and semantic structures. It's how meaningful language use(marks) becomes utterly meaningless and uninterpretable when all the users have long since perished; how the Rosetta stone became a translation device as a result of having enough shared meaning with at least one language still used; how all meaningful things become so; how symbolism works; etc.

What kind of experience(s) does a bat have? We don't know, but we might be able to take a guess, a more or less educated guess, no? Don't we imagine a chiropterologist might have a better idea than we do? — Janus

I would hope such a person would have knowledge about bats that we do not. Seems reasonable to say that that knowledge could be very useful for acquiring knowledge about a bat's experience in the same way that a neuroscientist would have knowledge that is useful to taking account of our own experience.

However, I see no reason to believe that bat experts have knowledge about how thought and belief emerged, simply because they are bat experts. Although they could be very knowledgable when it comes to what sorts of things a bat is capable of drawing correlations between, because that is largely determined by the biological machinery of bats.

So far I think you've only told us what the objects in question are not.

I've said nothing at all about objects.

Perfect example of anthropomorphism.
— creativesoul

Which was the point, sir. — Pie

Given the medium of communication is bereft of all but word use and my tendency to believe I'm talking to an honest person who's seriously interested in the topic at hand, I'm sure you'll understand how the sarcasm went unnoticed.

I'm looking for an alternative to a mathematical model or modeling via linguistic beliefs. So far I think you've only told us what the objects in question are not.

Where are you looking? I suggest a very careful re-read of this conversation. What you claim to be looking for has long since been presented

Does an ameoba have its reasons ? — Pie

Perfect example of anthropomorphism.

Another approach: it's we who are making sense of the cat... — Pie

Indeed. There is no problem at all talking in terms of "the cat believes" as a means to make sense of the cat so long as we do not claim that the cat's beliefs are propositional in content. Our report is.

It seems pointless to guess at what-it's-really-like-for-a-crow. — Pie

I take serious issue with the very notion of what-it's-like regardless of the candidate under consideration. It's not like anything at all to be me. What sense does it make to expect there to be something it is like to be a bat(or a crow)? It's a flawed approach with no clear target. Bottles and flies.

We can arrive at a scientifically and philosophically respectable position when it comes to what our own thought and belief consists of as well as what it is existentially dependent upon, and should that notion be amenable to evolutionary terms as well as being able to bridge language less belief with language use, then we ought have a much better idea of the thought, belief, and/or consciousness of other creatures.

For instance, how does one detect/define consciousness ? — Pie

The notion is muddled, as you well know. How one 'detects' consciousness is a matter of what they're looking for to begin with, or at least, one goes about detecting consciousness by looking for whatever they think and/or believe it is, according to the language games they've played involving the term. I am of the well-considered opinion that consciousness amounts to meaningful experience and as such it is the sort of thing that existed long before we began talking about it. Which is to say that it is the sort of thing that we can be wrong about.

If one rejects the idea of a mysterious X that makes the difference between an arbitrarily convincing P-Zombie and a 'Real Boy,' then we must have some threshold of recognition. In ordinary life, it'd be something like responsiveness (we could talk the details endlessly, but we wouldn't be worried about P-Zombies.)

Biological machinery is not mysterious. I'm not worried about P-Zombies anyway.

So how do you determine or grab a nonlinguistic belief ? Currently I can imagine attributing linguistic belief or a mathematical model.

I prefer to use the term language less. I've found that the "non-linguistic" description fails to be able properly account for the content of a language less creature's belief in terms of elemental constituency and existential dependency.

Are you asking me how I've arrived at the bare minimum criterion(elemental outline) for what counts as a language less belief that I have?

If belief is internal and external, it'd be hard to grab it, I'd think...

It's postulated. Belief as propositional attitude was postulated as well. Turns out that language less belief falsifies it. Not all belief are equivalent to propositional attitudes. I go even farther and argue that some complex human belief is not! I've already touched upon that with Russell's clock and the sheet over the wire fencing.

What I'm setting out is very easy to understand.

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

I'd say no, but we, who do infer, might explain them in inferential terms. We could also mathematically model the situation, I suppose. Why not ? But what else is there ? ESP ? A baby whisperer, if that made sense ? Perhaps I'm wrong, but I fear you are pointing at something ineffable. — Pie

You're definitely wrong about that!

A child that has just been burned as a result of touching fire forms the belief that touching fire caused the pain solely by virtue of drawing a correlation between what they did(touch the fire) and the pain that ensued. We can know this much as a result of their absolute refusal to touch it again.

There's no language necessary for the child's belief. Our knowledge thereof, our accounting practices, well... those most certainly need language. But the child has none. The child cannot have an attitude or disposition towards a proposition such as "touching fire causes pain", but they can and do learn that touching fire causes pain.

I'm not rejecting the practices that I'm criticizing. Rather, I'm simply pointing out the scope of rightful application.

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.
— creativesoul

What's your operational definition of this thinking ? If not a beetle in a box, then presumably there's something ? I don't think you mean dispositions. You seem to mean something 'inside.' Brainstates ? — Pie

No. Human thought and belief is not the sort of thing that has a precise spatiotemporal location. It's not in the skull. It's not outside the skull. It consists of internal and external things, and thus it is neither one nor the other... it's both.

Not sure what "operational definition of this thinking" is asking for.

Correlations drawn between different things. <------that's what all human thought and belief amounts to.

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: