I smell a Biden pardon, and suspect it will be framed as a means to move forward and past these issues that have divided our nation. Framing it all as a means to bring the nation closer together, and possibly avoid the civil unrest brewing amongst armed civilians who've been convinced to be angry at all the wrong people for a very long time.

I could be wrong about the pardon.

How could a once-used convention serve as a justification?
— Banno

Justification? For what? (I think I missed a convo somewhere). — StreetlightX

I could be wrong, but I'm thinking that that comment related to Davidson'a suggestion regarding the need for dropping appeals to convention as a means to illuminate how we communicate. If one time use counts, there would be no need to drop such appeals. For we could appeal to convention each and every time if a one-time use counted.

Malapropism would not be problematic for such a definition of "convention". It would be an ad hoc correction though, and basically be contrary to convention at the time...

Wouldn't it?

What the speaker knows must correspond to something the interpreter knows if the speaker is to be understood, since if the speaker is understood he has been interpreted as he intended to be interpreted...

When language use is already being practiced, the above is a fine thing to say...

However, with the creation of convention and hence, the very beginnings/origen of language use, as well as all successful communication involving language thereafter...

The speaker and the listener need only draw correlations between the same(or similar enough) things; one of which are the actual expressions of the speaker, and another would be <roughly> what the speaker aimed to do and/or achieve by virtue of expression.

That honors looking to use to 'find' meaning...

No. What we've learned is that Trump is getting away with doing everything in his power to stop any and all investigations into him. What I hope is that he loses, because then he will no longer have that power...

I've just noticed something about Davidson's notion of first meaning.

The concept applies to words and sentences as uttered by a particular speaker on a particular occasion. But if the occasion, the speaker, and the audience are ‘normal’ or ‘standard’ (in a sense not to be further explained here), then the first meaning of an utterance will be what should be found by consulting a dictionary based on actual usage (such as Webster’s Third). Roughly speaking, first meaning comes first in the order of interpretation...

[snip]

...Because a speaker necessarily intends first meaning to be grasped by his audience, and it is grasped if communication succeeds, we lose nothing in the investigation of first meaning if we concentrate on the knowledge or ability a hearer must have if he is to interpret a speaker. What the speaker knows must correspond to something the interpreter knows if the speaker is to be understood, since if the speaker is understood he has been interpreted as he intended to be interpreted...


[snip]


...Nothing said so far limits first meaning to language; what has been characterised is (roughly) Grice’s non-natural meaning, which applies to any sign or signal with an intended interpretation. What should be added if we want to restrict first meaning to linguistic meaning?

The first part of the first sentence in the last paragraph above ends with a semi-colon and amounts to an obvious falsehood. This is more readily understood when we look at the first paragraph above. That paragraph sets out a clear case of language use replete with words, sentences, speaker intentions, audience interpretations, a standard bearer(convention), along with all that dictionaries(the standard bearer) themselves require. Clearly, that entire example describes a situation that cannot happen, be realized, be instantiated, and/or otherwise take place(etc.) unless language use has long since been.

It also sets up the following question...

What should be added if we want to restrict first meaning to linguistic meaning?

This question only makes sense if first meaning has not already been limited to language by Davidson himself. But it has.

While malapropisms may question the conventional understanding of what counts as a language as set out by the three principles, and constitute ground for rejecting the third outright, it seems that novel first time successful communication and the convention that results from repetition is ground for rejecting all three as first meanings, although the notion of prior theory remains undisturbed.

I think it(the single novel use) speaks to how convention gets started. The three principles in question seem inadequate for that task as well as malapropisms.

What counts as "convention" could be altered ad hoc, I suppose, and doing so may save the standard description of linguistic competence under consideration(by definitional fiat). But as it pertains to what successful communication(interpretation) requires, the success of the single novel use shows us that rigid strict rules are necessary but need not be followed. In the case of malapropisms, convention is necessary as a base for what Davidson calls a prior theory only to be modified at the time of utterance.

Edited to strike out something that I've realized isn't quite right. I realize that it results in difficulty of translating the rest, but hopefully you understand. I meant just malapropisms, and not single novel use, per se. Those, I think are a much different animal then malapropisms.

I think that perhaps the more important take away is the single(novel) use aspect.

So better to not point out that there are white victims too? Is even mentioning that some kind of dog whistle? — ssu

I would not say that. If the context is police brutality or abuse of power, it would seem appropriate. If the context is the disproportion, it would not.

Well that's too bad because if you're trying to effect change it might come in handy to show those largely (but not entirely) white suburbanites that police violence actually effects people like them. — BitconnectCarlos

Oh, many know and thus also realize that pointing to white ones as a means to divert from black ones is rather beside the point.

Police brutality does not apply to just blacks. Don't think anyone who's the least bit knowledgable on the subject thinks that it does. There's overlap though, and disproportion...

Pointing out examples of white victims misses(or devalues) the point in much the same way that "All lives matter" does...

Convention.

Typing "ball pin hammer" into google translates correctly...

Right. I figure in the end you've(or he's) done me a favor.

All comments are subject to moderation, including deletion, and the system does not allow for automatic notification. I don't know of any other way your comments would have been lost. — Baden

:razz:

That's what I figure happens when mine disappear. Usually when I've let my emotions get the best of me.

You totally missed the point. Using "five red apples" to acquire five red apples shows that the user knows the correct use/meaning of "five red apples".

Are you making the french press or what?
— creativesoul

Turkish. — Banno

You made a Turkish press?

Updating the passing theory.

I'm enjoying this thread, but am a bit shy to respond because I'm not very familiar with the philosophy of language. — Dawnstorm

Seem to be doing just fine to me. I am certainly one who is not familiar with it, at least not a conventional understanding...

:wink:

So, you'll always be adjusting the passing theory with me.

Is it more that one cannot rely solely on convention? — Banno

I'd say so.

It is only the federal government than can relieve the injuries. Don't kid yourself. They have not. That's the point.

Sure. We're now both drawing correlations between the same things, after a little effort on my part to clarify which two statements I was referring to with my word use.

:wink:

Communication by speech does not require shared meaning. Communicating by speech is just doing things with words. Meaning only enters into it when we become self-conscious of what it is we are doing. — Banno

I did spend some time wondering why "That's not well expressed, but it'll do while I get some more coffee" was a point of contention... — Banno

That was not well expressed by me. I meant in the paragraph at the top of this post.

And I want to further examine the relation between this and Godel's incompleteness. — Banno

I found that an apt analogy. The continual need for ad hoc corrections based upon new information not yet covered by strict conventional sets of rules. That's the problem in a nutshell I think...

To expect something as fluid as natural/common language to be limited to such a fixed set of conventional rules is to neglect to consider the fluidity itself. It is to mistake our account of how language works with how language works. As always, communication and language use existed in it's entirety prior to our account of it. As such, we can get it wrong. This paper shows that we have in some important respects...

It appears that Wittgenstein thought that it isn't necessary to know the meaning of a word in order to use it correctly hence, meaning is use for him. — TheMadFool

Or perhaps that using it correctly shows that one knows what it means.

When someone goes to a store and asks for five red apples, receives five red apples, and goes on their way, it seems that that person knows how to use the words. Ask such a person what the meaning of "five red apples" is, and they may or may not know how to answer.

Are you making the french press or what?

:wink:

Not sure if you wanted to continue the recent bit, or revise those two contentious claims. I'd like to try to keep this relevant to the topic as well, so I appreciate your efforts towards that thus far. My turn to get coffee...

:point:

...pledging to increase access to capital in Black communities by nearly $500 billion...

Sometime soon... perhaps in the next week or two...

Wonder who - exactly - will be granted such access. Is "My pillow" building a factory there?

Good to see the GOP spending their time upon what's most important right now...

Nevermind eliminating and/or at least easing all of the economic, emotional, and physical injury to everyday Americans as a result of the pandemic, which was not at all a result of anything that the average citizen has done, but is most certainly the result of government.

Communication by speech requires shared meaning.
— creativesoul

A casual phrase, into which I might be reading too much, but I think this puts the cart before the horse, and is perhaps at the core of the difference between our approaches. — Banno

It very well may be. Our approaches and positions seem to me at least to be very much alike. Given I've adopted a number of your approaches to certain subject matters, I'm probably more like you than you are like me.

:wink:

There's a bunch of posters - Harry Hindu, @TheMadFool, @Olivier5 for starters - who take the view, contra Wittgenstein and most of philosophy of language since - that meaning is made inside one's head and then transported to another head by putting it into words. That meaning precedes communication.

This leads to the reification of meaning, and all sorts of odd attitudes.

Isn't it rather that we do things with words - things that are embedded in our everyday comings and goings?

The notion of meaning is added, post hoc, as a lie-to-children that wrongly explains what we did - "Oh, I meant the other plate", and so on. — Banno

We're in complete agreement here aside from one notable exception. I agree that meaning can precede communication. Not always though. And perhaps most importantly, not for any of the reasons many folk hereabout offer. Meaning is not made inside one's head, not by any stretch.

A simple example...

The meaning of "tree" includes a tree. Trees are not inside of our head, nor are words.

Communication by speech does not require shared meaning. Communicating by speech is just doing things with words. Meaning only enters into it when we become self-conscious of what it is we are doing.

That's not well expressed, but it'll do while I get some more coffee. — Banno

The first and last statement are points of contention. The second one isn't a problem.

That all depends upon you. You are the only one that can decide that much. Not me.

Personally, given my meticulous nature and fondness for complex systems and methodology(I'm an artist, inventor, engineer, manufacturer, etc.) I find that it does me a whole lot of good, on a personal level, and on a public level.

On a pragmatic level, understanding this paper's underlying subject matter(meaning), is crucial to understanding some of the everyday events that I find myself in. Since I've been doing philosophy(and I'm fond of the analytical approach, but not at all devoted so to speak I do not place logic itself upon a pedestal) I've been able to effectively communicate with(and actually understand) a much wider variety of people than before. Common ground seems to be much easier to find when we understand thought, belief, meaning, and truth and how they work and/or operate in our lives.

Yes. Again, you've somehow chosen something out of the paper that I've already been carefully considered/studying. It's like you're reading my mind.

Contrary to the impression I may have left earlier, it seems that Davidson is largely in agreement with what I wrote earlier as it pertains to the referential aspects of "Smith's murderer". I think that that post set out that "firm sense" of the difference between what words mean and what a speaker means, but there still remains important differences between he and I, for it did so in a way that does not seem entirely agreeable to Davidson.

At least some(perhaps the bulk) of the disagreement involved the conclusion about saying something true by using a false statement. I found that that statement was not false, for all the reasons set out heretofore, and it seems that you've since shown that the T sentence is amenable to that account as well.

And yes...

The third principle is what Davidson is finding to be wanting when it comes to malapropisms. I would agree, mainly because of the "learned in advance" part. Those interpretations, that shared meaning, happens at the time.

I'm suggesting that that failure to understand the very basics of meaning may constitute the entirety of the problem(s). Perhaps?

...the assumption that communication by speech requires that speaker and interpreter have learned or somehow acquired a common method or theory of interpretation—as being able to operate on the basis of shared conventions, rules, or regularities.

As Davidson notes, this assumption is wrong. There is no theory or method that "fills the bill" according to Davidson. But, what if the problem is not so much that no method or theory of interpretation fills the bill, but rather that we expect it to?

Communication by speech requires shared meaning. I do not think that shared meaning requires any separate and distinct method/theory of interpretation. Successful interpretation is equivalent to shared meaning, isn't it?

Could this just be a case of unnecessarily multiplying entities?

If two people draw correlations between the same things, say "Smith's murderer" and a particular individual, then they have a common method between them which does both, attributes meaning and succeeds in communication(results in shared meaning).

can a singular, novel use, establish a convention?
— StreetlightX
Again, it could only do so were it a first use that came to be repeated in a community. — Banno

I think that this is key in actually understanding the issues that malapropism raise for the three principles in question. They cannot account for this, can they?

Ah.. you went back to the earlier part, and I moved on. We can do that. I just do not want to be an impediment to progress. So far as that answer goes...

Good. I have been thinking something along those lines since that longer post. In doing so, I had already arrived at believing that the T sentence may not be in as much peril as I had thought at the time I wrote that. "Good" because I am quite fond of it, and happy to know that it's use is consistent and/or amenable with my own position.

I meant as a show of support for the movement itself. I doubt anyone would take offense for that.

Davidson wrote:

Because a speaker necessarily intends first meaning to be grasped by his audience, and it is grasped if communication succeeds, we lose nothing in the investigation of first meaning if we concentrate on the knowledge or ability a hearer must have if he is to interpret a speaker. What the speaker knows must correspond to something the interpreter knows if the speaker is to be understood, since if the speaker is understood he has been interpreted as he intended to be interpreted. The abilities of the speaker that go beyond what is required of an interpreter—invention and motor control—do not concern me here. Nothing said so far limits first meaning to language; what has been characterised is (roughly) Grice’s non-natural meaning, which applies to any sign or signal with an intended interpretation. What should be added if we want to restrict first meaning to linguistic meaning? The usual answer would, I think, be that in the case of language the hearer shares a complex system or theory with the speaker, a system which makes possible the articulation of logical relations between utterances, and explains the ability to interpret novel utterances in an organized way.

This answer has been suggested, in one form or another, by many philosophers and linguists, and I assume it must in some sense be right. The difficulty lies in getting clear about what this sense is. The particular difficulty with which I am concerned in this paper (for there are plenty of others) can be brought out by stating three plausible principles concerning first meaning in language: we may label them by saying they require that first meaning be systematic, shared, and prepared.

(1) First meaning is systematic. A competent speaker or interpreter is able to interpret utterances, his own or those of others, on the basis of the semantic properties of the parts, or words, in the utterance, and the structure of the utterance. For this to be possible, there must be systematic relations between the meanings of utterances.

(2) First meanings are shared. For speaker and interpreter to communicate successfully and regularly, they must share a method of interpretation of the sort described in (1).

(3) First meanings are governed by learned conventions or regularities. The systematic knowledge or competence of the speaker or interpreter is learned in advance of occasions of interpretation and is conventional in character.

Enter malapropisms and novel use and the issues that arise with the inability to take them into account by virtue of using the above principles...

Davidson ended with this:

The problem we have been grappling with depends on the assumption that communication by speech requires that speaker and interpreter have learned or somehow acquired a common method or theory of interpretation—as being able to operate on the basis of shared conventions, rules, or regularities. The problem arose when we realized that no method or theory fills this bill. The solution to the problem is clear. In linguistic communication nothing corresponds to a linguistic competence as often described: that is, as summarized by principles (1)–(3). The solution is to give up the principles. Principles (1) and (2) survive when understood in rather unusual ways, but principle (3) cannot stand, and it is unclear what can take its place. I conclude that there is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases. And we should try again to say how convention in any important sense is involved in language; or, as I think, we should give up the attempt to illuminate how we communicate by appeal to conventions.

I would think that if we acquired knowledge of how language use first begins(what that requires), then all these issues would be resolved.

It seems that Davidson begins with interpretation(or the account he's reporting on does). That which is being interpreted is already meaningful. I agree with Davidson's conclusions here that there is no such thing as language, if the account being critiqued is what counts as such. Basically that conventional account is found lacking. I'm not sure that it's entirely wrong though. I further think that it's lacking as a result of not being basic enough.

The attribution of meaning and all that that requires happens prior to interpretation and language. Though, even here, I would argue against Grice's notions of natural meaning as well. I personally do not think any of them have gotten basic meaning right, and without doing that we cannot expect for them to get language use and/or successful communication right either... not entirely anyway.

No worries. It would be cool though.

It's not true?

Well, shit. I thought it was cool that they would do so...

The read that a university in Scotland renamed the David Hume building to George Floyd. — NOS4A2

Yeah, what a horrible thing to do. I mean it's not like there's any need to focus upon systemic racism, institutional racism, racial justice reform, abuse of power, or Black Lives Matter. I mean, what a ridiculous ideology. Such people who focus upon things like that act as if something is wrong with the way things are...

I mean, even the president hopes there's not a race problem, or so he says. He doesn't have a problem.

That says it all, doesn't it?

I don’t think any of it is true, just like your statement that Trump has never said anything about the plight of “African Americans” — NOS4A2

Well, as I said... I stand corrected on that. He has made a few(scripted by others) remarks about that. The facts proved me wrong on that, just as they prove me right regarding the aforementioned nine paragraphs that you've refused to directly discuss.

All good.

If we place Trump's nice remarks on one side of lady justice's scale and his derogatory negative devaluations and actual behaviours regarding racial justice reform and the ever-growing movement for it on the other, it's quite easy to see how he leans...

Holy shit Isaac! Just read through a bit of the Naming and Necessity thread and after going through just one of our exchanges, I'm left with a very poor impression of myself...

My apologies!

:yikes:

It's not that I think I was wrong, mind you. But I was certainly being a dick... Jeez.

This discussion was skirted around here. Successful reference was a notion that pervaded my contributions throughout that thread. The similarities here are remarkable.