• Constance
    1.3k
    What do you mean by ‘logicality’? The ‘S is P’ propositional structure? Belief statements?Joshs

    I mean that the insistence of ideas like, one cannot conceive of a thoughtless world, retain all of their authority.
  • Joshs
    5.8k
    my point stands re anthropomorphizing, and we are apparently in agreement about knowledge outside human experience being impossible.Janus

    I should note that for writers like Heidegger, Derrida and some of the phenomenologists, the notion of the human is presupposed but is instead a derived abstraction. From their vantage framing metaphysics in terms of what is within or outside of human experience is already anthropocentric because it begins from the notion of the human subject. nModern empirical science, including physics, is anthropocentric for this reason. The transcendental starting point for these authors is not yet a human subjectivity Even though it is a kind of subject, it does t lend itself to a dichotomy between what is experienced from a human point view and what is outside of it.
  • Joshs
    5.8k


    I mean that the insistence of ideas like, one cannot conceive of a thoughtless world, retain all of their authority.Constance

    But where do they get their authority from , for the later Wittgenstein? I would suggest only through a particular language game in which that sentence is being used. Its authority would thus be contingent and pragmatic.
    The above sentence , for instance, would be a tautology that doesn’t actually tell us anything new but can still have a specific and variable use in contexts in which it is uttered. We can’t ‘conceinve ’ what is ‘thoughtless’ just restates the already understood equivalence in meaning between conception and thought. So why do we utter the sentence? There can be widely various contexts in which we may want to make explicit what is implicit
  • Constance
    1.3k
    All that's left to do is make systematic guesses, oui? Without the possibility of ever knowing whether we go it right or no.Agent Smith

    That is the fallacy of scientism. Making systematic guesses is science's job. But philosophy's "guesses" are thematically different.
    You misread my meaning again, sir. Kant's anthropocentric fiat isn't even false (i.e. metaphysical, and in the manner to which he objects) as evident by knowledge derived through fundamental particle physics / astrophysics, evolutionary molecular biology, pure mathematics (e.g. Lie Groups, Number Theory, Axiomatic Set Theory), as examples, which we cannot perceive directly (via "intuition") and are "beyond" human experience. The CPR is a masterpiece of metaphysical (subjectivist) fiction IMHO.180 Proof

    Not to ruffle feathers at all! But this here sounds like the fiction to me.
  • Jackson
    1.8k
    I should note that for writers like Heidegger, Derrida and some of the phenomenologists, the notion of the human is presupposed but is instead a derived abstraction. From their vantage framing metaphysics in terms of what is within or outside of human experience is already anthropocentric because it begins from the notion of the human subject. nModern empirical science, including physics, is anthropocentric for this reason. The transcendental starting point for these authors is not yet a human subjectivity Even though it is a kind of subject, it does t lend itself to a dichotomy between what is experienced from a human point view and what is outside of it.Joshs

    Yes. They presume a definition of subjectivity as if it is self evident. Is a subject merely a biological entity?
  • Joshs
    5.8k
    Yes. They presume a definition of subjectivity as if it is self evident. Is a subject merely a biological entity?Jackson

    Not self-evident as a fact but identifiable as a relational performance. For them any empirical notion of subject as physico-chemical or biological is a derived abstraction. Science presumes
    a definition of subjectivity in advocating for objectivity and the real, but does not make this explicit to itself. Subjectivity is not an entity, substance or content, but a pole of interaction.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Look to the fallibilists like Peirce, Dewey, Russell, Wittgenstein, Popper, Feyerabend, Haack, Deutsch, Taleb for how we (can) learn/know reliably.180 Proof

    :up:
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    That is the fallacy of scientism. Making systematic guesses is science's job. But philosophy's "guesses" are thematically different.Constance

    Could you please elaborate on that claim.
  • Constance
    1.3k
    But where do they get their authority from , for the later Wittgenstein? I would suggest only through a particular language game in which that sentence is being used. Its authority would thus be contingent and pragmatic.
    The above sentence , for instance, would be a tautology that doesn’t actually tell us anything
    Joshs

    It is a reflection of an intuition. Take causality, a very strong sense that something cannot be a spontaneous event. The strongest I can think of, this "apodicticity". I cannot say wath this is, or even imagine what saying so might even be. But this intuition itself is not a language game, nor is, I claim, injunction not to do something in the intuition of the experiencing o suffering. Twist my arm, and it is not language that I "see".
    What to do with that which is not language yet cannot be accounted for by denying that it is language is, again, as I see it, getting to a genuine foundation. Causality? Who cares, really? But affectivity, ethics, this kind of thing is inherently what matters, even if I don't have a language to say what it is. even if I were, as Foucault put it, being ventriloquized by history, there is this foundation of actuality that has a palpable "presence", beyond what a language game can say. Witt said in Nature and Culture that "the good" was his idea of divinity.
  • Constance
    1.3k
    Could you please elaborate on that claim.Agent Smith

    Take pragmatism, the Dewey, Peirce, James, and then Rorty. Take Rorty: a thoroughgoing naturalist, like Dewey (like Quine), in many cases. But behind this there is a kind of phenomenological pragmatism. All pragmatists are, and I think there is no way out of this, idealists. Even Dewey comes to this, no? After all, meaning issues from experience; it is an experiential "event". How does meaning encounter the world? Though problem solving. How is problem solving "about" the world? Well, if the world is taken as a problem to solve, then it is history, the retained resources of problems solved, that one is "dealing with".
  • Joshs
    5.8k


    But affectivity, ethics, this kind of thing is inherently what matters, even if I don't have a language to say what it is. even if I were, as Foucault put it, being ventriloquized by history, there is this foundation of actuality that has a palpable "presence", beyond what a language game can say. Witt said in Nature and Culture that "the good" was his idea of divinity.Constance

    Is that all that language does is ‘say’ what ‘is’? Doesn’t language PRODUCE what is rather than merely express an already extant ‘it’? By language we don’t have to limit ourselves to words. Derrida said there is nothing outside of text , but he didn’t mean
    symbolic language. He meant to include pre-linguistic perception , affect and valuation. This self that comes back to itself via a detour through the other is already a kind of pre-verbal language game. Could not the divine or the Good reproduce itself always differently through this enacting of subjectivity?
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Sorry, I don't quite follow.
  • T Clark
    14k
    Do you have a reference? I'd be interested in reading more.
    — T Clark

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5972154/
    Joshs

    Thanks. I'll take a look.

    Are emotions just expressed is socially significant ways or, as Wittgenstein shows , is their very sense created via these contextual engagements? Putting into words wouldnt merely be relating symbols to already formed meanings but allowing the worlds to form the sense of a meaning.Joshs

    I'm not sure what this means, but I believe that things don't mean anything until they are put into words. That's what meaning means.
  • PhilosophyRunner
    302
    I'm not sure what this means, but I believe that things don't mean anything until they are put into words. That's what meaning means.T Clark

    Can not actions, visuals, concepts have meaning even when not put into words?

    Does art have meaning?
  • Haglund
    802
    Is that all that language does is ‘say’ what ‘is’? Doesn’t language PRODUCE what is rather than merely express an already extant ‘it’?Joshs

    No. That's not how it normally works. Ideas form, language follows. It sets ideas free.
  • T Clark
    14k
    Can not actions, visuals, concepts have meaning even when not put into words?PhilosophyRunner

    In my view, experiences are just experiences until they are conceptualized, put into words. Until then, they have no meaning. As I see it, art has no meaning, although many disagree with that. This has been discussed many times in the forum.
  • Haglund
    802
    Does art have meaning?PhilosophyRunner

    Art is a language like words. Language is meaningful, unless you write a poem for the sake of words.
  • Haglund
    802
    Is there a world without perspective of creatures lookin at the world? I think so. It contains all perspectives at once. Potentially.
  • PhilosophyRunner
    302
    Interesting. Aside from art, I would consider actions to also have meaning. Take body language.

    I guess you would say that body language has no meaning until it has been put into words? I will have to mull over that a bit more.
  • PhilosophyRunner
    302
    rt is a language like words. Language is meaningful, unless you write a poem for the sake of words.Haglund

    This is the position I am closest to. I would go further and say actions and concepts are also languages that have meaning, like words.
  • Joshs
    5.8k
    Is that all that language does is ‘say’ what ‘is’? Doesn’t language PRODUCE what is rather than merely express an already extant ‘it’?
    — Joshs

    No. That's not how it normally works. Ideas form, language follows. It sets ideas free.
    Haglund

    Who are the authorities on language you’re following here? Certainly not Wittgenstein or the phenomenologists.
  • T Clark
    14k
    Interesting. Aside from art, I would consider actions to also have meaning. Take body language.

    I guess you would say that body language has no meaning until it has been put into words? I will have to mull over that a bit more.
    PhilosophyRunner

    A lot of this thread has been about this issue, i.e. what does it mean to put something into words.
  • Joshs
    5.8k
    In my view, experiences are just experiences until they are conceptualized, put into words. Until then, they have no meaning. As I see it, art has no meaning, although many disagree with thatT Clark
    In college I came up with a way of understanding f the world that I have been elaborating ever since. But it took my 5 years before I was able to write a single word to articulate it. What I had in those first 5 years was certainly conceptualized, but it was not verbalized. I would describe this form of knowing as like an impressionistic sketch.
    Word are merely the final stage in consolidating a set of ideas that begin as felt intuitions. I can tell you that these intuitions had a profound effect on me , guiding my thinking implicitly well before I was able to make them explicit with words.
  • Haglund
    802


    The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is no more respected as it once was. There's been a ton of writing and empirical work on this hypothesis. Most people no longer think strong versions of it are true (i.e. it seems like people's thoughts are not deeply constrained by their native language). But weaker versions of it are still, I think, being debated.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    I'm not "ruffled" by a vacuous quip.
  • Haglund
    802
    The great thing of language is that it allows to set the mind free, static as the words might seem. Language lives and new words or ways to express them come into focus or go out from focus. Language can be as free as ideas.

    Orwell wrote a great essay about the misuse of language: Politics and English Language
  • Haglund
    802
    This is the position I am closest to. I would go further and say actions and concepts are also languages that have meaning, like words.PhilosophyRunner

    Concepts certainly have meaning. The concept of energy, art, politics, cooking, etc. Are concepts abstractions, or are there concepts for non-abstract happenings or features of reality. A tree is no concept. Is an elementary particle?

    I can remember I was trying to recollect the name of Lakatos. I entered a page and the name popped up. I hadn't yet consciously read the page. But his name was at the bottom.
  • Joshs
    5.8k
    The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is no more respected as it once was. There's been a ton of writing and empirical work on this hypothesis. Most people no longer think strong versions of it are true (i.e. it seems like people's thoughts are not deeply constrained by their native language). But weaker versions of it are still, I think, being debated.Haglund

    When I said that language produces what it symbolizes I didn’t mean that already learned word meanings dictate our understanding of new events aka Sapir Whorf. On the contrary, it is events that produce fresh senses of preciously learned words by interacting with what we already know. That is what Wittgenstein shows. Words only exist in the context of their actual use.
  • Haglund
    802


    Yes. Language is a living organism. It's connected to other organisms and can act like a chameleon, a virus, a delphin, a lion, monkey, or even a humanoid. It can be used to express, impress, conceptualize, and beast of words can have a broad scala of moods and intentions, coloring words in the whole spectrum of the rainbow. Depending on the situation, language can be aggressive, red-green, and competitively harsh, while on other occasions the same words can be used pastel pink and turquoise, friendly, caring and loving. Words can dance or follow strict order, even math can be used like this.
  • Janus
    16.5k
    I should note that for writers like Heidegger, Derrida and some of the phenomenologists, the notion of the human is presupposed but is instead a derived abstraction. From their vantage framing metaphysics in terms of what is within or outside of human experience is already anthropocentric because it begins from the notion of the human subject. nModern empirical science, including physics, is anthropocentric for this reason. The transcendental starting point for these authors is not yet a human subjectivity Even though it is a kind of subject, it does t lend itself to a dichotomy between what is experienced from a human point view and what is outside of it.Joshs

    I don't know whether you meant to say "is not presupposed, but is a derived abstraction". Traditional metaphysics certainly thought in terms of (purported) metaphysical truths being absolute, in contrast to the relativity of human opinion. Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza all thought, in their various ways that pure intuitive rational knowledge of the nature of reality was possible.

    It is not so much a matter of "beginning with the subject" in my view, but of forming a distinction between appearance and reality. For Kant, we can know only appearances, but he also was the first to show that we can know what are the necessary conditions for any knowledge of appearances.

    Modern physics is not anthropocentric, other than in the definitional sense that any human inquiry is anthropocentric in that it is an inquiry by the anthropos, by us. The notion of the human is a "derived abstraction" as are all notions altogether, including those of Heidegger, Derrida, etc.
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