It is "something to be done" because it cannot be said. That's what makes it ineffable. Otherwise, we should be able to say it. — Luke

When I read this it feels like it'd go the same with objects... we cannot say objects, and so they are ineffable. But the reason we can't say objects is that they aren't words, not because we can't talk about them.

Now, that's just how I'm reading this. It seems like you'd agree that we cannot say objects since objects are not words, but we can talk about objects (and hence objects are not ineffable). So what is it about activity that makes it different from objects? Why can't we just note that activity, experience, and words aren't the same, but we can talk about them?

When I read this it feels like it'd go the same with objects... we cannot say objects, and so they are ineffable. But the reason we can't say objects is that they aren't words, not because we can't talk about them. — Moliere

Yep. As if our inability to "say objects" were an incapacity.

If there is something that cannot be captured in the instructions which can only be learned by doing, then why should this "something" not be called ineffable? — Luke

Because

So what is missing? Just, and only, the riding of the bike. But that's not something it makes sense to add to the list! — Banno

Nothing is not said here... but something is not done: the riding of the bike. The list is complete, nothing is left unstated, and yet the bike is not yet ridden.

Knowing how to ride a bike does not require that one is actually riding a bike. — Metaphysician Undercover

But knowing how to ride a bike does require being able to ride a bike. Claim that you can ride a bike all you want, the proof is in the riding.

The point, again, is that there is nothing that is not said, nothing that we can add to the list; only something that has not been done; hence there is nothing that is ineffable.

My notion of "essence" (e.g. of frogginess) is based on Aristotle's definition of "substance". — Gnomon

Perhaps, there's your problem. There have been a few developments since then.

And to think this thread took flight from what I wrote as a joke. :roll: — jgill

Are you not amused?!

The topic was always going to attract the day trippers.

This approach

I think Wittgenstein wasn't claiming there were subjects we couldn't talk about. Instead, I think he was saying that there are subjects we shouldn't talk about because by doing so we let "language go on holiday" or are bewitched by it, and do not gain by doing so. — Ciceronianus

must underpin any discussion here. Folk suppose that since there are things that are done rather than said, there must be something that is unsayable. One follows a rule by enacting it better than by stating it.

From Wikipedia, an interesting note:

Daniel Dennett identifies four properties that are commonly ascribed to qualia.[2] According to these, qualia are:
1. ineffable – they cannot be communicated, or apprehended by any means other than direct experience.
2. intrinsic – they are non-relational properties, which do not change depending on the experience's relation to other things.
3. private – all interpersonal comparisons of qualia are systematically impossible.
4. directly or immediately apprehensible by consciousness – to experience a quale is to know one experiences a quale, and to know all there is to know about that quale.

Don't know about "2." but the rest sound about right. Of course Dennett does not champion qualia. I think the term is OK as long as it remains as a mere synonym for "quality of experience".

I suspected we'd eventually get to qualia. What I've been saying here is pretty much what I've argued elsewhere, in detail, against qualia being ineffable, talking much of my argument from Dennet's demonstration that the notion of qualia is too fraught to be of much use.

Basically, if qualia are anything, they are our tastes and touch and so on, and since we already do talk about those, qualia are not private and they are not ineffable.

Perhaps, there's your problem. There have been a few developments since then. — Banno

That may be a problem for you, but not for me. Aristotle may be outdated in Science, but in Philosophy his concise categories are still applicable. Scientific facts may have changed, but the Philosophical problem of effability remains in our time. Scientists confronted with ineffable Qualia and Essences may chose to "shut-up and calculate". But undaunted philosophers continue to eff away with metaphors & analogies. Why else do you think the topic of effability keeps coming up on this forum? :smile:


The renowned British philosopher A.N Whitehead once commented on Plato's thought: “The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
https://www.college.columbia.edu/core/content/whitehead-plato

Answers for Aristotle :
Pigliucci is a singular bridge-builder, one who connects science as the investigation of what is with philosophy as reflection on what should be. Pigliucci acknowledges that Aristotle constructed such bridges long ago, but he laments that many modern thinkers, irrationally suspicious of science, have now abandoned half of Aristotle’s enterprise. Bravely renewing the entire Aristotelian project, Pigliucci surveys the latest scientific research in primatology, psychology, and neurobiology, always integrating the researchers’ empirical findings into a meaningful philosophical perspective. This scientific-philosophical (or “sci-phi”) perspective
https://www.amazon.com/Answers-Aristotle-Science-Philosophy-Meaningful/dp/0465021387

Ideas of Plato and Aristotle in the 21st century :
The goal of the stream is to demonstrate influence of philosophy of Plato and Aristotle on the contemporary society, science, technology, mathematics, philosophy and general culture reflecting new advances in understanding and development of their vision and ideas.
https://www.atiner.gr/humpla

Aristotle in the 21st Century :
Aristotle's essentialist metaphysics can assist in clarifying contemporary issues in (ii) value theory and (iii) economics as ethics.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268505732_Aristotle_in_the_21st_Century

The ineffable now in physics :
While physicists know how to use quantum mechanics, there is no consensus on what
quantum mechanics is a mechanics of. The aim of this paper is to introduce the beginning of what
might turn out to be an interpretation of quantum mechanics—one that leaves all calculated
probabilities intact. The basic idea is that quantum mechanics describes the objective world, but there
must be added to it ineffable variables, one of which is the temporal 'now'. Ineffable variables are not
'hidden variables'.
https://philarchive.org/archive/MERTIN-4

Aristotle on Einstein's Block Time :
Aristotle’s argument may or may not be a good one, but even if it is unsound, many people will feel, purely on intuitive grounds, that the idea of time having a beginning (or an end) just does not make sense.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/

But undaunted philosophers continue to eff away with metaphors & analogies. Why else do you think the topic of effability keeps coming up on this forum? :smile: — Gnomon

I would think mainly because humans are emotional creatures who often struggle to express or resile from articulating these feelings.

The idea that Aristotle trumps Kripke in talk of essence is risible.

I haven't read the lectures in Naming and Necessity but I suspect you are correct.

Part of the impact of his development of formal modal logic was the implications for consideration of essence, especially and interestingly the necessary yet a posteriori connection between two properties, like water being necessarily H₂O. It's difficult stuff, and brings with it its own controversies. But it does allow that a dead frog is a frog, unlike 's odd, self-defeating metaphysics.

When I read this it feels like it'd go the same with objects... we cannot say objects, and so they are ineffable. — Moliere

I don't know exactly what you mean by "we cannot say objects". That was not my intended point. I was following Banno's reasoning and his conflation of knowing how to do something with doing it.

However, I might agree if you mean that, loosely speaking, what can only be shown cannot be said (and is therefore ineffable). You can show someone what red looks like, but can you explain, e.g. to a blind person, what red looks like such that they know how to identify red objects? That was the point of my reference to Mary's Room, which went unaddressed; also, my reference to PI 78. Perhaps a blind person could identify red via Braille, but could you explain to someone with no sense of touch how to read Braille (i.e. how Braille feels)?

We can find metaphors and descriptions for different shades of red if we both share the same sensory capacities - you then already have a foothold on what it's like to sense red. Or I can simply show it to you and then I don't need to explain it. Perhaps there is no need to explain some things just because we share the same sensory capacities. However, regardless of the whether we need to explain it or not, if what red looks like cannot be put into words (i.e. such that you can learn/know how to identify red objects without ever sensing red objects) then I would call that aspect of seeing red "ineffable".

So what is it about activity that makes it different from objects? Why can't we just note that activity, experience, and words aren't the same, but we can talk about them? — Moliere

It's not necessarily activity, but the ability to use sensory information. Sensory information - experience, qualia, "what it's like" - is, at least partly, ineffable. It's not that we "cannot say objects", it's that we cannot say what it's like to sense; at least, not completely or not as a complete substitute for using the senses. It's much easier to just show someone. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Nothing is not said here... but something is not done: the riding of the bike. — Banno

Do you acknowledge that knowing how to ride a bike is different from riding a bike? The difference is that you don't need to be riding a bike in order to know how to ride a bike. Likewise, Magnus Carlsen knows how to play chess even while he is not playing chess. The knowledge-how is the ability-to, but this does not require or imply that one is doing the riding, only that one can. Riding a bike demonstrates having the ability or know-how but having the ability or know-how does not necessarily demonstrate riding a bike. Therefore, with regard to this:

Or, suppose we had a list of the instructions for riding a bike, to whatever detail we desire. Would we then know how to ride a bike? Well, no. So what is missing? Just, and only, the riding of the bike. But that's not something it makes sense to add to the list! — Banno

As you must surely acknowledge, riding a bike and knowing how to ride a bike are not the same. So, if we had a list of instructions for how to ride a bike that was presented in the greatest possible detail, then why should we not know how to ride a bike after reading those instructions? It cannot be because riding a bike and knowing how to ride a bike are the same thing. So, is there another reason; something ineffable that cannot be included in the instructions which prevents us from knowing how to ride a bike after reading them?

In all honesty, I don't know whether there is anything missing from the bike riding instructions. I was merely following your lead in saying that there is something missing. However, I think if we examine the example of Mary's Room then it becomes more clear that there is something ineffable which is not included in Mary's "instructions" on everything there is to know about colour perception. This missing element is what (e.g.) red looks like or how to identify coloured objects by sight. If there is an analogy to riding a bike here, it could be how to balance oneself so as to not consistently fall off the bike. This ability to maintain balance on a bike is something that is difficult to convey via language alone, without experiencing/practising it for oneself. Anyhow, Mary's Room is a clearer example. Furthermore:

What is there that cannot be said? "...it hardly conveys the full experience" - of course not! That has to be experienced! — Banno

I don't believe that "conveying the full experience" implies making another person have that experience; only that another person can fully understand what it is like to have that experience. Can you convey the full experience of seeing red, or being synaesthetic, or being the opposite sex, or being a lion, via language alone, or are there at least some parts of those experiences that language is unable to convey in order that another can fully understand how it feels to have those experiences?

I'm with @Moliere on this, because I thought of the same objection. To say that in talking about an experience, something is left unsaid--because it doesn't convey what it's like to have that experience--seems to imply an expectation that is too high, namely that my words can give you the experience.

We can no more expect to convey an exprience in this way than we can expect to convey an object: we can talk about an experience, but there is always something beyond the talk, namely the experience itself; similarly, we can talk about an apple, but there is always something beyond the talk, namely the apple itself. But we don't say that apples are ineffable.

What makes it tempting to say that experiences, but not apples, are ineffable? Whatever the answer--and that might be the most interesting thing, I'm not sure--is it too easy here to just say that when we realize that experiences, rather like objects, are to be had (in the case of objects, to be), the issue dissolves?

What I suggested might be "the most interesting thing" could be to do with the supposed Enlightenment and scientific effort to explain everything away.

Amazing how you can share the experience of a complicated gymnastic routine just by watching. — jgill

Why do people attend gymnastic competitions in their millions to watch gymnastic routines if not to share the experience of the gymnast. The visitor may not have the same skill as the gymnast in performing a gymnastic routine, but they can share in the experience.

Why would anyone go to a gymnastic competition, read a novel, attend a pop concert, the theatre, see a movie, visit an art gallery, etc, if the experience left them cold, if they felt nothing, if they couldn't share in the experience of the artist?

I'm with Moliere on this, because I thought of the same objection. To say that in talking about an experience, something is left unsaid--because it doesn't convey what it's like to have that experience--seems to imply an expectation that is too high, namely that my words can give you the experience. — Jamal

I addressed this in my post preceding yours:

I don't believe that "conveying the full experience" implies making another person have that experience; only that another person can fully understand what it is like to have that experience. Can you convey the full experience of seeing red, or being synaesthetic, or being the opposite sex, or being a lion, via language alone, or are there at least some parts of those experiences that language is unable to convey in order that another can fully understand how it feels to have those experiences? — Luke

Maybe an experience can only be "fully" known or understood by having it, as you seem to indicate. In that case, some aspect(s) of an experience cannot be communicated to another and "fully" known or understood only via language. If your words cannot give me the experience, or cannot fully communicate what it is like to undergo the experience, then this seems to imply that there is some aspect of the experience which cannot be communicated via language alone; which is ineffable. You say that my expectation is too high, where my expectation is that one's words can give another the experience. But this is not my expectation. I don't believe that one's words can give another the (full) experience. That's why some experiences cannot be fully communicated in words. That's what makes them at least partly ineffable. If you agree that some experiences cannot be fully communicated in words, then why do you disagree that they are at least partly ineffable?

Note my preceding discussion with @Banno comparing doing something with knowing how to do it, what Mary cannot learn/know within her black-and-white room, and whether teaching someone how to do something only via language communicates all the required information. You and Banno appear to advocate that some knowledge/information is missing unless one undergoes the experience for themselves. As I see it, that is not a rejection of the ineffable, but an endorsement.

Do you advocate the same for objects? Is some knowledge/information missing unless one undergoes(?) an object for themselves? I'm not sure what "undergoing" an object would mean other than sensing or experiencing it.

Words don’t have meanings as context-independent categories — Joshs

I should have been clearer about distinguishing between the different meanings of a particular word and a particular meaning of a particular word.

A particular word may have a set of meanings. The set of meanings doesn't change with context, although the intended meaning of the word is dependent on context. For example, "blue" = {the colour blue, the emotive state blue }

The set of meanings of a particular word is the foundation of a language. The set remains the same, even if the context changes. If I didn't know the set of meanings of words prior to encountering a new situation, I wouldn't know which word should be used. The set is independent of context, and pre-exists a particular context.

For Wittgenstein words don’t refer to objects, they enact forms of life. — Joshs

If I walked into a Tanzanian builder's yard and said "jiwe moja tafadhali", I know that uttering this particular sound will achieve my goal of being given a stone. The sound only has meaning in enacting a form of life. It has no meaning if not able to change the state of the world in some way. Yet the sound does refer to an object, because if it didn't refer to an object, a "jiwe", the merchant wouldn't know what I wanted. Words both enact a form of life and refer to objects.

Identical form does not always have identical content. — javra

I should have explained myself better, in that a particular word may have a set of meanings. For example "blue" = {the colour blue, the emotive state blue}. I am thinking of the content of the word "blue" as the set of meanings, not that meaning used in a particular context.

all words have intersubjective meanings — javra

Yes, the word "grass" means something very different to a South African than an Icelander because of their very different life experiences, yet they can both have a sensible conversation about "grass" because of its inter-subjective meaning. They can talk about the "top level" meaning rather than any "fine-tuned" meaning.

My post covered all of those points, I think.

But knowing how to ride a bike does require being able to ride a bike. Claim that you can ride a bike all you want, the proof is in the riding.

The point, again, is that there is nothing that is not said, nothing that we can add to the list; only something that has not been done; hence there is nothing that is ineffable. — Banno

To be able (knowing-how) to ride a bike, is not the same thing as riding a bike. When I say "I know how to ride a bike", it does not mean the same thing as "I am riding a bike" means. And this is contrary to what you claimed here:

but there is no difference between "knowing how to ride a bike" and "riding a bike"; we don't have two things here, one being bike riding and the other being knowing how to ride a bike. — Banno

Since there is very clearly a difference between these two, we need to respect this difference, and when we attempt to analyze, and describe the difference, we hit the place where the ineffable supposedly lies. How is it that knowing how can be something different from actually doing, and how is it that knowing how readily transitions, or translates, into actually doing in practise, when the two are so different.

We can start by inquiring exactly what the difference in meaning is, between the two phrases. So, "riding a bike" means to be actively involved in the named activity, at the present time. But, "knowing how to ride a bike", is quite difficult to determine the precise meaning, because it divides in two ways. One way references past acts, and the other references possible future acts.

We can refer to the past, and say that the person has demonstrated one's ability, through past actions of actually riding. This is Wittgenstein's preferred method. It is somewhat faulty though, because it requires a logical inference similar to the following: 'if one has carried out the activity, then the person knows how to do it'. So Wittgenstein approaches this little problem with the question of how many times must one successfully carry out the activity before it constitutes a demonstration of knowing how. Since there really is no adequate answer to this question, we can see that this way of determining the meaning of "knowing how" is really faulty, so we must turn to the second way.

The second way is the more common way, the way of what people normally mean when they use the phrase. This is to refer to possible future acts. Now, "knowing how to ride a bike" means that the person can in the future, successfully carry out the activity referred to, at will (with proper respect for natural restrictions). I would urge you to recognize this as the proper meaning of "knowing-how" (according to common usage), regardless of Wittgenstein's attempt to cast "knowing-how" in a different light, having demonstrated the capacity.

To correctly understand "knowing-how" we must refer directly to future acts, and not allow past acts to confuse us. This is because there is a multitude of different ways to learn how, and if ever we set a definition of what constitutes an adequate demonstration, we might always find something outside this. That's the problem Wittgenstein approached with the question of 'how many times' constitutes a demonstration of knowing-how. There really is no answer to this question because it varies from person to person, and as pointed out, a person could very well learn how through an instruction manual, or even simple observation. Then the person could actually know how, without ever having demonstrated one's capacity. So we must relinquish the idea that we can explain knowing-how through reference to past acts.

Now we can approach the supposed ineffable, the future action. The future action does not exist yet, so we cannot describe it. Any attempt to describe it will be imaginary, fictitious, because there is no action yet to describe, and we only have prediction, and hope that the action goes as predicted. To aid us in this attempt to describe what cannot be described, because it does not exist, we turn to probabilities, statistics, and mathematical principles. Now we can describe a future action with words, and determine the probability of occurrence, concerning the different parts of the act. However, when discussing future actions, there is always a hole in our understanding which presents as a probability instead of as a certainty. This is the supposed ineffable, it is unknown therefore it is not talked about, and cannot be talked about, unless we alter our understanding such that the unknown no longer exists. However, that would require removing probability from the future act, which is probably impossible.

It's quite easy to talk about the fact that bees and butterflies can see ultraviolet, ie, clearly not ineffable, yet can anyone actually describe what ultraviolet looks like.

If I'm reading you correctly @Luke, I think you and I and @Jamal and @Banno are thinking in terms of two different ways we can talk about "ineffable" -- Ineffable, as in unable to be spoken of in principle, and ineffable, as in different from linguistic competence. I think I'm thinking in the former, and you're thinking in the latter.

To know how a clarinet sounds one has to hear the clarinet. I can tell you that it has a smooth sound, softer than a saxophone, the hum of a seriously cool cat . . . or I can pop "clarinet" into youtube and turn on the first clarinet concerto.

In church the analogy that was frequently used was the taste of salt -- how could you tell someone what salt tasted like if they'd never tasted salt? And by way of analogy, how could you tell someone what God's love is like if they've never felt God's love?

There's an element to knowledge that includes experience. I'm just not sure I'd say that makes it ineffable in the former sense, though I'd agree with you that Mary learns something and we learn something by experiencing that isn't the same as words, nor could it be conveyed by words alone. They'd also have to experience the sound of a clarinet, the taste of salt, the love of God, or the color red to say they had experienced these things, and no amount of textual familiarity would give them the experience, and they even learn something from experiencing.

But in the former sense, after learning something, we do talk about it after the fact. Like @Banno's coffee example -- while we learn from experience, that doesn't mean we are unable to speak about experience. In fact, it seems to me, by experiencing -- and the more we experience, the more we differentiate, the more we proliferate/share our categories and so on -- we make what was ineffable, effable. It's just a matter of time and experimentation. At least in the case of experience.

. Folk suppose that since there are things that are done rather than said, there must be something that is unsayable. — Banno

Those folk are, I think, among the flies referred to by Wittgenstein. But so are those who think it possible, and necessary or somehow beneficial, to categorize everything, like that relentless categorizer Aristotle. That, of course, requires the use of words. But there are things that we cannot express in words well, or accurately, or adequately and using words to express them (which we do all the time; which philosophers do all the time) is futile and worse "bewitching" as Wittgenstein might say. As to such things, we're better off remaining silent.

Folk suppose that since there are things that are done rather than said, there must be something that is unsayable. — Banno

It could be that saying is also a thing that is done, as when you point to the gavagai.

Maybe nothing is ever specified. There are no references, so the OP presents a false dilemma.

But then what's the meaning of what I just said? What use is it supposed to have? Nah, we do specify and refer.

I think the bias against the ineffable jives with my theory about what propositions are: that they're what we take as the world's voice, it's what the world answers in response to our questions. Is the world partially mute? If so, why?

But there are things that we cannot express in words well, or accurately, or adequately and using words to express them (which we do all the time; which philosophers do all the time) is futile and worse "bewitching" as Wittgenstein might say — Ciceronianus

But isn't it just those things that we cannot express well in words, such as justice, ethics, morality, honour, wisdom, etc, that are exactly those things which we should strive to express well in words?

↪Tom Storm
Part of the impact of his development of formal modal logic was the implications for consideration of essence, especially and interestingly the necessary yet a posteriori connection between two properties, like water being necessarily H₂O.It's difficult stuff, and brings with it its own controversies. But it does allow that a dead frog is a frog, unlike ↪Gnomon's odd, self-defeating metaphysics. — Banno

Since I am a late-comer to Philosophy, I am not well-versed in modern abstruse & esoteric modes of philosophizing. I prefer the timeless common-sense of the old dinosaurs. So, please allow me my amateur dabbling in the shallow end of the pool : where a dead frog is a carcass, and H2O is a universal solvent, not something to drink. :smile:

Saul Kripke :
“A Puzzle About Belief” (1979) generated surprising and paradoxical conclusions from seemingly innocent applications of the principles employed in reporting the beliefs of others, and it derived cautionary lessons about attempts to infer facts about linguistic meaning from analyses of belief-reporting sentences.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saul-Kripke
Caution : Banno errs in his biased reporting on Gnomon's beliefs. He adeptly skewers a risible straw man with his modal sword.

If I walked into a Tanzanian builder's yard and said "jiwe moja tafadhali", I know that uttering this particular sound will achieve my goal of being given a stone. The sound only has meaning in enacting a form of life. It has no meaning if not able to change the state of the world in some way. Yet the sound does refer to an object, because if it didn't refer to an object, a "jiwe", the merchant wouldn't know what I wanted. Words both enact a form of life and refer to objects. — RussellA

Word use doesn’t literally mean “changing the state of the world”, as if we first have an understanding of what a word refers to and then later decide to “change the world” in a separate step by using this word we already understand to change some other aspect
of our environment.

As human beings we always already find ourselves in motion( not physical but conceptual motion). We always already find ourselves thrown into new contexts of meaning. ‘Use’ of a word should be understood in the same way as ‘use’ of perceptual know-how. If instead of hearing the word ‘apple’, we find ourselves perceiving a picture of an apple or an actual apple in front of us, the image we are presented with is never identical with any image of apple we have seen previously. This is due not only to differences in its appearance , its lighting, color, shape , angle of view, but also to the context of its appearance. If it appears in a scene where we dont expect to see it we may not recognize it as an apple.
We may have something else on our mind and be looking right at it but not pay attention to it as an apple. Even when we do recognize it, this may imply that we are treating it as a a fruit , or as something to satisfy our hunger , or as an object to fling at someone, or as an element in a pie we want to bake.

In all of these cases of recognizing the object as an apple, our experience is of something slightly different. You want to say that hearing the word ‘apple’ refers us back to the memory of a concept( a specific object or category of objects). The word links back to, correlates with, a piece of information we have stored, and this allows us to recognize the word. The problem with this notion is the same problem with describing perception this way. When we recognize a visual image , we are indeed drawing knowledge from memory. We are ‘ using’ that memory to anticipate , to create expectations and predictions of what is in front of us. But because what we actually see in any perception is different in some respect with respect to our expectations, the way we end up ‘using’ our expectations is by modifying those expectations in light of the unique features of what we are actually seeing.

This is the same with words we have learned. When we hear the word apple, or when we summon the word in response to seeing an apple in front of us, we are ‘using’ our prior understanding of the word in the context of a new situation which always requires us to modify our prior sense of the word. Notice that this has nothing to do with wanting to deliberately “change the state of the world”. The state of the world is always already changed every time we are involved in new contexts of perceiving objects and using words, prior to any effort or desire on our part to ‘change the world’. What allows us to recognize words is the dance between expectation and the novel aspects of the actual situation. This gives words their intelligibility and familiarity. But this is never simply a matter of pure reference. Pure reference is impossible. It is reference (memory , expectation, anticipation) modified by context, which is another name for ‘use’ or ‘forms of life’ or ‘language games’ in Wittgenstein’s sense. Doing things with words is not a choice. Even if we don’t have the slightest interest in changing anything about our circumstances when we employ a word, the very intelligibility of the word involves the modification of its prior sense, which usually goes unnoticed by us , and allows you to believe in the idea of word as referring to objects.

Of course Dennett does not champion qualia. I think the term is OK as long as it remains as a mere synonym for "quality of experience". — Janus

I have always viewed the term "qualia" as meaning "the stuff of experience", rather than a description of a subjective experience. Do you think we're both talking about the same thing?

I was following Banno's reasoning and his conflation of knowing how to do something with doing it. — Luke

Of course I'm doing no such thing. The point made is, that one is able to ride a bike is proven not by being able to say what is involved, but in the act of riding.

You and Meta are on the wrong page. may be correct that the difference is one of the sense of "ineffable", but I suspect the difference is in not distinguishing explicit and tacit knowledge. Either way, your critique misfires.

But so are those who think it possible, and necessary or somehow beneficial, to categorize everything, like that relentless categorizer Aristotle. — Ciceronianus

It has long struck me that the problem with Jazz, as opposed to Blues, is that Jazz requires too many words of it's appreciators. You are I think right about the flies.

Maybe nothing is ever specified. There are no references, so the OP presents a false dilemma. — frank

I've contemplated something similar to this, especially after reading Davidson's derangement of epitaphs; but something is done, when we talk; some agreement or coordination is reached, and novel uses of language derive from mundane uses.