folk have been using cognates of "S is F" without explaining what they are talking about. Is it that S=F (they are equal)? Or S ≡ F (they are materially equivalent)? Or just F(S) (predicating F to S)? or S∈F (S is an element of the set or class S), or none of these, or some combination, or something else? — Banno

Let’s start with Husserl’s characterization of the syllogism. He spends most of Experience and Judgement and Formal and Transcendental Logic unfolding the intentional strata that constitutively lead up to the understanding of the most elementary basis of formal logic, the predicative synthesis S is P.

“…what has been established from the beginning, from the founding of our logical tradition with Aristotle, is this: the most general characteristic of the predicative judgment is that it has two members: a “substrate” (hypokeimenon), about which something is affirmed, and that which is affirmed of it (kategoroumenon); from another point of view, according to grammatical form, we can distinguish onoma and rhema. Every declarative statement must be made up from these two members. Every judging presupposes that an object is on hand, that it is already given to us, and is that about which the statement is made.
(… a unitary proposition can be more or less highly articulated. For instance, the hypothetical judgment, / / A is b, then C is d. It is sharply articulated as having two parts; it too has a "caesura": / / A is b II then C is d. Each of these members is, in turn, articulated.)

Thus tradition provides us, so to speak, with an original model of the judgment which, qua judgment, we must interrogate as to its origin. We must leave entirely open here whether with this we are really dealing with the most primordial logical structure.

Only the elucidation of the origin of this structure, traditionally defined as judgment, can provide the answer to this question and to all further questions associated with it: to what extent is the predicative judgment the privileged and central theme of logic, so that, in its core, logic is necessarily apophantic logic, a theory of judgment? Furthermore, what is the mode of connection of these two members which are always to be distinguished in judgment? To what extent is the judgment synthesis and diaeresis (analysis) in one? This is a problem which has always created an embarrassment for the logician and for which there is no satisfactory solution to this day. What is it that is “bound together” and “separated” in the judgment? Further: which among the multiple judgment-forms which tradition distinguishes is the most primitive, i.e., that one which, as being the undermost, and founding all others, must be presupposed, and by an essential necessity conceived as underlying, in order that other forms of a “higher level” can be founded on it? Is there a single primal form, or are there several, enjoying equal rights, standing beside one another? “

“Since Aristotle, it has been held as certain that the basic schema of judgment is the copulative judgment, which is reducible to the basic form S is P. Every judgment having another composition, e.g., the form of a verbal proposition, can, according to this interpretation, be transformed without alteration of its logical sense into the form of the copulative bond; for example, “The man walks” is logically equivalent to “The man is walking.” The “is” is part of the rhema in which always “time is cosignified,” and in this it is like the verb. Thus, we require an exact understanding of what is involved in this copulative bond, of the nature and origin of the copulative predicative judgment, before we can take a position regarding the question of whether in fact this convertibility is justified and whether the difference between the judgments is merely one of a difference of linguistic form, which does not refer to a difference of the logical achievement of sense.

However, should the latter be the case, the problem would arise of knowing how both forms, the copulative proposition on the one hand, and the verbal on the other, relate to each other. Are they equally primitive logical achievements of sense, or is one (and which one?) the more primitive? Does the copulative form S is p, as tradition holds, really represent the basic schema of the judgment? Further, the question about the primordiality of this schema would in that case also have to be raised with regard to the fact that in it, as a matter of course, the subject is set in the form of the third person. In this, it is presupposed that, in the first and second persons, the judgment in the form “I am . . . ,” “You are . . . expresses no logical achievement of sense which deviates from that expressed in the privileged fundamental schema “It is . . . This presupposition requires testing and would again put the question of the primordiality of the traditional basic schema S is p in a new light.“

Husserl’s thesis is this:”Logic needs a theory of experience, in order to be able to give scientific information about the legitimating bases, and the legitimate limits, of its Apriori, and consequently about its own legitimate sense. Tthe ideal "existence" of the judgment-content is a presupposition for, and enters into, the ideal "existence" of the judgment (in the widest sense, that of a supposed categorial objectivity as supposed).

“The possibility of properly effectuating the possibility of a judgment (as a meaning) is rooted not only in the syntactical forms but also in the syntactical stuffs.

“This fact is easily over-looked by the formal logician, with his interest directed one-sidedly to the syntactical — the manifold forms of which are all that enters into logical theory — and with his algebraizing of the cores as theoretical irrelevancies, as empty somethings that need only be kept identical.”

There might be our difference. — Moliere

Perhaps, although I don't think so. I agree with much of what you are saying here. We agree that there are rules for language use, and that these rules are regularly broken.

There are two ways of expressing a rule. One way is to set it out explicitly in words. The other is to enact it. Both "stop at the red light" and stopping at the red light express a rule.

The rules come after the fact as explanations for our usage, — Moliere

Well, stating the rule might come after the fact, but it might also come before it, when teaching someone to follow the rule, or when stipulating a new rule - consider the Académie Française. Neither is logically prior to the other.

I had supposed your agreement on this back here: . @Lukes error was to suppose that expressing a rule had to be either stating it, and hence effable, or enacting it, and hence ineffable, but you were pointing out that we can follow a rule that can also be stated, and hence the doing is not ineffable.

This is also what I was pointing to here:

In the place of that barrier I see a continuity from what we say to what we do and what is not said but shown. It's the place where stating the rule is replaced by enacting it, and where saying what the picture is of is replaced by showing it. That continuity means that we can always say more, but enough is said when the task is done. Hence the term "ineffable" is inappropriate. — Banno

Lukes error was to suppose that expressing a rule had to be either stating it, and hence effable, or enacting it, and hence ineffable, but you were pointing out that we can follow a rule that can also be stated, and hence the doing is not ineffable. — Banno

Where or when did I make this error? Do you have a quote?

I think your memory is failing you, @Banno, This was your error, not mine. You were the one who said:

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. — Banno

I was the one who spent almost 30 pages trying to correct you.

Otherwise, go ahead and state it now: what knowledge is missing from the exhaustive list of instructions such that we do not know how to ride a bike?

So we are dealing, for now with the "is" of predication.

First, it's worth noting that predication applies more broadly than to "judgements of experience". 2 is a number. That's not generally something one experiences as a phenomena... unless perhaps one has synethesia.

The approach taken in first order predication is most often extensional. To see if two is a number, one looks at the list of numbers to see if it included two. Pretty direct, pretty powerful. To see if "the cup has a handle" is true, just check to see if the cup is on the list of things with handles. To see if "the cup is red" is false, check to see if it is not on the list of red things. Notice that extensionally speaking, being a thing with handles just is being on that list.

Put thusly it looks pretty ordinary. It works beautifully in proving that your system is consistent, but of course we want to dig further, and work out how things get on the list. Philosophical questions persist, like what makes two a number, what counts as a handle and is it really red?

Well, for numbers we can use any of several explications. For handles, we might use @jgill's suggestion - a thing topologically equivalent to a doughnut...

But phenomenologist like to use colour*, so let's look at how we tell if the cup is a member of the group of red things. On a side note, to my eye phenomenology looks like an example of reaching philosophical conclusions based on too limited a set of examples; by considering colours rather than handles and numbers and other sorts of predication.

So, we see the cup is on the list of red things - but we ask if this is correct. Now the phenomenological answer is, from what I can work out, that one looks at the experience on has on viewing the cup and... sort of ineffably intuits that the cup s red or some such. Now I'm told that this is somehow a mistaken view, and it is so absurd that I hope it is, but I haven't had an alternative account of how phenomenology is supposed to help here, explained to me in a way I found comprehensible. Anyway, the key is something like that one makes a judgement based on some introspection of the phenomena one has before one...

I want to offer an alternative, one that does not rely on such introspection. It comes form re-framing the question. That re-framing is to see that what is being asked here, as in so many philosophical problems, is an issue of language use. Instead of asking if "The cup is red" is true, one asks if it is appropriate to use the word "red" in respect to that particular cup.

This is again, of course, the great reimagining of philosophical issues that comes form Wittgenstein's admonition to look at use rather than meaning.

So instead if "is it true that the cup is red" we ask if it is useful to talk of the cup as being red. And several things become immediately apparent.

It's clear that it is appropriate to call the cup redif it is helpful in the task at hand - "pass me the red cup" works if you are handed that cup and not the green one. And we can seek clarification: "Do you mean crimson one or the vermilion one?" and so on. There's an interaction between the participants here that can serve to specify the cup to whatever level one desires.

It's also clear that whether the cup counts as red or not is a function of the activity in which we are involved, which includes other folk. The cup's being red is dependent on the public activity in which we are involved. One's introspection on one's perceptions of redness are as irrelevant here as one's introspections on the number "two". What counts is not some agreement on our introspections, but our agreement on which cups count as red and which do not. Boxed beetles and all that.

Anyway, that'll do for now. At the least I hope it is clear why it is a bit silly to berate logicians for not starting with experiences.

First, it's worth noting that predication applies more broadly than to "judgements of experience". 2 is a number. That's not generally something one experiences as a phenomena... — Banno

We don't experience numbers per se, but we do experience number; that is we experience numbers of things,

That re-framing is to see that what is being asked here, as in so many philosophical problems, is an issue of language use. Instead of asking if "The cup is red" is true, one asks if it is appropriate to use the word "red" in respect to that particular cup. — Banno

How do we know whether it is appropriate to use the word 'red'? Is it not simply appropriate when speaking of something that appears red?

It is an issue of language use, obviously, since that is what the very question is about: appropriate use of language, but it is not nothing but an issue of language use; what is experienced or perceived is what provides the criteria for deciding appropriate use.

Perhaps, although I don't think so. I agree with much of what you are saying here. — Banno

Heh. Mostly just looking for something that might differentiate us.

We agree that there are rules for language use, and that these rules are regularly broken.

There are two ways of expressing a rule. One way is to set it out explicitly in words. The other is to enact it. Both "stop at the red light" and stopping at the red light express a rule.

Cool. I agree so far.

Well, stating the rule might come after the fact, but it might also come before it, when teaching someone to follow the rule, or when stipulating a new rule - consider the Académie Française. Neither is logically prior to the other. — Banno

Good point. I agree neither is logically prior to the other.

I guess the counter-example would have to be -- a usage that is not state-able in a rule.

That doesn't seem to be possible, to me. We can always append more clauses -- there is no rule limiting how many clauses fit into a sentence, and rules can consist of many sentences on top of that. And even if there was a rule, I would break it :D

We can even invent meanings ex nihilo, so gavagai might fit, or phi, or F of x.

I guess that's the conflict I'm thinking of -- between invented meanings and rules. Is novelty a rule being expressed non-verbally? Is there a difference between meaning and rules at all? I think I was thinking of them as different... but if language is purely a system of grunts for getting things done, then the meaning could "float away".

It just seems a bit too much to me because it seems like words do mean things.

Of course, I might have this all wrong too :D -- but this is where my thoughts are taking me at the moment.

To see if two is a number, one looks at the list of numbers to see if it included two. — Banno

You GOT to be kidding me. If a guy doesn’t know whether or not 2 is a number, how would he know what the list of numbers looks like? So, what….he knows…like…3 is a number, but doesn’t know 2 is a number? The list of numbers is infinite. How does one look at an infinite list?

But maybe you meant, to see if this object perceived is a number 2 or not. To understand the object as being a 2, representing a specific quantity. Of course he would not, if he had no experience of the series of numbers having that particular member in the series. But he would still have an understanding of successive quantitative magnitudes, regardless of the form of its representations.
————-

To see if "the cup has a handle" is true, just check to see if the cup is on the list of things with handles. — Banno

(GASP) How long is the list of things with handles? The handle on a hammer looks nothing like the handle on a cup, but the hammer must be on the list of things with handles. To see if it is true the cup has a handle, why not just look at the farging cup???? It never was a question whether the cup has horns, or wings, or is in the shape of a basketball; it is only asked if it is true the cup has a handle, which immediately presupposes it’s supposed to, insofar as handles are a necessary conceptual schema for that which are cognized as cups. Things which perform similar functions as cups but do not have handles, are cognized as goblets, or whatever.
—————

2 is a number. That's not generally something one experiences as a phenomena — Banno

Oh dear.

2 is nothing but phenomenon. 2 is an object to be perceived by sight. That which 2 the empirical object thus phenomenon represents, on the other hand, is something not generally experienced. Actually, it isn’t at all; it is merely thought, and thought a priori in descension as quantity, and as schemata of a series of successive quantities, finally as specific schema representing a particular quantity.

“…. Philosophical cognition, accordingly, regards the particular only in the general; mathematical the general in the particular, nay, in the individual. This is done, however, entirely à priori and by means of pure reason, so that, as this individual figure is determined under certain universal conditions of construction, the object of the conception, to which this individual figure corresponds as its schema, must be cogitated as universally determined.…”

Number the conception as opposed to number the word, is not a phenomenon; a number, constructed to represent a quantity, is. Mathematics is impossible without phenomenal representation of quantity. Just as one can think a triangle but can never think the properties belonging to any triangle without the construction of one, so too can one think number but never count a total series of them, or determine possible relations between them without construction of objects representing them.
————

It's also clear that whether the cup counts as red or not is a function of the activity in which we are involved, which includes other folk. — Banno

So if I’m all by myself, I won’t count the cup as red? If I’m all by myself, the activity in which I am involved is all my own, so I can only count the cup as red if I think it does. As for the community, we all can count the cup as red iff each of us thinks it does.

But you’re probably coming at this from the fact that when you were a little tyke, you were told the cup was red, hence the “other folk”, and ever since, you’ve never had to think about the properties of that particular thing. Which is tantamount to saying…..you stopped thinking.

Somebody says to you, hand me the red cup……why did you NOT hand him the green one? If other folk are involved in the activity of what is the case, how do other folk get involved with that which is not the case? Can you imagine….all those folk saying, not that one, not that one, not…there ya go, that one. Shheeeesh, how would anyone have invented the Slinky, under those conditions?
————

…..it is a bit silly to berate logicians for not starting with experiences. — Banno

Agreed. Logicians shouldn’t start from experience, but from principles.

[

Truly ineffable

You GOT to be kidding me. — Mww

Meh. What I'm offering is a bowdlerised version of the logical notion of interpretation and satisfaction. of course their definitions are explicit, what I wrote was only a poor parsing in English.

Take it up with the logicians.

if language is purely a system of grunts for getting things done, then the meaning could "float away". — Moliere

That's pretty much it.

Language allows us to construct institutional facts; see the thread on Searle I presented earlier. These institutional facts are manifestations of collective intentionality; yet they can appear quite tangible - things such as property or incorporation... or word "meaning".

Perhaps "meaning" doesn't "float away" - much - because it is held in place by such collective intent. As in Davidson's derangement of epitaphs, the unconventional use is grounded in the convention. But if I say that, folk will think that I mean that meaning is given by intent, and that's not right.

,

Presumably Joshs is bracketing the next part of the conversation... epoché.

But perhaps we ought suspend such judgements...

How do we know whether it is appropriate to use the word 'red'? Is it not simply appropriate when speaking of something that appears red? — Janus

Somewhat circular.

If you are asking how you tell if something is red, the answer is that it simply doesn't matter. It's your beetle, use whatever method you like. What counts is the public use.

Somewhat circular.

If you are asking how you tell if something is red, the answer is that it simply doesn't matter. It's your beetle, use whatever method you like. What counts is the public use. — Banno

It's not circular; if something looks red then it is appropriate to use the word 'red' when referring to its colour, just as if something looks like a tree, it is appropriate to use the word 'tree'.

If people see it differently, they'll soon let you know. "It's not red, it's orange". "it's not a tree, it's a shrub". "Public use" is meaningless; there are only individual usages.

The beetle may actually be public due to quantum entanglement.

The beetle may actually be public due to quantum entanglement. — frank

I'm not sure what that could mean, but if it is so, we don't know about it anyway.

I'm not sure what that could mean, but if it is so, we don't know about it anyway. — Janus

There's a theory. Don't you read pop sci?

I don't read much pop sci; but if you would like to link something I'd look at it.

↪Joshs, ↪Heracloitus

Presumably Joshs is bracketing the next part of the conversation... epoché. — Banno

I was going to respond to your comment on the expression of a rule, and then realized I didn’t actually disagree with it.

First, it's worth noting that predication applies more broadly than to "judgements of experience". 2 is a number. That's not generally something one experiences as a phenomena... unless perhaps one has synethesia — Banno

From a Husserlian vantage, there is nothing to be said about anything outside of experience. The number 2 is an intentional experience in a particular mode of givenness.

— Banno

instead of “is it true that the cup is red" we ask if it is useful to talk of the cup as being red. And several things become immediately apparent.

It's clear that it is appropriate to call the cup red if it is helpful in the task at hand - "pass me the red cup" works if you are handed that cup and not the green one. And we can seek clarification: "Do you mean crimson one or the vermilion one?" and so on. There's an interaction between the participants here that can serve to specify the cup to whatever level one desires.

I hope it is clear why it is a bit silly to berate logicians for not starting with experiences. — Banno

Logicians do start with experience. More specifically, they start with an implicit theory of experience. Their theories of experience pay lip service to the sorts of preliminary processes that are necessary in order to establish logical subjects and predicates as recognizable, unitary objects that can be compared and distinguished , bound together or separated. Usually , this consists of acknowledging what they consider to be psychological developmental capacities like object permanence (it’s hard to manipulate abstract objects without seeing objects as persistingly self-identical) .

But these preliminary, or pre-predicative, capacities tend to be seen as peripheral to what the logicians you support see as the ‘ground floor’ of logic, ‘public use’.
You have said you are not a conceptual relativist, so use for you ultimately is tied to the way things really are, even if in an indirect way ala Davidson, or maybe Anscombe. There is no endless hermeneutic circle of use defined by family resemblance. This chain of ‘in order to’s’ must come to an end somewhere, and that end is presaged by the formal components of predicative logic.

Husserl is also concerned with what works, but for him use applies not only to interactions between people involving objects but also to one’s pre-predicative perceptual involvement with objects. Every aspect of our experience of our world in terms of recognizable features, colors , shapes , the objectivizing constitution of whole objects from a changing flow of perceptual perspectives, distinctions between these constructed whole objects and their components parts , distinctions and similarities between one whole object and another, all of these involve a progressive emergence of more and more complex differentiations and syntheses based on perceived similarities(not a Humean causal concatenation but an intentional synthesis that draws from prior established correlations to produce more complex new syntheses.”.. each everyday experience involves an analogizing transfer of an originally instituted objective sense to a new case, with its anticipative apprehension of the object as having a similar sense.”) There are no qualia to be referred back to here. Everything about perceptual judgement is relative, circular and contingent , just as Isaac would have it.

Predicative judgements have their origin in these pre-predicative judgements of identity, similarity and differentiation. Being able to recognize a ceaselessly changing flow of visual perspectival variations, accompanied by independent auditory and tactile sensations, as ‘this persisting spatial object’ is more useful than experiencing a random flow of meaningless
phenomena. And abstracting further from such particular objects to a general object ‘S’ can be useful too. But we need to recognize the sort of synthetic constructive activity that is required to create the sense of ‘general category’. And the same is true of the further constituting activity involved in the relating of the general category ‘S’ to a ‘P’. For Husserl, every the the most seemingly transparent, obvious and irreducible steps of a logical construction involve the constituting of new senses of meaning(For instance, when I introduce an ‘S’ , that is one sense of meaning, and when I introduce a ‘P’ this changes the sense of the original ‘S’. When I add a conditional IFF this further changes the sense of the ‘S’, as well as the ‘P’.

I don't read much pop sci; — Janus

But you know that people have been thinking about a possible link between consciousness and quantum mechanics at least since Penrose.

But you know that people have been thinking about a possible link between consciousness and quantum mechanics at least since Penrose. — frank

Far as I know it goes back to the very foundations of QM - Niels Bohr was a kind of idealist and often seen as a mystic (certainly by Einstein) and often quoted here by @wayfarer. A Bohr quote that launched a thousand Deepak Chopras.

“Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real. If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.”

I don't read much pop sci; but if you would like to link something I'd look at it.

But you know that people have been thinking about a possible link between consciousness and quantum mechanics at least since Penrose. — frank

Yes, but I don't have an opinion about such speculations as I know too little.

Far as I know it goes back to the very foundations of QM - Niels Bohr was a kind of idealist and often seen as a mystic (certainly by Einstein) and often quoted here by wayfarer. A Bohr quote that launched a thousand Deepak Chopras — Tom Storm

I'm not talking about the measurement problem. Penrose speculated that we should look to quantum mechanics for a theory of how consciousness works. Those speculations continue.

Surely the quote by Bohr implies idealism, ie everything is consciousness. That’s certainly what Mr Wayfarer seemed to think.

Penrose is a Mathematical Platonist, isn’t he? Does this make him an idealist more generally?

Surely the quote by Bohr implies idealism, ie everything is consciousness. That’s certainly what Mr Wayfarer seemed to think. — Tom Storm

Probably, but I wasn't talking about idealism or the measurement problem. I was talking about using quantum theory to explain how the brain works. That's what Penrose was doing.

Penrose is a Mathematical Platonist, isn’t he? Does this make him an idealist more generally? — Tom Storm

Mathematical platonism is the default among mathematicians. It doesn't mean he's an idealist. It's just a stance about whether math reduces to particular instances of calculation or if it's a field we discover.

The number 2 is an intentional experience in a particular mode of givenness. — Joshs

...and so on. "There's a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn't really mean a thing". Russel Morris. When I try to make sense of what you have attempted to say here, it seems to fall apart. So:

Predicative judgements have their origin in these pre-predicative judgements of identity, similarity and differentiation. — Joshs

Identity, similarity and differentiation are predictions. Presumably you wish to say something like that while they are predications, the judgement isn't; but how could one make a judgement involving a predicate without using that predicate?

And so on. Each step meets with a discontinuity.

Here's a link to the Open Logic Project. It's pretty much the whole of logic. Do a search for "experience". Nothing comes up.

But extensionality is the first topic.

So I am left to think that whatever you are doing in that post, it's got precious little to do wit logic as usually conceived.

Much as I disliked Sokal's approach, There seems to be something in his pointing out that some writers delight in their obscurity.

I suspect there is little difference between our actual positions, but since I'm unable to form a coherent account of what you are saying, I might be wrong.

Thanks for clarifying.

I was talking about using quantum theory to explain how the brain works. That's what Penrose was doing. — frank

Oh ok - never heard of this before.

P.S. - I just watched several interviews with him about the matter. Not sure what it gives us but it's interesting.

Identity, similarity and differentiation are predictions. Presumably you wish to say something like that while they are predications, the judgement isn't; but how could one make a judgement involving a predicate without using that predicate? — Banno

Perhaps the distinction Husserl makes between the pre-predicative and the predicative stratum of constitution (and his notion of pre-predicative judgment) implies a different use of the word predication than the one you are familiar with. What is a prediction for you? Is it the relation between an S and a P? If so, when you say all identity, similarity and differentiation involves predication, are you making the relation between a subject and a predicate the irreducible ground of sense as use? Are you claiming that predication is involved in the most basic forms of perceptual discrimination and construction?
If so , it isn’t surprising that Husserl’s writings on the pre-predicative genesis of predication doesn’t make sense to you. This realm of intentional constitution of sense simply doesn’t exist for you. Put differently, it will likely appear to you as a misguided attempt to anchor predicational use in some stratum that eludes language.

Still crickets to my latest reply? I guess you couldn't find any quotes to support your memory failure.

Lukes error was to suppose that expressing a rule had to be either stating it, and hence effable, or enacting it, and hence ineffable, but you were pointing out that we can follow a rule that can also be stated, and hence the doing is not ineffable. — Banno

The list of instructions either gives us the required knowledge of how to ride a bike or it does not. If we don't know how to ride after reading the exhaustive list of instructions - as you claimed - then some knowledge is necessarily missing from the instructions. The only reason why some knowledge could be missing from the instructions is because that knowledge is ineffable. Otherwise, the list of instructions is not exhaustive.

However, we know that the list of instructions is exhaustive, because you said that it could be "to whatever detail we desire" and yet we still wouldn't know how to ride. Furthermore, you implied that the act of riding the bike is some sort of extra knowledge that is additional to, and missing from, the list of instructions (even though the instructions are supposedly exhaustive and instruct one how to ride a bike). Once more, in your own words:

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

Therefore, it was your error that "the doing is ineffable", not mine. Unless you have any evidence to indicate otherwise, this error is all yours.

That's pretty much it. — Banno

Cool.

Language allows us to construct institutional facts; see the thread on Searle I presented earlier. These institutional facts are manifestations of collective intentionality; yet they can appear quite tangible - things such as property or incorporation... or word "meaning".

I think the meaning encoded institutionally is always after the fact. But that doesn't mean the words we use right now don't have meaning.

Language enables, and language is social -- but not institutional. Not even as a status-function derived from we-intentions.

Much of my interest in Searle is his clear case of the social being reducible to the mental, and my desire to make the case that the social is independent of the mental.

I'd say the Marxist account of the social treats the social as a distinct entity that is not reducible to the mental, nor does it arise out of a collective will. A monopoly on violence is closer -- only it'd include liberal democracies within that scope. Rather than collectively enacted rules, the social organism behaves in accord with its own patterns which, in turn, shape individuals to follow rules. A proletarian knows the consequences of falling out of line. This creates the status of alienation which goes directly against we-intentions. The worker has a two-fold identity: the world of rules from the boss that he must dance to, and the knowledge that the rules are just excuses for violence if he doesn't behave.

Knowing the rules like this is simply not a deontic relationship. One follows the rules, in deontology, for the value of the rule itself, because it is what is worthy, and you respect that rule -- and as a freely acting person you choose to obey its strictures.

But workers are not free, in the bosses' language, complete with its deontic promises.

And having a need to be able to express that condition, from time to time -- they don't just break rules, rules aren't even useful. Rules are for bosses and lawyers and people who make a living by parsing written things. Workers aren't trained in that, and so it is to their disadvantage to give into the world of reasons and procedures. Power is at the point of production, and if you can stop that it doesn't matter how you say it. (but note how the very world is different now -- a rule without deontic commitments)

And after the strike, win or lose, the boss won't understand it.