Would you agree that the politics involved includes the interpersonal ? Not just forums like this, but friendships, marriages. Language is a crowbar, a smokescreen, a mirror, all kinds of things. — plaque flag
There's also the issue of metaphor itself. What exactly is a metaphor ? If human cognition is fundamentally metaphorical, it's an important question. Roughly I relate it to analogy. I sometimes try to open my front door (where I live) by pushing a button on my car keys. The mind exploits skill in one domain in a new domain. Something like that. — plaque flag
Yes. I meant politics in the broadest sense. The application of power. I'm simply making the point that the choice of theory as to how accessible 'the truth' is, immediately affects one's power in terms of access to it. I might benefit greatly from a theory which holds truths to be mostly psychological. A scientist gains power by holding truths to be accessible only through the instruments she has access to. A well-read philosopher likewise will profit by an epistemology which places emphasis on the history of ideas. — Isaac
While we may wish to reject the materialist realism of science as a form of metaphysical prejudice, we cannot do so in favour of an alternative metaphysical framework that also claims to describe an ultimate reality be it a new form of idealism, panpsychism, or some Hollywood influenced Matrix version of 'we are living in a simulated reality' without having a theory of language that explains how any of these realist claims are possible. — Lawson
I think the beauty of Lawson’s promise (which I still don’t understand) is that if there’s no realist theory of language then discussions about effete topics like idealism and panpsychism bite the dust for good. That would be an interesting development. — Tom Storm
Most of the issues that raise a ruckus in philosophy are metaphysics. They are matters of point of view, not fact. — T Clark
Such an ephemeral ontological object cannot really be the subject of any serious investigation — Isaac
I'm not sure what's to be gained from lining up on two sides to say "There's one kind of thing!" or "There's two!!" More interesting is what you can do with such a claim. Naturalism is pretty straightforward as a working assumption, rather than a dogma; you know how to proceed, what sorts of things to look for, how to design experiments, how to craft a research program. I'm not clear what the other side offers except a defense of people's common pre-scientific beliefs. — Srap Tasmaner
knowledge of things in themselves — wonderer1
I don't see a problem with a bit of effete musing along with one's morning coffee. Not dissimilar to doing a crossword or chess puzzle before setting off to solve the world's problems. Or in my case, move that soil to the back garden.Anyway, I'm sure there's little stomach for political discussion in what's otherwise a nice bit of effete curiosity... — Isaac
Are you saying that overwhelming agreement on what is the case is a form of hinge proposition? — Joshs
Language, world, self --- we never achieve full understanding of any of these, so we go on our entire lives in with this partial understanding, just as when we were infants. And it works. — Srap Tasmaner
Hence the point is not to understand language but to use it. — Banno
But I'm a little confused why he cast this in terms of language and how the claims are made. Presumably because verification is off the table from the start? And the claim that there is something wrong with the very words in which idealism, say, is proposed -- that *is* the old logical positivist diagnosis, that you're not even really saying anything.
On the other hand, if you don't think of language as the home of claims about reality, there's no particular problem with metaphysics. If your endorsing panpsychism gets you a job or gets you laid, it's just another day at the office for language. — Srap Tasmaner
No. Hinge propositions need not be agreed on, nor need agreement depend on hinge propositions. They are distinct notions.
The remainder of what you say in that paragraph relies on the notion that beliefs must be "rational", whatever that is, apparently something like having a justification. But there is no reason to think this so. Indeed, the point of hinge propositions it that they are believed and yet need not be justified. — Banno
Hence the point is not to understand language but to use it. — Banno
There's also the issue of metaphor itself. What exactly is a metaphor ? If human cognition is fundamentally metaphorical, it's an important question. Roughly I relate it to analogy. I sometimes try to open my front door (where I live) by pushing a button on my car keys. The mind exploits skill in one domain in a new domain. Something like that. — plaque flag
The metaphors begin to blur and yet you can often see the patterns which inform them. It makes me wonder just what it is that allows us to keep things straight. Someone with dementia can speak like a poet - 'Turn the sun down, my feelings are burning.' This means, switch off the light, it's too bright. — Tom Storm
Nice conclusion. — Tom Storm
Isn't one understanding of later Wittgenstien that he was an anti-realist? — Tom Storm
How?Isn't this leading towards anti-realism? — Tom Storm
Of course logical positivism is untenable based on this too. In the end what all this seems to amount to (as I read it) is that for a non-realist our conversations are doomed, regardless of all the facts and rationalism we seek to muster in favour of our particular fancies. Our language doesn't mirror reality, it is just a tool which humans use to communicate and while it has many useful applications to get things done - metaphysical truth isn't one of them. — Tom Storm
'there's plums in the icebox' being confirmed when one goes to the icebox — plaque flag
Isn't this leading towards anti-realism? It also sounds a bit like 'shut up and calculate'. — Tom Storm
I'm trained in math, and group theory... — plaque flag
I prefer the notion of horizon or background to that of things-in-themselves, but it's not that important in this context. The idea is that we can zoom in on reality, that we have a sense of greater detail waiting for us in every direction, if making the effort becomes worthwhile. The lifeworld (the encompassing world in which and for which we make models) has 'depth' but (for me) no ultimate Reality 'behind' it. — plaque flag
I'd be inclined to say that the lifeworld is an aspect of reality, or at least the part of reality we have some epistemic access to. I don't know what it would mean to talk about a reality behind the lifeworld. — wonderer1
I think sure, we might be in a simulation or multiverse, so the simulation or universe exists in some context we don't have epistemic access to. However, I would still see the simulation or universe as being an aspect of reality. — wonderer1
Undoubtedly part of the context of that for me, is seeing people as varying in the extent that they are in touch with different aspects of the way things are in reality. So maybe you and I are too different in the way we think of "reality" for me to understand. — wonderer1
Roughly (or so I claim) the meaningful structure of reality is exactly the kind of meaning in language, so 'the world is all that is the case.' The (intelligible) structure of the world is the meaning of all true sentences, or something like that. There's a surplus in humans though, an ability to hypothesize, lie, and be mistaken. — plaque flag
For everyday practical purposes, language mirrors what we see is going on well enough to be a practical tool for issuing instructions, passing along information, and so on. — Janus
When someone says, 'There is a God' - there is almost nothing that maps onto any reality I understand or is available to us the way cats or plumbs might be. What does 'there is' mean here? What does 'a God' mean or even 'God'. These four words are like a hall of mirrors. — Tom Storm
I don't see a problem with a bit of effete musing along with one's morning coffee. Not dissimilar to doing a crossword or chess puzzle before setting off to solve the world's problems. Or in my case, move that soil to the back garden. — Banno
Seems to me that if one were to follow antirealist ideas into ethics, one would be setting aside any such ethical truths, just as for ontology. Putin, not Christ, is the consequent. — Banno
It feels like a pragmatist take on language ought to fit better with science-engendering prejudices (or metaphysical assumptions) than with science-blocking ones, but it's beyond me at the moment. — Srap Tasmaner
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