Can you summarize it, please? I did read it when you posted it, but I just don't get it. Really, I'm not trying to be disingenuous here (I've already been accused of such, in another Thread). So, just explain it to me, man. Like, in plain, simple English.

Things are not pragmatism and convention all the way down becasue at some point we must simply act; we make it so.

↪Joshs The extension of π, what it refers to, is the ratio of a circle's diameter to it's circumference. The "sense" or "meaning" of π? If we have what we do with π, what more is there? — Banno

What I’m trying to say is that a description of what pi refers to cannot guarantee that what I do with it is the same as what you do with it. Witt goes over this in his account of rule following.

Witt goes over this in his account of rule following. — Joshs

OK. So is it like a literal "game"? Like, if Wittgenstein speaks of "Language Games", are they really games, from a scientific standpoint? Because there is a science called Game Theory.

...a description of what pi refers to cannot guarantee that what I do with it is the same as what you do with it — Joshs

Sure.

So what.

I use π to work out the volume of a water tank. You use it to lay out the design for your garden. We are not here making use of a different thing. You could also use it to work out the volume of the tank.

That you do something different with π does not suggest that you are using a different π.

Edit: But this seems to be the implication of your approach. You can disavow that, if you like. It would be good if I were wrong here, since it might lead to some agreement between us.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the three first-order translations, taken together, describe the conceptual territory covered by "exist" in loose talk. We can of course recommend drawing a line under this and saying, "Please use these three disambiguated terms. While there's nothing pre-ordained about them, they attach easily to three important conceptual areas that cover the field, we can use them to refer to and describe those areas, and they're reasonably familiar from previous usage." — J

I don't quite follow your argument. Again, I don't see what I'm arguing as exceptionally obtuse or difficult. The element of Platonism that I appeal to, is the rational faculty - that which grasps real ideas such as number, ratio, etc ('real' I use to distinguish such ideas from the momentary content of individual minds.) This is the basis on which I argue that numbers are real but not phenomenally existent.

Consider a number 7. I ask you: does it exist? Well, yes, you say, you just wrote it on this screen, there it is. But that's a symbol. What is denoted by the symbol is an intellectual act, namely, an act of counting. And that act is not an existent, in the sense that objects are existents. This is where the distinction can be made between the kinds of existence of numbers (etc) and sensory particulars. This distinction is 'Platonic' in that it mirrors the division between sensory (pistis, doxa) and mathematical (dianoia) knowledge in Plato's thought.

This is an heuristic, as I say, not a developed theory. It provides a conceptual framework for distinguishing the phenomenal (the domain of existents) from the noumenal (the intelligible domain). These two are intertwined in our thought, yet the distinction is discernible.

As Brennan explains in Thomistic Psychology, 'the process of knowledge is immediately concerned with the separation of form from matter, since a thing is known precisely because its form is received in the knower.’ Sense knowledge retains particularity, while intellectual knowledge universalizes. This is why, as Brennan notes, 'to understand is to free form completely from matter.’ In the same way, the reality of numbers, as universal forms, is grasped immaterially by the intellect. They are real but do not exist in the same way as physical objects.

That something is the brain as a res extensa, and as a physical body more generally, which is physically related to other physical bodies, some of them containing human brains just like yours, just like mine. And the brain is the object to which the predicate cogitans applies as well. One thing (the brain), two predicates (extena and cogitans). The brain is a thing, but the mind is not a thing, the mind is simply what the brain does, in the same sense that digestion is what your gut does. — Arcane Sandwich

'Mind is what brain does' is lumpen materialism. But while there is a plausible and comprehensive account of how the gut digests nutrients, along with many other basic functions of metabolism, there is no corresponding account for the relationship of brain and mind, of how and in what sense the brain produces mind, any more than how, or if, matter has produced life. As Liebniz said, if you could make the brain the size of a mill and walk through it, and nowhere in it would you find a thought. In order to even examine the brain and to begin to raise questions about how it does this, the very faculties which you wish to explain, namely, those of reasoned inference, must already be deployed in the pursuit of that question. And you can't see the elements of rational inference from the outside, so to speak. They are internal to thought. See this post.

'Mind is what brain does' is lumpen materialism. — Wayfarer

:rofl: Why are you being so mean to me when you say something like that?

But while there is a plausible and comprehensive account of how the gut digests nutrients, along with many other basic functions of metabolism, there is no corresponding account for the relationship of brain and mind, of how and in what sense the brain produces mind, any more than how, or if, matter has produced life. As Liebniz said, if you could make the brain the size of a mill and walk through it, and nowhere in it would you find a thought. In order to even examine the brain and to begin to raise questions about how it does this, the very faculties which you wish to explain, namely, those of reasoned inference, must already be deployed in the pursuit of that question. And you can't see the elements of rational inference from the outside, so to speak. They are internal to thought. See this post. — Wayfarer

I'll make you a deal. I'll respond to what you said there, but you first have to explain how and why "lumpen materialism" is even a thing to begin with. Deal or no deal?

"Mind is to brain as digestion is to stomach". Searle.

Is digestion also lumpen materialism?

↪Arcane Sandwich
"Mind is to brain as digestion is to stomach". Searle. — Banno

Yeah, I took that from Bunge, actually, and Bunge took it from Searle, surprisingly. I mean, if you read Bunge's Matter and Mind, he has some really scathing things to say about Searle. But regarding the brain-stomach analogy, he agrees, again quite surprisingly. At least that's how I read that part.

What is denoted by the symbol is an intellectual act, namely, an act of counting. And that act is not an existent, in the sense that objects are existents. This is where the distinction can be made between the kinds of existence of numbers (etc) and sensory particulars. — Wayfarer

Both numbers and chairs exist.

Where they differ is not in their existence, but in the other properties they have. The chair has a time and place, the seven, no so much.

It would be an error to think of this as a difference in the way in which they exist, or as a difference in their being (whatever that is).

But this seems to be an error Wayfarer is prone to.

But this seems to be an error Wayfarer is prone to. — Banno

Well, I mean, not to get overtly political or anything, but he just said that Searle's and Bunge's opinion on the brain-stomach metaphor is "lumpen materialism". I mean... :lol:

first have to explain how and why "lumpen materialism" is even a thing to begin with — Arcane Sandwich

Sure. There was a famous expression which circulated in Enlightenment Europe, that 'the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile', spoken by one Pierre Cabanis. That characterises a particular strain of enlightenment materialism which attempts to account for everything that exists in terms of the motions of bodies, which is basically what is described as physicalist reductionism. The expression 'lumpen materialism' an allusion to the Marxist 'lumpenproletariat' which is characterised by a kind of false consciousness. Materialism is similarily a kind of false consciousness, in that it assumes that the base level of existence can account for everything that exists. An expression can also be found in the writings of one D M Armstrong, one of the 'Australian Realists' you mentioned in another thread:

And this would be Arthur Schopenhauer's criticism of Armstrong:

@Wayfarer Yeah, so? What's the big deal with what Armstrong is saying there? As I read that passage, all he's saying there is that one must recognize that subjects and objects are "on a par", ontologically speaking. So what? It's not as big of a deal as some folks suggest.

The way I read that, and I might be wrong, is that it's essentially a demonstration that the determinism-freedom continuum exists. Freedom is indeed an actual "thing", like, it's an objective feature of Reality itself because it allows the subject to arise from the objective in a completely different ontological sense, even though they are ontologically "on a par", so to speak. In other words, the brain is a res extensa and a res cogitans at the same time, it's no big deal. Why is that "lumpen materialism"?

@Wayfarer has a point - you will not find seven by dissecting a brain.

One might conclude that there must be two sorts of things, the mental and the physical. But there are alternatives.

Wayfarer sometimes says that there are only mental things, but when the problems with this are pointed out, he quickly retracts such a view.

Wayfarer has a point - you will not find seven by dissecting a brain. — Banno

So? Bunge's point (and Searle's point, perhaps) is that you won't find "hungry" by dissecting a stomach either. It's no big deal. The mind is a series of events, which compose series of processes. In that sense (metaphysically, ontologically) it does not differ from what the stomach (the digestive system, actually) does when you digest something.

It's not as big of a deal as some folks suggest. — Arcane Sandwich

It would be an error to think of this as a difference in the way in which they exist, or as a difference in their being (whatever that is). — Banno

:chin:

Wayfarer sometimes says that there are only mental things, but when the problems with this are pointed out, he quickly retracts such a view. — Banno

This is your congenital misrepresentation of what I actually say, but no matter how many times I try and set it straight, you never get it.

What I say is that objects exist for a subject - for an observer, for a mind. The mind, observer or subject is not itself within the field of objective analysis, as per Husserl. When you conjecture a world before you were born, or before h.sapiens came to exist, this conjecture still contains an implicit perspective, within which the terms 'prior to' and 'before' are meaningful.

you wont find "hu(n)gry" by dissecting a stomach — Arcane Sandwich

"Hungry" isn't something stomaches do. Being hungry takes an organism.

"Hungry" isn't something stomaches do. Being hungry takes an organism. — Banno

So does the act of thinking, being aware, and being conscious of something. All of them require a living organism. Intentional consciousness as Husserl understands it is necessarily (in a modal sense) dependent upon the factual world in which the Living Subject in the phenomenological sense is immersed. And that factual world, most of the time, is the world of ordinary life. The "Lifeworld" of Phenomenology is just ordinary life. So why is it morally wrong to be a lumpen?

What I say is that objects exist for a subject — Wayfarer

And my reply is that yes, saying (believing, doubting) that something exists does indeed require a mind.

But not existing. There is gold in those hills, even if it remains unsaid (unbelieved, undoubted).

But not existing. There is gold in those hills, even if it remains unsaid (unbelieved, undoubted). — Banno

I didn't even know that Australian Paraguayans even existed before I joined this Forum a few days ago. Why not? Why didn't I know that? Well, the Peircian inference-to-best-hypothesis here is simply that Realism is true: objects exist outside of your own brain, "out there", along with all of the other res extensa of the Universe. And some of those, are also res cogitans, because they are living brains inside the bodies of individual homo sapiens just like you. So, Realism is true. That's not to say that materialism is true, it only means that realism is true.

So far.

I don't disagree. Although the way Husserl expresses it is unnecessarily obtuse. (Edit: and Peirce not much different.)

Arcane Sandwich
I don't disagree. Although the way Husserl expresses it is unnecessarily obtuse. — Banno

He wasn't a good writer, that's an Aesthetic defect that Husserl had. Peirce had the same problem.

Yes, but also their logic is wanting. Peirce because he was prior to Frege, Husserl... perhaps just didn't get it.

But not existing. There is gold in those hills, even if it remains unsaid (unbelieved, undoubted). — Banno

See this excerpt from some lecture notes on Wittgenstein:

Wittgenstein's statement “I am my world” occurs in the context of his discussion of the limits of the subject and its relationship to the world. Here, he is dealing with the nature of the self and its boundaries. The claim reflects the idea that the "self" is not an object in the world but rather the limit of the world—the perspective from which the world is experienced and represented.

This remark can be connected to Wittgenstein's earlier statement in the Tractatus (5.6): "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." Language structures how we understand and engage with reality. The "world" in Wittgenstein's terms is the totality of facts, not things, and the "I" or "subject" cannot be a fact among these facts.

The self, as Wittgenstein understands it here, is a metaphysical subject, not a physical or psychological entity. This self is the necessary precondition for the world to appear but is not itself a part of the world.

This is entirely in keeping with the phenomenological analysis. Again, it does not call into question the empirical facts of existence. It is about the conditions within which they're meaningful. Can you not see this distinction, even after all this debate?

Nice. That's Tractarian. Can you show that this view was maintained unmodified into the Later period? And if not, how was it modified?

I'd suggest that "I am my world" is itself something that can only be maintained as part of a community - so "I" has a sense only against "you". If language is not private, neither is the world. I am my world, in relation to others. The sense of isolation or separation associated with solipsism arises from misunderstanding how language works.

I don't quite follow your argument. Again, I don't see what I'm arguing as exceptionally obtuse or difficult. — Wayfarer

I think we're in agreement, actually, and if you don't follow, the fault is likely mine. We're both saying that there is a conceptual division that we want to acknowledge; in your words, it's "'Platonic' in that it mirrors the division between sensory (pistis, doxa) and mathematical (dianoia) knowledge in Plato's thought." I think that's exactly right, as far as this particular debate about "existence" goes.

It provides a conceptual framework for distinguishing the phenomenal (the domain of existents) from the noumenal (the intelligible domain). These two are intertwined in our thought, yet the distinction is discernible — Wayfarer

The difference in what we want to say about this division, however, is this: You want to use the term "existents" for the phenomenal domain, and I'm recommending we stop doing that, as the word is so fraught and unsatisfactory. I'm simply urging us to notice that "the distinction is discernible" no matter what terms we use, and that is what counts. On the important point -- pistis and dianoia as picking out two different areas on the conceptual map -- we agree. And when we examine the various relations between the objects of pistis and dianoia, we may find yet further agreement. So we shouldn't let logomachy get in the way!

The difference in what we want to say about this division, however, is this: You want to use the term "existents" for the phenomenal domain, and I'm recommending we stop doing that, as the word is so fraught and unsatisfactory. I'm simply urging us to notice that "the distinction is discernible" no matter what terms we use, and that is what counts. On the important point -- pistis and dianoia as picking out two different areas on the conceptual map -- we agree. And when we examine the various relations between the objects of pistis and dianoia, we may find yet further agreement. So we shouldn't let logomachy get in the way! — J

Yeah but it's like, I hate to play the role of Devil's Advocate here, but Plato's theory of the mind (i.e., pistis, dianoia, episteme) is outdated. Was it scientific when Plato first discussed it? Yes, it was, and it remained scientific for some time afterwards as well. But, today, that's not a respectable scientific theory, because it's no longer a scientific theory to begin with.

Plato's theory of the mind is outdated. — Arcane Sandwich

You've happened on the forums at a time when the fashion is towards mediaeval thinking.

Plato's theory of the mind is outdated. — Arcane Sandwich

You've happened on the forums at a time when the fashion is towards mediaeval thinking. — Banno

That's a bunch of nonsense, as far as I'm concerned. Medieval thinking, that is. It has no ontological relevance, nor does it have any ethical relevance, nor any moral relevance. It's not important.

By that's just my honest opinion. I could be wrong.