My point that a philosophy which places natural language above formal language is more robust than a philosophy which does not
— Leontiskos
I've said similar things myself, even in this thread, even recently, but at the moment the question of priority is less pressing for me than the issue of how the two are related, so that's what I've been writing about.
@Banno's position here is interesting because he is strongly committed both to the primacy of natural language and the usefulness of classical logic. The argument he often makes is that classical logic is not something you find implicit in ordinary language, as its hidden structure, say, but you can choose to conform your language use to it.
I think that view actually rhymes quite well with the description I've been trying to develop of how formal, technical language can be embedded in natural language, much as mathematical language is and must be embedded in natural language. — Srap Tasmaner
Perhaps it will suffice to be disciplined enough.The whole point of the lecture is that you should make sure you are properly disciplined, so this must be something you can do, and you must be able to know whether you are doing it or not. Otherwise, it's just "try to", which he's clearly not going to countenance. — Srap Tasmaner
Perhaps it will suffice to be disciplined enough.
If you and I agree, will that do? — Banno
The true infinite can only be considered infinite to the extent that it is an endless repetition of the same finite quality.
1. The finite is superseded precisely in the way that we have analyzed in 3.4 and 3.6. Hegel sums up the argument with his statement that “finitude is only as a transcending of itself” (WL 5: 160/GW 21:133,34/145). Finite qualities can be what they are by virtue of themselves, rather than being defined by their relation to others, only insofar as they go beyond their finitude. To the extent, then, that a quality fails– as it does at every moment of the “progress to infinity”– to transcend itself, to go beyond its finitude, it fails to be. (More precisely, I suggest: It fails to be “fully.” It is, but it isn’t real: It fails to be what it is by virtue of itself.) So finitude must be superseded, in order to be real.
2. The spurious infinite,on the other hand, is superseded by the observation that infinity is only as a transcending of the finite; it therefore essentially contains its other and is, consequently, in its own self the other of 78 Hegel’s philosophy of reality, freedom, and god itself. The finite is not superseded by the infinite as by a power existing outside it; on the contrary, its infinity consists in superseding its own self. (WL 5: 160/GW 21:133,36–2/145–146) Since an “infinity” that is over against and flatly opposed to the finite is limited by the finite and thus fails to be infinite, true infinity must include the finite by being the finite’s superseding of itself. To the extent that the finite transcends itself, the finite is, and to the extent that the finite transcends itself, infinity is. Rather than being,on the one hand, and arriving (or, in fact, not arriving) at the goal of pure freedom (and goodness), on the other, the finite something constantly comes (fully) into being by creating pure freedom and goodness, by transcending it self. Both the finite and the infinite come (fully) into being through, and thus they both are, the same process. Though infinity transcends, goes beyond, the finite, it does so not by replacing the finite with some thing totally different, something entirely “beyond” the finite, but by being the self-transcendence of the finite itself. The true infinite, the true “beyond,”is in the finite rather than opposed to or simply“ beyond” it.
Robert M. Wallace - Hegel's Philosophy of Reality, Freedom, and God
It is not just man that is self-moving, it is the world that is self-moving. And self-movement does not mean willing what one chooses to will. The movement is as much passive as it is active. One finds oneself in motion. One is throw into situations.
Intention and intuition, potency to act and action are not separated in poststructuralist thinking, except artificially. Repetition and difference are prior to this distinction.
Difference is seen as more basic than similarity. The reason is that similarity presupposes difference which makes difference logically prior to similarity. In fact, similarity is a consequence of disregarding difference. In such a context difference becomes fundamental. It is therefore natural to ask if there are different kinds of basic differences, i.e. is there really only one difference, usually expressed as in a≠b? It is conceivable that two different objects comprise of two aspects of difference: one collective and one individual. The collective aspect refers to some collective totality, whereby different objects are different because they are differently contributing to the whole, or collective. One could say that each object is defined collectively by being different from all others in the shared context or collective. The individual difference then concerns a direct relation between two individuals. This difference is always used when some object is named, labelled, indexed to identify each object uniquely. A “collective” difference is then reflecting that objects are different in the sense that they, by the very being part of some whole or collection, are differently contributing to this whole. If they were not, they would not be different at all. If cardinality represents the collective aspect of difference, ordinality would represent the individual. It is hard to see any reason why these two aspects necessarily should be identical. This motivates a proposal of two basic kinds of differences where non-ordinality will imply indistinguishability. Another reason for a discussion of indistinguishables is that there are very few systematic attempts to deal with id:s (here after I use the shorthand id for indistinguishable)
Georg Wikman - The Notion of Order in Mathematics and Physics. Similarity, Difference and Indistinguishability
what is the nature of our subjective comportment toward the world such that it makes possible the invention of abstractions which leave out the relevant and purposeful way in which we encounter the meaningful world? — Joshs
Well, one difficulty is perhaps a conflation between specificity and rigor. For instance, I love Robert Sokolowski's The Phenomenology of the Human Person, but one of my criticisms while reading it was that it didn't always specify what it was talking about as much as I would have liked. However, I came around on this, that this was actually a wise choice, in line with Aristotle's advice in the Ethics that we ought not demand greater specificity than our subject matter allows. Wittgenstein's appeal to a "family resemblance" is another good example (although it's funny to see this then sometimes transformed into an appeal to a sort of formal "concept of family resemblance"). Actually, I think this is one of the points Grayling (who is quite analytic) criticizes Wittgenstein on, being too vague in these ways.
I don't think that charge is totally without its merits in some cases. The degree of specificity needs to be in line with the subject matter, and it is possible to err in either direction. But it is easy to mistake a lack of specificity with a lack of rigor. The drive towards reductionism and atomism is a sort of pernicious demand for specificity in some cases, often paired with questionable metaphysical assumptions. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I think your nephew makes Socrates sound like a moron. — Fire Ologist
that, in so far as it goes, is not a poor position to adopt? — Banno
There's a bit of a sense in your post ― at least in what I quoted ― that ideals are a problem, and that their leaving stuff out is a problem, especially because they leave out what's most important. I may come to agree with you someday, but that's not really my sense of things. I guess I'm approaching them more neutrally ― idealization is a fact of human life and thought and behavior. Some clear upsides, some just as clear downsides, and something there's no reason to think we can get along without — Srap Tasmaner
For ways of seeing and ways of setting up problems that begin very far apart, I'm not sure it's much use at all. — Srap Tasmaner
...if different groups in philosophy give different relative weights to various sources of discipline, we can compare the long-run results of the rival ways of working. Tightly constrained work has the merit that even those who reject the constraints can agree that it demonstrates their consequences. — Williamson, 10-11
It’s not idealizations that are the problem. I agree that we cannot get along without them. The problem is when philosophy takes them as its starting point and adopts them as its method rather than delving beneath the facade to explicate the underlying processes. — Joshs
He has the back-up — Leontiskos
if different groups in philosophy give different relative weights to various sources of discipline, we can compare the long-run results of the rival ways of working. — Williamson, 10-11
Who's the "we" tallying the results and scoring the competition? — Srap Tasmaner
Who's the "we" tallying the results and scoring the competition? — Srap Tasmaner
...discourse and dissection. So I'll go back to the suggested demarcation criteria, that we stop just making shit up when we start dissecting, and that this is what marks the move form myth making to doing philosophy. — Banno
He explicitly situates himself within realism within the realism/antirealism debate within analytic philosophy. But the expectation is that he explicitly situate himself in Heidegger's history. — Banno
Did I misunderstand you here? I had understood that this was becasue of the topic, not the degree of formality...There is, for example, no actual philosophical work by anyone anywhere in this thread. At least on this view. Strictly speaking. — Srap Tasmaner
I like simple.So, in a way, I do think that the idea of formal logic as regularization of natural language is simplistic, though not wrong. — Ludwig V
Yep. I'm pleased and flattered to see this clear reflection on my view. Thanks.Banno's position here is interesting because he is strongly committed both to the primacy of natural language and the usefulness of classical logic. The argument he often makes is that classical logic is not something you find implicit in ordinary language, as its hidden structure, say, but you can choose to conform your language use to it. — Srap Tasmaner
And again, very much Yep!I think that view actually rhymes quite well with the description I've been trying to develop of how formal, technical language can be embedded in natural language, much as mathematical language is and must be embedded in natural language. — Srap Tasmaner
So whether we make use of formal logic or natural
language in service of philosophy, if our focus is on reducing our experience of the world to fit the idealizations of logic or the categorical universalities of language we are failing to address the most fundamental philosophical question; what is the nature of our subjective comportment toward the world such that it makes possible the invention of abstractions which leave out the relevant and purposeful way in which we encounter the meaningful world? — Joshs
Excellent example.Do you think Russell and Wittgenstein, after 1930 -32, could have managed something like this? I'm really not sure. — Srap Tasmaner
[He] has a kind of mystic insight, and seems to think ordinary language is good enough for philosophy. I do not agree." — Russell, letter to Gilbert Ryle, 1945
I think what Williamson wants is for you and I to be rigorous enough that if we disagree it is clear that we do, and, in the best case, we can agree on what would count as resolving the dispute, and, in the very best case, we agree on a way of getting there and know what it is. — Srap Tasmaner
There is, for example, no actual philosophical work by anyone anywhere in this thread. At least on this view. Strictly speaking. — Srap Tasmaner
Did I misunderstand you here? I had understood that this was becasue of the topic, not the degree of formality...
I think I'm having trouble with the apparent juxtaposition of formal and natural languages. I understand formal language as a subclass of natural language, not as its antithesis. "A = apples" is as much a part of English as "May I introduce you to George?" The difference is in the rules around "=" that permit substitution extensionally...
Formal language is just natural language with more explicit restrictions and explanations. — Banno
Deleuze writes: "It is said of a world the very ground of which is difference, in which everything rests upon disparities, upon differences of differences which reverberate to infinity (the world of intensity). — Joshs
Georg Wikman: "Difference is seen as more basic than similarity. The reason is that similarity presupposes difference which makes difference logically prior to similarity."
"But any "difference that makes a difference" is of course actual, sheer potential itself being nothing at all. Difference presumably presupposes something to be different. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Some shit we made up might even be true.I agree with this, with the caveat that there is nothing wrong with "making shit up" provided we don't take it to be real, or to be the truth. — Janus
Yes, fair enough. Others will situate him, of course, but that's their problem, presumably.My point was simply that he need not explicitly situate himself at all — Janus
In a bit (of information as in computer science), there is a difference between 0 and 1. It is a difference that does not make a difference.
So I have not been trying to claim that real work can only be done in a more formal mode of expression, only that in other disciplines the choice of that formal mode is an indicator that we're working (or demonstrating, etc), rather than just talking about it. — Srap Tasmaner
And I have some sympathy with that view, and have said before that the overwhelming majority of my own posts are just chitchat, sometimes gossip, like talk in the faculty lounge or at a bar. Now and then I've done some actual work here, but not often. There is, for example, no actual philosophical work by anyone anywhere in this thread. At least on this view. Strictly speaking. — Srap Tasmaner
Some shit we made up might even be true.
The question is, how do you decide which is which? — Banno
This is how I (mis?)understand Deleuze.
↪J
Perhaps this helps. — GrahamJ
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