SO you be the grown-up and help me out of this loop. — Banno
Holding expectation is possible prior to language. — creativesoul
Mind you, I also suspect that if a lion could talk, we could use Davidson's radical interpretation to work out what it wanted. — Banno
Regarding that, has there been any progress between the coherentist view of truth and the correspondence theory? — Posty McPostface
I'm not sure you can reject the lion comment without giving up Wittgenstein wholesale either. — StreetlightX
Does he believe he has true beliefs? — Banno
But the point would be: could your cat communicate to other cats that treats are on the way? — gurugeorge
that our understanding of language is grounded in shared (or rather, shareable) practices or 'forms of life'. — StreetlightX
So, Banno presupposes that thinking about one's own thought and belief is necessary for having and/or forming true belief. — creativesoul
You see so far, those internal "motions of the mind" are idiosyncratic to each creature, bespoke internal symbolisms. In human beings, that might mean that when I hear the word "tree" it triggers a vague coloured tree image, like an impressionist painting, whereas when you hear the word "tree" a particular sharply defined tree that's an archetypal or prototype tree occurs to you, but in monochrome, for another person a simplified tree schema, for another person, a particular memory of a tree from their childhood, etc.
But the variance of these things means that what's important about words and communication, and therefore thought to the extent that it's shareable, can't be reliant on those internal pre-verbal motions, there's no logic to them, so they all "cancel out" (same as with Wittgenstein's beetle example); what's important for logic, thought and language, is the shared habits of shuffling symbols around in particular ways in particular contexts. That's the thing that crosses the abyss between man and man, that's the thing that allows communication - those shared habits. That's what makes it so that we understand each other even though our internal imagery, etc., might be quite different. — gurugeorge
Hm. The point is perhaps too subtle. Jack can have a true belief; Jack cannot believe that he has a true belief. Doing so requires that he have access to language.
I've been trying to make that clear to you for a while now... — Banno
The entire sphere of action and practice is missing in Davidson: — StreetlightX
...what's important for logic, thought and language, is the shared habits of shuffling symbols around in particular ways in particular contexts. That's the thing that crosses the abyss between man and man, that's the thing that allows communication - those shared habits. That's what makes it so that we understand each other even though our internal imagery, etc., might be quite different. — gurugeorge
Language games are not fixed. They can change, mingle and disappear to be replaced by novel games. Talking to lions would be a novel game. — Banno
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