I would think that clearly penises are not existentially contingent upon language. Thus, "penis" sets out something that is properly called "independent" of language, for it is not existentially contingent upon our taking account of it via naming it. — creativesoul

Dicks are real and not linguistic inventions. This must be progress!

So how do you divide up a foot into inches unless there is some underlying continuity to be divided? — apokrisis

The foot, as well as inches, are the measuring units, there is no underlying continuity. Divide the inch into halves, quarters, however you wish, they are still all discrete units. Numbers are discrete units of value , and no matter how you divide them they will always be such. Any assumption that there is an underlying continuity is simply false, because as much as you assume that they are infinitely divisible, they always exist as discrete units. But the thing which they are applied to, to be measured, may be assumed to be continuous.

One second we are talking about units of measurement, the next about actual substantial objects out there in the real world? — apokrisis

I have been trying to maintain the categorical distinction. You have been switching back and forth at will, because you denied the categorical distinction in the first place. You want the degrees of difference to be in the same category as the hot and cold. That;s your most fundamental ontological principle, deny the categorical separation of dualism, and replace it with terms of dichotomy. This moves things which are inherently incommensurable, into the same category so you can proceed under the illusion that they can be related through mathematics. You want to compare apples and oranges.

Now this is the consequence of your ambiguous principles, you can't even determine which of these categories we're referring to at any particular time, because you've already synthesized them in principle.

Divide the inch into halves, quarters, however you wish, they are still all discrete units. — Metaphysician Undercover

And yet all still capable of further sub-division apparently. And how can there be further division if there is nothing further that counts as the undivided?

Your mathematical logic doesn't really seem all that water-tight, eh?

You have been switching back and forth at will, — Metaphysician Undercover

I was simply trying to keep pace with your flip-flopping. One second, measurement units. The next second, actual things.

creativesoul
A penis does not a man make. Geckos have those.

Do geckos exist apart from language? Is "gecko" a universal? — Mitchell

That's a good question Mitchell. Geckos are not existentially contingent upon language. If "gecko" counts as being a universal, as a result of geckos not being existentially contingent upon language, then all names which set out that which is not existentially contingent upon language would qualify.

The problem of course, is that we're calling a certain group of names, which are existentially contingent upon language by yet another name that is meant to denote that which is not existentially contingent upon language. Seems incoherent.

My participation in this thread was motivated by my own unconventional use of 'universal' which is more about being a common denominator... being universally extant within all X after removing the individual particulars.

My participation in this thread was motivated by my own unconventional use of 'universal' which is more about being a common denominator... being universally extant within all X after removing the individual particulars. — creativesoul

No need to remove them. A constraints-based logic simply ignores them as differences that don't make a difference.

So a compositional approach - one predicated on construction or addition - wants to understand its "other" of universality or generality as that which can survive all particular acts of subtraction. That is how it seeks dichotomously to complete itself. What can you take away and so arrive at "the particular essence".

But this ontology doesn't really work, as we know.

So a constraints-based approach is more like the pragmatism of Wittgenstein's family resemblances, or even ways of life. A state of constraint merely has to tolerate difference. Stability of identity emerges once a system is in some equilibrium balance and further change ceases to create significant change.

So no need to remove individuals. They are only noticed if they matter.

Is a penis definitional of a male? Well biologically, there is a family resemblance to speak of. But maybe it is a stunted micro-penis or maybe this male has two of them.

The identification of this individual as a true male might come into question on biological functional grounds. Is there still some possibility of this individual impregnating a mate with his appendage? At some point, the "penis" will have such a low probability of functioning as intended that it is not fit for purpose.

But the line is somewhat arbitrary precisely because probability is involved. A misfit penis might on occasion still do the trick. The difference might not make a difference as a matter of chance.

So a constraints-based approach is the one that gets the probabilistic nature of reality. It is flexible in its definitions, whereas a compositional approach has this unnatural brittleness when applied to the world.

(Hence Bayesian reasoning!)

...One fundamental question of Metaphysics, then boils down to how we think language is related to the world. — Mitchell

Language is related to the world by virtue of the attribution of meaning... by us, no less.

Language is related to the world by virtue of the attribution of meaning — creativesoul

Nope. Meaning arises out of the relating. The meaning of words is stabilised through the functionality of habits of use. Language is shaped by the work it does, the purposes it serves, in our interactions with the world.

No need to remove them. A constraints-based logic simply ignores them as differences that don't make a difference.

So a compositional approach - one predicated on construction or addition - wants to understand its "other" of universality or generality as that which can survive all particular acts of subtraction. That is how it seeks dichotomously to complete itself. What can you take away and so arrive at "the particular essence".

But this ontology doesn't really work, as we know. — apokrisis

Ignoring/removing... no difference. Setting them aside either way.

Essentialism fails. I agree.

Ignoring/removing... no difference. Setting them aside either way. — creativesoul

But it is a big difference. It is the difference between atomism and a structural holism.

One view needs to presume fixed parts. The other presumes a fundamental instability that can become suitably regulated.

So they claim opposite things about reality at a fundamental level.

I'm not up for it apo. Not with you, anyway.

Your view is incoherent. It calls things that are existentially contingent upon language 'independent' of language. Go back to sleep.

It calls things that are existentially contingent upon language 'independent' of language. — creativesoul

Where exactly?

And yet all still capable of further sub-division apparently. And how can there be further division if there is nothing further that counts as the undivided? — apokrisis

Each unit is discrete. That a unit is potential divided into other discrete units does not imply any continuity. It implies that the unit is composed of discrete units. Where do you pull the continuity from out of your hat?

That a unit is potential divided into other discrete units does not imply any continuity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sounds legit.

Glad you agree. Maybe we've got a starting point then. Do you agree also that the discrete and the continuous are inherently incommensurable?

Sounds legit. Goodness knows why we always find ourselves talking about them in the same breath.

It calls things that are existentially contingent upon language 'independent' of language.
— creativesoul

Where exactly? — apokrisis

That charge is inaccurate, actually. My mistake. Unless you hold that universals are independent of language.

Relevance?

You make less sense with every post.

Thanks.

It appears we have no hope of understanding one another. I asked you how your statement was relevant, if it is at all. What you said doesn't seem to be at all relevant. Do you believe that it is?

I was admitting that I may have made a mistake in my analysis of what you've been arguing. Perhaps a direct question would help.

Do you hold that universals are independent from language?

You are enthusiastic about philosophical approaches that appear to endorse full-on dualism. Science misses something as it rejects a hard division of reality into the material and the immaterial. Science is wrong in thinking that materiality vs immateriality is only a relative affair so far as its physicalism is concerned. You take it as just an obvious fact that there is an empirical world that is available to the senses, but then an actually separate rational world that is available to ... the nous, the mind, the secret sauce spirit. — apokrisis

I think there are compelling arguments for dualism* provided that it is clearly understood at the outset that the 'mind' is never an object of cognition. This is where Cartesian dualism caused so much mischief, by conceptualising res cogitans as an objective substance; it wasn't hard to demonstrate the unreality of the so-called 'ghost in the machine'. That has been behind a lot of the physicalist philosophies post-Enlightenment. But philosophical dualism doesn't have to assume such a form and from what I am learning about dualism in the classical Western tradition, it seems quite a credible attitude.

Modern scientific naturalism dealt with the Cartesian duality by then treating the mind as a subjective reality or derivative attribute:

The modern mind-body problem arose out of the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century, as a direct result of the concept of objective physical reality that drove that revolution. Galileo and Descartes made the crucial conceptual division by proposing that physical science should provide a mathematically precise quantitative description of an external reality extended in space and time, a description limited to spatiotemporal primary qualities such as shape, size, and motion, and to laws governing the relations among them. Subjective appearances, on the other hand -- how this physical world appears to human perception -- were assigned to the mind, and the secondary qualities like color, sound, and smell were to be analyzed relationally, in terms of the power of physical things, acting on the senses, to produce those appearances in the minds of observers. It was essential to leave out or subtract subjective appearances and the human mind -- as well as human intentions and purposes -- from the physical world in order to permit this powerful but austere spatiotemporal conception of objective physical reality to develop. — Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos

You will probably say that semiotics overcomes this duality by introducing the triadic relationship of sign, signified and interpreter, and that is true, but there's more to it.

Yet natural philosophy rejects actual dualism. And science supports its immanent understanding of nature. — apokrisis

The reason that natural philosophy rejects actual dualism is connected with the fundamental misconception that arose from Cartesian dualism; subsequent naturalism tended to spontaneously gravitate to the physicalist side of the Cartesian duality. But modern naturalism also originated in the rejection of scholastic metaphysics. So the result was fundamentally monistic: that what is real is matter-energy, in whatever form it assumes.

Hence 'immanent' becomes understood as 'other than transcendent' - continuing the general trajectory towards naturalism, where Nature is conceived as a self-grounded or self-originating.

But this abandons one of the fundamental roles of philosophy which is the disclosure of the transcendent domain of values, in contrast to the domain of instrumental or technical knowledge. It is simply assumed that philosophy is in the service of science, technology and engineering, as there is nothing beyond the physical or natural life of man to consider.

But perhaps it actually is just this organic thing, this middle path between hard realism and hard idealism, that one would dub pan-semiosis. — apokrisis

I don't think that 'hard idealism' is a meaningful description. You can interpret idealism in such a way that it's not about the nature of existents, but about the nature of the knowledge of existents. Such an idealism doesn't for one minute negate the empirical findings of chemistry and physics, but it might argue that the mind's contribution to chemistry and physics is often overlooked or ignored by science, as the mind's contribution is not amongst the objects of perception - one of the main points of the Critique of Pure Reason (which, incidentally, is not a 'psychological' work.)

A silly reply if my immanent metaphysics is what I've said it is - a full four causes naturalism. — apokrisis

In Aristotelian philosophy, ‘final cause’ was ‘the reason that something exists’. So understanding something also meant understanding its reason for being. But if there is no reason beyond the physical, then what kind of reason could be considered a 'final cause'? Perhaps the Universe wishes to assume the form of intelligent sentient beings - which is a naturalistic answer I would be quite willing to contemplate.

Any other model of "the mind" - like a spiritual or freewill one - is fundamentally flawed. — apokrisis

The jealous God dies hard, eh?

-------------
*Incidentally, a great Web resource on dualism here.

Aristotle held that being a man is not dependent upon language because what is common to men is not dependent upon language.

I disagree with Aristotle strongly on that matter. If being a man is not dependent upon language, then nothing that is existentially contingent upon language counts as part of being a man. — creativesoul

I think you're misunderstanding what realism about universals entails.

Here's a specific example. Aristotle defined humans as the rational animal. For arguments sake, let's suppose that rationality just is the ability to use language. So humans are the language-using animal.

Does this mean that the existence of humans is dependent on language? Obviously if there was no language, then there would be no humans per the above definition. (Just as there weren't earlier in evolutionary history.)

But it doesn't follow that being human is therefore a language construct or human creation (as if humans created themselves via definition!) Instead that language-using ability is a feature of the world as exhibited by select individuals of the animal kingdom. And it is that feature of the world that is being picked out in the definition as the essential distinguishing feature between humans and other animals.

A short quiz.

Q1) When something is undivided, is it:

A) Divided?
B) Continuous?

Q2) When quantifying an amount of water, do we ask:

A) How many water is there?
B) How much water is there?

Q3) When quantifying an amount of apples, do we ask:

A) How many apples are there?
B) How much apples are there?

Q4: When you have fallen into a pit of logical incoherence, do we:

A) Keep digging?
B) Cease to dig?

(Answers on a back of a postcard...)

Q1) When something is undivided, is it:

A) Divided?
B) Continuous? — apokrisis

A) is excluded by the law of non-contradiction. To answer with B) would require definitions. If you define "undivided" as continuous you are begging the question. Furthermore, if you define "undivided" in this way, you have a contradiction in your question. Your question refers to "something". Therefore defining "undivided" in this way would imply that there is something which is continuous. The definition of "thing" is such that it is a discrete entity, so it is contradictory to assume a thing which is continuous.

Q2) When quantifying an amount of water, do we ask:

A) How many water is there?
B) How much water is there?

Q3) When quantifying an amount of apples, do we ask:

A) How many apples are there?
B) How much apples are there?

Q4: When you have fallen into a pit of logical incoherence, do we:

A) Keep digging?
B) Cease to dig? — apokrisis

I don't see the relevance of the rest of these questions Whether it is common vernacular to ask "how much water" or "how many water" doesn't seem relevant. Your method of argumentation continues to be an appeal to ambiguity, as is consistent with your habit.

If there are concrete circles then I see no reason to deny that there is also the abstract circle. If there was no abstract circle then it seems there would be no concrete circles either. It would seem absurd/meaningless to talk of any "circles" at all. It seems that concrete and abstract objects are inseparable; you cannot have one without the other and they are therefore equally "real" or "existent". The fact that the abstract object is not a part of a particular manifold such as our spacetime has no bearing on its necessity for the existence of concrete objects that are parts of such a manifold, and therefore does not make it any less existent than those concrete objects. It's just a different kind of existence.

And so we wind up in the usual place with you denying the most standard philosophical definitions....

We are all familiar with the idea of continuity. To be continuous[1] is to constitute an unbroken or uninterrupted whole, like the ocean or the sky. A continuous entity—a continuum—has no “gaps”. Opposed to continuity is discreteness: to be discrete[2] is to be separated, like the scattered pebbles on a beach or the leaves on a tree. Continuity connotes unity; discreteness, plurality.

1. The word “continuous” derives from a Latin root meaning “to hang together” or “to cohere”; this same root gives us the nouns “continent”—an expanse of land unbroken by sea—and “continence”—self-restraint in the sense of “holding oneself together”. Synonyms for “continuous” include: connected, entire, unbroken, uninterrupted.

2. The word “discrete” derives from a Latin root meaning “to separate”. This same root yields the verb “discern”—to recognize as distinct or separate—and the cognate “discreet”—to show discernment, hence “well-behaved”. It is a curious fact that, while “continuity” and “discreteness” are antonyms, “continence” and “discreetness” are synonyms. Synonyms for “discrete” include separate, distinct, detached, disjunct.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/continuity/

Right, I may have told you before that I don't find Stanford to be very helpful in their philosophical principles. First, they are not at all rigorous in their philosophical definitions and descriptions. And, I disagree with the physicalist perspective from which they formulate their definitions and descriptions.

My dictionary defines continuous as "unbroken, uninterrupted". And an entity is a distinct thing, which implies necessarily, boundaries. Accordingly, an entity, a whole, is necessarily a discrete thing. So if continuity is opposed to discreteness, as suggested by your Stanford entry, it is impossible under the law of non-contradiction, that an entity, a whole, which is a discrete thing, is also a continuity.

MU right, the world wrong. MU accepts unbroken as an antonym of continuous, but not as a synonym of undivided.

You’re in a hole. Quit digging.

Is a discrete entity continuous within itself?