Which is where Banno and Sam go astray in trying to treat the truth-makers as some uninterpreted ground of experience. It could also be where Creative goes wrong, but after many years, I still have no clue what thesis he is trying to promote. He can't seem to answer a single straight question about it. — apokrisis

I generally find myself agreeing with Banno and Sam, in what seems to me to be their different approaches to what can sensibly be said. This is all in line with commonsense inter-subjective usage, but if substantive metaphysical claims are being posited on the basis of commonsense perceptions and linguistic usage, then I would not be following along. I have pretty much given up on trying to make complete sense of Creative's position also (as well as Meta's), although they both seem to have interesting and insightful things to say from time to time.

I have long been drawn to more 'process', 'phenomenological' and 'enactive' philosophies; and I am becoming increasingly interested in semiotics. which I understand as being allied with, and supplementary to, the other three approaches. I'm really more of a dabbler than a specialist when it comes to philosophy, my primary interest is in the arts, in doing rather than thinking. The value of what I think, for me, consists primarily in how it influences what I do.

These haven't been properly taken account of. — creativesoul

How about a "proper account " of them then?

That is, I reject the dualism between scheme and world. — Banno

I can see that it makes no sense to think of the scheme on one side and the world on the other. This would create an unbridgeable gulf. On the other hand we cannot sensibly say that the scheme just is the world, surely...?

You're taking this too far into neuroscience — Sam26

What, you don't think that identity theory and functionalism are positions in philosophy of mind?

You accused me of misinterpretation. I am replying that I understood you in terms of a mainstream community understanding of your jargon.

All that's needed, is to understand that there is brain activity that precedes or coincides with our actions, and that some actions are expressions of beliefs, quite apart from statements or propositions. — Sam26

And I've explained why I think that is inadequate. Any theory of truth needs to distinguish between the different levels of "thought" or "belief" involved. As I said earlier, discussions such as these trip up on the difference between linguistic semiosis and neural semiosis.

It is not easy to disentangle the two in humans, as we are soaked in a linguistic enculturing from birth. Even the physical world we grow up in is structured with paths, walls, doors and other linguistically-derived constraints.

Yet to make a correct connection between our propositional-style rational thinking and our bare sensory experience of the world requires taking account of this complex layering of semiotics.

That is why I object to the ontic commitment implicit in talk about "states of affairs" - physical or mental. It is a dualistic and representational framing of the situation. It is not an embodied, semiotic and triadic framing of the situation.

So it is a philosophy of mind that remains mired in Kantian cognitivism and has yet to move on to Peircean pragmatism, the modern semiotic view.

@apokrisis

It is clear to me that your critique of brain states does not apply to @Sam26. He earlier cited this article that is quite explicit on the topic.

The value of what I think, for me, consists primarily in how it influences what I do. — Janus

Well Peircean semiosis is about placing value there at the heart of things. Of course Pragmatism has been misunderstood as being simply about the value of "usefulness" - some kind of reductive utility. But really, it is broader than that. Certainly Peirce himself got rather mystic and carried away when he started to talk about evolutionary love or agapism. However a triadic sign relation does say we see the view of the world that is useful to us ... the view that indeed defines "us".

So semiosis says belief or truth-telling is rightfully self-centred. It has to be as a sign relation is how a self - an interpretant - can arise at the centre of its world, or unwelt.

And that fact - that any proposition rightfully also speaks to an interest - is clearly what is missing from the usual reductive AP or philosophy of language approach.

AP tries to make true the reductive ontology that got science off to its flying start. Reality could be reduced to logical atoms. Formal and final cause could be neglected as what counts as foundational is material and efficient cause.

And so questions of the self, or value, etc, just fell out of the AP picture. Of course, that way of thinking never produced the great final rationalist theory that folk like Russell and Whitehead were expecting. But the aspiration still leaves its clear mark.

It is the reason Banno goes stum whenever pressed to account for the knower along with the knowledge. To even admit that such a question hangs over the business of truth or belief is to confess that AP simply doesn't have a story on formal and final cause. It has built its house on nominalism, atomism, materialism, mechanicalism and the rest. So Banno's tactic is to fight the strawman of Kantian representationalism and pretend the solution is some kind of monism - we just are at one with the world in some mystical, yet apparently metaphysics-eschewing, fashion. :)

I of course argue that Peirce set things right before AP even really got going. Though circumstances meant Peirce was not widely understood in his own time. Ironically, the second acclaimed phase of Wittgenstein can now be traced to a mumbled, unattributed acceptance of what Peirce was saying, as heard via Ramsey in particular.

I can see that it makes no sense to think of the scheme on one side and the world on the other. This would create an unbridgeable gulf. On the other hand we cannot sensibly say that the scheme just is the world, surely...? — Janus

You got it. Kantian representationalism was a step towards working it out. But it is too dualistic. We need to take the next Peircean step that is triadic. We need to speak about the holistic interaction in which both world and self emerge via a sign relation.

What would be silly is to then collapse any distinction by pretending there just is no epistemic issue to discuss. To reduce knowledge to "meaning is use" is a trite slogan. Even if Peircean semiotics was also saying that meaning is about embodied usage - the interaction that is the "self" in "its world".

LOL.

I remember reading this far...

It's my contention that brain states "are synchronized neuronal activity in a specific frequency," — Sam26

...and switching off.

But thanks. The paper nicely places the metaphysics in the space of identity theories as I suggested. And it fetishes neural synchrony in exactly the way that was in vogue in philosophy of mind in the early 1990s.

So it is precisely the kind of supervenience-based reductive nonsense I was criticising back then, and still doing today.

I explained over and over what I mean by brain states, so you can go on with your criticisms that it's nonsense or jargon, but I'm moving on.

Indeed.

I explained over and over what I mean by brain states, — Sam26

Well, it seems that it is in fact a specific supervenient/identity theory story about neural synchrony and not some generalised notion of "brain activity". So I was spot on correct in my understanding from the first.

But yes, plough on. You have shown that you don't want to engage with informed criticism of a brain states approach.

You're spot on, right, you don't know what the hell your talking about.

Why do you think I don't know what I'm talking about? I had a ring-side seat on the whole neural synchrony saga.

All that's needed, is to understand that there is brain activity that precedes or coincides with our actions, and that some actions are expressions of beliefs, quite apart from statements or propositions. — Sam26

This is the point I took up with creativesoul. I don't believe that the claim that any actions other than those such as statements of claim and propositions, "are expressions of beliefs" could ever be properly justified. There is far too much involved in an action, other than a belief.

There is a very complex relationship between many beliefs and many actions, and numerous other aspects of the human psyche which are related to beliefs and actions, that no single belief will ever be adequately correlated to any single action, except in the case of statements. Simply put, there is a lot more to actions than belief, so actions cannot be considered to be expressions of belief, unless the expression of belief is explicit.

and now when asked to explain yourself you take the role of a fanatic.

It’s not so much what you say as how you present that is gauling. We can all do this passive-aggressive stuff.

and now when asked to explain yourself you take the role of a fanatic. — Banno

How so? If you want to say something Banno, you should learn to just spit it out.

What have I been asked to explain?

In what way is situating my position in a relevant context of academic research being a fanatic?

well, sort of. And no.

If we reject the juxtaposition of world and word, then we reject segregation of the word from the world.

That doesn’t mean that “Uluru “ is Uluru. Words and things remain distinct.

But it does mean that When we talk about Uluru, we are talking about that very thing, and not about some concept-of-Uluru that is distinct from the rock.

This view will be mischaracterised as a defunct version of realism. It will be asserted that I am somehow talking about a mystical Uluru-in-itself. That critique fails to recognise that the the thing-in-itself can only persist as a reasonable idea if one maintains the distinction between thing and scheme.

The view I am here advocating is my understanding ofDavidson, and so distinct from, but for me compatible with, Wittgenstein. I think it also fits in well with Kripke’sapproach to modality.

thanks Sam.

I now think we do not differ by much in our understanding of the relation between brain states and mental states. Indeed I don’t think we differ by much from @apokrisis’a actual position, were he able to present it rather than simply atack his own straw construct.

That leaves private concepts and notions and languages and so on. Which is an odd but interesting way for us to differ.

Because I reject the very notion of such things, and suppose myself to be following Wittgenstein in so doing. Yet you also understand Wittgenstein but apparently leave room for private mental furnishings.

How can this be?

Yet you also understand Wittgenstein but apparently leave room for private mental furnishings. — Banno

How do you define private mental furnishings? Are you talking about the origins of the mental furnishings which is a combination of self and interaction with others through social or are you talking about the phenomenon of mental furnishings itself- in other words of personal mental imagery/self-talk/introspection/qualia etc.

But it does mean that When we talk about Uluru, we are talking about that very thing, and not about some concept-of-Uluru that is distinct from the rock.

This view will be mischaracterised as a defunct version of realism. It will be asserted that I am somehow talking about a mystical Uluru-in-itself. That critique fails to recognise that the the thing-in-itself can only persist as a reasonable idea if one maintains the distinction between thing and scheme. — Banno

So what this summary misses is that our talk about Uluru is also talk that defines "the person speaking".

This is obvious just in that the correct term was Ayers Rock when I was a kid. That spoke to the identity of a particular linguistic culture. Just as saying "Uluru" is identity-defining for Aussies today.

So that is why you need a larger semiotic framework. The self doing the speaking has to be included as part of what the act of speaking must produce. An attitude of mind has to take responsibility for the words which construct "its" world.

This "idealist" correction to the naive realist story applies all the way down. If I pick up a stone while climbing Uluru, is that part of Uluru or not? The fact of the matter becomes a social construct. Sure, the legal view will attempt to cash out in the physical facts. But essentially the view will be based on cultural identity values.

Am I going to be penalised for picking up a souvenir grain of sand, or get fined for the Uluru dust that gathers on my clothes? Chipping of a chunk is an obvious no-no. But where is the proper borderline? It can't be in the material facts as rock is rock whether it is rock dust or rock grain or rock lump or rock mountain. So it has to be in the cultural facts - how much rock is enough for people to want to care?

The principle of indifference applies. A semiotic relation with the world is based in interpretance. And interpretation takes acts of measurement as its appropriate signs. Uluru as a qualitative concept in our minds must be pragmatically quantified in terms of some perceptual judgement. We care about tourists chipping away. We don't care about the dust on their clothes - even though we could care if there was a reason, a value, for doing so in our minds.

So yeah. Banno's theory of truth is lacking the distinctions needed to be an actual theory.

A triadic semiotic theory says we do construct our understanding of the thing-in-itself as a "scheme". But this scheme has its own two parts - the interpretant and the sign. There is the "self" - the individuated habit of interpretation that we call "us" - and then the system of signs that are the "evidence" of the kind of world this self could have in mind.

It is the same structure as science itself - the whole point. There is a theory of the world, and the acts of measurement what confirm that theory. The world is still out there beyond.

And this disconnect - this epistemic cut - is the necessary basis of knowledge. It allows the model to be separate from the world so that it can continue to learn from the world, continue to adapt.

And needless to say, the "I" at the apparent centre of knowing things, is also able to develop and become individuated as part of that virtuous cycle of adaptation.

So a theory of truth that justifies the scientific method and is psychologically realistic in a way that Kantian cognitivism never was. Who could want better? ;)

Indeed I don’t think we differ by much from apokrisis’a actual position, were he able to present it rather than simply atack his own straw construct. — Banno

Is this what you mean by passive-aggressive?

Time and again I give a full account of my position. And then you pretend I'm "refusing to explain".

I'm calling you out Banno! (Heh, heh, remember those fun old days?)

But it does mean that When we talk about Uluru, we are talking about that very thing, and not about some concept-of-Uluru that is distinct from the rock.

...

That leaves private concepts and notions and languages and so on. Which is an odd but interesting way for us to differ.

Because I reject the very notion of such things, and suppose myself to be following Wittgenstein in so doing. Yet you also understand Wittgenstein but apparently leave room for private mental furnishings.

How can this be? — Banno

How would you interpret a situation when a word is being used to refer to a private concept, a mental furnishing? You might say that the word is being used to refer to something imaginary, something which doesn't exist, but wouldn't that just be validating the existence of such things, by saying that there is something imaginary which is the thing that the word refers to? You could insist that the word is just being used to refer to nothing, but how would that work, that we could use words which are referring to nothing?

How do you define private mental furnishings? — schopenhauer1

I don't.

Qualia are a nice example, though. If a qual is a private thing then following the private language argument there is no point in talking about them. But if they are a shared part of our world and language, they are nothing different to ordinary things like the smell of coffee or the colour red.

Either way, nothing is gained by their inclusion.

I don't.

Qualia are a nice example, though. If a qual is a private thing then following the private language argument there is no point in talking about them. But if they are a shared part of our world and language, they are nothing different to ordinary things like the smell of coffee or the colour red.

Either way, nothing is gained by their inclusion. — Banno

Hmm, I think then that you may not be making the distinction between the origins of the qualia and the phenomenon of qualia itself. The origins may be socially constructed as you seem to agree with here:

if they are a shared part of our world and language — Banno

However, this does not mean that once constructed, the person is not having a private mental phenomenon of red. The origins are shared, but each individual instance is private for the individual perhaps. So red would not be there perhaps without the social construction, but once there, the person is indeed having an experience of red.

Actually now that I look at it, we probably agree on this. I don't think that a private language exists. I do think that people have mental experiences though, which is pretty common sense.

Perhaps I've misunderstood you, but I am not seeing a difference, in principle, between contending that words are not the things they reference, and saying that schemes are not the world they represent.

What have I been asked to explain? — apokrisis

What your opinion of the height of Everest is, perhaps? Never did quite work that one out, and since you brought it up again...

But perhaps not here. The thread I started for that discussion attracted the ire of the Gods.

Perhaps; it's surely the case that if it is private to your own mind, then we can't talk about it? Otherwise, in what way is it private?

I had a physio do some work on my back today. She was asking for descriptions of pain here and there, and how deep, what sort - quite precise. And she appeared to use this information to fathom where to push and prod, because my spine is now much straighter and less painful.

So those pains were not private.

What your opinion of the height of Everest is, perhaps? — Banno

But I already sketched the argument in this very thread and have just elaborated it in terms of your latest mountain obsession, Uluru,

Others have been rifling through the archives for you.

Take the height of Mt Everest. As a mountain climber, it doesn't really matter if it is X metres high, give or take another minute or two of climbing. At some level of truth-telling, our interest fuzzes out. The pull of the moon might have some measurable effect on Mt Everest so its "true height" changes by nanometres constantly all day. But this becomes noise - unless we establish some purpose that makes a more exact measurement seem reasonable.

So it is BAU. You asking a question and ignoring the answer.

I realise that your preferred tactic is to frame questions which it might sound silly to deny. Are these my hands I see before me? This may dazzle the epistemologically unworldly. But it ain’t going to wash here.

So what this summary misses is that our talk about Uluru is also talk that defines "the person speaking". — apokrisis

I don't that it does miss the first person perspective. Nor is what I said dismissive of the role in culture in discussions of Uluru. Indeed, if anything, highlighting the roll of language use within a community, as Wittgenstein does, gives greater emphasis to this cultural perspective than would an emphasis on the person speaking. Uluru isn't what {b]I[/b] say it is; it is what we say it is.

The self doing the speaking has to be included as part of what the act of speaking must produce. — apokrisis

Perhaps this cuts to the core of the difference between us. You seem to have built your view as a series of deductions from inside your self, or something like that; but Wittgenstein is suggesting that one stop and look first, at what happens when language is used.

The self doing the speaking is as much a social construct as the language that self is using. Removing the Self from where Descartes had placed it in the middle of philosophy is one of the net things about Philosophical Investigations.

If I pick up a stone while climbing Uluru, is that part of Uluru or not? — apokrisis

I'll pick up on this, on the suspicion that the way we answer this question might be revealing.

From what you have said it would seem that the speaker can decide in one way or the other if the stone is part of Uluru or not. But that's not what I would say. It's not the speaker who makes such decisions, but the community being addressed. And what is being asked is not about the ontology of Uluru so much as the way we use parts of that sacred rock.

Now I am not sure that this is so far from your own view.

But then I don't have a clear idea of what this "cut" is - apparently between me and it, as if an individual could have a private language.

I know this is misrepresenting you, Apo, but it's the best I can do in trying to reflect my understanding of your view back to you for comment.

How will you reply? What attitude will you adopt?

Let's see what it is we agree on rather than emphasising our disagreements.

What?