Understood.

For me the issue is that it does not bother to explain or elucidate truth, but instead ignores it, to the extent of changing our language n order to avoid talking about it.

In other words pragmatism is not about truth but justifying belief.

That's the elephant in the room.

So then, under the rules of all of this red tape how much philosophical progression have you made, so far, and believe it or not this discussion in favor of replacing the little which most of you apparently have left of genuine philosophical instinct with intellect, which is of course impossible when discerning people,, and must be restricted to areas of science, (where the accepted rules for progression are already in place and working well anyway) makes no headway in philosophy, none whatsoever. Even with book lengths of rules, counter rules, and theory to have to constantly full back upon, the feeling for truth shall be gone. it shall never get fundamentally better than this place now, where nothing is actually being done. One can never even match, never mind surpass, genuine natural instinct in philosophy. Further, the best natural instinct can be tested for, it requires no rules in place in order to first exist, and it accommodates everything, realistically well. It is not the answers that you are looking for here, and whilst in this business of destroying your own instinct you cannot know even should you full upon them.

What possible criterion is there for judging whether something is really "there" or not other than that we can all see it? — Janus

I agree, but to say this is to say something very different to saying that propositions like "this is a hand" are constitutive rules which need no justification.

What do we make of someone who doubts that this is a hand? They have not understood the game.

There is a way of understanding "This is a hand" that is not explained in yet more propositions - "this is this". Understanding is shown by behaving in a way that agrees that this is a hand. The sceptic has not understood how to use the word "hand". — Banno

I am not sure how to assess this, since you didn't answer any of my questions. You say that if someone doubts that 'this is a hand', they have not understood how we are using the word hand. What if someone doubts that there is anything there at all? What if someone doubts that there is a 'this' to which you are referring? Doesn't your constitutive rule suggestion then fail to stop the regress?

Best,
PA

What if someone doubts that there is anything there at all? — PossibleAaran

Then what would we conclude?

What reasons could they give for this doubt? And if their doubt is unreasonable, we can reject it.

What if someone doubts that there is a 'this' to which you are referring? — PossibleAaran

Then what do we conclude? That they do not understand how "this" works in English?

Belief needs justification. So does doubt.

Belief needs justification. So does doubt. — Banno

What do you mean doubt needs 'justification'? What counts as a 'justification' for doubting something? Could you give an example?

So, is it true that Paris is the capital of France? — Banno

Mind independently true?

I am not sure how to assess this, since you didn't answer any of my questions — PossibleAaran

LOL.

For me the issue is that it does not bother to explain or elucidate truth, but instead ignores it, to the extent of changing our language n order to avoid talking about it.

In other words pragmatism is not about truth but justifying belief. — Banno

On a Peircean pragmatism, truth can be explained as an abstraction that represents justified belief in the limit (i.e., when all the evidence is in). That conforms with ordinary usage.

That is in contrast to justified belief within a limited evidential context which can sometimes be false (or Gettiered).

Belief needs justification. So does doubt. — Banno

Let's see if we agree on what is required to justify doubt. Doubt is an attitude toward belief, just like certitude, but the two are opposed to each other such that one necessarily excludes the other. The important thing, from my perspective, which you may or may not agree with, is that doubt is defined in relation to certitude as a lack of certitude. This means that anytime when certitude cannot be justified, then doubt is justified. In other words, an inability to justify certitude with respect to a belief, justifies doubt with respect to that belief.

Certitude is justified by demonstrating certainty. So if we take Wittgenstein's definition, certainty is to logically exclude the possibility of mistake, then certitude is justified when we logically exclude the possibility of mistake. Accordingly, doubt is justified anytime the possibility of mistake cannot be logically excluded. Agree?

This means that anytime when certitude cannot be justified, then doubt is justified ... Accordingly, doubt is justified anytime the possibility of mistake cannot be logically excluded. Agree? — Metaphysician Undercover

No, simply recognizing our fallibility--i.e., the fact that certitude can never truly be justified, since the mere possibility of mistake cannot be logically excluded for any of our current beliefs--does not warrant genuine doubt. It is only justified when one has a positive reason to question a currently held belief, regardless of whether one has certitude toward it; e.g., because of a surprising experience or disappointed expectation.

All this talk about truth, knowledge, certainty, belief, doubt. The critical issue seems to be identifying the mind as the part that has some understanding that can’t be wrong. The mind appears to be the part that stands outside a world of facts or events. It has a timeless and displaced appreciation of what is actual in terms of spatiotemporal occurrences.

So we have Descartes. The mind bit of the equation got boiled down to some cognitivising soul. Everything about perception could be doubted. But there was the irreducible fact of the thinker thinking the thoughts, having at least the ideas.

Then Kant came out with a more cognitively elaborate story. The soul constructs a representation that corresponds, more or less, to the world. There was no absolute access to the facts of reality. Indeed, the issue seemed to be that in being mere representation, the goal of actually knowing reality was forever doomed to failure.

Descartes left the mind radically disconnected by doubt. Kant left it radically disconnected by the falsity of a representation. Then of course pragmatism turned things around by creating a more general theory of the mind in terms of a set of developed habits in fruitful interaction with the instabilities or contingencies of the world.

The world is no longer itself viewed as some stable realm of fixed objects or certain facts. It is not even there - present - to be “re-presented”. It is a dynamic flux, a sea of possibility, that can become organised by the imposition of constraints.

So the material world itself is re-imagined as lacking in counterfactual definiteness. It is at base vague or indeterminate. It requires the mind-like thing of developed functional habits to give it definite shape and direction.

This is a metaphysics. It is a new view of how reality is. It is a process philosophy, a self-organising and probabilistic view of nature. And a view conceived before quantum physics and dissipative structure theory arrived to show how true it was.

Anyway. A process ontology justifies a process epistemology. And so the mind’s job becomes not merely to know the world, to be certain of its facts. The mind is now that part of the world that is the source of its stability or regularity. The mind is the part that speaks to its formal and final cause. The mind’s role is not just to sit back in distant fashion and represent. It exists to use that displacement in order to act in a functional fashion. It exists to bring organisation to a world founded in material contingency.

Now the difficulty here is that the mind of which we speak is no longer the consciousness of a human soul. That is an image of mind that comes from a materialist ontology. It is the passive observer without an active role in the creation of “the facts”.

The pragmatist mind is instead the generalisation of reality’s own ontic need for an organisational potential that follows from spatiotemporal displacement - the epistemic cut. So the pragmatist mind is the more general thing of the interpretant, the habits; the information that provides the constraints, that provide the functional structure or limitations on material instability.

We can see the impact this re-conception has on epistemology. The idea of a re-presenting of a fixed world of facts to a perceiving mind just goes right out the window. A notion of truth, belief, knowledge, or whatever, in those terms, is simply redundant.

We are now talking about an interactive modelling relation. And this is an ontic-strength story. It is not merely about how a human mind understands the facts of the world. It is a pan-semiotic story of how a world is even created. Reality itself is some version of this process of instability become regulated by some system of displaced intentionality. Or as Pattee put it, rate independent information acting as the constraint on rate dependent dynamics.

So now this is why Wittgenstein and others would feel so convinced that our certainty, our truths, are expressed in our physical interactions with the world. What counts as true is a demonstration that we can regulate the instability of our environments. If asked, we know how to make the acts of measurement to produce the evidence. The evidence which is now a sign - the timeless information - speaking to our power over a temporal or dynamically unstable material world.

So epistemology is fundamentally entwined with our ontology, our view of nature. And pragmatism is not merely just another epistemology. It is a fundamental revision of ontology. It is the switch from a belief in a world that just statically exists as some mind-independent state of affairs, or collection of facts, or set of atomistic propositions, and the adoption of a process or systems metaphysics where material being is fundamentally contingent or unstable, and thus is in need of a regulating guiding hand.

Moore might have been right to believe that here is one of his hands, now here is the other. But what is being challenged by pragmatism is the whole idea that there is a world that can be known without our having something crucial to do with its making.

And this would be a mystical state of affairs unless we can revise our foundational notions about reality all the way down to a pansemiotic quantum level.

We don’t want to be left with a definition of mind that is still essentially dualistic and spiritual. We want one that cashes out in more psychological, then biological and eventually physical notions, such as habits, limits, information, laws and constraints.

I agree, but to say this is to say something very different to saying that propositions like "this is a hand" are constitutive rules which need no justification. — PossibleAaran

That our hands are there (when they are) would seem to be, or more aptly, would seem to be an exemplification of, a "constitutive rule", in the sense of being part of the 'background' of implicit understanding without which no belief or doubt would be possible.

That our hands are there (when they are) would seem to be, or more aptly, be an exemplification of, a "constitutive rule", in the sense of being part of the 'background' of implicit understanding without which no belief or doubt would be possible. — Janus

I must not understand what is meant here, because if I take the words in the way I find natural, what you say is obviously not true. "No belief or doubt would be possible" without these things you call constitutive rules. So unless I believe that this is a hand, then it isn't possible for me to believe anything at all? That sounds obviously false, since I might believe that this is a hallucination of a hand, generated by an evil demon. Or even more clearly, I might just not believe that this is a hand, whilst I do believe that this other thing is a foot. The other claim is that unless I believe that this is a hand, it isn't possible for me to doubt anything. But again, it seems plain that I might not believe that this is a hand, and I might also doubt that God exists, or doubt that man walked on the moon, or doubt that Smith killed Jones, or what have you.

So I am not sure what you could mean by 'no belief or doubt would be possible', unless you mean this obviously false thesis.

Best,
PA

What counts as true is a demonstration that we can regulate the instability of our environments. — apokrisis

You’re still talking engineering.

No, simply recognizing our fallibility--i.e., the fact that certitude can never truly be justified, since the mere possibility of mistake cannot be logically excluded for any of our current beliefs--does not warrant genuine doubt. It is only justified when one has a positive reason to question a currently held belief, regardless of whether one has certitude toward it; e.g., because of a surprising experience or disappointed expectation. — aletheist

If the possibility of mistake cannot be ruled out with respect to any particular belief, then this
is a positive reason to question that particular belief, i.e. doubt is warranted.

The critical issue seems to be identifying the mind as the part that has some understanding that can’t be wrong. — apokrisis

We are still questioning the assumption that there is some understanding which can't be wrong. You are jumping the gun, wanting to proceed as if it has already been demonstrated that there is some understanding which can't be wrong. If you think that you have such a demonstration, then please be my guest and put it forward.

So the material world itself is re-imagined as lacking in counterfactual definiteness. It is at base vague or indeterminate. It requires the mind-like thing of developed functional habits to give it definite shape and direction. — apokrisis

If you maintain a principle like this, that the world is lacking in definiteness, that it is fundamental vague and indeterminate, then how can you produce consistency between this and your prior assumption that there is some understanding which can't be wrong? Even the fact that the world is vague and indeterminate (if it is a fact), could change at any moment if the world is vague and indeterminate..

If the possibility of mistake cannot be ruled out with respect to any particular belief, then this is a positive reason to question that particular belief, i.e. doubt is warranted. — Metaphysician Undercover

My point was that the possibility of mistake cannot be ruled out with respect to any of our beliefs, but this is not a positive reason to question all of our beliefs; such universal doubt is never warranted. We only have a positive reason to doubt a particular belief when it is actually confounded by experience, not simply because it might possibly be confounded by experience.

What you say doesn't make sense. You are claiming that the possibility of mistake is not grounds for questioning a belief.

If we wait until a belief actually confounds our experience then it is an actual mistake, and the belief has already been proven wrong at this point.

Doubt is justified prior to the confounding experience, in order to avoid that mistake. Your position could only be correct if you didn't think it was reasonable to attempt to avoid mistake. But that's nonsense.

You’re still talking engineering. — Wayfarer

Always better than mystical bollocks.

Well at least it gives us mystics nice computers on which to express ourselves - so it does have some uses. ;-)

What you say doesn't make sense. You are claiming that the possibility of mistake is not grounds for questioning a belief. — Metaphysician Undercover

You misunderstand the nature of constraints. The free actions of the world are only limited to some threshold variety of differences that don’t make a difference. So it is the probabilistic view built into science. No two events are the same. But the question is whether they are similar enough? Is the variety essentially random rather than significant, that is due to some further undiagnosed cause?

So our beliefs are generalities that predict an acceptable range of outcomes. A mistake would be when instead we find evidence of some further causal mechanism that says something more that normal levels of chance are at play and we need a generalisation that makes better predictions.

The whole background against which beliefs and doubts make sense does not hinge merely on the understanding that I have hands; it hinges on countless such understandings.

You first said that belief and doubt "would not be possible" without the constitutive rules. But now you say that belief and doubt "would not make sense". What is meant, exactly, by "make sense"?

It means that all beliefs and doubts presuppose the background understanding. They only get their meaning in virtue of that general context.

Suppose then that I suspend judgement about whether this is a hand. More exactly, I doubt that there is a this at all. I suspend judgement on whether or not there is anything that I am looking at. What is wrong with this doubt? I think in some sense you want to say that I can't do what I say that I am doing. But why can't I?

You misunderstand the nature of constraints. The free actions of the world are only limited to some threshold variety of differences that don’t make a difference. So it is the probabilistic view built into science. No two events are the same. But the question is whether they are similar enough? Is the variety essentially random rather than significant, that is due to some further undiagnosed cause? — apokrisis

None of this makes any sense. First of all, I was talking about the relationship between certainty, certitude, doubt, and mistake. I don't see how "constraints" is relevant. Secondly, to say that a free choice decision by a human being is limited to a difference which doesn't make a difference, is clearly wrong, because then we wouldn't have to think about any of our decisions, because they wouldn't make a significant difference.

You say, all that needs to be answered is "whether they are similar enough", but you've denied the means by which one could answer this question. You are saying that anything which the human mind decides is a difference, is necessarily a difference which doesn't make a difference, because free acts are constrained to differences which don't make a difference. So your conclusion about the nature of mistake is completely wrong. According to your premise, a mistake couldn't be a difference which makes a difference anyway.

Suppose then that I suspend judgement about whether this is a hand. More exactly, I doubt that there is a this at all. I suspend judgement on whether or not there is anything that I am looking at. What is wrong with this doubt? I think in some sense you want to say that I can't do what I say that I am doing. But why can't I? — PossibleAaran

I believe the point is that whatever is going on right now, the correct thing to say is "this is a hand", in the same way that whatever the animal we call a "sheep" is, the correct thing to call it is a "sheep".

Hi ,

The trouble with the account you propose is that Constitutive Rules are supposed to be regress stoppers. Suppose I say "whatever is going on right now, the correct thing to say is 'this is a hand', and anyone who doubts this must be not understanding how I use the word 'hand'". Now note that it isn't accurate to say that, no matter what is going on, the correct thing to say is 'this is a hand'. Rather, there is a very specific set of circumstances in which it is correct to say 'this is a hand'. Anyone who takes the regress seriously is going to ask why you believe that those specific circumstances have actually obtained. We can grant that if certain circumstances obtain, the correct thing to say is 'this is a hand', but we can still question whether those circumstances have in fact obtained. The idea that 'this is a hand' is a constitutive rule of the 'game' does nothing to prevent this question and so doesn't stop the regress.

Another way to put the point which is a little quicker is this. The idea that in this particular circumstance the correct thing to say is 'this is a hand', blatantly presupposes knowledge that I am in some particular circumstance and not another, and this needs justification.

Best,
PA

The trouble with the account you propose is that Constitutive Rules are supposed to be regress stoppers. Suppose I say "whatever is going on right now, the correct thing to say is 'this is a hand', and anyone who doubts this must be not understanding how I use the word 'hand'". Now note that it isn't accurate to say that, no matter what is going on, the correct thing to say is 'this is a hand'. Rather, there is a very specific set of circumstances in which it is correct to say 'this is a hand'. Anyone who takes the regress seriously is going to ask why you believe that those specific circumstances have actually obtained. We can grant that if certain circumstances obtain, the correct thing to say is 'this is a hand', but we can still question whether those circumstances have in fact obtained. The idea that 'this is a hand' is a constitutive rule of the 'game' does nothing to prevent this question and so doesn't stop the regress.

Another way to put the point which is a little quicker is this. The idea that in this particular circumstance the correct thing to say is 'this is a hand', blatantly presupposes knowledge that I am in some particular circumstance and not another, and this needs justification. — PossibleAaran

How do we determine in which circumstances it is correct to use certain words and phrases? It's not that the meaning comes first, and we then try to determine whether or not these circumstances are correct, but that the circumstances come first, and we then stipulate which words and phrases are to be used.

Finding a sheep comes before the word "sheep". It would be strange to find a new animal, to decide to refer to it using the word "sheep", and then wonder if what we've found is really a sheep.

I am not asking how we determine which words to attach to which circumstances. I am telling you the following fact:

(a) There are certain circumstances, A, in which we stipulate that it is correct to say 'this is a hand'.

This is perfectly unproblematic, and I agree that we first undergo the circumstance and then stipulate the words that go with it. But, whenever I say 'this is a hand', I am blatantly assuming that I am in circumstance A (the circumstance in which we stipulated 'this is a hand' correctly applies). What justification is there for believing that I am in circumstance A?

You know the kind of circumstance A is: the kind in which I apparently see a hand, or have a sensory experience as of a hand, or however you want to put it. But why believe that I am in circumstance A?

Perhaps it is simpler to focus on the following question:

What justification is there for believing that I am in any particular circumstance whatsoever, as opposed to any other?

Best,
PA

What justification is there for believing that I am in any particular circumstance whatsoever, as opposed to any other? — PossibleAaran

Presumably you're in a particular circumstance. So what, exactly, are you asking when you ask "am I in circumstance A or circumstance B"? Are you asking which of "A" or "B" refers to the circumstance you're in? Well, what determines which of "A" and "B" refers to the circumstance you're in? You seem to be suggesting that the meaning of "A" and "B" is separate to the circumstance, and we have to try to match the circumstance with the meaning. But the argument being put forth is that the circumstance is the meaning. We're in circumstance A because "circumstance A" is the name we have chosen to refer to the circumstance we're in.

To repeat my example of the sheep; we find a new animal and decide to refer to it using the new term "sheep". It doesn't make sense to then ask what justification I have for believing that the animal is a sheep and not something else.