But seriously, csalisbury has a point. Why build a philosophical theory of language without consulting history to see whether there is evidence humans actually acquired language that way? — Marchesk
According to normal usage conventionally established patterns of behavior are rules. Think of the road rule: drive on the left hand side of the road (in Australia). If one consistently drives on the left hand side of the road merely on account of following what everyone else does; that is following a rule. Standing in queues is another example. — Janus
I do not think that what you have said actually is in accordance with common usage of "rule". A rule is a principle, so to learn a rule is to learn a principle. When one person imitates another, that person is copying. To copy another is not to learn the rule, we learn this in grade school. That's why copying is not allowed. We must each learn the rules, the principles involved in what we are being taught, and copying from another does not qualify as learning the rule. — Metaphysician Undercover
A rule can only exist as expressed by language. — Metaphysician Undercover
If you think that it is false that a rule can only exist as expressed in language, then the onus is on your to give evidence of this. You said above, that this is an unreasonable request. It is not, an unreasonable request. You are claiming X is false, and the request is for evidence to back up your claim that X is false. If you cannot show me a rule which is not expressed in language, then it is your claim, that X is false, which is unreasonable. — Metaphysician Undercover
According to normal usage conventionally established patterns of behavior are rules. — Janus
Think of the road rule: drive on the left hand side of the road (in Australia). If one consistently drives on the left hand side of the road merely on account of following what everyone else does; that is following a rule. — Janus
Standing in queues is another example. — Janus
I have shown that rules are prior to, are not dependent on, and also underpin language. The point of your claim that an unformulated rule is not a rule is apparently to support a further claim that "rules are created by language". This is nonsense, since rules are created by people not by language, and even animals have rules and hierarchies that determine customary behaviors. — Janus
Language itself is a customary behavior. Whether you call these pre-linguistic customary behaviors "rules" or not doesn't change the fact that they exist and determine linguistic, as well as moral, behavior. — Janus
That's a good point in that there's a lot of conventional behavior that people do not condone. For example, it's a convention to acquire alcohol and drink in excess at parties organized by high schoolers. Is that thus a rule? It has to be if being conventional is sufficient to be a rule. — Terrapin Station
This is what you have a burden to demonstrate without begging the question, as you are want to do. — S
I have some questions for you. What do think an abstraction is? And do you think that an abstraction is composed of language? — S
One reason why I think it is a very good idea to distinguish habits from rules is to see that each of these two actually have a very different nature. The nature of a habit is that it arises from the choices of a freely choosing being. The nature of a rule is that it is designed to curb those choices, those habits which have been determined as bad. Consider that a lot of what the freely choosing being learns, is learnt through trial and error. By the time that the freely choosing being learns that a particular type of choice is an error, that choosing pattern may already be habitual. Then rules are needed to restrict that choosing pattern. — Metaphysician Undercover
The same way apes invented humans, agreed on their traits, and then started being them?
Why does the genesis of english seem this way to you? Most (all?) historical linguists would profoundly disagree (unless you're playing extremely fast and loose with 'invent', 'agree' etc.) Your account sounds a little bit like Rousseau's idea that the original humans must've been running around, on their own, until they got together and decided to have a society.
It seems counterproductive to try to come up with an ontology of meaning beginning with a speculative reconstruction that is disconnected from- and seemingly unconcerned with - research on what actually happened. — csalisbury
Oops, fixed that, attributed now. It's from the OP and seems to be laid out there as a kind of foundation for the rest of the discussion.
Edit: Oh, tho I guess the OP itself quoted it, unattributed. So maybe I've incorrectly attributed it. — csalisbury
So you'd agree that being a convention isn't sufficient to be a rule? — Terrapin Station
It's trivially true that language originated in humans, but it was not "invented" as if there was some conscious effort at design involved. Language develops organically. The world's most recently developed language, Nicaraguan Sign Language, is a case in point. The route from creole to full language occurred through the children of parents who used the creole and added grammatical complexity spontaneously.
So the process there is something like rudimentary tools of communication being automatically transformed into a language, which allows for more advanced communication and from which rules are retroactively inferred and codification occurs. The communication comes first then becomes more complex. And only at that point can you start to talk about a set of rules which defines how the language functions.
So, the quote
With English, in a nutshell, it seems to me that people invented the language, made up the rules, agreed on them, started speaking it, started using it as a tool for communication
— quoted in the OP, unattributed
is senseless from a linguistic point of view (and really from any point of view to the extent it implies people invented and debated rules with each other before using language as a tool for communication).
It's true we don't know for sure how quickly or gradually language developed (there are competing theories), but there does seem to be an in-built capacity that kicks in with children to the extent that they can unconsciously create complex linguistic form. It's important though to stress the lack of purposeful design / agreement. — Baden
Is your argument in the OP that ontology is confused because we need to be looking at language games instead to see what is going on when we categorize things? — Marchesk
If so, my response would that ontology remains relevant because there's lots of evidence in favor of reductive explanations and related patterns among various phenomenon. And that's why physics theorizes that four forces are all that's required for everything in the universe, and that ordinary matter is made up of particles that form atoms and molecules.
So there's good reason to think there is a basic stuff the universe consists of. Maybe it's fields, maybe it's particles and spacetime, maybes it's superstrings. Or maybe it's something we can only approximate. If you go back far enough, everything in the universe was part of tiny volume of space that inflated. It's not like rocks, stars and animals eternally populated the cosmos.
Is physics itself a language game? There is certainly agreed upon jargon. But the experiments themselves aren't linguistic. And those have forced scientists to revise their jargon and even replace it over time.
Atoms weren't a thing and then they were, and then they were composed of subatomic particles and light had particle properties, and all the odd QM and GR results. Also that it's heavily mathematical.
Is math a language game? — Marchesk
If I were to add anything, I might say a rule presupposes a principle, whereas a habit presupposes an interest.
Another way to look at it is, a rule is reducible to a principle from which a corresponding behavior is obliged to follow, but a habit is not reducible to any principle, which permits habit to be merely a matter of convenience with arbitrary benefit. — Mww
Also, a rule presupposes a language for its expression. That which the rule expresses by means of language must already be given before the rule or the language, otherwise the expression has no content, therefore cannot stand as a rule. — Mww
Also, a pattern is not equivalent to a rule. — Metaphysician Undercover
If simply being a convention is enough to be a rule, then it's a "rule" that during slow songs at a concert, you engage and hold high your lighter (or now your phone). I just never knew anyone who would call that a rule. — Terrapin Station
In what sense are there rules of chess, though, if there's no penalty (as I described before) for not following the rules? — Terrapin Station
The penalties that matter are disqualification from a tournament, etc. — Terrapin Station
I mentioned disqualification earlier, and you dismissed it, — S
It would amount to acting in disconformity, and it would likely result in miscommunication, — S
I never said anything yet about how a rule is "created". I said that language is necessary for the existence of a rule, so it doesn't make any sense to talk about rules existing prior to language. — Metaphysician Undercover
so it takes language to make a rule, as far as I understand "rule". — Metaphysician Undercover
I don't understand how that would amount to a disqualification. — Terrapin Station
Re rules, I explained earlier that I take them to be things for which there is I mean a specific, concrete or practical, non-metaphorical consequence. The consequence is a specific punitive action taken by other persons.
Re a chess disqualification, I'm not just talking about something like "I'm not going to play with you (any more)." I mean a formal organizational decision that someone is taken out of the running to win some tournament, say. — Terrapin Station
There are two disagreements about rules I have with you. One is your assertion that rules are created in being formulated, and since it takes language to formulate a rule, then it follows that rules are created by means of language.
The other disagreement I have with both you and Terrapin Station, is that the way I am using 'rule' does not conform with common usage, and the pedantic and overly strict way you are both using the term does.
Two common kinds of expressions refute that: "As a rule he has eggs for breakfast" and "It is an unwritten rule that people should respect others and wait their turn". You see the latter operating without the need for any explicit expression of it, for example, where two lanes merge, and most people give way to every second car.
Even animals do it; social predator species commonly have unwritten (obviously!) and unspoken (presumably!) rules about who gets to feast on the carcass first. — Janus
Behavioural patterns can be evidence of rule following. — S
There are two disagreements about rules I have with you. One is your assertion that rules are created in being formulated, and since it takes language to formulate a rule, then it follows that rules are created by means of language.
The other disagreement I have with both you and Terrapin Station, is that the way I am using 'rule' does not conform with common usage, and the pedantic and overly strict way you are both using the term does. — Janus
Two common kinds of expressions refute that: "As a rule he has eggs for breakfast" and "It is an unwritten rule that people should respect others and wait their turn". You see the latter operating without the need for any explicit expression of it, for example, where two lanes merge, and most people give way to every second car. — Janus
You see the latter operating without the need for any explicit expression of it, for example, where two lanes merge, and most people give way to every second car. — Janus
Even animals do it; social predator species commonly have unwritten (obviously!) and unspoken (presumably!) rules about who gets to feast on the carcass first. — Janus
I think I'm noticing a general link between problems and overly strict adherence to rules at the expense of resolving the problems linked to them. — S
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