But the point being made is not about things: it is about concepts (or language). It's not about physical possibility. It's about conceptual possibility. And importantly, it is about how the one does not mirror or track the other (at least, not in any pre-established way - hence the bit about 'pre-established' harmony - an old theological notion). One way to put all this is that language is normative: we call things what we do not because (or not only because) of their 'physical properties' but also because of what we imagine things 'should' be: a 'house' is roughly what we call something to be lived in; — StreetlightX
Because we know that it's impossible for houses to turn into flowers. — Michael
The idea is that there would be a concept of a house that one could imagine turning into a flower, — StreetlightX
In any event, so what we're imagining is a physical thing transforming into another physical thing — Terrapin Station
I've been thinking about this a bit more. Building on what's been said. It seems like there's two conversations going on, and most of the confusion comes from that.
One is a kind of Wittgensteinan conversation about local conditions of sense. This was what I think I was going on about.
The other - cinnabar, sunrises - is far more general. It's also transcendental, but a deeper - or logically prior - transcendentality, which is about the necessity of regularity to talk about anything at all. — csalisbury
He utterly lacks the conceptual resources to think though the actual, and his entire corpus from end to end is vitiated by his formalist proclivities. History dies in Derrida (for the sake, ironically, of time). — StreetlightX
Like Michael, you're simply mapping your concept of a house (and a flower) to the physical: you're just begging the question (yes, I'm ignoring what terms you've 'resevered'). But it is clear that the concept of a house (or a flower) is not exhausted - if it refers to it at all - by the physical. — StreetlightX
Would you make the same argument about Heidegger? What is the actual for Heidegger? What would he do with your 'Houses are turning into flowers' example? Would he consider it a dislocation of a normative region of phrases? How does the realm of the ready to hand and the Mitdasein treat the distinction between the intelligible and the unintelligible? — Joshs
The proponents of this odd approach would argue (or at least this proponent ) that one is not effectively thinking through the actual if one is relying on an understanding that fails to adequately perceive the glue that binds what arises as actual from the having been that frames it and is in turn framed by its future. — Joshs
Like Michael, you're simply mapping your concept of a house (and a flower) to the physical: you're just begging the question (yes, I'm ignoring what terms you've 'resevered'). But it is clear that the concept of a house (or a flower) is not exhausted - if it refers to it at all - by the physical. And importantly, this is a point not about houses or flowers, but about language and our use of it. — StreetlightX
There's been some good discussion here with those who've had no such issues. Considering that I've had to correct some basic grammatical comprehension on your part, I think you've misdiagnosed the source of the issue, to put it politely. — StreetlightX
But as at least one other poster has brought up with the magic example, we can conceptually understand houses being turned into flowers by some special means. And this sort of imaginative leap happens quite a bit in fiction, and not so infrequently in theology. Think of the Catholic Eucharist.
But let's say the language is meant to be everyday real-world and not magic or metaphysics. Is there anything physically preventing a house from being turned into flowers atom by atom, given some really unlikely scenario or with advanced technology?
Let's say time travelers or aliens leave a device behind that can rearrange matter however we like. Someone uses it to turn an abandoned decrepit building into flowers. Does this require us to alter our conceptual understanding of houses or flowers? Or does it just broaden our knowledge of what's physically possible? — Marchesk
To say that what we call houses and flowers are not the kinds of things that turn into one another, is to say (to mean, to imply) that (among other things) the world in which these terms take on their significance is not one in which that kind of transmutation is possible. — StreetlightX
To say that what we call houses and flowers are not the kinds of things that turn into one another, is to say (to mean, to imply) that (among other things) the world in which these terms take on their significance is not one in which that kind of transmutation is possible. — StreetlightX
How is that any different to simply stating that it's false that houses turn into flowers? — Michael
We have a sortal concept of 'house', some things count as a house, some don't. Embedded in this sortal are all the things we'd call houses. Imagine this as a set (which is already a simplification). If you consider associating with this sortal a set of expressions which make sense to say of houses. Like "houses are where people live', 'that house is crumbling' and so on. Further imagine that we've collected all things that make sense to say of houses, and associated this with each house in the house sortal - call this the 'philosophical grammar' of the house sortal. — fdrake
If this were the case then surely it wouldn't have made sense to say that the morning star and the evening star are the same thing, as "appearing in the evening" isn't part of the morning star sortal, but as a matter of fact they are the same thing – Venus. — Michael
it rather allows us to reconcile one sense with another through the discovery of 'morning star' and 'evening star' co-referring. — fdrake
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