Merdwurdichliebe is correct in saying disputes about 'existence' have important psychological implications with respect to 'social norms of thinking', but IMO, philosophers are producing word salad unless they recognize that 'trees exist' is either a tautology in the sense that all concepts 'exist', or that the word 'tree', implies a contextual expectancy of potential interaction for the user. — fresco

The mistake is to believe that everyone is talking about language qua language.

Then the mistake, imo, is that we can escape from the domain of 'language' at all.
As 'thinkers' all we have is 'language', whose nonrepresentational nature has become a prevalent view.
And although you have registered your objections to them, both Heidegger and Derrida undescored that point.
Heidegger:"Language speaks the Man"
Derrida: "There is nothing beyond context".

Then the mistake, imo, is that we can escape from the domain of 'language' at all.
As 'thinkers' all we have is 'language' — fresco

Could you explain why you'd believe this?

Its not a question of 'belief'. Its a fundamental later phenomenological pov which follows Kant's non accessibility of noumena and therefore discards 'noumena' as vacuous, and which accepts Nietsche's rejection of any difference between 'description' and 'reality'. It is also supported by Maturana's argument that all we call 'observation' essentially involves 'languaging'.

Its not a question of 'belief'. Its a fundamental later phenomenological pov which follows Kant's non accessibility of noumena and therefore discards 'noumena' as vacuous, and which accepts Nietsche's rejection of any difference between 'description' and 'reality'. It is also supported by Maturana's argument that all we call 'observation' essentially involves 'languaging'. — fresco

Could/would you please re-phrase that answer in plain language? Thanks.

I disagree. And I am particularly puzzled about Wittgenstein's and your notion of futility regarding "some" or "many" "so called" discussions. Doesn't that merely beg the question? Certainly Wittgenstein would deem worthy the discussions he joined or started and I suspect you would do the same. Or do the both of you engage in "futile" discussions? Or is that an adjective reserved for discussions that you do not find "worthwhile?" Just asking.

Then the mistake, imo, is that we can escape from the domain of 'language' at all. As 'thinkers' all we have is 'language'... — fresco

Language becomes essentially meaningless and useless in the absence of linguistic thought, which is dependent on an existing thinker.

Yes, we are not just thinkers, we are existing thinkers. Thinking depends on the existence of something with the capability to think, otherwise Descartes was right.

So, an existing thinker can escape language by not thinking, and just existing.

SO there is a pretty straight forward grammar for true. Some statement 'p' will be true only if: p. Tarski's T-sentence, disquotation, redundancy and so on. Within this grammar we can manage much of what was once considered philosophically contentious.

And another, not unrelated, grammar for necessity, using possible world semantics to set out how to use necessary and possible.

And running through both is a rather good grammar for existence - existential quantification. — Banno

Interesting. Could you please elaborate?

We can observe and infer these relations, exchanges and interactions; and then the question becomes 'Are these relations, exchanges and interactions totally dependent on our observations and inference of them, or do they have some kind of independent existence or reality? — Janus

It's like a fractal - however we magnify our cognition, the same pattern keeps appearing. That is where propositional logic has its merits, it explains the pattern.

asking the questions expands the poetic imagination, and the sense of the numinous. It shows us just what kinds of question we are capable of imagining. — Janus

I don't think propositional logic can do much more beyond explaining the pattern (despite its quasi-ethical prescriptions for how we should talk, as if any mode of natural language can be rendered so as to entirely reflect it). Imo, there is something going on in natural language that elludes propositional logic... the mere power of poetic imagination over the human psyche is evidence enough.

Its not a question of 'belief'. Its a fundamental later phenomenological pov which follows Kant's non accessibility of noumena and therefore discards 'noumena' as vacuous, and which accepts Nietsche's rejection of any difference between 'description' and 'reality'. It is also supported by Maturana's argument that all we call 'observation' essentially involves 'languaging'. — fresco

Why would you endorse or stress that point of view?

Its not a question of 'belief'. Its a fundamental later phenomenological pov which follows Kant's non accessibility of noumena and therefore discards 'noumena' as vacuous, and which accepts Nietsche's rejection of any difference between 'description' and 'reality'. — fresco

The noumena issue does lead to some ugly complexities. But the idea of reality apart from our descriptions seems to be baked in to the way human beings talk. Philosophers try to tell one another how it is, what's really going on. If we insist that there is no way that it really is, then we are nevertheless trying to say how it really is. 'The way it really is....is that there is no way it really is.'

The correspondence theory of truth crystallizes something like the phenomenon of us all being in a 'world' together (the same world, the same reality.) This 'world' is not some crisp object but more like the 'primordial' situation of humans talking to one another.

Could you please elaborate? — Merkwurdichliebe

Not easily. Doing so would simply be explaining predicate calculus.

What is salient is that "Existence is relative, not absolute" lies outside these grammatical spaces. That is, it is not something that could be parsed into such language.

And that is the same as @creativesoul's question: what is added to our understanding of a thing by saying that it exists?

there is something going on in natural language that elludes propositional logic... the mere power of poetic imagination over the human psyche is evidence enough. — Merkwurdichliebe

Sure.

I'm fighting the urge to follow that "sure" with "but...". There's a difference between analytic philosophy, in which care and detail are paramount, and what we might call expansive philosophy which draws more and more other stuff into the explantation.

Dean, to the physics department. "Why do I always have to give you guys so much money, for laboratories and expensive equipment and stuff. Why couldn't you be like the math department - all they need is money for pencils, paper and waste-paper baskets. Or even better, like the philosophy department. All they need are pencils and paper."

What is salient is that "Existence is relative, not absolute" lies outside these grammatical spaces. That is, it is not something that could be parsed into such language.

And that is the same as creativesoul's question: what is added to our understanding of a thing by saying that it exists? — Banno

But even if the topic lies outside of those grammatical spaces, those grammatical spaces do little to discount the outlying grammatical spaces in which it does lie. And I've already shown the relevance of those spaces.

Pardon the sarcastic inflection, but...

It is no wonder that the value of philosophy proper has been considered on a steady decline for so long now by the average joe.

:yikes:

Does anyone here actually doubt whether or not anything can exist prior to our talking about it?

Some things exist prior to our account of them. That which exists prior to something else cannot be existentially dependent upon that something else. All such things are existentially independent of our account. None of them require being taken into account.

Those things must be said to exist prior to our account.

So, prudent considerations about all acceptable use of the term "existence" will keep in the forefront of our minds that stuff existed long before any and all terminological use.

Existence does not require our account. All notions of "existence" do.

All use of the term "existence" is language use.
All language use is existentially dependent upon language acquisition.
All language acquisition is existentially dependent upon rudimentary level non-linguistic thought/belief. All rudimentary level non-linguistic thought/belief is existentially dependent upon something to become sign/symbol, something to become significant/symbolized, and a creature capable of drawing correlations and/or associations between different things.
All use of the term "existence" is existentially dependent upon something to become sign/symbol, something to become significant/symbolized, and a creature capable of drawing a correlation and/or associations between different things.
All thought/belief is meaningful to the thinking/believing creature.
All use of the term "existence" is existentially dependent upon non-linguistic rudimentary level thought/belief that is meaningful to the thinking/believing creature.
All non-linguistic meaningful thought/belief consists entirely of correlations drawn between different things.
All correlation presupposes the existence of it's own content.
The presupposition of existence does not require language use for it happens in autonomous fashion within non-linguistic thought/belief.
That which is prior to language use cannot be existentially dependent upon language use.
The presupposition of existence is not existentially dependent upon language use.
All notions of "existence" are.

Trees existed in their entirety prior to being taken into account. Any thought/belief to the contrary is the bewitchment of language use that Witt couldn't quite elaborate enough upon.

It's like a fractal - however we magnify our cognition, the same pattern keeps appearing. That is where propositional logic has its merits, it explains the pattern. — Merkwurdichliebe

Propositional logic takes account of common language by means of propositional terms. Common language use existed long before it became a subject in it's own right. That is, there must be something to take account of in order to take account of something. Unfortunately, when thought/belief is accounted for solely in propositional terms, it cannot provide an example of thought/belief that is not propositional in content, because by definition/schema/framework/notion all belief is held/thought/believed to be.

That is false.

Not all thought/belief is propositional in content.

What pattern are you referring to? Does it suffer in light of the above true statement?

Existence, truth, and meaning are all irrevocably entwined within all human thought/belief by virtue of being presupposed and/or attributed therein. Some thought/belief is prior to language. Some notions of "existence" can come to acceptable terms with that, and some cannot.

For me, the import of this discussion is that I assert 'existence' to be on the same level of every other concept which humans denote by a socially acquired languge in specific behavioral contexts.

Thus when Merdwurdichliebe, for example, asserts that 'a thinker must exist', I suggest this is only valid now,in a hypothetical scenario in which we might 'observe in our mind's eye' a focal entity we call 'a thinker'.
If on the other hand we have in our current 'mind's eye' a Heideggerian scenario of seamless coping in which 'observer' and 'observed' remain inextricable, or 'unevoked' for much of the time, then we might argue that the 'validity of existence of a thinker' is dependent on those contexts in which 'the thinker' (or 'self' or 'observer') is circumstantially evoked i.e. when seamless coping breaks down and 'considering behavior' kicks in.

BTW. The 'fresco' which wrote the above reply was evoked by the interactions above. Like 'a tree' its internal state had shifted but its 'conversational identity' via the word 'fresco' remains functionally the same.

Does anyone here actually doubt whether or not anything can exist prior to our talking about it? — creativesoul

I don't think anyone really doubts that.

But the situation is strange if someone tries to grasp it conceptually rather than practically. I'm in a world, and yet this world is 'in' my consciousness. It's a snake eating its own tail.

'Life is a dream.' Does this not resonate? 'We are ripples in the nothingness.' Is this the thoughtcrime AKA language on holiday?

Let's grant that the universe will churn on in the absence of life. But it's hard for us to call that real with the same conviction, because there's no creature left to see it or give a damn.

It is no wonder that the value of philosophy proper has been considered on a steady decline for so long now by the average joe. — creativesoul

Strip away all the fancy specialist terms, and I think The Average Joe can and does get into these issues.

The problem, if there is one, is that it's relatively easy and it doesn't pay the bills. It's nice to fire up philosophy as the gee-whiz machine. Non-intellectual types like to get stoned and talk weird stuff. Just about everyone loved The Matrix.

Beyond the gee-whiz offerings, there's also identity to be had from philosophy. A person reads Plato or Nietzsche or Epictetus (or ?) for an idea of how to live, who to be. Monkey see, monkey maybe do. The more ordinary sort are happy with Jay-Z's autobiography. In terms of the itch scratched, it's the same phenomenon. Find some of it on the 'Philosophy' shelf at BAM! There are subconversations about Life with their own inside jokes and keywords. TPF is centered around one of many.

Then there's the stuff where folks drone on about the essence of a proposition,etc. You mentioned Wittgenstein. Who exactly was he griping at? His own obsessiveness? Not Weininger or Kraus. Not Tagore. And then who cares about Wittgenstein? All I mean is that he is as mummified memefied as Stirner. Put in a quarter & the speaker says 'language on holiday.' He's great, but it's not as if people weren't doing it right before him. Shaw was right when he said the first rule of style is having something to say. A certain kind of armchair science gets tangled up in its jargon as a way to hide its inanity from itself. Unravel the knot and there is often absurdity or triviality. This is the stuff our Joe sleeps through.

Strip away all the fancy specialist terms, and I think The Average Joe can and does get into these issues. — g0d

Normal everyday common language users do not get lost in mistaken accounts of what they're doing, unless they are unknowingly misled into such cognitive dissonance.

Existence does not require our account. All notions of "existence" do. — creativesoul

I can roll with that. Does this mean that fresco is correct in saying:

I assert 'existence' to be on the same level of every other concept which humans denote by a socially acquired languge in specific behavioral contexts. — fresco

???

And I've already shown the relevance of those spaces. — Merkwurdichliebe

Where?

I ask because I want to be sure I understand you.

I ask because I want to be sure I understand you. — Banno

I referred to the psychological context of "existence".

I also invoked the consideration of whether or not a thing's existence is dependent upon its relations.

Both are examples of how "existence" and the "absolute-relative" dichotomy are relevant.

Normal everyday common language users do not get lost in mistaken accounts of what they're doing, unless they are unknowingly misled into such cognitive dissonance. — creativesoul

Maybe they/we are misled, but I think it's more a question of character than intellect. I mean that we get attached to certain games, not language games but personality games that happen within language. We are deaf to those outside that game. (In that game there are friends, foes, and those that don't fit the narrative --usually the ones talking sense in retrospect.) If our fever cools and we step outside, we suddenly understand all the critiques we ignored at the time.

No one will ever take Cantor's paradise away from us, but we may just lose that special feeling and walk out.

I've no clear understanding of what the "psychological context of 'existence'" might be. Is it the context in whichi we might use the word 'existence'?

Much the same for "consideration of whether or not a thing's existence is dependent on its relations." Is this parallel Quine? @creativesoul?

I also invoked the consideration of whether or not a thing's existence is dependent upon its relations. — Merkwurdichliebe

Is a tree existentially dependent upon it's relations?

That question is very incomplete.

I've no clear understanding of what the "psychological context of 'existence'" might be. Is it the context in whichi we might use the word 'existence'?

Much the same for "consideration of whether or not a thing's existence is dependent on its relations." Is this parallel Quine? creativesoul? — Banno

I think that those are the kinds of frameworks and/or assertions that Quine is targeting.

For me, the import of this discussion is that I assert 'existence' to be on the same level of every other concept which humans denote by a socially acquired languge in specific behavioral contexts. — fresco

This is a hefty thesis. Is it not better to shrug off the handwringing of those who in other modes know better? Who really know how to use the word 'exist' already?

For me it's not that Rorty finally gets things right but rather that he had the right attitude. The attempt to prove the futility of X seems as futile as X itself. A certain approach is discarded, not refuted.

The presupposition of existence is not existentially dependent upon language use.
All notions of "existence" are. — creativesoul

That is also a very good point to consider.

Language is certainly not existence as such. Yet each are it intrinsically bound up in the other. Language only exists, because something else existed prior to it. And language, as a compounding mediation, extrapolates existence from it's own existing (including all its dependecy) by the power of it's own device. As you say, all thought/belief presupposes the existence of it's own content regardless of any further qualification.

You are doing a nice job mapping it out. Maybe, not perfect, but it's a start.

I think that those are the kinds of frameworks and/or assertions that Quine is targeting. — creativesoul

How so?