You can’t ask why the law of identity holds, or why elementary arithmetic proofs are valid. They are the basis on which judgements of validity are made. — Wayfarer
Other philosophers have taken the normativity of logic to kick in at an even more fundamental level. According to them, the normative force of logic does not merely constrain reasoning, it applies to all thinking. The thesis deserves our attention both because of its historical interest—it has been attributed in various ways to Kant, Frege and Carnap[6]—and because of its connections to contemporary views in epistemology and the philosophy of mind (see Cherniak 1986: §2.5; Goldman 1986: Ch. 13; Milne 2009; as well as the references below).
To get a better handle on the thesis in question, let us agree to understand “thought” broadly as conceptual activity.[7] Judging, believing, inferring, for example, are all instances of thinking in this sense. It may seem puzzling at first how logic is to get a normative grip on thinking: Why merely by engaging in conceptual activity should one automatically be answerable to the strictures of logic?[8] After all, at least on the picture of thought we are currently considering, any disconnected stream-of-consciousness of imaginings qualifies as thinking. One answer is that logic is thought to put forth norms that are constitutive for thinking. That is, in order for a mental episode to count as an episode of thinking at all, it must, in a sense to be made precise, be “assessable in light of the laws of logic” (MacFarlane 2002: 37). Underlying this thesis is a distinction between two types of rules or norms: constitutive ones and regulative ones.
The distinction between regulative and constitutive norms is Kantian at root (KRV A179/B222). Here, however, I refer primarily to a related distinction due to John Searle. According to Searle, regulative norms “regulate antecedently or independently existing forms of behavior”, such as rules of etiquette or traffic laws. Constitutive norms, by contrast
"create or define new forms of behavior. The rules of football or chess, for example, do not merely regulate playing football or chess but as it were they create the very possibility of playing such games". (Searle 1969: 33–34; see also Searle 2010: 97)
This is the view that logic is constitutively normative for thought. That is, the norms themselves make thinking possible, just as the rules of a game are constitutive for that game. — Kornelius
There are a whole range of other realities whose reality we can now affirm: interest rates, mortgages, contracts, vows, national constitutions, penal codes and so on. Where do interest rates "exist"? Not in banks, or financial institutions. Are they real when we cannot touch them or see them? We all spend so much time worrying about them - are we worrying about nothing? In fact, I'm sure we all worry much more about interest rates than about the existence or non-existence of the Higgs boson! Similarly, a contract is not just the piece of paper, but the meaning the paper embodies; likewise a national constitution or a penal code.
Once we break the stranglehold on our thinking by our "animal extroversion", we can affirm the reality of our whole world of human meanings and values, of institutions, nations, finance and law, of human relationships and so on, without the necessity of seeing them as "just" something else lower down the chain of being yet to be determined. 1 — Neil Ormerod
Right! Hence my remark in the other thread that numbers (etc) are constitutive of thought. — Wayfarer
I think that in effect describing 'concepts' as ‘objects’ is a reification. — Wayfarer
These judgements are likewise constitutive of reason and rational inference, and they are being made whenever we assert or describe or argue anything whatever. They are the 'fabric of reason', so to speak. (For further elaboration on Freger's view of the 'laws of thought' in particular, see Frege on knowing the Third Realm, Tyler Burge.) — Wayfarer
I think that in effect describing 'concepts' as ‘objects’ is a reification — Wayfarer
I accept the usage of the term ‘object’ as a linguistic convention, but I think this usage leads to a basic misunderstanding of the nature of what is being discussed. And the reason for that, is that modern thinking is overwhelmingly oriented towards the 'domain of objects' - the domain presumed fundamental and exclusively real by natural science . — Wayfarer
There's literally no conceptual space for it in modern naturalism, as what is real is regarded as existent, 'out there somewhere', as the saying has it (see the remark on 'animal extroversion' in the quotation below.) — Wayfarer
So that is the drift. It is not exactly what I set out to say when I sat down to write, but I hope it conveys something of what I'm getting at. — Wayfarer
But then why should terms that refer to abstract objects be taken to be "reification" of what are in fact concepts? Why not take it as evidence that we may have been doing the reverse, i.e., referring to abstract objects as mere concepts, when in fact they were not? — Kornelius
Frege wrote a whole paper on distinguishing concepts from objects. — Kornelius
...thought content exists independently of thinking "in the same way", Frege said "that a pencil exists independently of grasping it. Thought contents are true and bear their relations to one another (and presumably to what they are about) independently of anyone's thinking these thought contents - "just as a planet, even before anyone saw it, was in interaction with other planets." — Tyler Burge
Some philosophers, called "rationalists" claim that we have a special, non-sensory capacity for understanding mathematical truths, a rational insight arising from pure thought (//which I would describe as "reason"//). But, the rationalist’s claims appear incompatible with an understanding of human beings as physical creatures whose capacities for learning are exhausted by our physical bodies.'
why should terms that refer to abstract objects be taken to be "reification" of what are in fact concepts? Why not take it as evidence that we may have been doing the reverse, i.e., referring to abstract objects as mere concepts, when in fact they were not? — Kornelius
Frege held that both the thought-contents that constitute the proof-structure of mathematics and the subject-matter of these thought-contents (extensions, functions) exist.
By focusing on objects perceptible by the mind alone and by observing their nature, in particular their eternity and immutability, Augustine came to see that certain things that clearly exist, namely, the objects of the intelligible realm, cannot be corporeal. When he cries out in the midst of his vision of the divine nature, "Is truth nothing just because it is not diffused through space, neither finite nor infinite?", he is acknowledging that it was the discovery of intelligible truth that first freed him to comprehend incorporeal reality.
Someone would just say that numbers are objects like leprechauns are objects- made up ones. — schopenhauer1
Indeed, meaning presupposes identity. — jorndoe
Why laughing? — schopenhauer1
Someone would just say that numbers are objects like leprechauns are objects - made up ones. — schopenhauer1
Then they would just say it (the computer) is the physical output of an electrical circuit opening and closing other circuits. This would be a physical act. — schopenhauer1
Frege seems to think anything is an object as long as it is not a predicate statement. Thus, any old imaginary thing can be an object. — schopenhauer1
No, I don't think he says that at all, but must confess to not having read his 'concepts and objects' paper. — Wayfarer
Something being useful is a good start.
I think that pragmatism would a good philosophical school. I wonder why Americans aren't so much into it, even if it is genuinely of American origin (Pierce and Dewey). — ssu
I'm not sure. Kornelius what would be the difference between numbers and leprechauns in Frege's conception of objects? I realize that question is funny as I write it :) — schopenhauer1
For Frege, the term "leprechaun" is an empty name (or, rather, an empty noun). It does not refer to an object.
The term "three", on the other hand, refers to an object. — Kornelius
What is the object referencing? Presumably reference is a "real" thing, but how does he explain this without being self-referential? If he says it is somewhere in the world, then where is this "three"? But if he says it is in the realm of the imagination, then he once again has no way of differentiating it from the leprechaun. — schopenhauer1
An abstract object. In fact, for Frege it references as extension (of a second-level concept). — Kornelius
Why can't leprechauns be an abstract object? It may not be a mathematical object, but why not an abstract one? Being a set would be a definition of a mathematical object perhaps, but not all abstract objects are subsumed in that. Economics for example is an abstract object. creativity is an abstract object, etc. How does his definition differentiate between any of these? — schopenhauer1
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