But why in the world would realism require verfication-transcendent conditions? — StreetlightX
The point is to show that rejecting the 'realist' POV does not entail a retreat into anti-realism — StreetlightX
What 'some' say is irrelavent here so long as the argument goes unaddressed.
Yes but Dummett et. al. are wrong.
Which is to say that by definition, one needs language in order to have truths. — StreetlightX
Johnston continues, "In other words, early childhood language acquisition isn’t so much a matter of building up [a language]; it’s more a matter of tearing down and eliminating (or, more accurately, attempting to eliminate) the nonsensical meanderings and ramblings of [infantile babbling], of the cognitive games [of enjoyment that] plays with the vocal apparatus." — StreetlightX
I write the former and I sit on the latter. — Michael
I don't see how saying that parts of the world fall within the domain of language and that parts of the world fall within the domain of not-language is any more problematic than saying that parts of the world fall within the domain of games and that parts of the world fall within the domain of not-games. And I don't see how the former is merely "lip service" just as I don't see how the latter would be "lip service". — Michael
Cavacava raised a similar point which I addressed in my reply to him on the first page. — StreetlightX
Again, the point is language as we know it is developmentally continuous, rooted in a world of which it is one element among a vast assemblage of things, movements, bodies, institutions and so on. One can't treat language as a reified world-unto-itself without ignoring the very conditions by which language can be what it is. — StreetlightX
Parts of language don't fall into the domain of the world. It all does. Any use of language is a state of the world. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Parts of the world don't sit outside the domain of the language either. We may use language to talk about any part of the world.
You are, however, insisting on making this distinction of language as another realm. At every turn you are trying to insist that the distinction of the world you are describing (i.e about existing states, talking about something with ontological significance) is merely semantic, as if your description was in some realm outside existence (ontology) and had nothing to do with it, as if what you are saying wasn't talking about the world. Just about every single discussion we've had on this topic has you proclaiming your language doesn't need to be about the world (i.e. only semantic), even though it is both of the world and is actually talking about it (and so, by definition, is about "ontology" ).
About what? That realism argues in favour of verification-transcendent truth or that anti-realism rejects this? You can make a case for the former but certainly not the latter as he coined the term. If you make a (successful) case for the former then we run into the confusing situation where those realist theories which reject verification-transcendent truths are also anti-realist theories. — Michael
I didn't say that (only) parts of language fall within the domain of the world. I said that (only) parts of the world fall within the domain of language. Not every "state of the world" is language-use.
When I say that parts of the world don't fall within the domain of language I am saying that there are things in the world which aren't words or gestures or other examples of language-use. When I talk about a chair I am not talking about language. — Michael
I haven't said anything like this. What I've said is that one can distinguish between language and its subject matter without invoking metaphysics. The word "chair" and the chair are defined as different things. In making this distinction I'm not treating language and the world as belonging to separate ontological realms. Both the word "chair" and the chair are real things in the real world. — Michael
Of course it's not. You're addressing the classical problems, and one of the most prominent classical problems is regarding the correspondence notion of truth and the account of reference where words "stand in" for other (often non-experiential, non-conceptual, non-linguistic) things — Michael
A realist could reject verification-transcendent truth (in the sense of acknowledging that we cannot understand what it means to say that a statement about something which could not be verified (even in principle) could be true, without necessarily rejecting verification-transcendent actuality. — John
Having said this, though, even in regard to verification-transcendent truth, I think we all believe there are such. If I say to you "Remember that online debate we had about realism/anti-realism last Friday, but of which there is now no record since Philosophy Forums crashed and all the posts were lost, and you say "No, we never had any debate last Friday", don't you believe that it is simply either true of false that we had such a debate, even though it can never be verified (i.e. even though it is a verification-transcendent truth/falsity we are dealing with)?
His, I assume, strongest argument, the manifestation argument, begins
with the quite plausible claim that a theory of meaning is a theory of
understanding. After all, to understand a linguistic item is to grasp its
meaning. Obviously, the theory must explain in what the understanding of
the language consists. Understanding a sentence, Dummett contends, is not
an inner mental state, but a practical ability, an ability to manifest a certain
sort of behavior, If one understands a sentence, one must be able to man-
ifest that understanding. For our grasp of the meaning of a sentence con-
sists in our ability to make correct uses of it. The public communicability of
language requires that meanings are accessible to speakers of the language.
So far, so good. Then, however, Dummett goes on to identify the practical
ability to make use of a statement with the recognitional capacity to verify or
falsify that statement. To understand a statement one must be able to
recognize certain situations as verifying the assertion of the statement. This
identification, requiring as it does an association between individual sen-
tences and particular recognizable wordly conditions which justify them,
seems to me to be the crux of the argument. Here Dummett‘s epistemologi-
cal and, since he ties meaning to evidence and verification, semantic anti-
holism become evident. On this basis, he tries to establish that statements
can only have verification conditions because a statement that had objective
recognition-transcendent truth conditions could not be understood. Our
knowledge of the recognition-transcendent truth conditions of statements
can never be manifested in our exercise of the practical abilities which constitute
our understanding of those statements. Thus, knowledge of the meaning of
such “effectively undecidable" statements does not consist in knowledge of
their realist truth conditions. Rather, an understanding of a sentence can
only consist in knowledge of what counts as evidence for its truth.” — Truth and Speech Acts: Studies in the Philosophy of Language, Dirk Greimann and Geo Siegwart
Then, however, Dummett goes on to identify the practical ability to make use of a statement with the recognitional capacity to verify or falsify that statement. — Truth and Speech Acts: Studies in the Philosophy of Language, Dirk Greimann and Geo Siegwart
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.