Is there someone you can refer me to that's closer to your approach? Just to see it in another vocabulary? Or are you working on something fresh? — path

As far as I know, there is no other advocate of what I'm advocating. My world-view has been influenced by far more people than I can possibly know, and there are similarities and shared positions on specific points with many.

I wouldn't say that a name represents it's referent. It refers to it. It picks it out of this world to the exclusion of all else. — creativesoul

OK, that's why I mentioned intentionality earlier. If we tell a kid to go get a screwdriver and he brings the screwdriver back, does that work? We can't see inside his soul. He just does what we want him to do upon certain cues.

As far as I know, there is no other advocate of what I'm advocating. My world-view has been influenced by far more people than I can possibly know, and there are similarities and shared positions on specific points with many. — creativesoul

I can relate to that. I also have lots of influences, and I couldn't point to just one.

Also, I don't agree with everything Rorty or everything anybody, but that Rorty quote was good for what I had in mind.

What about when a dog pees where other dogs have peed? We can say that they are indicating their presence, maybe other things. But all we see is that the dog pees where other dogs have peed.

Or we can say that bee dancing points other bees to food, but all we see is the dance and that the bees go to where the first bee was.

Would you accept this as enacted correlation? — path

I'm not entirely sure about either of those cases regarding the content of correlations, or if there is such a thing regarding those behaviours.

If we tell a kid to go get a screwdriver and he brings the screwdriver back, does that work? — path

Clearly the language use worked. It would not have had the kid not drawn the right correlations to the language use.

There seems to be a thread, so to speak, pervading your part of our discourse here, and as I understand it, your discourse elsewhere on this forum as well. I'd like to first check to see if what I'm saying is true, or at least true enough, if you prefer. Then, I'd suggest a read that is relevant.

You've been captured by this notion of thrown-ness into the world. You've also repeatedly mentioned or remarked upon the necessity of using the language 'forced' upon us as a means to talk about it, or words to that affect/effect.

Russell's Why I Am Not A Christian, is chock full of good suggestions for how to go about questioning the worldview that one adopts... which subsumes the thrown-ness, and much of the other Heiddy notions you've grown fond of. Anyway, it does not matter whether or not you are/were a Christian. Russell's suggestions are universally applicable methods for figuring out what one believes and how/why. Well worth a read. It's a short book as well.

Russell's Why I Am Not A Christian, is chock full of good suggestions for how to go about questioning the worldview that one adopts... which subsumes the thrown-ness, and much of the other Heiddy notions you've grown fond of. — creativesoul

I'm sure Russel has some nice hints for the recovering Christian, and I could give his ghost some nice hints for the recovering insufficiently self-critical theory-of-knowledge guy. Maybe I can use a different metaphor, since you might be allergic to metaphors stolen from Heidegger. I don't think that critical thinking can be 'automated.' Any attempt to construct such a 'machine' ends up taking the 'vocabulary' used in its construction mostly for granted. This 'automated critical thinking' is a metaphor for a certain kind of earnest metaphysics. I include earnest linguistic philosophy in this metaphor.

Such earnestness is threatened by an awareness of how 'historical' language is, that we never start with a clean state, that we have only inherited traces with which to (try to) transcend inheritance and install this critical thinking machine which requires no maintenance.

Here's an anthology of Wittgenstein quotes that run parallel to talk about being 'thrown.'

A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.
...
The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something because it is always before one’s eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all.)
...
I think I summed up my attitude to philosophy when I said: philosophy ought really to be written only as a poetic composition.
...
When you are philosophizing you have to descend into primeval chaos and feel at home there.
...
Sometimes, in doing philosophy, one just wants to utter an inarticulate sound.
...
We are struggling with language. We are engaged in a struggle with language.
...
Language is a part of our organism and no less complicated than it.
...
Perhaps what is inexpressible (what I find mysterious and am not able to express) is the background against which whatever I could express has its meaning.
...
Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity.
...
Man feels the urge to run up against the limits of language.
...
So in the end, when one is doing philosophy, one gets to the point where one would like just to emit an inarticulate sound. — Wittgenstein

Interesting and a bit odd reply...

I still suggest that read. As I mentioned, the method for questioning one's own adopted belief system holds good regardless of individual particulars.

There's much to be said about how our initial worldview effects/effects us.

I've argued against Witt's notion of "The limits of my language is the limits of my world", as well as other misguided notions that are the inevitable result of placing too much importance upon the role of language in human thought and belief, as a result of working from an utterly inadequate criterion for what counts as thought and belief.

I'm not at all allergic to Heiddy's philosophy. Unfortunately though, the most insightful piece of work 'from him' is the dialogue in the beginning of On The Way To Language between him and the Japanese philosopher regarding that which goes unspoken...

If you want some REAL insight into Witt, find a copy of the Cambridge letters...

Such earnestness is threatened by an awareness of how 'historical' language is, that we never start with a clean state... — path

That goes without being said... with me. We can delve into such though. It is quite germane to 'bedrock belief', of the linguistic variety anyway....

I still suggest that read. As I mentioned, the method for questioning one's own adopted belief system holds good regardless of individual particulars. — creativesoul

My point is (necessarily approximately ) that any such method is insufficiently critical. To pick up that method and use it is to pick up traces in order to liberate one from traces. The idea that it 'holds good' apart from individual particulars makes it a kind of anonymous machine.

I'm not denying it's a good book. I even looked at it many years ago. I also read Russell's History of Philosophy, which is so stupid about Nietzsche and Hegel (if memory serves) that I find it hard (but not impossible) to take him seriously. I did read Monk's bio on him, though, just last year. Like all of us he was a creature of his time, trapped in its issues and vocab.

My point is (necessarily approximately ) that any such method is insufficiently critical. — path

Perhaps..

However, if there are a plurality of different methods all of which are capable of showing us a bit of how language acquisition affects/effects us, ought we not learn to use as many as we can, so as to creep closer towards sufficiency/adequacy?

I'm not at all allergic to Heiddy's philosophy. Unfortunately though, the most insightful piece of work 'from him' is the dialogue in the beginning of On The Way To Language between him and the Japanese philosopher regarding that which goes unspoken... — creativesoul

That sounds good. I might get around to that. I'm not currently in a Heidegger phase, tho I can't resist jumping into a good Heidegger thread.

If you want some REAL insight into Witt, find a copy of the Cambridge letters... — creativesoul

I have that one. It's good. But I think (biasedly, of course) that I am on the right track with Witt, or at least that my creative misreading is a good one.

That goes without being said... with me. We can delve into such though. It is quite germane to 'bedrock belief', of the linguistic variety anyway.... — creativesoul

That's why your objection to talk of being thrown is strange to me. You included in your quote of me 'that we never start from a clean slate.' That's more or less exactly what it means to be thrown. In any of our thinking about thinking, we are using an inherited vocab and tradition. Part of thinking about thinking is realizing this, and this is where earnest linguistic philosophy becomes ironic or highly suspicious of itself.

Russell also placed too much emphasis and/or importance on language use. However, given his belief system and his life circumstances, that man deserves post mortem praise...

Perhaps..

However, if there are a plurality of different methods all of which are capable of showing us a bit of how language acquisition affects/effects us, ought we not learn to use as many as we can, so as to creep closer towards sufficiency/adequacy? — creativesoul

Absolutely, and that's why I try to read and synthesize insights from lots of thinkers.

That's why your objection to talk of being thrown is strange to me. You included in your quote of me 'that we never start from a clean slate.' That's more or less exactly what it means to be thrown. In any of our thinking about thinking, we are using an inherited vocab and tradition. Part of thinking about thinking is realizing this, and this is where earnest linguistic philosophy becomes ironic or highly suspicious of itself. — path

I'm interested in unpacking it... I'm not objecting to it, per se.

I'm very aware of what it means to be thrown. I'm also painfully aware of what it takes to shed such 'bedrock belief'.

I've argued against Witt's notion of "The limits of my language is the limits of my world", as well as other misguided notions that are the inevitable result of placing too much importance upon the role of language in human thought and belief, as a result of working from an utterly inadequate criterion for what counts as thought and belief. — creativesoul

I do want to hear more about that. Perhaps you'll agree, though, that maybe there will be no perfectly adequate criterion, since we don't legislate the language of the future. These tokens 'thought' and 'belief' can always be (and always are) recontextulized, drifting into new roles. And do either of us cling to some notion of 'belief-in-itself', 'thought-in-itself'?

I'm very aware of what it means to be thrown. I'm also painfully aware of what it takes to shed such 'bedrock belief'. — creativesoul

Fair enough. It might help to articulate where I'm coming from by distinguishing to aspects of being thrown. The first aspect (which maybe you thought I had in mind) was being born poor, being born rich, being born in a cult, being born male, etc. These are powerful ways of being thrown, but they are, for better or worse, the kind of being thrown that we are always talking about. As a culture, we are even obsessed with this 'existential' version or aspect of being thrown.

But I'm mostly more interested in a more subtle kind of 'epistemological' being-thrown. It's the stuff we take for granted as we concentrate on our worldly circumstances. It's the language we inherit with its thousands of half-dead metaphors (rivers with mouths.) It's the philosophical tradition --not the part that we are consciously questioning but the part we are unconsciously using to consciously question.

This is 'the past that leaps ahead.,' the part of it that we do not see. It's the picture that dominates from the outside. It's the transparent glass that keeps the flies in the bottle.

For me Heidegger is most interesting in this second sense, and I like to filter out the existential stuff as Dreyfus does when I think of him.

It's the language we inherit with its thousands of half-dead metaphors (rivers with mouths.) — path

Half-dead metaphor, kind of a metaphor in itself. Rivers with mouths is a good example.

I've argued against Witt's notion of "The limits of my language is the limits of my world", as well as other misguided notions that are the inevitable result of placing too much importance upon the role of language in human thought and belief, as a result of working from an utterly inadequate criterion for what counts as thought and belief.
— creativesoul

I do want to hear more about that. — path

The key is acquiring understanding and/or knowledge of what all thought and belief have in common such that having that commonality makes them what they are. This criterion is minimalist by necessity, as it must also cover pre-linguistic and/or non linguistic thought and belief as well. In addition, as mentioned heretofore on several occasions, that basic level of thought and belief must be somehow amenable to evolutionary progression, as well as be capable of properly accounting for and/or offering an alternative explanation for all sorts of things... the scope is daunting to say the least. Everything ever thought, believed, spoken, gestured, and/or otherwise uttered must be accountable in such a framework... in such terms.

Perhaps you'll agree, though, that maybe there will be no perfectly adequate criterion, since we don't legislate the language of the future. These tokens 'thought' and 'belief' can always be (and always are) recontextulized, drifting into new roles. And do either of us cling to some notion of 'belief-in-itself', 'thought-in-itself'?

I'm no Kantian in the sense of being sympathetic to Noumena. I prefer the unknown. Sure terminological use changes over time, especially regarding common language use. That's no problem for us here and now though. We can make any name we so choose a rigid designator. The fact that language evolves does not have to stop us from utilizing it here and now as a means to acquire knowledge of that which is prior to.

That bit of knowledge is a tremendously useful tool, by which we can judge other claims about ourselves and others, particularly regarding claims about thought and belief, or (certain)claims about anything that is existentially dependent upon thought and belief.

Half-dead metaphor, kind of a metaphor in itself. Rivers with mouths is a good example. — Marchesk

Thanks. I'm fascinated by 'philosophy is metaphors' as a metaphor that uses 'metaphor' (itself a dead metaphor) metaphysically. Derrida's essay 'The White Mythology' obsesses over this. To me this is part of the theme of us not being able to get out of metaphysics, where 'metaphysics' is used metaphorically.

My cat is literally pushing books off my shelf at the moment.

I'm fascinated by 'philosophy is metaphors' as a metaphor that uses 'metaphor' (itself a dead metaphor) metaphysically. Derrida's essay 'The White Mythology' obsesses over this — path

A book's worth of thought and/or belief about three words that amount to a false equivalence?

Things like that bug me about certain philosophers. Bewitchment.

A book's worth of thought and/or belief about three words that amount to a false equivalence? — creativesoul

I agree with Nietzsche that the whole game of philosophy is built on false equivalence. That's basically what a metaphor is.

Things like that bug me about certain philosophers. Bewitchment. — creativesoul

Note that bewitchment is a half-dead metaphor., as is bug. Defining oneself against bewitchment might also be bewitchment. Isn't that critical thinking's fantasy? To be the opposite of bewitched? But what's so bewitching about this opposite of being bewitched? And do I only ask this because I am afraid of being bewitched?

Do I seek the spectacle of others' bewitchment from a high place free of magic?

More seriously, it's Derrida examining a classic attack on philosophy by a dude who says it's all dead metaphors. Derrida thinks its more complicated than that, that metaphor functions metaphysically in the attack.

Generalizing, there's no automated sniff-test for 'language on holiday.' Which is an automated denial of the possible here and now that makes claims on a future, necessarily ironically when it remembers itself.

But that's just something the @path -bot would say.

the scope is daunting to say the least. — creativesoul

It is indeed! I think the keyword for you might be correlation? Understood as relationship, it does make sense to me, given my holist leanings, that relationship is primary or elemental. Everything is determined by what it's not (meaning-wise) and of course we've talked about animals reacting to patterns in the environment with their own patterns. That's how I can try to feel my way into it. I like the idea of the world as lots of patterns entangled.

My cat is literally pushing books off my shelf at the moment. — path

Sounds like that could be turned into a metaphor.

Thanks. I'm fascinated by 'philosophy is metaphors' as a metaphor that uses 'metaphor' (itself a dead metaphor) metaphysically. Derrida's essay 'The White Mythology' obsesses over this. To me this is part of the theme of us not being able to get out of metaphysics, where 'metaphysics' is used metaphorically. — path

There was a philosophy book on embodied cognition that made the claim all of western metaphysics was based on taking metaphors literally. I guess that's sort of a companion to the late Wittgenstein's approach.

There was a philosophy book on embodied cognition that made the claim all of western metaphysics was based on taking metaphors literally. — Marchesk

Can you share the title of that work please? I'm heading into a linguistic-symbolism phase and this sounds quite interesting.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001FSJAWK

I don't know how well received it was. But it's an interesting approach.

Many thanks! I have been a strong believer in embedded cognition since the Varela, Thompson, Rosch book The Embodied Mind. I found it interesting recently reading Mead, he talks about embedded cognition decades before!

Sounds like that could be turned into a metaphor. — Marchesk

Yeah, I was hoping to hint at that. 'Literal' is a dead metaphor. To be literal is just to stare at the letter, but the letter is itself a string of metaphors that are more or less dead. 'Analogy is the core of cognition.' If that's true, then we can only approach analogy analogically.

There was a philosophy book on embodied cognition that made the claim all of western metaphysics was based on taking metaphors literally. I guess that's sort of a companion to the late Wittgenstein's approach. — Marchesk

I like the embodied cognition approach. And yeah I think (along with or from my influences) that metaphors cool and harden into a relative literality. The concept of the literal itself is a cooled metaphor. I went ahead and looked up 'concept' too: 'to take in and hold; become pregnant.'

The meaning does of course drift as the metaphor dies.

'Language on holiday' is fun. I imagine Language on the beach with a drink.

('Language on holiday' is language on holiday.)