The apple is nonetheless red, but the animal is unable to perceive that. — Andrew M
The belief that a dictionary contains the meaning of a word. Naive. Indeed, silly. We don't need more holy books — Banno
messaging (including fake messaging) between species is commonplace, in a very practical biosemiotic manner. — Olivier5
Fair enough, apologies for not reading the thread. — Olivier5
A signal calls for an action, typically. That's why it's urgent. It comes at a certain moment, when a certain action is required and not before. In this case, the apple turns red when it is ripe, i.e. when the fruit and its seeds are ready for cumsomption by animals. So basically the tree is calling an animal as a sort of taxi, when it's ready, to transport its kids to a new neighborhood (the seeds, that will be excreted a few miles away). The cab fare is the sugar in the fruit. — Olivier5
The apple is nonetheless red, but the animal is unable to perceive that.
— Andrew M
That the apple is not red to some animals implies that it is not red tout court, but that it has the constitutional potential to appear red to some animals. — Janus
For all we know it may appear as some other colour we have never perceived to some animal. Would you then say that the apple is that nameless colour tout court? Or if the apple is grey to an animal that has no colour receptors does it follow that the apple is also grey tout court? What I think you are missing is that colour is relational, not inherent, whereas the potential to be coloured is inherent. — Janus
Corcoran and his colleagues pitted a particularly noisy species of tiger moth, the Bertholdia trigona, against big brown bats trained to hunt in a flight room. As long as the moths were able to click, the bats couldn't catch them, even though the moths were tethered on a string. — Olivier5
That's fine, but then all you've got is the intent behind the expression, but we're talking about ontological commitments here. — Isaac
The belief that a dictionary contains the meaning of a word.
So how is it so can look up a word I don’t know in the dictionary, read it’s definition, then use it meaningfully in conversation? — Marchesk
That's a proof, if you like, that color is a physical aspect of the apple, not a mental phenomenon. Instead it is theirs and our experiences that are different. And that experiential difference has a physical basis in the genetic/brain wiring difference. — Andrew M
The apple is red regardless, per the conventional use of the word "red". However there's no problem with having an alternative color language that denotes the color distinctions that a particular animal makes. And an animal that can't distinguish color at all is color-blind. — Andrew M
So much, then, for ways in which the study of excuses may throw light on ethics. But there are also reasons why it is an attractive subject methodologically, at least if we are to proceed from 'ordinary language', that is, by examining what we should say when, and so why and what we should mean by it. Perhaps this method, at least as one philosophical method, scarcely requires justification at present—too evidently, there is gold in them thar hills: more opportune would be a warning about the care and thoroughness needed if it is not to fall into disrepute. I will, however, justify it very briefly.
First, words are our tools, and, as a minimum, we should use clean tools: we should know what we mean and what we do not, and we must forearm ourselves against the traps that language sets us. Secondly, words are not (except in their own little corner) facts or things: we need therefore to prise them off the world, to hold them apart from and against it, so that we can realize their inadequacies and arbitrariness, and can relook at the world without blinkers. Thirdly, and more hopefully, our common stock of words embodies all the distinctions men have found worth drawing, and the connexions they have found worth marking, in the lifetimes of many generations: these surely are likely to be more numerous, more sound, since they have stood up to the long test of the survival of the fittest, and more subtle, at least in all ordinary and reasonably practical matters, than any that you or I are likely to think up in our arm-chairs of an afternoon—the most favoured alternative method.
As I've already agreed, the common usage of the term 'red' is fine. — Janus
Here's a neat quote from Austin that gives an idea of how he thought about ordinary language:
"First, words are our tools, and, as a minimum, we should use clean tools: we should know what we mean and what we do not, and we must forearm ourselves against the traps that language sets us." — Banno
Perhaps it is your expression that is unclear; there's a vacillation going on in which you think apples are red at the grocer but not at the forum. — Banno
The word "red" picks out a physical aspect of the apple, not how it appears (which is a qualifier meaning "seem; give the impression of being", not a reference to a mental entity or mental experience). — Andrew M
I think the word "appears" is one of those potential traps. It takes on a life of its own in philosophy! — Andrew M
One might almost say that oversimplification is the occupational hazard of a philosophy, if it were not the occupation.
I'm not sure it is fine for you, since you think that red, when analyzed, actually refers to how the apple appears, not what color it is. — Andrew M
But my argument showed that it can't be referring to how it appears, since how it appears drops out in use. That is, even the person who is wired differently says the apple is red because "appearances" can't be compared between two people. — Andrew M
Further, we find on analysis that the term "appears" doesn't designate subjective "appearances". It is instead a term that lets us say how two different situations are, in some sense, similar. — Andrew M
The stick is straight, independently of how it appears to someone. And the apple is red, independently of how it appears to someone. — Andrew M
When did it appear to you that I think apples are not red when I’m on the forum? — khaled
I am claiming that in general use (and assuming one isn't lying of course), "the apple is red" is used to indicate a certain experience produced by the apple. — khaled
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