Hence, they cancel out, like paired variables in any equation. — Banno

What do?

Any interpretation that applies to the proposition on the left also applies to the state of affairs on the right. — Banno

So the interpretations cancel out? Or the things on either side of the IFF?

the interpretations — bongo fury

Any interpretation — Banno

??

Hence, they cancel out, — Banno

What do?

"Drawing correlations" is not necessarily a symbolizing activity. It could be as simple as responding to signs, which many kinds of animals do all the time.

What would count as a misattribution of belief as compared/contrasted to correctly attributing belief to such language-less creatures? — creativesoul

Ah, not a bad question.

One would suppose that misattribution would be the same for animals and people.

There's an essay here, that I haven't time to write. But one sort of misattribution would be to say Adam believed P when really Adam believed Q.

And this works if Adam is a horse.

In this case it will come down to which of two attributions is the real one...

But this is to base the misattribution on a difference in the propositional content; so the proble for you will be to explain misattribution without a propositional content.

drawing correlations between different directly perceptible things — creativesoul

Can there be a correlation drawn that cannot be put into propositional form?

Is all Creative doing here nought but using "correlation" were I use "Proposition"?

You may need to use more words to make yourself understood.

I see. Not symbols at all. Signs.

If we're using terms in the same way, I don't think it's surprising that "presence qua presence cannot be spoken", words aren't identical to the things they stand in for after all. When we make an assertion, a whole process of interaction has lead to the uttered statement. "This rose is red", what are the boundaries of the rose? How many thorns does it have? How many petals? What is its hue? How reflective is it? How tall? A condensation of the rose's constitutive patterns occurs when using words to stand in for them; what counts as a rose, what counts as red, and what is irrelevant for both instances of counting as. — fdrake

I will do my best to use terms in a way that is familiar to your discussion.

The question I have for the above is, to say words aren't identical to the things they stand for, what "things" do you have in mind? Where are the boundaries of thing as a thing? What thingly qualities are implicitly brought to bear in the calling of X a thing? In short, nothing language can say can demonstrate a release from the richness of associated meaning so as to isolate any one thing such that the one thing is one. All terms are multiplicities, so when making assertions at all, any thing is absorbed into the congregation meanings. There are no things such that "words are not identical" to them. Presence qua presence cannot be made sense of UNLESS there is something in the actuality that "speaks" that is not explained in terms of other terms. This would be an absolute, not that such a term can be made sense of, it is the only wheel that rolls to express the peculiar nature of ethics: the injunction.

To say that "x" and x pick out the same thing is quite different than saying "x" is true iff x, the equivalence between the x on the left and the x on the right occurs only after the rose has been counted as red and counted as a rose; that is to say after it has been picked out. A whole regime of phenomena; of representation, of perceptual exploration of the environment, of how word is tailored to world; is hidden if the x on the right is treated as an uninterpreted event in the world. The perspective, norms, use of language, go into x, that is why it can be matched redundantly with "x" being true. In other words, that x on the right is theory ladened, and the theory it is ladened with is set up by how the statement counts as the state of affairs. — fdrake

Interesting. I tend to abide by what Heidegger says, and I find pragmatism coincides, though I think this needs work on my part to be clearer. I live an everyday life with already intact engagements, like walking down the street, waving at a friend, and so on. It is when something goes wrong that I take notice, and I think Dewey (Rorty following Dewey on this) makes a very good case from here: Meaning is the consummatory event whereby the problem that arises is solved, wherein lies the foundation for all understanding, language structured or otherwise. X, as I take your thinking, is prereflective, that is, the bare recognition that the snow is white, unreflected on, passed over propositionally, a ready-to-hand familiarity. Is this autonomic recognition inherently propositional? For one endowed with language, it is, for what gathers in the familiar event is the language learned. But it also is more, and that more is the rich meanings that are not pragmatic at all, but are simply the givens of the world, and these are value laden, and this brings the matter to the thesis at hand, metaethics. I don't agree with Dewey that such meanings are "wrought out" of pragmatic events, or, if this characterization works, it is not exhaustive of what occurs as one is still left with the presence as such that defies the pragmatics of speech altogether. We should, as Wittgenstein famously says, pass over such things in silence, but what of value? Value qualia, the appearing, not redly, tactilely, but in pain or joy: these cannot be spoken; one does not speak the world of ineffable actualities, these "qualia". But then, there is, I claim again (responding to the quote of mine you responded to), the injunction against causing pain that is "spoken". The proof lies in the pudding: put a flame to your finger and observe. A truly exhaustive analysis of the event cannot overlook its most salient feature, which is its noncontingent "badness".

Which provides a problem, if how "x" counts as x is internal to norms of discourse - it is indeed part of their execution -, those discursive norms must be taken as a given in order for disquotation to spell out the sense of a declarative sentences. ""x" and x pick out the same thing" works as an account of the sense of "x" only insofar as the means by which they do pick out the same thing is taken for granted. For declarative sentences, this is all buried in truth; truth as direct but interpreted contact between what the sentence is and what it picks out. That burial is also an inversion; what counts as an event becomes the substrate of the declarative sentence, rather than the speech act of its assertion containing within it a generation of what counts as what in interaction with an event. Displacing the generative component of the speech act's content with the norms by which the speech is judged by that generative content. This is an intellectual magic trick; a conjuring of the given by which the relationship between "x" and x is judged as a redundancy. In reality, that relationship is a generative process of interaction, and the conformability between "x" and x can be seen, retrospectively, as its output. — fdrake

If I understand you rightly, the magic trick has to do with attempting to "retrospectively" (after the case) take the question of whether "x" and x is a mere redundancy (tautology?) up IN a truth bearing proposition, which is circular, for such a proposition cannot penetrate into the nature is what is arguably non propositional, the full generative "sense". In other words, it is through the truth of the proposition that all things intelligible must pass. My thoughts go like this: in the execution of x, the passive observation, and "there is a rabbit" is uttered, truth only comes into play after the fact because it is in this afterward that truth, the functional concept's context comes into play. Until one utters the term explicitly, truth is merely a standby notion, along with a cluster of other rabbit and non rabbit notions that implicitly attend, ready to hand.

A name is not a description. Nor does a name refer only in virtue of its somehow being the same as a description. — Banno

Wasn't talking about names as definite descriptions. "Standing in" is a reference to the quote: "Words don't stand for things, they stand in for them". Meaning roughly language functions in the absence of the things it is concerned with, and it must be this way. Even when you say "I do" at a marriage, marriage isn't there in the words is it? It's not like you "conjure" marriage by saying "I do", the act's significance is deferred to the historical+institutional+interpersonal contexts, and it's only in relation to those contexts that "I do" stands in for marriage in any way at all. That's the sense of "standing in" I was going for.

T-sentences do not claim that the thing on the left is the very same as the thing on the right. The equivalence is one of truth-function, not of identity. Any interpretation that applies to the proposition on the left also applies to the state of affairs on the right. Hence, they cancel out, like paired variables in any equation. — Banno

I never said they were identical, I said they "counted as" each other - not every way for two things to be held equivalent is an identity between them. Indeed, the first part of the post contains "words aren't identical to the things they stand in for".

I'd like to present a hypothetical scenario, which I'll analyze in my own words, and then perhaps you can point out any problems, as you see it.

The scenario is that it is raining and Alice, after looking out her window, says that it is raining.

What is occurring (that it is raining) is just what Alice says is occurring. Her statement is true.

Now people wouldn't normally make statements about rain if they (and others) didn't know what rain was, at least in some rudimentary sense. Their knowledge about rain arises from their interactions with the world. They have experienced wet weather (as distinguished from dry weather) and, collectively, have found it noteworthy enough to create language about it.

Those experiences are what ground the use of that language. So when Alice says that it is raining, she is saying that the particular situation she is currently in is a wet weather situation - something that she is familiar with in her experience. Whether she speaks truly or not depends on whether it is a wet weather situation. If it weren't raining and, instead, Bob were on the roof hosing water, then her statement would be false (unbeknownst to her, at least for now).

I don't see anything mysterious or problematic with this. It's just how the language game operates (in ordinary, everyday communications, at least).

Those experiences are what ground the use of that language — Andrew M

Yes, what do you mean by "ground", how does it work?

"Standing in" is a reference to the quote: "Words don't stand for things, they stand in for them". Meaning roughly language functions in the absence of the things it is concerned with, and it must be this way. — fdrake

I must need more coffee, because I can't make sense of this. What are the things language is concerned with? It is concerned with the stuff around us every day. I don't see how it could be said to function in their absence.

Wasn't talking about names as definite descriptions. — fdrake

Then what is this...?

When we make an assertion, a whole process of interaction has lead to the uttered statement. "This rose is red", what are the boundaries of the rose? How many thorns does it have? How many petals? What is its hue? How reflective is it? How tall? A condensation of the rose's constitutive patterns occurs when using words to stand in for them; what counts as a rose, what counts as red, and what is irrelevant for both instances of counting as. — fdrake

When we make the assertion that the rose is red we somehow invoke a "condensation of the rose's constitutive patterns"...?

Looks like you are claiming something along the lines of a description that serves to "pick out" the individual involved. And we know from Kripke that this is not how names work.

Or are you wishing for something like Searle's Background or Wittgenstein's hinge beliefs? That doesn't seem right, either - we don't need to know how tall the rose is in order to believe that the rose is red.

What thingly qualities are implicitly brought to bear in the calling of X a thing? — Constance

"The rose is red" is true IFF the rose is red.

What ever "thingly qualities are implicitly brought to bear in the calling of X a rose" that are used in "The rose is red" may also to be used in "'The rose is red' is true". (@bongo fury...?)

We don't need an essence, a definite description, a complete understanding, of what the rose is for it to be "ready-to-hand" that it is red.

in the execution of x, the passive observation, and "there is a rabbit" is uttered, truth only comes into play after the fact because it is in this afterward that truth, the functional concept's context comes into play. Until one utters the term explicitly, truth is merely a standby notion, along with a cluster of other rabbit and non rabbit notions that implicitly attend, ready to hand. — Constance

...which looks like no more than a long way of saying that truth is a predicate of statements.

What would count as a misattribution of belief as compared/contrasted to correctly attributing belief to such language-less creatures?
— creativesoul

Ah, not a bad question.

One would suppose that misattribution would be the same for animals and people. — Banno

Trivially speaking, it's the same in that the misattribution is not what they believe.

Misattributing belief to another(regardless of whether they are language-less) is to provide a false account of the other's belief. In order to know whether or not that account is false, we must first know what the other's belief is, or at the very least what it could possibly be given what else we do know about the other.

What can we know about a language-less creature's belief?

We can know that it cannot include language use. All predication is language use. We can know that it cannot include predication. All propositions are predication. We can know that it cannot include propositions. All statements are language use. We can know that it cannot include statements. We can know that it cannot be about language use, predication, propositions, or statements.

Since language-less belief cannot include or be about predication, propositions, or statements, then the claim that all belief has propositional content is false, for language-less belief cannot.

Can there be a correlation drawn that cannot be put into propositional form?

I've always wondered why you believe that this is so important?

Putting meaningful language-less correlations(language-less belief) into propositional form does not make the language-less belief themselves propositional in their content. Rather, it makes them amenable to being talked about; which, evolutionarily speaking, makes perfect sense. That also speaks to my second post in the debate.

A mouse running behind a tree is an event. Believing that a mouse ran behind a tree is belief about those events. A language-less creature, such as a cat, can form such beliefs about such events. One believes a mouse ran behind the tree if one draws correlations between the spatiotemporal locations of itself, the mouse, and the tree. The event takes place regardless of whether or not any creature forms belief about the event. None of it - the occurrence of event or the occurrence of language-less belief formation about the event - includes or is about language use. None of it is propositional in content.

Our account most certainly is.

Yes, Peirce is good on this if you are interested.

Misattribution. This is important.

We might all agree that having a belief is not like having something in one's pocket.

We might suppose that @creativesoul has a handkerchief in his pocket. Here, there is a fact of the matter, that can be decided by Creative producing the kerchief and demonstrating us correct. But Creative cannot produce his belief for our inspection; all Creative can do is to make claims about that belief.

This has odd ramifications for the misattribution of belief. We might all think that Creative has a kerchief in his pocket, but it is really a beetle.

It's as if Creative were not able even to look in to the pocket to see if there is a kerchief there - because we do sometimes talk about our beliefs being misplaced; Perhaps I believed I was doing such-and-such from the best of intentions, but it turned out I was just being selfish.

We might all, Creative included, think that Creative has a kerchief in his pocket, but it is really a beetle. But in the case of belief, we cannot take a look.

The grammar of belief is not like the grammar of things in pockets. I showed in the debate how beliefs are there in order that we can distinguish between what is the case and what we take to be the case, in order to explain things such as when we are in error. They are also of use in explaining why we do things - she reached into her pocket because she believed it contained a kerchief; she was surprised to pull out a gun...

One is tempted to say something like: there is a fact of the matter as to whether there is a kerchief in Creative's pocket, or a beetle, or a gun. But there is no equivalent fact of the matter as to what Creative believes.

A language-less creature, such as a cat, can form such beliefs about such events. — creativesoul

The cat can put something in its pocket? We can explain the cat's behaviour by talking in terms of what it believes. But there is no way to pull the belief out of the pocket to confirm or refute our assertions. The belief does not function in the same way as the kerchief, gun or beetle.

This is another way of expressing something on which I insisted previously: beliefs are not mental furniture. They are not things. So it is misguided to think:

In order to know whether or not that account is false, we must first know what the other's belief is... — creativesoul

(I need a copy editor...)

One believes a mouse ran behind the tree if one draws correlations between the spatiotemporal locations of itself, the mouse, and the tree... — creativesoul

...which can be put into propositional form; hence, all belief is propositional.

Peirce — Janus

But there just is no fact of the matter whether a word or picture is pointed at one thing or another. No physical bolt of energy flows from pointer to pointee(s). So the whole social game is one of pretence.
— bongo fury

Unless you're a biosemiotician? :chin: — bongo fury

(... and you think reference is real.)

When we make the assertion that the rose is red we somehow invoke a "condensation of the rose's constitutive patterns"...? — Banno

You know as well as I do that it's unfashionable to make names work like predicates that pick out a unique object. When someone says "This rose is red", and I am talking about "a condensation of the rose's constitutive patterns", I did not intend to set up a correspondence between the noun "rose" and the rose properties, I intended to set up a productive relationship between the rose and the speech act of asserting "This rose is red".

You might want to call it a causal relationship, what was it about the rose that caused me to describe it as red? No doubt you will say that it was a red rose. Then we've got to return to the question; what caused it to count as a red rose? That it was a red rose explains why the assertion was true, but not the cause of the assertion.

Part of the cause of that "counts as" is the rose, part of that counts as is in the norms of language use.

I must need more coffee, because I can't make sense of this. What are the things language is concerned with? It is concerned with the stuff around us every day. I don't see how it could be said to function in their absence. — Banno

Maybe you've read "absence" as "it doesn't exist at all", I'm intending "absence" as whatever is allowing us to speak of a hypothetical red rose over the forum. It's in neither of our heads is, it's in neither of our memories, it's in neither of our imaginations, so where is it? Absent, in that sense. But it works all the same.

You might want to call it a causal relationship... — fdrake

No, I wouldn't; and this is salient because I think @Constance, in reaching for Heidegger, pulls out a misguided picture of how language works. It's not causal, but intentional. We are not caused to call the flower a rose, or to claim that it is red; we choose to do so, we use the words "rose" and "red" in that way.

Kripke talked about causal chains.

Sure; the causal theory of reference. I don't think it quite works.

I think "frank" does not refer to you in the way a marble causes another to move; I'm not sure how that could work. I think we are using the word "frank" to refer to you.

But what has this to do with belief?

We might all agree that having a belief is not like having something in one's pocket. — Banno

I would think. Why then, continue talking about belief as if it is? I've certainly never claimed that having belief is equivalent to having something in one's pocket. I'm left wondering what the point of that post was???

Having belief about mice and trees is the result of having drawn correlations between mice, trees, and other things.

I've certainly never claimed that having belief is equivalent to having something in one's pocket. I'm left wondering what the point of that post was??? — creativesoul

That's exactly what you are doing in supposing that the belief of you mouse is some sort of correlation going on in its head.

One believes a mouse ran behind the tree if one draws correlations between the spatiotemporal locations of itself, the mouse, and the tree...
— creativesoul

...which can be put into propositional form; hence, all belief is propositional. — Banno

If something can be put into propositional form, then it is propositional?

Surely, you're not claiming that, are you?

:brow:

I would think that when something is put into propositional form, it was not propositional prior to the putting.

think "frank" does not refer to you in the way a marble causes another to move; I'm not sure how that could work. I think we are using the word "frank" to refer to you. — Banno

I didn't decide to call those red flowers "roses". Are you saying we collectively decided that? That can't be true. Most of the collective is dead.

But what has this to do with belief? — Banno

I don't know.

That's exactly what you are doing in supposing that the belief of you mouse is some sort of correlation going on in its head. — Banno

I suppose no such thing.

I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about. For animals scents and sounds are signs of prey, for example, but they don't represent prey symbolically. Symbols (words) stand for objects because the sound of the word or the visible written marks are associated with the objects they (are understood to) represent.