P2 is related to P1 through the concept of what it means to follow a rule. — Metaphysician Undercover
P! is intended as a definition of "to follow a rule". P2 is intended to state that activities related to conventions ( call them conventional activities) are often outside that definition. — Metaphysician Undercover
That there are distinct referents for "rule" is taken for granted. — Metaphysician Undercover
The argument is meant to show that the activities described, or referred to by "rules", def#2, what you call unspoken rules, or conventions, do not qualify as activities called "following a rule", as dictated by def#1. — Metaphysician Undercover
What I want from you is to accept that a custom or tradition def#2, is not a principle of conformity, i.e. not a rule being followed, nor a rule to be followed. — Metaphysician Undercover
Just so that we have clarity, can you define "rules" for me? — Metaphysician Undercover
The only possible connection between P1 and P2 that I can see are the words "act" and "outside of". — Luke
Certainly. A rule is one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity. — Luke
Right, the argument concerns a type of action, what we were calling "rule-following". That's why P1 and P2 have "act" in common. — Metaphysician Undercover
What I don't see from your argument is how P2 concerns the act of rule-following. — Luke
OK, now let's follow your definition.
Do you see that a custom, or tradition, is not a regulation or principle governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of action, because such things as customs and traditions have no capacity to govern our conduct?
And so the OED has a distinction between def #1, which is consistent with your definition, and def #2,: "a prevailing custom or standard; the normal state of things". Do you agree that a prevailing custom is not a "rule" by your definition because it has no capacity for governance? It is a "rule" by def #2, but we ought not equivocate. And do you acknowledge that our ways of talking, our ways of using words, in ordinary language use, are customs, rather than rules by your definition (which require regulations or principles governing conduct)? — Metaphysician Undercover
Right, the argument concerns a type of action, what we were calling "rule-following". — Metaphysician Undercover
What is described in P2, conventions and unspoken rules, do not concern the act of rule-following — Metaphysician Undercover
When one is proving that B is not an A, then what is required to be an A is stated (definition), and the description of B is stated. — Metaphysician Undercover
The argument is meant to show that the activities described, or referred to by "rules", def#2, what you call unspoken rules, or conventions, do not qualify as activities called "following a rule", as dictated by def#1. — Metaphysician Undercover
How many times do I have to repeat the same thing Luke? A is an action, the action of following a rule. The first premise defines this action. — Metaphysician Undercover
When one is proving that B is not an A, then what is required to be an A is stated (definition), and the description of B is stated. If the description of B does not fulfil the stated requirement for being an A, then the conclusion follows that B is not an A. — Metaphysician Undercover
I'm just a little unclear on how the description of B does not fulfil the stated requirement for being an A. That is, how does "often act[ing] in ways outside of conventions and unspoken rules" not fulfil the stated requirement of "act[ing] within the confines of [a] rule"? — Luke
Do we assume that conventions and unspoken rules are rules and, therefore, that people not following conventions and unspoken rules are not following rules? — Luke
If the second premise were instead that "People often act in ways within conventions and unspoken rules", would the conclusion then be that the act of following a convention is the act of following a rule? — Luke
Obviously, going outside the boundaries contradicts staying within the boundaries, therefore going outside the boundaries does not fulfil the requirement of staying within the boundaries. — Metaphysician Undercover
acting sometimes within the bounds of a rule, and sometimes outside the bounds, does not constitute (fulfill the requirements of) following the rule, as defined by the first premise. — Metaphysician Undercover
How does going outside the boundaries of a convention not fulfil the requirement of staying within the boundaries of a rule? — Luke
If a convention is not a rule, then what does staying within the boundaries of a convention, or not staying within the boundaries of a convention, have to do with staying within the boundaries of a rule? If the answer is "nothing", then what is the common factor between the premises that enables you to derive the conclusion? — Luke
Then how would you ever know if someone were following a rule? Any observation that they appeared to be might at any future time be undermined by an observation that they fail to. You could never say "X is following a rule" if the criteria for that assessment were that they continue to do so forever".
It seems rather pointless to me define away an otherwise perfectly useful term by creating a definition for it which we can never actually use. — Isaac
To describe us as rule following beings is a faulty and misleading description, derived from a determinist perspective, which is a misunderstanding of human activity. — Metaphysician Undercover
As such, my naming is nothing but a relation between the image and my conception of it by which it is known by me. Witt has generalized concepts as having optional characterizations which are then used by anybody, when parsimony suggests concept generation is as private as the mind that contains them. — Mww
“knowing” is not a concept, it is a mental activity, or part of a methodological procedure, as is “conceiving”, and understanding, judging, cognizing. — Mww
it is clear that “how knowing is in our lives” is nothing more than......hey, big deal....we know stuff. I mean, it is quite absurd to suggest that we DO NOT know stuff, so how important can it be to wonder how knowing is in our lives? And if the argument is that knowing has a number of different options in how it can be used, again....big deal. No matter how many options there are for its use, the end result is exactly the same. We know stuff. Thing is....we all know different stuff, and, we all know the same stuff differently. So even if how knowing is in our lives is a valid expression, it doesn’t say anything we didn’t already know. — Mww
Witt went backwards, as did all analytic language philosophers. It used to be that the fact we know things is given, and the quest was in how is knowledge possible. That fundamentalism evolved....probably because of its intrinsically speculative nature....into the broadening of how knowing things interactively affects us, and that broadening determinable, made possible, because the language we use to express how each of us are affected by different options for knowing, is right there in your face, thus being very far from speculative. — Mww
Hardly a satisfying philosophy, I must say. — Mww
If a convention is proposed as a rule, then we must determine whether it fulfills the conditions of being a rule, to make that judgement of whether it qualifies as a rule or not. — Metaphysician Undercover
Do we assume that conventions and unspoken rules are rules and, therefore, that people not following conventions and unspoken rules are not following rules?
— Luke
No — Metaphysician Undercover
We judge yes or no, as either fulfilling the terms of the criteria or not. — Metaphysician Undercover
Ah, I see. Everyone should stop using it because you personally don't happen to agree with one of its possible uses. Sounds about par for one of your arguments. As you were then. — Isaac
Was it assumed in the argument that a convention is a rule? — Luke
How do we determine that going outside the boundaries of a convention does not fulfil the terms of the criteria of staying within the boundaries of a rule? — Luke
How do we determine that going outside the boundaries of a convention does not fulfil the terms of the criteria of staying within the boundaries of a rule? — Luke
If this is true than it proves that a convention is something other than a rule. — Metaphysician Undercover
I asked you how do we determine that going outside the boundaries of a convention does not fulfil the criteria of staying within the boundaries of a rule. — Luke
I don't think there's much point in trying to convince people. While OLP is good, it relies on a certain psychological leap that it never figured out how to instill in other people. Lazerowitz said it was a matter of 'clicking,' or like seeing through a magic-eye painting. Much of OLP was, and I think should still be seen, as destructive to philosophy, and is a matter of 'seeing through' it. People who are invested in philosophy as part of their identity have a predisposition not to listen, and even someone who wants to listen has no guarantee it will 'click.' That's the major shortcoming of the method – no one figured out how to make someone see that initial insight. Philosophy is, in some sense, stupid or defective, but we're cognitively disposed to fall into its traps.
The thing that did it for me was Malcolm's 'Moore and Ordinary Language,' which contains something like the OLP 'master argument' in the allegory of the animal, and the argument over whether it's a fox or a wolf.
Suppose we're going through the forest and we hear rustling, so we go to investigate. We look beyond and in a clearing there's an animal. We are close enough to see it perfectly clearly. You say it's a wolf, and I say it's a fox. When you protest, I ask, how can that possibly be a wolf? It looks and acts like a fox – it has all the features typically associated with a fox. But you protest, and say 'I grant you that – it has all the characteristics of what we would normally call a fox. Nevertheless, it is a wolf.'
The idea is that here you're doing philosophy, in insisting that a fox is a wolf. The point is to consider – what sense is there in saying that a creature that has all the characteristics of what is normally called a fox, not a fox? Yet this is precisely what the philosopher spends the great majority of his time doing. — Snakes Alive
You can simply define "rule" in a very ambiguous way, allowing all sorts of things to pass as rules without differentiating distinct types under the one name "rule". — Metaphysician Undercover
Despite the fact that we break rules, we can make a conscious effort to follow rules. — Metaphysician Undercover
Those other things, which you are inclined to call rules, such as customs, traditions, and habits of language use, do not exist in any form which we might consult in order to make a decisive determination of correct or incorrect. — Metaphysician Undercover
This must be what you did in your argument, then? You know, since you ended up agreeing that a convention is the same thing as a rule. — Luke
I don't think there's any one reason people make these sorts of claims – emotional issues is probably a big one, but not the only one. Other people probably really think they're 'discovering' things while doing it. The point is just that philosophy takes place in a confused register where the conversation goes back and forth, but as far as inquiry goes, nothing is really happening. It's like watching a cat try to catch a laser light, or something.
So it's not just that people are too emotionally invested, and don't want to admit they're just trying to use words in nonstandard ways. It's more that language is the medium in which philosophy takes place, and there's some lack of meta-cognitive awareness of what goes on when we use it, in general. But sadly, I think philosophy itself is also not a great medium for giving people these meta-cognitive skills. Any understanding of the destructive portion of OLP has to start with the recognition that philosophy, objectively, doesn't work. That is, it is not what it claims to be – a form of effective inquiry. — Snakes Alive
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