Plus the signs of guilt or shame are often not in the things you do, but what you don't do. — frank

But not doing something is just as observable. It's not about denying the interior. It's about looking at stuff we can uncontroversially measure, record, etc. It's also about plausible theories about the foundation or possibility of meaning. The immaterial referent theory just doesn't make sense.

We're merely manipulating the symbol "consciousness" according to English grammar and the rules of inference (logic) - very much like a computer. In a certain sense then we've regressed...from semantics (our crown jewel) to syntax (mindless computing). — TheMadFool

I don't think so. Grammar in this context is not some fixed, formal thing but involves the entire world as we know it and live in it. For us, words don't just have relationships with other words but with everything else. Brains are also not deterministic (if I understand QM correctly), while (non-quantum) computers are designed to be as deterministic as possible.

It's true that letting go of the ghost in the machine might feel like a regression to some, but the alternative is not mindless computation but "mindful" computation at the level of the species, out there in the world, including not just our talking and marking but everything else we do. It's as if the traditional view crams all meaning into a quasi-mystical immaterial substance hidden somehow in the brain, while the opposing view finds meaning "distributed" across organisms and their environment, without denying that something (training, experience, skill) is stored and updated locally in the brain. A good metaphor is a modern OS that's regularly updated, except in our case it's open source all the way.

Irrelevant red herring. Computers too have "bodies". — TheMadFool

They don't have bodies (yet) that inspire us to change the grammar of "understand." We don't talk as if rocks or clouds can think or understand because they don't fit into a pattern (to put it crudely.)

But not doing something is just as observable. It's not about denying the interior. It's about looking at stuff we can uncontroversially measure, record, etc — hanaH

Joe stares off into the distance. Is he feeling guilty? How can you tell?

We learn to use the word "concept" in various practical situations, but I think it's like "law" and "justice." It doesn't have a referent, or at least I find such a claim problematic. — hanaH

The law exists alright, even if it cannot be seen or put in a portrait. And if concepts didn't exist, then we would have to replace this err... concept by a better one.

I mean, just because you cannot see something doesn't imply you can't feel or otherwise evidence its effects. The law has effects, I think. Your pain can have effects. A philosophy can have effects. In other words, imagining or postulating a philosophy (or a law) as an existing referent can be justified.

The law exists alright, even if it cannot be seen or put in a portrait. — Olivier5

Does the token "law" refer to the concept of law or the law itself? If it's the concept, do you think any two people have exactly the same concept in mind? Or does "law" attach to some Platonic form in some immaterial realm? If in the world, where exactly is the law in the public world? I might say that it's scattered among ways of doing things, documents, buildings. And I also think that modifications in the brain "record" or "represent" our skill with using the word "law" in ways I haven't looked into. So the referent theory is not completely absurd here, but it seems far from obvious what that referent is supposed to be.

A philosophy can have effects. In other words, imagining or postulating a philosophy (or a law) as an existing referent can be justified. — Olivier5

I think it's moderately justified. I'd say that my issue is pretending that such an hypothesis is exactly right, or that it's without problems. Sensation words, as Witt shows, have some serious problems, at least if we hope to found a theory of meaning on them.

Joe stares off into the distance. Is he feeling guilty? How can you tell? — frank

Joe has a fever. Am I ready to diagnose his disease?

In short, we need more info. Let's say that Joe was drunk-driving and that we know his wife is in the hospital with a concussion. We might be tempted to say "I bet he's ashamed of himself." To me it's a fuzzy empirical question. What kind of behavior patterns are described in terms of "guilt"?

the semantics (the beetle, the pain) "drops out of consideration".
— TheMadFool

I don't see how it does. If you go and see a doctor about your pain in the neck, he will inspect your neck and maybe find something objectively wrong with it. — Olivier5

How would I know if my pain is the same as the doctor's pain? It's kinda like the scenario "is my red the same as your red?"

I am thrown into a world of handshakes, salutes, and stop signs which are on the same "plane" as ice cream, parachutes, and mustaches. I thrive by acting on correlations prudently (sifting out "causation" or the more reliable ones.) — hanaH

What happens to those handshakes, salutes and stop signs as we move from contextual situation to situation? what can we say about the way that they change, or what about them changes and what doesn’t? What I have in mind here is the idea of pragmatic sense. The sense of meaning of handshakes , salutes and stops signs can be understood in an infinity of ways, depending on the way we are using these terms in the context of our dealings with others.
As you say, they don’t appear out of thin air but are inherited, which I take to mean that we are embedded in cultural practices which shape our expectations. But how exactly do these linguistic entities as pre-existing memory and practice function in actually present situations to exert their influence on our understanding? This is where I think there is an important schism in Wittgenstein interpretations. The radical Wittgenstein that I embrace says that the pre-existing memories and practices are changed by the situations they participate in. In a way, we can say that they only exist in their being changed by actual use. This applies to any notion of the material or the physical.

I think it's moderately justified. I'd say that my issue is pretending that such an hypothesis is exactly right, or that it's without problems. Sensation words, as Witt shows, have some serious problems, at least if we hope to found a theory of meaning on them. — hanaH

Witt is playing in the dark and probably at the wrong game. All words are "sensation words" when you think of it. They all code for an idea of a thing, for a type of things, i.e. for a concept, not directly for a thing. The word "apple" codes for the idea of apple.

They all code for an idea of a thing, for a type of things, not directly for a thing. The word "apple" codes for the idea of apple. — Olivier5

What do ‘code’ and ‘type’ mean here? That there is a referential link between word and category of thing?

How would I know if my pain is the same as the doctor's pain? — TheMadFool

The doctor doesn't need to have a pain in the neck in order to inspect necks of people having a pain in the neck.

Code-> stand for, summon
Type-> category, set of things that are similar in some way

That there is a referential link between word and category of thing? — Joshs

Yes.

The doctor doesn't need to have a pain in the neck in order to inspect necks of people having a pain in the neck. — Olivier5

No, not simultaneously, no. However, the doctor must have an idea of what pain is. How else would he (erroneously/correctly) diagnose the condition of his patient in pain? However, is the doctor's pain the same as the patient's? That's impossible to divine.

is the doctor's pain the same as the patient's? That's impossible to divine. — TheMadFool

Yeah but why does it matter, as long as, assuming it's the same pain, things work?

Code-> stand for, summon
Type-> set, group of things that are similar in some way — Olivier5

Do you see in the following from Hutchinson and Reid a critique of the reading of Wittgenstein that sees words as relational codes and as types?

“The mistake here then is (Baker &) Hacker's thought that what is problematic for Wittgenstein—what he wants to critique in the opening remarks quoted from Augustine—is that words name things or correspond to objects, with the emphasis laid on the nature of what is on the other side of the word-thing relationship. Rather, we contend that what is problematic in this picture is that words must be relational at all—whether as names to the named, words to objects, or ‘words' belonging to a ‘type of use.'It is the necessarily relational character of ‘the Augustinian picture' which is apt to lead one astray; Baker & Hacker, in missing this, ultimately replace it with a picture that retains the relational character, only recast. There is no such thing as a word outside of some particular use; but that is a different claim from saying, with Baker & Hacker, that words belong to a type of use. For a word to be is for a word to be used. Language does not exist external to its use by us in the world“.

Yeah but why does it matter, as long as, assuming it's the same pain, things work? — Olivier5

The problem is we would be simply manipulating symbols like machines (computers/AI) - getting the syntax right - but with zero comprehension - getting the semantics wrong.

Searle's Chinese Room Argument comes to mind.

Witt is playing in the dark and probably at the wrong game. All words are "sensation words" when you think of it. They all code for an idea of a thing, for a type of things, i.e. for a concept, not directly for a thing. The word "apple" codes for the idea of apple. — Olivier5

It's just that pre-scientific, pre-philosophic assumption that he successfully challenges. To be clear, I'm not saying that worldly things are the actual/correct referent. I'm emphasizing the limitations of the any "referent approach" for understanding "meaning. "

Language does not exist external to its use by us in the world“ — Joshs

:up:
One might say that we got carried away with certain traditional abstractions until most of us could no longer see them as something like hypotheses that are only tempting if one doesn't look too closely.

I would need to see ‘the Augustinian picture' that the author is talking about in order to take position.

I'm emphasizing the limitations of the any "referent approach" for understanding "meaning. " — hanaH

That doesn't lead anywhere though. Because what am I supposed to make of what you or Witt say if your or his words have no referent at all?

frank

Joe has a fever. Am I ready to diagnose his disease? — hanaH

In this analogy the fever is behavior and Joe's illness is a mental state. So you're drawing a clear distinction between them.

This is a fairly weak sort of behaviorism. :up:

What happens to those handshakes, salutes and stop signs as we move from contextual situation to situation? — Joshs

Most of our skill with this stuff is "pre-articulate." We are not transparent to ourselves. Can a squirrel give an account of its squeaks and barks? Humans, to be fair, have something like self-referential grunts and purrs. We've cooked up a whole mentalistic metacognitive bag of tricks.

The sense of meaning of handshakes , salutes and stops signs can be understood in an infinity of ways, depending on the way we are using these terms in the context of our dealings with others. — Joshs

Yes. It's a mad ocean out there, except that it's constrained by the needs of a social organism. This is why the interior monologue is something like the last as opposed to the first thing to consider. Start from monkeys and their cries as predators approach, not with Descartes running simulations in his head. Or start with the chemical emissions of even simpler organisms.

"Now I am tempted to say that the right expression in language for the miracle of the existence of the world, though it is not any proposition in language, is the existence of language itself. ... For all I have said by shifting the expression of the miraculous from an expression by means of language to the expression by the existence of language"

I like this: language is indeed a miracle. and a Great Deceiver.

Meaning is use doesn't stand up to closer examination. — TheMadFool

Dictionaries offer definitions (meanings) of words. Dictionaries are compendiums of usage. They need to be constantly updated. I pointed out this simple fact of life to you before, but I think you didn't (or didn't want to) take note.

IMV the grammar of sensations is public behavior though. Toothaches and stopsigns both get their "meaning" (if we insist on taking such a concept seriously) from what happens outside us, in between us. — hanaH

This is where we disagree profoundly. A stop sign's meaning is out there; exemplified in the behavior it produces, but a toothache's meaning is both in here and out there. Even the stop sign could be replete with individual meanings (associations) so I don't view the situation regarding what is private and what is public as being as close to cut and dried as you seem to want to be painting it.

language ... can be used for very many different things, perhaps things we can yet not imagine. — StreetlightX

Yes.

(I want to note, in passing, that taking "things" quite narrowly, as sentences, this is obviously and shockingly true; I suppose we could do research on this, or someone has, but I assume that the majority, and perhaps the overwhelming majority, of sentences an individual utters have never been uttered before and will never be uttered again, so varied are the occasions of meaning something by saying something. But here we're talking about types or ways of meaning something by saying something.)

1. Is it possible that we could catalog all of the known uses of language, as Austin desired? Yes. Even if that number was on the order of, say, 10^4, it could be done; he thought getting to 17 or so and then saying, "the possibilities are infinite" was giving up. He compared the enterprise to cataloging species; of course, if it's like that, then the possibility of discovering another one is not worrying, as you needn't claim that your catalog is exhaustive. Its finitude, though, is a matter not just of physics, as even the finitude of historical utterances will turn out to have been, when it's all over for us, but also of terrestrial biology, which is various but not infinitely so.

2. Which naturally leads to something like @hanaH's view that all of these uses and possible uses, even the ones we can't imagine now, have something in common: they are solutions to a coordination problem faced by living creatures like us.

But of course that is quite definitely a theory of language.

That doesn't lead anywhere though. Because what am I supposed to make of what you or Witt say if your or his words have no referent at all? — Olivier5

Consider thou the vervet monkeys. One gives a particular cry, and the others take the appropriate evasive action with respect to the predator associated by that cry. Or consider that most of us stop at red lights. I don't care much about what-it's-like-for-you-to-see-a-red-light. I need you to stop.

The attachment to concepts/forms is maybe related to the fantasy role of the philosopher as a scientist of these forms. Instead of looking at the changing world in its complexity, the philosopher can gaze directly at the objects of interest with an immaterial faculty. Abracadabra, an armchair science of the eternal essence of reality. I can't mock this project, because I'm trying to approximate it within mortal limitations.

Which naturally leads to something like hanaH's view that all of these uses and possible uses, even the ones we can't imagine now, have something in common: they are solutions to a coordination problem faced by living creatures like us. — Srap Tasmaner

Hi there ! I suppose I am suggesting something like that. At the very least I think considering the coordination problem of bodies helps free us from a largely refuted reference theory.