Yes. Listen, if you have to begin each line with 'given X', then the whole point is that I will not give you X. — StreetlightX

And that's why your arguments against Searle are misplaced. His distinction between institutional and non-institutional facts, and which things are institutional and non-institutional facts, is one that holds within the framework of an existing language with existing rules and existing meanings that he will accept is a human institution.

At the moment your argument is tantamount to saying that there is no distinction between English and French vocabulary because English speakers can adopt the word "bonjour" and French speakers can adopt the word "hello" as greetings.

These are alot of words to say that Searle begs the question.

"If you agree with me, then it follows that you will agree with me".

A. Regardless of what (if anything) we call a 'dog' or a 'leg', dogs have four legs. There are brute facts.
B. Dogs having four legs depends on what we decide to call 'dog' and 'leg'. There are no brute facts.

Aside from dismissing the one I happen to disagree with today as nonsense, I can't see any way yet of deciding between A and B that does not beg the question.

If we decide to change the definition of gold, then the ring in front of me ceases to be called 'gold' but it retains some of it's properties (same number of protons, same hardness...). Not all of them though. It can no longer be traded on the gold exchange. It will no longer be placed under the heading 'gold rings' in the jewellers. It will no longer be sought after by dragons in Norse mythology.

Likewise, if I say of this stone "it's a Bishop" it retains some of it's properties (still silicate, still heavy), but other of it's properties change (moving it a certain way will result in my chess-playing companion losing his Queen).

In each case declaring "this stuff is X" has left many properties of the stuff intact (mostly the physical ones) and changed others (mostly how it is treated in our communities).

You're trying to make a change of type out of a change of scale.

Declaring an object to be a 'bishop' leaves all it's physical properties intact (but we weren't bothered about those) and changes how we treat it (very significantly).

Declaring some stuff to be 'gold' leaves all it's physical properties intact (and we are, this time very bothered about those) and changes how we treat it (but this time in only a very minor way - mostly we treat it according to its physical properties).

No difference in type has been shown, both leave some properties intact and change others. All that's different is how bothered we are for which changes have been effected.

If we decide to change the definition of gold — Isaac

This is where you're going wrong. It's not about changing the definition of words. Given what the words currently mean, human institutions can't just decide that lead is gold but can just decide that a stone is a bishop. That's all there is to it.

At the moment you're trying to argue that 1 + 1 = 3 because we can change the meaning of the symbols such that the equation would be satisfied.

Given what the words currently mean, human institutions can't just decide that lead is gold but can just decide that a stone is a bishop. — Michael

If players pick stone, that's not really a case of fiat because they're following an established custom. They can't pick mountains as chess pieces because they aren't movable.

They're restricted in chess as much as they are in science.

They're restricted in chess as much as they are in science. — frank

Yes, but it's still the case that the thing they've chosen is a bishop because that's how they've decided to use it. This contrasts with something like being magnetic which I can't just make happen by deciding that the piece of wood will stick to my fridge door.

trying to argue that 1 + 1 = 3 — Michael

Rhetoric, but that is very similar to what happened with 'square root of minus one'. It was as if people said - "We know that negative-one has no square root - but if we act, for the purpose of solving a particular problem, as if it does have a square root - if we just declare it to be so and stipulate how it operates in our arithmetic - then we can solve our problem." Other people got very frustrated and upset at this apparently arbitrary way of doing maths. They saw it as running against the whole idea that the world is what it is and we can't just redefine things when we find them inconvenient.

At the moment you're trying to argue that 1 + 1 = 3 because we can change the meaning of the symbols such that the equation would be satisfied. — Michael

This is what I find odd about your replies. If the meaning of words change, then the meaning of words change. You seem to want reply: if the meaning of words change, then it will not be compatible with the old meaning of words. To which one can only reply: yes.

I'm saying that just because we can change the meaning of the word "lead" to that of "gold" doesn't mean that "lead isn't gold" isn't a non-institutional fact.

That human institutions determine the meaning of the words "lead" and "gold" isn't that human institutions determine whether or not lead is gold. To say otherwise is to collapse the use-mention distinction.

Yes, but it's still the case that the thing they've chosen is a bishop because that's how they've decided to use it. — Michael

Right, but it's not an individual family that established the custom. The custom is the result of the buy-in of humans over many cultures for more than a thousand years.

The question is whether the concept of magnetism has its basis in a form of life that has similar restrictive power (from the family's POV).

That question can't be addressed from a POV within a form of life. It requires a POV outside or transcendent to our form of life.

It's easy to argue that we can't access such a transcendent position.

That human institutions determine the meaning of the words "lead" and "gold" isn't that human institutions determine whether or not lead is gold. — Michael

This is yet another 'given'. Another begging of the question.

Not all bishops are made of wood, though.


Argentinian bishop sentenced to prison for sexual abuse despite pope’s defense
Fri 4 Mar 2022

A court in Argentina has sentenced a Roman Catholic bishop to four and a half years in prison for sexual abuse of two former seminarians in a major blow to Pope Francis, who had initially defended the bishop.

Gustavo Zanchetta, 57, was convicted on Friday of “simple, continued and aggravated sexual abuse”, with his offense aggravated by his role as a religious minster.

A court in the north-western town of Orán, where Zanchetta, 57, was bishop from 2013 to 2017, ordered his immediate detention.

That human institutions determine the meaning of the words "lead" and "gold" isn't that human institutions determine whether or not lead is gold. — Michael

But that's exactly what it does. One piece of gold differs from another in some ways but is similar in others, right? We decide what differences we're going to ignore and what similarities we're going to focus on when we decide to group some similar objects together and give them all the same name. If we change what it is we focus on, we change lead to gold, in no lesser way.

There's not two 'gold's (the name and the real substance), the name is all there is. Beyond that it's just a more or less heterogeneous soup of stuff.

There's not two 'gold's (the name and the real substance), the name is all there is. — Isaac

Again, see the use-mention distinction.

Use: Cheese is derived from milk.
Mention: 'Cheese' is derived from the Old English word ċēse.

We don't just have conversations in a vacuum. Our words refer to things. The word "gold" refers to a chemical element. We can change what the word "gold" means but we can't change the nature of the chemical element (by decree). Calling dirt "food" isn't going to help a starving family.

There is an element called 'gold'. Otherwise, the word would be useless.

You're still not acknowledging the questionable status of universals and as such begging the question. I'm talking about cheese, not 'cheese'. Gold, not 'gold'. These universals are brought into being by our definition of them. They don't otherwise exist as anything more than a potential (some distinctions among an almost infinite choice of distinctions).

You're still not acknowledging the questionable status of universals sns as such begging the question. I'm talking about cheese, not 'cheese'. Gold, not 'gold'. These universals are brought into being by our definition of them. They don't otherwise exist as anything more thsn a potential (some distinctions among an almost infinite choice of distinctions). — Isaac

I have no idea what you mean. The real object(s) referred to by the words "gold" and "cheese" exist and have the properties they do regardless of what we say about them.

We can change what the word "gold" means but we can't change the nature of the chemical element. — Michael

But why would you expect the latter to follow from the former?

Calling dirt "food" isn't going to help a starving family. — Michael

And why would you expect it to?

But why would you expect the latter to follow from the former? — StreetlightX

And why would you expect it to? — StreetlightX

I don't expect it to.

Neither do I.

Which is of course to say that this speaks to nothing about all facts being institutional facts.

I'm addressing @Isaac's non sequitur. I claimed that we can't turn lead into gold by decree. He responded by saying that we can change the meaning of "gold" such that it refers to what we currently mean by "lead". But that has nothing to do with what I mean when I said that we can't turn lead into gold. I'm not saying that we can't use the word "gold" to refer to lead; I'm saying that we can't change the chemical composition of lead to that of gold by declaring it to be different or by changing the meaning of a word.

But I can just declare that a stone is a bishop by saying so and using it as such. That's the distinction between an institutional and non-institutional fact.

But I can just declare that a stone is a bishop by saying so and using it as such. That's the distinction between an institutional and non-institutional fact. — Michael

Maybe it can be put this way: the distinction between an institutional and non-institutional fact, is itself, an institutional fact.

Gold, not 'gold'. — Isaac

My point is that, if there was no referent to the word 'gold', the word would not be used very often. Words are symbolic, they code for something else than themselves.

I told you we were talking about truthmakers.

If the ontology must be put in such terms, then Searle is pretty much a direct realist. Speech acts are very much public. — Banno

In JR Searle's lecture at the Czech Academy of Sciences 2011 on visual perception, he said "I think the rejection of naive realism was the single greatest disaster that happened in philosophy after Descartes"
See www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PfWedgBWag (terrible sound quality)

Indirect Realism may be unsatisfactory but must be better than Naive Realism

Although I say that I believe in Indirect Realism, it is in a sense an unsatisfactory position as it does fly in the face of common sense, and as Searle said: "But the idea that you can't ever perceive the real world but only a picture in your mind that creates a disaster, because the question that arises is what is the relationship between the idea you do perceive or the sense datum of the impression that you do perceive and the real world, and there is no answer to that which is satisfactory once you make once you make the decisive move of rejecting Naive Realism"

Searle supports Naive Realism

Searle points out the major argument against Naive Realism is that the naive realist cannot account for hallucinations: "And the rejection says what really all you can ever see is this thing here, because the naive realist cannot account for hallucinations"

However, for Searle, such an argument against Naive Realism is based on a single fallacy, an ambiguity in the use of such words such as be aware of, be conscious of, to perceive.

Searle says that opponents of Naive Realism use this ambiguity in the concept of awareness to attack Naive Realism by pointing out the indistinguishability between the perception of an hallucination and the perception of a veridical situation.

Searle argues that awareness has in fact two senses. The first sense is intentionalistic, about objects and states of affairs in the world, for example, being aware of a cup. The second sense is constitutive, such that an awareness of something is identical to the awareness itself, for example, being aware of a headache.

Searle's position may be put into a diagram.



Several things follow from the diagram.

In Searle's terms, Institutional Facts are hallucinations

I see an object on a table. As it is a Brute Fact that it is a piece of wood, I may put it on the fire for warmth. As it is a Brute Fact that it has a weight, I may put it on my papers to stop them blowing away.

However, I declare in a performative act that it is a bishop and can only move diagonally. However, someone else could just as well declare that it is a castle and can only move perpendicularly.

Institutional Fact means that the nature of the object is not mind-independent, but rather, the nature of the object is dependent on what is in the mind of the observer of the object. So, when I observe an object, the fact that it is a bishop that moves diagonally, is not in the object itself as a Brute Fact, but is in my mind as an Institutional Fact.

Thinking about the object as a bishop is the same situation as thinking about an object that does not exist in a mind-independent world. In Searle's terms, this is an hallucination. And also in Searle's terms, an hallucination is a synonym for an Institutional Fact. Searle said that he has never experienced an hallucination, yet every time Searle experiences marriage, money, chess, government, he is experiencing, in his own terms, an hallucination.

Searle's Intentional Awareness has the same problem of those who oppose naive realism

As seen in the diagram, Searle's Intentional Awareness appears similar to Kant's position as set out in Jäsche Logic 9:33 “consciousness is really the representation that another representation is in me”. However, both approaches push the problem further back, in that in Intentional Awareness I am not able to be conscious of a representation, but I can be conscious of a representation of a representation.

The question is, if I can be conscious of a representation of a representation, then why cannot I be conscious of a representation. Otherwise one is led into an infinite regress of being conscious of a representation of a representation of a representation, etc, forever.

The central problem with Searle's proposal remains is that how do I know that I am being conscious of the representation of a representation rather than being conscious of a representation, as both of these are indistinguishable. This is the same problem Searle attacks, in that opponents of Naive Realism also argue that a veridical situation and an hallucinatory situation are also indistinguishable.

Language requires both Brute Facts and Institutional Facts

I observe a physical cup in the world, which is a brute fact. Next to this object I see another physical object, the letters CUP, which is another brute fact.

In my mind, I associate these two Brute Facts using a relation. As relations only exist in the mind, as argued by FH Bradley (the nemesis of external relations), then such as relation is an Institutional Fact.

Language, therefore, requires both Brute Facts in a mind-independent world and Institutional Facts in the mind.

Summary

Searle supports Naive Realism. He proposes a mechanism of Intentional Awareness and Constitutive Awareness in order to counter attacks on Naive Realism by those who point out that veridical and hallucinatory situations are indistinguishable within one's conscious state.

Yet his proposal arrives at the same problem, in that an Intentional awareness of a representation of a representation and a Constitutive awareness of a representation are also indistinguishable within one's conscious state.

I'm addressing Isaac's non sequitur. I claimed that we can't turn lead into gold by decree. He responded by saying that we can change the meaning of "gold" such that it refers to what we currently mean by "lead". But that has nothing to do with what I mean when I said that we can't turn lead into gold. I'm not saying that we can't use the word "gold" to refer to lead; I'm saying that we can't change the chemical composition of lead to that of gold by declaring it to be different or by changing the meaning of a word. — Michael

I addressed this. The christening changes some of the properties of the object but not others. Christening a particular stone 'a bishop' changes some of its properties (the way we treat it) but not others (how heavy it is). Christening some things 'gold' changes some of its properties (the way we treat it) but not others (how heavy it is).

Searle argues that awareness has in fact two senses. The first sense is intentionalistic, about objects and states of affairs in the world, for example, being aware of a cup. The second sense is constitutive, such that an awareness of something is identical to the awareness itself, for example, being aware of a headache. — RussellA

Probably for another discussion, but I think that the constitutive sense is the sense that gave rise to the disagreement between naive and indirect realists. That's why Locke drew a distinction between the primary and secondary qualities. The argument was over whether or not the external world resembles the world as it appears to us. The naive realists argued that it does and the indirect realists argued that it doesn't.

The intentional sense as often argued in modern times is something of a red herring. When I look at you in a mirror, am I looking at you or at your reflection? The direct realist argues that I'm looking at you and the indirect realist argues that I'm looking at your reflection. I don't see why we can't say both. They're just different ways of talking about it. I'm looking at you and I'm looking at your reflection (and I'm looking at a mirror) – despite the fact that you and your reflection (and the mirror) are different things.