A car is not it's engine. It is a car. Models are typically a smaller scale than what is being modeled and typically less complex. You can't sit in or drive model cars. As such you shouldn't be able to use models of language-use because it wouldn't be an actual language. You would be simply using language, not models of language, and using language is using scribbles and sounds to refer to some state-of-affairs, which could be how someone uses language, or how someone plays chess, or how the sun sets in the sky.Nor am I suggesting it is, but I can build a model of a car out of cars. these four cars represent the wheels, these two cars are the doors, this car is the engine...and so on. There's no problem with building a model using that which is being modelled. — Isaac
...which is a different state-of-affairs than that stone's properties independent of our naming conventions. You're confusing one state-of-affairs with another.Likewise with "that stone is iron", it's contingent on the human activity of us classifying elements by their proton number. The moment we stop doing that, its status as iron is called into question. — Isaac
Joe Biden doesn't stop being President of the United States if he changes his name. — Michael
No, but he does if we change what it means to hold that office.
That stone (A) is a bishop (B).
That rock (A) is iron (B).
Joe Biden (A) is the president (B).
In all cases, A counting as B is contingent on the human activity of how we count things as cases of B. — Isaac
But Status Functions allow this. We collectively "declare" today Wednesday, and repeat this each week, resulting in the social fact of week days, which you and I can use to make plans, but which are unavailable to Fido. — Banno
To say "that's a tree" is jointly a mere assertion, but also a method by which I keep my model of what-sort-of-thing-a-tree-is similar enough to your model of what-sort-of-thing-a-tree-is that we can get along and do stuff cooperatively (such as harvest apples from the tree), and so in that sense it's a word-to-world fit because other models were possible, but I want yours similar to mine and you want mine similar to yours - we have a mutual interest in each other's model. — Isaac
Almost all other institutions will involve langauge in some capacity, but it's not central. — Dawnstorm
There is no end to this. It is horrifically beautiful! It is neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’. — I like sushi
The only person who brought up realism was you, friend. — StreetlightX
Oh, and you raised the issue here: ↪StreetlightX
; but did not seem to recognise it. — Banno
The number of protons an element has determines what is or isn't iron, and the number of protons an element has isn't a human institution. — Michael
I don't see anything here that is not in keeping with (what I understand as) Searle's analysis. — Banno
There are ambiguities to be sorted out here, but I'm not convinced that it's worth the effort. — Banno
So there is a sense in which the assertion "that is a tree" is simultaneously, in virtue of it's using English, the declarative "We will divide the world up such that 'tree' counts as a reference".
I don't see this as problematic. — Banno
Notice that if you are using the locution "This is a 'tree'" , then you are indeed mentioning the word "tree" and not using it - as can be seen by the quote marks. — Banno
A quick intuition pump to see how incredibly facile the distinction is: is gender an institutional fact, or not? — StreetlightX
Well for the sake of argument I totally disagree and submit that gender is defined by your chromosomes such that "The bishop is made of wood" is no different to "George is a man". What now? — StreetlightX
Oh ho ho, are you saying that what concepts track differ based on what we decide? — StreetlightX
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