Yes!The funny thing is that people think they have made some agreement with society. They have not. They are simply thrown in. — Tobias
They are different because we decide the difference merits the distinction. Ipso facto there is a difference for which we might make that distinction.They are different only because we decided that this difference merrited a distinction. — Tobias
Well, I asked if modern day law is not based on habit and custom just as well. You replied it's based on case law, codyfied law, treatise, and legal principles. So law is based on codified law? Isn't that circular? — Hillary
They are different because we decide the difference merits the distinction. Ipso facto there is a difference for which we might make that distinction. — Banno
We make the words fit the world, and we also make the world fit the words. We know what wood is by cutting, carving, burning and talking about, wood. We know what lead is by melting, folding, feeling, and talking about lead. We cannot melt, fold, or feel wood. — Banno
Does it hold outside of such a framework? Are there institutional facts outside of such a framework? — bongo fury
There is a weaker and a stronger version of my claim. The weaker is that in order to have institutional facts at all, a society must have at least a primitive form of language, that in this sense the institution of language is logically prior to other institutions. On this view language is the basic social institution in the sense that all others presuppose language, but language does not presuppose the others; you can have language without money and marriage, but not the converse. The stronger claim is that each institution requires linguistic elements of the facts within that very institution. I believe both claims are true, and I will be arguing for the stronger claim. The stronger claim implies the weaker. — The Construction of Social Reality, Chapter 3, Language and Social Reality
Then the result is a meaningles statement: "matter is less dense than matter". — Tobias
Brute facts require the institution of language in order that we can state the facts, but the brute facts themselves exist quite independently of language or of any other institution. Thus the statement that the sun is ninety-three million miles from the earth requires an institution of language and an institution of measuring distances in miles, but the fact stated, the fact that there is a certain distance between the earth and the sun, exists independently of any institution.
Institutional facts aren’t fiction. — Michael
Brute facts can be shown and said. Here, hold this piece of lead in one hand, and this piece of wood in the other. See how they feel different? We call this difference weight, and further, the difference in weight of objects of the same size we call density. Things like this show how our words "lock onto" the world around us. — Banno
Yes, I can taste the sweet candy you offer here, but I have experienced a lot of times that the musings of de rechter are based on custom and pre-established norms of conduct. De rechter kan behoorlijk krom zijn! Ook al zegt zuj rechter te zijn dan recht (supposing you are Dutch). — Hillary
I had to pay 580 euro. Which I didn't in time. The incasso raised the amount to 1300. I took it to the judge because I didn't agree. But, nonewithstanding my financial situation, the law is such and such. That's the way the money system works. If you don't pay in time, you have to pay almost 1000 euro extra. Dus, de rechter is niet recht maar krom. Ze is een krommer, geen rechter. — Hillary
And who made the law? Mainly the possessing class. Als de rechter linkser was (of linker) had ze aan mijn kant kunnen komen staat! — Hillary
And who made the law? Mainly the possessing class. — Hillary
Even if she would have found for you, the juddgment would be overturned by a higher court and with reason because it would be against the law. — Tobias
True, I didn't reacted to repeated pressure of the insurance company. But suppose they said, 1000 euro extra, for doing nothing (except sending a woman to court). What then? — Hillary
I think the trouble I’m having is that I don’t think that words lock onto the world around us (objective idealism?) but lock onto our mental representations or model of the world. — praxis
And I could ask: am I ruled by some stupid rule if law allowing incasso to raise my debt by almost 1000 euro? — Hillary
That seemed to be Isaac's problem, too. In his case it has to do with the notion of modelling used in neuroscience. And @Tobias is caught in a form of conceptual relativism perhaps resulting from a diet of legal mumbo. — Banno
Realism here is simply that not just any account of how things are will do.
The alternative conceptual relativism presents a muddled picture. — Banno
A third mistake, also common, is to suppose that realism is committed to the theory that there is one best vocabulary for describing reality, that reality itself must determine how it should be described. But once again, ER [external realism] as defined above has no such implication. The view that the world exists independently of our representations of it does not imply that there is a privileged vocabulary for describing it. It is consistent with ER to claim the thesis of conceptual relativity (proposition 4), that different and even incommensurable vocabularies can be constructed for describing different aspects of reality for our various different purposes.
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The fact that alternative conceptual schemes allow for different descriptions of the same reality, and that there are no descriptions of reality outside all conceptual schemes, has no bearing whatever on the truth of realism.
If we try to take these arguments against ER, we commit a massive use-mention fallacy: From the fact that a description can only be made relative to a set of linguistic categories, it does not follow that the facts/objects/states of affairs,/etc., described can only exist relative to a set of categories. Conceptual relativism, properly understood, is an account of how we fix the application of our terms: What counts as a correct application of the term "cat" or "kilogram" or "canyon" (or "klurg") is up to us to decide and is to that extent arbitrary. But once we have fixed the meaning of such terms in our vocabulary by arbitrary definitions, it is no longer a matter of any kind of relativism or arbitrariness whether representation-independent features of the world satisfy those definitions, because the features of the world that satisfy or fail to satisfy the definitions exist independently of those or any other definitions. We arbitrarily define the word "cat" in such and such a way; and only relative to such and such definitions can we say, "That's a cat." But once we have made the definitions and once we have applied the concepts relative to the system of definitions, whether or not something satisfies our definition is no longer arbitrary or relative. That we use the word "cat" the way we do is up to us; that there is an object that exists independently of that use, and satisfies that use, is a plain matter of (absolute, intrinsic, mind-independent) fact.
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