Too many disoriented flies

As Frank Ramsey so humorous said of early Wittgenstein, "What we can't say we can't say, and we can't whistle it either."

I like to consider how later Wittgenstein might have consider "The Ineffable".

From The Blue Book(1933-34) he says, "But let's not forget that a word hasn't got a meaning given to it, as it were, by a power independent of us, so that there could be a kind of scientific investigation into what the word really means. A word has the meaning someone has given to it"

Lastly, from Philosophical Investigations, "'But you will you surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behavior accompanied by pain and pain behavior without pain?'- Admit it? What greater difference could be there be? - 'And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is a nothing." - Not at all. It is not a something, but not a nothing either! The conclusion was only that a nothing would serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said. We have only rejected the grammar which tries to force itself on us here. "

So, I would say there is no discovery of what "Ineffable" really means, however, we certainly can give it meaning such as "She felt ineffable joy at the sight of her children". However, if we start philosophically analyzing "Ineffable", we start going down the path of a grammar trying to force itself upon, like in the "pain" example, in which nothing could be said.

But unlike others, he had the acuity not to say more. — Banno

But then, phenomenologists had a lot to say. One cannot say the presence of the world, but what does this mean? One doesn't speak in this way about anything. The point would be about that dubious assumption that there is nothing to say: keep in mind what it takes to speak meaningfully, which is to have interlocutors who have shared experiences. In Tibet, it was (is?) common for monks to speak in extraordinary ways, by our standards, to one another about experiences of deep meditative states. It was rather standardized to them. Such conversations included intimations of things we might call impossible if we were to attempt to fit them into our language's contextual possibilities.

There is the assumption in western philosophy that "sense" of the Real of the world is unproblematically determined, something we all know. Ineffability gets it bad rap from just this, but it should be understood that this is a cultural determination, and the sense of the Real is actually something indeterminate. Take Husserl's reduction down the phenomenological rabbit hole as far as it goes, and what you encounter is a revelation Wittgenstein never imagined.

No wonder anglo American philosophy is such a dead end, so busy trying to squeeze meaning our of ordinary language. Well, the world is not ordinary at all.

By referring to "the nature of morality" you identify it as a thing, and so are trapped into thinking of it as if is one. Why should we do that? — Ciceronianus

It is the nature of words to objectify what they are referring to, to identify as a thing, whether it be "mountain", "pain", "searching" or "wanting".

If a philosopher wanted to understand a topic, such as morality, without objectifying it, then they would have to use something other than words. Philosophers use language because there is no other way. The alternative is not even to try, and that would be a dead end.

It is the nature of words to objectify what they are referring to, to identify as a thing, whether it be "mountain", "pain", "searching" or "wanting".

If a philosopher wanted to understand a topic, such as morality, without objectifying it, then they would have to use something other than words. Philosophers use language because there is no other way. The alternative is not even to try, and that would be a dead end. — RussellA

Just to note: Is language so inhibitive? If God were actually God, and this was intimated to you in some powerful intimation of eternity and rapture that was intuitively off the scales, would language really care at all? Language imposes one restriction on what can be said, and this is logical form. Meaning can be anything at all, and it being "objectified" simply means it can be placed before you awareness. this doesn't reduce whatever it is to object status, but could elevate objects to a higher status, or lower, in the case of my cat (arguably).

"But let's not forget that a word hasn't got a meaning given to it, as it were, by a power independent of us, so that there could be a kind of scientific investigation into what the word really means. A word has the meaning someone has given to it" — Richard B

Interesting: See how Eugene fink takes Husserl's reduction down to the Kantian cutting edge, where the occurrent experience is at the threshold of its production. I think a thought and thereby "give" this to the world. But when the thought manifests, the only way I can identify this as a thought is through yet another "giving" to the world of thought. Cut out the middle man: it is, through the agency of myself, the world giving to the world.

Is language so inhibitive? — Constance

Words objectify what they are referring to. "Morality" identifies morality as a thing, "mountain" identifies mountain as a thing. This is how language works, and this is how we can use language to communicate

But as you say "If God were actually God, and this was intimated to you in some powerful intimation of eternity and rapture that was intuitively off the scales, would language really care at all?" No, language wouldn't care. I don't need language to have the private subjective experience of morality or a mountain. Humans experienced these things pre-language.

On the one hand, language imposes restrictions on what can be said. My understanding of a "mountain", my concept of "mountain" has grown over a lifetime of individual experiences, and is certainly different to your understanding and concept of "mountain", built up over a lifetime of very different experiences. Yet we both use the same word when using language to communicate, seemingly inhibiting what we can say.

For me, the word "mountain" is a label to a set of private subjective experiences. A single word can label a set of experiences. A single word is an object that refers to a set of experiences. When I think of a word as a label I am thinking not of a single thing but of a set of experiences linked to that word. When I think of a word I am thinking of the set of things that that word refers to

When we use the same word in conversation, we will be thinking of very different sets of experiences, but providing we have agreed beforehand with the definition that "A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock.", although our language may restrict what can be said, it doesn't restrict what we can think.

A word can be a label for a complex set of objects, facts, events, feelings, etc, but when I think of a label such as "morality", "mountain" etc, I am not thinking of the label but the set of things that the label is attached to. The fact that a label can be attached to a set of things means that there is some similarity between the things, it does not mean that the things cannot also be different.

As Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”. "I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use in my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose with my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death."

"Love" is a thing, but I don't think of it as one thing, I think of it as labelling the vast set of things that it encompasses. Language is not that inhibiting.

Words objectify what they are referring to. "Morality" identifies morality as a thing, "mountain" identifies mountain as a thing. This is how language works, and this is how we can use language to communicate — RussellA

But this just puts the burden on the term "objectify". I prefer to say one faces something, and this something is more or less closed or open as to what it is.

But as you say "If God were actually God, and this was intimated to you in some powerful intimation of eternity and rapture that was intuitively off the scales, would language really care at all?" No, language wouldn't care. I don't need language to have the private subjective experience of morality or a mountain. Humans experienced these things pre-language. — RussellA

Pre-language is a problem, given that you say it, to say what it is. But I actually agree with you, and instead of "pre-language" I want to say discovered IN language, but that which is discovered is NOT language. The discovery of what is not language, is a discovery that takes place in language; and even if one has to speak to say it, this does not reduce "it" to the saying. This may seem obvious, I mean,after all, put a flame to my finger and this is not linguistic event. But it can and will be. The question is, in the understanding, when we say the thing, the event, what it is, are we not wholly committed to the language possibilities provided by history and culture? Below, you seem to say, yes, we are so committed. I say yes and no.

On the one hand, language imposes restrictions on what can be said. My understanding of a "mountain", my concept of "mountain" has grown over a lifetime of individual experiences, and is certainly different to your understanding and concept of "mountain", built up over a lifetime of very different experiences. Yet we both use the same word when using language to communicate, seemingly inhibiting what we can say.

For me, the word "mountain" is a label to a set of private subjective experiences. A single word can label a set of experiences. A single word is an object that refers to a set of experiences. When I think of a word as a label I am thinking not of a single thing but of a set of experiences linked to that word. When I think of a word I am thinking of the set of things that that word refers to

When we use the same word in conversation, we will be thinking of very different sets of experiences, but providing we have agreed beforehand with the definition that "A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock.", although our language may restrict what can be said, it doesn't restrict what we can think. — RussellA

Yes, I agree with this. This is the default body of meaning that comes into play always already there when I encounter something. Importantly, there a cultural history, that presents centuries of language development, as well as a personal history in which these were assimilated.

"Love" is a thing, but I don't think of it as one thing, I think of it as labelling the vast set of things that it encompasses. Language is not that inhibiting. — RussellA

I think it is and isn't. Depends. I wake up in the morning, open my eyes, and there is the world. But the is given to me in my education that is tacitly brought to bear on things, making the world familiar and comfortable. So there is this. But this does not preclude something "new". The ineffable is made notorious by claims of some impossible, non propositional knowing. My question is, why impossible? Sartre had this concept of radical contingency: when we encounter the world, the world radically exceeds what language can do, for language has this structure, an early Wittgenstein's logical grid, and logicality itself is a perfect, tautological system of meaning relations, and this perfection rules in the way you bring out, which is Kantian: we "see" entire categories, universals (Hegel emphasized) IN the one thing, and without this unity, there is no thought. Sartre's famous Nausea was about this "superfluity" of existence that is unbounded by reason. Nothing to stop my tongue from turning into a live centipede, for the world is not constrained by anything.

I side with Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but it is, in my thoughts, rather profound to think how the world is radically independent of our categories of thought. Where does this leave ethics? For ethical restraint is NOT a logical determinant.

You ever wonder if the bottle is amber? Something like a cave?

No wonder anglo American philosophy is such a dead end, so busy trying to squeeze meaning our of ordinary language. Well, the world is not ordinary at all.

If trying to get “straight” our concepts about our shared reality is a dead end, I will enjoy the fruits as I build roads to new frontiers. If the alternative is listening to some phenomenologists talk about a privilege and private realms of deep insight, I think I might get more by learning a Gregorian chant.

Lastly, from Philosophical Investigations, "'But you will you surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behavior accompanied by pain and pain behavior without pain?'- Admit it? What greater difference could be there be? - 'And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is a nothing." - Not at all. It is not a something, but not a nothing either! The conclusion was only that a nothing would serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said. We have only rejected the grammar which tries to force itself on us here. " — Richard B

Yes!

, I invite you to read that quote.

The point would be about that dubious assumption that there is nothing to say: keep in mind what it takes to speak meaningfully, which is to have interlocutors who have shared experiences. In Tibet, it was (is?) common for monks to speak in extraordinary ways, by our standards, to one another about experiences of deep meditative states. It was rather standardized to them. Such conversations included intimations of things we might call impossible if we were to attempt to fit them into our language's contextual possibilities. — Constance

Are you claiming that, that of which these monks speak is ineffable? I invite you to contemplate how that could be. If it is ineffable, then they cannot b speaking about it; and whatever they are speaking of, it is not ineffable.

The analytic point would be that whatever is being said has a use within the form of life of being such a monk, is part of some language game.

As Richard put it,

So, I would say there is no discovery of what "Ineffable" really means, however, we certainly can give it meaning such as "She felt ineffable joy at the sight of her children". However, if we start philosophically analyzing "Ineffable", we start going down the path of a grammar trying to force itself upon, like in the "pain" example, in which nothing could be said. — Richard B

Your response is obscure.

I think a thought and thereby "give" this to the world. — Constance

No you don't, not until your thought is used. Only then does it take a place in the world.

Your juxtaposing two ways of doing philosophy is unhelpful. A more analytic approach might at the least make your point available to others.

You ever wonder if the bottle is amber? Something like a cave? — Moliere

Some fundamentally disapprove of clarity. They suggest that being candid removes something (What?) from the discussion. A more pejorative explanation is that their suggestions will not bear open critique. There are those so critical of Wittgenstein's clarity that they cannot see that he is directly addressing their concerns.

I think I might get more by learning a Gregorian chant. — Richard B

Exactly. Or the Tantras of Gyütö. We may also dispel the presumptive monopoly on Eastern Wisdom.

But this just puts the burden on the term "objectify". I prefer to say one faces something, and this something is more or less closed or open as to what it is. — Constance

I think this is right; the objectification consists just in the word-object; a generalized, formal abstraction.

For me, the word "mountain" is a label to a set of private subjective experiences. — RussellA

This is what many folk (perhaps ?) think analytic philosophy suggests. That could not be further from the truth. From at least Russel's theory of descriptions, philosophy has whole-heartedly rejected this idea, and with good reason: If "mountain" is a label to a set of private subjective experiences in each of us, we are never, when discussing mountains, talking about the same thing.

But meaning is public. Better to talk of use.

'Mountain' has no determinate reference, hence it can indeed be for RussellA a label to a set of subjective experiences. "Meaning is public" is not right; it should have been "meanings are public", since " a set of subjective experiences" is indeed one possible meaning of 'mountain'.

So Hillary climbed a set of subjective experiences.

Risible.

So Hillary climbed a set of subjective experiences — Banno

The pertinent question then is, did Tenzing Norgay share that ineffable experience? Could they talk about it, making it effable?

And most importantly, for the tabloids, which of them had it first?

This is disanalogous.
— Luke

No, it's spot on, but you insist on misunderstanding, again. — Banno

If your analogy holds, then you should have no difficulty in explaining what knowledge is gained from pressing play on a CD player.

I don't "insist" on misunderstanding. You simply offer no argument.

No, you need to think a bit harder and less rigidly than that; Hillary's climbing was a set of subjective experiences.

Gee, thanks for the advice...

Indeed you are right that it was a set of experiences.

But you need to think a bit harder and less rigidly than that... Hillary's climbing also involved a mountain.

Whose mountain was It?

If trying to get “straight” our concepts about our shared reality is a dead end, I will enjoy the fruits as I build roads to new frontiers. If the alternative is listening to some phenomenologists talk about a privilege and private realms of deep insight, I think I might get more by learning a Gregorian chant. — Richard B

Didn't mean to provoke. I though everyone knew analytic philosophy went nowhere. Private realms of deep insight? Well, are you saying private realms have none of this? To me, this is just dismissive. What do you have in mind?

But this just puts the burden on the term "objectify" — Constance

Words objectify what they refer to

A word such as "mountain" is a physical thing as much as a mountain is a physical thing. The "mountain" is as much an object as the mountain. Somehow, "mountain" means mountain, is linked with mountain and corresponds with mountain. The "mountain" came after the mountain, in that "mountain" has only existed for less than 100,000 years whereas mountain has existed for at least 4 billion years.

As the "mountain" came after the mountain, as the "mountain" is an object, as the "mountain" somehow relates to the mountain, in that sense, the "mountain" has objectified the mountain.

Sartre had this concept of radical contingency: when we encounter the world, the world radically exceeds what language can — Constance

The world exceeds our ability to explain it

The limits of our concepts
I have learnt the concept of "mountain". On arriving in Zermatt for the first time, the reality of mountains far exceeds my concept, but on leaving, my concept will probably have changed, hopefully giving me a better understand of the nature of mountains. Yet no matter how much my understanding improves, my understanding of the true nature of mountains will always remain insignificant. Metaphorically, my understanding of a mountain will be that of a horse's understanding of the allegories in Hemingway's The Old Man and The Sea, not because of a lack of trying, but because of the natural limitations of its brain. I am sure that if a superintelligent and knowledgeable alien race arrived on Earth, and tried to explain the true nature of time and space, we wouldn't have the foggiest idea of what they were saying. Not because we didn't want to know, but because of the physical limitations of our brain.

Sartre and existence
If knowledge and understanding is limited by the inherent structure of our brain, and similarly our use of language, then it follows that there will be a natural limit in our understanding of the reason for our own existence. In Sartre's terms, the "for-itself" may exist without ever finding a reason for its own existence. Existing without any justification or explanation, which is, for Sartre, a tragic existence. Without an explanation for our own existence, to exist is to simply be here. One experiences a groundlessness, existing without ever knowing why. An existence that is accidental and subject to chance, We may search for meaning, but ultimately there is no meaning in "being-in-itself", as there is no meaning in the world waiting to be discovered.

The limits of language
Language is a product of the brain, and is therefore limited by the brain. If our understanding is limited by the brain, then what can be achieved by language must also be limited. Language cannot be used to escape the "for-itself". Language can only mirror our limited understanding of the world, a world that radically exceeds that which can be explained in language. The chasm between the world and what can be explained in language is insurmountable because of the limited nature of the brain

Language as a mirror of the intellect is limited in its description of the world by the limits of the intellect, which is limited by the physical structure of the brain. Consequently, our understanding of the world is more about how the world appears to us, rather than how it actually is.

It is the familiar problem of explaining color to the blind person. In vain you will fumble with the heat of red and the chill of blue, the lush verdancy of green. This gets you exactly nowhere.

The same is true for all the senses, and for emotions as well. You cannot explain love or anger to one who has never experienced them.

The content of primary sensory experiences are utterly beyond language, they are the ineffable. They can be referred to, but never described.

Everything else is, in principle, communicable, owing to language's universality. Every sensation can be referred to by a word, and our thoughts are themselves either words or sensations. Only primary sensory experiences stand beyond language.

Are you claiming that, that of which these monks speak is ineffable? I invite you to contemplate how that could be. If it is ineffable, then they cannot b speaking about it; and whatever they are speaking of, it is not ineffable. — Banno

But this goes to the point, which is that ineffability is defined in such a way that the foundational issues of our existence are rendered nonsense, empty, because there is found here an apparent impossibility. which is an explanatory nullity that underlies everything. It is not as if science has met its new paradigmatic anomaly, and quantum physics is there to rescue empirical theory; rather, it is that Kant was absolutely right about one thing, that underlying all we acknowledge as real in the world is an index to metaphysics. He was wrong about another thing in failing to see that metaphysics is an existential "phenomenon", and this term is highly disputatious in its use here. But I disagree with philosophy's familiar categories that place powerful but nebulous experiences out of the boundaries of, call it palpability or realizability. Put bluntly, metaphysics is not some Kantian extrapolation to an epistemic impossibility (the noumenal transcendental unity of apperception) that cannot be spoken, for if it could not be spoken, we would live in world that had none of its intimation in the first place. This is the way I read the early Wittgenstein's cancelation on bad metaphysics, but he was wrong to take what he thought to be most important and declare it nonsense (most egregiously in ethics). And language games keep metaphysics at bay as well: an attempt to fill a breach in human understanding, a breach that is a structural part of our existence.

Ineffability has been argued into indefensibility, and this has created a false sense of thinking that to be in intellectual good conscience in philosophy, one must never speak of the most stunning issues that press upon us. this is where Husserl and Fink left off. They need to be rediscovered, for the they were right: beneath the familiar world, there is an altogether unfamiliar world of intuitive apprehension. This is revelatory in its depth as it intrudes into and discovers "intuitive ineffabilities" in what belonged to religion, and this is where philosophy belongs.

As I see it, philosophy is going to be the new religion, and phenomenology will be its method.

A word such as "mountain" is a physical thing as much as a mountain is a physical thing. The "mountain" is as much an object as the mountain. Somehow, "mountain" means mountain, is linked with mountain and corresponds with mountain. The "mountain" came after the mountain, in that "mountain" has only existed for less than 100,000 years whereas mountain has existed for at least 4 billion years.

As the "mountain" came after the mountain, as the "mountain" is an object, as the "mountain" somehow relates to the mountain, in that sense, the "mountain" has objectified the mountain. — RussellA

I would never argue against such a thing. Never crossed my mind to even try. But the issue of ineffability is not about how air tight language's hold on the world is. It is about how all of this confidence falls away when basic questions are asked.

The limits of our concepts
I have learnt the concept of "mountain". On arriving in Zermatt for the first time, the reality of mountains far exceeds my concept, but on leaving, my concept will probably have changed, hopefully giving me a better understand of the nature of mountains. Yet no matter how much my understanding improves, my understanding of the true nature of mountains will always remain insignificant. Metaphorically, my understanding of a mountain will be that of a horse's understanding of the allegories in Hemingway's The Old Man and The Sea, not because of a lack of trying, but because of the natural limitations of its brain. I am sure that if a superintelligent and knowledgeable alien race arrived on Earth, and tried to explain the true nature of time and space, we wouldn't have the foggiest idea of what they were saying. Not because we didn't want to know, but because of the physical limitations of our brain. — RussellA

Physical limitations of the brain; what an interesting assumption. A rigorously conceived materialism leads to only one conclusion: the annihilation of any and all knowledge claims. The annihilation of knowledge. Unless, of course, you have an escape route to some acausal relation of accessibility between two objects, like a brain and my couch. This escape route, of course, would be a refutation of materialism.
Hemmingway likely never intended any allegorical reading of his work. Not that this matters to interpretation, but it is interesting to note that he had no romantic illusions about anything.

Sartre and existence
If knowledge and understanding is limited by the inherent structure of our brain, and similarly our use of language, then it follows that there will be a natural limit in our understanding of the reason for our own existence. In Sartre's terms, the "for-itself" may exist without ever finding a reason for its own existence. Existing without any justification or explanation, which is, for Sartre, a tragic existence. Without an explanation for our own existence, to exist is to simply be here. One experiences a groundlessness, existing without ever knowing why. An existence that is accidental and subject to chance, We may search for meaning, but ultimately there is no meaning in "being-in-itself", as there is no meaning in the world waiting to be discovered. — RussellA

My point about Sartre goes to this thesis that the world is not a "system" of rationalized entities of Kant. Kierkegaard inspired him on this (see his Concept of Anxiety and you can literally see where Sartre got his thinking), and it was an attack on Hegel's rationalism. To me, this was a very important insight when it came to a discovery of the nature of ethics, for ethics is "about" (I mean, in the basic analysis) value, and value is not a rational category. The thousand natural shocks are the sticks in our eyes and scorched flesh sticking to burning automobile seats, and THIS is not a conceptual affair, and its presence to the understanding is not the way understanding can conceive of it. It is an intuition that is "prior" to language, or presupposed in language's interpretative taking it up "as" something, some contextually bound discourse.

But I don't agree with Sartre nihilism. Look, if you are going the talk about brains producing experience, you're not talking about Sartre. And btw, obviously I do believe brains produce experience, for this has been shown in such abundance that one would just as soon believe the moon to be made of Gruyère cheese as deny it. But here, the discussion goes to presuppositional analysis, where this kind of thing simply is suspended.

The limits of language
Language is a product of the brain, and is therefore limited by the brain. If our understanding is limited by the brain, then what can be achieved by language must also be limited. Language cannot be used to escape the "for-itself". Language can only mirror our limited understanding of the world, a world that radically exceeds that which can be explained in language. The chasm between the world and what can be explained in language is insurmountable because of the limited nature of the brain

Language as a mirror of the intellect is limited in its description of the world by the limits of the intellect, which is limited by the physical structure of the brain. Consequently, our understanding of the world is more about how the world appears to us, rather than how it actually is. — RussellA

This chasm, how do you know about it? You see the problem?

This is what many folk (perhaps ↪Constance?) think analytic philosophy suggests. That could not be further from the truth. From at least Russell's theory of descriptions, philosophy has whole-heartedly rejected this idea, and with good reason: If "mountain" is a label to a set of private subjective experiences in each of us, we are never, when discussing mountains, talking about the same thing. But meaning is public. Better to talk of use. — Banno

Words are public yet meaning can be private

A word is a public object
Words are public objects. They only have a use because they are public objects that enable communication between individuals. They exist as public objects in speech and text. As objects, they physically exist in the same way as apples, mountains, etc. I can observe the word mountain in the world as can everyone else. The value of language is that the words it uses are public.

The meaning of words is inferential
Public words are given public meaning in public performative acts. As noted by Davidson, T-sentences are laws of empirical theory. Someone says "snow is white" and points to snow is white. Knowledge of language is extensional to the words themselves. Someone points to a mountain and says "mountain" several times. From Hume's concept of constant conjunction, the observer may infer that "mountain" means mountain. The meaning of words must always remain inferential, in that even if someone points to a mountain and says "mountain" one hundred times, the hundredth and first time they may point to a mountain and say "hill"

Yet my concept of "mountain" cannot be the same as anyone else's. My concept has developed over a lifetime of particular personal experiences, as is true for everyone else. A Tanzanian's concept of "mountain" must be different to an Italian's concept of "mountain". My concept of "mountain" is private and subjective, inaccessible to anyone else in the same way that my experience of the colour red is private, subjective and inaccessible to anyone else.

But it is also true that society has determined that "mountain" means "an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock." The meaning of "mountain" has been expressed in a set of other words, all of which as words are public objects observable by different individuals.

Yet the same problem arises, in that my concept of each of these words cannot be the same as anyone else's. For example, a Tanzanian's concept of "steep" must be different to an Italians' concept of "steep". What "steep" means to me must be different to what it means to anyone else

Ultimately, I learnt the meaning of new words inferentially, which is a private and subjective experience.

It is true that most individuals within a society have similar concepts for the same public words, but then again, this is only an inference. An inference is a private and subjective belief. A belief that I can justify, but can never know to be true.

Communication uses public words
However, the fact that the meaning of any pubic word is private and subjective is no barrier to communication between people. Communication is about the public word, not the private meaning.

Taking a simpler example, assume there are five red apples on the table, publicly labelled in a prior performative act "five", "red" and "apples". My private subjective experience of "red" may be green, your private subjective experience of "red" may be blue, but our private subjective experience is irrelevant in the language game of being asked to pass over the "red" apple. Even though I experience green, I will pass over the "red" apple. Even though you experience blue, you will also pass over the "red" apple. Our private subjective experiences "drop out" of the act of passing over the "red" apples.

"Red" means the public colour of the apple, even if it privately means green to me and blue to you. Words only have meaning if they can be used to change the state of the world, ie, meaning as use.

Bertrand Russell's Theory of Descriptions

Meaning as public
Bertrand Russell wrote On Denoting, which later became the basis for Russell's "Descriptivism", whereby proper names are really "definite descriptions". Kripke described Russell's Theory of Descriptions in order to critique it, which I believe would be as follows:

1) When I hear the name "mountain", I believe that "mountain" is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock.
2) I believe that this set of properties picks out "mountain" uniquely.
3) If most of the properties are satisfied by one unique object then "mountain" refers to mountain
4) If most of the properties are not satisfied by one unique object then "mountain" doesn't refer to mountain
5) I learn that "mountain" has the properties elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock.
6) Knowing that "mountain" has these properties, when observing these properties, I know that it is a "mountain"

The word "mountain" describes the properties elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock, similarly "steep" denotes steep, "elevated" denotes elevated etc. "Mountain" means an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock, "steep" means steep, "elevated" means elevated, etc

All these things exist as physical objects in the world. Words such as "mountain" physically exists, objects such as mountains physically exist. They all exist in a public space, observable by any individual. Meaning has been established in a public performative act, as Kripke says by a christening, as Davidson says by pointing. Society has determined that "mountain" means mountain. In this sense meaning is public.

Meaning as private
Yet language couldn't exist without the mind of an observer of such a public world. Neither "mountain" nor mountain have meaning independent of an observer. What "mountain" or mountain means to me is unique to me, private and subjective to me, not accessible to anyone else but me. But as can be seen with the example of the five red apples, private subjective meaning is no barrier to public communication.

Conclusion
So which is correct. Is meaning public or private. In a sense both, in that in a public performative act a mountain in being christened a "mountain" establishes that "mountain" means mountain. And yet meaning does not exist independent of any sentient observer, whereby both "mountain" and mountain mean something different to every different individual.

As I see it, philosophy is going to be the new religion, and phenomenology will be its method. — Constance

Hrm, I feel the exact opposite. Phenomenology is a potential route to giving scientific explanations for religious feelings -- if we understand the structures of consciousness, then we'd have theories by which we can understand how people have visions, and such.

To me phenomenology shows how experience is a rich place for exploring the limits of language -- it's able to objectify what isn't, strictly, an object and make us able to communicate about general patterns of experience (at least, insofar that phenomenology isn't just a nonsense, a solipsistic invention for someone by themself -- a possibility, by all means, but it seems too intelligible to me for that)

Physical limitations of the brain; what an interesting assumption — Constance

If there were no intellectual limitations to the brain, I could have understood Tarski's Semantic Theory of Truth by now.

Hemmingway likely never intended any allegorical reading of his work — Constance

The Old Man and the Sea as Christian allegory

This chasm, how do you know about it? — Constance

If knowing is a justified true belief, I don't know there is a chasm. I believe there is and I can justify my belief that there is. I infer there is, but I don't know there is as I don't know whether or not my belief is true.

Words are public yet meaning can be private — RussellA

Agreed. I’d go so far as to say the origin of meaning is exclusively private, even by extension over a domain of congruent communities. Words merely represent the relation of conceptions, and the reason for them is given simply from the fact communicable expression of the images, technically, the schema, of pure thought, which is itself the originator of words, is altogether impossible. In general, public use of words is only manifestation of constucts of representative schema.

My concept of "mountain" is private and subjective, inaccessible to anyone else — RussellA

Also agreed, but beside the point with respect to communication proper, the point being that all human brains are operationally congruent, all mental activities given from brains are operationally congruent, therefore all logically derivable inferences are formally congruent. No matter the constructed word as representation of its conception forwarded by one subject to be received by another, the rational activity which generates its phenomenon in one fashion, re: saying a word, and the rational activity which receives the very same phenomenon in a different fashion, re: hearing that word, is synonymous between them. The sound of each phenomenon, the affect it inscribes on each sensory apparatus, may be different between the two subjects, but it doesn’t matter, insofar as no cognitive relation….the meaning of the word….is contained in a sensation. Nevertheless, they are treated by each subject’s cognitive system exactly the same.

Hence it is, that meaning is public only insofar as the donor inferences are expressed, or, as you say, objectified, albeit empirically. The recipient’s inferences are, obviously, not expressed, but are nothing but subjective inferences of their own, also objectified, not empirically, but rationally. The ol’ bottom up routine by the one, top down by the other.

It could be that meaning is said to be public, because that entire operation is reversible. The recipient becoming the donor often enough, implies publicity? Even if the case, the whole schebang then belongs to empirical anthropology anyway, so….who cares.