You've lost me, again. Take:

It is about intentionality, that is , aboutness, which is an act of doing. To intend is to be about something in a certain way, and there cannot be a sense of meaning without aboutness. To think the word ‘snow’ is to think about snow in some manner of givenness ( recollection, imagination, perception). One cannot intend more than one meaning at a time , so the syllogism should be seen as a temporal succession, a movement from one aboutness to another which progressively constructs a higher level concept. One can also think of an act of aboutness as a shift of attention. — Joshs

This paragraph starts out fine, but quickly becomes... problematic.

For example, I don't understand "To think the word ‘snow’ is to think about snow in some manner of givenness"

The other day, characters in a spy thriller we were watching repeatedly used the word "sneg". It caught Wife's attention because it is the pet name for Daughter's snake. Turns out it is the Russian word for snow. Seems we were thinking of the Russian word for snow without thinking of snow at all, at least until we Googled it.

And "One cannot intend more than one meaning at a time". It's not obvious that this is so. We do have double entendre, after all, which seems to do exactly that.

And so one, throughout the paragraph and on to the next and the next.

Whatever you are getting at remains opaque.

as a rule of thumb, sociology considers any suriving regular social behaviour an institution.
— Dawnstorm — Moliere

the difference between a grunt and an utterance is exactly that the utterance makes use of an institution... it counts as a warning or an admonition or some such. It has a normative role. — Banno

We don't know why certain noises or marks count as utterances. — Moliere

We know how. Correlations drawn between(amongst other things) those particular noises or marks and the term/word "utterance" by a plurality of people capable of doing so.

Well, at least, I don't know how.

Correlations I think I'd say is Relations. Except maybe with a phenomenological twist. A relation from a certain point of view. At least right now I remember you noting how correlations are central, I think that's how I'd interpret that now. Some actor/thinker has a belief about a relation between two names is equal to an association.

But that doesn't tell me why all these marks we're making mean anything. Meaning feels both ephemeral and shared. You and I count these characters made through our keyboards as English, and are able to communicate because of that. In some way this goes towards @Banno and @Dawnstorm 's points about language being an institution. And I think that the internet makes these features easier to observe. How else could we relate to one another? I still believe I've had the face-to-face encounter on this forum, yet they are both right in noting that we couldn't have that encounter without the institution of English. Well, with my quibble, I might say that we couldn't have that encounter without the institution of philosophy.

Hrm. I'll wait to see, but that might be a good point of difference to jump from.

Seems we were thinking of the Russian word for snow without thinking of snow at all, at least until we Googled it. — Banno

Google helped you two draw the correlation between the name and the thing being named.




There are many correlations shared between worldviews as well as each person having their own unique total set of meaningful correlations(personal worldview). Knowing what someone else means requires drawing the same sorts of correlations between the same sorts of things.

The notions of privacy and ineffability are fraught. Dennett's intuition pumps were remarkably effective at allowing me to realize how.

Language users' experience includes language use and all sorts of things that are themselves existentially dependent upon language. Not all experience does. Language less creatures have experience. All experience is meaningful to the creature having the experience.

Bridging the gap between language less creatures' experience and language users' experience requires a notion/conception of meaning that is amenable to terms of evolutionary progression. Correlations are the only candidate I'm aware of that are capable of sensibly being attributed to language less creatures as well as language users. The framework is capable of explaining the evolution of complexity regarding beliefs over time.

Not here though.

Banno's thread. I've no time.

Happy Holidays!

"One cannot intend more than one meaning at a time". It's not obvious that this is so. We do have double entendre, after all, which seems to do exactly that. — Banno

Why does it seem to do exactly that? Because logical analysis uses at its ground-floor starting point the product of a genesis of sense, the point after one has lumped together two temporally distinct acts into a single meaning. Double entendre is a category that includes two members. How do we learn that those two members form a category?
Let’s use a visual analogy. Double entendre is like those optical illusions where one has to perform a shift of attention, or gestalt shift, to see an image as one form vs another. For instance , one either sees the image as a vase or as two faces facing each other, but one cannot see both figures at the same time. But we learn to create one categorical concept out of this series of experiences, which includes both images as well as the shift between them , and this concept is called the Rubin Vase illusion.

The moments of attentional sense making up the genesis of this concept begin with our experience of one imagine, then the other, followed by a synthesizing act of sense in which we form the concept of a two-sides gestalt shift. Similarly , in learning the meaning of double entendre, we understand first one meaning of a word, then a second meaning of the same word, followed by a synthesizing conceptualization encompassing both meanings as mutually exclusive but paired together, and we call this concept ‘double entendre’. Its meaning includes within it its genesis from these separate acts of meaning.
Double entendre means the grouping together in one word mutually incompatible meanings. Put differently, it is a single concept expressing the impossibility understanding two distinct meanings at the same time.

This reply misses the point, while reinforcing it. If we need to go to such lengths to explain just one sentence from your post, is it any wonder that I don't follow your account?

Here's where we are at: I say the "is" of predications such as "the cat is on the mat" have no great semantic role, and evidence this by the fact that there are languages that do not have any such arrangement - first order logic and sign language and so on.

You contend that the "is" has some thing to do with being, and is indispensable.

Let's see if we can address this without needing to account for the metaphysics of humour.

I say the "is" of predications such as "the cat is on the mat" have no great semantic role, and evidence this by the fact that there are languages that do not have any such arrangement - first order logic and sign language and so on.

You contend that the "is" has some thing to do with being, and is indispensable. — Banno

I’m sorry I haven’t made myself very clear.


Predicational logic assumes already defined and separable units or parts.The fact that these parts are already defined means that their ‘being’ is treated as a frozen ‘is’ for the purposes of the proposition. But we do not learn, know, or use language by knowing separate, defined, unitized 'variables' of circumstances. Using language is a creative activity in which some new event of meaning crosses with a substrate such as to redefine the sense of the substrate in the act of creating the new sense. It is irrelevant whether we use the copula ‘is’ or not in a sentence. What matter is that we realize that the being of all of the components of a proposition does. ot amount to a static ‘is’ ( even if we dub them categories of use). None of the members of a proposition have any existence outside of the unique context of their actual use.

Let's see if we can address this without needing to account for the metaphysics of humour. — Banno

“The metaphysics of humour is somewhat of a mystery, as it is not a science that has been heavily studied in the metaphysical context. Generally speaking, jokes and humorous scenarios can be thought of as moments of understanding outside of the conventional sense. This understanding often comes from a sense of familiarity, as the joke addresses a relatable issue. As such, the understanding gained from humor can be thought of as a type of insight into the world and our relation to it. Humor also serves as a way of helping to decrease stress, foster communion with others, or gain awareness and perspective. Therefore, it can be seen as a type of metaphysical experience, as it helps people to form a tangible connection and deeper understanding with reality. The laughter and joy elicited by humor can be a sort of spiritual release, that can bring a sense of affirmation or peaceful reconciliation to such metaphysical understanding.“(Chat GPT :nerd: )

None of the members of a proposition have any existence outside of the unique context of their actual use. — Joshs

Well, yeah, they do. The cat is on the mat, regardless of the unique context of the actual use of "the cat is on the mat"...

Of course, that we use "cat" to talk of the cat and "mat" to talk of the mat is somewhat arbitrary, as is that we decide to divide things up into cats and mats.

So it seems again that I agree with what you are saying, but disagree with how you say it.

Chat GPT — Joshs

Seems our AI friend has a scientistic bias: "it is not a science that has been heavily studied in the metaphysical context".

Seems our AI friend has a scientistic bias: "it is not a science that has been heavily studied in the metaphysical context". — Banno

Chat GPT's use of "science" derives from the more primordial signification obtained in the German "wissenschaft", which signifies a systematic as well as practical attitude toward what it concerns. It thus refers to an analysis of humour in a systematic fashion; as a discipline; in a metaphysical context rather than an analysis of humour construed as a science.

Shitposting aside.

For example, I don't understand "To think the word ‘snow’ is to think about snow in some manner of givenness" — Banno

I think this is rule following. @Joshs. There is a way of showing what a rule is in the doing, which includes thinking or intending toward snow. What is shown is snow, and that would not occur without the following of a rule+the rule's connection to practical activity. Those two together are a "given-ness" of snow, the intelligibility which allows sense to prosper in the world. Considered insofar as it relates to snow.

And "One cannot intend more than one meaning at a time". It's not obvious that this is so. We do have double entendre, after all, which seems to do exactly that. — Banno

IMO a charitable more analytic gloss on what @Joshs said might be: "every expressed intention can be stated in a propositional form". Emphasis on the "a", meaning there's one of them. If there's lots of ways of saying the same thing, then they still express the same intention. A double meaning then isn't expressing two things at once, it's expressing something which can be interpreted in at least two related ways. The difference there being the first has expression (as an operator) working on articulated aspects of a speech, whereas the second restricts expression to the totality of what was expressed in the speech act.

EG: "I want sausage and egg" might be parsed (Express(I want a sausage) and Express(I want an egg)), or you could parse it as Express(I want a sausage and an egg)". In the "double meaning" context it might be: "That's a brave idea" could be parsed: "Express(You are proposing something courageous) and Express(It is a stupid idea)" vs "Express(You are proposing something courageous and it is stupid)". . The latter is a better parsing since there's eg the speech act "John said you are proposing something courageous and also said it is a stupid idea" satisfies the first (two speech events)" vs the second "John said it was a brave idea", which is a single speech act that displays the internal tension in the double en-tendre.

IMO you both agree on almost everything substantial about given-ness, just one of you says it can't be said and one of you says it must be.

The other day, characters in a spy thriller we were watching repeatedly used the word "sneg". It caught Wife's attention because it is the pet name for Daughter's snake. Turns out it is the Russian word for snow. Seems we were thinking of the Russian word for snow without thinking of snow at all, at least until we Googled it. — Banno

This isn't too persuasive. The word "sneg" considered outside of the speech act it arose in doesn't guarantee expressing the same sense. Sneg in your context of evaluation meant the snake, it meant snow in Russian. The two contexts are sufficiently different that, as you know, the resemblance is a coincidence and says nothing about either.

The relevance of the above point is that intention is expressed as part of a speech act by an agent (daughter, sneg), not toward one of its constitutive words by no one (Russian language, common usage). I believe pursuing that issue further would derail the productive discussion you're having.

IMO you both agree on almost everything substantial about given-ness, just one of you says it can't be said and one of you says it must be. — fdrake

It strikes me there's a lot of possible wrangling about "propositional as structures" vs "hermeneutical as structures" from Josh's side, but I've chosen to ignore it because that's a non-starter.

IMO you both agree on almost everything substantial about given-ness, just one of you says it can't be said and one of you says it must be. — fdrake

Perhaps. I've no clear idea what "giveness" might be.

The thing about a lifeworld which allows someone in it to cotton onto a rule in one of its discursive practices.

Then generalise that to an arbitrary judgement, perception or practical activity. What it is about (the relationship between us, the world, and what we make of it) that lets us cotton onto it and renders it cotton-on-able.

And keep that it's "shown in the doing". Showing is the giving that makes given-ness.

This seems to be an important for you. How would it look if it could be done? It's difficult for people to see past Biblical literalism or scientism or naïve realism for the most part, just how would such nuanced philosophical thinking enter people's lives?

Philosophy giveth, and philosophy taketh away, and you are saying that philosophy is so taxing to understand it could never be the social institution religion has been. I recall reading that Wittgenstein once recommended going to church, participating in the rituals and so on, simply because this dimension of our existence was too important to reduce to utterances and argument. He also drew from Tolstoy's depth of conviction, and note the way his protagonists like Levin from Anna Karenina realize what is profoundly important in life in living a kind of holy life working on the farm, rather than talking about it. And you can hear Kierkegaard behind this in the praise of the Knight of Faith, a simply lived life, but lived so completely in, if you will, the light of God, in everything done. The doing, and not the thinking, theorizing: this thinking and theorizing UNDOES the, call it non-natural (not part of "states of affairs") and mystical bond with divinity. And, of course, to even say this in an explanatory context, is nonsense, because we have left the extraordinary intimations of myth and moved into propositional truths in doing so, and this does harm to the most important part of the Tractatus: that which should be passed over in silence.

The reason Witt's Tractatus is so important, as I see it, is this: when he draws the line between the sayable and the unsayable, THEN calls the whole affair nonsense because such lines are impossible, and this is because a line implies something on both sides to make sense, and this contradicts the matter of something not being sayable as one has essentially just said it in talking about lines drawn. But what does this come down to? Extraordinary, and completely right, I say: lines cannot be drawn not because there is nothing THERE, but because the thereness is IN the world; the world IS metaphysics that comes to us when language is "bracketed", and this is, obviously, a term from Husserl and his reduction.

And so I ignored your direct question, I know. Something like this: how can something--if you are on Witt's side, so deeply important that must remain silently possessed, or as to your thoughts that the saying it can be, in my thinking, spoken about and will one day replace religion-- put institutionalized in a society?

The process of religion as we know it perishing has been fairly gradual, but I couldn't help but notice last night watching the New Year come in on CNN, that the song chosen to announce this occasion was John Lennon's Imagine. Now, I try not to read too much into things like this because culture is so entangled and impossible to read, but CNN is a major player in American culture, and Lennon's song is an explicit repudiation of religion. I get the impression things are going to move fairly quickly away from religion as the older generation disappears.

The way such a difficult philosophy will become the new religion I think is found in the way the 60's attempted a kind of interfaith movement, bringing Hinduism, Buddhism, paganism, and so on into the fold. Buddhism, for example, is very close to the kind of alignment I try to conceive between Husserl's epoche and Wittgenstein's Tractatus' insistence on silence. Meditation IS silence; silence that keeps at bay (brackets) interposing thoughts that would steal attention away from the "pure" phenomenal encounter. — Tom Storm

By the way, I question whether religion ever satisfactorily provided solace or explanatory power. Religion was a compulsory, even totalitarian backdrop to human life for centuries and made many people unhappy. It was feared and obeyed, and although it dealt with tragedy and loss and meaning - the ostensibly ineffable - it generally did so in the most brutish of ways (obey God's will; have faith, etc) and seemed to make demands rather than provide consolation or integration. — Tom Storm

See the above

The thing about a lifeworld which allows someone in it to cotton onto a rule in one of its discursive practices.

Then generalise that to an arbitrary judgement, perception or practical activity. What it is about (the relationship between us, the world, and what we make of it) that lets us cotton onto it and renders it cotton-on-able.

And keep that it's "shown in the doing". Showing is the giving that makes given-ness. — fdrake

This makes as much sense forwards as backwards.

And your father smelt of elderberries!

:razz:

@Tom Storm, looks like you are being misquoted: ...

Given-ness is a communal supposition that the world works in a certain way. The supposition is generated through collective engagement with the world. The world collaborates in generating that supposition by presenting articulable structures, which are then engaged and modified, and incorporated back into given-ness. Given-ness is the name of that ongoing process of negotiating the intelligible structures in the world which are pragmatically supposed in our activities.

The connection between the world's capacity to be articulated and the communal suppositions which form in it is that the world presents itself intelligibly in practical, perceptual and cognitive engagement with it. Patterns in that intelligible form can be articulated discursively, but are not necessarily of a discursive nature. An ongoing disagreement between @Bannoand @Joshs is twofold.

Firstly there is an issue regarding the role propositional form plays in the articulation of the world's intelligible structures, to my knowledge Banno construes propositional form as simultaneously the primary mediator and sine qua non of articulable collective engagement with the world's intelligible structures, Josh construes propositional form as a means of discursively articulating the world which is rooted in our (embodied) capacities of practical and conceptual engagement with the world. The major constrast there is that Banno construes what may be articulated as necessarily discursive; indeed admitting of propositional form; whereas Josh construes engagement as involving but not reducible to any parsing of the world in terms of propositional form despite involving discursive practices and concepts. That renders the dispute between them about the ineffable difficult to reconcile, as I believe Banno finds it mindbending to sever articulation of intelligible structures from propositional forms - unless they are "silent" or "passed over", whereas Josh construes articulability as a broader category which uses but is not primarily constrained by grasping the world discursively as or through propositional forms. This means what Josh finds perfectly articulable with a broader conception of intelligibility Banno finds ineffable as intelligibility is confined to discourse and intelligibility in discourse is confined to propositional form.

Secondly there is an issue regarding the role broader rule governed discursive behaviours; language and/or what enables language practices to be intelligible. Banno construes articulating these objects as senseless, with the intention of connoting because they are generative of propositional forms, they are not thereby propositionally formed and thus are not (discursively) articulable. Josh instead construes such practices as articulable due to their broader construal of the intelligibility and its relationship to sense.

The issue regarding intentionality is derivative of this distinction, as the aboutness of a mental state targets that which can be put in a propositional form (and for Banno, that which can be stated), whereas for Josh intentionality again is a broader category which can be directed to any intelligible structure. They both seem to agree that articulating X connotes an intentionality regarding X, in other words speech acts about X, they do not agree about the target of that intelligibility. With Banno construing discursive expressions of semantic content which involve mental states as part of their expression ultimately being irrelevant to the semantic content of what is expressed, and Josh construing it as relevant with a different concept of what is mental. Ultimately they disagree about interiority of mental states, neither of them think mental states or their relationship to semantic content are interior, but because they have different conceptions of what it means for a mental state or agent-level/dispositional property to implicate itself in an expression. Josh has mental states being "external" in some regards because aboutness is semantically communal (like the patterns in snow which intention is directed toward and congeal into articulable structures), whereas Banno has (propositional) semantic content being the sine qua non of what is publically expressible (read, expressible) and intentions simply target those propositions/events/states of affairs without informing the semantic content, but definitely informing the act of expression.

Banno thus ends up believing that Josh construes sense "externally" but relies on "internal" (privative, insufficiently relational) drivers for it (like intention), which parses as gobbledeygook. Whereas Josh believes that Banno artificially constrains what an intentional state regards, and since intentional states are "already public" they can, do, and must inform what is expressed in speech acts, which parses as an intellectual straitjacket.

It's the same argument with the same interpersonal confusions the two have had several times over the years. Banno can't read Josh charitably due to Josh's resistance to translating his observations out of the vocabulary of his tradition, and Josh can't read Banno charitably because Banno will tend not to engage with Josh in an exploratory fashion. Broadly speaking these tendencies are exacerbated because they both find it difficult to get outside of their intellectual backgrounds. I think they would would be more able to recognise how similar their perspectives are if they got over those hurdles. Or at least have a more productive disagreement about how important the distinction is between the pre-predicative and the predicative... Which is a discussion that has occurred many many times on this forum and the last, and I miss @photographer's and that guy with the Hulk Hogan avatar's contributions to the discussion. Some things change, some things stay the same eh.

As rejoinder, Josh when reading this response may protest at my use of "mental" and "discursive" for being reductive and not grasped appropriately as a mediating category, and Banno may protest by asking for an example of a statement which doesn't rely (entirely) upon a propositional form for its semantic content.

Goodness, so now our discussion is generating a secondary literature...

Yes.

Well, that should add to the post count.

Thing is, reducing the discussion to a personal disagreement doesn't do much to resolve it.

I plan a thread on Danièle Moyal-Sharrock's Understanding Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, which apparently addresses the pre-predicative and the predicative distinction in an interesting way. I think she's muddled, but the devil will be in the detail.

Thing is, reducing the discussion to a personal disagreement doesn't do much to resolve it. — Banno

Eh, I think having the discussion about the pre-predicative I highlighted, in an exploratory fashion, would. But maybe you disagree.

But I'm just going to ask what the pre-predicative is, and of course it can't be said, so that goes nowhere.

At least in part it's the doing; but it seems Janus (and ?) suppose there is something else, something ineffable, found by phenomenological introspection or some such. I think it's a beetle.

So I'm trapped; the picture holds me prisoner. :wink:

Banno may or may not be emotionally attached to naive realism and uses his intellect to find ways to ignore challenges to it and deny others the right to entertain those challenges. His strategy is to somehow use language as a foundation while simultaneously denying that foundationalism of any kind is appropriate. Thus he can't really allow any ineffable components because that screws with his foundation.

Josh's foundation is some sort of ever evolving change. Where Banno abhors privacy in a sort of neurotic way, Josh abhors stasis. And this is the central conflict. Josh needs part of the world to always be slightly out of reach, unknown, unexplained, etc. He needs an open window for his foundation of Becoming, so he's fond of the ineffable.

The rest is really kind of ad hoc.

But I'm just going to ask what the pre-predicative is, and of course it can't be said, so that goes nowhere. — Banno

Guess there's no point going into it then. To be fair to myself, I did predict the response:

and Banno may protest by asking for an example of a statement which doesn't rely (entirely) upon a propositional form for its semantic content.

Checkmate atheists.

I did predict the response — fdrake

And I am happy to oblige.

but it seems Janus (and ↪Constance
?) suppose there is something else, something ineffable, found by phenomenological introspection or some such. I think it's a beetle. — Banno

In one sense it is a beetle. It is our pre-dualistic experience. But since we all have such experience it can be talked about in general, even if specifics are impossible, and hence we say it is ineffable.

Not to be found via introspection, but via meditation, contemplation, reflection in a certain way of thinking more akin to poetry than logic.

Experience has a non-dual aspect that cannot be expressed in dualistic language. We can talk about what might be thought to be the implications of non-dual experience, even if we cannot talk directly about, but can only allude to, it.

Thanks for your thoughts.

The process of religion as we know it perishing has been fairly gradual, but I couldn't help but notice last night watching the New Year come in on CNN, that the song chosen to announce this occasion was John Lennon's Imagine. Now, I try not to read too much into things like this because culture is so entangled and impossible to read, but CNN is a major player in American culture, and Lennon's song is an explicit repudiation of religion. I get the impression things are going to move fairly quickly away from religion as the older generation disappears.[/quote]

I have always hated Imagine - its been used as a secular hymn for decades here in Australia and its mawkish tone suits this era where sentimentality dominates. Religion hasn't had much of a role in public life here since the 1960's, but it had a small revival of sorts a few years ago with a stunted, evangelical, Trump-lite Prime Minister (2018-22). He turned out to be one of this country's most ethically compromised and unpopular leaders. I think many people today more correctly associate religion with coercion, poor moral choices and shifty politics.

I have always hated Imagine — Tom Storm

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