Do we know what it is for everything to be a convention? Does that include the people engaged in the instituting the convention? Does it include the fact of their agreeing to the convention? Hard to see how they could agree to agree without already agreeing, and without already existing. — Srap Tasmaner

I don't think everything is a convention, but I do think that everything we know is conventional. The reality we know is conventional, and yet I think we can reasonably believe that what gives rise to all that is not.

But what's that supposed to mean? Are we granting that we are in fact organisms, entities of which it is permissible to posit behavior? If this too is only a matter of convention, then that's to say it's only a matter of our behavior (how we think and talk) that we are organisms that engage in a certain sort of behavior. How could such behavior be ours, how could it be behavior? — Srap Tasmaner

So, the way I think about it is that the fact that we are organisms is a conventional fact, but that there is also an underlying sense in which organisms are not conventional; a sense which we cannot articulate without turning it into a conventional fact. "That whereof we cannot speak"...?

And yet, as Kant pointed out, we cannot help ourselves speaking about it. I can also see the sense in which this is not a very satisfying answer.

I'm mostly interested in what a realist theory of language might be. — Tom Storm

How Does Language Map onto the World? — Tom Storm

"Map"?

Language does not always map on to the world.

In addition to statements and assertions, there are questions and commands and exhibitions. In addition to narratives there are policies and instructions and poems and nonsense. This by way of noting that "mapping on to the world" is only part of what we can do with words.

But sometimes we say things that are true. To call that a "mapping" might be to adopt too referential a theory of the way language works - the credulous, overly simple view that all words are analysable as nouns.

Sometimes we say things that are true. That's pretty much what realism claims. Denying that sometimes we say things that are true strikes me as a verbal form of self-evisceration.

This is kind if a misuse of the original intention of this kind of terminology.

To talk of ‘intersubjectivity’ in relation to ‘reality’ is kind of a contradiction if one understands the intent of phenomenology. — I like sushi

You'll need to back that assertion up with some argument or textual citations. In any case the term 'intersubjectivity' is not owned by phenomenology of whatever stripe you might have in mind, and I was not referencing phenomenology anyway, but just explaining my own understanding of the human epistemic situation.

Language does not always map on to the world.

In addition to statements and assertions, there are questions and commands and exhibitions. In addition to narratives there are policies and instructions and poems and nonsense. This by way of noting that "mapping on to the world" is only part of what we can do with words.

But sometimes we say things that are true. To call that a "mapping" might be to adopt too referential a theory of the way language works - the credulous, overly simple view that all words are analysable as nouns.

Sometimes we say things that are true. That's pretty much what realism claims. Denying that sometimes we say things that are true strikes me as a verbal form of self-evisceration. — Banno

Yes, good points. I think there's a lot of complexity in such denials. What be a university professor? Why write books?

If Dawson's target is more political and social than methodological, then the outcome is Putin and Trump and Johnson, and in Australia Scotty from Marketing and Mr Potato Head. In denying that there is any truth, he gives such turds permission to say and do whatever they like. — Banno

I hear you and thanks for your responses. Lawson definitely argues there are better and worse positions to take in terms of social policy and government. He is committed to reducing suffering. But like a number of post-modern thinkers, he seems to be straddling a fine line. Rorty too argued that truth was chimera and yet he affirmed very strong reformist left politics. I think there's a thread of its own on how they do this. In Rorty's words, certain approaches are better for certain purposes. I am interested in his foundational justification for this and haven't read enough to know how it works. How can a criterion of value emerge from all pervasive devaluation?

Lawson definitely argues there are better and worse positions to take in terms of social policy and government. — Tom Storm

Well, on what I have read Lawson asserts this, but without argument. Have you seen something with a bit more substance?

In the podcast, Lawson blatantly defines "lies" as when someone assert something that is not true. Searle jumped on the irony. Lawson appears inconsistent. But I guess that if there is no truth, that's not an issue.

I'm not impressed.

Well, on what I have read Lawson asserts this, but without argument. Have you seen something with a bit more substance? — Banno

Yes, he says we don't have to abandon criteria of value (these are 'closures' which can be of great use to us), we just need to recognise their contingency and that they are there to achieve a shared purpose - ie, morality. He often seems to say (paraphrasing) 'Things don't need to be objectively true in order to be extremely useful.' And I think you and I both have the same follow up questions to this.

I have read a number of interviews and papers on line and I am pretty sure he raises this point in a couple of YouTube lectures.

The reason I highlighted Lawson is precisely because he is a 'lightweight' or more accessible thinker and somewhat derivative of Rorty and other more complex thinkers. It is instructive to see how some of these ideas look without the decorative filagree of more impenetrable scholarship. I'm sure the university types resent his work and popular appeal. I have no real commitment to Lawson, I'm just curious about the argument he presented in the OP.

I hear you and thanks for your responses. Lawson definitely argues there are better and worse positions to take in terms of social policy and government. He is committed to reducing suffering. But like a number of post-modern thinkers, he seems to be straddling a fine line. Rorty too argued that truth was chimera and yet he affirmed very strong reformist left politics. I think there's a thread of its own on how they do this. In Rorty's words, certain approaches are better for certain purposes. I am interested in his foundational justification for this and haven't read enough to know how it works. How can a criterion of value emerge from all pervasive devaluation? — Tom Storm

Lawson is basically a pragmatist, as I read him. Truth can be defined as "what works best". Those who dislike uncertainty or ambiguity will not be satisfied with this.

So, I see no contradiction in a pragmatist promoting positions of social policy or government on the grounds that some arguably work better than others at, for example, reducing suffering.

I have read a number of interviews and papers on line — Tom Storm

I had a scratch around, but haven't found much. Do I have to watch youtube videos? Can you point me to some text that has a bit of substance?

Sure, 'Things don't need to be objectively true in order to be extremely useful', but as Searle repeatedly points out, it does not follow that there are no truths. Quite the opposite.

I don't see the attraction.

Looks like the emperor has new cloths - again.

And I think you and I both have the same follow up questions to this. — Tom Storm

Yep. The first should be "Useful for whom?" - and the realisation that it's the afore mentioned turds.

In terms of phenomenology they are NOT the same thing at all because phenomenology has no concern for what is real/existent in any material/physical sense.

fair enough … it might be worth looking at the phenomenological approach maybe? Especially when talking about our experience, knowledge and perceptions of the world in context of individual perspectives.

...it might be worth looking at the phenomenological approach maybe? Especially when talking about our experience, knowledge and perceptions of the world in context of individual perspectives. — I like sushi

I would appreciate it if you would point out aspects of the phenomenological approach that you find valuable.

I am pretty familiar with Husserl, Heidegger, some Merleau Ponty. I understand that Husserl brackets the question of the existence of an external world, and that Heidegger sees the very idea as secondary and derivate of "Being-in-the-world".

Could be but I thought your question was about why people use the terms interchangeably on this thread. Sounds like we’ve covered it then. Cheers T.

You can get around this by bootstrapping the convention non-conventionally, and that means granting that not everything is conventional. — Srap Tasmaner

Pragmatism roots itself in the logical consistency of the dichotomy. We could either believe or doubt. Each extreme is logically rooted in its “other”. Together they simplify your options by excluding all other less polarised options.

So pragmatism is about getting past Cartesian doubt by accepting the challenge of hazarding belief. We form a hypothesis and work to find cause to doubt it. To the degree we fail, we have strong grounds for acting on what looks to be working.

Calling this acting on convention is a negative way to frame it. Habits are thoughts that have proved their long-run worth. Logic itself is conventional. It relies on the habit of dichotomising to uncover polar alternatives that are the most informational. They divide the vagueness or ambiguity of possibility into the counterfactual definiteness of self-complementary extremes.

Pragmatism fixed epistemology by recognising this is logically what works. And ontically, even the Cosmos had no choice but to employ the same symmetry-breaking principle. So when it comes to “grounds”, how could this foundation for analysis come with better authority?

The first should be "Useful for whom?" — Banno

A more useful question would be "useful for what?". For example, we all already know who capitalism is useful for; the salient question is whether it could be made to be useful for diminishing human suffering, or more or less useful for that than other viable political systems.

"useful for what?" — Janus

balls.

balls. — Banno

What? You have none?

Pragmatism roots itself in the logical consistency of the dichotomy. We could either believe or doubt. Each extreme is logically rooted in its “other”. Together they simplify your options by excluding all other less polarised options. — apokrisis

Are you advocating such a view?

What wit, we two.

No, "Balls" as in that's the answer to your "What?", which can only be subsidiary to my "Who?".

But since there is no truth, no argument is needed. Capitalism is a comforting narrative used to excuse those with the balls. I assert it, hence it is so.

Down with the patriarchy! and all that.

I was thinking of it as a question of justice taking it as a given that all political and economic policies should be useful to everyone, and dismissing out of hand that they should just be useful for elites or the privileged; which leaves the question of what use for everyone they should be. I realize this is idealistic, and that nothing is likely to change, that the masses are disempowered and so on, such that all we can do is complain—a sad situation!

Balls!....none of us have...

Are you advocating such a view? — wonderer1

Do you believe it or do you doubt it? How are you going to proceed here so as to minimise your uncertainty? :cool:

Do you believe it or do you doubt it? How are you going to proceed here so as to minimise your uncertainty? — apokrisis

I expect I will proceed to realize that I don't know unless/until I see evidence providing me with a reason to think otherwise. Perhaps I will ask questions from time to time, in hopes of acquiring such evidence. I'm fine with being uncertain about all sorts of things.

Well on the common understanding of “advocating”, what is it that you might doubt and so sustain a view that I am in fact attempting the antithesis of that?

We can probably rule out that I failed to state the position publicly. What reason makes you think I don’t in fact support it?

Why are you avoiding answering my question?

Why are you pretending not to understand?

I don't have a wonderful alternative, but I'm not comfortable with this sort of "reality is whatever we agree it is." I get the impulse, and I think there's a kernel of truth there, but I also think that kind of formulation is probably incoherent.

Habits — apokrisis

Sure. I used the word "convention" because there was all this talk of what we agree on, and that's a pretty specific model I'm not sure can take in what it was trying to take in here.

Are you advocating such a view? — wonderer1

He very much is, yes.

Lawson holds that, Wittgenstein abandoned metaphysics as a direct consequence of his having concluded in the Tractatus that a realist theory of language was not possible because it falls to the self-referential paradox that it is unable to give an account of itself.

Is this problem insurmountable or overstated? — Tom Storm

I think it's insurmountable. What you can do is methodological metaphysics.

I don't have a wonderful alternative, but I'm not comfortable with this sort of "reality is whatever we agree it is." I get the impulse, and I think there's a kernel of truth there, but I also think that kind of formulation is probably incoherent. — Srap Tasmaner

Pragmatism is not about individual belief but about a community of mind. It is “truth” at the level of the social organism. What it needs to believe to live - to sustain an existence - in “it’s” world.

Language and culture are the genetic information system that organises humans as functional systems of belief. Words are how we feed mouths, not just noises mouths make.

As educated individuals, we can then use the tools of verbal coordination and rational argument in all sorts of other personally-motivated activities. But what society cares about as a whole is keeping its evolved show going by pragmatically modelling the world in which it must thrive.