what is it that language does when we attempt to describe reality? — Tom Storm
On the reality issue, I think you already said something valuable -- that it tends to function religiously in certain contexts. IMO, examining the meanings of 'real' is great part of the greater examination of meaning. How do these power words function ? We could also talk about the meaning of 'God' or 'truth' or 'reference' -- endlessly. I started a thread about 'semantic finitude' on this topic, as you may recall, because I don't think we can escape the fog, get a perfect grip, only a better one, or at least a new one, so that we don't get bored. — plaque flag
What is it to say ? This may get us in Heidegger territory. What is being ? What is meaning ? It's like trying to make darkness visible, but maybe it's just a ghost story. Are humans hilariously ignorant in all of their hubris about fundamental things ? Or are they high on the fumes of not-exactly-questions ? I don't know, but I lean toward some fundamental ignorance and vulnerability which it mostly pays to ignore (or doesn't pay to not ignore) (unless you were a existentialist who sold some books.) — plaque flag
And that never actually changes. Language, world, self --- we never achieve full understanding of any of these, so we go on our entire lives in with this partial understanding, just as when we were infants. And it works. — Srap Tasmaner
How does language map onto the world? The obvious place to look is children, who have to learn how they work, how the world works, and how language works, and figure out how it all connects. — Srap Tasmaner
I can't believe you wrote about something w/o having anything in mind! :smile:[Re: what kind of "world" you have in mind?] I have no world in mind. I am simply interested in what others think of this matter. — Tom Storm
Yes, I know. This is why I talked about an impasse (no outlet, no solution),I chose Lawson because he put what he thought was a key problem for ontology in plain English — Tom Storm
Oh, I din't know that. I'm not a student of or studying philosophy. So I cannot speak in that capacity.I am wondering what people who study philosophy think of this claim as it strikes me as an interesting argument and might breathe some new life into debates about idealism. — Tom Storm
So, I'm sorry to intervene. — Alkis Piskas
I can't believe you wrote about something w/o having anything in mind! — Alkis Piskas
I also see that you switched the focus to idealism. — Alkis Piskas
Interesting. (As intellectual endeavor.)I'm generally interested in philosophical ideas - these often have no bearing on what I believe. Nor should they. I'm simply interested in what ideas are out there. — Tom Storm
I know that. I meant the topic itself, i.e. the mapping of language onto the world.I[Re: switching the focus to idealism]I didn't really. It's in the original quote from Lawson in the OP. — Tom Storm
a pragmatic understanding of language, which doesn't address the question of realism — Tom Storm
I think the beauty of Lawson’s promise (which I still don’t understand) is that if there’s no realist theory of language then discussions about effete topics like idealism and panpsychism bite the dust for good. That would be an interesting development.Anyway, I'm sure there's little stomach for political discussion in what's otherwise a nice bit of effete curiosity... — Isaac
Children are the ones who have to manage this mapping somehow; if it's a real thing (heh) then they're the ones who have to connect "ball" in their mouth to ball in their hand. — Srap Tasmaner
:up:Whatever is between us and the truth is a power which can then be wielded politically. — Isaac
Anyway, I'm sure there's little stomach for political discussion in what's otherwise a nice bit of effete curiosity... — Isaac
I tend to keep coming back to similar notions of 'semantic finitude' too. — Tom Storm
The acquisition of capability for learning linguistically is secondary to learning from interactions with the world. — wonderer1
This may well be the case, which either amuses me or makes me sad, depending on my mood. — Tom Storm
Hence the argument does not support your rejection of ↪Janus's point, a repetition of Davidson's observation that we overwhelmingly agree as to what is the case.
And this in turn fits with Wittgenstein's analysis of doubt, in On Certainty. To doubt, we must hold some things as indubitable. A view not too far from Quine. — Banno
Language is a crowbar, a smokescreen, a mirror, all kinds of things. — plaque flag
Hegel denies the intelligibility of the idea of a set of determinate concepts (that is, the ground-level concepts we apply in empirical and practical judgment) that is ultimately adequate in the sense that by correctly applying those concepts one will never be led to commitments that are incompatible according to the contents of those concepts. This claim about the inprinciple instability of determinate concepts, the way in which they must collectively incorporate the forces that demand their alteration and further development, is the radically new form Hegel gives to the idea of the conceptual inexhaustibility of sensuous immediacy. Not only is there no fore-ordained “end of history” as far as ordinary concept-application in our cognitive and practical deliberations is concerned, the very idea that such a thing makes sense is for Hegel a relic of thinking according to metacategories of Verstand rather than of Vernunft.
...
All that he thinks the system of logical concepts he has uncovered and expounded does for us is let us continue to do out in the open, in the full light of self-conscious explicitness that lets us say what we are doing, what we have been doing all along without being able to say what was implicit in those doings. — Brandom
But (1) language production and consumption is interaction with the world, social interaction, and (2) one of the things I wanted to get at -- and in a way, try to push back on the "map" metaphor -- is that it's not like children first acquire a complete conception of the world and then "paint" language onto it -- they have to do it all at once. — Srap Tasmaner
Is there an additional constraint on at least some of the concepts we form that they must be, so to speak, language-able? — Srap Tasmaner
I used to say it's an accident that in slightly upgrading our capacity for communication, evolution selected for something that was far more powerful than we could possibly have needed -- and here we are, a globe-spanning civilization. Evolution aimed for better chitchat and gave us language, and we're still trying to understand what happened. — Srap Tasmaner
even if our best theory says that language does not map onto the world, the idea that it does is part of our practice. — Srap Tasmaner
You don't have to have a theory of language to create a simulated reality.Hollywood influenced Matrix version of 'we are living in a simulated reality' without having a theory of language that explains how any of these realist claims are possible.
- Hilary Lawson — Tom Storm
Grice only comments that our use of language may involve quite a bit of deeming. — Srap Tasmaner
I don't think there is any real possibility of cleanly disentangling our linguistic faculties from our 'more evolutionarily basic' non-linguistic faculties. — wonderer1
I think the beauty of Lawson’s promise (which I still don’t understand) is that if there’s no realist theory of language then discussions about effete topics like idealism and panpsychism bite the dust for good. That would be an interesting development. — Tom Storm
While I often find 'the map' to be a handy metaphor, that is all it is. Certainly language plays a huge role in how our 'maps' evolve. — wonderer1
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.