Yeah that makes sense. I think we'd proceed better by going into tangential discussions at this point. But I'd not be interested in pursuing them without a detour, onto the original path, through more of Fine's work. — fdrake
It seems like I can refer to my friend's blegbleg successfully even though I have no interpretation of its nature... — fdrake
I can just tell you. The only philosophy background I have is in scientific inference - so logic and statistical theory + methodology work. The research I've done has been fundamental in that intersection. Not fundamental in terms of importance, of course, but in terms of abstraction. So learning "conceptual analysis" has been useful. — fdrake
Also studied philosophy a bit as a student. Yours? — fdrake
You are combining both the questions about whether the world exists (or whether there is existence) and how do we know that the world exists.
"How is it that the world exists without an observer". Asking this question entails that existence depends on our knowledge (the observer).
Tell me, are you asking "how do we know the world exists?" — L'éléphant
I've listened to some of his lectures and generally like his survey of the philosophers, though I thought he was a bit too dismissive of Schopenhauer due to his pessimism. But fairly enough, I think he does that to all the philosophers giving his critiques as he goes. — schopenhauer1
But anyways, to the broader point, much of philosophy revolves around how it is that the world exists without an observer, or sometimes formulated as a human observer. — schopenhauer1
This video might help as a good jumping off point for a Harman's view of objects. Perhaps we can have a discussion on it? — schopenhauer1
I also think that his idea of "undermining" and "overmining" an object is useful here. Undermining would be reducing to separate constituents. Overmining would be how it is related to every other thing, more-or-less. — schopenhauer1
It is speculative because it obviously can never prove that reality, but it is believed one has the ability to speculate from the perspective of the human. They are not allowing this to hamper their ability to speculate. — schopenhauer1
Realists are willing to speculate about the world, not caring how representation formulates the empirical evidence, per se. — schopenhauer1
Right, these were interesting ideas as well, and I think "overmining" relates to Fine's article to some extent. A lot of this resonates with Aristotle. — Leontiskos
I hope Harman is careful about this, because there is a danger of reacting to current problems in philosophy rather than setting out an ontology that can stand on its own. — Leontiskos
For Harman, Heideggerian Zuhandenheit, or readiness-to-hand, refers to the withdrawal of objects from human perception into a reality that cannot be manifested by practical or theoretical action.[9] Furthering this idea, Harman contends that when objects withdraw in this way, they distance themselves from other objects, as well as humans.[1] Resisting pragmatic interpretations of Heidegger's thought, then, Harman is able to propose an object-oriented account of metaphysical substances. — OOO Wiki
Neither is there an overemphasis on epistemology. — Leontiskos
Meaning what?I am not saying that the world doesn't exist without an observer (necessarily), but the explanation of what that is (ontologically). — schopenhauer1
"Stuff" is what exists without an observer. Actually, reality would be reduced to two-dimensional world without an observer. Do you agree?What is existence without an observer? What’s the relation of observer with thevworld. These kind of things. — schopenhauer1
"Stuff" is what exists without an observer. Actually, reality would be reduced to two-dimensional world without an observer. Do you agree? — L'éléphant
Sounds Fine to me. Is there a particular part or aspect of Fine's article that you are interested in discussing? — Leontiskos
I am inclined to doubt this, although it depends on what we mean by 'refer'. On my view not knowing something prevents you from referring to it. Suppose I get into a conversation with my mechanic and starting using the word "catalytic converter," despite having no idea what it means (I am feigning competence). In this case we are both using the token 'catalytic converter', but in entirely different ways. Now if language is for communication then this is a failure of language. Even if I manage to fool the mechanic for a few minutes, no substantive communication is taking place. — Leontiskos
Though that doesn't tell you whether the reference relation between the words "my car's catalytic converter" and the car's catalytic converter could be sustained or set up, even in principle, without there being an understanding of a (not just my) catalytic converter's essence. Even if not by the speaker. — fdrake
Nope. Further work though - truthmaker semantics. I don't know owt about it and would need to do homework. — fdrake
I suppose what I'm saying there is that a sufficient condition for a speech act to contain a successful reference is that the referent of the referring token can be acted upon. And if that suffices for a successful reference, it would thus suffice for a reference (simpliciter).
And where I'm going with that is that because that sufficient condition can be satisfied without an understanding of the catalytic converter, or the website's, essence, a speech act can contain a reference without requiring its doer understand the referent at all, never mind its essence. — fdrake
Let's say you said "There's a problem with the catalytic converter", and you didn't know what the catalytic converter was, the mechanic could go and look for the car's catalytic converter. — fdrake
An example I was thinking of is "Can you send me a link to that website you mentioned last night?" — fdrake
Whereas I claimed that language is for communication, you seem to be claiming that language (or at least reference) is tied to action ("the referring token can be acted upon"). That's a fairly significant difference. — Leontiskos
This is because the purpose of the customer's assertion is not being realized, given that they do not know what a catalytic converter is and therefore have no basis for their assertion. It seems to be a kind of lie. — Leontiskos
"That website you mentioned last night" is an adequate description with an adequate referent. The partial knowledge is necessary in order that the friend can supply the remainder of the knowledge, by sending the URL. — Leontiskos
What is it about the partial knowledge that
"catalytic converters in cars can break"
"my car has a catalytic converter"
Which goes into
"I think it's the catalytic converter"
which distinguishes it from the website example? — fdrake
I don't know what the essence of reference is, so to speak, I broached it the way I did to try to find a speech act containing a successful reference which "piggybacked" on another's successful reference. Can you give me one instead? — fdrake
Aye I agree with you that it's obfuscatory. Where I'm coming from is that I'd have difficulty being able to imagine it as an obfuscation if we didn't recognise that "my car's catalytic converter" indeed did refer to my car's catalytic converter, and that I was bullshitting in ignorance of this fact. If we assumed that "my car's catalytic converter", in this instance, did not refer to my car's catalytic converter, on what basis would we be able to say that the mechanic - when grabbing the converter to check - displays an understanding of the car's catalytic converter which we lack? — fdrake
I'm trying to say that how reference works is in some sense orthogonal to communication. Because communicative speech acts, and non-communicative speech acts, both can contain successful references. — fdrake
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