How do you talk to me about the actual apples on your table? You use certain words which I understand. It seems to me that speech and writing (and the subsequent interpretation) is all that is involved in our conversation. — Yahadreas
I'm saying that to refer to the actual apples on your table is to speak certain sounds or write certain symbols. — Yahadreas
I think this is a bit much, you're demanding more than you have supplied yourself. To say that language just refers does not provide any insight in to how it refers. As much as Sapientia needs to supply a theory of reference which shows that it depends on ontology you need to supply one that is independent of ontology.If you think that there is more to reference than this then you need to explain the origin and nature of whatever (meta)physical connection ties particular sounds or ideas to things which aren't these sounds and ideas (or experiences). If you can't then your claim that these other things are required for reference to work seems rather vacuous. — Yahadreas
Maybe it doesn't require something outside of language but we still need an account of how language refers. If I asked how a car takes petrol and produces motion, it can't be answered by saying that it doesn't need anything out side of a car, it is something that the car does... Edit: Apart from this relatively minor point, I agree with your post.The former does not define the latter. So there is no extra "metaphysical connection" which ties language to the states it talks about (language, itself, is that connection: it needs nothing else). Realism is, instead, necessary because a state talked about is a different in empirical terms to the state of language. Reference doesn't require an extra "metaphysical connection" (i.e. logical) outside language. — TheWillowOfDarkness
Secondly it suggests that it's impossible to talk about things which aren't mind-independent things (like Frodo, or Hitler winning World War II). — Yahadreas
An empirical situation is a mind independent thing, so I don't know how that fits into what you're saying.It is far simpler to accept that to talk about a thing only requires talk and understanding (which requires recognising the relationship between words and either other words or empirical situations). — Yahadreas
But what is the conversation about? It's about the apples. And the apples are neither speech nor writing. — Sapientia
You seem to be forgetting about gesture again.
How can one truly refer to the actual apples on my table if there are none there?
Yes, it's about the apples. But how does one talk about the apples? By talking (and understanding), nothing more. The point I am trying to make is that realism is not required to talk about the apples. We can talk about things that aren't words and aren't experiences and aren't ideas even if anti-realism holds.
So the word "apple" just is an apple? I'm not trying to be facetious here but it seems absurd to suggest that we can eat words. — aequilibrium
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