The more that I participate in forums like The Philosophy Forum the more that I am beginning to think that philosophy is an anti-intellectual enterprise/tradition. Maybe it is the humanities' own anti-intellectualism that explains their present decline. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
It is either simple-minded or prejudicially disingenuous to say that such an idea is incoherent... — John
The problem is in contemporary culture is that we can't assume which, if any, of such 'domains of discourse' provide a normative background for the discussion; so what the participants mean by very general terms, such as 'will', or 'intention' or 'meaning' (or life!) can't be simply assumed, as each participant may bring a very different perspective to bear on the question. So I think that's what you're driving at with 'category mistakes', and I think it's basically correct; but it's also a reflection of the times, and the medium (namely, the Internet). — Wayfarer
The question about the meaning of life ('meaning', that is, taken in an overarching sense) is coherent if your premise is that life has an "author" who intended it to have such a meaning, and the question is incoherent otherwise.
So, it really isn't a question of "category error" at all, but rather a matter of being coherent and consistent in relation to your founding presuppositions. — John
↪WISDOMfromPO-MO For a moment there I thought you might have actually been responding to the OP, only to realize that the only way you could have reached this conclusion:
Arguments like yours above make it sound like logic, grammar, etc. are the work, not tools for doing the work. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
...is to literally not have read a word of the OP (charitably assuming you are not simply grossly incompetant at reading). Nice off-topic rant though. — StreetlightX
But there is nothing self-evident about the meaningfullness of such - or any - question whatsoever, and moreover, the attempt to work out the question is itself the very practice of philosophy. If there's any kind of 'moral' to my thread it's simply: be sceptical about sense; the fact that certain questions look grammatically correct ('what is the meaning of life?') shouldn't deceive us into thinking that there is any sense whatsoever to these kinds of questions (this is Wittgenstein's lesson). But sense is not something that can be specified a priori; only ever in it's working-through — StreetlightX
A few more examples would be good, to put that hypothesis to the test. Unfortunately my mind is a blank right now as I search for examples of category errors. — andrewk
His mistake lay in his innocent assumption that it was correct to speak of Christ Church, the Bodleian Library, the Ashmolean Museum and the University, to speak, that is, as if 'the University' stood for an extra member of the class of which these other units are members. He was mistakenly allocating the University to the same category as that to which the other institutions belong.
Perhaps one of the confusions underlying this area is the 'domain of discourse' within which such discussions take place. — Wayfarer
On the one hand, I think there is never not a 'universe-of-discourse', as you put it - and this is the case irrespective of the times or the medium or what-have-you. On the other hand, I think this has become more obvious in recent times, where one can no longer take for granted that someone else shares the same universe of discourse as you — StreetlightX
But the idea common to most is that God is the creator (author) of this world and that God created this world for a purpose (gave it an overarching meaning). — John
What may subjectively be "nonsense" to a lot of people or objectively "nonsense" according to the present prevalent orthodoxy in an intellectual tradition or academic discipline may be the "sense" that one person needs to meet his/her intellectual needs. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
I don't know where you're drawing this vocabulary of 'subjective' and 'objective' from. It certainly isn't in my post, and nothing about my post warrants any appeal to orthodoxy or intellectual tradition for the validation of a concept. Indeed part of what's at stake in it is the celebration or the affirmation of the creativity inherent in the need to forge conceptual links between seemingly disparate concepts - with the caveat that one 'does the work', as it were, that one does not take for granted that meanings are simply given. I'm still not convinced that you've understood the point of the OP, and I think you still think it says something that it doesn't. You seem to be riding your moralist high-horse a bit too stridently to actually engage with the OP on it's own terms, it seems. — StreetlightX
I can see how you might take what I wrote that way, as if the goal were just to avoid mistakes and avoid failure. I don't think I really brought out how much can be learned from finding yourself in a blind alley.
But I don't want to be stuck in one. ("But the answer must be here.") I'm talking about recognizing when you were wrong and getting out to see some more of the world instead of staying in your alley because it's the right alley. — Srap Tasmaner
↪WISDOMfromPO-MO I'm confused as to where you think my OP was meant to be somehow exclusionary of other approaches to things. To affirm the importance of something is not to devalue the importance any anything else... — StreetlightX
I think your sense-making is much broader than what I've got here (question reformulation and domain redefinition) but this is just the bits I get from Ryle's original idea. — Srap Tasmaner
I agree, you backtracked subsequently in order to shore up your initial blunt assertion that had no argument nor reference to 'traditional notions of God'. — StreetlightX
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