Regarding the statement about philosophy being the bewitchment of our intelligence by the means of language, then why is that so? I mean to say, why does language behave this way or what makes this true that language going on holiday is all that some philosophy amounts to? — Shawn
People who are not philosophers are also bewitched by language, they just don't need to care, because few of the inconsistencies in our norms of interpretation matter. And it marks you as unusual, and perhaps rude or stupid, to care about those inconsistencies and point them out — fdrake
Regarding the statement about philosophy being the bewitchment of our intelligence by the means of language, then why is that so? I mean to say, why does language behave this way or what makes this true that language going on holiday is all that some philosophy amounts to? — Shawn
Philosophers often get confused by language because their thoughts reflect upon the ways the world is normally interpreted - which is using something full of holes and prejudices to analyse something full of holes and prejudices. — fdrake
People who are not philosophers are also bewitched by language, they just don't need to care, because few of the inconsistencies in our norms of interpretation matter. — fdrake
errors of presupposition arise when a person's way of thinking is so tied to a use case, or nascent context, that it stops that person from understanding what they intend. — fdrake
If you're trying to stop making both errors - you probably can't. You can just try to make them less. I don't have much good advice there unfortunately. — fdrake
This contrasts with the advocacy of "universal" principles and the the denunciation of parochialism by folks like David Deutsch who follow Popper in aiming at universalism through building a picture that purportedly approximates reality ever more closely. — Pierre-Normand
Getting closer to reality, both in theoretical and practical thinking, rather consists in learning to better espouse its variegated contours, and achieving a greater universality in the scope of our judgements through developing greater sensitivity to their specificity. — Pierre-Normand
Regarding the statement about philosophy being the bewitchment of our intelligence by the means of language, then why is that so? I mean to say, why does language behave this way or what makes this true that language going on holiday is all that some philosophy amounts to? — Shawn
Language is the shadow cast by the mind into the world. People often mistaken the shadows for the light or simply think the shadows can tell them more about the light than the light itself. — I like sushi
Also related to the heightening specialism of knowledge over time? And the propagation of arbitrarily specific caveats. — fdrake
Weinberg argued that sequences of "why?" questions always lead down to particle physics (and general relativity) and, prospectively, to some grand Theory of Everything. — Pierre-Normand
Hence his well-known quotation 'the more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.' Physics is constructed to as to exclude meaning, context, etc - as you point out. — Wayfarer
But philosophers have been regularly thinking outside the box for millennia. That's not what Wittgenstein was talking about, is it? Wasn't he talking about speculating where nothing can be known? — frank
Bitbol (whom you introduced me to, by the way) is a very different kind of thinker to Weinberg. — Wayfarer
Weinberg was a much more accomplished physicist — Pierre-Normand
This "bewitchment" happens often when philosophy is meta-discursive, or uses language to talk about language itself. Instead, at minimum, philosophers should make explicit such (usually) implicitly self-referential failures to makes sense as reminders to avoid (or minimize) bewitching themselves further (e.g. with disembodied entities, 'transcendental illusions' & woo-woo) :sparkle:Regarding the statement about philosophy being the bewitchment of our intelligence by the means of language, then why is that so? — Shawn
Language does not "behave this way" or "behave" at all – an example of going on holiday (i.e. nonsense via meta-discourse). This happens whenever a philosopher "behaves this way" (e.g.) attempts to say what is true about 'saying what is true'.I mean to say, why does language behave this way or what makes this true that language going on holiday is all that some philosophy amounts to?
Perhaps, but I reserve judgment on Monsieur Bitbol's apparent quantum quackery until an English translation is available of his book Maintenant la finitude. Peut-on penser l'absolu? which is allegedly a critical reply to 'speculative materialist' Q. Meillassoux's brilliant Against Finitude.Michel Bitbol is definitely worth knowing about. — Wayfarer
It's when we forget that language is used to communicate something factual about reality to others that we become bewitched. Just because some sentence follows some rules of some language does not make the sentence true or false. It is true or false when it refers to some aspect of reality or it doesn't. Not only do sentences need to be logically consistent, they have to be consistent with observations as well.Regarding the statement about philosophy being the bewitchment of our intelligence by the means of language, then why is that so? I mean to say, why does language behave this way or what makes this true that language going on holiday is all that some philosophy amounts to? — Shawn
Perhaps, but I reserve judgment on Monsieur Bitbol's apparent quantum quackery until an English translation is available of his book Maintenant la finitude. Peut-on penser l'absolu? which is allegedly a critical reply to 'speculative materialist' Q. Meillassoux's brilliant Against Finitude. — 180 Proof
Ok, then I'll look more deeply into his work and ignore what's on YouTube. However, imho, his seemingly Kantian version of QBism (with its personalist/subjectivist conception of probability) is quackery to me. Thus, I focus on his engagement with Meillassoux (since I'm not a physicist) in assessing Bitbol's philosophy.I've read several papers by Bitbol on quantum mechanics and didn't find anything remotely quacky about them. — Pierre-Normand
Sentences usually float above this problem and create senses of meaning that are of practical use and more applicable to vaguely logical forms. — I like sushi
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