I baulked at Martin's paper mostly because I found the notion of force used throughout to be unclear. Facetiously, again, it's worth noting that nothing (at least nothing physical..) is moved by an assertoric force. Further, the example in the conclusion, that p has no force while ~p has a force all it's own seems fraught:

The unembedded negative thought ~p must therefore be tied to a logical act with a non-assertoric negative force of its own, and judging that not p, accordingly, consists in rejecting the actualization of the possibility to judge that p.

I'm puzzled by what seems an unnecessary multiplication of p's... I'd understood Wittgenstien's notion to be that understanding p and understanding ~p amount to the very same thing, but that judging p or ~p was undertaking a further step. That step I would put in terms of intent, well before the much less lucid notion of force. So proceeding the judgement of the cat not to be on the mat is the separation of cats from mats within a suitable form of life, together with the intent of representing thing in that way.

That is, I'm not seeing "force" as overly helpful here.

I baulked at Martin's paper mostly because I found the notion of force used throughout to be unclear. Facetiously, again, it's worth noting that nothing (at least nothing physical..) is moved by an assertoric force. Further, the example in the conclusion, that p has no force while ~p has a force all it's own seems fraught:

"The unembedded negative thought ~p must therefore be tied to a logical act with a non-assertoric negative force of its own, and judging that not p, accordingly, consists in rejecting the actualization of the possibility to judge that p."

I'm puzzled by what seems an unnecessary multiplication of p's... — Banno

Just to be clear, Martin claims that when one asserts the propositionally complex content ~p, one does not thereby engage in a separate act of entertaining the truth value of p (with its own force) separate from the special force that attaches to the overarching content ~p. Rather, on Martin's account, when one claims that ~p, p is presented for the sake of rejection within the overarching negative judgment. The manner in which one apprehends p is entirely dependent on this overarching intention, if you wish.

I'd understood Wittgenstien's notion to be that understanding p and understanding ~p amount to the very same thing, but that judging p or ~p was undertaking a further step. That step I would put in terms of intent, well before the much less lucid notion of force. So proceeding the judgement of the cat not to be on the mat is the separation of cats from mats within a suitable form of life, together with the intent of representing thing in that way.

That is, I'm not seeing "force" as overly helpful here.

I am not entirely sure what it is that you are driving at here but two thoughts occur to me. First, I have no issue with the idea that when we speak of propositional contents being "entertained" with special forces in thought or speech, the special forces that attaches to them reflect our intentions to make special kinds of moves in a language game.

Secondly, your apparent suggestion that judging that it is not the case that the cat is on the mat is tantamount to separating cats from mats in some special way that belongs to our form of life does make sense to me. But this form-of-life-relativity also suggests that for the cat to count as not being on the mat isn't simply a matter of the cat having the complementary "property" not-being-on-the-mat, where having this property could be analysed as having the complementary extension of the predicate "_is on the mat". This would make sense in the context of an extensional language such as first order predicate logic. Such language games, though, don't have the resources to express de re (object-dependent Fregean singular senses) thoughts such as the demonstrative thoughts about apples that were asserted or denied in my earlier example of a simple language game. Neither do predicates in such an extensional formal language reflect the asymmetry Martin notes between the predicate is-red and the (dependent) predicate isn't-red, which isn't a queer way for something's color to be related to redness that we refer to when we deny that an apple is red.

...special forces... — Pierre-Normand

A whole different level...?

The interplay between form-of-life relativity, extensional language, and the complexity of expressing de re thoughts highlights a tension between formal logic and the nuances of how we actually use language. In formal systems like first-order logic, negation is usually understood in purely extensional terms: if "the cat is on the mat" is false, then the cat has the complementary property of "not being on the mat." This is a standard binary treatment of predicates. But this way of modeling lacks the resources to capture the rich, context-dependent, and object-dependent (de re) features of thoughts we actually have in ordinary language. The idea that certain de re thoughts, like demonstrative thoughts about specific objects are tied to particular objects in a way that extends beyond simple formal predicates seems to align with a more Fregean perspective. For Frege, proper names and demonstratives carry what he called "singular senses," which directly connect to the object being referred to. First-order predicate logic, being extensional, can't accommodate this kind of object-dependent sense—it abstracts away from the individuality of objects, treating them only as elements of a domain of quantification. Moreover, the asymmetry between positive predicates (like "is-red") and their negations ("isn't-red") seems to invoke Wittgensteinian concerns about how our language practices, rooted in forms of life, inform meaning. The negation of "red" doesn't just refer to some bizarre alternative state of redness, but rather expresses a rejection of a particular way of seeing or classifying the object in question. In contrast, formal logic treats negation as purely symmetric and mechanical, but in actual language use, negation often relies on pragmatic and normative judgments about how things are appropriately described within our specific form of life. This gap between the abstract nature of formal languages and the more grounded, practice-based nature of our ordinary language practices raises a larger philosophical question: how much of what we express in language, especially about objects and properties, can ever be fully captured by formal logic? It's a tension between, on the one hand, the precise and consistent tools of extensional logic, and, on the other, the fluid, context-sensitive tools of natural language that are deeply embedded in our life practices and forms of life. Your point about first-order predicate logic is well taken. In formal systems like first-order logic, negation is usually understood in purely extensional terms: if "the cat is on the mat" is false, then the cat has the complementary property of "not being on the mat." This is a standard binary treatment of predicates. But, as you note, this way of modeling things lacks the resources to capture the rich, context-dependent, and object-dependent (de re) features of thoughts we actually have in ordinary language. The idea that certain de re thoughts, like demonstrative thoughts about specific objects (e.g., this apple), are tied to particular objects in a way that extends beyond simple formal predicates seems to align with a more Fregean perspective. For Frege, proper names and demonstratives carry what he called "singular senses," which directly connect to the object being referred to. First-order predicate logic, being extensional, can't accommodate this kind of object-dependent sense—it abstracts away from the individuality of objects, treating them only as elements of a domain of quantification.
Moreover, your reference to the asymmetry between positive predicates (like "is-red") and their negations ("isn't-red") seems to invoke Wittgensteinian concerns about how our language practices, rooted in forms of life, inform meaning. The negation of "red" doesn't just refer to some bizarre alternative state of redness, but rather expresses a rejection of a particular way of seeing or classifying the object in question. In contrast, formal logic treats negation as purely symmetric and mechanical, but in actual language use, negation often relies on pragmatic and normative judgments about how things are appropriately described within our specific form of life. This gap between the abstract nature of formal languages and the more grounded, practice-based nature of our ordinary language practices raises a larger philosophical question: how much of what we express in language, especially about objects and properties, can ever be fully captured by formal logic? It's a tension between, on the one hand, the precise and consistent tools of extensional logic, and, on the other, the fluid, context-sensitive tools of natural language that are deeply embedded in our life practices and forms of life. Building on this distinction between formal logic and natural language, let's explore further how this tension plays out, especially in light of how we use language in ordinary contexts. When you refer to form-of-life-relativity, you're pointing to something crucial that Wittgenstein emphasizes in his later work. Language isn't just a neutral tool for representing facts; it's deeply embedded in the ways we live, act, and interact with the world. The meaning of a word, including how we handle negation, depends not just on abstract rules but on shared practices—what Wittgenstein calls our "form of life." For example, the meaning of "The cat is not on the mat" isn't just the complementary truth of "The cat is on the mat." It draws on shared background assumptions about what it means for objects to be in certain spatial relations and how we typically describe such relations. Negation, in our everyday language, often carries with it an implicit reference to expectations, norms, and contrasts. For instance, to say "The apple isn't red" is not merely to state the absence of redness; it contrasts with an expectation that apples are often red, so the negation carries a subtle but important normative dimension. This highlights the asymmetry between "is-red" and "isn't-red," as the latter is not just the absence of the property, but often signals a failure or deviation from some expected or typical state of affairs. Extensional languages like first-order predicate logic treat negation purely mechanically. When we negate a predicate in such a language (e.g., "P(x)" becomes "¬P(x)"), we're simply saying that some object doesn't belong to the extension of that predicate. But this misses the richer pragmatic content involved in how we use language. Frege himself was aware of this limitation. He drew a sharp distinction between the sense (Sinn) and reference (Bedeutung) of expressions, arguing that formal systems must focus on reference—the extension of terms—while leaving much of the richness of sense unexplained. In first-order logic, a negated sentence like "The cat is not on the mat" is true if and only if "the cat is on the mat" is false, but this ignores the wider web of meaning that comes with natural language negation, where such statements might involve expectations, context, and shared understanding.De re thoughts are object-dependent in a way that resists formalization in purely extensional terms. Frege's notion of singular senses helps capture this. When we think or speak de re, we're not just quantifying over objects but referring to them in a way that depends on our direct relation to them. For example, the thought "This apple is not red" doesn't just express a truth about the apple's lack of redness, but also depends on our demonstrative relationship to the particular apple we're referring to in this context. This is where formal systems struggle, especially with demonstratives or indexicals (like "this" or "here"). In formal logic, "this apple" is usually modeled as some constant or variable in a domain, abstracting away from the unique, context-dependent way in which we actually engage with the object. But for Frege, the sense of "this apple" is tied directly to the speaker’s cognitive or perceptual connection with the object. This relationship—how we pick out an object in the world and form thoughts about it—is richer than what can be captured in purely extensional terms. The asymmetry between "is-red" and "isn't-red" is important. When we use a positive predicate like "is-red," we're asserting something affirmative about the object's properties in a way that reflects a positive categorization. But when we say "isn't-red," we're not simply placing the object in the complement of the extension of "red." Instead, we are rejecting a specific classification, often against a background expectation. This asymmetry reflects the way our language and our practices of classification are embedded in a shared world of expectations. When we describe something as "not red," it often implies that there’s something notable about this fact. In contrast, formal logic treats these as symmetric: "¬P(x)" is simply the negation of "P(x)," with no extra interpretative layers. But the actual use of negation in our form of life often involves rejecting a default classification or expectation, and this makes negation richer than simple complementation. Your earlier reference to simple language games involving demonstrative thoughts about apples points to something crucial: in ordinary language, the structure of these games allows for rich, context-sensitive thoughts that are difficult to capture in formal systems. In these games, we rely on shared practices for picking out objects and predicates, and our language reflects the complex ways we interact with the world. Formal languages like first-order predicate logic, while useful for modeling certain aspects of truth and inference, strip away much of the context and the interpersonal dimensions of language use. These games involve implicit understandings, normative judgments, and object-dependent references that go beyond the resources of extensional logic. In sum, while extensional logic is powerful for formalizing certain aspects of reasoning, it falls short in capturing the full richness of natural language—especially in cases involving negation, de re thoughts, and asymmetries in predicate use. Language, as used in our form of life, is embedded in practices, expectations, and interactions with objects in the world. It allows us to express thoughts that are dependent on these contexts in ways that formal logic, which abstracts away from this rich background, cannot fully account for. This tension between the two highlights a key philosophical problem: how can we reconcile the precision of formal systems with the expressive flexibility and context-sensitivity of natural language? The limits of extensional logic reveal the need for other approaches—perhaps more dynamic or pragmatically oriented systems—to better reflect the way we actually think, speak, and live.

Called in the nukes. Cheers.

Called in the nukes. Cheers. — Banno

ChatGPT o1-preview is a bit more conversant with carriage returns.

Excellent stuff here, thanks.

Not at all sure what "symbolic and actual" is doing here. — Banno

I think what Kimhi means is: A symbolic occurrence would be when p is used as, quite literally, a symbol, such as when we show the modus ponens inference. It is not "spelled out" but is understood to stand for "any well-formed proposition." The actual occurrence would be "p spelled out," an actual sentence in some particular context of assertion/mention/belief etc.

It's worth asking what sort of thing a "Law of thought" might be. Presumably a Law of thought must be such that it hold true in all cases. — Banno

But then there's the other sense of "law" which refers to something that doesn't necessarily hold true in all cases, but ought to. Kimhi says that this normative sense of "law" is characteristic of a dualistic understanding of how thought relates to being. Using the PNC as his example, he argues that if non-contradiction is supposed to be a principle of being, a statement about how things are in the world ("either A or not-A"), then the psychological version is "a normative requirement: that one should not contradict oneself." He doesn't think it has to follow from the ontological version. Which is part of why he rejects the whole dualistic model.

it's not about the view from nowhere, but about the view from anywhere. — Banno

I like this. I think Nagel would point out the following: Even something as abstract as a "view from anywhere" implies that someone, some consciousness, is going to step into that place and attain the view. But built in to the "view from nowhere" is the (very abstract) notion that something remains the case regardless of anyone's viewpoint. But the two views can be made quite similar if we just say that the view from anywhere is strictly hypothetical as regards a viewer. If anyone steps in, then their view will be the same as any other "anywhere-stepper."

Like @banno and @frank, I believe this is right. The question, "How far can this analogy go?" is a good one. Perhaps we should say: It can go as far as propositional content can go. So, the same mistake? Probably. Taste in music? Maybe. Fear of snakes? No.

@Srap Tasmaner @Pierre-Normand

The dilemma can be solved as follows: If an unembedded thought and its embedded counterpart must both be distinct and identical-in-content, while their distinction cannot be accounted for in purely logical terms, namely, by recourse to further logically complex thoughts into which p is embedded, the embedded thought p must be the very same thought as the unembedded thought p, but logically identified in a way that takes recourse to a nonlogical factor. Accordingly, what is distinctive about the embedded thought p is that it must be indirectly identified by recourse to that non-logical factor. If that is so, any unembedded thought p, insofar as it is logically embeddable, must itself be such as to allow for indirect identification, by recourse to some non-logical factor or other which it comes along with. For reasons that will hopefully become clearer in a moment it is apt to call such a non-logical factor which a thought comes along with a “real guise”, a “sign” or “an expression” of that thought. — Martins, On Redrawing The Force Content Distinction

Rejection being irreducible to asserting a negation in some contexts is fairly straightforward as an idea right.

A) An extensional analysis of rejection regarding a statement p( x ) must rely on the following claim: asserting the statement ¬p( x ) is equivalent to rejecting p( x ).
B) The equivalence in ( A ) requires that an asserter of p( x ) would commit themselves to all and only the same claims that a rejecter of ~p( x ) would.

1) The analysis spelled out in A and B must apply in all contexts, some contexts or no contexts.
2.0 ) Assume it applies in all contexts.
2.1) Then there is no example of a rejection which is not also extensionally equivalent to affirming a negation in the sense spelled out in B.
2.2) If Bob rejects the claim "Alice believes that snarks fly" that does not commit Bob to asserting "Alice does not believe that snarks fly" or that "Alice believes that snarks don't fly", Bob can simply fail to commit to either in this rejection. eg maybe Bob believes Alice has no beliefs regarding snarks.
2.3) 2.2 is an example of a rejecter of a claim not committing themselves to all the same claims as an asserter of that claim's negation.
2.4) Discharge 2.0) - the analysis in A and B does not apply in all contexts.
3) Conclude: the analysis in A and B either applies in some contexts or no contexts.

Regarding 2.2, I believe it is mistaken to analyse this as follows:
"Bob believes ¬(Alice Believes that snarks fly)" as equivalent to "Bob rejects that Alice believes that snarks fly", the reason being that Bob can be taken to reject it makes any sense at all to associate snark related beliefs to Alice. Formally speaking, Bob could reject that Alice was a type of entity that the predicate "believes that snarks fly" could be affirmed or denied of, much like "is prime" and "is not prime" could not be asserted of the operation +.

Less formally, an example where A,B clearly applies: Two mathematicians arguing over whether the set {apples, oranges} consists only of fruit, where "...is a fruit" is a predicate defined on that domain. Rejecting the claim that the set consists only of fruit just means believing that there must be an element of the domain which satisfies ¬"...is a fruit".

With regard to generalisation, one source of rejection being irreducible to assertion of negation is that rejecting a claim can proceed on the basis of rejecting a framework that the claim relies upon. Like whether it makes sense to ascribe beliefs about snarks to Alice.

To illustrate the variability in the rejecton, consider rejecting the claim "There are three angels dancing on the head of this pin". If I reject the claim "There are three angels dancing on the head of this pin", I do not thereby commit myself to the claim "There are n angels on the head of this pin with n≠3". That rejection occurs on the basis of it being trite to think about angels on the head of a pin at all, not on the basis of believing a different number of angels reside on pinhead.

Rejecting a claim can carry, therefore, a rejection of the expected conditions under which that claim is expressed rather than forcing a commitment to the negation of the rejected claim on the speaker. I believe that is the kind of non-logical factor Martins was referring to.

I believe what marks this flavour of thing as a "non-logical" factor is that it is "extra-logical" to implied context of an assertion. One rejects the rules of the implied game. Rejecting the pin-angels claim comes from rejecting the operations of thought and expression - language use, deduction, informal reasoning, gut feelings - that would enable its expression in the first place, rather than negating it in its assumed context of expression. One rejects the it-makes-sense-to-think-about-angels-on-pins-to-begin-with rules.

One could also reject a claim like "abortion is a sin" in a manner which believes in sin and a manner which does not believe in sin. The former could say that of the set of acts which satisfy the predicate "...is a sin" does not contain abortion. The latter might disagree with the Christian framing of it and think abortion's a-ok, even if eg "abortion is morally permissible" is not a negation of "abortion is a sin" (maybe there are morally permissible sins etc etc).

If I judge P true, and so do you, aren't we making something we'd want to call "the same judgment"?

If I infer Q from P, and so do you, aren't we making something we'd want to call "the same inference"?

We can go further.

Suppose I forget to "carry the 1" in a piece of simple arithmetic, and so do you. Aren't we making "the same mistake"?

How far can this analogy go? Couldn't we have the same taste in music? The same fear of snakes?

Or is there some reason all of these things aren't just as objective as Frege's propositions? — Srap Tasmaner

If I infer Q from P, and so do you, aren't we making something we'd want to call "the same inference"?

I think we'd want to call it "the same inference" in some contexts and not in others. Bad reasoning might infer Q from P, and good reasoning might infer Q from P, but bad reasoning is not good reasoning. The means of inference may need to be the same.

Suppose I forget to "carry the 1" in a piece of simple arithmetic, and so do you. Aren't we making "the same mistake"?

At least the same type of mistake, a carrying the 1 related error. But one could compute 12+9 incorrectly as 11 in virtue of adding 2 to 9 and forgetting the relevance of the tens column, and incorrectly as 11 in virtue of adding 2 to 9 correctly then forgetting to add the 1 to the 1 in the tens column. Both of those ways forget to carry the 1, but the means for addressing them in a student would be different, right. The second's probably simply forgetting to do it, the first is probably a more fundamental misunderstanding.


Insert gesture here toward family resemblance identity.

The thing is, this thread is about what sort of thing the judgment of a proposition is. I mistook it, for some time, to be about "assertion" in a speech-act or language-game sense, because of the phrase "assertoric force", and because my memory of Frege is a bit hazy. But it's about judgment. Kimhi wants to show there is no "logical gap" between P and "We who think P are right".

We all know the status Frege assigns to propositions; it seemed to me the same considerations would apply to the judgment of P. For the case when P is true, I think Frege might very well consider judging P true to amount to following a law of thought. (If P is the case, you ought to judge P true.) As the thought P is not your personal property, not just a psychological fact about you, so judging it is also not just a matter of your personal mental behavior, but is already marked down in Plato's great hall as right judgment or wrong judgment. Thoughts aren't psychological facts, and neither is your comportment toward them (in judgment) or handling of them (in inference, for instance).

This had not occurred to me, though it might be obvious to the rest of you. And I think it's very much in Kimhi's neighborhood. The judgment he wants restored to its rightful place is not some subjective thing, but third-realm just like propositions.

The problem is, the reasons for seeing judgment and inference as objective would apparently vouchsafe the objectivity of just about anything.

You cannot have a tidy little special-purpose platonism just for logic and mathematics, which have kind of an "eternal forms" vibe to them already. You both seemed happy to pick and choose which things get Forms and which don't, but I think you'll be stuck with a Form for "disappointment with the last season of Game of Thrones".

. You both seemed happy to pick and choose which things get Forms and which don't, but I think you'll be stuck with a Form for "disappointment with the last season of Game of Thrones". — Srap Tasmaner

What have I said which has given you the impression that I like the forms? I don't mean that in an accusing or rebuking manner, I legitimately don't understand how I've committed myself to that.

My impression of the thread's argument is that:

Every proposition has a bunch of gubbins associated with it. Some of those gubbins can be treated as separable from the proposition's nature, some of them can't. Frege's allegedly arguing that whatever the judgement stroke represents can be separated from the content of a proposition that a judgement stroke is applied to. Kimhi's arguing that whatever the judgement stroke is supposed to represent, it cannot be separated.

There's then a lot of quibbling about the type of gubbins that everyone involved is talking about, and whether that's an adequate representation of Frege. A subset of the gubbins quibbles are as follows:

1 ) Whether the flavour of force Kimhi's talking about is related to illocutionary force.
1.1) Is that illocutionary force something... mental? Does it mean that you have to grasp "the assertoricity of the proposition" in order to comprehend it at all? Does it make sense to call such a mental thingybob part of a speech act at all?
2 ) Whether the flavour of force Kimhi's talking about is related to Frege's judgement stroke.
2.1) Kimhi's force seems... mental, and not reflected in propositional form. Whatever it is is to be found when examining expressing a proposition. Namely, as a part of what it would mean to be in a state of expressing that proposition and none other.

We probably have to agree that there's some proposition flavour thing in an assertion or a rejection to get going, even if we end up saying the proposition flavour thing is inextricable from some of its associated gubbins. I think that equating the proposition flavour thing and its inextricably associated gubbins with the composite of its logical form, the judgement stroke, and an extensional interpretation of its contained terms is what's at stake. So we've repeatedly embarked on a voyage of gubbins demarcation, often by example.

So I'd situate my remark above in 2.1, specifically talking about "what it would mean to be in a state of expressing that proposition and none other", where a state of expressing a proposition was a rejection or assertion of a claim.

If it turned out that the propositional doo-dad in the rejection of a claim and the assertion of a claim didn't work the same in both cases, then it'd be an example of some of the gubbins associated with expression intermingling what can be thought of as the proposition and how it is expressed/presented/display/considered/grasped/entertained.

I've not read the Kimhi in the OP, I've just read the Martins paper and a fair chunk of the thesis @Leontiskos linked earlier.

But it's about judgment. Kimhi wants to show there is no "logical gap" between P and "We who think P are right — Srap Tasmaner

Could you give me some more words on that please, or a link to where you've previously spelled it out?

I agree, but it doesn't necessarily challenge Srap's point, it only insists on being more precise, which is all to the good.

Can we think of an example where no amount of precision can create a genuine synonymy between, say, two mistakes? If the precision is only about the object of the mistakes, then yes, I think so. Here's one that occurs to me offhand as a candidate: Jack misidentifies a note in music as a G# (it's really a G natural), Jill misidentifies it as an Ab. As you may know, G# and Ab refer to the same note, under different music-theoretic circumstances, rather like Morning Star and Evening Star. So have Jack and Jill made the "same mistake"? Arguably, no amount of precisifying about the note itself is going to resolve this, since Jack and Jill are making their respective mistakes for different reasons. But then again, they're hearing the exact same tone and being wrong about it with the same result. I want to say it's two different mistakes. This is perhaps a cousin of the "carrying the 1" example.

Could you give me some more words on that please, or a link to where you've previously spelled it out? — fdrake

It's from Kimhi's book. I don't know if anyone has posted that quote. If not I can do it tonight.

What have I said which has given you the impression that I like the forms? — fdrake

Oh! Nothing. No no, I'm not accusing you of platonism.

Roughly, I suppose I'm claiming that nothing in this discussion makes sense at all without a pretty robust platonism. It's Frege. We're arguing over which version of platonism is most satisfactory in whatever sense. I'm suggesting we own up to that.

And where's Kimhi? There's something about bringing psychology and logic back together, so he's messing about with the core of Frege's worldview, his platonist anti-psychologism. Does he bring them back together by ditching the platonism? That's not the impression I've gotten but I don't think I've stumbled on him addressing it either way.

I just think we should quit throwing around 'proposition' and 'judgment' and 'inference' in ways that allow people to give those words their preferred reading. Frege is a Laws of Thought guy. I don't think you get to tweak his position by pulling in a little "social context" here and there, for example.

Either Kimhi is underselling the rigidity with which Frege's system excludes psychology, or what he Kimhi means by 'psychology' might not be what people think.

The thing is, this thread is about what sort of thing the judgment of a proposition is. I mistook it, for some time, to be about "assertion" in a speech-act or language-game sense, because of the phrase "assertoric force", — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, assertion in the sense of judgment, but I wouldn't blame yourself much for any confusion. My OP didn't discriminate, because I hadn't taken on board the point you're now drawing our attention to. And as we've seen, Kimhi himself can be hard to parse. In any case, the various sub-threads concerning other senses of "assertion" have been valuable, at least to me.

This had not occurred to me, though it might be obvious to the rest of you. And I think it's very much in Kimhi's neighborhood. The judgment he wants restored to its rightful place is not some subjective thing, but third-realm just like propositions. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes. This is what drives him crazy -- how can we unify what appears to be a hopeless gap between the psychological and the formal? How can we bring "I judge p rightly" into some kind of entailment relation with what is the case about the world? Kimhi believes that Fregean logic doesn't permit the inference (1) S is F; (2) A thinks that S is F; (3) Thus, A truly thinks that S is F.

Can we think of an example where no amount of precision can create a genuine synonymy between, say, two mistakes? If the precision is only about the object of the mistakes, then yes, I think so. Here's one that occurs to me offhand as a candidate: Jack misidentifies a note in music as a G# (it's really a G natural), Jill misidentifies it as an Ab. As you may know, G# and Ab refer to the same note, under different music-theoretic circumstances, rather like Morning Star and Evening Star. So have Jack and Jill made the "same mistake"? Arguably, no amount of precisifying about the note itself is going to resolve this, since Jack and Jill are making their respective mistakes for different reasons. But then again, they're hearing the exact same tone and being wrong about it with the same result. I want to say it's two different mistakes. This is perhaps a cousin of the "carrying the 1" example. — J

Lemme see if I get this right. Trying to pick it apart to understand it.

The note is G.
Jack identifies it as G#
Jill identifies it as Ab.
G# and Ab are the same frequency.
Since G# and Ab are the same frequency, they're extensionally equivalent in terms of sound frequencies.
The note will be identified mistakenly when and only when it is not heard as G.

The thing that would let you see Jack and Jill's mistake as the same is the final principle there, right - the fact that the note will be identified mistakenly when and only when it is not heard as G.

I think there's a way of mucking with it. I'm not sure why I'm mucking with it at this point though. If Jack always identified every enharmonic equivalent in the sharp form, and Jill always identified every enharmonic equivalent as the flat form, the means by which they make the mistake would be a little different. Even if they choose the same wrong note. I think this is similar to the way I muddied the waters before with Bob's criticism of Alice's snark related beliefs - focus on the agent involved's expression rather than the claim.

Either Kimhi is underselling the rigidity with which Frege's system excludes psychology, or what he Kimhi means by 'psychology' might not be what people think. — Srap Tasmaner

I just think we should quit throwing around 'proposition' and 'judgment' and 'inference' in ways that allow people to give those words their preferred reading. Frege is a Laws of Thought guy. I don't think you get to tweak his position by pulling in a little "social context" here and there, for example. — Srap Tasmaner

That makes sense. Martins argument references (what seems) a fairly static typology from Kimhi. This is Kimhi quoted in Martins:

An assertoric gesture is analogous to a mimetic gesture that displays an act without being it. […] A mimetic gesture can be performed as basis for another act, as when we threaten someone by tracing a finger slowly across our neck. Similarly, an assertoric gesture occurs as a basis for the display of another repeatable, for example, p in not-p. An assertoric gesture is an occurrence of a repeatable – a propositional sign – that can occur either as a gesture or as a self-identifying display

I get the impression that two things are at play, related to your following remark:

And where's Kimhi? There's something about bringing psychology and logic back together, so he's messing about with the core of Frege's worldview, his platonist anti-psychologism. Does he bring them back together by ditching the platonism? That's not the impression I've gotten but I don't think I've stumbled on him addressing it either way. — Srap Tasmaner

The first thing at play: the role "the laws of thought" in Frege plays, Kimhi keeps an analogue of it, but they're less ironclad logical laws and more tight constraints on thought sequences/acts of thinking. I don't know what their nature is, or how they work, but Kimhi seems to want to notice expansive regularities in them. That might operate by positing a Platonic Realm Of Thought Laws (tm) which doesn't resemble Frege's, or it could be something far woolier. My intuition is that it's woolier, based on the second thing at play.

The second thing at play: dispositions, interpretations, acts of judgement also seem to be within the scope of Kimhi's "laws of thought" analogue concept, but they're... somehow external to a context of pure abstraction. They picture something like events - judgements, logical moves, presentations, mimicry. They're don't seem to quite be speech acts, as they're not necessarily enacted "outside the head", but they have a kinematic and dramatic air to them. As in "if you think this, then you must judge that", as if entertaining a proposition, grasping a proposition, presenting a propositional form all do something in a nascent quasi-mental, quasi-logical regime of expression.

What I'm imagining is at stake in Kimhi's assault on Frege is whether you can cleave off the bit Frege did from the "laws of thought" Kimhi is concerned with without mutilating them. Hence what look like bits of textual analysis on the logic symbols and rules Frege uses, but not following the rules Frege's stipulated.

I'm thus inclined to think some of this ambiguity regarding force, expression, and how it relates to Frege is coming from Kimhi (and Martin's) critique of Frege allegedly severing something from this nascent woolier collection of coordinating regularities in thought and expression. So the words are a bit wooly because Frege's allegedly made a model of something wooly that has no wool in it, and our fellow travellers are seeking and analysing the wool.

The idea that thought is inherently forceful can only become an insight if it is concretely shown how that idea is compatible with the fact that embedded thoughts and dependent acts of thinking must do without a force of their own. If thoughts as such are tied to some force or other, while embedded thoughts (e. g. p qua part of not-p) do not directly come along with a force of their own, it must be clarified how the indirect connection to force, which embedded thoughts must indeed come along with, is to be understood. That is, it must be clarified how dependent logical acts that have an embedded thought as their content, and the overarching logical act that does indeed bear a force of its own interlock with each other such as to provide for the unity of a propositionally complex thought." — Pierre-Normand

Couldn't it just be that the force of an embedded thought is a phantom context from which meaning can be drawn? It's not that we're imagining an actual assertion. It's that our worldview grew out of one in which the world is alive. There's some sort of divine narrator.

Jack identifies it as G#
Jill identifies it as Ab.
G# and Ab are the same frequency.
Since G# and Ab are the same frequency, they're extensionally equivalent in terms of sound frequencies.
The note will be identified mistakenly when and only when it is not heard as G — fdrake

Right.

The thing that would let you see Jack and Jill's mistake as the same is the final principle there, right - the fact that the note will be identified mistakenly when and only when it is not heard as G. — fdrake

I don't think this would get you to "the same mistake." They're both failing to hear it as G, and they're both identifying the note mistakenly, but the question is, whether the way each describes what they (mis)hear is just a preference for different enharmonic spelling. Which leads to . . .

If Jack always identified every enharmonic equivalent in the sharp form, and Jill always identified every enharmonic equivalent as the flat form, the means by which they make the mistake would be a little different. — fdrake

This may be true, but we'd need to hear more about what "the means" represents. Anyway, the case I had in mind involved more than spelling. I'm imagining a case where Jack has an understanding of a particular musical passage that would entail the G# spelling, not just cos he likes sharps better than flats, but because that would be the correct spelling on his analysis. Same for Jill, in reverse. And sadly, they're both wrong, not at a theoretical level at all, but plain old faulty ears.

I think there's a way of mucking with it. I'm not sure why I'm mucking with it at this point though. — fdrake

Agreed, let's stop! It was just by-the-way.

The role "the laws of thought" in Frege plays, Kimhi keeps an analogue of it, but they're less ironclad logical laws and more tight constraints on thought sequences/acts of thinking. I don't know what their nature is, or how they work, but Kimhi seems to want to notice expansive regularities in them. — fdrake

Part of what makes their nature hard to grasp is that Kimhi insists on linking them with the laws of being. Or rather, he's trying to get us to think outside that dualism. The psychological PNC and the ontological PNC are not "two different principles. In the end the monist will say neither that they are two, nor one. Or rather: that they are the same and different. " (31). To anticipate your question -- no, I don't know what that means either.

This is what drives him crazy -- how can we unify what appears to be a hopeless gap between the psychological and the formal? How can we bring "I judge p rightly" into some kind of entailment relation with what is the case about the world? — J

I find reading Kimhi pretty unpleasant, so a lot of what I say is kind of half-baked because I'm trying to avoid *studying* him, but that's what it takes. That said---

This is the main thing, near as I can tell.

My last few posts are trying to express my shock when it occurred to me there is a non-psychological sense of 'judgment' and this is probably Frege's sense.

I can't quite wrap my head around something like "impersonal judgment". It's not a movement of mind, not inferential. Maybe intuition? (Or revelation!) A mind and a thought just are related correctly or incorrectly.

And in trying to make sense of this, it keeps sounding like exactly what Kimhi wants, and that he says is *not* on Frege.

No no, I'm not accusing [@fdrake] of platonism — Srap Tasmaner

You can go ahead and accuse me of platonism if you like! In this sense, which circles back to what you're saying about the World 3 nature of propositions: Plato's Forms were a somewhat amazing (given the time and place) attempt to find "the view from nowhere." Intelligible objects are shown to any and all of us, requiring only the Good to illuminate them. If Plato had had the word, I believe he would have called them objective. 3,000 years later, we're still on the same hunt. Frege wants his Laws of Thought to reveal a specifically platonic world of numbers, but you're right that it can go much farther than that. And:

The problem is, the reasons for seeing judgment and inference as objective would apparently vouchsafe the objectivity of just about anything. — Srap Tasmaner

I'd offer that as a nutshell description of the canyon that loomed between Analytic and Continental philosophy in the last century. If just about anything can be presented as a World 3 thing, accessible via the view from nowhere, then we have a real problem about subjectivity and interpretation. New OP called for, clearly .
. .

A mind and a thought just are related correctly or incorrectly. — Srap Tasmaner

I think that's close. For Kimhi, the key concept is affirmation and denial, not positive or negative predication.

I find reading Kimhi pretty unpleasant — Srap Tasmaner

I have gotten so frustrated with Kimhi over the past month that I've literally screamed, trying to untangle him. But I insist it's worth it.

For Kimhi, the key concept is affirmation and denial, not positive or negative predication. — J

Which has a weirdly moral ring to it. You're either right with God or you're not. You affirm the truth or you deny it. It's your soul that's at stake.

But I insist it's worth it. — J

Whereas I think it's all horseshit, but it's an opportunity to explore what I find so ridiculous about this way of doing philosophy.

I do find it curious that I reached for hylomorphism right before identifying the magnitude of the platonism at issue. The old war still rages, and an enemy of my enemy is a friend.

The old war still rages, — Srap Tasmaner

Are you like, presently in a dungeon on trial for heresy?

the role "the laws of thought" in Frege — fdrake

Have a glance at SEP's article on psychologism. Some curious stuff there I haven't really absorbed.

I may come back to some of your other points tonight after work.

But then there's the other sense of "law" which refers to something that doesn't necessarily hold true in all cases, but ought to. Kimhi says that this normative sense of "law" is characteristic of a dualistic understanding of how thought relates to being. Using the PNC as his example, he argues that if non-contradiction is supposed to be a principle of being, a statement about how things are in the world ("either A or not-A"), then the psychological version is "a normative requirement: that one should not contradict oneself." He doesn't think it has to follow from the ontological version. Which is part of why he rejects the whole dualistic model. — J

Interestingly, on page 54, Kimhi considers Critical Fregeanism, which he ascribes to Gareth Evans, as an alternative non-dualistic proposal to accommodate Frege's point about the criterion for distinguishing the senses (Sinne) of different sentences within a quasi-Kantian treatment of object-dependent thoughts. But he claims this account to be incoherent on the ground that it turns out to be incompatible with Frege's spatio-logicism, which is the thesis that "the subordinate propositions in a compound are treated as logical building blocks" (p.48). Now, I am unsure why Evans would be committed to this atomistic thesis or to take it to be an indispensable feature of an extension of Frege's notion of sense as applied to object dependent thoughts. So, I don't quite understand what motivates Kimhi's rejection of Evan's account.

However, Kimhi proceeds to develop his charge against dualism through considering the (psychological) "requirement on thinkers not to hold together a triad of judgments of the form: < p → q, p, ~q >". This is useful because it ties up his criticism of dualism with his proposal to account for the unity of complex propositions by means of distinguishing the "display" and the "manifestation" of p as it might occur as a component of such a complex proposition. And this is where his account differs from Martin's. So, now, I'm considering not only whether Martin's criticisms of Kimhi's appeal to the merely "displaying" function of embedded propositions in accounting for the unity of complex propositions are on target, but also whether Martin's alternative proposal elucidates (and/or is elucidated by) Evan's Critical Fregeanism.

Although I must give this much more thought, I am hopeful that it does since, in the wake of Evan's Fregeanism (and of Sellars' Kantianism), philosophers like John McDowell, David Wiggins and John Haugeland have developed fairly successful accounts (on my view) of the monistic "constitutive rules" of language that serve the dual function of making the behaviors of language users intelligible by placing them within the game of giving and asking for reasons, on the one hand, and of making intelligible (and thinkable) the objects that we talk about inasmuch as our existential commitments to them are of a piece with our commitments to the rules of our languages games in which they are inextricably involved ("constituted").

the magnitude of the platonism at issue. The old war still rages — Srap Tasmaner

I wouldn't try to alter your philosophical convictions -- there's too much of that already on TPF -- but I truly don't think platonism (including Fregean platonism) needs to be anyone's opponent. That is, unless one takes a very rigid view of it as talking about Objects Called Forms that have some kind of otherworldly existence. Perhaps that was Plato's belief, though I doubt it, but it needn't be ours. It doesn't sound as if your thoughts about hylomorphism would rule out talk of abstracta in a less reified way.

Perhaps that was Plato's belief, though I doubt it, but it needn't be ours. It doesn't sound as if your thoughts about hylomorphism would rule out talk of abstracta in a less reified way. — J

This is also the view McDowell once expressed, if I remember, and to paraphrase very loosely, that Plato himself, when taking about the form of the Good, for instance, and of our actual conceptions of the goodness only approximating or being the shadow of that "form", was speaking metaphorically to make the point that arriving at a clear conception of goodness, in particular cases, is a difficult intellectual achievement, and not that we are approaching "it" asymptotically. On that view, forms are ideal in a normative rather than a reified sense even in Plato's own conception.

rule out talk of abstracta in a less reified way — J

No no, of course not.

We don't have to continue this here, or anywhere. Roughly, I'm just carrying the flag for population thinking versus essentialism. --- The bit earlier in the thread about loose and tight coupling, that's a suggestion that hunting for the essence of assertion, for example, is misguided.

Maybe some other time, though I really hate talking at this level of generality. Everything I say sounds like hand-wavy bullshit.

I am unsure why Evans would be committed to this atomistic thesis or to take it to be an indispensable feature of an extension of Frege's notion of sense as applied to object dependent thoughts. So, I don't quite understand what motivates Kimhi's rejection of Evan's account. — Pierre-Normand

I think the answer to your question lies in the first line Kimhi quotes from Evans, which begins: "The sense of a sentence, which is of course a function of the sense of its parts . . . " (my itals). Kimhi is probably reading this to mean that Evans accepts the building-block account of propositional meaning. I'd need to read more from Evans to decide if I agree that he does, but I'll bet that's what K is objecting to.

K's specific argument about "taking different attitudes to p" is pretty good, don't you think? If you can use your building blocks to build a statement like "p & ~p" without violating any spatio-logical rules, then it does seem to invalidate the previous, psycho / logical criterion for what is thinkable, for what can be a thought. And I especially like footnote 40. (Have you noticed how much important stuff is in the footnotes that might just as well have been promoted into the body of the text? Having been an editor for many years, I can tell you that this is a sure sign of a confusing ms. receiving a heavy edit from someone trying to give it structure.) Kimhi talks about "pragmatic contradiction" as the reason you can't attach a judgment stroke to "p & ~p"; if you use the stroke, you show that you know what it means to understand a logical expression. This is very similar to Habermas's "performative contradiction" -- sounds like material for a good paper.

Since my joke fell flat, I'll respond again.

Just to be clear, Martin claims that when one asserts the propositionally complex content ~p, one does not thereby engage in a separate act of entertaining the truth value of p (with its own force) separate from the special force that attaches to the overarching content ~p. Rather, on Martin's account, when one claims that ~p, p is presented for the sake of rejection within the overarching negative judgment. — Pierre-Normand

There's something quite amiss in this, to do with the absence of a clear account of "force". One simply can attend to the cat and the mat, and understand the predication, entirely without making a judgement as to the truth of "the cat is on the mat".

And second, the circumstances in which not being on the mat counts as a property of the cat would be, shall we say, quite extraordinary. Talk of cats and mats is what we do. Talk of properties is philosophic wordplay. Point geing that you seem to be tying a nice philosophical knot for yourself.

I appreciated 's "gubbins". Here's the thing: It remains very unclear what "assertoric force" is, and for my part I remain unconvinced, as the kids say, that "It is a thing".

Despite that it remains that we use names to denote, we use sentences to command, question and state, and we can understand what a statement says without making a judgement as to it's truth.

Note the careful absence of "force" in that last paragraph.

a symbol, such as when we show the modus ponens inference — J

My point was in part to show that "modus ponens inference" is not singular; it's at best a group of loosely related activities which are not fundamental to logic.

Isn't it apparent that treating logic as imperative is a consequence of, and motivation for, logical monism? That's @Leontiskos' game - who else is playing? (He hasn't been around for a few days - hope all is well).

The view from anywhere differs from the view form nowhere in an important respect: while the view from nowhere solipsisticly centres on the self, the view from anywhere is eccentric, looking to account for what others say they see, while seeking broad consensus. It's a variation of the Principle of Charity: we make maximum sense of the words of others if we interpret them in such a way as to maximise agreement. It replaces a focus on "I" with a focus on "Us". It acknowledges that what we are doing here is inherently embedded in a community and extends beyond the self.

Even something as abstract as a "view from anywhere" implies that someone, some consciousness, is going to step into that place and attain the view. — J

The God's eye view is sometimes referred to as the view from nowhere. I think it would be more aptly understood as the view from everywhere (and everywhen). I also like the relativistic non-omniscient notion of a view from anywhere. It could also be called 'the view from nowhere in particular'.

while the view from nowhere solipsisticly centres on the self, the view from anywhere is eccentric, looking to account for what others say they see, while seeking broad consensus. — Banno

I don't see it that way. The self-centred view is the view from somewhere, not the view from nowhere.