In a way, the species' evolutionary history and intertwinement with language DOES get metaphysical- pace academics and a host of theories revolving around "semiotics" or "information theory" or simply the "metaphysics of biology" or "what it means to be a human". — schopenhauer1

Yes. It's a secret that it's all nonsense.

This may not have any bearing on the OP. — frank

No worries, this is sort of the after-party!

States of affairs have the same form as thoughts. — frank

Well, but this is what I'm contesting. Even on the most generous interpretation of "form," a cat sitting on a mat doesn't look remotely similar to any thought or linguistic expression. So if not in appearance, where are to we to find the similar form?

If you're worried about metaphysics, you're trying to do something with language that it's not capable of. — frank

Possible but unlikely. Do you believe that Witt himself succeeded in demonstrating this?

So if not in appearance, where are to we to find the similar form? — J

In the Tractatus.

Yes. It's a secret that it's all nonsense. — frank

Non-sense in what way? There's several senses to non-sense.

Well gosh, I opened my copy and it all looks like a bunch of words to me. Where's the cat-on-the-mat-looking part?

I know that's not what you meant.

But seriously, how do you understand Witt's explanation of "similar form" in this context? Are you referring to picture theory?

Have you ever noticed that when someone sets out a state of affairs, they do it by setting out a statement?

It's far from obvious that states of affairs are helpful, rather than just yet another thing to puzzle over.

Well, but this is what I'm contesting. Even on the most generous interpretation of "form," a cat sitting on a mat doesn't look remotely similar to any thought or linguistic expression. — J

Form is probably the wrong word. How did the SEP put it? They're similar?

Possible but unlikely. Do you believe that Witt himself succeeded in demonstrating this? — J

I think so.

He seems to think there's a sort of isomorphism here, that atomic propositions are structured as atomic facts are structured. It's why you can use a sentence or a picture or a model or the actual things to say something.

Non-sense in what way? There's several senses to non-sense. — schopenhauer1

It would be like the knight on a chess board describing the game of chess. It can't have that vantage point.

In the Tractatus. — Srap Tasmaner

no

It would be like the knight on a chess board describing the game of chess. It can't have that vantage point. — frank

So is evolution and the development of the universe also off the table even though we don't have those vantage points?

Have you ever noticed that when someone sets out a state of affairs, they do it by setting out a statement? — Banno

For a while Russell thought they're the same thing. A true proposition is an obtaining state of affairs. Neutral monism.

So is evolution and the development of the universe also be off the table even though we don't have those vantage points? — schopenhauer1

Metaphysics is different because it's talking about the whole world. Language is for talking about things in the world, like evolution or cosmology.

Metaphysics is different because it's talking about the whole world. — frank

Wait, metaphysics is about the "whole" world, now? Really? So when someone refers to the "Metaphysics of X", and it's only part of the world, that is not metaphysics? Metaphysics is ALL or nothing? In some conceptions, but ALL metaphysical conceptions?

So when someone refers to the "Metaphysics of X", and it's only part of the world, that is not metaphysics? — schopenhauer1

That would be an application of an overarching ontology to X.

That would be an application of an overarching ontology to X. — frank

Right, but that's not "the whole world"- the overriding ontology though, true.

So, okay, getting back to evolution and history of universe, you said:

Language is for talking about things in the world, like evolution or cosmology. — frank

Yet you said:

It would be like the knight on a chess board describing the game of chess. It can't have that vantage point. — frank

Yet evolution and history of the universe are things we cannot have a vantage point about. Same goes perhaps about the evolution of language, or for that matter, "the ontology of language", or the "ontology of information", yet here we are sharing information, using language, evolved from a universe over the processes of time and space.

Ok. The statement from @frank that I was questioning is "States of affairs have the same form as thoughts." We can be more generous and change it to " . . . a similar form as thoughts." But you say that the isomorphism is a matter of the atomic proposition having a similar construction as the state of affairs. Is that really all there is to it, that allows this pictorial similarity? Does the similarity go beyond putting two things together? Animal and mat in the one case, the words "cat" and "mat" in the other? I don't even think you can get "sitting on" to be isomorphic, since the words don't do anything like that; one merely precedes the other.

I guess what I'm asking is, How is this a powerful or important theory? Thus far it seems to have very little explanatory power.

Have you ever noticed that when someone sets out a state of affairs, they do it by setting out a statement? — Banno

Agreed, but just about no one mistakes the statement for the state of affairs. But you know this, so I realize there's something I'm not understanding here. Expand?

Agreed, but just about no one mistakes the statement for the state of affairs. But you know this, so I realize there's something I'm not understanding here. Expand? — J

Sounds like a performative contradiction to me! Can't get out of statements!

SO how does a state of affairs differ from that which a statement sets out?

SO how does a state of affairs differ from that which a statement sets out? — Banno

As I said:

Sounds like a performative contradiction to me! Can't get out of statements! — schopenhauer1

The statement describes or names a particular situation in the world. This is done using words. What I'm calling a "particular situation in the world" (aka "state of affairs") is non-linguistic. It involves things like cats and mats. That's the difference. But again, this is (to me) so uncontroversial that I'm sure I'm not yet understanding you. What is wrong with this picture? Or, to ask it a different way, what term would you rather use for stuff out in the world to which statements refer? We may just be disputing terminology.

Yikes! But I don't think so. We need to make statements in order to talk about anything, certainly, but that doesn't mean that everything we talk about is also made of statements.

The statement describes or names a particular situation in the world. This is done using words. What I'm calling a "particular situation in the world" (aka "state of affairs") is non-linguistic. — J

Well, yes. What a statement sets out is a particular situation in the world. Do you then have three things, the true statement, the situation in the world and the fact? Or are we multiplying entities beyond necessity?

I'm happy to drop either "fact" or "state of affairs," as long as it's clear that, whichever one we retain, it's the non-linguistic referent of a statement.

I don't even think you can get "sitting on" to be isomorphic, since the words don't do anything like that; one merely precedes the other. — J

1. They could. I forget who this was -- LW? Sellars? I don't know -- but someone pointed out that you could write

cat
mat

for "The cat is on the mat".

2. Anyway, the whole point of the "logical form" thing is that there is something we happen to represent in particular ways in particular languages using sentence structure, but that structure is not the logical structure, just how we represent it.

It's one reason people are sometimes inclined to posit a "language of thought".

3. I think the isomorphism thing is not crazy. In order to say that a couple things are related in a particular way, appropriate to those things, you combine names for those things in a particular way, appropriate to names of things.

Not crazy, but the trouble is it sounds easy to put this into a theory and it turns out to be hard.

4. Probably because it's a fundamental mistake to think that language has the same kind of structure you think the world has. Not crazy, but wrong, and understandable, though why we think this is itself an interesting puzzle.

The very idea that in language we represent the world, is probably a sort of illusion, or a myth.

Yet evolution and history of the universe are things we cannot have a vantage point about. — schopenhauer1

Maybe so. I'd have to think about it.

1. They could. I forget who this was -- LW? Sellars? I don't know -- but someone pointed out that you could write

cat
mat

for "The cat is on the mat". — Srap Tasmaner

That's Sellars. Naturalism and Ontology I think.

Thus far it seems to have very little explanatory power. — J

I take it as phenomenology.

Yep.

I commented earlier that the emphasis hereabouts is Tractarian. The picture sitting between the statements and the world. It doesn't solve the problem of replace the picture with the state of affairs.

But we can be pretty confident that we have the statement on the one hand and how things are on the other.

All this by way of hoping to avoid "states of affairs" becoming part of our ontology.