I think your nephew makes Socrates sound like a moron.

My point that a philosophy which places natural language above formal language is more robust than a philosophy which does not
— Leontiskos

I've said similar things myself, even in this thread, even recently, but at the moment the question of priority is less pressing for me than the issue of how the two are related, so that's what I've been writing about.

@Banno's position here is interesting because he is strongly committed both to the primacy of natural language and the usefulness of classical logic. The argument he often makes is that classical logic is not something you find implicit in ordinary language, as its hidden structure, say, but you can choose to conform your language use to it.

I think that view actually rhymes quite well with the description I've been trying to develop of how formal, technical language can be embedded in natural language, much as mathematical language is and must be embedded in natural language. — Srap Tasmaner

I would think the question for a rigorous philosophy is how to navigate between formal logic and natural language but to highlight features common to both that beguile us and turn us away from doing rigorous philosophy. Both formal logic and natural language involve idealization. For instance, the symbolized meanings of phonemic elements of words are abstracted away from the actual context in which they appear. So too are the categorical meanings of words like ‘lion’ , which are meant to transcend situational context. It is this idealizing feature of language that allows us to assign it a sense which can be repeated as identical regardless of time or place, and in the absence of any actual speaker. But natural language is at the same time
bound to the specific contexts of its use.

If I say ‘lion’ I can’t guarantee that the image which appears in your mind doesn’t change its sense from instantiation to instantiation. Formal and mathematical logic are purer forms of idealization. We start with our perception of narural features of the world we interact with. We create idealized shapes and colors out of this axrual world, concocting the abstractions we call self-persisting objects. We then take these idealized forms and further ‘perfect’ them into perfect lines and circles. We never see such pure idealities in nature. We do something similar in our invention of formal logic, taking our idealized natural objects and ‘fixing’ them abstractively as purely self-identical objects which maintain their precisely identical sense as we cobble them together into a predicative judgement.

We never allow the parts of a predicative assertion to change their sense as we go back and forth between subject and predicate. Like the pure geometric idealizations of line and circle, none of the components of a predicative judgement are seen in nature . They are a garb of ideas we drape over our experience. They are of course derived from our actual experiences with objects , but when we make use of formal and mathematical logic , we replace purposeful, relevant engagement with the regurgitation of a machine-like method. Our intent is to use these methods for our relevant purposes, but we run the danger of mistaking the method for the actual experiences they are abstracted away from.

So whether we make use of formal logic or natural
language in service of philosophy, if our focus is on reducing our experience of the world to fit the idealizations of logic or the categorical universalities of language we are failing to address the most fundamental philosophical question; what is the nature of our subjective comportment toward the world such that it makes possible the invention of abstractions which leave out the relevant and purposeful way in which we encounter the meaningful world?

The whole point of the lecture is that you should make sure you are properly disciplined, so this must be something you can do, and you must be able to know whether you are doing it or not. Otherwise, it's just "try to", which he's clearly not going to countenance. — Srap Tasmaner

Perhaps it will suffice to be disciplined enough.

If you and I agree, will that suffice?

Perhaps it will suffice to be disciplined enough.

If you and I agree, will that do? — Banno

I think what Williamson wants is for you and I to be rigorous enough that if we disagree it is clear that we do, and, in the best case, we can agree on what would count as resolving the dispute, and, in the very best case, we agree on a way of getting there and know what it is.

The true infinite can only be considered infinite to the extent that it is an endless repetition of the same finite quality.

Oh no, that's literally the definition of the "bad infinite," the infinite that is defined in terms of the finite. And I don't think continual variation on the finite counts either. We'd be in a pickle if we were stuck with that:

1. The finite is superseded precisely in the way that we have analyzed in 3.4 and 3.6. Hegel sums up the argument with his statement that “finitude is only as a transcending of itself” (WL 5: 160/GW 21:133,34/145). Finite qualities can be what they are by virtue of themselves, rather than being defined by their relation to others, only insofar as they go beyond their finitude. To the extent, then, that a quality fails– as it does at every moment of the “progress to infinity”– to transcend itself, to go beyond its finitude, it fails to be. (More precisely, I suggest: It fails to be “fully.” It is, but it isn’t real: It fails to be what it is by virtue of itself.) So finitude must be superseded, in order to be real.

2. The spurious infinite,on the other hand, is superseded by the observation that infinity is only as a transcending of the finite; it therefore essentially contains its other and is, consequently, in its own self the other of 78 Hegel’s philosophy of reality, freedom, and god itself. The finite is not superseded by the infinite as by a power existing outside it; on the contrary, its infinity consists in superseding its own self. (WL 5: 160/GW 21:133,36–2/145–146) Since an “infinity” that is over against and flatly opposed to the finite is limited by the finite and thus fails to be infinite, true infinity must include the finite by being the finite’s superseding of itself. To the extent that the finite transcends itself, the finite is, and to the extent that the finite transcends itself, infinity is. Rather than being,on the one hand, and arriving (or, in fact, not arriving) at the goal of pure freedom (and goodness), on the other, the finite something constantly comes (fully) into being by creating pure freedom and goodness, by transcending it self. Both the finite and the infinite come (fully) into being through, and thus they both are, the same process. Though infinity transcends, goes beyond, the finite, it does so not by replacing the finite with some thing totally different, something entirely “beyond” the finite, but by being the self-transcendence of the finite itself. The true infinite, the true “beyond,”is in the finite rather than opposed to or simply“ beyond” it.

Robert M. Wallace - Hegel's Philosophy of Reality, Freedom, and God

Or, as Saint Augustine says, God is "within everything, yet contained in nothing," and "more inward to me than my innermost self."

It is not just man that is self-moving, it is the world that is self-moving. And self-movement does not mean willing what one chooses to will. The movement is as much passive as it is active. One finds oneself in motion. One is throw into situations.

Sure, but I don't think this addresses the concern of the metaphysicians. What spontaneously moves itself from potency to act "for no reason at all" (is causeless) has no reason to be one way and not any other. To say being somehow generates its own regularities and intelligibility doesn't really address this issue, since for it to generate any particular sort of regularity would assume a sort of prior actuality. Nor does an evolutionary account really fix things because selection still requires some sort of prior actuality to work by, else anything "selects" as well as anything else.

Intention and intuition, potency to act and action are not separated in poststructuralist thinking, except artificially. Repetition and difference are prior to this distinction.

This seems like it might just be a translation error in concepts. At least in the traditional usage of the terms, it is incoherent to say there is repetition and difference prior to actuality, for then they wouldn't be "difference and repetition," since to be anything at all, anything determinant, is to be actual. The two couldn't be really distinct without being actual.

There is a neat article on the physicist David Bohm's work on difference and similarity that might interest you:

Difference is seen as more basic than similarity. The reason is that similarity presupposes difference which makes difference logically prior to similarity. In fact, similarity is a consequence of disregarding difference. In such a context difference becomes fundamental. It is therefore natural to ask if there are different kinds of basic differences, i.e. is there really only one difference, usually expressed as in a≠b? It is conceivable that two different objects comprise of two aspects of difference: one collective and one individual. The collective aspect refers to some collective totality, whereby different objects are different because they are differently contributing to the whole, or collective. One could say that each object is defined collectively by being different from all others in the shared context or collective. The individual difference then concerns a direct relation between two individuals. This difference is always used when some object is named, labelled, indexed to identify each object uniquely. A “collective” difference is then reflecting that objects are different in the sense that they, by the very being part of some whole or collection, are differently contributing to this whole. If they were not, they would not be different at all. If cardinality represents the collective aspect of difference, ordinality would represent the individual. It is hard to see any reason why these two aspects necessarily should be identical. This motivates a proposal of two basic kinds of differences where non-ordinality will imply indistinguishability. Another reason for a discussion of indistinguishables is that there are very few systematic attempts to deal with id:s (here after I use the shorthand id for indistinguishable)

Georg Wikman - The Notion of Order in Mathematics and Physics. Similarity, Difference and Indistinguishability

But any "difference that makes a difference" is of course actual, sheer potential itself being nothing at all. Difference presumably presupposes something to be different. It might be that one cannot have a 1 without some background to constitute a 0 (finite things refer outside themselves), but you still need to actuallyhave the 1 and the 0 to have a difference.

I am not sure Bohm has this all correct though. To return to your reference to Hume, the difficulty in the idea of the "bundle" is that if each component were truly sui generis, there would be no bundle. You would have a bunch of wholly unrelated moments, and to even be aware of them as a bundle presupposes something that unifies them for consideration. Likewise, cognizance of difference seems to require comparison. On the other hand, anything that is anything (different or similar) is the same in possessing being. If participation in being is fundamental, as it seems it should be, then this is an overarching similarity. Or, if we follow Parmenides, "the same is for thinking as for being" there is a fundamental similarity (the same is true if all thought/being is predicated analogously).





Well, one difficulty is perhaps a conflation between specificity and rigor. For instance, I love Robert Sokolowski's The Phenomenology of the Human Person, but one of my criticisms while reading it was that it didn't always specify what it was talking about as much as I would have liked. However, I came around on this, that this was actually a wise choice, in line with Aristotle's advice in the Ethics that we ought not demand greater specificity than our subject matter allows. Wittgenstein's appeal to a "family resemblance" is another good example (although it's funny to see this then sometimes transformed into an appeal to a sort of formal "concept of family resemblance"). Actually, I think this is one of the points Grayling (who is quite analytic) criticizes Wittgenstein on, being too vague in these ways.

I don't think that charge is totally without its merits in some cases. The degree of specificity needs to be in line with the subject matter, and it is possible to err in either direction. But it is easy to mistake a lack of specificity with a lack of rigor. The drive towards reductionism and atomism is a sort of pernicious demand for specificity in some cases, often paired with questionable metaphysical assumptions.

what is the nature of our subjective comportment toward the world such that it makes possible the invention of abstractions which leave out the relevant and purposeful way in which we encounter the meaningful world? — Joshs

I'll just say that I am very interested in the role of ideals in our thinking, in our communication, in our lives. I tend to see them as things we construct rather than discover, and I'm curious why we do that, what role they serve (language as idealization is a crucial example, certainly), and also how we do that.

There's a bit of a sense in your post ― at least in what I quoted ― that ideals are a problem, and that their leaving stuff out is a problem, especially because they leave out what's most important. I may come to agree with you someday, but that's not really my sense of things. I guess I'm approaching them more neutrally ― idealization is a fact of human life and thought and behavior. Some clear upsides, some just as clear downsides, and something there's no reason to think we can get along without.

Well, one difficulty is perhaps a conflation between specificity and rigor. For instance, I love Robert Sokolowski's The Phenomenology of the Human Person, but one of my criticisms while reading it was that it didn't always specify what it was talking about as much as I would have liked. However, I came around on this, that this was actually a wise choice, in line with Aristotle's advice in the Ethics that we ought not demand greater specificity than our subject matter allows. Wittgenstein's appeal to a "family resemblance" is another good example (although it's funny to see this then sometimes transformed into an appeal to a sort of formal "concept of family resemblance"). Actually, I think this is one of the points Grayling (who is quite analytic) criticizes Wittgenstein on, being too vague in these ways.

I don't think that charge is totally without its merits in some cases. The degree of specificity needs to be in line with the subject matter, and it is possible to err in either direction. But it is easy to mistake a lack of specificity with a lack of rigor. The drive towards reductionism and atomism is a sort of pernicious demand for specificity in some cases, often paired with questionable metaphysical assumptions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right, and a kind of light bulb should go off once one realizes that Sokolowski's lack of specificity is intentional, and that it is intended precisely because it is most appropriate to the subject matter. Earlier I was pointing out that thinking is guided by subject matter, and it seems that the reason our current thinking is so one-dimensional is because the subjects that concern us are so one-dimensional. For example, a materialistic horizon creates thinking that is largely quantitative and empirical. When the domain of subjects is small, the preference for a very determinate and narrow form of thinking follows (in the case of the Analytic it is univocal thinking).

-

I think your nephew makes Socrates sound like a moron. — Fire Ologist

:lol:

Ok, and that, in so far as it goes, is not a poor position to adopt?

So regardless of Williamson's odd metaphysical notions, we might have some agreement?

that, in so far as it goes, is not a poor position to adopt? — Banno

I think it's clearly a pretty good idea for positions that are pretty close.

For ways of seeing and ways of setting up problems that begin very far apart, I'm not sure it's much use at all.

The obvious examples are pretty bad, and I don't want to give them the oxygen.

Do you think Russell and Wittgenstein, after 1930 -32, could have managed something like this? I'm really not sure.

There's a bit of a sense in your post ― at least in what I quoted ― that ideals are a problem, and that their leaving stuff out is a problem, especially because they leave out what's most important. I may come to agree with you someday, but that's not really my sense of things. I guess I'm approaching them more neutrally ― idealization is a fact of human life and thought and behavior. Some clear upsides, some just as clear downsides, and something there's no reason to think we can get along without — Srap Tasmaner

It’s not idealizations that are the problem. I agree that they are very useful. The problem is when philosophy takes them as its starting point and adopts them as its method rather than delving beneath the facade to explicate the underlying processes. Many find fundamentalist religious beliefs to be very useful. We can recognize that usefulness while at the same time examine the genesis and justification for those beliefs from a philosophical vantage that doesn’t simply take them at face value.

For ways of seeing and ways of setting up problems that begin very far apart, I'm not sure it's much use at all. — Srap Tasmaner

He has the back-up:

...if different groups in philosophy give different relative weights to various sources of discipline, we can compare the long-run results of the rival ways of working. Tightly constrained work has the merit that even those who reject the constraints can agree that it demonstrates their consequences. — Williamson, 10-11

So the idea is that Russell and Wittgenstein could agree on what follows from a set of constraints, even if they disagree on the constraints. I.e. "This line is valid given these constraints, but because I reject the constraints I do not call it sound." That's the "step back" that is possible, and which retains some common ground.

It’s not idealizations that are the problem. I agree that we cannot get along without them. The problem is when philosophy takes them as its starting point and adopts them as its method rather than delving beneath the facade to explicate the underlying processes. — Joshs

We're not just in agreement, then, we are brothers!

Look, I know Williamson takes a lot for granted, has a sort of philosophical ideology. My long post from yesterday, the "silliness" post, was intended at least in part as a demonstration of how he was tripping over his own tools.

In my own case, I long for the serenity I suppose he feels, the certainty about how to do things. When I had firmer ― well, any ― commitments to this or that school, this or that thinker, it was a lot easier, and I absolutely miss that.

We're not just in agreement, then, we are brothers! — Srap Tasmaner

Phil-bro’s?

He has the back-up — Leontiskos

He does, you're right, but I think this sentence

if different groups in philosophy give different relative weights to various sources of discipline, we can compare the long-run results of the rival ways of working. — Williamson, 10-11

is pie in the sky. Who's the "we" tallying the results and scoring the competition?

Who's the "we" tallying the results and scoring the competition? — Srap Tasmaner

The TPF mods, naturally.

Who's the "we" tallying the results and scoring the competition? — Srap Tasmaner

The same ones who decide how much research is necessary before something is to count as philosophy?

But no, I was focusing more on the second sentence than the first. The second is more concrete. As to the first, the answer that is usually accepted somewhat unthinkingly is, "History decides."

...discourse and dissection. So I'll go back to the suggested demarcation criteria, that we stop just making shit up when we start dissecting, and that this is what marks the move form myth making to doing philosophy. — Banno

I agree with this, with the caveat that there is nothing wrong with "making shit up" provided we don't take it to be real, or to be the truth.

He explicitly situates himself within realism within the realism/antirealism debate within analytic philosophy. But the expectation is that he explicitly situate himself in Heidegger's history. — Banno

I see what you mean, and I tend to agree. My point was simply that he need not explicitly situate himself at all, unless such situating would be an integral part of his analysis and discourse. I say that because I take it as read that we, and all the thinkers of the past, present and future are always situated within a cultural and historical context.

We end up using multiple disciplines because experience warns us that we ought to. — frank

I think this is pretty much it.

:up:

There is, for example, no actual philosophical work by anyone anywhere in this thread. At least on this view. Strictly speaking. — Srap Tasmaner

Did I misunderstand you here? I had understood that this was becasue of the topic, not the degree of formality...

I think I'm having trouble with the apparent juxtaposition of formal and natural languages. I understand formal language as a subclass of natural language, not as its antithesis. "A = apples" is as much a part of English as "May I introduce you to George?" The difference is in the rules around "=" that permit substitution extensionally...

Formal language is just natural language with more explicit restrictions and explanations.

So what is philosophy? The demarcation criteria I've suggested a few times, to little effect, is that doing philosophy involves going back and looking again at what we have said, and checking how it hangs together.

So 's nephew is applying and doing a bit of nomenclature, but not philosophy. If he had been challenged to count the legs on a spider - an activity that might have involved some discussion of the difference between pedipalps and legs, and quite a bit of fun - and then challenged to decide whether a spider is an insect, or whether insects have six legs - then he might be doing philosophy, by giving due consideration to the way he was using "insect", "Spider", "octopus" and so on. The key shift is from naming to examining concepts and categories.

In this account, any formalisation is a tool for doing philosophy well.

@Ludwig V, this also is a part-answer to our PM chat about the place of logic in the analysis of language.

So, in a way, I do think that the idea of formal logic as regularization of natural language is simplistic, though not wrong. — Ludwig V

I like simple.

Banno's position here is interesting because he is strongly committed both to the primacy of natural language and the usefulness of classical logic. The argument he often makes is that classical logic is not something you find implicit in ordinary language, as its hidden structure, say, but you can choose to conform your language use to it. — Srap Tasmaner

Yep. I'm pleased and flattered to see this clear reflection on my view. Thanks.

I think that view actually rhymes quite well with the description I've been trying to develop of how formal, technical language can be embedded in natural language, much as mathematical language is and must be embedded in natural language. — Srap Tasmaner

And again, very much Yep!

So whether we make use of formal logic or natural
language in service of philosophy, if our focus is on reducing our experience of the world to fit the idealizations of logic or the categorical universalities of language we are failing to address the most fundamental philosophical question; what is the nature of our subjective comportment toward the world such that it makes possible the invention of abstractions which leave out the relevant and purposeful way in which we encounter the meaningful world? — Joshs

Seems to me as examining "the nature of our subjective comportment toward the world such that it makes possible the invention of abstractions which leave out the relevant and purposeful way in which we encounter the meaningful world?" just is examining concepts and categories - language.

The mistake here would be restricting such contemplations to "subjective".

And that's why I'm sceptical about phenomenology.

Do you think Russell and Wittgenstein, after 1930 -32, could have managed something like this? I'm really not sure. — Srap Tasmaner

Excellent example.

[He] has a kind of mystic insight, and seems to think ordinary language is good enough for philosophy. I do not agree." — Russell, letter to Gilbert Ryle, 1945

I think what Williamson wants is for you and I to be rigorous enough that if we disagree it is clear that we do, and, in the best case, we can agree on what would count as resolving the dispute, and, in the very best case, we agree on a way of getting there and know what it is. — Srap Tasmaner

Well, it's clear enough that Russell and the later Wittgenstein disagreed; could they resolve the dispute?

Curious that Russell put so much effort into ethics - especially in his later life; yet so little into aesthetics. But I think Russell recognised that Wittgenstein had moved on to doing an aesthetics of philosophy; and didn't like it. So no resolution between them; however we might be able to see what their differences were, and to articulate the psychology that prevented Russell from dealing well with Philosophical Investigations.

Russell could not reach an accomodation with Wittgenstein, but we might at least see what was of concern in their disagreement.

And we head into issues of Charity. We may not be able to agree on a method of resolution, but we can try to interpret the disagreement charitably enough that we understand what was at stake for each of them.

There is, for example, no actual philosophical work by anyone anywhere in this thread. At least on this view. Strictly speaking. — Srap Tasmaner

Did I misunderstand you here? I had understood that this was becasue of the topic, not the degree of formality...

I think I'm having trouble with the apparent juxtaposition of formal and natural languages. I understand formal language as a subclass of natural language, not as its antithesis. "A = apples" is as much a part of English as "May I introduce you to George?" The difference is in the rules around "=" that permit substitution extensionally...

Formal language is just natural language with more explicit restrictions and explanations. — Banno

I'll try this (and see what I think tomorrow).

In fields that have a perspicuous notation available (mathematics, chemistry, music, etc), the moments when a professional reaches for that notation are often the moments when he is doing (or demonstrating) the work of that field rather than talking about it. That's why they have the notation. English was already available for talking about the field. (This is not meant as an absolute, obviously.)

Philosophy doesn't really have its own notation like this, and probably cannot, but that doesn't mean there isn't still a distinction between doing the work of philosophy and just talking about it. It's just that we can't rely on differing modes of expression to identify which is which. We can do this a little ― there's logical and mathematical notation philosophers find use for, and you can draw attention to definitions or theses for which the precise wording is important (something like the house style at the SEP).

So I have not been trying to claim that real work can only be done in a more formal mode of expression, only that in other disciplines the choice of that formal mode is an indicator that we're working (or demonstrating, etc), rather than just talking about it.

Deleuze writes: "It is said of a world the very ground of which is difference, in which everything rests upon disparities, upon differences of differences which reverberate to infinity (the world of intensity). — Joshs

Georg Wikman: "Difference is seen as more basic than similarity. The reason is that similarity presupposes difference which makes difference logically prior to similarity."

"But any "difference that makes a difference" is of course actual, sheer potential itself being nothing at all. Difference presumably presupposes something to be different. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There's a similarity between Deleuze and Wikman, but you've added an 'a', which changes the meaning.

In a bit (of information as in computer science), there is a difference between 0 and 1. It is a difference that does not make a difference. With a pair of bits there is a difference between pairs which contain a difference (01, 10) and pairs which don't (00,11). There's a difference between the presence and absence of difference. Now the 0s and 1s can be dispensed with entirely, never to be mentioned again, and everything can be built from difference. There was really no need to mention them in the first place.

This is how I (mis?)understand Deleuze.


Perhaps this helps.

I agree with this, with the caveat that there is nothing wrong with "making shit up" provided we don't take it to be real, or to be the truth. — Janus

Some shit we made up might even be true.

The question is, how do you decide which is which?

My point was simply that he need not explicitly situate himself at all — Janus

Yes, fair enough. Others will situate him, of course, but that's their problem, presumably.

Ok, I don't think that addresses my point at all though. A bit has to be a 1 or 0. I was just quoting the article. A non-actual difference on the classical use of "actual" is not a difference.

In a bit (of information as in computer science), there is a difference between 0 and 1. It is a difference that does not make a difference.

This is not true of information theory (or complexity studies, cybernetics, etc.) i.e, that a bit is a "difference that does not make a difference" though. I am not sure were you are getting that. Quite the opposite.The phrase "a difference that makes a difference" comes from Donald MacKay and Gregory Bateson, and is hugely influential in the application of information theory (probably in every intro class to help define it). The whole idea is that the media has to allow a measurable difference for it to contain information at all. You can abstract the bit from all physical media, but then you're still positing a difference to be aware of, one that makes a difference. If they didn't make a difference, then 0 and 1 are should be considered identical on conventional views. The notion here is pretty similar to how Hegel thinks that sheer indeterminate being, being contentless, collapses into nothingness. There are parallels between Hegel, Spencer Brown's Laws of Form, and Floridi's work in the philosophy of information here.

Shannon's original theory is in the context of receiving messages (or we could consider making measurements), and in either case a 1 has to be different (be discernible) from a 0 to be a 1 at all. This is why digital physics was lambasted. Bits cannot be "building blocks" that the cosmos is "made of," because they depend on context to be anything at all (and so we might say that they refer outside themselves for their being). For example, an electron measured against a field background that all has the same exact measured value as an electron would cease to be something different from the background. When physicists talk about the information carrying capacity of particles they are still talking about their variance from not measuring said particles (the difference that makes a difference).

This is what Bohm is speaking to. Hence, I don't think he is totally correct about the priority of difference, the two principles are arguably both required to make sense of the other, the bit always referring outside of itself. I suppose we might also ask whether the bit is always essence (form) as compared to other form (background) and not accounting for existence, which must be prior to difference and similarity. Because, in a certain sense, the order of being itself could be considered an overaching similarity. This is certainly something in the Analogia Entis, but it seems true of the wholeness of Bohm's implicate order or even perhaps Deleuze's plane of immanence (though no doubt he would probably want to deny that).

Obviously, Deleuze uses terms differently. This is always a difficulty in translation. In the original sense of "virtual" (as first employed in scholasticism), for instance, it would not make sense to talk of something like a "virtual difference" prior to any actuality, because, in denying all actuality, you would just be talking about nothingness. Virtual has the same root as virtue, it's about a power (potency), but for a specific power to be a power it has to be potency shaped by some prior actuality, or else it is just the sheer potency of being "nothing at all." So, for instance sight is the power to see, it is potential, but it also isn't totally indeterminate, it has a formal object, etc. Likewise, in the example of an embryo, if the virtual power were prior to all actuality, an embryo would be "nothing at all," or "nothing in particular," on the scholastic usage.

So I have not been trying to claim that real work can only be done in a more formal mode of expression, only that in other disciplines the choice of that formal mode is an indicator that we're working (or demonstrating, etc), rather than just talking about it. — Srap Tasmaner

"Indicator"? Perhaps. It's certainly not a sufficient condition. There is no escaping the question of intention in this matter. One can without a formal mode of expression, and they can fail to say something in a formal mode of expression. One can "chit chat" in logicalese. Indeed the way you and fdrake default to model-modes without defaulting to necessarily saying anything is an easy example of chit chat in formal notation. The "equals sign" in a math equation signifies assertion, but it can be intended quasi-assertorically. The "therefore sign" in a logical proof signifies assertion, but can be intended quasi-assertorically or hypothetically. In any case, the subject-predicate form of natural language also signifies assertion (and can also be intended quasi-assertorically).

For example, suppose that tomorrow we find a proof written by Gödel. It is just a block of formal notation. Has he "said something"? Is it "work"? Or is it "chit chat"? Apart from context and intention, we really don't know. It could be a draft or a tentative attempt to salvage someone else's work, or it might be something that he fully believed and wished to publish.

And I have some sympathy with that view, and have said before that the overwhelming majority of my own posts are just chitchat, sometimes gossip, like talk in the faculty lounge or at a bar. Now and then I've done some actual work here, but not often. There is, for example, no actual philosophical work by anyone anywhere in this thread. At least on this view. Strictly speaking. — Srap Tasmaner

I'd say the only difference between "chit chat" and "work" is the level of assertion involved. The fact that both are necessary is an example of the necessity of certitude-shifting. When professors chat in the faculty lounge they are "floating" ideas or theories. They are proferring possible hypotheses and looking to see how others might test them. It is like testing a foothold before continuing to climb, or feeling out one's opponent before the match actually begins, or surveying stones on the beach before gathering them and taking them to the polisher. All of this involves micro-assertion and preparatory assertion.

But it all aims and builds towards actual assertion, towards actually . Those who are never ultimately willing to say anything are constantly prepping cakes that will never be baked. Those who are most interested in the preparatory work or the syntax have placed the means above the end.

Some shit we made up might even be true.

The question is, how do you decide which is which? — Banno

This is the problem Socrates talked about when he said every philosopher longs for death so he or she can stand outside of life and finally see it from that vantage point. We don't have access to that place outside of life.

I think even AP philosophers sometimes build castles in the air and offer that some scaffolding will be provided at a later date, for instance, Davidson. In the meantime, his theory of meaning does work, but it works for realism as easily as it does for anti-realism. That underlying question remains unanswered. And it probably always will.

@Joshs

This is how I (mis?)understand Deleuze.

↪J
Perhaps this helps. — GrahamJ

Yes, thanks, and it's close to the sort of paraphrase I would have offered. The problem for me -- in my language, that is -- is that none of this is about anything that could be called "ontological priority." If we said "conceptual priority" instead, what would be lost? What would be gained is that we're now using a much more familiar idea, both within analytic phil and in educated non-specialist discourse. That doesn't automatically make it the best way to go, of course -- especially given the concerns raised earlier about "familiarity" -- and that's why I'm asking what "ontological priority" may be contributing that "conceptual priority" does not.