I don't think it makes sense to say that a statement makes an assertion. People make assertions. — frank

OK. Let me rephrase:

Compare
1) I assert, "The cat is on the mat."
2) I assert, "I think that my cat is on the mat."

Would you agree that these two assertions by me assert different things?

I'm talking about the confidence that a person's intention is knowable in principle. I think that's probably a priori. — frank

Ah, sorry, I was off track. Interesting. I guess I'd respond that we have the same confidence about this re some other person as we have re ourselves. So that leaves a couple of questions: How confident is that? and, Do you mean a priori to the given circumstances, or a priori in some more deeply metaphysical way? I doubt the latter; I think we learn to be confident just as we learn anything else.

Good posts all around. I sympathize with Williamson. :up:

To switch to another sorts metaphor, anti-realists won't step up to the plate, but hang around off to the side claiming they could easily get a hit if they wanted to. — Srap Tasmaner

Another way to phrase this would be to say that anti-realists claim to be playing a different game—they claim to be at a kind of intentional cross-purpose with the realist—but they won't lay out the game that they are playing. If they laid out their own game, then perhaps the realist could play that game for a stretch, or else compare the two different games. If they showed that they are engaged in a disciplined activity, then they would fulfill Williamson's most fundamental criterion.

If there were ideas definite enough to be discredited (or not) put forward, Williamson wouldn't have written this paper. Since they refuse to get in the game, as he sees it, they have discredited not their ideas but themselves. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, and this comes too close for my liking to "flaw-based" resolution of a difficult issue. The anti-realists "refuse to get in the game" -- hmmm. What do they say about that? Would they accept that characterization?

playing a different game — Leontiskos

My memory is that that's how this whole things started: Dummett pointed out that some philosophers seemed to be playing a game that they did not realize was rigged against them, so they tended to flounder.

The solution he proposed was to recognize when you were inclined to deny that a specific type of statement within a given domain was bivalent.

(Dummett also had no truck with more than two truth values, so for him (and I believe Williamson agrees with him about this) intuitionistic logic becomes especially attractive: the sentential operator "not" is understood as "it has not been demonstrated that ..." Hence the double negative is merely "it has not been demonstrated that it has not been demonstrated that ..." )

So, side R made the rules for the first version of the game (universal bivalence); the other side AR made a new set of rules that gave them a fair chance, but those rules were never accepted by side R (because you lose LEM).

this comes too close for my liking to "flaw-based" resolution of a difficult issue — J

One way to read the paper is that Williamson proposes an alternative to "my theory versus your theory", namely results, success, new knowledge. Proof is in the pudding.

(For instance, skeptics of intuitionistic logic have to admit it has proved very useful for proof theory, and thus for creating automated proof checkers. That's a success.)

Then he has to come up with a plausible story about a kind of result all parties of good faith could recognize.

And you do all this so that the choice between theories or approaches is not "merely aesthetic". (@Moliere)

Suppose we put two identical nothings side by side and assert a difference between them. We could write it like {|}. No jokers to the left, no clowns to the right, but here I am. Now we have something, we can put to the left of nothing {{|} | } or the right of nothing { | {|}}. And that's how you make 0, 1, and -1, as surreal numbers. Then you can reverberate to infinity and beyond. — GrahamJ

Notice that you start with the assumption that 2 entities are identical on some qualitative basis, even if that basis is merely imagined. Then you place them side by side, which allows you to count each of them as instances of the quality they share ( they comprise 2 nothings). Deleuze is saying that when we think we are generating a qualitative identity, or two instances of that identity, we are actually transforming the qualitative sense of the first as we arrive at the second. So there are in fact no two instances of a single qualitative meaning, whether we call it nothing or something. ‘Nothing’ is not a neutral placeholder, because there is no such thing. Mathematical was developed to apply to self-identical objects, and so presupposes the existence of these qualitatively self-identical objects. Deleuze argues that extensive calculations of self-identical quality is an illusory surface effect of what he calls intensive quantity, or just intensity.

“An intensity, for example, is not composed of addable and displaceable magnitudes: a temperature is not the sum of two smaller temperatures, a speed is not the sum of two smaller speeds. Since each intensity is itself a difference, it divides according to an order in which each term of the division differs in nature from the others. Distance is therefore a set of ordered differences, in other words, differences that are enveloped in one another in such a way that it is possible to judge which is larger or smaller, but not their exact magnitudes. For example, one can divide movement into the gallop, trot, and walk, but in such a way that what is divided changes in nature at each moment of the division, without any one of these moments entering
into the composition of any other. Therefore these multiplicities of "distance" are inseparable from a process of continuous variation, whereas multiplicities of "magnitude" distribute constants and variables.” (ATP)

My memory is that that's how this whole things started: Dummett pointed out that some philosophers seemed to be playing a game that they did not realize was rigged against them, so they tended to flounder.

The solution he proposed was to recognize when you were inclined to deny that a specific type of statement within a given domain was bivalent. — Srap Tasmaner

Interesting.

(Dummett also had no truck with more than two truth values, so for him (and I believe Williamson agrees with him about this) intuitionistic logic becomes especially attractive: the sentential operator "not" is understood as "it has not been demonstrated that ..." Hence the double negative is merely "it has not been demonstrated that it has not been demonstrated that ..." ) — Srap Tasmaner

That sounds fine to me, though I don't see "undemonstrated" or "unjustified" as a truth value. I was trying to explain something similar <recently>, to little avail.

And you do all this so that the choice between theories or approaches is not "merely aesthetic". (@Moliere) — Srap Tasmaner

Right, and "disciplined" seems like a plausible way to do that. Or else @Count Timothy von Icarus' "determinate," specifically in the teleological sense.

This is why I think Aquinas' approach provides the universal condition:

Every agent, of necessity, acts for an end... — Aquinas, ST I-II.1.2.c - Whether it is proper to the rational nature to act for an end?

If a philosopher who is thinking about something is acting for a (determinate) end, then the discipline is already implicitly to hand. Those who claim not to be acting for any end when doing philosophy are just confused or lacking in self-knowledge. Williamson's "discipline" is one kind of end, and it is a rather foundational kind of end. So instead of asking, "What disciplines your thoughts/claims?," Aquinas might ask, "What end(s) are you acting for when you philosophize in this way?"

---

This also solves things such as this:

My first reaction is that of course there need be nothing in common between the various language games. My second, that not all language games involve justification. — Banno

All "language games" involve acting for ends.

That sounds fine to me, though I don't see "undemonstrated" or "unjustified" as a truth value. — Leontiskos

Intuitionistic logic is a whole thing, which we probably don't want to get into here, and to which I would not count as a reliable guide. It's part of the gossipy backstory of this paper, is all.

- I agree. My only concern with Williamson is that he at times seems to conflate standards. He seems to say that any discipline is better than no discipline, and then moves on too quickly into a sort of discipline-hierarchy. I don't have any problem with that distinction, so long as we do not forget that a weak discipline is still better than nothing. I think it is important to single out that lowest common denominator standard of having some discipline, however insubstantial.

OK. Let me rephrase:

Compare
1) I assert, "The cat is on the mat."
2) I assert, "I think that my cat is on the mat."

Would you agree that these two assertions by me assert different things? — J

Maybe. The quoted part looks like an uttered sentence. Strictly speaking, I have to have knowledge of the context of utterance to help me understand what you're saying. In other words, I'd need to make sure you didn't do any nonverbal stuff that signals sarcasm or something like that. I can't just use the sentence. Even Davidson wasn't just using the sentence as a truth bearer, and that's related to his theory of meaning.

If on the other hand, the quoted part is supposed to represent a proposition, then yes, it's definitely two different things. The proposition has all the context of utterance, truth conditions, etc. worked out.

I'm talking about the confidence that a person's intention is knowable in principle. I think that's probably a priori.
— frank

Ah, sorry, I was off track. Interesting. I guess I'd respond that we have the same confidence about this re some other person as we have re ourselves. So that leaves a couple of questions: How confident is that? and, Do you mean a priori to the given circumstances, or a priori in some more deeply metaphysical way? I doubt the latter; I think we learn to be confident just as we learn anything else. — J

I think human speech might be similar to bird flight. The potential for it is hardwired, and it becomes actual when circumstances trigger the development. I mean, a gene has been identified that's related to speech, so there's some reason to suspect that it's not something a person learns. It's something that's triggered in the right environment.

lowest common denominator — Leontiskos

Sometimes a grandmaster discussing a game will say something like this: "I looked at sacrificing the pawn, but I didn't see anything concrete." "Concrete" here is a magic word; it means actual variations leading to a specific advantage, not just "I'll have more piece activity," or something vague like that.

A lot of discussion of chess in the pre-engine era turns out to have been mere handwaving if not outright bullshit. Once you have a machine that cares a lot more about the concrete than vague evaluations, chess starts to look different.

I think Williamson's minimum requirement is theories that produce something concrete. Rather than "I think white stands better" versus "I think black", show me some actual variations.

That's right. In the previous thread I even focused a bit on the concept of goodness. "Why did you act in that way?" "Because it was a good way to act." Or, "Why did you act in that way rather than the other way?" "Because it was the better way to act." In philosophy one needs to actually explain why some course is good or better. The chess analogy would be, "It was the best move available," but then in order to substantiate that claim one would have to canvass the other possibilities, along with their inferiority.

So I definitely agree that "theories that produce something concrete" is a good metaphor. But @J is going to say, "But what about the guy who thinks it is better to produce something that isn't concrete? What about the possibility that someone might not prefer concreteness?" At this point I think Aquinas is helpful insofar as he moves us out of the metaphorical space. It is much harder to respond to Aquinas with, "But what about the guy who wants to aim at something he is not aiming at?" Or, "But what about the guy who wants to do philosophy purposelessly?"

And to be fair, "actual variations leading to a specific advantage," is not metaphorical, so we already have a non-metaphorical standard for the chess game.

If on the other hand, the quoted part is supposed to represent a proposition, then yes, it's definitely two different things. The proposition has all the context of utterance, truth conditions, etc. worked out. — frank

I think we have to let the quoted part represent a proposition; that was my intention, anyway. Though it may not matter, in this sense: If the quoted part is merely a speech act, an utterance, by prefacing it with "I assert" I have arguably turned it into a proposition.

But OK, you agree that the two assertions mean two different things. Now we go back to the question, "What's the problem with 1st- and 2nd-person assertions?"

1) I assert, "The cat is on the mat." - call the quoted material P.
2) I assert, "I think that my cat is on the mat." - call the quoted material Q.

1), "I assert P", is an assertion about a state of affairs that is independent of me, the speaker.

2), "I assert Q", is, or can be taken as, an assertion about me, the speaker -- specifically, about a thought I have concerning my cat.

But this seems to claim that the truth of 2) isn't dependent on the truth of P. The truth of P -- whether or not the cat is on the mat -- will have no bearing on whether the same speaker had a particular thought. This is a very uncomfortable position to defend.

What has gone wrong, if anything has, will be the result of how "think" is being interpreted in Q. We all know that a statement of the form "I think that . . . " can be used to describe a mental event, though we would more commonly say something like, "I have the thought that . . . " or "It's just occurred to me that . . . " In philosophy, though, "I think that . . . " is more often supposed to be transparent. It doesn't refer to some particular mental occurrence at all, but instead to a belief or a position about whatever is being thought: "Do you think so?" "Yes, I do." So "X" and "I think that X" are both taken as 3rd person propositions. Can this be right?

I won't get any deeper into this, because you only asked me where I saw the problem, and this should be a good enough explanation, I hope.

Here's a quick example (from Wittgenstein) of everything, I hope.

Is the standard meter rod (or whatever it's called) itself 1 meter long?

The question assumes a bivalence that turns out to be troublesome. "Obviously" and "obviously not" both spring to mind and are both defensible.

Some will be inclined to shrug off the question and say it is "by convention". But Quine argued (repeatedly and at length) that "true by convention" is actually incoherent.

So then David Lewis comes along and writes a book (cleverly titled "Convention") that gives a rigorous definition of convention in terms of game theory (complete with lemmas and theorems), and applying it to semantics, and Quine writes a preface saying Lewis has done more than any other philosopher to mount a defense of "truth by convention".

I think Williamson here says, this is how it's done. You put in the work, develop the theory as far as you can, and you'll at least have some evidence for or against, insofar as some obstacles are overcome or roadblocks to progress appear.

No, we're actually in agreement here. The difficulty with posting is that it's hard to convey the tone of voice, or the fact that something is being proposed for consideration rather than asserted as true! I also think the Fregean conception is, if not a mess, at least deserving of hard questioning. The "contextless sense" of assertion has been critiqued, fairly recently, by both Kimhi and Rodl. — J

I'm sorry if I over-reacted. I'm a bit obsessed about the need to kill the idea of a meaning-object. It's called a proposition in standard philosophese, but the name doesn't matter. It's the role that's the problem.

That said, I do think the "utterance/assertion" distinction is useful, as a place to start talking. After all, we need some way to acknowledge that something said by me at time T1, and something said by you at time T2, can assert the same thing, on one reasonable understanding of "assertion." As long as it's 3rd personal. — J

The vocabulary around this is incredibly rich and therefore compicated and difficult to organize. I don't think that there are answers waiting in natural language - anything we do would be a specialized use of the terms. Utterance/assertion for the distinction you have in mind might well work; the same is true of sentence/statement or a version of the type/token distinction. There was an idea around at one time that a proposition should be defined as a sentence with its use, which would be better. I don't have any answers. We could try to agree a list of issues, like this one and then try working down it. Perhaps others might join in.

This has a lot of consequences when scientists tend to be publishing many of the more philosophical best sellers. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Oh, yes, indeed. It can be very frustrating. But scientists have established first claim on knowledge and, for some reason, on wisdom as well. I have the impression that philosophers, since around the sixties, are confined to niche labelled "oddball". When I had a job in philosophy, from time to time people would ask me what I did. "Philosophy" was a real conversation-stopper.

Economics is a fine example, the texts I've taught are filled with properly philosophical presuppositions about politics and philosophical anthropology. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Economics has managed to establish itself as the most like "proper" science of the social sciences. It's all illusion. Fortunately, there are some cracks where economics is recognized as the result of human behaviour.

Since they refuse to get in the game, as he sees it, they have discredited not their ideas but themselves. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, but how do they see it? You can't have an argument or negotiation, decide on a winner or anything else unless the other side is in the game. If they won't play your game, you can just play by yourself or go and get involved in the other guy's game.
But in fairness to him, his actual complaint is that neither side takes seriously what he takes seriously - or is the following quotation not clear?

Surprisingly, however, most participants in the Dummett-inspired debates between realism and anti-realism have shown little interest in the success of truth-conditional semantics, judged as a branch of empirical linguistics. Instead, they have tended to concentrate on Dummett’s demand for ‘non-circular’ explanations of what understanding a sentence with a given truth-condition ‘consists in’, when the speaker cannot verify or falsify that condition. — Must Do Better p.3

I read this as saying that Williamson's problem is that most participants on both sides are ignoring what he thinks is important. It needs an argument to show how and why it is important, which is missing here. The other half of the problem is that most participants are concentrating on Dummett's demand. On the face of it, and without an argument, that does seem reasonable. The beef here is in the arguments, which Williamson does not discuss.
I am not particularly hostile to what Williamson wants to do and I'm not sufficiently well read to comment on it. But I don't think this is likely to resonate with anyone who does not already share his presuppositions.

neither side — Ludwig V

Yeah that's fair. My memory of the paper is probably colored a bit by knowing which side Williamson is on.

I think Williamson here says, this is how it's done. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, that is a good example.

I'm going to let the thread simmer a bit before adding anything. You and I seem to agree with large portions of Williamson. I want to give those who disagree a chance to speak, given that many of us have been trying to argue this point for months and the naysayers always get quiet whenever the subject is broached directly.

1), "I assert P", is an assertion about a state of affairs that is independent of me, the speaker.

2), "I assert Q", is, or can be taken as, an assertion about me, the speaker -- specifically, about a thought I have concerning my cat.

But this seems to claim that the truth of 2) isn't dependent on the truth of P. The truth of P -- whether or not the cat is on the mat -- will have no bearing on whether the same speaker had a particular thought. This is a very uncomfortable position to defend. — J

Why would the truth of 2 be dependent on the truth of P?

In philosophy, though, "I think that . . . " is more often supposed to be transparent. It doesn't refer to some particular mental occurrence at all, but instead to a belief or a position about whatever is being thought: "Do you think so?" "Yes, I do." So "X" and "I think that X" are both taken as 3rd person propositions. Can this be right? — J

Think, know, and believe are called intensional operators. They signify what's going on between a person and a proposition. You're adding another layer to this.

I'm not really sure what you're saying though.

You and I seem to agree with large portions of Williamson. — Leontiskos

I would at least say, perhaps incorrectly, that I think I get where he's coming from, and I do have considerable sympathy with the view expressed, but I also have reservations.

There honestly isn't much point in "taking his side" here or not because the paper itself, as he acknowledges, is pretty handwavy. As philosophy, it's pretty weak tea, but it might be strong medicine for philosophers.

Why would the truth of 2 be dependent on the truth of P? — frank

If P is not true, then the cat is not on the mat. So if I assert Q -- "I think that the cat is on the mat" -- some would allege that I am mistaken. But what am I mistaken about? Not my own thought, presumably. I must be wrong about the cat. This seems to show that the cat needs to be on the mat in order for me to speak truly when I say 2.

But I think all of this is wrong. The truth of 2 has nothing to do with whether P is true.

You're adding another layer to this. — frank

Precisely, following some of Rodl's concerns especially, about how to handle 1st-personal assertions.

I'm not really sure what you're saying though. — frank

That the use of intentional operators is conventional, and admits of different interpretations, especially around "I think". Or, more interestingly, our entire understanding of what a proposition is supposed to be -- as @Ludwig V suggests above -- is in need of revisiting.

The vocabulary around this is incredibly rich and therefore compicated and difficult to organize. I don't think that there are answers waiting in natural language - anything we do would be a specialized use of the terms. — Ludwig V

I'd still like to explore the natural-language usages a bit more, because some of them are fairly common and intuitive, and might teach us something. I bet @Banno knows who's already done this?

For instance, the idea "We're both saying the same thing" is easily grasped by a bright child. So what does that mean, when it comes up in typical contexts? How might it need to be modified in order to serve more rigorous philosophical purposes? Wonder if anyone's ever thought of that before! :lol:

There honestly isn't much point in "taking his side" here or not because the paper itself, as he acknowledges, is pretty handwavy. As philosophy, it's pretty weak tea, but it might be strong medicine for philosophers. — Srap Tasmaner

Very true. Still, we can find things to agree or disagree with, and @J has disagreed with a few things:

I know what you mean, and the mathematical analogy makes clear what "actual philosophical work" might look like, on this view. But I think -- and don't you? -- that this view is wrong. Two reasons... — J

Yes, and this comes too close for my liking to "flaw-based" resolution of a difficult issue. The anti-realists "refuse to get in the game" -- hmmm. — J

I think that even if we can attribute to Williamson the simple claim that <Philosophy must be disciplined by something>, then @J (and also @Banno to a lesser extent) will disagree.

@J's disagreement could be phrased in different ways, but this would be one of them:

1. If we place a necessary condition on philosophy, then we run the risk of disqualifying some would-be philosophers.
2. We should not run the risk of disqualifying some would-be philosophers.
3. Therefore, we should not place any necessary conditions on philosophy.

This theme underlies @J's thinking from his very first threads, and perhaps you can see how from that form of exclusion or disqualification we get the label, "authoritarian." It's the very same issue, and it comes up every time someone proscribes a philosophical move or approach. It is the position which says that philosophical proscription is per se inadmissible, and the natural effect is 's "Anything goes."

Yeah that's fair. My memory of the paper is probably colored a bit by knowing which side Williamson is on. — Srap Tasmaner

I wouldn't say that. I reckon that Williamson makes it pretty clear which side he's on right through th meat of the article (say pp. 4 - 9). It's a bit of a giveaway that he presents developments in logic which seem to him to give a lot of support (though empirical linguistics may be a bit of a stretch for philosophy) to one side and goes into great detail about the weakness of assertibility-conditions in relation to sentences not known to be true and not known to be false.
What I can't discern is whether he thinks his audience is open to conversion - in which case, I would have expected much more detailed argument - or he is frustrated no-one is paying him enough attention and he's declaring a plague on both houses, without expecting much change. Do you have any impression what's happened since 2004?

Or, more interestingly, our entire understanding of what a proposition is supposed to be -- as Ludwig V suggests above -- is in need of revisiting. — J

If you want an overview, try Propositions - Stanford E. P.

Wonder if anyone's ever thought of that before! — J

The emoji indicates that you know the answer is "everyone", right?

In the context of the paper, where the principal example is semantics, we could note that Williamson is going to insist that people actually try doing this analysis formally, and he has very little patience for claiming, before the work begins, that it's unnecessary or impossible.

If P is not true, then the cat is not on the mat. So if I assert Q -- "I think that the cat is on the mat" -- some would allege that I am mistaken. But what am I mistaken about? Not my own thought, presumably. I must be wrong about the cat. This seems to show that the cat needs to be on the mat in order for me to speak truly when I say 2. — J

P is the proposition that the cat is on the mat.

You asserted that you think P.

If P is false, then you are mistaken about what you thought. You aren't wrong about having thought it.

The cat definitely doesn't have to be on the mat in order for you to truly express what you think about it, either way.

That the use of intentional operators is conventional, and admits of different interpretations, especially around "I think" — J

It's "intensional" with an "s." This is Hesperus/Phosphorus territory. Skim through that article. We've thought a lot about thinking, believing, and knowing. The article on extensional definitions is also interesting.

Or, more interestingly, our entire understanding of what a proposition is supposed to be -- as Ludwig V suggests above -- is in need of revisiting. — J

How would you revisit it?

Do you have any impression what's happened since 2004? — Ludwig V

I really don't. That's right in SEP's wheelhouse though. I think of it primarily as a "review of recent literature" for grad students.

I really don't. That's right in SEP's wheelhouse though. I think of it primarily as a "recent literature review" for grad students. — Srap Tasmaner

As someone who was away from philosophy for fifteen years or so before I joined TPF, it is also very handy for me.
I'm going to have to work out how to present my case here. This stuff is an excellent starting-point. There's another article devoted to the thesis that propositions are structured objects. Another complicated confusion.

The emoji indicates that you know the answer is "everyone", right? — Srap Tasmaner

Yeah, I was kind of burlesquing the response some novices have -- "Oh, that's a great idea, let's look into it!" not realizing it has, to put it gently, occurred to others before.

If P is false, then you are mistaken about what you thought. You aren't wrong about having thought it.

The cat definitely doesn't have to be on the mat in order for you to truly express what you think about it, either way. — frank

Good, that's how I see it as well.

How would you revisit it? — frank

Have you read "Thinking and Being" by Irad Kimhi? Or "Self-Consciousness and Objectivity" by Sebastain Rodl? I'd revisit it along their lines, difficult thought that is.