I don't see that this is not captured.

The cat is on the mat.
J judges that to be true
Banno judges that to be true. — Banno

I'm claiming that all three statements have different truth conditions. J and Banno may be "saying the same thing," but the statements are not.

If you assert "That sentence is true" you have also committed to "I judge that sentence to be true" on the grounds that to assert a sentence counts as to judge it to be true. This is not an entailment but a performance. — Banno

OK, this was my question. I agree, and the fact that you make a distinction between asserting the sentence and simply stating the proposition bears out my/our view. "That sentence is true," put forward abstractly in the semi-mysterious manner that propositions are supposed to be statable, doesn't commit anyone to judging it to be true. You need the further statement, "J asserts 'That sentence is true'" in order to do that.

By calling the connection between asserting and judging a "performance" rather than an entailment, some interesting questions surface. I agree that this is not an entailment relation. If we say it's a "counts as" relation, do we mean that it's in some sense arbitrary or stipulative? I think we should. I think we're saying that, among the many ways of using "assert" and "judge," we want to privilege this usage because it captures a relation that's important, and needs to be talked about precisely.

We're not saying that "to assert a sentence is / must be / means to judge it to be true." To say that would required consulting some reference work that lays out logical uses and/or definitions, and we've already said that this is not an entailment relation. All that's going on here is an attempt to capture a typical or standard usage: If I say "The cat is on the mat" and you ask me, do you think that's true, and I reply, "Yes, I do," then we agree that two things have happened. I've judged that the cat is on the mat, and I have asserted this in my statement about it. Could there be nuances and exceptions? Sure. Might other terms be substituted? Sure. But -- bringing in "counts as" again -- this is what generally applies in this sort of discourse.

Just be aware that some anti-realisms exist because of apparently insurmountable problems with the corresponding realism (no pun intended.) If one persists in being a hard ontological realist, for instance, it appears the basis is pure whim... or a kind of faith. There's no power to persuade.

This seems a bit much for me. Consider the most popular variety of ontological realism, physicalism. Is this based wholly on whim and faith? I should hardly think so. It might be, in many of its more popular forms, a deeply flawed ontology, but it's not because it is a brute assertion.

Second, it's not as if anti-realists are free of their own epistemic and metaphysical presuppositions. It's just that they tend to take them from the tradition that birthed physicalism and scientistsm so their primary targets tend to share them. However, if it's these starting points that lead to anti-realism being so strong, then arguably that's just an indictment of those starting points.

But does this get us to "I judge that the cat is on the mat" or "I judge that it is true that the cat is on the mat"? Are these formulations also meant to say the same thing? How?
— J
Those two statements do not assert the same thing, in my book. The link between them only holds in a very special situation. — Ludwig V

See my reply to @Banno, above. Yes, the link is situational, but perhaps not so very special.

This seems a bit much for me. Consider the most popular variety of ontological realism, physicalism. Is this based wholly on whim and faith? — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is a misunderstanding. Physicalism is not a variety of ontological realism. Ontological realism just says we have the ability to declare what the world is made of, whether physicalism, idealism, or whatever. An ontological antirealist (from soft to hard approaches), says we don't have this ability, for various reasons.

An example of a justification for ontological realism would be that God told us in some book that the world is his mind, so it's idealism. So though we don't have the means to verify that, we believe it because we believe everything in the sacred book by faith.

Physicalism, for obvious reasons, isn't likely to have that kind of justification, but whatever justification a physicalist comes up with, it will come down to faith.

Second, it's not as if anti-realists are free of their own epistemic and metaphysical presuppositions. — Count Timothy von Icarus

No, they are free. A hard ontological antirealist (like me), doesn't believe ontology is anymore than a sort of philosophical game. It has nothing to do with what it purports to be.

This is a misunderstanding. Physicalism is not a variety of ontological realism.

IDK, it's normally offered up as the paradigmatic example. At least in most forms, it makes ontological claims that are independent of human experience, language, etc., i.e. realism. "Ontological realism is the view that there are objective facts about what exists and what the nature and categories of being are." By this definition at least, most forms of physicalism/materialism would qualify. I'm not sure what you have in mind though.

Ontological realism just says we have the ability to declare what the world is made of, whether physicalism, idealism, or whatever.

Sure, and "it's physical," or "its matter," are popular answers here. Whether these can escape Hemple's Dilemma is another question, but they make the claim.

An example of a justification for ontological realism would be that God told us in some book that the world is his mind, so it's idealism. So though we don't have the means to verify that, we believe it because we believe everything in the sacred book by faith.

Physicalism, for obvious reasons, isn't likely to have that kind of justification, but whatever justification a physicalist comes up with, it will come down to faith.

Ok, well you initially said:

Just be aware that some anti-realisms exist because of apparently insurmountable problems with the corresponding realism (no pun intended.) If one persists in being a hard ontological realist, for instance, it appears the basis is pure whim... or a kind of faith. There's no power to persuade.

But now you're saying physicalism and materialism's ontological claims don't count as realism because they don't justify themselves by making an appeal to faith? So, physicalism isn't ontological realism because it isn't based on that sort of brute claim?

If ontological realism is defined by such appeals, then sure, your point stands. But that's because it appears to be tautological.

No, they are free. A hard ontological antirealist (like me), doesn't believe ontology is anymore than a sort of philosophical game. It has nothing to do with what it purports to be.

Free of all presuppositions? Like a sort of Hegelian project? This does not seem true in terms of the advocates of anti-realism I am familiar with. What is an example?

I couldn't make sense of most of your post, sorry.

So we have
The cat is on the mat
The speaker believes that the cat is on the mat
The cat=jack
And by substitution,
the speaker believes that Jack is on the mat
Which is not the case. I'm just pointing to the opacity of propositional attitudes. — Banno

Yes. None of that is in question. Though you are assuming/presupposing that the speaker does not know that the cat = jack.
Question - suppose that the speaker does know that the cat=jack. Then, by substitution, the speaker believes that Jack is on the mat. Is that not the case?

“But we keep discussing:
- our language, as it
- comes from a speaker, and as it
- references a thing in the world.

I mean every word in that last sentence.

Many OP’s start from “laws in the universe” or “ways to philosophize” or “what is belief” or so many others, and we are back to grappling over language, speakers, and the world.” -FireOlogist

I'm not sure this monomania is necessary. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I’m starting to think it is.

If we stick to all of the physical sciences, we can stick to talking about things in the world.
If we stick to logic and math, we can stick to language.
But if we want to understand speakers, namely, ourselves, if we want to “know thyself”, we, inevitably it seems, need to integrate language, speakers and the spoken about world.

All language games involve ends, but of course which ends aren't always obvious. I've had many a person tell me that "good arguments" are just those arguments that lead to people seeing things your way, or which convince them to do what you want. I find it curious when people who embrace such a view fault arguments for being merely rhetorical or aesthetic. Presumably, arguments can be as vacuous or invalid as we please, so long as they work, so long as they are "useful" (to us). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm increasingly unconvinced that @Banno is willing to provide his ends at all. He doesn't seem to even know what he is doing when he does "philosophy." Even his "dissection" requires ends and standards if it is to be at all disciplined.

So before we address the so-called "monism" question, we have to know whether there must be any ends at all; whether there must be any discipline at all.

This is related to the idea of "standards" from the previous thread. Note that we do not even have to talk about overarching standards. Any standard will do. As long as we are adhering to some standard(s), then we are being disciplined in some way, shape, or form. As Williamson notes, we don't even need to agree with one another on the importance of a standard, so long as we can see that it is being adhered to. Mere adherence achieves the minimum criterion, even if it is adherence to an absurd standard. (Incidentally, this was a huge part of the problem of the last thread, namely the opposing of so-called "monism" with the implicit position which says that standardless philosophy is legitimate.) — Leontiskos

↪Moliere

I'll try too:

We decide to build a bridge because we believe it would make our lives better, and the sense of "better" there is colorably an aesthetic judgement. Life with the bridge would be preferable, simply in terms of what we want our lives to be like.

That's persuasive, but we still have the problem that the bridge's capacity to improve our lives is instrumental; it has to succeed as a bridge, and can be judged to succeed or fail as a bridge, without any consideration of our motive for building it, and without considering whether we were right that the bridge would improve our lives in the way we wanted.

(Oh! Spectacular movie reference for this: Stanley Tucci's speech about his bridge in Margin Call, 2011.)

You can always take a step up like this, and examine anything by placing it in a wider context, but while you will gain new terms for evaluating the thing, you'll lose the ones you had before. — Srap Tasmaner

So the part I'd focus in on is "...can be judged to succeed or fail as a bridge", because this utility is what I'd say are the sorts of we'll call them interests that the engineer and builder have to keep in mind. It can be judged to succeed or fail insofar that we have some standards of utility to judge it as successful or a failure.

But since we can't see the bridge as true we have to have some standards of judgment by which it is successful. One of those standards will include things like "the builder used the best knowledge we have today in justifying the techniques employed in the building of the bridge", and that in turn is where truth comes in, I think. That is, it sort of takes care of itself in a manner of speaking about judgment. We all want truth, but we have to make inferences to get there -- and when participating on a collective project like building a bridge those standards of inference will change not just between bridge builders and philosophers, where we'd expect a difference, but between bridge builders -- or even between sites of the same bridge builder.

This will be due to various details thus far seen as worthy of consideration when building a bridge.

Important to my mind, at least, is that this will hold for any profession. Though scientists are participating in a collective project, there are also specific standards of any given lab or study or what-have-you. Much effort has been put into making these uniform, and there's just a point where choices have to be made (the standards of medicinal research are different between the United States and Europe, though there's a good deal of crossover in purpose and resemblance of the kinds of rules). These can be at random, or they can be by a trained sort of judgment -- and generally insofar that we're not dealing with some new creative effort it seems to me that it's this trained judgment of a given profession which fits within this kind of non-moral, value-based judgment.

Here for instance you didn't have to take the word "good" to have an exclusively moral sense, and I feel quite certain than Count Timothy von Icarus would not. I think your use of "aesthetic" (or maybe "beautiful" in the mooted non-traditional sense) has noticeable overlap with his use of "good". — Srap Tasmaner

True. Though that's because I am trying to figure out a way to explain this other "kind" of judgment, or capacity of thought. There's the concept of truth and knowledge and being, and there's the concept of ethical goodness (today generally thought to apply to rules-following, consequences, or character) -- and somehow these judgments differ from both of those.

So, sure, "good" does not need to be so strictly defined -- it's only because I'm trying to highlight non-moral judgment as something more than particular whim, and that this is how the practical affair of making knowledge gets done. Truth doesn't get defined by aesthetics, but truth sort of takes care of itself in the process of judgment.

I think Williamson is only demanding that philosophical theories succeed as theories, to some recognizable degree. Whether they make our lives better or worse or give us a warm fuzzy, he's presumably going to consider a separate question.

OK, I think that's a fair ask. I'd go further and note how "succeed as theories" requires specification, though, and continue the same line of thought as above -- but then I may not be countering Williamson at all. I like standards, I just think they change, and so need specification and agreement and collective understanding and such.


****

So how does that sit? Do I manage to capture truth in the process sufficiently well to your satisfaction, or does it still seem like a stretch not worth making?

this utility is what I'd say are the sorts of we'll call them interests that the engineer and builder have to keep in mind. It can be judged to succeed or fail insofar that we have some standards of utility to judge it as successful or a failure. — Moliere

I think there's room to distinguish function from utility (or interest or value or aesthetic or ...).

A bridge (I'm just going to make this up) is a structure that enables conveyance of people or goods or vehicles across an obstacle under their own power, whether that's something you value or not. A structure can fail to enable such conveyance, whether you want it to or not, and so is not (or is no longer) a bridge.

I think it's a distinction worth calling attention to because this is exactly what people hate about analytic philosophy, and why they'd rather read Nietzsche or the Stoics or Camus.

Analytic philosophy keeps values in quarantine. When we talk about "epistemic values," or some such, that's understood to be heuristic, just shorthand for "fit to purpose," more or less. We're still not taking about "why we value knowledge" or anything like that.

And this is seen as a good thing to do by the analytic community because you ward off this sort of thing: "Your analysis is correct (or incorrect) because you share (or don't share) my values." That's a hellscape analytic philosophers want no part of, but it is embraced elsewhere, with suitable obfuscations.

That's why there is a sort of "shut up and calculate" attitude in analytic philosophy, and why Williamson is demanding that people work harder. It's why his model for a successful theoretical discipline is mathematics, which he imagines sitting in the armchair next to philosophy's.

(I can put it even more colorfully. The analytic attitude is this: Philosophy doesn't need a hero; it needs a professional.)

I think it's a distinction worth calling attention to because this is exactly what people hate about analytic philosophy, and why they'd rather read Nietzsche or the Stoics or Camus. — Srap Tasmaner

So naturally what I'd say is "within the tradition of analytic philosophy values are quarantined. In its place is some non-value term called "function" "

But this is seen as a good thing so that people with different values can communicate. That's perfectly acceptable when it's not the values which are the reason people are miscommunicating, though. :D

Though I also don't think it's as much of a hellscape as perhaps the analytic philosophers imagine.

Still, I say this from outside the tower. How the professionals conduct their business is certainly less of my affair than Williamsons. If anything I'd have to be consistent in saying "the professionals say it is such and such, and so...."

But then it seems we have to agree, ahead of time, to this analytic norm in order for it to function -- we'd either have to want to escape the hellscape, or at least acknowledge that there are other ways to make appeals within analytic philosophy which more or less attempts to circumnavigate the norms of reason such that there's no choice, there's just what a professional would do.

Notice that you start with the assumption that 2 entities are identical — Joshs

So I did. I called them identical, and immediately contradicted myself by asserting a difference between them! I did not intend to call them identical. Sorry for the confusion.

Mathematical was developed to apply to self-identical objects, and so presupposes the existence of these qualitatively self-identical objects. — Joshs

That seems a substantial and interesting point. Mathematics was developed like that but category theory seems to be transforming it into something else. There's a SEP article on category theory and one which links it to structuralism. I haven't read them, but I'm happy that philosophers are thinking about this. I shall just repeat a couple of things that I heard from category theorists. They have a maxim that a mathematical object is completely determined by its relationships to other objects. They state an aim to convert every equality into an isomorphism.

That's perfectly acceptable when it's not the values which are the reason people are miscommunicating, though. — Moliere

Yes and no. An analytic philosopher can talk *about* values, the roles they play in discourse, all that sort of thing, but by and large is determined not to offer a "wisdom literature." So it might be able to "clarify" (hey @Banno) that it's the values at stake in a dispute, rather than something else, but it's not, as a rule, espousing a set of values.

But then it seems we have to agree, ahead of time, to this analytic norm in order for it to function — Moliere

Yes. And that might be down to your values. You might hope (as Tarski did, on the eve of World War II) that promoting logic and clarity would help people talk out their differences rather than kill each other. But the norm itself is just fit to purpose, like showing your work, making your arguments. It's what the community needs to do what they've set out to do, even if that thing turns out to be a huge mistake.

For the record

"Your analysis is correct (or incorrect) because you share (or don't share) my values." That's a hellscape analytic philosophers want no part of — Srap Tasmaner

Though I also don't think it's as much of a hellscape as perhaps the analytic philosophers imagine. — Moliere

I'm enough of an analytic that I do.

Heh, fair.

And so that'd be another case I'd have to make.

Yes and no. An analytic philosopher can talk *about* values, the roles they play in discourse, all that sort of thing, but by and large is determined not to offer a "wisdom literature." So it might be able to "clarify" (hey Banno) that it's the values at stake in a dispute, rather than something else, but it's not, as a rule, espousing a set of values — Srap Tasmaner

True, it's not as wide as what "wisdom literature" captures -- especially with respect to the axiological.

In a way I can't help but see that commitment to clarity as something cared about, though. It's something I care about too. And I think that the value of clarity operates at a different "level" than the values under discussion so that it's not necessarily in question when employing non-moral values.

But, then, for myself it's not such a big deal to acknowledge "in this conversation I shall adhere to the rules of analytic philosophy where this, that, and the other "move" are unpersuasive for x y z reason" -- it's almost like saying the obvious to me to the point that I begin to wonder why it was ever controversial to say.

It's like asking "Which language game are we playing then?"

Yes. And that might be down to your values. You might hope (as Tarski did, on the eve of World War II) that promoting logic and clarity would help people talk out their differences rather than kill each other. But the norm itself is just fit to purpose, like showing your work, making your arguments. It's what the community needs to do what they've set out to do, even if that thing turns out to be a huge mistake. — Srap Tasmaner

Right. I think that these are two different values -- there's what's fit to purpose (Clarity is fit to the purpose of logic), and then there's a reason beyond this purpose which justifies the selection of the purpose, or at least explains (since I don't think we need some overall Reason to justify any particular investigation -- investigations into clarity and logic for their own sake are perfectly acceptable)

Somehow that collective norm doesn't cease to be a value just because we call it "function" to my mind -- but then I ought say I'm not a professional, again, and I could easily accept that I'm simply wrong about what Williamson is getting at and it's my own little itch that's not going away, but it's not relevant.

Somehow that collective norm doesn't cease to be a value just because we call it "function" to my mind — Moliere

I get that, and maybe there's no harm in noting that there are these norms, and maybe they're in a special subcategory but maybe not, and you get the advantage of applying what you know about norms to them. Sure.

On the other hand -- and I'd have to take a few minutes to work out an example -- I worry slightly that you could choose to define analytic philosophy in terms of this set of norms it enforces, instead of the thing that required them. That could have odd results like classifying something as analytic philosophy because it follows all those norms, even though it's something quite different.

It's not that these boundaries are all that important, but if what we're doing at the moment is trying to understand what Williamson is up to, we want to know what analytic philosophy is, rather than what it looks like.

It's not that these boundaries are all that important, but if what we're doing at the moment is trying to understand what Williamson is up to, we want to know what analytic philosophy is, rather than what it looks like. — Srap Tasmaner

I have no problem with that. I'd hand it to the analytic philosopher to provide this knowledge, too. And I'd accept their rejection of odd counter-examples to take care of the worry. (I tend to think that all research programmes end up finding odd counter-examples that are besides the point -- we're just overgeneralizing)

It's important enough to know for understanding what he's doing and what we're up to.

Thinking about how various "analytic philosophy" is, I should also say that my last few posts might be very wrong-headed. Maybe it is a loose set of norms that binds it altogether. Maybe it's a "family resemblance" situation.

Sometimes I've been inclined to think that, and put a lot of emphasis on those norms (as @Banno does with "clarity"). But not at the moment.

Now you're just tempting me to point out we have a choice :D

I'll follow along with the not-family-resemblance interpretation.

And this is seen as a good thing to do by the analytic community because you ward off this sort of thing: "Your analysis is correct (or incorrect) because you share (or don't share) my values." That's a hellscape analytic philosophers want no part of, but it is embraced elsewhere, with suitable obfuscations. — Srap Tasmaner

In the last thread @J kept appealing to the community of "serious people" or "professional philosophers," and I kept pointing out that if one restricts the domain of participants to those who agree with you, then of course no one will disagree with you.

I think something similar is happening here. It's not that Analytic Philosophy is not value-laden. It's that the things we (arbitrarily?) tend to label "values" are not things that Analytic Philosophers disagree about. If you want to play the game of Analytic Philosophy before you begin you have to sign a contract that says things like, "I promise to value logical consequence." Then when you neglect to value logical consequence, rather than arguing over values the Analytic Philosopher will just point you back to your contract (or else claim that you have ceased to do Analytic Philosophy). But it looks like the violation is at one and the same time a contractual violation and a value-based violation.

Or is this mistaken, and do you think that the standards and norms of Analytic Philosophy are not correctly called values?


(I of course agree that it is mistaken to make "aesthetic" mean anything at all. An engineer has values, and they are not primarily aesthetic. Part of the problem here is that "value" is a rather ambiguous word. Values are taken to be debatable, and Analytic Philosophers take themselves to be doing non-debatable things. This is all why I prefer a clearer term, such as "end.")

I'm claiming that all three statements have different truth conditions. — J

Sure. Does any one suggest otherwise?

J and Banno may be "saying the same thing," but the statements are not. — J

The "that" in both "J judges that to be true" and "Banno judges that to be true" both have as referent "The cat is on the mat". That is why they are "saying the same thing".

I'm puzzled that this is an issue.

...stipulative... — J

That's what I had in mind. I don't see how you could assert a sentence without thereby stipulating that you judge it to be true. Asserting the sentence counts as judging it to be true.

Again, is there something here that is problematic?

To me this talk of "ends" appears hollow. If, after Wittgenstein, we should look to use rather than to meaning, you might supose that a use is an end. That's a stretch, "end" drags in to the discussion so much baggage that might not be found in "use". It also does not follow that language must therefor have an end.

...surely there has to be some notion of the end this language is "better for." — Count Timothy von Icarus

"Surely" is a word to watch out for in an argument. It indicates that the conclusion doesn't follow as tightly as he proposing the argument would like.

Adding teleology here is making presumptions of Aristotelian metaphysics. It's already loaded.

Question - suppose that the speaker does know that the cat=jack. Then, by substitution, the speaker believes that Jack is on the mat. Is that not the case? — Ludwig V

Sure. Frege's judgement stroke is a way of showing this, by clarifying the scope of the judgement:

⊢(the cat is on the mat, the cat is jack, therefore Jack is on the mat)

but not

⊢(the cat is on the mat)
⊢(the cat is jack)
⊢(therefore Jack is on the mat)

The substitution between seperate judgements is not countenanced.

I'm increasingly unconvinced that Banno is willing to provide his ends at all. — Leontiskos

"Ends" are a figment of Aristotelian framing. So, no.

Yes and no. An analytic philosopher can talk *about* values, the roles they play in discourse, all that sort of thing, but by and large is determined not to offer a "wisdom literature." So it might be able to "clarify" (hey Banno) that it's the values at stake in a dispute, rather than something else, but it's not, as a rule, espousing a set of values. — Srap Tasmaner

Seems to me that we can posit clarity as an aesthetic value. As something that we might preference not becasue of what it leads to, but for it's own sake.

Seems @Moliere agrees, but perhaps you do not. That's fine. Perhaps at the least we might agree that some folk value clarity, and not just as a means to an end. Then we might wonder if Williamson is one of them.

I don't see how you could assert a sentence without thereby stipulating that you judge it to be true. Asserting the sentence counts as judging it to be true. — Banno

This might seem like nit-picking, but I think I could assert a sentence without also judging it to be true. I could merely mean, "Yes, I'm saying this, and it's most likely true -- close enough that I'm willing to assert it." That's why it's a further stipulation that, in some discourse, "to assert" is going to mean "judge to be true." Or, as you say, "counts as judging it to be true."

I realize you want us both to accept the perfectly reasonable definition of what it means to assert something. But that definition is somewhat stipulative, somewhat technical. In particular, it hinges on a particular force of "true" that I maintain is not always intended in everyday assertions, as in the example above. No doubt we should mean this, if we want to have good tight philosophical discussion, but that's a different story,

Does any of this matter? Not as long as we know what counts as judging to be true, in our talk.

I have more to say about your other questions about why there'd be any question about my other sample sentences, but that's for later.

"Yes, I'm saying this, and it's most likely true -- close enough that I'm willing to assert it." — J

Can you do this without therewith judging that it's most likely true -- close enough that you are willing to assert it?

Here is something I have noticed in my time on TPF. You referenced the Meno and the question of whether knowledge is possible. It is, and in every kind of argument or explanation one travels towards knowledge. During the travel there is a stride length, and this stride length maps to the inferential distance one is willing to travel in any given step. Given that every inference requires a kind of “jump,” let’s call people with larger stride lengths “leapers,” and people with smaller stride lengths “hoppers.” Depending on the kind and quality of knowledge desired, one will require a different stride length.

Continentals tend to be leapers and Analytics tend to be hoppers. This doesn’t mean that Continentals are bad logicians. The well-known Continentals are not bad logicians; they simply have a larger stride length (although the students of Continentals do tend to diminish as logicians much more quickly than the students of Analytics). Yet the “hoppiness” of Analytics is more reactionary than principled. Instead of choosing a small stride length based on the object of knowledge in question, they choose a small stride length because they see errors in the work of the leapers. At the limit the Analytic becomes so hoppy that they decide that there are only zero-distance hops (tautologies) and impermissible hops (non sequitur), and they despair of the possibility of knowledge, as represented in the Meno. There is a fair bit of this on TPF, where the “dissectors” have no restraint and can therefore destroy any and every argument for so-called “knowledge.”

Aristotle is interesting because he studied so many different forms of knowledge, and he also studied the logic which allows one to arrive at the different forms. This means that Aristotle was deeply conscious of how to adjust his stride length for different situations. He knew that if one was going to build a house then they would have to take the lumber supplier’s word that the planks are eight feet long. The dissecting Analytic would come along with their micrometer and criticize the house-builder because his planks weren’t exactly eight feet, but Aristotle consistently criticized that move, where one measures or criticizes without having any clear sense of the purpose of the measurement. Taken by itself, stride length is infinitely divisible, much like the infinite divisibility of a line. The Analytic brags that he has a small stride length, but in fact stride length is always relative, and the proper stride length depends primarily on the object of knowledge or artifice, as well as on the constraints of the knower.

Seen from this vantage point, Analytic philosophy is a very specialized discipline. It is the group of hammer-wielders who only ever see nails, except instead of a hammer they have a micrometer (or else a scalpel). So I want to return to this:

I don't think any other discipline has asked for philosophy's help or wants it.

That's not to say that some kind of interdisciplinary business isn't possible and sometimes interesting, but no astronomer (or even social psychologist) has ever said, "Whoa, have you seen the new data? We're gonna need a philosopher." — Srap Tasmaner

No house-builder ever says, “We’re going to need an Analytic Philosopher with his micrometer.” But that doesn’t mean that no one ever wants philosophers. They do, it’s just that they don’t tend to import or consult external philosophers. Everyone is constantly doing philosophy, just like my nephew with his spider.

I guess the point here is that the smaller stride length of Analytic Philosophy is not a qualitative difference. If there is a qualitative difference to be had, it might have to do with the strong focus on methodology, but even then the methodology is not restricted to Analytic Philosophy. The Analytic Philosopher tends to see himself as the professional logician. I would say he’s not, at least if by “logic” we mean the art of reasoning well in order to attain new knowledge. He is the professional hopper and perhaps the professional dissector, but most people need logic with a larger stride length. They need something fit to a larger scale than the micrometer can achieve, and they need something that is synthetic and constructive rather than something that is only analytic or only capable of dissection. They need a logic like Aristotle’s, which was developed with a very large multitude of disciplines and knowledge-objects in mind. They need something that was built for real life and not for mere abstraction and meta-logic. I want to say that Aristotelianism and Scholasticism provide the rigor that Analytic Philosophy is looking for, but in a more balanced and historically adaptable way. Perhaps this is why we have seen so much recent growth in these areas.

The substitution between seperate judgements is not countenanced. — Banno

I've heard of the judgement stroke, but no-one has ever explained to me what it does before. Thank you for that.
I can see that this allows one to express what happens when we form a number of sentences into a valid argument. It gets round the uncertainty about whether P and Q are two propositions or one when there is a logical implication between them. Is that the point of the notation?

All this talk of assertions is making me think about speech acts. There are two ways of referring to the cat. What rules or habits might there be in choosing to say "Jack is on the mat" or "The cat is on the mat"? It's not a question of logic, really, but of pragmatics or perhaps semantics.
It seems reasonable to suppose that one consideration is which way of referring to this animal the person I am talking to will understand best. One might also suppose that referring to Jack or the car expresses something about the relationship I have with the animal.

I think I could assert a sentence without also judging it to be true. — J

I don't see any problem about that. We have some words for that. "Suppose that...", "Imagine that...", "Consider whether..." and possible "entertain the idea that..." - and so forth. Given that, I think that in natural language "assert" is normally taken to imply "assert to be true". Asserting to be false is usually called denying.

Seems Moliere agrees, but perhaps you do not. That's fine. Perhaps at the least we might agree that some folk value clarity, and not just as a means to an end. Then we might wonder if Williamson is one of them. — Banno

Could we not say that clarity has more than one value? It seems to me that clarity has moral value because there is a duty to tell the truth without obfuscation or evasion. It is also has pragmatic value, because clear communicaton is more likely to succeed. And, yes, there is an aesthetic dimension as well.