Um - forgive me. But that's what I call a sentence — Ludwig V
However, the SEP article seems to want to say that a proposition is what is in common between a number of sentences or statements. That's what I don't get. — Ludwig V
How about "collection of sentences that enable us to say that the cat is on the mat in different ways" — Ludwig V
It may help here to steal an idea from the study of the arts. There, you don't get an answer to the question what makes some novels or pictures, etc. better than others. What you do get is a collection of examples which have been widely accepted as good examples. The expectation is that you will not be limited to imitating them (although that might be a useful exercise). The expectation is that students will be enabled to create new work by developing a critical judgement from those examples. The examples are collectively known as the canon.
True, there are various theories about what makes one work better than another, and students are taught these, or some of them. But they are taught as theories, subject to criticism. Again, the expectation is not that those theories will dictate what students will do. It is that those theories will be the basis of developing new ones.
Teleology is metaphysically extravagant and misleading. Galileo, Descartes, and Newton sought mechanical rather than final causes. Hume warned against inferring purposes from observed regularities. Darwin replaced natural teleology with natural selection. Wittgenstein urged philosophers to describe how things are used in practice, not to seek hidden purposes or essences. So today, to speak of ends in the Aristotelian sense is to reinvigorate a discredited metaphysical picture
Adding teleology here is making presumptions of Aristotelian metaphysics. It's already loaded. — Banno
The aim of philosophy... — Srap Tasmaner
Teleology.
We need not assume that meaningful discourse requires a teleological structure. - that we must have an aim. — Banno
A goal, at least. — Banno
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?" — Leontiskos
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. — Leontiskos
The claim would be that philosophy does not aim at knowledge, as science does, but at understanding. — Srap Tasmaner
where the verb is "understand" not "know". — Srap Tasmaner
Defeasibility, speech acts and illocutionary force are ideas that are quite well established in philosophy. But you may not [know them?]. So if you have come across them, please forgive me if I seem to be teaching my grandmother to suck eggs. — Ludwig V
So if I merely assert the sentence, without you and I stipulating what an assertion is going to mean, are you able to come to a conclusion about whether I think it's true, or only quite likely to be true?
— J
I'm not sure what "without you and I stipulating what an assertion is going to mean" is doing here. — Banno
There is a more definite take on all this available, but I can't name anyone who holds this position. (@J,. . . anyone come to mind?)
The claim would be that philosophy does not aim at knowledge, as science does, but at understanding. — Srap Tasmaner
the verb is "understand" not "know". — Srap Tasmaner
:up: If you note the part I bolded, that's what we call a proposition
— frank
Um - forgive me. But that's what I call a sentence; I would say that when it is used - to tell someone where the cat is, for example, - it becomes a statement in that context. However, I've learnt the philosophical dialect and so I know what you mean, in one sense. However, the SEP article seems to want to say that a proposition is what is in common between a number of sentences or statements. That's what I don't get. — Ludwig V
That's exactly the standard analysis. — frank
My point right here will be that, once again, clarity is a means, not the goal. — Srap Tasmaner
So there's all sorts of clarity we might want. First, we'll want to be able to tell when we have an answer, and it should be clear. Second, we want to know how to proceed toward finding an answer. For some sorts of problems, this is clear ― maybe you just need to do a calculation. But for a whole lot of questions, and I think the ones Williamson is valorizing here, we absolutely are not clear how to proceed, what procedure will, if carried out, produce an answer. — Srap Tasmaner
Great. They have enough clarity to get on with what exactly? Making other parts of mathematics clear? And in the meantime of what? Of making set theory even clearer? — Srap Tasmaner
If I had to put it into a sentence, it would be: We are so used to working with the nailed-down logical uses of natural language that we forget that those uses are agreements, often hard won. I think "assert" and "judge" are cases in point, but clearly I need to make a stronger argument for why they seem problematic to me. So I'll work on that. — J
I mean that we have to agree on what an assertion is, what counts as an assertion — J
most of the important questions in philosophy are driven by a desire to understand, not a desire to know. — J
I'm increasingly unconvinced that Banno is willing to provide his ends at all.
— Leontiskos
"Ends" are a figment of Aristotelian framing. So, no. — Banno
I think it's clear this is not Williamson's view at all. — Srap Tasmaner
I'm not sure there's a philosophy which aims at understanding as opposed to knowledge. But then I'd accept ↪J 's example if it's important down the line. — Moliere
Interested in the term of art distinction here between understand and know.
Do you mean “important questions in philosophy are driven by a desire to understand what others are saying, not a desire to know the things in the world they are talking about.” — Fire Ologist
it is as important to know as it is to understand because you can’t have one without the other, (or you can’t have the objects of one without the objects of the other). — Fire Ologist
I think you might be more at home in an anti-realist place. — frank
I think you might be more at home in an anti-realist place.
— frank
Heaven forbid! :grin: But thanks for the thought. No, my doubts aren't a good fit for anti-realism. And I don't have any stake in convincing you, or anyone else, that the "standard analysis" of truth-makers, truth-bearers, propositions, etc. can perhaps be challenged while still keeping a robust sense of non-language-game truth. I may not be advocating well for my own doubts, and I'm very far from having a worked-out theory of any of this. If you do have a look at either the Kimhi or the Rodl books, you might get a better sense. Though you have me wondering now . . . Rodl styles himself as an "absolute idealist" in the Hegelian tradition. I wonder if he would agree that that makes him an anti-realist. I don't think so -- the opposition here is not the old one between idealism and realism -- but it's an interesting question. — J
It may help here to steal an idea from the study of the arts. There, you don't get an answer to the question what makes some novels or pictures, etc. better than others. What you do get is a collection of examples which have been widely accepted as good examples. The expectation is that you will not be limited to imitating them (although that might be a useful exercise). The expectation is that students will be enabled to create new work by developing a critical judgement from those examples. The examples are collectively known as the canon.
True, there are various theories about what makes one work better than another, and students are taught these, or some of them. But they are taught as theories, subject to criticism. Again, the expectation is not that those theories will dictate what students will do. It is that those theories will be the basis of developing new ones. — Ludwig V
Fair point. So how would that work? I'd suggest Cartesian method, breaking the question down into sub-questions, answering each, and putting together an overall solution, as one possible path.Well, there is the possibility of working out how to answer a question, if you don't know. — Ludwig V
This works for me. The reason for reading the cannon is to improve on it. But in order to "improve" on it, one does not need already to have an idea of the perfect or ultimate item.The expectation is that students will be enabled to create new work by developing a critical judgement from those examples. — Ludwig V
I am a bit down on Aristotle at present, mostly becasue his ideas are being used broadly and badly in the forum. But on this, at least, we might agree.But not for his idea that there is only one such hierarchy — Ludwig V
Well, no. And this seems to me to suffer the same error as your argument in the Two ways to Philosophise thread. “To call a metaphysical claim ‘misleading’” doesn’t require that there is something to be properly led to—it only requires that the claim presents itself as if there were. “Misleading” is a pragmatic evaluation of the function or effect of the claim, not necessarily a commitment to metaphysical realism or a teleology of inquiry.To even call a metaphysical claim "misleading" instead of simply "ugly' is to suppose to there is something to be properly "lead to." — Count Timothy von Icarus
Apparently Banno's answer is, "I want to do philosophy purposelessly. I want to do philosophy aimlessly!" This is deeply confused. — Leontiskos
The phrase "If meaning is use, then use must have an end" equivocates on “end.” It reads “end” as telos—as if every use must aim at a final goal or fixed purpose. But that misrepresents the point of saying meaning is use (as in Wittgenstein). “Use” in this context refers to the way expressions function in language-games: in asking, asserting, commanding, joking, praying, etc. To say meaning is use is to locate meaning in those practical, varied, rule-governed activities—not to suggest that every instance of use must point toward a singular purpose or culminate in some definable outcome. So no, use needn’t “have an end” in the teleological sense. It need only have a role—a place in a practice, a regularity, a way it makes sense to respond. Saying that meaning is use does not bind us to the idea that use must be goal-directed in some ultimate or final way. Instead, it resists that very assumption by inviting us to look at the variety of language’s functions—how words are used in actual human life.If meaning is use, then use must have an end. — Fire Ologist
There's an obvious equivocation between understanding and knowledge, but natural language philosophy does pretty much seek understanding before knowledge. “Understanding” in this context often refers to a kind of clarity—seeing how language functions, how confusion arises, and how philosophical problems dissolve when we attend closely to our forms of life and linguistic practices. It’s not about accumulating true propositions (knowledge in the epistemological sense), but about achieving perspicuous representation.I'm not sure there's a philosophy which aims at understanding as opposed to knowledge. — Moliere
doesn’t require that there is something to be properly led to — Banno
that leads us into confusion, pseudo-questions, or circular debates — Banno
The reason for reading the canon is to improve on it. But in order to "improve" on it, one does not need already to have an idea of the perfect or ultimate item. — Banno
The core difference is that for Dummett truth concerns verification, but for Davidson truth is a primitive notion. — Banno
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