What is bare reason? — Mww

https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/kant1793.pdf

It's been a minute since I read it, but that's the text I was referencing.

Place of reason. Is that supposed to indicate a condition wherein the faculty of reason is suited to be employed?

Yup! That sounds about right to me.

So Kant's place of reason means it is suitable for employment universally with respect to all experience, but not suitable for employment universally with respect to all reality?

Exactly!

So what grounds a universal reason in Hegel’s sense, such that its place is both with respect to all experience and with all reality?

The dialectic. He makes some, what I consider to be, off-hand remarks on Kant's philosophy, but it's his invention of the dialectic which overcomes Kant (at least, this is how I read Hegel's intent)

And if all reality is a possible experience, and in Kant there is a place for reason with respect to possible experience, isn’t that synonymous with Hegel’s sense of a universal reason?

“….. in the expectation that there may perhaps be conceptions which relate à priori to objects.…we form to ourselves…the idea of a science of pure understanding and rational cognition, by means of which we may cogitate objects entirely à priori. A science of this kind….must be called transcendental logic, because it has….to do with the laws of understanding and reason…..only in an à priori relation to objects.

I think the big conceptual difference between Kant and Hegel is their respective use of the concept "time". Hegel challenges the law of the excluded middle on the basis of time, where Kant accepts it because he believes Aristotle started a science of logic, and he's picking up that torch to further the project of a science of logic. Hegel builds a logic which "contains" or at least allows contradiction at certain points of time in the name of sublation, due to his reading of the history of philosophy (which, in its expression in The Phenomology of Mind/Spirit, isn't even chronological!)

I'd emphasize the popular quote "The rational is real, and the real is rational" -- where Kant would deny our knowledge of the real in certain respects (explicitly: God, Freedom, and Immortality).

Which is not to disbelieve in the pure thought that there may be conceptions which relate a priori to objects, but only disbelieve in the relating the conceptions to the objects, or, which is the same thing, disbelieve in cognizing objects entirely a priori given their antecedent conceptions.

Without a Kantian transcendental logic, how do space and time, purely transcendental conceptions, relate entirely a priori to objects? Apparently, Hegel has a way, himself a transcendental philosopher, so I’m led to think. Or at least a German idealist in some strict sense.\

Hegel: the categories define what it is to be an object in general, such that it can be given, separating the immanent from the transcendent;
Kant: the categories define** the conditions for knowing what an object in general is, its being already given, separating experience from illusion.
(**not really, but for the sake of consistency…..)

So….it’s fine to disbelieve in Kantian transcendental logic, which presupposes a fair understanding of what it is, but how is Hegel’s logic any less transcendental?

Heh. You're asking the wrong person. @Tobias would be a much more sympathetic voice if he's willing to pipe up on Hegel.

Hegel is certainly a German Idealist.

Rhetorical. Again…..I just had nothing better to do.

I'm flattered and glad to have you along :)

:eyes:
Do it!

Do it!

Do it!

Do it!

Yes. Now we optionally start walking on 'the dark side of God.' Tangent (?), but did you ever look at Blood Meridian ? Dark dark beauty. — plaque flag

Nope. I haven't broached Cormac McCarthy because it just seemed way too dark for me. I have enough dark thoughts to occupy my mind! :D

I like Derrida too. But I tend to think the wild thinkers can only wonder so far. — plaque flag

My experience of reading Derrida is trippy. Over time I started as a hate-reader and became a lover. I still need to complete the trilogy, though -- writing and difference is the one I haven't done the homework on yet. But I tend to interpret him as an uber-rationalist rather than a wild thinker, which is the point of this story.

Yup! If the fascists won the war we'd be singing the same praises we sing to democracy -- the new society finally cleansed of the dirty people from the old times (something like the USA's narrative with respect to Native Americans -- we brought them technology and science and reason and God!)

But I don't think of us as mere primates. I think of us as creatures with an ecological niche that happens to include language as an important part of that niche. And if I'm right about language it's basically the most important part of our ecological niche -- it's only because fewer of us have to die to change our ways that we are building the anthropocene (which, in turn, we are becoming aware of, will destroy us if we don't change). (OK this last paragraph is rambly in comparison to your question, but I wanted to include it anyways)

Yes, which we'd maybe both explain in Hegelian terms. For the record, I'm a liquid rationalist. The lifeworld evolves ceaselessly, and our own conceptuality is part of that evolution. — plaque flag

Here's where I think we actually disagree -- what I like from Kant's project is that there are limits to reason because I don't think human beings are rational. Even the philosopher is irrational, because the philosopher is a human being who loves rationality -- but as The Symposium points out the philosopher is only philosopher in that chase rather than when the chase is consummated. Today we might say when the chase is consummated that's when the philosopher becomes a scientist or a politician or a CEO -- anything more powerful and with authority. The philosopher's only authority is reason, and reason doesn't always speak the same to everyone.

And for the record, I am an ex-rationalist who still loves rationality. But I've come around to the idea that reason has its limits.

I mean I like Camus and Sartre in addition to Marx :D -- so I'd say no. The real is absurd if you ask me. Which is why we can interpret it in so many various ways. Note how this doesn't annul the real, though. The real is so real that even our categories cannot contain it, so the categories are not transcendental from my perspective -- I disbelieve there is a transcendental logic. And if we can cognize the absurd, which is the thing I think about and am uncertain of how to justify for others (so it's not quite philosophy yet, just opinion), that's a very clear refutation of Kant's philosophy.

I love Kant so it hurts me, but it's where the thinking takes me. Which is part of the philosophic spirit I'd say -- when reason is more powerful than you and forces you to think a new way.

Hey now. That doesn't sound like disagreement. — plaque flag

It's not :). I don't think you have a misreading -- it's far more appropriate when talking about Hegel, from my perspective at least, to talk of readings, and only the ones which are way off are misreadings (things like "if you think about it Hegel is basically a Cartesian" or something very obviously wrong to anyone whose read the texts).

But notice how your reading of Hegel contrasts with my reading of Kant?

With Kant we cannot know anything about God. So we could not make the inference that we are baby-gods or anything of that sort. That claim could not be justified by a Kantian rationality, but it can be justified in a Hegelian rationality.

Brandom also interprets Hegel as grasping our escape from (loss of) nonhuman authority and trying to address how such autonomous creatures could generate their own norms which are nevertheless binding. Neurath's boat, I think : reason is a self-challenging self-editing authority. — plaque flag

This is another point of departure for Kant, if we take Brandom's interpretation as stated. Kant embraces human autonomy, but then argues that it's rational to continue believing in the old (compared to the drives of the Enlightenment) ways -- at least within the bounds of bare reason. But it's also a point of consonance because Kant is very interested in the possible grounds for autonomous moral agents to live in accord with norms of their own creation. It's a funny thing in Kant that Nietzsche exploits -- he lays the intellectual groundwork for a total rejection of traditional morality in the name of defending traditional morality from the acid of Scientific Reason :D.

And that's probably a big point of divergence between Kant and Hegel -- the place of reason for Kant is not a universal reason in Hegel's sense as much as it is divided into different powers of human judgment. It's universal in that it holds for all experience, but it's not universal in the sense that it holds for all reality. Which is sort of what I was saying before in saying we have an example of two rationalities from the history of philosophy -- Kant and Hegel disagreeing upon the proper place of logic with respect to inferences about the real. (OK I started with Descartes, but since we're talking Hegel now I'm using him)

The matrix itself must be atemporal. The denial of an aprior knowledge/structure is given as an apriori knowledge/structure. The earnest 'skeptic' is always (tacitly at least) an ontologist describing the unchanging 'Matrix' of our experience. Or so I claim (well, I strongly suspect it....) — plaque flag

The Matrix must be atemporal, but is there a matrix at all? I'd say that Hegel's philosophy is anti-Matrix. Another credit to Hegel is he's definitely a post-Cartesian. The rejoinder there is that his solution is worse than the original problem, but he's post-Cartesian.

But note I was still playing Hegel-interpreting-Kant there. There's a way in which Hegel's philosophy is entirely a priori, but it's very different from Kant's notion of synthetic a priori knowledge. Or, at least, so it seems to me.

Hegel is a beast. I think I've always had to settle for misreadings of him that make him more coherent by throwing some of him away. — plaque flag

I wouldn't go that far. I think the reason Hegel's philosophy is a mess is because it's hard to say what a misreading of him even is. I've read fascists, anti-colonial communists, and liberals who all claim Hegel as their philosophical base. So clearly there's something inspirational in there for people -- but where you can go with the ideas is a very wide range of possibilities.

There are gross misreadings, of course, but making him coherent is part of what makes the journey with Hegel's philosophy what it is. So I wouldn't call it a misreading as much as one of the readings Hegel can inspire. (which is why I think his philosophy is an interesting mess)

At the moment, I suggest interpreting him as intensifying Kant's project. We can interpret him as a direct realist who grasped the meaninglessness of talk about entities which are completely disconnected from other entities and the necessary centrality of the storytelling detective in the detective story and all this implies. 'Absolute knowledge' is (from this POV) just a collapse of indirect realism at a certain level of inquiry's self-explication. The key theme is us realizing what we are already doing. What we have and live in is 'just' our autonomous-rational-critical sensemaking in this world together. The 'other side' of this sensemaking (postulated untouchable-always-filtered Reality. ---with an Official (?) conceptual articulation) is a token within that adventurous self-unfolding sensemaking --- eventually seen as a kind of phlogiston. But this doesn't close off a return to 'alienated' mysticism and other flights from autonomy.

I feel like he's ignoring Kant's project in order to do his own thing :D -- but it's an interesting thing so I don't mind. A messy interesting thing, but an interesting thing.

Human autonomy is where they agree, but human reason is where they disagree. This is important for the thesis that there is more than one rationality.

One thing that I find favorable about Hegel is he at least does not settle for a transcendental argument. He makes up his own way of reasoning to counter the transcendental move, and it revolves around the idea that thinking and the world are in motion together which is exactly the sort of thing you'd have to argue to undermine faith in transcendental structures: if even Logic and its categories are not forever-and-always concepts that become baptized in space and time through the Transcendental Subject -- but instead are time-bound then the categories are also subject to change just as the world and its objects are, and then we have a response to "If X necessarily Y" which is "not necessarily Y, possibly Y is false at such and such time". There is nothing to explain about a priori synthetic knowledge because there is no a priori -- rather there is the dialectic which the phenomenologist is able to see and explicate through training in philosophy.

Basically they disagree on the operations of logic with respect to the real, which I'd claim is a divergence in rationalities -- you can pick one or the other, and even both, but our understanding of the rationalities isn't derived from a super-rationality as much as it's our critical engagement with texts that allows us to see difference through comparison.

I completely understand the temptation to psychologize foundationalism in general, and I tend to find something plausible in such moves. But the psychological sword is sharp on both sides, and the 'anarchist' is just as easily 'diagnosed. — plaque flag

Heh. Where do you think my inspiration comes from? This is a diagnosis of the anarchist! :D (which isn't the same thing as a rejection, from me at least) -- where "radical", as in "root" serves as a kind of foundationalism.

FWIW, what interests me about this foundational project is its radical minimalism. I want nothing more than what's already implicit in the idea of autonomous-critical thought. What is the absolutely minimal constraint on 'scientific' ontology ? What conditions make it intelligible, coherent ? So that any rational challenge of it misunderstands itself ? — plaque flag

Fair. I like these questions. I think it's the last question is all I'm recalcitrant about, though for reasons already stated.

So I'd call them (from this sketched position anyway) pseudo-skeptics who don't understand themselves. The 'true' skeptic doesn't show up or at least refrains from projecting claims about what others can know. Epistemological claims are implicitly ontological claims, typically about the 'universal' subject. One inspiration for my critique here is a quasi-Kantian pose that pretends to humility but makes a massive claim on what others can rationally hope to know. — plaque flag

That I agree with. With Kant I know exactly what he meant by "metaphysics", but that's because he spent the time to spell it out. It took quite a few words to be able to rationally defend the belief that we cannot know such things, and many people even disagree with him on rational grounds after the fact in spite of all that effort.

But it's quasi-Kantian to pretend to humility while claiming everyone can only go this far. You have to write a book like the CPR to do that! :D Or at least spell out just what is meant by the limit and how it applies to not just yourself, but everyone.

What still attracts me to the Kantian limit on reason is Hegel's philosophy, which I think is a mess -- it's an interesting mess! But a mess. If we believe we can step outside of the limit of reason then you get the science of logic which is an utterly ridiculous book to me because it pretends to universality while clearly expressing European philosophical virtues. But there is a certain amount of gaminess to all this: like these imagined positions are attempting to undermine one another from the perspective of a minimal and necessary system but are just speaking past one another (after all, no Hegel, no Marx -- so there's value to Hegel's philosophy for me in spite of my protestations).

Which I think is what I like about the idea of a leaping off point, or a return to home, rather than a foundation. It acknowledges we have to start somewhere, that we all started somewhere, and for a coherent philosophy usually we'll return home to it (or find another home). And we have the aesthetic values of parsimony, elegance, and simplicity which can serve as a judgment of a home.

So I guess the perspective I'm coming from, to answer your original question, is the historical one. As a reader of philosophy we can compare and contrast philosophers. In so doing we see that different philosophers start from different places, some of which some of them call foundations. But the buildings they build, and the foundations they start from, are different from one another. It's this perspective which allows us to compare rationalities -- as a reader of philosophy.

To me that's already in the framework. What we are doing right now is in that framework. It's cooperatively adversarial and the reverse, as if the community was somehow shrewd enough to run a different 'logic' in every individual on its existential-discursive stage. — plaque flag

Cool :).

Glad to have you aboard, @Sam26 -- criticism is the spark of life in these conversations.

Also given my warm responses I wanted to pipe up. Though feel free to correct me @plaque flag

abstract

Conditions for the possibility of critical discussion cannot be rationally challenged without performative contradiction. Such conditions are therefore not only a sturdy foundation for further inquiry but ontologically axiomatic. Such conditions include a shared world one can be wrong about in a shared language. Another such condition is the participants willingly binding themselves to the coherence and justification of their claims, which is to say to being philosophers and not just daydreamers or mystics. — plaque flag

Let's say "critical" means "rational" in the first sentence. If you challenge rationality on rational grounds then you have to find a way to not undercut yourself. Some skeptics have managed, or think they have managed, but the challenge here is to say that skeptics are using the resources of rationality without acknowledging it.

explication

I take ontology in in this context to be “critical” or “scientific” in its intention, as opposed to relatively irresponsible myth-making. Granted that we put on the heroic robes of the “scientific” (critical) philosopher, as opposed to the mystic who denigrates dialectic as a means to truth, what have we already assumed in so doing ? How do these assumptions affect the project of ontology ? As its enabling conditions, they must be included.

Any other ontological thesis depends on the conditions for the possibility of ontology, so the ontologist is justified in putting ontology itself at the center of reality –-- and not on the outside peeping in. The same kind of realization is intended in “theology itself is ‘God.’” My position might be called 'neorationalism.' I suggest that our normative conceptuality is irreducible. A critique of psychologism is implied here, which might be developed in the thread.

I think this states that ontology can only be pursued on a higher ground than myth. "higher ground" would be something like taking the Bible as literal truth versus taking the Origen of the Species as literal truth -- people do make a distinction there, in practice. Darwin is better than the Bible when we think about what's literally true.

Have you read Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus?

I tried googling for pdf's and only found fragments. But it's not too expensive a book.

And, importantly, it begins with the question of suicide as the first and only question a philosopher must answer: why bother carrying on?

If you're looking for a philosophical approach to your question, that's probably the best book I can think of.

I depend on professors mostly for my translations of German philosophy, so the universities are totally rotted out (I mostly joke, but I don't love stories of professors hounded out.) But I had in mind the larger culture of a free society, to the degree that it's not rotted out by tribal fear and hatred. — plaque flag

Ah, sorry. (tempted to make a pun on "red" and "rot", since "red" is "rot" in German, and I'm a commie)

There's something beautiful and difficult about being an individual --our strange mission in a freeish rational society. Do you know the song Nutshell by Alice in Chains ? Nice ambivalence.

video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AzCj0b4MUU

lyrics:
https://genius.com/Alice-in-chains-nutshell-lyrics — plaque flag

Yup! I heard it many times on the radio in my youth. Though I did not listen to the lyrics.

I agree that it's difficult to be an individual when your individuality goes against the current. And in a free society that ought not be the case. Which is, I think at least, the temptation of foundationalism -- if you're against everything, if you feel you know, if you want something other than what is then how else to pursue that than through a foundationalist philosophy? Or through something like a Marxist philosophy which reduces everything to some other conflict you're interested in?

I don't think you can. And I'd say that it's even a rational move to posit something otherwise, saying "this is rational!" -- after all I believe in more than one rationality, so I have no argument against inventing another one. In fact I believe we ought explore multiple rationalities, because we don't know what the future holds and so we do not know what thoughts will help us most as things change.

Overall our disagreement is very minor, I think though. I just noticed how no one else was picking at this good post, so threw in my 2 cents hoping to make it happen.

Looking around the world today, I'd be tempted to say we are mostly crazy, but there is relatively robust tradition of relative individual freedom which I can't or at least shouldn't take for granted. — plaque flag

I agree with that

I've generally spoken in favor of the academy. I wouldn't have the understandings I do today without having gone. And I wouldn't be able to perceive the world as crazy unless I happened across these paths.

Despite our massive 'internal' complexity, I think we are singular as discursive subjects. At least in a practical life we are. A philosophy forum might give each member two different avatars, expecting them to diverge. I do think Shakespeare, for instance, proves that we are internally multiple. [ I guess I should have started with my agreement, in retrospect. ] — plaque flag

Again I think we're pretty close here. I think we're singular when we are healthy, but that we are often unhealthy. And that could only happen if we are not simple, ala Descartes' subject.

But I'm not sure how to put it. Shakespeare works wonderfully, but most wouldn't listen to theatrical sorts in a philosophical space -- that's just mere art and all that.

Oh no, I hope I don't mix in with the pragmatists. I've never gone down that path! :D Even at my most Marxist I still believe that sentences can be true in a manner that doesn't reduce to the useful, and I believe the party does not know best on truth, because it depends too much on circumstances. You can't escape judgment.

Maybe it's just the word "rationality" that I'm taking umbrage to because it's frequently understood as something opposed to the passions, in the Enlightenment sense. I think we need to recognize how much we, as human beings, are not the Enlightenment's conception of Man as Rational Decider. Which doesn't mean, for me at least, that we should go back to the old ways. I think it's too late for that -- the future is all there is when it comes to decisions. But while we might at first want to be God, I think that our collective nature makes it such that becoming God isn't possible without also destroying that foundation of trust and connection with others. (the birth of class)

Also I don't think we can cast rationality aside. I'd say the sine qua non of philosophy is the appeal to the rational.

So, like I said, I think we agree on a lot. I'm just picking on the things we disagree on.

We are all imperfectly living toward or into some always imperfect grasp of a horizonal ideal which is largely about autonomy. — plaque flag

Now this is definitely something which goes against my notions of rationality, given what I've said thus far. I tend to think of rationality as the tool, ala Hume.

Also it's fun and interesting and everything else that I've always loved about it.

But I've put down the rationalist charge. It's fine that we are not rational. There are some irrationalities that are harmful, and those are bad, but I don't know to what extent a rational ethic -- or theology? -- would really help people because at base I think we're pretty much irrational creatures.

However I think we can imperfectly live towards the horizon of autonomy. And that's certainly an ethical stance. And I'd even go so far as to say that rationality is a tool that can help in that project. I just don't know that I'd put autonomy as the rational -- in a way the rational is dependent upon the horizon you imperfectly live towards.

And if we're not a singular, simple subject, but a bundle (I'm still trying to think of a good way to express The Subject as multiplicity while retaining its coherency) we can even throw ourselves towards multiple horizons. Which is where I think we'd start to see conflicts in rationality, and when we'd have to start making choices between horizons when they come into conflict (if they come into conflict).

EDIT: Which, again, I'm kind of picking up the stuff that we can disagree upon because there's so much agreement that I expect this to be the more interesting avenue for exploration.

I don't think I'm conceding a point, though I could be misunderstanding you.

I'm saying that machine-knowledge is different from human-knowledge, where here we can use "knowledge" because both the machine and the human are demonstrating know-how in a very strict functionalist sense. We can functionally perform the same thing, but we don't do it the same way -- so there's not a common base between the common know-how, which suggests there's no foundation for knowledge (if we're being liberal enough with "knowledge" that we include machine-learning and such)

I can get on board with that, though I'd insist that the ideal doesn't exist :D

I see us as having minor differences here. But in the spirit of the forum I thought I'd offer some criticism rather than just nodding along.

You could probably get a robot to do it now, even. But if you look at the code, while it all has a definite meaning, it won't be clear and distinct how it lines up with the jazz piano -- that is, while the robot might operate on clear and distinct (though elaborate) code, we don't. Reading the code won't give us the knowledge of how to play jazz piano.

I can see a transcendental structure -- the necessary preconditions for rational discourse are such and such, here we are having a rational discussion, therefore we must accept such and such preconditions on pain of contradiction.

There is no ideal rational community which binds our rational discussions, though. I think we can imagine an ideal community and aspire to such a community, but that we're not speaking to it as much as we're speaking with our fellows, all of whom are not ideal -- including myself. Rather we collaborate on what works for our group of seekers. Surely there's the demand to step outside of myself and not just spout my own opinion -- that wouldn't be very interesting after all, since we all have those. And in that demand we get the structure of rationality: but it changes from group to group. There are some generalities that seem the same, but the practices diverge.

Or, at least, this is what my first thought is -- pretty standard. Usually I'm overwhelmed by multiplicity, and find it difficult to generalize at the level of the transcendental. Further I think transcendental arguments, after they are accepted, become self-fulfilling in a way. Now that we know that rationality is such-and-such we can exclude this or that -- but the world changes, and with it so do our practices, and we need that flexibility. But with flexibility comes doubt of transcendental structures.

Or, at least, this is where my thoughts go.

Well the foundation I'm aiming at is the minimal foundation that is already implied in the role of the philosopher. I'm making a transcendent argument as described here (it'll help me to quote.)

As standardly conceived, transcendental arguments are taken to be distinctive in involving a certain sort of claim, namely that X is a necessary condition for the possibility of Y—where then, given that Y is the case, it logically follows that X must be the case too.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendental-arguments/

So Y is 'I'm a philosopher,' and X is the stuff that makes Y intelligible -- basically what Apel said, but it's world, language, justification norms. Crucially, the details are left minimally specified. Because the foundation should be absolutely the least constraint that will work. Ontologists will fight over the details within that undeniable framework. [So I'm being Kantian in a way. ] — plaque flag

Heh. You're speaking my honey, then. I love the transcendental argument. I'm pretty familiar with it.

I've come to criticize it though. I agree it is valid. It's definitely powerful. And in the frame of Kant's philosophy I think it's tempered through the deduction of the categories: you can make the argument, but it must be made to the court of reason, and the court will then decide accordingly. So make it a good argument! Or fail.

But it's so easy to use the form outside of an entire philosophy -- what I believe is a necessary condition for the possibility of Y -- Y=our conversation, therefore what I believe is the case.

I hope not! I'm saying there is more than one rationality, not that rationality is really some other thing. If it were then I'd be arguing there are zero rationalities.

Though your mention of heroism is a point of difference between us. I've come to a place in my life where I don't want the heroes journey. I'm just me doing my things trying to be happy. At this point part of me is being honest, and I like rationality -- but notice how different that is from heroism. Heroes face adversity. I just like these things.

It's a softer version of existentialism.

Hrm!

Well, that wasn't as hard as I thought then. Unless there are lingering doubts out there.

But how do you make that move, maybe? If I were to tell someone in a conversation about democracy "look we understand one another, we're just disagreeing on conventions" -- how do you make that disagreement into a productive disagreement rather than the termination?

Yup.

There's no becoming-animal, if I'm correct about language at least. Once you know how to Write there's no unlearning it while at the same time retaining its lessons (thinking here of lobotomy).

We just have to live with the fact that when we make things up it can lead us to inventions, discovery, fun, darkness, fragmentation -- etc. But we'll keep making things up all the same. It's what we do!

However! With that being said, I really love this:

the embodied-enworlded-'enlanguaged' rational community — plaque flag

I think I'd say that your expression is that embodiment, worldhood, and language are equiprimordial, to use some Heidegger.

That sits well with me. It's the foundationalism that I'm questioning more than the ontology. I'd say we can just begin with this and go from there, but that there are any number of places a philosopher could begin from, and then that would serve as what appears to be a foundation to that philosopher. But I'd call it a jumping off point, or a point of return to home.

Possible objection, your honor. From what perspective can someone claim there are two rationalities ? Only (I think) from a higher and truer 'actual' synthesizing rationality. — plaque flag

Couldn't you do so from an emotive base?

Rationality is motivated in its actual use, after all.

It would have to be a "rational" emotion to count as a rational attack. But that's not too hard. I'd go to aesthetics for a place to think through emotions on the rational level, and there are certainly aesthetic values that can come into conflict with respect to an individual inference.

But then we might say that the aesthetics are not the truly rational rationality :D

But for that I'd just point out the differences between Descartes and Kant -- I'd side more Kant when it comes to the questions of ontology or metaphysics: knowledge requires a justification, and there are no justifications when it comes to ontology. Ontology presupposes its own justifications from the outset.

But I also don't put knowledge as the most important thing in philosophy, so that's why I'm open to ontology at another level. In a way ontology is more proper for philosophy than epistemology -- it's just harder to do well.

Can a unified subject believe in two, truly opposed 'rationalities' ? In opposed inferential norms ?

Hrmm I'm not sure about truly opposed rationalities, though that'd be an interesting case if so. I was thinking more orthogonal rationalities -- like one just doesn't really talk about the same things as the other. Then there's a choice with respect to which rationality one ought to appeal to with respect to the circumstances.

Take Gould's notion of non-overlapping magesteria -- you still have to judge what belongs to each magesteria even though there are different rules for the different kinds of things.

I think the member of one community would have to regard the member of another community with a sufficiently different logic as insane. Banno could maybe add something about our inability to recognize a radically other conceptual scheme. — plaque flag

Only if they were a rationalist ;).

But, no, I'm not reaching for full on incommensurability or conceptual schemes here. It's always a thing in the background of my thoughts, but I pretty much take Davidson's argument on conceptual schemes, which @Banno introduced me to, as basically correct. Or at least in my attacks on it I've never been able to really get around the basic argument around conceptual schemes -- historical schemes, practical schemes, or just difference in general not-conceptual, but I find the argument solid and not easy to step aside.

So the question then becomes, in the case of two rationalities, if its not a conceptual scheme, what is it?

I'm tempted to become a parody of myself and just say "It's the ethical!" :D But I actually don't think rationality is an ethical matter. I think of it as instrumental to whatever it is the human heart wants. And sometimes it doesn't want the rational, and sometimes it wants the rational to be different. It's in this creation of the rational order for different purposes that we can come to have different rationalities, though I agree I'd be surprised if a single subject held two rationalities which are contradictory (unless, of course, they are exploring dialethism -- then, perhaps, there'd be a way to hold two contradictory rationalities at once -- but within a rational frame)

Conditions for the possibility of critical discussion cannot be rationally challenged without performative contradiction. — plaque flag

I think this assumes there's only one rationality. If there are two, though, then you could rationally challenge the possibility of critical discussion on the basis of the rationality chosen without contradiction.

The OP makes sense to me though. Ontology is one of those disciplines that I generally view with skepticism, but from the perspective that our knowledge doesn't touch what the ontologist cares about. If the ontologist is more circumspect in not claiming knowledge, though, then that's where I think ontology begins to be interesting. However, in so doing I think the whole foundational approach is not only made harder, but also it loses its attraction: if knowledge is not necessarily clear and certain, but rather depends upon the kind of knowledge we're dealing with to understand it in its depths (math is clear and certain, but knowing-how to play jazz piano is not as clear), then there is no reason to suppose a general foundation is there -- rather we're just able to do some things that happen to be different from one another, and "knowledge" is the word we use to designate that a person is able (but it depends upon what they're able to do to be able to say anything about the knowledge).

That's my first stab! Basically I think I'd reject foundations, and also I'd loosen the love of certainty (but then the question is how do you maintain discipline such that we are not just daydreamers and mystics?)

That imagination has been most useful in many ways, but when it uses reason as a vehicle, rather than other way around, it drives us into quagmires of weird and twisted thinking. — Vera Mont

Weird, twisted -- and fun ;)

Plus a big, super-convoluted and oxygenated brain. — Vera Mont

I say "trans-genomic-adaptability" because I'm not one to emphasize the brain in the question of mind. That's one likely part in our species' adaptability, but the social aspect is very important too. As you note:

Neither would any human who has not been specifically instructed in arithmetic. — Vera Mont

Of course the instruction needs to be there.

But would you deny the difference? Or would you say:

Yes, that's humans for you! Overcomplicate everything. — Vera Mont

As if to say "Abandon All Hope All Ye Who Enter Here"?

My stance is that within social conventions, yes a definition can be wrong as defined within those social conventions. Different social groups may define the word differently (different dialects, slang, technical jargon, etc).

Outside a social convention, no. — PhilosophyRunner

Conventional (what Grice calls "non-natural") meaning leaves an opening to attach the wrong meaning to an utterance; — Srap Tasmaner

You keep mentioning Grice which makes me want to read him more. Once upon a time I came across his maxims but that's about all I know of him.

This, at least, is a start though: under the condition of social convention a definition can be wrong. Definitions are often a feature of quizzes to see if students bothered reading or understanding the material, and that seems to be the most obvious case of being wrong. Misinterpreting the signs on the literal signs of the road seems an obvious case as well. What girds both is some sort of social project that predates our birth or even decisions -- school for children to develop into adults (and allow the adults to work), and streets to transport. To demonstrate a knowledge of these definitions is to be right about the definitions.

But then when it comes to "democracy" that just is a project that already assumes ends. Even in agreeing we like democracy we can misunderstand one another because we have different conventions in mind (maybe your teacher preferred Rawls, and mine preferred Nozick).

To disagree, after coming to understand one another, on definitions is to disagree upon social convention.

It would be interesting if there were cases of a non-human misinterpreting a signal, or if there were never such cases. — Srap Tasmaner

I agree. That's a good question!

Back to the topic: this might or might not be what Moliere is interested in. D2 did not engage in a misunderstood communicative behavior, but may nevertheless have been misinterpreted. (That's word's a little tendentious, but who cares.) Now if we say that the reason we (a big enough "we" to include cats) interpret each other's utterances is to divine each other's intentions, same as with other behaviors, since utterance is verbal behavior, then what Scruffy did is what we're interested in, since it's where verbal interpretation ends up.*

But there may still be a problem, because D2's behavior, unlike speech, and unlike Scruffy's display and vocalization, was not intended to be communicative. That would seem to put this event outside @Moliere's theme. Unless we want to say something deflationary about communicative intentions, which we certainly could. — Srap Tasmaner

That's useful.

Now if only I was clear enough in my own thinking to say what I'm interested in. :D

Also for @Vera Mont

For one thing I'll be clear that I'm not pursuing a deflationary account of meaning, at least. I'm open to a reductive account, but a deflationary account would be like solving the riddle by saying there's no riddle. Which very well may be the case, but I'd rather not start with that explanation given how it kind of terminates the thought.

But your interpretation of Scruffy works for my purposes of misunderstanding one another: D2 was not challenging Scruffy, Scruffy interpreted it as a challenge and issued their own challenge, D2 shuffled off.

I'm not sure this is exactly right, though -- but I'd say that because my thought has more to do with symbolic meaning than communication: the meaning which signs have. So if someone says "Red means go" that's obviously wrong, because red means stop (in the proper context, etc.).

My thought is that some signs, like democracy or socialism, don't have such a straightforward symbolic meaning, that they have a multitude of associations that make it difficult to pin down something straigtforward.

Cats participate in animal communication -- status within a tribe, territory, or even just grumpiness. My thought is that symbolic meaning can be used for animal communication, but it can be used for more than that. We communicate intentions, animal communication is shared (hell, organismic communication occurs across more than animals, in the sense of a sender, a sign, and a receiver). I'm not interested in putting human beings "above" animal communication.

But even the great apes don't seem to understand that 7+5/12=1, for instance. Or other feats of the human language. It's not a surprise, either, because it's kind of the only thing we have going for us in the big natural world -- our trans-genomic-adaptability is our main advantage, I think. We don't have to have as many of us die in order for the species to "learn" -- which pairs well with our reproductive rates being extremely slow in comparison to other species.

This is I think a good example of what I suggested as elaboration. The multiple people who say "socialism" misunderstand what it is the others are saying. If instead they each communicated a couple of paragraphs explaining exactly what their view of socialism is, will this not reduce the misunderstanding? — PhilosophyRunner

Yup, I think so. People have to want to understand at some level -- so I've been insisting upon trust and charity as interpretive virtues within a conversation, or what is missing if we're mis-understanding one another -- but I think that's a good place to start.

Those people may still disagree on which detailed view is the one we should strive for, but that is then not a misunderstanding of meaning, but a disagreement (in the vein you talked about).

Right.

Maybe the question is -- is there a time when a definition is true? Can we insist that a particular meaning is true of an utterance? Then the disagreement is about the meaning itself rather than, or perhaps also in addition to, disagreeing upon what we should strive for (or whatever it is the dispute is over).

:up: I enjoyed reading.

That story is inaccurate. "We" did nothing. A very long line of mammals before us, birds and reptiles before them, elaborated systems of communication that we, in our superstitious arrogance, didn't take into consideration when contemplating the origins of our language. Much older species have used vocal cues as warnings, threats, alarms, greetings, indications of mood, expressions of satisfaction, pleasure, anger, sorrow, pain, identification or solidarity. The more socially integrated a group of animals is, the better each individual's, especially those of the vulnerable young, chances of survival. The more precise and comprehensive its means of communication, the better that group's social integration and the more efficiently it can coordinate individual efforts. — Vera Mont

Well, I did nothing, that's for sure. And there is no "we" in the sense of a species-across-time, so I'd go that far. If the biological story is accurate then there's not really a hard distinction to be made between species, so it will be a Sorites Paradox if we try to draw a hard distinction.

Even though we share meaning with creatures and are interconnected to the life around us it seems like, say, our ability to compute sums with language is different. And humans can speak like other animals do -- like the mating lures we've created for birds to watch them. Language, in this symbolic sense that allows us to speak as other animals and compute sums, doesn't really seem to take hold with other species very well. To some varying degrees, yes, but it's not the same as what's accomplished by even children.

Which isn't to say we're over and above or somehow separate from nature or other animals. It's just that this is one way in which it seems there's difference that isn't accounted for by animal communication alone. At least, not to me. Rather I'd say the reason we're able to communicate is because we're able to construct meaningful utterances.

Language evolved along with the brain capacity of hominids, for the purpose of uniting and organizing social units and coordinating their individual efforts in defense, food-acquisition, evading predators and rearing the young. — Vera Mont

How do you know?

It would probably help if you gave a worked example. Show us an exchange that you would characterize as people misunderstanding each other, and why you would call it misunderstanding rather than something else. — Srap Tasmaner

Let's take "socialism" -- I'm not sure I could write a dialogue demonstrating, but maybe our experiences with this word could suffice?

What does "socialism" mean?

There's more than one definition that people would offer, even among those who'd say they are socialists.

And there's a strange mixture of misunderstanding and half-understanding and pop-understanding along with more precise understandings of the meaning of socialism.

My thought on the mechanisms of misunderstanding: in a conversation where languages are shared I think it's possible to shore up misunderstanding insofar as there's sufficient trust or charity among the participants. So anything that decreases our desire to offer either would explain misunderstandings of the sort where we both share a language but have that strange feeling that we're not speaking the same language.

Or do you want something more concrete? I started flipping through the news, and then starting thinking back through labor history but then had this thought here. Good call on asking for something concrete, though.

In passing, I'll note that people often feel the impulse to reduce misunderstanding to (unrecognized or unacknowledged) disagreement, and disagreement to (unrecognized or unacknowledged) misunderstanding. There might be a problem with that. — Srap Tasmaner

One thing I've noticed is something like what you say here: there's an important step in a discussion where you have to realize that you understand one another just fine. What you can't do is agree.

But then there's another misunderstanding from that. Just because we don't agree that doesn't mean that's the end of a discussion. There's something fruitful in disagreement. And usually there's more to be said or thought about.

What I think I'd resist with respect to biology is that such explanations don't operate on the same level as these virtues which are solutions to the problem of misunderstanding meaning. From the biological perspective we'd say that misunderstanding is clearly not selected for or against, given how common both are. The evolutionary bar is incredibly low to jump over for any existing species, unsurprisingly -- and given the diversity of lifeforms on our own planet to these pressures it's clear that there are many social forms from the gregarious to the individualistic that clear the bar of evolutionary pressure.

In addition it's worthwhile to point out that the final step in evolution is extinction. From the descriptive angle "survival" isn't even enough, because eventually all species will die. It's not survival as much as species-wide fecundity that's important. What's important about this is that insofar that we're able to take care of our children such that they are able to reproduce we've officially cleared the evolutionary hurdle.

And we've done that not just with different languages, but if we go far back enough then we did it without any language whatsoever -- or, at least, that's how the story goes.

In this way of looking language is just kind of an accident that happened along the way, that came along "for free" but had no purpose at the level of a general description of species-being or speciation.

I am interested in figuring out a framework for people with different politics, values, etc to communicate effectively with each other, and I see this as one of the biggest stumbling blocks. — PhilosophyRunner

A lot of misunderstanding can simply be solved by elaboration. One thing I like about this forum is the elaboration, it certainly helps healthy discussions. — PhilosophyRunner

In order to understand others you have to put yourself in their shoes. See what they see out of their skull holes. Then you hook into their frame of reference and the meaning of their utterances will be obvious.

If a person has a very rigid sense of identity, they can't take up residence in other people's positions. Or maybe they've judged the other to be evil or what not. Then they don't want to be tainted.

This doesn't undermine the idea that meaning is first shared and after that potentially private. It just means sometimes we aren't communicating. We're just talking at each other.

-- the wisdom of Asperger's. — frank

Which is all to say, I think we have good grounds for thinking justice can refer to both our individual sense of justice, social norms, OR a higher form of justice that lies implicit within the logic of being. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm adding you at the end @Srap Tasmaner because it seems like you're part of this thread of thought in mentioning limitations to some of the suggestions above while gesturing towards the biological as a kind of rock bottom for understanding meaning which is where you and I probably diverge the most, so maybe we'll find something here to connect on.

So the problem of meaning, in scope, is the problem of misunderstanding. We frequently understand one another, and frequently don't, and the latter has become more apparent over time -- or perhaps we have actually lost some ability to understand one another too.

I'd call your solution @PhilosophyRunner the philosopher's solution par excellence -- if the people are ignorant of what some other person means then clearly they'll misunderstand, and elaboration is a way of filling in the gaps of that ignorance. And frequently this will actually be the case, that someone has an actively false notion about some other person's belief or expression that needs only be addressed and corrected, and the misunderstanding disappears.

But @frank points out that sometimes it's not a matter of simple ignorance and elaboration. Sometimes we misunderstand because we're simply not able to see what someone else sees, to hook into their frame of reference, for instance if someone has a rigid sense of identity (to imagine that I might be elsewise is to not be me, so I won't imagine it). Basically the meaning is public, in the PLA sense, but there's more to the problem of misunderstanding than what elaboration will address.

Which is where I thought @Count Timothy von Icarus's conclusion shored up some difficulties -- in the appeal to values outside of ourselves, or a notion of justice, or social norms. Something aside from the basic meaning of the words, and something aside from the identities which are in conflict.

I wouldn't be too sure about the "abandonment" in actual practice . . . . down deep scientists have ideas they hope will be substantiated by experiment or shown to be wrong. Preferably the former. They are, by and large, human and hope to get there first. On the other hand pure curiosity can be a driving force. — jgill

Your expression gets at a split in my thinking on the subject that's not easy to negotiate -- there's the historically real science as actually practiced, and then there's the philosophically attractive abstraction of that process which tends to look a lot cleaner than the real deal.

The former is real, the latter is at least questionable to me. But in designating the historical as the real contrast to the ideal -- "Falsificationism" cannot count as a criterion that differentiates the scientific from the not-scientific anymore because it, as a description, fits in the latter -- it's a prescriptive theory of science addressing the problem of induction rather than a descriptive one addressing what scientists actually do.

And yet it's the prescriptions which seem to help a person try and "be objective" -- like it's more of a role rather than a fact. But if that were the case... well then there's no method at all, it's a social designation and function! And whatever those who have that designation or function do is what science is.

And that's the tension in my thinking between these two ways of looking at science.
***

To answer your OP @Mikie -- What I think the take-away is is that "Anything goes" works when we're trying to universalize to a prescriptive theory of science which demarcates science from not-science for all cases of science, but almost always we're not thinking at that level of abstraction where we're comparing historical periods of scientific practice and describing their methods of thought and inference in an attempt to understand why this practice seems so fruitful, or in the case of Popper, how it gets over the problem of induction.

We're instead thinking "What makes it different from..." some other thing, in which case, it seems like we're able to point out methods that differ, or differences along the way. But it won't sound as impressive as a single, rational criterion that demarcates the scientific from the not-scientific. For that I'd just say Popper did a pretty good job, and Feyerabend shows the limitation of that approach. It gets at something, but it misses something too.