Heh. I'm not being clear. I do not agree with Thrasymachus. I was attempting a reductio of your position -- if what is good is just what is good for someone, then for a prince that wants to be a king killing the king is good for them. So, by your definition, at least some of the time, killing for the purpose of obtaining a better social position is good.

The allusion to Thrasymachus was just to draw an analogy that what you're saying is similar to what he said in The Republic -- not exactly so, but given the above scenario, can you see the parallels?

Because it wasn't used that way in the analogy of the identity theorists Kripke was responding to in making an analogy between heat-molecules and mind-body to assert that there are contingent identity statements.

Good stuff.

I prefer not to go into gory detail in talking about ethics -- it seems to defeat the point? -- but can you imagine a person who makes a law for themself? So, in the case of the lawmaker, the law is most likely promoting something which the lawmaker considers good. So it fits your definition. However, at the same time, the rule-breaker made a law for themself -- not institutionally, but just chose it all on their own -- that said the lawmaker was breaking their law.

Now, realizing that the lawmaker would punish them, being a clever sort, they just decided that they'd become the lawmaker themselves. Say the one who disagreed with the lawmaker (a king in a previous time) was a prince, and they could kill the king. Then --

. Therefore justice is good, because it reduces the number of breaches of law. And that is good for the law-maker. It is advantageous, helpful and accommodating for the law-maker. — god must be atheist

As Thrasymachus pointed out, what is just is what the powerful say. To even have an opinion on the matter, one must first be powerful.

I think we again are not in disagreement.

The wooden lectern is ipso facto necessarily wooden, yet that is understood only empirically. Unfortunately it's an example that is prone to misunderstanding, as in various posts in this thread. — Banno

We almost got to disagreement. Maybe next time. :)

Thanks for pursuing the thread. The explanations from different people finally got me to wrap my head around the baby idea.

This is perhaps the key concept, and the article is an articulation of how we can use this approach to talk consistently about counterfactuals. At the time of writing, under the influence of Quine, counterfactuals were generally thought senseless. After this article, and Kripke's other work, they became an important part of the analytic toolkit. — Banno

Cool. Nice that it finally clicked, in its own terms.

I'll say again, perhaps more explicitly, that I do not think the examples of heat and pain work to Kripke's advantage. This because heat and pain are not treated well when treated as objects. But while rejecting these last few arguments I am in agreement with much of the remainder of the article.

Yeah, I was definitely getting stuck on the examples. The mere "details" ;)

Just out of curiosity, how could we account for radiant heat with this type of definition? Radiant heat is a real form of heat which we feel. Yet in that case, heat moves from object A to object B without the medium of molecules in between. So how would that heat get from A to B without moving through molecules in between? — Metaphysician Undercover

I think we'd interpret radiant heat as molecules. (and, truthfully, that's how I understand Newton's notion of light -- they are little light particles)

In that case there would not be a necessary identity. And I think this gets to why I was so confused up front, too -- heat is not easy to define, especially in physical terms. We all basically get what it means in a generic sense, but that's it. So it doesn't seem like something I'd call a rigid designator, even in the normal sense of a proper name (unlike, say, Nixon).

It's the form of "NAME is NAME" -- heat and motion taken as names, where in the counter-factual we are able to refer to both heat and motion and say motion is not heat (because we are able to refer to the very same thing, whatever it is we were talking about) -- and refer to the same thing in both cases so that we can assert that these things are false. (else, to get transcendental, how else you know that "heat" refers to the same thing in the counter-factual than in the factual?)

This is the aspect of the good which survives changes in values systems, it’s formal rather than specific structure. This aspect of the good we all can agree on. Since eventually any good within a particular value system will stop working for us as we move beyond that system, the philosophers I mentioned above agree that it is universally ‘better’ to keep oneself mobile , to celebrate the movement from one value system to one that replaces it rather than getting stuck in any one system for too long. So you see that for these thinkers the universal , formal aspect of goodness as efficacy of relational change ( usefulness) is more significant that the contingent and relative aspect that you highlight. It is this understanding of the universal aspect of the good that allows us to honor an endless plurality of value systems, and along with them an endless variety of qualitative senses of the good, rather than looking for the correct one. We understand that each sense of the good works within its system, and is valid for that reason and within that context. — Joshs

So I gather what you're wanting to emphasize is how any value we posit will be valid within a system-context, where system-context is always changing and so the validity of a posited value will always be questionable. On one side of the reflection we might say what you say -- that all goods have their own specific place, and we should honor them all rather than compete over which of them is good.

I think I'd say this just moves the question one step back -- on the other side of the reflection now, rather than arguing over what is good, we're going to argue over which system-context is valid (and, at least for myself, I'd pick the system-context which validates what I believe to be good)

So the open-question argument would work still, I believe. It'd just be saying "Is it a good time to change values?" -- that element of choice that I've been emphasizing would still be there.

You lost me. How exactly are you understanding ‘proper functioning’ and what does it have to do with the normatively oriented organizational dynamics of living systems? — Joshs

It's how William Casebeer likes to translate Aristotle's eudaimonia in Natural Ethical Facts.

Normatively oriented organization dynamics of living systems sounds a lot to me like what Casebeer was proposing in making a science of ethics loosely based on Aristotle's ethics, which is similarly natural and biological. So it's just where my mind went.

I have a feeling you are conflating ‘proper’ with a specific qualitative content of meaning, which places you squarely back within the circular defining of ‘good’( my qualitative meaning of good differs from your qualitative meaning of it). — Joshs

Even if that's not the mistake I'm making, I'm probably making a mistake somewhere. If we're lost we're probably beginning from different places entirely.

I'm a meta-ethical nihilist of the error-theory variety. I don't think there's really a way to define good in some natural or factual way. I think the argument from difference is what persuades me of this, in the end -- people simply do disagree over what is most important and make choices between goods, and in those cases people have good reasons in spite of contradicting one another in a matter of choice, so to say one is good or the other is good is to make a similar choice. I think we make choices between competing goods, and "goods" is itself something which we define for ourselves. So, contra Aristotle, who believes there are proper functions of an organism, I'd say there are no such functions or teleologies or natural facts.

What a mess. So far every contribution to this thread has used circular terms to ‘define’ the good. — Joshs

That is consistent, at least, with Moore's notion as I understand it.

Even fairness implies a moral notion of equivalence or balance. Fair refers to a ‘good’ sort of balance. Justice may not be pleasant but it is ‘good’. Hmm, so there is no ‘pleasantness’ associated with aim of justice? What’s needed is a definition of good , pleasant , happy , absence of suffering, that breaks out of the circle and shatters Moore’s contention. We have a number of options to choose from here. We could look at biologically-based thinking that grounds affective valuation in the organizational principles of living systems.

So if you say justice implies a moral notion of equivelence or balance -- where fairness is the good sort of balance -- I understand what you mean by the good sort of justice vs. the bad sort of justice. Hence, justice is not goodness, because I can understand justice in both the good and the bad way.

I used justice because I think it's the sort of moral value that tends go against values that put happiness and comfort as the sum of all that is good, which I took @god must be atheist to be proposing.

But there is no sum of all that is good. There is no reducing goodness to some other thing. It's all those things, but then we find that some goods conflict with one another.

"Proper functioning" was the original position that I thought made sense of ethics in a naturalistic way, which is what counts against Moore. However, I think the open-question argument works against proper functioning just as well as any other definition proposed of goodness -- and not because it's a priori, but because "proper functioning" leads to contradictory goods that we must choose between. Even if there are natural, ethical facts -- people choose against proper functioning and call it good.

And, Kripke supposes, this goes for any equivalence between heat and the motion of molecules. If "heat" is a rigid designator for that sensation, and "the motion of molecules" is a rigid designator for molecules in motion, then if heat is the motion of molecules, it is necessarily so. — Banno

I'm starting to see what he's getting at, I think.

For me, I'm hesitant to call "the motion of molecules" rigid because it doesn't pick out the same individuals in all possible circumstances. I'm hesitant about the relationship between names, aggregates, and whether or not aggregates are objects. The mereological problem is what I keep thinking of.

But if it's just a way of talking, and not mereology, then the truth/falsity of a particular proposition isn't what's at issue. I'm getting stuck on the ontology when he's talking epistemology. What's at issue is the necessity of identity statements, which at this time seems to me just to be anything of the form "x is y", where x and y pick out the same object.

So "heat is the motion of molecules" fits the form, and thereby are objects in terms of the logic. Kripke isn't even taking a stand on the truth/falsity of that statement as much as he's using it because identity theorists of the mind-body use it as an analogy to say "there are contingent identity statements", which is the belief Kripke is arguing against -- that if these be identity statements at all, then they are necessary.

I'm seeing this in the lectern example, where he states at p 179/pdf-18:

So, it would seem, if an example like this is correct -- and this is what advocates of essentialism have held -- that this lectern could not have been made of ice, that is in any counterfactual situation of which we would say that this lectern existed at all, we would have to say also that it was not made from water from the Thames frozen into ice. Some have rejected, of course, any such notion of essential property as meaningless. usually, it is because (and I think this is what Quine, for example, would say) they have held that it depends on the notion of identity across possible worlds, and that this is itself meaningless. Since I have rejected this view already, I will not deal with it again

Especially at the beginning it goes along with his other examples where he doesn't assert the truth as much as suppose the propositions are true in order to demonstrate necessary identity across possible worlds, since possible worlds are just counter-factual circumstances that are plausible (hence why, in the circumstances which Kripke was talking, the wooden lectern was necessarily not-ice, and since it was not-ice, it was necessarily not made of the Thames from the beginning of time)

It's the use of the counter-factual "world" (circumstances) that he's taking issue with -- in the counter-factual circumstances, the names pick out the same individual, and so -- given that every object is necessarily self-identical -- the object picked out in both the actual and the possible circumstance are necessarily the same individual, whatever the truth of the statements made.

The first thought I had was justice.

Justice is generally considered good.

And yet justice is not...

...a thing that is advantageous and pleasant and helpful and accommodating OR at least three at the same time and in the same respect of the aforementioned qualifiers. — god must be atheist

because sometimes justice must deal with rule-breaking. So while it is disadvantageous and unpleasant and unhelpful nor accommodating to punish people for breaking the rules, it's a part of what makes justice just: That the rules are fairly applied, even if inconvenient.

I think most rule-bound notions of justice would go against your definition, insofar that the rules were justified because of their fairness. (of course, rule-bound utilitarianism would go with what you said, it's just stating utility in terms of rules though -- that's not what I mean)

What is fair is not always pleasant. And, truth be told, we waste a lot of money on pursuing justice while failing to attain it, so its advantage is at least questionable. Sometimes it's advantageous to just let things go, fairness be damned. And sometimes it's good to be unhelpful and unaccommodating, such as when a group of people let their grievances be known publicly.


But even more directly, to get at what began the thread -- we can always sensibly ask, no matter what definition you provide, if the definition you provide is a good definition.

So if the good is defined by happiness, we can ask "But is happiness really good?" -- does that question make sense to you?

If we double down and say, yes, happiness really is the good, then the question falls flat.

But if you agree that the question makes sense, rather than it being a tautology, then there must be a distinction between happiness and goodness such that we can ask the question and make sense of it.

...but it wouldn't make sense if it were otherwise... — Banno

I'm not sure about the general case, but in the case of this paper I agree. I think I'm just marking where things are becoming strange for me. At this point I realized I wasn't sure what Kripke really meant by object.

One way in which this makes sense is that he's speaking to people who emphasize predication as how a person picks out an identity, at least explicitly in the talk. So in that way of looking at the logic I think I agree -- certainly every object is necessarily self-identical, insofar that necessity can be quantified over propositions at all.

However, the belief that non-existent objects have properties is at least unintuitive. Not that it's wrong, I'm just not sure what objects are now. Also, there's something funny about applying negative predicates to names, I think, even though logically there's no difference given negation is always a primitive.

... Yeah, just marking things that seem different -- not just to criticize (though maybe at some point), but to figure it out.

In my second re-read right after the molecular motion is heat part. So I'm sort of just thinking out loud here in quoting, I'm not sure if I have a point yet:

So, in this sense, the expression 'the inventor of bifocals' is nonrigid: under certain circumstances one man would have been the inventor of bifocals; under other circumstances, another one would have — pdf, page 10

What do I mean by 'rigid designator'? I mean a term that designates the same object in all possible worlds — pdf, page 11

...in talking about the notion of a rigid designator, I do not mean to imply that the object referred to has to exist in all possible worlds, that is, that it has to necessarily exist.

!!!

This one has turned all about in my mind.

So the property of necessary self-identity -- even if the object does not exist, the object is necessarily self-identical, that is, self-identical in all possible worlds -- is kind of trippy.

I'm wondering what on earth an object is at this point, other than somehow distinguishable from statements given Kripke's previous distinction.

Well, I think it is. That is, I'm now reading Kripke as suggesting that heat and the sensation of heat are somehow different things. Not too sure about that. — Banno

I'm good with distinguishing the sensation of heat from heat, even if Kripke doesn't. At least, a lot of my hesitation I think comes from knowing enough about heat to say it's a conceptual web that's slippery, if what we're trying to do is philosophy.

So my preferred notion of heat is "that which a thermometer measures". And I'm fine with a certain amount of loose use of "thermometer" (like, thermocouples and mercury thermometers are measuring the same thing).

And, from that, we can specify many ways of talking about heat.

One way is the kinetic theory, which is apt in the case of gasses at particular Pressure-Volume ranges we commonly interact with.

"molecular motion", however, would not pick out the very same atom in all possible worlds. It doesn't refer to any particular atom. It's an aggregate property.

So I suppose I'd have to say -- if molecular motion is a rigid designator, then it's at least picking out an unintuitive object -- a collection of particles that could have been different particles (and yet retained the same aggregate properties, i.e., it could be composed of oxygen atoms that come from Venus and still have the same properties) and yet is the same aggregate in all possible worlds.

Does it? What if the gasses are at thermal equilibrium? Where does energy transfer take place in mixing?

Let's take the air in your room, which is mostly a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen at thermal equilibrium with each other (albeit different concentrations). We know that they almost certainly won't spontaneously separate into regions of all nitrogen and all oxygen (thank God - or entropy - for that!) This spontaneous separation won't happen even if thermal equilibrium is maintained throughout. Indeed, bracketing out energy transfer makes it especially easy to see why spontaneous separation does not happen: the number of combinations corresponding to a state of separation is negligibly small in relation to the number of all possible combinations under the same conditions.

(Gibbs free energy is closely related to entropy, and it will decrease as a result of mixing, just as it does as a result of spontaneous energy transfer.)

Or consider mixing in reverse. You need to do work in order to separate mixed substances, transferring energy into the system - but not the other way around. In this sense, mixing does involve an asymmetric energy transfer. — SophistiCat

Just to make sure we're on the same page here, this is the wiki link to the phenomena I believe we're discussing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthalpy_of_mixing#:~:text=In%20thermodynamics%2C%20the%20enthalpy%20of,from%20a%20substance%20upon%20mixing.


So when you note that you don't need to do work to mix the substances -- that's what I'm saying is an energy transfer. I'd say that the energy transfer is between the system and the universe. Which is a funny way to really just say a beaker and the lab. So we have a beaker with a barrier between two different gasses, say, and we open up the barrier the mixing takes place within the system, there's a change in enthalpy and entropy -- and because Gibbs is negative it is a spontaneous process. We don't have to input work to have the process occur. But that still means there's a transfer of energy -- the mixed state is an energetically favorable because of the increase in entropy. In the case of gasses mixing you'll note in the equation for Gibbs:

ΔG=ΔH-T*ΔS

Since there is no change in enthalpy with mixing, the only change is in entropy. And since entropy is increasing the gibbs free energy is negative, and hence mixing is a spontaneous process.

Just to make sure we'll hate one another, that last paragraph sounds Hegelian. ;)

But your first paragraph gots me rethinking the paper. Guess I'll have to read it more than one time. Shit! :D

I feel like it's a problem, but then I see the demonstration.

I think I'm tempted by @unenlightened's approach. It's necessary, yet our language of logic is what makes it so more than what is the case. We can say what we like, and define what we like, and while that will change how we talk about things that won't change whatever "stuff" is.

Fair.

Was it a misquote, or an interpretation? I thought it was the latter.

Cheers. — Banno

I realize now I kind of went off on my own tangent in interpreting the whole text, which is different from the intent you've set out. I don't think you mind given the cheers, but I'm just noting it now.

Still reading along with the interpretations, though. Slow lab days these days post holidays :D

That's a nice way to put it. Although there is also such a thing as entropy of mixing, as when two dissimilar gases mix with each other, in which no energy transfer needs to occur. — SophistiCat

Thanks :)

Yeah it gets more complicated. What you're talking about, I think, is Gibbs "free" energy. Energy transfer still occurs, it's just not in the simple terms I set out.

I was mostly hoping to deflate the notion that entropy increase is somehow opposed to natural selection.

In general, I would describe entropy as the tendency of some macro-scale processes to be strongly time-asymmetric. That is, under the same general conditions we will almost never see their spontaneous reversal. Thus, ice cubes will melt at room temperature and never form out of room-temperature water; cream will mix with coffee and never spontaneously separate from it, and so on.

Heh, that's pretty good. But I'd counter the experimental definition. "macro-scale" already says too much, in this notion :D

I like the definitions which relate to the experimental apparatus and observations more than the conceptual ones.

Heh yeah we cross-posted.

Good thread. Got me to try Kripke again.

If I read it right, at least, you're missing the "but that if this were so it would be a different lectern".

So it could be, but then it's not the lectern we're talking about right now.

This might be the first time I've somewhat followed along with Kripke. I've tried him before only to give up.

The molecular theory of heat part of the discussion had me really interested. I don't think I'd say that the case of molecules is the same as the case of the lectern, though, or the sensation of heat. One of the most obvious differences is that "H2O" does not pick out any particular molecule -- that's something that's always interesting to me about chemistry is that it looks at physical systems in aggregate, and if aggregates have names then there are as many aggregates in a sample of water as there are the factorial of molecules (EDIT:I might have that technically wrong -- it's been more than a minute since statistical mechanics, but the factorial of the number of molecules will get you in the ball park of the number of subsets. I can't remember when substitution is and is not allowed), and "H2O" could pick out any one of the groups within. So it doesn't really name any one of the molecules but rather says "of the molecules that are here they are composed of two hydrogen and one oxygen" -- but that, too, is funny because we don't really "see" molecules. If we're defining heat in terms of sensation, then molecules should be the same and what we actually interact with are properties of matter, and molecules are used to explain the properties of matter.

Which is to say, I highly doubt that "molecular movement" is a rigid designator -- same with water and heat and H2O. Not only could it have been otherwise, it's still possible for water to not be H2O. We just happened to build our theories like that and like them this way.

But, that doesn't speak against the general argument, only that particular example (and, I actually wonder, given that particular example -- would the analysis go the same for the mind-body problem as Kripke lays it out?) I just think that particular example is much too complicated -- the lectern example seems to work for me. And, in general, I think there's something to names being rigid designators, and I agree with Kripke that there's no reason to give predicates a priority over names -- that's just putting rigidity on the other side of the predication, so would fall to the same sorts of doubts.

((EDIT: As an afterthought, now -- might be a good example to set out "equiprimordial", but in analytic terms -- seems to have a similar meaning))

Entropy really "clicked" for me when I understood it as nothing but the direction we observe energy to move -- without the 2nd law of thermodynamics, there's no reason why water spills to the ground -- if you reverse the 2nd law, then the water would fall up and into containers.

Calling it "disorder" or "order" is a bit misleading, I think -- or, at least, has the tendency to evoke images that aren't exactly what the law is saying. Really it's just describing the movement (dynamics) of heat (thermo) -- and less archaically, the 2nd law says "heat goes from hotter object to colder object", and hotter object happens to have a relationship to energy, so more technically "energy goes from object with more joules to object with less joules". This is confusing in the water example because there's not really any heat involved, but it's that relationship between temperature and energy that makes it more generally applicable -- we generally observe energy to go from a higher concentration to a lower concentration within the universe. Without Reverse the 2nd law, rather than a heat death we would predict a heat compaction.

And, as already pointed out, life increases the entropy of the universe. So rather than being at odds the theories are actually in harmony.

But it's still just what we observe. I'm pretty leery of cosmological claims because I tend to think of the 2nd law in empirical, experimental terms more than a fundamental law.

Well, at least, I don't know how.

Correlations I think I'd say is Relations. Except maybe with a phenomenological twist. A relation from a certain point of view. At least right now I remember you noting how correlations are central, I think that's how I'd interpret that now. Some actor/thinker has a belief about a relation between two names is equal to an association.

But that doesn't tell me why all these marks we're making mean anything. Meaning feels both ephemeral and shared. You and I count these characters made through our keyboards as English, and are able to communicate because of that. In some way this goes towards @Banno and @Dawnstorm 's points about language being an institution. And I think that the internet makes these features easier to observe. How else could we relate to one another? I still believe I've had the face-to-face encounter on this forum, yet they are both right in noting that we couldn't have that encounter without the institution of English. Well, with my quibble, I might say that we couldn't have that encounter without the institution of philosophy.

Hrm. I'll wait to see, but that might be a good point of difference to jump from.

Only way to find out is at 800 more posts.

I am a strict phenomenologist. (at least I like to joke that way)

I think it's sort of like taking the limit. The more you talk about it the closer you approach the ineffable. At 2k posts we'll be certain to at least glimpse an asymptote.

I don;t have any strong opinion here. I suppose that if alienation is not compatible with the broader notion of institutions, we could re-think alienation. But it's not clear to me that this is needed. — Banno

Cool.

I was saying alienation couldn't be represented in Searle's language of institutions but... more specific to the thread on Searle you pointed out I'm realizing, and therefore absolutely necessary to cover in figuring out ineffabillity ;)

The broader notion I agree with, here:

as a rule of thumb, sociology considers any suriving regular social behaviour an institution. — Dawnstorm

and here:

the difference between a grunt and an utterance is exactly that the utterance makes use of an institution... it counts as a warning or an admonition or some such. It has a normative role. — Banno

I think I was getting stuck on the nitty gritty within the Searle thread.

Heh, even in seeking disagreement... :D

Though one thing that occurs to me that might still be an object of disagreement is group size.

To me, I'd be inclined to say two people who use a joke twice, or who have noticed whose "spot" it is on the bus, have created an institution, by our understandings provided. It may not be a long lasting or massively significant one, but I'd say it fits.

And I think the Searle thread got me thinking.... there's no way that fits. Plus the part I already mentioned about trying to distinguish the mental from the social in a particular way.

Language itself is an institution (at least in sociology). I'm not sure I remember how Marx used the word, but I doubt modern Marxist sociologist would find the idea that language is an institution surprising. There are many different theories, but as a rule of thumb, sociology considers any suriving regular social behaviour an institution. When you speak of linguistic institutions above do you mean stuff like dictionaries, linguistics, crossword puzzles...? Or the organisations that make them? — Dawnstorm

I think some of what I replied to @Banno makes this clearer. I'm on board with language being an institution in this very broad rule of thumb you put here. I'm quibbling with Searle's notion, which relates to language because that's how it's situated in the thread.

Yeah, the utterance makes the institution: without the utterance, no language. But, generally, people draw on their expectations of the institution to make those utterances. Chicken-egg situation, at that point. — Dawnstorm

Yeah. But there is no "the" institution, at that point, right? The groups are so many...

Hmmm. I read Searle as claiming that the difference between a grunt and an utterance is exactly that the utterance makes use of an institution... it counts as a warning or an admonition or some such. It has a normative role. — Banno

So far so good on this phrasing. I went through the thread on Searle you linked so I'm sort of responding to all the ideas that were in it at once.

If "institution" is just what counts as according to any group then I'm picking on Searle's account of institution more than I am the notion that language is enacted by a group which counts certain marks as meanings. Separately I also doubt that counting-as must be rule-bound (and, further, I wouldn't say that makes language ineffable, regardless of the status of its rule-boundedness). To that end I was trying to use Marx's notion of alienation as a contrast to Searle's notion of institution as status-functions which arise from we-intentions to show how his notion of we-intentions wouldn't be able to handle alienation, which should count as an institution by this rule of thumb:

There are many different theories, but as a rule of thumb, sociology considers any suriving regular social behaviour an institution. — Dawnstorm

So if language is an institution which arises from we-intentions of a group counting marks as meaningful then it seems to me alienation isn't really possible.

That is, there are different positions within a group, and how counting-as works.

Well, I'm not sure what "mental" entails. Do we agree that social intent is not private? "mental" stuff tends to be regarded as private. I would like to avoid seeing, say, buying a pizza as a mental activity. — Banno

Social intent is not private. And if we're talking the private language argument, mental is not private either.

"buying a pizza" is a social activity. I bet, however we count mental, the mental will be involved in some sense, but not in the sense of the ineffable or anything.

Much of my thoughts on the ineffable is how I think people prefer to think of the social in mental terms, and then claim that it is somehow private (and, therefore, cannot be criticized). So there's some of my interest in these distinctions.

That certain noises or marks count as utterances, while others do not, shows that language is institutional. — Banno

I'm not sure.

Just looking at linguistic institutions, it seems to me that all linguistic institutions do the opposite of making certain marks count as utterances. They categorize what happened to work before, but it wasn't the institution that made the utterance, but the other way around. Language pre-dates institutions, after all.

We don't know why certain noises or marks count as utterances.

Far as Searle's account is from Marx, they do agree in that the social is not reducible to the mental. In Searle's analysis we-intent is not reducible to I-intent.

And I think he is correct here.

I agree that I-intent does not reduce to we-intent, but I'm not sure I'm following how Searle escapes the charge of reducing the social to the mental. We-intentions are mental, yeah? And status-functions arise out of we-intentions. So maybe not reducible, but still arises out of -- unless I'm completely misunderstanding.

That's pretty much it. — Banno

Cool.

Language allows us to construct institutional facts; see the thread on Searle I presented earlier. These institutional facts are manifestations of collective intentionality; yet they can appear quite tangible - things such as property or incorporation... or word "meaning".

I think the meaning encoded institutionally is always after the fact. But that doesn't mean the words we use right now don't have meaning.

Language enables, and language is social -- but not institutional. Not even as a status-function derived from we-intentions.

Much of my interest in Searle is his clear case of the social being reducible to the mental, and my desire to make the case that the social is independent of the mental.

I'd say the Marxist account of the social treats the social as a distinct entity that is not reducible to the mental, nor does it arise out of a collective will. A monopoly on violence is closer -- only it'd include liberal democracies within that scope. Rather than collectively enacted rules, the social organism behaves in accord with its own patterns which, in turn, shape individuals to follow rules. A proletarian knows the consequences of falling out of line. This creates the status of alienation which goes directly against we-intentions. The worker has a two-fold identity: the world of rules from the boss that he must dance to, and the knowledge that the rules are just excuses for violence if he doesn't behave.

Knowing the rules like this is simply not a deontic relationship. One follows the rules, in deontology, for the value of the rule itself, because it is what is worthy, and you respect that rule -- and as a freely acting person you choose to obey its strictures.

But workers are not free, in the bosses' language, complete with its deontic promises.

And having a need to be able to express that condition, from time to time -- they don't just break rules, rules aren't even useful. Rules are for bosses and lawyers and people who make a living by parsing written things. Workers aren't trained in that, and so it is to their disadvantage to give into the world of reasons and procedures. Power is at the point of production, and if you can stop that it doesn't matter how you say it. (but note how the very world is different now -- a rule without deontic commitments)

And after the strike, win or lose, the boss won't understand it.

Perhaps, although I don't think so. I agree with much of what you are saying here. — Banno

Heh. Mostly just looking for something that might differentiate us.

We agree that there are rules for language use, and that these rules are regularly broken.

There are two ways of expressing a rule. One way is to set it out explicitly in words. The other is to enact it. Both "stop at the red light" and stopping at the red light express a rule.

Cool. I agree so far.

Well, stating the rule might come after the fact, but it might also come before it, when teaching someone to follow the rule, or when stipulating a new rule - consider the Académie Française. Neither is logically prior to the other. — Banno

Good point. I agree neither is logically prior to the other.

I guess the counter-example would have to be -- a usage that is not state-able in a rule.

That doesn't seem to be possible, to me. We can always append more clauses -- there is no rule limiting how many clauses fit into a sentence, and rules can consist of many sentences on top of that. And even if there was a rule, I would break it :D

We can even invent meanings ex nihilo, so gavagai might fit, or phi, or F of x.

I guess that's the conflict I'm thinking of -- between invented meanings and rules. Is novelty a rule being expressed non-verbally? Is there a difference between meaning and rules at all? I think I was thinking of them as different... but if language is purely a system of grunts for getting things done, then the meaning could "float away".

It just seems a bit too much to me because it seems like words do mean things.

Of course, I might have this all wrong too :D -- but this is where my thoughts are taking me at the moment.

Language is constructed by recursively applying a finite number of rules to a finite vocabulary. — Banno

There might be our difference.

How language is constructed is unknown. The rules come after the fact as explanations for our usage, but even those rules are broken over time -- and whether it's a diversion or an invention I'd posit is more a historical story than a scientific one. Just meaning I'm uncertain that there's a strict functional relationship between some finite set of rules and a vocabulary. Not that we don't follow such rules, we do -- but we also invent things too. Even on the spot. Most vocabulary that's recorded "drifts up" from vernacular, where people invent terms on the spot on the regular.

Yet:

Language consists of units - words and phrases and phonemes and letters- that are re-usable and can be put into novel structures that are nevertheless meaningful. — Banno

That's true.

What I'm not seeing is what this has to do with nonduality. In seeing something as something, it would seem the whole dualistic conditioning of subjects seeing objects, of self and other, is involved. — Janus

I think that's a point under contention :D

As @Banno put it, the subject is a Cartesian hangover which is better gotten rid of. (or, metaphysically, between mental-stuff and physical-stuff) (EDIT: At least, ala this notion that analytic philosophy is anti-dualistic. I still think on it because I think the subject has a way of creeping back up even if dissolved)

The sense-datum theory, as I understand it, is one which is still structured around the subject. A subject doesn't see mountains as mountains (except naively), rather a subject interprets the basics of experience (the sense-datum) which it has learned to call a mountain.

Dissolve the subject, though, and there's not really a place for sense-datum. Or, vice versa, dissolve sense-datum (or the raw experience, or experience as it is, or a film of subjectivity), then what is left of a subject with respect to perception? (since that was the focus of the book)

I mean, it's been a minute since I've read that too, it was just an example that comes to mind of analytic philosophers eschewing dualism, especially of the subject-object variety.

Oh I wouldn't be that harsh on yourself. I was saying, here's the OP! You got there! I found something I could say and respond to in it, at least.

:) Thanks.

One day, I'll be strong enough to do the third reading, where-upon the true and secret meaning I've been seeking will reveal itself to me. :D

I finally realized that if I wanted to go down the route of making sensible claims about what Kant really meant then I'd have to actually become an academic, and I decided against that.

So, a medal? Sure. "The medal of loving the critique of pure reason" :D

It's being made of H₂O is essential to water. — Banno

This is a notion that still mystifies me.

And such a good writer! A lot of philosophy is downright miserable to read- have you ever tried to read Kan't CPR, for instance? As in, reading it cover to cover? Pure torture! :vomit: — busycuttingcrap

:D

I understand what you mean, but I actually love reading Kant. It's not literary at all, so that's why I say I understand. But I sort of enjoy the rhythms of a mind expressing itself in the most explicit manner.

To answer your question directly, and humble-brag, I've read the CPR 2 times :D -- first translation by Norman Kemp Smith, the latter read on Pluhar's

I'm not sure...

But, just generically speaking, OLP includes Sense and Sensibilia -- a book I read some time ago on @Banno's mention, and that seems to be a book about a non-dual awareness that isn't mystical, is non-dualistic, and is both analytic philosophy and OLP.

I see that!

At the very least, that makes sense of his various contradictions, and aphoristic style of speaking, and his stance on truth...

I feel you when you describe your fascination with Nietzsche. Love him or hate him, he can't be ignored. He was an incredibly original thinker that also knew how to think.