I like that idea. It would be good to see who is off topic by examining what each person was talking about and comparing it to the specified topic in the OP.

Just might be that several people have egg on their chins. Or mustaches. — Sir2u

The discussions in question were my own discussions. You think I could have been the one going off topic in my own discussions? :brow:

They began to talk past me as soon as they tried to criticise my argument by merely assuming their own definition or premise. My argument never had that included, and I made that very clear, and I made it very clear that I rejected their definition or premise. That's where it should've ended if they had nothing else to offer. But the problem was reoccurring.

I can't be bothered to go back through pages and pages of discussion in order to find and quote what I'm talking about.

The basis is simply that person A says "I reasonably supported assertion P," because person A sincerely feels that to be the case, whereas person B says "No you didn't," because they sincerely feel that to be the case.

So now what do we do? — Terrapin Station

It's not a matter of feeling. It's reasonableness we're talking about here. Reasonableness is not like morality. An appeal to emotion here is itself unreasonable. It is a known fallacy.

We can use logic and our own eyes and our own brains to assess whether or not a claim is a bare assertion. If I were to publicly make the claim that one of your claims is a bare assertion, then yourself and others have the opportunity to point me to the supposed support of it, and then we can take it from there, once again using logic to determine whether or not any supposed support I might be pointed to really does support your claim.

Of course we cannot know empirically what meaning is ontologically, but we're not doing empirical science. We are trying to figure out, with arguments, what can be known about the ontology of meaning. — Echarmion

It's a relief to see that I'm not alone on this. I've learnt to see the word "empirical" as a red flag now in contexts like this.

The thread title is "the ontology of linguistic meaning". If we were comparing the merits of alternative possible ways of talking, then all we'd have to decide is whether or not we are communicating effectively. That is very clearly not what anyone in this thread has been doing so far. I have given arguments for why I think meaning is something that occurs in minds and is not part of the text absent any minds, i.e. without minds there will be no meaning. Obviously, I think that these arguments represent "knowing when we've got there". If you think these arguments do not work or cannot possibly answer the question, I'd like to know why. — Echarmion

Oh dear. I think that that's a massive error. It very much has to do with the use of language. And I did even question in my opening post whether this could all boil down to that. You're matching up your language with what you think works best. But I've pointed out big problems with using "meaning" in that way.

The rather obvious problem with your argument is that any truth to it is only trivial. If meaning is [insert any definition you like], then [logical consequence of definition]. So it does become an issue beyond what meaning is. It becomes an issue of what definition works best.

As opposed of it being merely an interpretation created by minds. — Echarmion

But that leads to seemingly absurd logical consequences. A sign saying "Caves up ahead" wouldn't mean that there are caves up ahead? Just because no one is there interpreting it? :brow:

How do people even take this claim seriously?

Are you now claiming that we don't actually think meanings, that meanings are in no sense a conscious phenomenon? — Terrapin Station

At best, that's hugely incomplete. There's the meaning that I'm thinking about right now. But to jump to the conclusion that meaning is therefore a mental activity would be completely unwarranted.

I'm claiming that meanings (my interpretation, not yours) aren't necessarily thought, and aren't necessarily a conscious phenomenon. Meaningful thoughts aren't the same as meanings. Meanings don't have to be thought.

Evidence for the existence of mentality is a far cry from having directly identified the meaning of a word located in someone's brain. — Isaac

:up:

What I said there, except possibly for the bit about properties, is completely non-controversial in analytic philosophy. — Terrapin Station

Maybe I'll look into your claim out of interest, but obviously even if true, it wouldn't mean that you're not wrong, or that you're not speaking a language which clashes with ordinary language use. If you're right about this being normal in analytic philosophy, then it would just mean that Analyticese would be a better name for the language you're speaking.

What seems controversial to me is not that the fact that there's a cat on the mat is about stuff which can be described as you described it. That's the important difference as I see it.

How would we have a fact that's not a system or process? — Terrapin Station

Easy. That's not how I use the word. Nor is it how it is ordinarily used. It doesn't even make sense to say that facts like that today is Saturday, or that I am in my room, or that I can't run faster than the speed of light, and so on, are systems or processes. They're just facts.

Facts aren't about anything. — Terrapin Station

Of course they are! And this is where you're clashing with ordinary language usage big time. The fact that there's a cat on the mat is about a cat and a mat and location. Even a child could tell you that it's about a cat.

"Fact" isn't the same thing as "true proposition." — Terrapin Station

I agree. Facts and true propositions are distinct, and correspond.

Facts are what true propositions are about. — Terrapin Station

Lol, no. The true proposition "I am in my room" is not about a fact. It is about me and my room and my location. It just corresponds with a fact. A true proposition like "It is a fact that I'm in my room" is about a fact.

Facts are simply "ways that things are" --their material make-up and their relations, including dynamic relations (and the relations obviously include "to other things"), and all of this is also identical to properties. This is also known as "states of affairs." — Terrapin Station

In Terrapinese, which is the name that I've just coined for your language, that is true. I, however, think that there are better available languages to use. We could just break what you're talking about down and call it something like "composition" and "relationship". Facts are simply what's the case.

Hammering nails does not happen in a vacuum (at least not normally). The air in the vicinity is affected, too, and it's a part of the system/process in question. — Terrapin Station

I'm not talking about a system or a process, I'm talking about a fact. I don't deny the stuff the fact is about. I just don't conflate the two.

Why do philosophy-types feel the need to conflate distinct things in a way that causes problems? I've encountered this multiple times now in varying contexts. What good could this possibly do? Horses aren't cats for crying out loud!

Are you getting this stuff from Heidegger, by the way?
— S

I've never been so insulted in my whole life! — Isaac

Wait, what? Seriously? :lol:

I mean, I would be insulted too, but then I don't go on about hammers in a way that seems reminiscent of something I recall once reading about Heidegger.

I'm not quite sure what it is you think I'm doing, so I don't know whether to argue the point, or correct you. If 'it has' anything, then the thing 'it has' is a property of 'it'. If I say walnuts have a hard shell, then a hard shell is a property of a walnut. — Isaac

As I explained, if you apply that in every case, then in some cases you will end up making the mistake of an overly literal interpretation. This is one of those cases. Your example of the walnut is not.

Here was my explanation from earlier:

That seems to take our way of talking about the hammer far too literally. To say that the hammer has a use, or a potential use, is not to say that the hammer has this as a property, it would just be to say that the hammer is used in this way, or that it could be, given its properties, e.g. a rubber grip with an ergonomic design, a metal head with a broad, flat end, etc. — S

But the more relevant point here is what problem you are trying to solve. If I call an object's uses (either past or potential) a property of the object, what problems does that cause that I might be advised to change my approach here? — Isaac

I just find it a funny way of using the language. It doesn't seem right to me, so you can speak funny if you want to, but I decline.

Again, I disagree with your conclusion here, but much more importantly, I'm missing what these problems are it is causing. — Isaac

Why would it require interpretation? It wouldn't. And that results in colourless things in space, in spite of conditions whereby it makes sense to say that they're coloured. Why not go with what makes sense? Why turn the role that we or our devices play into a more fundamental role, when that isn't necessary? It seems like a backwards way of thinking, like anthropocentrism, like Ptolemy's way of thinking whereby the Earth is at the centre of the solar system. Does the Earth need to be at the centre? No. So don't make it that way.

My way is more in line with the principle of Ockham's razor, it seems.

So explain how such a thing does not fit exactly into the same set of conditional statements you just parsed for the ability to describe 'blue' as a property of the hammer?

If there was a device capable of {driving nails with a hammer} , and if it {wanted to drive some nails, with no other impeding factor}, and if the {hammer had the property of tending to be used to drive nails} , then it is {used to drive nails} . — Isaac

I don't get why you're turning this molehill into a mountain. It has properties which could make it a tool, like almost everything else. But the properties of the object and what the object could be used for are two distinct things. I prefer to be clear and logical, so I reject a conflation of the two.

I'm not following you. Trivialise how? And what things?

I get the first bit, you're saying the empirical evidence isn't the only evidence of a thing being true. I'm not entirely on board with that, but I get the idea. It's the last bit I don't get. — Isaac

What I meant is that it trivialises things without a logical connection which makes it relevant. (And in that case, it would be relevant but mistaken, so it is actually lose-lose here, but at least it is better to be wrong then to miss the point entirely). And people sometimes don't even make the logical connections they're making explicit, let alone attempt a proper justification. Just look at this discussion and others like it! It can be like trying to get blood out of a stone with some people.

So, just saying something about what we can know empirically, in itself, doesn't really say anything at all.

Categorised as 'blue' by what? — Isaac

It has already been categorised as blue, by us. It is set in the rules.

Exactly my point. We say the cup is blue, we say that its blueness is a property of the cup. Its being blue, however, is only something which is manifest relative to some device responding to its blueness (and responding correctly). This fact, however, causes no problem whatsoever for us calling the cup 'blue' or talking as if blueness were a property of the cup. Therefore, it need cause us no problem whatsoever to refer to meaning being a property of a word, despite the fact that it too is only manifest when some properly calibrated device (a language use) hears the word. — Isaac

Manifest? But what we're talking about - things like whether the cup is blue or a word has a meaning - are determined irrespective of what you call "manifestation". This "manifestation" of which you speak just seems to be about a sort of relationship which becomes "active" when it involves a subject or a device as a receiver in the relationship. But I think that that's beside the point. The "passive" shouldn't be discounted. There's no gap which needs to be covered over by a certain way of talking. It really is blue, and the word really does mean something, even when this is not "manifest" to someone or something.

I agree that an argument could be made for ensuring that when we say "the hammer is used for driving nails" we know that such use is not literally contained in it, such that we could draw it out and examine it alone, but I don't see a problem with defining a property of an object as being those responses it has some tendency to produce. My reason for this is that, firstly, I'm far more comfortable than most here seem to be with fuzzy-edges and definitions which do not have clear criteria, "stand roughly there" and defining "game" being the classic examples. This means that I'm not at all bothered that a hammer only has a propensity to be used for driving nails, that's good enough for me. If I saw a hammer in a builder's yard I wouldn't suspect it to part of the builder's lunch. — Isaac

I'm fine with what Wittgenstein called family resemblance. I don't see that as a valid basis for what you're doing. You could just say that it has a use. You don't have to say that its use is a property of it.

Secondly, I think that it eliminates what might otherwise be an unhelpful line between those properties we're happy to assign to object on account of their constancy (like 'blueness') and those which are not constant (like use). 'Blueness' is not as constant as we think, it still require calibration to interpret, it's still, to a certain extent, only a tendency. The division is a gradation, not a clean line. — Isaac

No, it doesn't require any interpretation. These question begging assertions from people like you are a massive problem.

To say the hammer is blue (as a property) is to say that it has a tendency to cause properly calibrated objects capable of registering 'blueness' to register blue. — Isaac

Stuff like that is best put in the form of a logical conditional which ensures objectivity, thereby eliminating problems associated with subjectivism:

If there was a device capable of measuring the wavelength, and if it was used to measure the wavelength, and if the measured wavelength was within the corresponding range for the colour, then it is that colour.

For all cases where that conditional is true, it would be that colour.

I've resolved this "problem" in philosophy. We can move on to the next "problem" in philosophy.

To say the hammer is used to drive nails (as a property) is to say that it has a tendency to cause properly calibrated devices (in this case humans wishing to drive nails) to drive nails with it. — Isaac

That's not a property, at least per my way of speaking. But hey ho.

So, it is true that meaning persist without minds if meaning persists without minds - something we can never possibly know empirically. — Isaac

Empirically. That's the key word. And it trivialises things in my assessment. That we can't know something empirically is not that we can't know something.

As I asked before, in the depths of darkest space, is the cup still blue? — Isaac

Is the scenario such that there is light reflecting off of the cup of a certain range in wavelength which corresponds to that categorised as the colour blue? If so, then yes, in accordance with this criterion; this criterion which makes sense, unlike other criteria which lead to problems, like colourless things floating around in space, in spite of this. Of course, it wouldn't look blue. It wouldn't look blue to anyone if no one was even looking at it. But who cares about that, except people who like creating problems for no good reason? Why should any serious philosophy care about these pointless troublemakers?

Rather, I'm questioning whether or not it is even able to be deciphered. — creativesoul

Problem of ambiguity again. In practice or in principle?

I could probably go along and identify problems in every single one of your comments. They're always full of problems.

It's funny that he's ignoring me, even though his opening post was blatantly originally intended to be used as the opening in a formal debate against me. A debate he would've been destined to lose, of course.

Nothing. — Banno

Well, you had better reconsider. Or else... I'll... write a formal letter of complaint!

Not every post has you as it's focus. — Banno

And what do you intend to do to go about redressing this?

But welcome to the discussion. — Banno

Thanks. Thanks for dragging me into it in such an infuriating manner. :lol:

§116 in preference to grasping essences of abstract, philosophical concepts, look to their use in ordinary language. — Banno

That's great on a practical level, in a sense of what we mean by this or that. But it doesn't help resolve the problem that I was getting at in my discussion, and which the early Wittgenstein recognised as a problem, and which he and I share a logical resolution to. But if you want to misapply his later method in inappropriate contexts which lead to irresolvable logical problems, then be my guest.

Note that he doesn't deny the abstract there. On the contrary, he tacitly acknowledges it. He doesn't deny, at least in that quote, that there is a concept of meaning as a separate and logically distinct entity.

You're the one leading me down the garden path! You seem to confuse your own interpretation for something greater than that. Step one would be to show more of a recognition of the fallible nature of your own ability to interpret Wittgenstein - or me for that matter!

You might add that I should decide if your OP is a simile or an analogy. In either case, it's use here is to show how such thinking can lead one down a false trail. — Banno

And it doesn't show that, because I came back with a challenge which you've decided to ignore. It only shows that you're not really bothered.

Is the meaning of written text existentially dependent upon it's use? — creativesoul

But how would you demonstrate that it is in a nontrivial way? A trivial way would, for example, be to just assert that meaning is use, and then interpret that in a way which has your conclusion as a logical consequence. This merely means that meaning is not use (by your interpretation). That assertion would just be dismissed, at least pending support from you.

This sort of thing seems to be a problem for you, and is probably at least partly why you get replies like the one before this.

He disregarded meaning in favour of use.

I don't see how this might be compatible with a segregation of expression and meaning. And it's a long way from the topic here. — Banno

Then don't bring it up here, genius. Is this not a topic for discussing the text of the PI? One obvious way of doing that is by contrasting it with the text of the TLP, and by discussing your own examples. I think that you're just letting your feelings get in the way of good sense, so you try to shut out anything of relevance I might have to say. You expect me to remain silent. Yet, of course, you still continue to use what I'm saying as an example.

That meaning is use, is, by my interpretation, compatible with what I'm saying. Or, if the wording is problematic, then the phrase can be suitably qualified. I'm not setting out to make the views of the later Wittgenstein contradict the views of the early Wittgenstein, which doesn't seem like a productive approach at all. I'm seeking to get the best of both worlds, a sort of compatibilism.

Thanks for that. It was interesting.

Of course, the philosophers after all of that, around the time of the linguistic turn, also had relevant points to make: G. E. Moore, Russell, Wittgenstein.

All you gotta grasp is, any attempt to think up conditions without thinking beings, is doomed to failure. — Mww

So all we've got to "grasp" is a demonstrable falsehood. Got it.

It is impossible to think of situations without thinkers because of the absolute necessity of the incidence of the one thinking it up. — Mww

This is a very old and very deceptive argument which has long since been refuted. I think it stems from Berkeley, one of the worst philosophers of all time. It's more sophism than philosophy. I dealt with it when you brought it up in my other discussion. The question is, why are you repeating it?

So there is no such thing as anything. Just the experience of all these "things" that don't exist?
— ZhouBoTong

My happiness exists. My tiredness exists. The smörgåsbord of shapes and colours and tastes and smells that are my experience of eating an orange exists. So I don't know why you would suggest that idealism entails that things don't exist. — Michael

:roll:

See my discussion about people talking past each other.

He even made it easy for you by using scare quotes. You know, like those "horses" that purr and sit on your lap.

If idealism is true and an orange is just part of one's experience then eating is also just part of one's experience. You can talk normally and describe this as eating an orange... — Michael

And that would be deceptive. So, you can talk normally, so long as you're deceptive and don't really mean what you say. And this isn't a problem for idealism?

And no, you can't even talk normally! As I just demonstrated multiple times! Normally, when I ask what an orange is, we can insert your answer into the sentence, "I am eating [an orange]", only replacing the bracketed part with your answer.

Michael, you are in irrational denial here.

The orange that you experience is just an experience... — Michael

That's like calling my pointing at the moon "the moon". The moon that I'm pointing at is just my pointing. It's like saying that what I see is my vision. It's ridiculous and makes no sense. It's a problem obvious to most people, except of course some philosophy-types who try in vein to make it go away.

This isn't some "elaborate" attempt to make sense of idealism. It's pretty straightforward. — Michael

Whether it's elaborate or straightforward, it's still a failure.

Earlier someone mentioned location...

I wonder why?

Meaning is not the sort of thing that has a spatiotemporal location. — creativesoul

I mentioned it, and I mentioned it because of the expressed views of @Terrapin Station, and because it seemed relevant to the problem that @jamalrob brought up, as well as the related problem which I brought up in response, and which you're echoing here: the problem of category errors.

And I agree with you. @Terrapin Station doesn't though, I think. But I'll let him speak for himself. If I've understood him correctly, he thinks that everything has a location, including meaning, including Tuesday - you name it, he'll "locate" it.

I sympathize. But it's probably the case that the other side also experiences your pushing on as missing the already identified problem, while also seeing themselves as just pushing on. It gets more tricky than horses vs cats quickly.

So what's to be done? — csalisbury

Well, to give another example which has happened to me here recently: if I've identified where the problem seems to be stemming from, like a controversial premise, and clearly point it out, and point out that it is unsubstantiated, then it's really unhelpful to read that as something completely different, like "I want you to construct a valid formal argument containing that same controversial premise", or to think that that will do anything towards resolving the problem. The premise would need to be turned into a conclusion, with the preceding premises made explicit.

Simply incorporating that controversial premise into an argument is a bit like constructing a game of Jenga with a broken block holding it all together, so that the stack is really unstable, and then inviting me to play. Except that if I easily cause the entire stack to collapse by pulling out the broken block, then I haven't lost, they have.

Another way of responding to this that I've experienced is to constantly set aside the problems I'm pointing out, and instead to deflect the focus back on me, or to change the subject in subtle ways. That only delays the inevitable, as we end up coming back to the same unresolved problems I've previously raised, or I eventually get too distracted from the original problems I identified and they get left behind.

There's only so much I can do. I try to make these problems clear in the discussions themselves, and I try to make clear what needs to be done in order to move towards a resolution.

The most prominent example of a simile producing a false appearance is for me the Mashed Potato thread. "There's the potato, and then there's the mashing of it". this is like "There's the meaning, and then there's the expressing of it".

But this isn't how it is! But S says yet this is how it has to be!

There will be other examples on the forums. And examples of other errors. I suggest one way to proceed wit this thread is in identifying such examples. — Banno

Well merely saying that it's wrong isn't interesting at all. You've linked me in on a post which doesn't contain any support of your assertions.

Clearly I agree with early Wittgenstein on this, even if the later Wittgenstein himself disagreed. Also, I doubt your understanding of the later Wittgenstein. Was he really so unreasonable as to deny that there's the meaning, and then there's the expressing of it? Or is this just your misunderstanding? I'm heavily leaning towards the latter, but perhaps you'll surprise me.

@Luke, @Sam26, help us out here, please.

How do we know that we're using terms consistently in this thread and that while you're talking about inconsistent term usage, I'm hearing tales of cats. — Hanover

I love cats. Black Beauty is one of my favourite films.

If the issue is the problem of talking past each other in a philosophical discussion and the issue isn't a misunderstanding, then it's simply not a debate, but just people saying what they want to say and not caring what others are talking about, like:

A) I want to talk here about horses.

B) I love cats. I have a cat. Many people in the Forum have cats. Have you known that? It's interesting they don't have dogs. Why is it so?

C) Dog owners are fascists.

A) But the issue was horses. Horses are big.

B) Oh I agree, C. They are fascists. — ssu

Talking past each other is an English phrase describing the situation where two or more people talk about different subjects, while believing that they are talking about the same thing.

If it's talking past each other, then it's a misunderstanding, namely that they're talking about the same thing. What you gave as an example could be an example of people talking past each other, although it's clearer in my example. Yours is more implicit. Technically, it doesn't rule out that the others just deliberately changed the subject, which is a different thing.

Who gets to decide what's a reasonable support, though? — Terrapin Station

Reasonable people.

Sure. So what would be "the right way"? — Terrapin Station

Either try to reasonably support the controversial assertion or be explicit about what it is and what you're doing.

The point here would be that one thinks that the idea in question has things factually wrong, so "engaging in a productive way" with it would involve trying to correct the error. — Terrapin Station

It's fine to try correct what one believes to be an error; again, so long as one goes about it in the right way. The problem has been an apparent obliviousness of what going about it in the right way would look like. Don't just assert that a horse is a cat. Don't just assert that horses are fluffy. I get that you might well think that I'm the one making an error, but you're not helping. You're not doing anything productive by doing that.

:smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk: :smirk:

When you go to bed tonight, this expression will haunt your dreams.

...kinda like a persuasive rhetoric designed to capture a sense of ridicule and sway feelings... — Amity

Oh, that. You noticed? I thought that you might have been too busy gallantly riding in on your high horse to save the day, with your noble armour of pure brilliant white glistening in the dazzling sun, a reflection of your saintly nature and inestimable virtue.

Those are ontological analyses of what the terms are conventionally referring to. People are naturally going to disagree on such things. There's no way to demand that others use the same ontological analysis that you believe is correct, or to demand that they just ignore ontological analyses altogether. — Terrapin Station

Oh my goodness. I'm not suggesting that people aren't going to disagree, or that they shouldn't do so. I'm suggesting that they should do so in the right way. When a dead end is reached, then that should be the end of it. You have a responsibility to be as clear as possible about dead ends, and to deal with them appropriately. But instead, what I've seen happen is that some people will just keep pushing their own ideas and going around in circles, and then all I end up doing is identifying the reoccurring problem while the other person just keeps pushing on. If you're either unwilling or unable to engage in a more productive way with an idea, because it clashes with an idea of your own that you won't let go off, then you should just come out and say so, and let that be the end of it. Why have we been unduly dragging things out?

I'm not demanding anything at all, let alone what you suggest above. I'm appealing to people to stop and think about these kind of problems, and think about what they themselves can do to reduce them from occurring in future.

I am no 'white knight' ( ladies and gentlemen :roll: ) but I will sometimes call out the behaviour and expressions of others.
I support those brave enough to stick their heads above the parapet and acknowledge a certain wisdom in those who choose to ignore. — Amity

I dunno... sounds kinda white knight-ey to me.

:zip: