What I'm saying is that we only have something we call "reference", the thing that we do with referring expressions like names and descriptions, so that we can talk about things with other people. More than that, our individual cognitive capacities are shaped by our interactions with other people, so the sorts of things we want to talk about are already the objects or potential objects of shared cognition. — Srap Tasmaner

That's fairly persuasive as a theory of the origin of speech, but I don't think it necessarily indicates that we can't speak meaningfully while alone. The part of the motor cortex that orchestrates speech is separated from the portion that handles comprehension. It's not clear that the unity of consciousness we enjoy today is the way humans have always been. It may be that talking to ourselves has been around as long as talking to each other has.

It's important to remember that skills don't necessarily arise for a need, but having arisen, they find a need (can't remember who said that, Democritus?) It may be that speech just randomly emerged as a continuous stream accompanying experience. In time, it became valuable for group dynamics. We really don't know.

Why does any of this matter? Because words are a "just enough" technology that evolved for cooperative use; a word, even a name, is not something that carries its full meaning like a payload. Words are more like hints and nudges and suggestions. They are incomplete by nature.

And so it is with using them to refer. We should expect that to be a partial, incomplete business. — Srap Tasmaner

Absolutely.

I doubt that story, but about all I have in the way of argument is that our cognitive habits and capacities are shaped by just this sort of good enough exchange. My suspicion is that we largely think this way as well. And this makes a little more sense if you think of your cognition as overwhelmingly shared, not as the work of an isolated mind that occasionally ventures out to express itself. — Srap Tasmaner

Sure. I think there's convincing evidence that speech capability is innate, but interaction is necessary for development.

You the entire planet Earth and all living things. It’s basically what you said. — NOS4A2

:grin: Sorry if I misunderstood. I thought that's how you felt.

Where do you come up with this stuff? — NOS4A2

I thought that's basically what you said. You hate the USA.

I don't think anyone has made the claim that reference is ever done using a private language. The claim you made is that someone has to comprehend the speaker's reference in order to for there to be any reference. As @J pointed out, that's an odd usage of the term "reference." I don't think it's what Kripke is talking about.

Hierarchical position is a factor along side content. — BC

Very true. This shows up dramatically in Korean and Japanese TV shows because expressing social rank and respect for elders is built into the language. Seniors are at ease and seem a little self absorbed. Juniors are humble and attentive, or they get bitched at for not listening.

They’re your friends, why don’t you ask them. — T Clark

These are my friends:

here

I was noting that such inferences cannot result in certainty.

But it's important to note that this doesn't matter.

We don't need to fix the referent of "gavagai" with absolute certainty in order to get the stew, or go hunting rabbits.

So much of the conversation about fixing referents is unnecessary — Banno

That was kind of my point to Srap. As @Pierre-Normand was saying, the speaker's intentions are authoritative, but fallible.

By answering both and seeing to which Srap Tasmaner responds? Answering one, and seeing if the response fits that answer?

Generally, by moving the conversation on, and seeing what the result is, and then making an inference about Srap's intent. — Banno

I thought you objected to making inferences about intent?

The very content of this intent is something that ought to be negotiated within a broader embodied life/social context, including with oneself, and, because of that, it isn't a private act in Wittgenstein's sense. It can, and often must, be brought out in the public sphere. That doesn't make the speaker's intentions unauthoritative. But it makes them fallible. The stipulated "rules" for using a term, and hence securing its reference, aim at effective triangulation, as Srap suggested. — Pierre-Normand

I agree that speech is pervasively conditioned by the wider context of human life, but I don't see how we could maintain, as Srap and Banno have been doing, that a speaker has to have the buy-in of the audience in order to "successfully" refer. The triangulation they're talking about, as far as I understand them, is not about the social context, it's about the comprehension of the audience. I think you can triangulate with what you've learned about language use. Why do you need the audience's acceptance?

a singular sense rather than descriptive. When there is an unintended mismatch between the reference of this singular sense and the descriptive sense that the speaker expresses, then the presupposition of identity is mistaken. What it is that the speaker truly intended to have priority (i.e. the demonstrative singular sense or the descriptive one) for the purpose of fixing the true referent of their speech act (or of the thought that this speech act is meant to express) can be a matter of negotiation or further inquiry. — Pierre-Normand

So you're saying the champaign issue is an example of a failed reference? Is that how you take Kripke's meaning?

BTW, I know you're busy, but if you have a second and would want to tell me what you think about Kripke's Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, I would so appreciate it.

I don't know how a behaviorist handles deceit. I'm guessing it would have to be written off as illusion?

One avenue for answering this is the behaviorist approach. Here, we'll put on our eliminative materialist hats, and look at the whole scene objectively. People are making sounds and gestures in a way they've learned. Social dominance may come into play in tonality and facial expressions. There is no meeting of minds because there aren't really any minds involved. I think the answer that arises from this line of thought is that no one ever "understands" what you're saying. You aren't actually saying anything, per se.

I would look for already-known signs that someone is expressing their understanding to me. — AmadeusD

I agree with this. It comes down to the assumptions you have about the audience. The better you know them, the more confidence you'll have in your ability to read them.

The question is “why”? Why do Americans have to suffer yet again the destruction of their cities, the people in their roadways, the curfews, the violence and looting, the waving of foreign flags on American streets? — NOS4A2

I thought you wanted social breakdown in the US. Didn't you?

So you did get it? Fair enough.

But wait... did you get it privately? Do you allow such a thing?

Eh, I guess it doesn't matter.

That strikes me as more important than sorting out the Gavagai. — Banno

Some people like wrestling with the Gavagai. :razz:

Quine said that Kripke's approach would require bringing back the distinction between essential and accidental properties, and Kripke agreed, but didn't consider that the fatal flaw Quine did. — Srap Tasmaner

Srap referred me to a sentence I had uttered and I told him I wasn't sure if he meant the whole thing or the parts. You got the reference to Quine, but Srap didn't. Does that mean the reference was successful and unsuccessful at the same time?

:up:

In this case, even to the degree that I am engaging with another person, I am speechless. — Srap Tasmaner

You'll probably need an MRI at some point. :grin: :up:

Like you, I'm holding out for reference as a potentially private game. Talking, so often, is talking to ourselves, and we need all the apparatus of talking-with-others to do it. Now it may be that a criterion for successful private reference would be that, if challenged, the person could introduce others to the game. — J

I wonder if people assess the situation according to their own experience of thinking and speaking. I think Srap Tasmaner is basically saying he doesn't think at all when he's not engaging another person. I think he's saying he's not even conscious of the world around him until he discusses it, at which point a sort of negotiated narrative comes into being. I can't connect with that at all. I have no idea how a person would even become conscious that this was happening.

My experience is more that speech has a metaphoric connection with things my nervous system is doing automatically.

On the other hand, if we do not have some such agreement, we might not be able to continue. — Banno

True. But I still referred to the tree. I don't need your buy-in for that.

Have you guys discussed the unique way Hegel used the word concept? I think Adorno is referring to Hegel's use.

I think the ability to pick out a part of the world is there in potential in an infant. That potential is realized through interaction with others. As Kripke points out, none of us has access to the baptisms of common words. Humans have probably been speaking for at least 100,000 years. That's a long causal chain.

I don't think what happens between people in a moment of communication is about a new ceremonious confirmation of that chain, as in "Yes, you successfully referred to the tree because I agree that that is called a tree." None of that is necessary because a whole section of the brain has been configured to handle a particular language by the time a child is 2 years old. A child can literally talk to herself at that age. She doesn't need anyone else, and the Private Language argument isn't suggesting otherwise. Do you agree with that?

I think I know what you're saying, but I can't be certain. It would be better to just stop trying to communicate.

Ok. I don't see any of that, but I don't pay close attention.

I can't tell if you mean the whole thing, or the individual parts. How can I know?

Tell us what you mean by that, — Srap Tasmaner

What I mean by what?

Right, could it be any more obvious? Trump's bromance with Musk has blown up in his face and here's a useful distraction and a way to make him look like a tough guy — RogueAI

He likes the idea of killing rioters. I don't think he cares about Musk.

Well, yes. — Banno

I disagree. The act of referencing does not succeed or fail. It's just done by fiat. Communication can succeed or fail.

No. You use what is said or shown. We do not have access to intent. We might infer it, but... — Banno

You do have access to intent by observation. If you have any questions about it you can ask.

This raises the question, Could there be a private language of reference? — J

If you're using "private" the way Wittgenstein did, the answer depends on the extent to which meaning arises from rule following. If it's mostly rule following, then you couldn't establish rules by yourself.

If you're just asking if you can keep some information to yourself, yes.

@Pierre-Normand Do you agree with that?

Pretty obviously, the reference is a success if the hearer and the speaker are in agreement as to who is being talked about. — Banno

So if no one understands what's being referenced, the reference failed? That doesn't make much sense to me. Referring is something done by fiat.

So we can't use your intent to fix the referent. — Banno

We do it all the time.

But reference is a matter of triangulation, not just what pertains to the speaker or pertains to what she speaks of. — Srap Tasmaner

Reference is set by the speaker.

All posts will eventually fall into a massive bit bucket that will collapse in on itself and become a wormhole.

In that quote I think he's saying that when we turn the dialectic on itself we find that the synthesis (unity) is dependent on its negation: the disunity of thesis and antithesis. I think Adorno's materialism is based on this insight. He points out that this fact doesn't appear to us until discrepancies show up, such as between the great hope of communism crashed by the Holocaust.

Hegel clearly knew this because he highlighted the way any concept has its history (and its negation) wrapped up within it, again, like the yin-yang symbol. You could say the absolute Spirit is supposed to be the whole yin-yang symbol. But that wholeness is made up of oppositions. We never escape them (until philosophy is finished?)

But it is necessary that he say this in order for the designation to refer. — J

:grin: Yes, I think that's what @Pierre-Normand was pointing out about my pillow example:

On its de dicto reading, your sentence is correct. But then the essentialness that you are talking about belongs to your speech act, not to the object talked about. Say, you want to talk about the first pillow that you bought that had a red button, and you mean to refer to it by such a definite description. Then, necessarily, whatever object you are referring to by a speech act of that kind, has a red button. But this essentialness doesn't transfer to the object itself. In other words, in all possible worlds where your speech act (of that kind) picks a referent, this referent is a pillow that has a red button. — Pierre-Normand

I was not aware of any issues. I was arrested a few weeks ago, then held in a psychiatric facility on suspicion of "illusions of police harassment" and held for observation for psychosis, so have my own stuff to deal with. — boethius

Hmm

When he's panicking, he definitely thinks the snake is dangerous.

Other times, he may know the fear is irrational. He may even be a little baffled that this fear can take over in spite of his rational mind's insight.

But are we amenable to rational persuasion with regard to our beliefs? And to what extent? Should a mental state that is not amenable to persuasion based on evidence or justification properly called a belief? That's the direction this discussion might go. — Banno

If Bob has an irrational fear of snakes, does he believe snakes are dangerous?

I can say that Obama might be a robot, but I can't say that Obama could have been a robot. Doesn't that show that the properties of the rigid designator are set by the speaker? Or maybe not, maybe it's just that the exact object is picked out by the speaker. The properties follow from there.

I agree, but in that case we're talking about epistemic possibilities, or epistemic humility. — Pierre-Normand

:up:

I see what you're saying. So with that in mind, @J is right that I can't become Obama because there would be a conflict in necessary properties of me versus him, and that comes down to what's necessary about being a human.

With some wild metaphysical shenanigans we might be able to work it out that Obama is the next stage of my existence, parenthood isn't what we think it is, etc. That wouldn't be excluded by Kripke, because he wasn't weighing in on the nature of the universe. But that's the only point that's made by insisting that I could become Obama, that the universe could work differently than the way we think it does. Do you agree with that?

When does speech about a proper name become nonsense because a contradiction has arisen between an assertion and something essential about the object of the assertion? How did Kripke handle this question?
— frank

"Elizabeth Windsor was born of different parents" -- would that be an example? — J

I think so, yes.

What is a matter of the speaker's intentions, according to Kripke, isn't what properties the object they mean to be referring to has by necessity (i.e. in all possible worlds) but rather what properties it is that they are relying on for picking it (by description) in the actual world. This initial part of the reference fixing process is, we might say, idiolectical; but that's because we defer to the speaker, in those cases, for determining what object it is (in the actual world) that they mean to be referring to. — Pierre-Normand

Right. Once I've picked out an object from the actual world, though many of its properties might be contingent, for my purposes they're essential to the object I'm talking about. Right?

The second part of Kripke's account, which pertains to the object's necessary properties, is where rigidity comes to play, and is dependent on our general conception of such objects (e.g. the persistence, individuation and identity criteria of object that fall under their specific sortal concept, such as a human being, a statue or a lump of clay) — Pierre-Normand

Why couldn't rigidity come into play regarding a contingent feature of an object?

Say X is a pillow with a red button. Broadly speaking, the button is a contingent feature. But any pillow that doesn't have the button is not the pillow I'm talking about. The button is essential to X.

Regarding the essentialness of filiation (e.g. Obama having the parents that he actually has by necessity), it may be a matter of metaphysical debate, or of convention (though I agree with Kripke in this case) but it is orthogonal to his more general point about naming and rigidity. Once the metaphysical debate has been resolved regarding Obama's essential properties, the apparatus of reference fixing (that may rely on general descriptions, and then rigid designation, still can world very much in the way Kripke intimated. — Pierre-Normand

True.