Common to Wittgenstein’s forms of life and hinges , Heidegger’s worldviews, Foucault’s epistemes and Kuhn’s paradigms is a rejection of the idea that social formations of knowledge progress via refutation. It sounds like your critique of ideology is from the right, which places it as a pre-Hegelian traditionalist thinking. — Joshs

It's a good point. Yet arguments do fly back and forth between ideologies, even though in principle they do not recognize how radical the break is at this level. However, here's a problem. If a given conceptual scheme is incommensurable with another, not even opposition or rejection are really possible.
1. So it is in the interest of each side to find and exploit such common ground as there is. (Since both sides are human beings, it is not unreasonable to suppose that there is some.)
2. More than that, it is in the interest of both sides to pretend that the other side is vulnerable to such refutations. How else is one to persuade them?
3. But there is also the point that even though refutations may not be effective in persuading the other side, but they are quite likely to be effective in strengthening the support of one's supporters.

On the contrary, scientific, legal, professional reporting practices presuppose supporting ideologies for such practices to thrive and inform social life. Indeed, all these procedures can as well be compromised by ideological struggles. — neomac

Yes. My only qualification is that the practices are likely not only be based on ideological positions, but will also tend to re-inforce, even enforce, them.

Why are these the only two options? Why couldn't I teach someone a different way of looking at world, the way which grounds my own arguments and facts, so that they can understand the basis of my criteria of justification? It would not be a question of justifying the worldview I convert them to, but of allowing them to justify the arguments and views that are made intelligible from within that worldview. — Joshs

Well, people do change their ideological stance from time to time. We're more or less committed to the view that standard rationality does not apply at this level. So the question becomes, what approaches and factors actually work? And, crucially, can we distinguish between fair and unfair ways of doing this. I suspect that, in the end, it will be a matter of teaching and allowing the persuadee to absorb and reflect on what they learn. (Very roughly).


I agree with a lot of what you say. But, inevitably, I have some disagreements.

he link between “necessity” and “irrationality” of ideological thinking as discussed in the opening post, and distances itself from more psychological understanding of ideologies (evil intentions, stupidity, comforting delusions ) which I find rather misleading (if not even, ideologically motivated!). — neomac

Strictly speaking, in my view, it is not really appropriate to call an ideology irrational, because usual standards of rationality do not apply between ideologies. There's also the point that it is misleading to dismiss one's ideological opponents as irrational - unless one is happy to accept that one's own ideology is irrational.

So ideology is the most basic form of coordination for social grouping to support a given informational flow within a society and political mobilisation. — neomac

Yes. That's how philosophers will need to think about it. But there's more than thinking involved in ideology. Praxis is also very important in understanding what it means.

Zizek, in that video, is giving a psychological explanation for why liberation from one own’s ideology needs to be forced on people — neomac

Zizek is wrong. Some American PoW's in the Korean War switched sides. I've seen one interview (which doesn't make a summer, I accept, but..) in which an American ex-PoW switched sides because he came to see American ideology through Chinese eyes - no force was required. The fundamental point was that the Chinese treated him better than the Americans. There's more to the story, or course, and I'm sure Google will find it for you if you want. But I don't accept what Zizek is saying. Seeing through one's own ideology is not easy, but it can be done.

Do we have a disagreement? — Banno

I think I may be a bit more sceptical than you. But I agree that you have outlined the context in which we need to think about this technique.

The distinctive feature of Bayes is that it enables us to articulate a single case. So it will always be an good place to start.

I keep recalling a slogan I remember from the days when computers were new. Maybe you also remember GIGO - garbage in, garbage out. I don't see how that doesn't apply to this process as well. This is why an algorithm cannot improve on the data it start from. What it can do is to articulate intuitions suspicions and prejudices and reveal where they are wrong and where they are right. That's not nothing.

We have it from Ramsey and others that there are solid statistical methods for comparing and revising various beliefs, and we agree that these are A Good Thing. — Banno

The key word there is "revising".

Repeated applications of the Bayesian process, in which the first run uses whatever starting-points we have and subsequent runs feed back the outcomes from that. Perhaps in the context of an scientific investigation of some problem or project - which I understand was the context that Bayes had in mind. Wouldn't that develop more accurate predictions - not necessarily to the point of developing a universal law, as simple induction does, but it could develop a more complex collection of laws and it could certainly develop more accurate probabilities?

It's a more formalized and accurate process of trial and error.

That's just a sketch on the back of an envelope.

Better to drop induction all together and instead look at how a bit of maths can help show us if our beliefs - held for whatever reason, or no reason at all - are consistent. — Banno

Help with consistency is always a good idea. Dropping induction, I fear, may be more difficult. Pavlovian conditioning works at levels beyond the reach of voluntary control.

Instead of seeking justification for induction, he explains how we act as if inductive reasoning were valid. — Banno

I prefer this Humean explanation. But I thought that since the fifties and sixties, we had all given up worrying about the deductive invalidity of induction. Why are we revisiting the past? I'm sure the Bayes process has its place, but I don't really see why induction needs to be replaced or even can be replaced. There is one thing the Bayes process can do that cannot be done any other way - it can give us some help in dealing with one-off probabilities. (Not even induction can do that!)

The model is your idea of how some aspect of the world works. It provides the probabilities of various outcomes. — GrahamJ

OK. That makes sense.

You have talked quite a bit about making decisions under uncertainty - about medical treatments, weather forecasts, coin-tossing, and beer in fridges. I was replying to all of that and I may have confused things by quoting a particular paragraph. I wasn't trying to 'run it backwards' to interpret a decision. — GrahamJ

I'm trying to keep the enthusiasm for Bayes in proportion by anchoring our conversation in how we do things, or how we think we do things, when we aren't relying on Bayes. I'm trying to work out whether we can rely on Bayes or not. At present, the assumption is that we can. My mind is not made up.
As for running the Bayesian process backwards, I didn't think you were trying to. The idea came from me alone. It may seem a bit crazy, but we have two questions to ask about these situations. There are two question. One is forward-looking - what shall I do? The other is backward-looking - why did that person do that? So far as I can see, Bayes helps with forward-looking. My question is whether it can help with backward-looking. I don't see why we couldn't use Bayes to reconstruct a decision after the event. That would be an analytic process that could clarify what was going on.

I just realized I missed a comment of yours to my quote — neomac

There's so much going on that it is very hard to keep up with everything. I'm afraid I don't even try.

I do not disagree with your general claims but they do not offer any concrete path toward peaceful coexistence. — neomac

There's a reason why I'm not. I oscillate between thinking that if only everybody would play nice, how much better it would be and thinking that we need someone even heavier than the heavies we have to knock heads together. Neither suggestion is particularly helpful, I know.
There is also a part of me that thinks that the perpetual struggle is how it is. Sruggle may take different forms from time to time, but there is always struggle.

Often competing ideologies can converge when there is a third ideology perceived as common threat — neomac

Yes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend - at least until our common enemy is defeated, when any thing may happen. One of the differences between our situation now and the situation up to about 2000 is that we no longer live in a world with just one dominating struggle, but a multi-polar, multi-struggle world. Whether that's better or worse, I wouldn't like to say.
Human beings are very strange. Sometimes they will sink their differences to deal with a common enemy. Sometimes they fall apart and fight each other instead of dealing with the common enemy. Climate change is an example of the latter, unfortunately.

In Bayesian probability, Frank P. Ramsey and Bruno de Finetti required personal degrees of belief to be coherent so that a Dutch book could not be made against them, whichever way bets were made.

Well, I can see that a Dutch book would be a bad idea. On the other hand, there is the possibility of a "Czech book", in which the probabilities add up to less than 1. Wikipedia, which is never wrong, tells me that always pays out to the gambler.

He tells us what it means to be coherently uncertain — to reason, act, and believe in a way that fits together, even when the world is incomplete, and we are fallible. — Banno

That sounds wonderful, and better than the sceptical bewailing of our failure to match the traditional expectations.
I can see that conforming to the requirements will avoid some nasty traps, so that's good. But I can't see that it will do more than that.

Quite right. Well put.
It's odd, isn't it, how people yearn for peace when they don't have it, and cannot resist starting a conflict when they do? There seems no way of changing that.

I think any boundaries between distinct ideologies are theoretical and made for a purpose. Consider, that no two people really share all their believes, so in that sense we could say that everyone has one's own distinct ideology. But on the other hand, if we limit a particular "ideology" to just a small set of very. general ideas, then many people have the same ideology. So the drawing of lines between ideologies is complex and purposeful, yet somewhat arbitrary. — Metaphysician Undercover

That seems to be right. Given the hostility that there so often is between ideologies, I would expect that to be a major factor in how people decide to draw the lines.

But neither of us want to say that. — Banno

Perhaps "correctly" is over-stating it. But it is also possible to revise my interpretation in the light of more and better information or even to actually misinterpret my action

One can go to the fridge for many reasons apart from taking out a beer. One can take a beer out of the fridge for many reasons apart from feeling thirsty.

I'm not saying that there is not a range of equally acceptable answers, though my report is helpful in narrowing down the field. But there are also answers that may look right and turn out to be wrong.

I assure you, my mind is completely unfurnished.

If another group’s norms and beliefs don’t ground our system of validation, then we can’t refute those norms and beliefs because we won’t be able to understand them. Refutation only makes sense when it is based on normative criteria provided by the same Wittgensteinian hinge proposition as that which is to be refuted. — Joshs

That's not quite right. Obviously, if you want to refute a belief in order to persuade the believer to give up their belief, then you must, as it were, speak to/with their norms and beliefs. But it is perfectly possible to refute someone's belief to one's own satisfaction without speaking to them at all. I mention this because I suspect that situation arises much more frequently than it ought to. BTW, it may seem a bit pointless to refute someone's beliefs only to one's own satisfaction, but there is a point. You prevent the other side recruiting your own followers, which is much more important than convincing the opposition.

On the other hand, there is a process of - let me call it - conversion. Communists becoming capitalists and even vice versa. So far as I can see, this is not, and cannot be, a rational process. Certainly psychologists have taken an interest in it - no doubt for practical reasons. This is extremely uncomfortable for philosophers. Sadly, I'm going to have to leave that there - I'm falling asleep as I write, which is not a good way to philosophize.

You may be groping your way towards Bayesian statistical decision theory. As I have said before, there are 4 components: model, data, prior, utility. That is enough to make a 'rational' decision. I'd prefer to say it provides a principled or formalized decision-making process. It doesn't stop you having an unreasonable model, prior or utility. — GrahamJ

I'm not sure what the model is, but the other components are pretty obvious. Perhaps the Bayesian theory works - I wouldn't know how to assess it. Can we run the process in a lab and assess whether it gets the answer right - or what?
The thing is, it runs decision to action. The question here is whether you can run it backwards to read from action to decision. The difficulty is that most readings will be underdetermined, I suppose.

That our deliberations rarely fit propositional or predicate logic clearly and unambiguously does not undermine the use of propositional or predicate logic. It may still provide a model for our reasoning. — Banno

I didn't know I was challenging it - though one might have thought that a two-valued logic would have a problem - not with the probability of a coin toss, but with degrees of confidence.
I don't quite understand the concept of a model for our reasoning.

He shifts the question from “Is this belief true?” to “Is this belief coherent with my other beliefs and actions?” — Banno

I see. Do we care whether the two are the same thing?

So will you go to the fridge or keep watching the game? Your choice showsyour preferences and what you think is so. — Banno

Only if you can read it correctly.

I agree it is a skimpy version of the idea, and it is a fragment of the practice itself. I was thinking to highlight the history, the origin and purpose the idea represents, rather than its manifestation as a practice. — Mww

So we are not really in conflict - just talking about different things. Fair enough. As it happens, I regard the history, origin and purpose of ideas as of interest, even importance, in understanding their meaning. However, if your quotation is indeed from Kant, I'm not equipped to do more than try to follow the conversation. For the record, I think I'm talking about what it is to act rationally in the context of probability, an issue that puzzles me greatly.

“The usual test, whether that which any one maintains is (…) his firm belief, is a bet.” — Mww

It is indeed a test that is often proposed in real life. So it is relevant to say, not that a bet is no test of confidence, but that interpretation of a given decison is complicated by the fact that a bet is the result of weighing risk (disutility) against reward (utility) in the context of one's confidence. Confidence alone does not determine a (rational) decision.

Furthermore, in Kant, there are those beliefs in the purely empirical domain of which maintaining the firmness of them is irrational in which case some tests are failed, but there are others in the purely moral domain, the firm maintenance of them is necessary, in which case every test is passed. — Mww

I sort of understand this and don't disagree with it.

When push comes to shove, it seems to me elaboration of the idea into a practice degrades the dialectic regarding it, to a psychologically-bounded exhibition, when it started as a metaphysical idea. — Mww

I'm not sure I quite get this. Mind you, my grasp of what people mean by metaphysics is, let us say, weak. I don't quite see why what I am saying about betting degrades anything that you are doing. After all, you know it all already and don't seem to have any problem putting it aside for the purposes of your conversation.

And this is what happens when skimpy versions are filled out. Or….bloated, as some might say (grin) — Mww

Well, your reaction is not unhelpful to me, so thank you for that. I won't bore you any further on the subject.

quote="neomac;1000226"]The fact that there are beliefs universally shared doesn't spare us from the predicament of non-shared beliefs. And attributing these non-shared beliefs to evil intentions or stupidity (or ideology, in a derogatory sense) shows an ideological attitude which can suffer from analogous accusations.[/quote]
I agree with all of that. I was, rather, suggesting that what we can agree on might be a basis for working out a way of co-existing in spite of the things we do not agree on.
After all, different ideologies will either compete or co-exist, and we might all do better if we worked as hard at co-existing as we do at competing.

The relativist's plea for universal acquiescence can't be a long term solution — Kym

The interesting question is what makes universal acquiescence impossible. I suppose it is possible that two different ideologies might be compatible, in the sense that it is possible for them to co-exist in the same society. One way is for an agreement to be struck, or worked out, which recognizes the other and makes room for them; I have in mind something rather stronger than passive toleration. One problem is the tendency for one ideology to define itself against the other.

Too bad it went sour, because it would otherwise be a useful word, to describe the necessary set of ideas and ideals one needs to organize one's life. — BC

Ah, well, once we have acknowledged that we also have an ideology, we will inevitably be drawn into thinking differently about all those irrational other people. That might be very healthy, but, unless the others make the same acknowledgement, it may be rather dangerous.

If the method of validation is grounded on a set of norms and beliefs, such norms and beliefs can not be refuted, since the refutation must presuppose them (like Wittgenstein’s hinge propositions). — neomac

That is a most uncomfortable thought. What Wittgenstein regards as our ground turns out to be something quite different. My form of life, my facts turn out to be the other guy's ideology.
I'm consoled by the thought that what Wittgenstein was gesturing at was something shared by all human beings. If we could delineate that, we might, just might, find a basis for unity (within diversity, of course).

In the first, what is described is the agreement amongst people, as to what they believe, and this constitutes their "ideology". In the second, we acknowledge that not only is there agreement amongst people as to what they believe, but their is also disagreement between people, and this produces a multitude of social groups with distinct "ideologies". — Metaphysician Undercover

I think that is correct.

So the first describes a general concept, "ideology", while the second describes what distinguishes separate, distinct and specific, ideologies. — Metaphysician Undercover

I can't disagree with that, except that, at least as things are, the distinction between ideologies is extremely obscure. The lines are drawn on the level of praxis rather than intellect.

Do you have more? Didn’t mean to shut you off. — Mww

Thank you. But it is better not to bore on about something to someone who is not interested. But since you've opened the door.... Even if you are not interested, there may be others who are.

Those conditions incorporated in a bet I make, what kind and how much, or even the one I wouldn’t, give YOU the evidence of the degree of my belief, and the confidence in it. This becomes quite apparent, when I admit you are more justified in betting greater on the sun rising tomorrow, than I am betting there is life on other planets we can see. — Mww

I don't have a problem with the general idea. But I do have a problem with the skimpy version of the idea that we have here. It is a fragment of the practice of betting - a gesture towards something that could be much more illuminating if it were taken out of the arm-chair and into real life.
1. The measure is not a measure of confidence alone. A bet is a combination of risk and reward and a decision to bet is the result of balancing, one might say, the disutility of one outcome against the utility of the other outcome in the context of the likelihood of each outcome. Confidence in the outcome is only one factor. The one virtue of this idea is that it takes a step to articulating what it means to act rationally in the context of probabilities.
2. Utility and disutility are the result of a wider context. For example, if you have 20 units of currency, the utility of 1 unit is one thing, but if you have 100 units, it is quite different. That can work in artificial situations, such as a laboratory experiment (or an armchair or seminar room), but in real life the context is much more complicated.
3. It is one thing to explore probability or confidence in the context of a decision about a single specific action, but there are subtler effects on rational action that also deserve to be taken into account. If the probability of rain is 80%, you may well decide to go to the gym rather than your walk/run/bike ride. If it is 50%, you may well decide to go out, but take an umbrella or wet weather gear in your back-pack. The most prominent example of this is the practice of insurance. Here, one bets on an outcome that is unlikely, but has high disutility, not because one wants to win, but to provide for that eventuality.

Ehhhhh….dialectical precedent has it that responses to a quote are subjectively more honest without the influence of the author’s name, which is often detrimental to the message on the one hand, or tautologically affirms it on the other. — Mww

I can see that. On the other hand, it can help to know the context....

That, and my clandestine supposition that 1787 would be a sufficient clue. — Mww

Not enough for me. But I can manage without that information.

There need be no inner fact about belief that can diverge from one’s consistent actions. — Banno

Believe me, there is no chance that I am going to knowingly posit anything "inner" or "private" in the sense that Wittgenstein was talking about.

It seems that for Ramsey the degree that one is willing to bet constitutes the partial belief. A belief is not "private" or "subjective", but measurable, and comparable with other beliefs. — Banno

In one way, that's fair enough. But if you think it through, you find a world of complication and illumination. At least, I do, because I keep returning to the puzzle what probability actually means. (I'm particularly interested in what probability actually means in a single case.) The betting issue brings that out. Hower, Ramsey is only taking a first step. See above.

The relationship, then, is not between "degrees of belief and belief in probabilities", but between degree of belief and willingness to act. Consider willingness to act as an extensional substitute for degree of belief. — Banno

Yes. I was talking about something else. I think I can be a little clearer.
It seems crystal clear to me that we know, for sure, that a toss of a coin has a 50% chance of coming down heads. It's not even empirical knowledge, but an "analytic" result of the rules. We also know that the empirical probability will be only roughly, and not exactly, the same. I think that we also know that various empirical probabilities (I think the mathematicians call them estimates) based on past experience. The proportion of smokers who get lung cancer is higher than the proportion of non-smokers, etc. etc.
All this is quite different from my confidence in, for example, that I have 6 cans of beer in my fridge. It is a binary question, and perhaps I remember that I bought a pack on my way home. But I also know, perhaps, that my memory is not what it used to be, so my confidence is less than 100%.
Of course, there is a relationship between the two. Insofar as I am rational, I will adjust my confidence to conform with objective probabilities and also to conform with my evidence for my beliefs. All I'm saying is that the two are not necessarily co-ordinated and are, let me say, different states of affairs. Ramsey is presupposing a perfectly rational being with access to all relevant information.

But enough of this, yes? I was only pointing out the peripheral notion of bets in historical metaphysical investigations. — Mww

As you wish.

I would very much like to know who wrote the passage you are quoting. Just curious.

The nature of and how much the bet, and by whom the validity of the ground of the bet is judged, is irrelevant, with respect to its occurrence. — Mww

Yes. But those details are what give you the evidence of the degree of belief, or confidence.

Hence the implied correspondence to induction, which serves a subject as sufficient rational justification a priori for the construction of his empirical beliefs, while not being sufficient for their proofs. — Mww

Yes, I can see that - roughly. But Ramsey, apparently is not doing that. Ramsey is by-passing induction

altogether.

The point being, of course, all of this has been done before, in which case should be found, if not the congruent thesis, then at least a conceptually similar initial condition, merely clothed in new words. — Mww

Well, given that it was written in 1787 and Ramsey was writing in the 1920's, it would seem to follow. Which would be interesting, but I don't think it would change any of the arguments.

I'm sorry but who wrote that - I can't work it out.

My response is to point out that betting £1000 on the truth of a given proposition is a very different matter if your annual income is £10,000 or £100,000. It is also a different matter if you are single or have a family to support. And so on.

I am willing to bet a very large amount of money indeed (everything that I own or can beg, borrow or steal). that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. Who will take my bet, and at what odds? Should I be prepared to trust anyone who did take it?

we can have degrees of belief, and deal with them in a rational fashion. — Banno

There's an intricate relationship between degrees of belief and belief in probabilities, which I find confusing. It looks to me as if "S has a x degree of belief in p and S believes that p has a probability x. Are they equivalent? If there's a difference, what is it?

What makes you say that Bayes is rational? If you are prepared to call Bayesian epistemology rational, how is induction any less rational?

You've probably seen customer satisfaction surveys that ask people to assign a number to their degree of satisfaction with a service or product. Once you have a number, you can do all sorts of interesting things with the statistics. But if the number is little better than arbitrary, what is the significance of the statistics? Well, there's an empirical test. If predictions based on those statistics are accurate, then the methdology does have at least some validity (meaning). But what outcome confirms or refutes a Bayesian prediction about a single case?

I'm torn about Bayes. Intuitively, there's at least some justification for assigning a probability to a single case. We do it all the time. So Bayesian epistemology seems to me to work on the same sort of basis that one can assign a number to my degree of satisfaction. But it is very hard to know how to factor any probability in to decisions about individual cases. If there's a 10% chance of some side-effect from a medical treatment, 1 in 10 patients will suffer that side-effect. How do I rationally factor that in to my decision about whether I accept the treatment, bearing in mind that accepting the treatment is all or nothing? Making a bet is one thing, because if one loses a bet, one can just make another bet. But getting ill from a medication is not necessarily like that. (yes, that's from the heart and live experience).

He's not claiming that "induction is really just about probability" so much as dropping induction as a justification and instead considering degrees of belief. — Banno

Do you mean "He's not claiming that "induction is really just about probability" so much as dropping induction as a justification and instead considering degrees of belief as a justification." or "induction is really just about probability" so much as dropping induction as a justification and instead considering degrees of belief as a datum even though it is arbitrary from a rational point of view".

He's not saying that f(a) and f(b) implies f(e) is a better bet than just f(a). He;s not saying anything about f(a)'s truth or falsity at all. He's instead talking about the degree to which you and I believe f(a). — Banno

Shouldn't that sentence end with f(e)?
But he might find that people do in fact bet more on propositions that are backed by inductive evidence. (And, yes, he might not.)

You are right that there is a lot going on here, and plenty more to be said. People do not act rationally. Leaving aside the question of whether they ought act rationally, Ramsey has given us a part of the way to understanding what it is to act rationally. Not a theory of how people actually think, not a theory of what beliefs are true, but a framework for what it would be to act coherently, given one’s own beliefs and preferences. — Banno

I don't understand your enthusiasm for Ramsey. (Not that I've actually read him!). But the idea that induction is really just about probability is not that uncommon.

For two reasons
First, if you would bet more on f(e) given f(a), f(b), f(c), f(d) than you would on (f)c given f(a), f(b), then aren't you just betting on induction?
Second, if we need to find some sort of account of how we behave, what's wrong with Hume's custom or habit, based on our general heuristic of association? Or Wittgenstein's "This is what I do."

Or we could just stop treating induction as a poor man's deduction. We've given deduction this hugely special status as the only form of rationality. Given how limited deduction really is, it seems a bit irrational.
In practice, induction is more complicated than "the future will resemble the past". We know darn well that it won't - what we're trying to do here is to get a grip on how things will change as well as how they won't. I'm sure you know about J.S. Mill's much more complicated, and realistic, account of the methods of induction.

(sc. the tortoise) challenges Achilles and us to force his agreement. — Banno

So he does. So I think that Dodgson's focus is on the force (!) of the logical "must", which we all take for granted. One might perhaps think that this scenario suggests that it is not what settles disputes but a paper tiger.

This relates to Wittgenstein's answer to the problem he raises of what it is to follow a rule. — Banno

Yes, indeed. Though I think that Dodgson is suggesting that the tortoise knows perfectly well what it would be to follow the rule and is deliberately misbehaving - which is quite different from misunderstanding the rule. Again - it's about what it is to be forced to do something in this context. The best that we can do is to say that if you don't follow the rule, you aren't playing the game.

And again, "If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do." (PI§217). — Banno

One is inclined to say that the tortoise needs training in a drill, rather than explanations. Once the tortoise has mastered the drill, it will be possible to explain things to him.

Clarity is not final - but if things are sufficiently clear for us to move on, that'll do? Seems to be so. — Banno

Perhaps it is. But I think this creates room for doubt about the meaning of, for example, "perspicuous representation", which is somehow meant to be final. Contrast the ways in which a teacher might try to clarify or explain something to a student; it's entirely a pragmatic practice, with no pretence that what works for one will work for all.

The point of the practice - expressing belonging and individuality? - has been lost, the purpose and rules being followed now sit elsewhere. — Banno

I've read stuff that claims that the modern practice of introducing new designs to stimulate the market rather than anything else was actually invented and first practiced by Wedgwood in the market for china. That was the real basis for his success. But fashion worked in much the same way before modern industrial practices came along. Naturally. the practice flourished more or less exclusively among the rich and in social contexts like the royal court.

I think Williamson wishes to describe something like an experimental approach to philosophy, and that's what his whole competition between theories business is meant to be. Is it really similar to how science does this? If it's not, does it still make sense? — Srap Tasmaner

If you look at his chosen example, the answer must be yes. But his list of things that might/do discipline philosophy is varied, so I don't think he wants empirical data as a universal constraint. Empirical philosophy has been around for a while now, I think. I've seen some interesting work. Not sure.

Same boat here with academic presses, but do you have interlibrary loan? My public library got me the Rodl book and let me keep it for months. — J

The short answer is No. Inter-library loand is available in the universities and similar institutions. I don't have access to them any longer. It was available in public libraries some years ago. But, alas, no longer.

We might do something similar with progress and clarity. If we agree that there has been progress, then what more do we need? If we agree that there is clarity, what more do we need? And if we disagree, then at the least we can agree that we disagree - we might agree that you think some idea clear while i disagree, That I think progress is being made while you do not. — Banno

There is much to be said for this.
On clarity, I agree that clarity that no-one perceives as clarity seems something of a self-contradiction. However, Dodgson's article on Achilles and the tortoise seems to show that there are limits to the explanations that can be given to clarify an argument - and some of Wittgenstein's remarks point to the same conclusion. Something needs to be said about that. I'm also impressed by the fact that people can think that something is perfectly clear and yet be persuaded by argument that that is not the case. Perhaps Euclid's parallel postulate is an example.
Well, yes, it does seem that progress that doesn't look like progress to people is again, self-contradicting. But see next comment.

That framing imports a teleological structure into the practice, as if its value or identity depended on a fixed aim or destination. But metaphysics, as I understand and teach it, is not defined by its conclusion—it’s revealed in the doing. We start in the middle: with questions, distinctions, and confusions—not with a final cause or overarching purpose. — Banno

I agree with you on two counts. First, it seems to me obvious that most academic disciplines do not have a fixed aim or destination. Each new development immediately becomes the ground from which the next new development will come and the criteria of success are changed so that progress can be claimed. The history of physics shows this in operation. There is no necessary end or conclusion that would enable people to say that the job is now done.
But if the next step is revealed in the doing, what are the criteria that enable us to classify the next step as progress? In the case of physics, there are some criteria that enable us to make that judgement. In the case of the arts, not so much - though of course each new step is accompanied with exactly that claim. For example, each new fashion seems better than the last, but can we really identify progress here? (The abolition of high heels would be progress, but more in public health than fashion as such.)
However, there is one criterion that might work. What counts as good and appropriate in one set of circumstances may become a burden and a hindrance when things change. Adaptation to new circumstances may be the kind of criterion one looks for. But that is not improvement that accumulates, so only provides a local criterion for progress, not a global one.

Now that's a can of eels! Do you think the psychologist can ask questions about psychology that are, at the same time, bracketed by psychological explanations of how questions come to be asked? What does that say about the psych's conception of psychology's explanatory powers? — J

I have no idea. Perhaps someone will pop up with an answer.

Yes, that's just the sort of further dialectic I was picturing. It doesn't have to follow that "consensus wins" will always be the final decision -- even when that decision is itself made by consensus. — J

I'm glad I hit that nail fair and square...

In Self-Consciousness and Objectivity, Rodl says: — J

That sounds very much like my cup or tea. It's time there was a backlash. Sadly, at that price, it will be Christmas before I get my hands on it.

My thought of judging that things are so is a different act of the mind from my judging that they are so. The former is about my judgment, a psychic act, a mental state; the latter, in the usual case, is not; it is about something that does not involve my judgment, my mind, my psyche. It is about a mind-independent reality." — J

It's funny how one can lose sight of things that are actually quite obvious, if only one could see them. On the other hand, one wants to say that there must be something going on between them - a relationship of some sort.

I appreciate all your thoughtful replies. — J

Thanks. It takes two, so I thank you also.

I don't think you have to talk about propositions. It's not a bad idea to know what it is, though. — frank

I agree with that. It's part of the jargon, so you will miss out if you have no idea what it's all about.

A proposition is along the lines of content. — frank

Yes. I know roughly what you mean. But making it clear is another question, and not an easy one.

A philosopher of art whom I respect, Susanne Langer, has pointed out that we can often learn more about an art by noticing what it does not have in common with other arts, rather than trying to find similarities and possible shared properties. — J

That's good advice. I find it particularly important when I'm confronted with sweeping statements beginning "Art is...." (or whatever).

So with philosophy, perhaps. We can discover many commonalities between phil and literature, phil and science, phil and logic, phil and rhetoric, ad infinitum. But what we should be noticing is what makes philosophy different, unique. — J

I don't disagree. But I do find that most philosophers are very much inclined to focus on what makes philosophy unique anyway. It's a balance - mapping similarities and differences (in an informal and pragmatic way).

And what is that? The candidate answer I like best is that philosophy inevitably questions itself, without leaving the frame of its own discipline. — J

Yes. It may be unique in not leaving the frame of its own discipline. Psychology, perhaps is also self-reflexive, in a way.

Yes, this is the type of "understanding" we want to highlight, over against knowledge. And to me, it's a feature, not a bug, that "perspicuous representation" requires some sort of consensus. When we discover that Phil X finds something brilliantly illuminating, while Phil Y finds it clear as mud, we are being invited into a critical moment in philosophical dialectic. What separates them? What discussion is needed to bring them together? Is it a framing problem? Just a misunderstanding? A confusion about evidence? A logical flaw? etc. etc. — J

Whether the two senses are a problem or not depends on the context. If you are talking to an individual, you will probably want to focus on what helps that individual. There are times when that runs out. One of my favourite articles is C.L. Dodgson's Dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise after their race. Achilles claims the victory on the grounds that he crossed the line first. The tortoise refuses to concede. I won't spoil the story which shows Achilles trying to get to the end of another infinite regress. The moral is that if Achilles crossed the line first, he won the race. There's nothing subjective about it. Consensus? It matters. But I'm not sure how much. I notice that one can contradict it, if one has a very clear argument. If there was a consensus against Achilles, then the question will be who misunderstood the rules - Achilles or the rest of us.

However, the SEP article seems to want to say that a proposition is what is in common between a number of sentences or statements. That's what I don't get. — Ludwig V

That's exactly the standard analysis. The bolded part that follows the word, "that" is a proposition. — frank

You're offering an ostensive definition, and your problem is that when you point to a proposition "the bolded part", I see a sentence. If you think about it, it isn't possible to "bold" a proposition - it's like trying to italicize an apple. Wrong category.
Not sure whether mine is the standard analysis, but it may be. It's a work in progress, anyway.

We're expressing the same proposition by way of two utterances and two sentences. If you look back at your own analysis: "How about "collection of sentences that enable us to say that the cat is on the mat in different ways" — frank

Yes, but to the extent that the two sentences are different, you give me grounds for wondering whether it is the same proposition. I would prefer to stop talking about propositions, but it's too well embedded in philosophical discourse for that to be realistic - it's tilting at windmills. The formula I've offered does avoid some of the worst problems.

Tricky stuff. .....But in the end I cannot agree with the suggestion that our study is will be like the art students, primarily about a doing and producing. I do think there is a real and meaningful distinction between the productive arts (including the "fine arts') and science and wisdom, and philosophy is heavier on the other side of this division. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Very tricky. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "productive arts", but I didn't mean to suggest that philosophy should be counted alongside painting and music and literature. I would say that philosophy is centrally interested in truth, but, arguably, in some ways, so is painting and literature. Many people want to classify it with science, but that misrepresents it, IMO. I was just suggesting that something that works well in painting and music and literature, also works well in philosophy.
In science, do students learn a definition of a theory or an experiment and apply that, or do they learn to do science by getting into the lab and reading up on various theories?
Most disciplines are practices and, as a result have things in common, and, at the same time, each discipline is a distinctive collection of sub-practices or "games".

This works for me. The reason for reading the cannon is to improve on it. But in order to "improve" on it, one does not need already to have an idea of the perfect or ultimate item. — Banno

That's one reason. But the concept of progress in the arts is very tricky, particularly because, for me at least, the idea of the perfect novel or picture or song is meaningless. Perfection does have some application in the arts, but only in a way that does not imply finality. However, I don't see finality (whether perfection or truth) in philosophy or, indeed, in science.

“Understanding” in this context often refers to a kind of clarity—seeing how language functions, how confusion arises, and how philosophical problems dissolve when we attend closely to our forms of life and linguistic practices. It’s not about accumulating true propositions (knowledge in the epistemological sense), but about achieving perspicuous representation. — Banno

That's definitely my page. I do worry, though, about the unselfconscious use of "clarity" to identify some sort of objective property (as in "perspicuous representation") and a psychological state. What is clear to one person is not necessarily clear to another. Sometimes it is just a question of learning how to interpret, but not, I think, always.

The debate, as can be seen in the many threads on the topic in these fora, gets nowhere, does not progress. — Banno

Light bulb! That's how progress in philosophy happens. The debate makes no progress, gets boring, so people move on. Group dynamics, I suppose.

The phrase "If meaning is use, then use must have an end" equivocates on “end.” It reads “end” as telos—as if every use must aim at a final goal or fixed purpose. — Banno

It seems that one cannot point out too often that Aristotle distinguishes between actions that have a purpose external to themselves and others are done for "their own sake". This is logically necessary to avoid an infinite hierarchy of purposes. So one needs, hastily, to go on and say that this does not necessitate one supreme good at which everything aims.

:up: If you note the part I bolded, that's what we call a proposition — frank

Um - forgive me. But that's what I call a sentence; I would say that when it is used - to tell someone where the cat is, for example, - it becomes a statement in that context. However, I've learnt the philosophical dialect and so I know what you mean, in one sense. However, the SEP article seems to want to say that a proposition is what is in common between a number of sentences or statements. That's what I don't get.

Quite right.

How about "collection of sentences that enable us to say that the cat is on the mat in different ways"
or "collection of ways to say that the cat is on the mat".
Suggestions welcome.

Right, that was more or less my point. It's not a logical entailment or something that's true by definition. We have to agree on it. — J

Yes. There are two points that one can make to articulate the difference. The first is that the relationship is what is called "defeasible". That means that sometimes, in particular cases, there is that evidence that the speaker is lying, or joking, or intends the statement ironically or sarcastically. In those cases, the link is broken. The second is that it helps to think of an assertion as what is called a speech act, and the link with "X judged that..." or "X believes that..." is part of what is done when one asserts - one gives the audience a basis for recognizing that I have judged, or that I believe. That would be, I believe, an example of illocutionary force.

Defeasibility, speech acts and illocutionary force are ideas that are quite well established in philosophy. But you may not. So if you have come across them, please forgive me if I seem to be teaching my grandmother to suck eggs.

So the moral of the story is: don't ask questions you don't already know how to answer, or don't just already have the answer to. — Srap Tasmaner

More like: Look for questions that look answerable, or at least for which you have some way of recognising the answer. — Banno

Well, there is the possibility of working out how to answer a question, if you don't know. But it will help to answer the questions you do know how to answer, and approach the big question through them.
But it's also worth setting aside the possibility that the big question will ever have a final answer. There's a sense in which the big question here - What is everything made of? - has still not been answered. It would seem that each version of the answer generates a new version of the old question.
This is a bit vague, but I take it that it is obvious that I'm writing in the context of the question that Williamson describes as "one of the best questions ever asked".
BTW, Williamson doesn't mention the fact that an atomic theory was developed in the 5th century BCE, and there are, apparently, even earlier precursors. The modern theory is, of course, a very different thing, but these earlier theories could count as precursors. He paints a picture which is not exactly wrong, but which suits his purpose. But then, it's only an introduction.

"Professor Banno, can you please explain what makes some conceptualizations and systemizations of our language better than others?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

It may help here to steal an idea from the study of the arts. There, you don't get an answer to the question what makes some novels or pictures, etc. better than others. What you do get is a collection of examples which have been widely accepted as good examples. The expectation is that you will not be limited to imitating them (although that might be a useful exercise). The expectation is that students will be enabled to create new work by developing a critical judgement from those examples. The examples are collectively known as the canon.
True, there are various theories about what makes one work better than another, and students are taught these, or some of them. But they are taught as theories, subject to criticism. Again, the expectation is not that those theories will dictate what students will do. It is that those theories will be the basis of developing new ones.

They're not. The point is that the scope of the "⊢" takes in all the propositions, so as to maintain extensionality - and this is so whether we understand "⊢" as "It is true..." or as "I judge..." or as "perhaps..." or even "quite likely...". — Banno

I'm inclined to think that some concept rather like that of the proposition, as usually understood in philosophy, may be useful or even necessary. But I'm also inclinded to think that a definition along the lines of "a proposition is a sentence with its use" has potential. So maybe it will help if I try to disentangle what I think it wrong with the usual understanding.

Two quotations from Stanford EP - Structured propositions:-

Proponents of propositions hold that, speaking strictly, when speakers say the same thing by means of different declarative sentences, there is some (non-linguistic) thing, a proposition, that each has said.

The grammar here slips. One can't say a non-linguistic thing. It is true that there is a collection of sentences that say that the cat is on the mat in diffferent ways. I deliberately do not say the same thing, because actual synonymy is very rare in natural languages, so "the same thing" is not appropriate. Compare the argument that because there are many shades of red, there must be something in common - the universal. But the universal is a metaphysical object and so nominalism is born. I repeat - all we need is a collection of sentences that say that the cat is on the mat in different ways.

A declarative sentence is true or false derivatively, in virtue of expressing (in the context in which it is uttered....) a true or false proposition.

I really don't see why one should not say that a declarative sentence is true or false. Natural language has a commonplace variation of this - "It is true that the cat whose name is Jack is on the mat". I think we can manage with that and the variant of nominalism I outlined above.

So today, to speak of ends in the Aristotelian sense is to reinvigorate a discredited metaphysical picture. Best left alone, unless one explicitly defends that framework. As, indeed, some do. — Banno

I'm afraid I think there is a lot to be said for Aristotle's hierarchy of purposes and actions done for their own sake. But not for his idea that there is only one such hierarchy, topped off by The Good. Ryle makes use of the former idea quite unself-consciously. Peters famously builds the latter idea into his philosophy of education.

The substitution between seperate judgements is not countenanced. — Banno

I've heard of the judgement stroke, but no-one has ever explained to me what it does before. Thank you for that.
I can see that this allows one to express what happens when we form a number of sentences into a valid argument. It gets round the uncertainty about whether P and Q are two propositions or one when there is a logical implication between them. Is that the point of the notation?

All this talk of assertions is making me think about speech acts. There are two ways of referring to the cat. What rules or habits might there be in choosing to say "Jack is on the mat" or "The cat is on the mat"? It's not a question of logic, really, but of pragmatics or perhaps semantics.
It seems reasonable to suppose that one consideration is which way of referring to this animal the person I am talking to will understand best. One might also suppose that referring to Jack or the car expresses something about the relationship I have with the animal.

I think I could assert a sentence without also judging it to be true. — J

I don't see any problem about that. We have some words for that. "Suppose that...", "Imagine that...", "Consider whether..." and possible "entertain the idea that..." - and so forth. Given that, I think that in natural language "assert" is normally taken to imply "assert to be true". Asserting to be false is usually called denying.

Seems Moliere agrees, but perhaps you do not. That's fine. Perhaps at the least we might agree that some folk value clarity, and not just as a means to an end. Then we might wonder if Williamson is one of them. — Banno

Could we not say that clarity has more than one value? It seems to me that clarity has moral value because there is a duty to tell the truth without obfuscation or evasion. It is also has pragmatic value, because clear communicaton is more likely to succeed. And, yes, there is an aesthetic dimension as well.

So we have
The cat is on the mat
The speaker believes that the cat is on the mat
The cat=jack
And by substitution,
the speaker believes that Jack is on the mat
Which is not the case. I'm just pointing to the opacity of propositional attitudes. — Banno

Yes. None of that is in question. Though you are assuming/presupposing that the speaker does not know that the cat = jack.
Question - suppose that the speaker does know that the cat=jack. Then, by substitution, the speaker believes that Jack is on the mat. Is that not the case?

Well, there's the issues of substitution. If the cat's name is "Jack", does the speaker also believe that Jack is on the mat? It seems not. And yet Jack = the cat. — Banno

Well, I do see this as a puzzle. I'm inclined to say that if the speaker knows that the cat's name is Jack, then they do also believe that Jack is on the mat; if they do not know, they do not also believe that Jack is on the mat. Implicit in this is the question of the identity of individual propositions. Are "the cat is on the mat" and "Jack is on the mat" two propositions or one? If the former, they do also believe .... However, if the latter, they do not also believe.

The classical definition of intentionality, in my view, is not incorrect, but could, and should go further. If we consider the speech-situation, we find that these contexts are not rigidly separate, but are often mixed. Suppose I'm telling a story about my cat. Yesterday, I was with a group of people who do not know that my cat is called Jack. Last week, Jack, who is fond of chasing his tail, accidentally caught it, and bit it. You should have seen his reaction; he was furious with the tail, but couldn't work out what to do about it. Obviously, I will tell the story, not about "Jack", but about "my cat". This morning, I was with a group of people who know my cat's name. I told the same story, but not about "my cat", but about "Jack". Choosing the appropriate one of inter-substitutable references depends on one's audience. This works for "believes" and a number of other concepts classified as intentional.

Davidson was not able to give up the search.
— Ludwig V
I missed something. — Banno

You didn't miss anything. The problem is that I failed to delete that sentence from a draft.

Pholsophers got board with the lack of progress and moved on. — Banno

Quite likely. It's quite a common phenomenon - and not irrational. Perhaps people concerned with lack of progress should take not.

But does this get us to "I judge that the cat is on the mat" or "I judge that it is true that the cat is on the mat"? Are these formulations also meant to say the same thing? How? — J

Those two statements do not assert the same thing, in my book. The link between them only holds in a very special situation.

Do you think that "learning" in philosophy amounts to becoming clear about what you already know? Or can philosophy provide us with knowledge we did not have before? — Srap Tasmaner

I think Wittgenstein, for one, would say that philosophy amounts to becoming clear about what you already know, or perhaps learning to find one's way about in circumstances that are confusing. But perhaps becoming clear about what you already know (or don't know) is, in a sense, acquiring new knowledge.

Yes. My question is whether "I judge that sentence to be true" ever follows from "That sentence is true"? If I assert the latter, have I also committed myself to asserting the former?
I say not. However, one could say that when I assert that the cat is on the mat, I'm expressing my belief or judgement that the cat is on the mat. — J

no astronomer (or even social psychologist) has ever said, "Whoa, have you seen the new data? We're gonna need a philosopher. — Srap Tasmaner

To be fair, I don't think that scientists ever say "hold on, this is a philosophical issue. We need to call an expert."

I really don't. That's right in SEP's wheelhouse though. I think of it primarily as a "recent literature review" for grad students. — Srap Tasmaner

As someone who was away from philosophy for fifteen years or so before I joined TPF, it is also very handy for me.
I'm going to have to work out how to present my case here. This stuff is an excellent starting-point. There's another article devoted to the thesis that propositions are structured objects. Another complicated confusion.

Yeah that's fair. My memory of the paper is probably colored a bit by knowing which side Williamson is on. — Srap Tasmaner

I wouldn't say that. I reckon that Williamson makes it pretty clear which side he's on right through th meat of the article (say pp. 4 - 9). It's a bit of a giveaway that he presents developments in logic which seem to him to give a lot of support (though empirical linguistics may be a bit of a stretch for philosophy) to one side and goes into great detail about the weakness of assertibility-conditions in relation to sentences not known to be true and not known to be false.
What I can't discern is whether he thinks his audience is open to conversion - in which case, I would have expected much more detailed argument - or he is frustrated no-one is paying him enough attention and he's declaring a plague on both houses, without expecting much change. Do you have any impression what's happened since 2004?

Or, more interestingly, our entire understanding of what a proposition is supposed to be -- as Ludwig V suggests above -- is in need of revisiting. — J

If you want an overview, try Propositions - Stanford E. P.

No, we're actually in agreement here. The difficulty with posting is that it's hard to convey the tone of voice, or the fact that something is being proposed for consideration rather than asserted as true! I also think the Fregean conception is, if not a mess, at least deserving of hard questioning. The "contextless sense" of assertion has been critiqued, fairly recently, by both Kimhi and Rodl. — J

I'm sorry if I over-reacted. I'm a bit obsessed about the need to kill the idea of a meaning-object. It's called a proposition in standard philosophese, but the name doesn't matter. It's the role that's the problem.

That said, I do think the "utterance/assertion" distinction is useful, as a place to start talking. After all, we need some way to acknowledge that something said by me at time T1, and something said by you at time T2, can assert the same thing, on one reasonable understanding of "assertion." As long as it's 3rd personal. — J

The vocabulary around this is incredibly rich and therefore compicated and difficult to organize. I don't think that there are answers waiting in natural language - anything we do would be a specialized use of the terms. Utterance/assertion for the distinction you have in mind might well work; the same is true of sentence/statement or a version of the type/token distinction. There was an idea around at one time that a proposition should be defined as a sentence with its use, which would be better. I don't have any answers. We could try to agree a list of issues, like this one and then try working down it. Perhaps others might join in.

This has a lot of consequences when scientists tend to be publishing many of the more philosophical best sellers. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Oh, yes, indeed. It can be very frustrating. But scientists have established first claim on knowledge and, for some reason, on wisdom as well. I have the impression that philosophers, since around the sixties, are confined to niche labelled "oddball". When I had a job in philosophy, from time to time people would ask me what I did. "Philosophy" was a real conversation-stopper.

Economics is a fine example, the texts I've taught are filled with properly philosophical presuppositions about politics and philosophical anthropology. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Economics has managed to establish itself as the most like "proper" science of the social sciences. It's all illusion. Fortunately, there are some cracks where economics is recognized as the result of human behaviour.

Since they refuse to get in the game, as he sees it, they have discredited not their ideas but themselves. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, but how do they see it? You can't have an argument or negotiation, decide on a winner or anything else unless the other side is in the game. If they won't play your game, you can just play by yourself or go and get involved in the other guy's game.
But in fairness to him, his actual complaint is that neither side takes seriously what he takes seriously - or is the following quotation not clear?

Surprisingly, however, most participants in the Dummett-inspired debates between realism and anti-realism have shown little interest in the success of truth-conditional semantics, judged as a branch of empirical linguistics. Instead, they have tended to concentrate on Dummett’s demand for ‘non-circular’ explanations of what understanding a sentence with a given truth-condition ‘consists in’, when the speaker cannot verify or falsify that condition. — Must Do Better p.3

I read this as saying that Williamson's problem is that most participants on both sides are ignoring what he thinks is important. It needs an argument to show how and why it is important, which is missing here. The other half of the problem is that most participants are concentrating on Dummett's demand. On the face of it, and without an argument, that does seem reasonable. The beef here is in the arguments, which Williamson does not discuss.
I am not particularly hostile to what Williamson wants to do and I'm not sufficiently well read to comment on it. But I don't think this is likely to resonate with anyone who does not already share his presuppositions.

Yes. I was using "we want to imagine" with a skeptical accent. Can we really imagine it? How much of formal logical structure depends on this imagining? — J

Well, Frege built his logic around the concept of a proposition, and I believe that Russell &co followed him. If that concept is a mess, answering your question is going to be difficult. I think it is a mess.

This is another way of showing the issue. In one sense of "assertion" -- the "contextless" one -- any statement asserted as true would carry with it all the logical consequences. But if "assertion" is understood as a perspectival, 1st-person activity, then no, just as you say. — J

Ah, but I don't think that the contextless sense makes any sense. An assertion is an action, an event, and requires an agent.

And perhaps a good way to talk about that is to distinguish between assertion and utterance. You and I have made two utterances of a single assertion, not two assertions. More in line with Fregean "thoughts". — J

Your difficulty is that the more you align with Frege, the closer you will get to propositions, and the less you will do anything to remedy the mess. (I'm a bit heterodox here. Frege deserves great reverence for his achievements, but in the end, he is just another philosopher.)

Williamson is advocating explicit and clear lines of reasoning. He's doing this in order to move past the discussion being a mere quarrel. — Banno

He is recommending that and also more than that.

But when philosophy is not disciplined by semantics, it must be disciplined by something else: syntax, logic, common sense, imaginary examples, the findings of other disciplines (mathematics, physics, biology, psychology, history, …) or the aesthetic evaluation of theories (elegance, simplicity, …).

This is a remarkably heterogeneous list. He discusses two cases. "technical work by philosophical and mathematical logicians ..... on how close a predicate in a language can come to satisfying a full disquotational schema for that very language without incurring semantic paradoxes" (p. 4). and "the success of truth-conditional semantics, judged as a branch of empirical linguistics" (p.6). in the context of Dummett's programme for realism vs anti-realism. He bemoans the lack of interest in these developments without telling us exactly why we ought to find them of interest. I found that disappointing. Perhaps I'm missing something.

The vision of philosophy being supported by other disciplines is certainly very interesting and makes an excellent change from the more traditional (and markedly unpopular outside philosophy) view that the role of philosophy is to police the other disciplines. Inter-disciplinary work has developed well in recent decades, but is difficult and complicated. An approach that suggest that one academic department should discipline another is unlikely to go down well. I suspect that a lead department calling for help as required from other departments as required is much more common. In the end, each department needs to discipline itself.

And he claims that there was no resolution, or even much progress, because the anti-realist side, in particular, did not develop their theories to a sufficient extent. That is, they were never clear enough for specific arguments to take hold and produce even local, partial answers. — Srap Tasmaner

That's how I read him at first. But

Surprisingly, however, most participants in the Dummett-inspired debates between realism and anti-realism have shown little interest in the success of truth-conditional semantics, judged as a branch of empirical linguistics. Instead, they have tended to concentrate on Dummett’s demand for ‘non-circular’ explanations of what understanding a sentence with a given truth-condition ‘consists in’, when the speaker cannot verify or falsify that condition. — Must Do Better p. 6

It seems that the problem is that most participants decided to concentrate on Dummett's demand.

Williamson's paper argues that if we don't do better (which would include your "clarity") we'll never learn anything. — Srap Tasmaner

It's not as bad as that.

We should not be too pessimistic about the answer, at least concerning the broad, heterogeneous intellectual tradition that we conveniently label ‘analytic philosophy’. — Must Do Better p.3

That fits with the title of the paper, though it doesn't explain the force of the "must".

He might write ""The speaker holds true the sentence 'The cat is on the mat.'" This makes clear that the speaker is doing something with a sentence. — Banno

I sympathize with Davidson's project. But I can't see that "The speaker holds true..." is at all helpful. What's unclear about "X believes that the cat is on the mat"?
There was a time, long ago, when a proposition was defined as the meaning of a sentence. That was at least based on an actual practice. (You say "the cat is on the mat" and I can ask what you mean and you can explain,) But once we have lost interest in meaning-objects, thanks to Wittgenstein, we feel the need to give that definition up. Some people proposed to define a proposition as a sentence with its use. But that seems more like a definition of statements, which didn't provide the expected unity. It seems, Davidson was not able to give up the search. I think you put me on to his article "On saying that", in which he argues that "that the cat is on the mat" (a noun-phrase) is what I assert. Perfectly straightforward. I though it was a helpful analysis and did something to escape from the prison of the standard usage.

We want to imagine a proposition as independent of a context of assertion. — J

But the meaning of an assertion is often, if not always, determined to a greater or lesser extent by the context. For example, whether "the cat" refers to Felix or Tiger or... is determined by the context. So is the reference of "the mat". Then what does the unity independent of the context of assertion amount to?

Rather, the issue is that if I assert "You are cold," I must also be asserting, "I judge that you are cold." — J

The implication is that every time I assert P, I am also asserting every logical consequence of P. I don't think that works at all. When I assert that the cat is black, do I also assert that the cat is not white, not red, not blue, etc? No, they are different assertions, linked by a logical relationship.

I was wondering how two individuals might separately use an assertion about the cat -- or the blanket. — J

There's no straight answer. If we both assert that the cat is on the mat (in the same context), we are both making the same assertion - . At the same time, because you asserted it and I asserted it, there are clearly two assertions. It just depends on what criteria of identity you choose to apply.

I get that. Science is not the primordial understanding of anything. The primordial understanding must be the understanding I have when I start the science. That's why I thought the present-at-hand was the primordial understanding. — Ludwig V

Sometimes my typing is an embarrassment. I should have said "That's why I thought the ready-to-hand was the primordial understanding." So Descartes' methodical doubt could not be the foundation of our knowledge and understanding of the world.