Ok, that makes sense. Yes, how Quine defines "fact" here is at odds with most philosophy. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not sure if Quine uses "fact" in that way, but Banno and frank certainly are.

Here is my thesis: words are not, at least primarily, "what we know," but a "means of knowing and communicating." — Count Timothy von Icarus

:up:

Banno is not a good person to ask about this. — Count Timothy von Icarus

An understatement. Banno reduces all of philosophy to a few idiosyncratic decades in the 20th century and reads everything through that narrow, parochial lens.

-

Have you guys read Kripke? — J

Kripke flirts with essentialism:

Kripke would evidently agree that there is something that it is to amount to you, as opposed to anything else, and that your essence is what qualifies an object—you—to be the designatum of your name with respect to any possible world (he doesn’t say that your essence is qualitative though, and he outright rejects certain versions of that claim). But Kripke would deny that a speaker would have to know this essence, or to rely upon any other nontrivial criteria distinguishing you from world to world, in order to refer to you by way of a rigid designator (Kripke 1980, pp. 15–20; see also Plantinga 1974, pp. 93–98). — Rigid Designators | SEP

Medieval theories of signification and ampliation addressed much of this in greater detail than contemporary philosophy manages, and it's no wonder that the perennial problems of metaphysics began to return as soon as Logical Positivism died its own strange death:

In any case, if we look around the scene of contemporary philosophy -- which, despite all its eclecticism, is markedly different as a whole from the philosophical landscape of the beginning of this century -- what first hits the eye is the fact that metaphysics, despite its allegedly irrevocable and irreversible death, proclaimed repeatedly by several philosophical authorities of the past two centuries, is still alive and kicking. Well, of course, if someone were to say that this metaphysics is no longer that metaphysics, he would obviously be right. For most contemporary metaphysical studies are (quite paradoxically) the direct descendants of the logical positivist/analytic movement,[5] which in turn established its platform on a radical rejection of traditional metaphysics (proclaiming it to be simply meaningless). So, contemporary metaphysical investigations (here we should think of works of authors such as Armstrong, Bealer, Butchvarov, Gupta, Fine, Kripke, Lewis, Parsons, Plantinga, Putnam, Quine, van Inwagen, etc.) are radically different in their methods and principles as well as in their goals from anything that might pass for "traditional metaphysics". Nevertheless, one cannot fail to notice that in the works of contemporary metaphysicians, who in general are not quite familiar with, and who in fact do not care much about, traditional metaphysics, there is a slew of obstinately recurring traditional metaphysical problems: for example, considerations concerning "rigid designators" and "natural kinds" directly lead to contemporary views flirting with Aristotelian essentialism, problems with personal identity and "transworld identity" are closely related to the traditional problems of the principle of individuation, while questions regarding meaning and reference led to the revival of several aspects of the old problem of universals. Indeed, in general, the contemporary realism-antirealism debate with all its ramifications can quite fairly be characterized as being centered around the traditional problems of the relationships between modi essendi (modes of being), modi intelligendi (modes of understanding) and modi significandi (modes of signifying), primarily approaching the issue from the last member of this triad. In this situation, it is no wonder that we find a number of philosophically-minded historians as well as historically-minded philosophers (such as Adams, McCord Adams, Barnes, Burrell, Geach, Gracia, Henry, Kretzmann, Kenny, McInerny, Normore, Stump, Wolterstorff, etc.) who, being versatile both in analytic philosophy and in traditional metaphysics, are bringing the scholastic discussions directly to bear upon contemporary metaphysical problems and techniques. — Gyula Klima: What can a scholastic do in the 21st century?

“…. What is thought first-personally contains its being thought….” (Pg 2)

….what does that say except thought is what is thought; IS thought and BEING thought are exactly the same thing; was there ever a thought that wasn’t first-personal? Watahell’s a guy supposed to do with any of that? — Mww

It does look tautologous, whether we construe it that way or whether we construe it as saying that a self-reflective thought contains its being thought.

My initial objection was slightly different. A first-personal thought for Rodl is something like thinking "I think 2+2=4." Does that contain its own thought? Even supposing it does for the sake of argument, not all thought is "first-personal," and therefore not all thought contains its own thought in this way (self-consciously). Maybe Rodl develops this later on.

But the other question is, "In what sense is it contained?" When you say that for Kant, "“I think” represents the consciousness of the occurrence of the activity, but not the activity itself," we are distinguishing two different ways in which one can be conscious of their own thought, That strikes me as an important distinction.

- It does seem to be. :up:

I know I've never really laid out a case, if there is one, for why Rodl's perplexity about "content" makes sense. — J

It is worrisome that after reading so much Rödl you're still not sure what he is objecting to in Frege. Is the same true of Kimhi?

I would try visiting Geach to find out, as he is the basis of the criticism for both Kimhi and Klima (and note that Rödl is indebted to Kimhi on this score). Geach is the first domino that I know of who critiques Frege in this way.

"Assertion," by Peter Geach
"The Frege-Geach Problem 60 Years Later: A Tribute to an Enduring Semantic Puzzle"

The closest to it I found, and which inspired the argument from composition over motion, was Aquinas’ argument that if all essences do not in-themselves necessitate esse than none of them could exist; and so there must be an essence which is identical to its existence—God. It makes more sense to me to formulate it in terms of ‘composed being’ than forms and matter. — Bob Ross

Yes, and I thought you might be doing this. The difficulty is that essence/existence is a contentious form of composition, and a lot of people will fight you on this.

Sorry, I see how that might be confusing in the OP: I will rewrite that part. — Bob Ross

That's alright. I had figured it out by the time I wrote my next post, and I understand why you wrote it the way you did. You need "beings" to include parts, wholes, and simples. I had mistakenly assumed it excluded parts, which was a slip on my part.

The idea is that there is a form instantiated in matter by way of particular things arranged in particular ways—and so, as a side note, this argument presupposes realism about forms—and complex being has its form contingently on the parts which make it up (in some particular arrangement). This means that, similarly to how Aristotle notes that an infinite per se series of things changing do not themselves have the power to initiate that change (e.g., an infinite series of inter-linked gears have no power themselves to rotate each other, so an infinite series of rotating gears is ceteris paribus absurd), forms comprised of other forms comprised of other forms comprised of other forms <…> ad infinitum do not have the power to keep existence (let alone to exist at all). If each is dependent on the smaller comprised thing—which exists with a form and matter alike in the same contingency patter—then there could not be anything at all there (without something that they subsist in); just as much as if each gear does not have the power to move itself then there can’t be any of them moving (without some outside mover). — Bob Ross

When I first read the argument I thought of what David Oderberg calls "Reverse mereological essentialism," and you've here confirmed that this is an issue. It's not quite right to say that substantial wholes depend on their parts, because in a more primary sense the parts depend on the whole. One might be able to get away with that language insofar as corruptible entities are contingent on account of their composite nature...

But the problem is that you are upbuilding existence, which amounts to a kind of reduction of wholes to parts (qua existence). You seem to be saying, "Why does a whole exist? Because its parts exist. Why do its parts exist? Because their parts exist. But since no part is self-existing..."

For Aquinas existence is granted to the parts and to the whole, but it is not granted to the whole mediately through the parts. This is actually a really key difference between Aristotelian substantial form and a mechanistic composite whole. Our modern age thinks of organisms as machines, with upbuilding parts. For Aristotle an organism is very different than a machine, having a substantial form.

For Aquinas’ essence version, it is the idea that the essence of a thing normally does not imply its existence, and so the essence of a thing is distinct from its existence. If there were an infinite per se series of composition of things sorts of essences, then none of them could exist; for they are all contingent. There would have to be some essence—which he argues is only one of this kind—where it just is identical to its existence (i.e., is a necessary being). — Bob Ross

Yes, but very few people around here are going to grant you this without a lot of argument.

There are two Aristotelian rejoinders to your argument. The first is not exactly a rejoinder, but simply the fact that Aristotle did not posit created things as essence/existence composites (and in fact he never considered the matter). The second is more difficult, and it is Aristotle's belief that prime matter is uncreated and the universe is eternal. Aquinas is very conscientious of Aristotle's position on this.

Now perhaps you are not positing a finite universe, but I think a subtle difference on the nature of prime matter (between Aristotle and Aquinas) may come into your argument. This is because if prime matter is necessarily eternal, then in some sense it is not a composition of essence and existence.

That’s a good question. I would say, if the thing is spatial, then it must have parts; because anything that is spatiotemporal can be broken up into smaller parts. Anything, e.g., with extension must be capable of being broken up into the succession of some unit—e.g., a succession of dots form a line. Something is space is necessarily the succession of some some smaller things; and something in time is the succession of a thing temporally, which is also a form of being dissimilation. — Bob Ross

Okay. You seem to be saying that Atomism is false because divisibility never ceases with material objects. A lot of this draws back to the form of dependence that composition represents (and that is an interesting Thomistic query). But the heart of your argument seems to be the essence/existence distinction.

Why doesn't Aquinas appeal to the essence/existence distinction very often in his simpler works? I think it is because it is difficult to understand and know. Contrariwise, in his first argument for God's existence in the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas begins with motion because, "It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion." He begins with something that is very obvious and cannot be denied, and works from there. That's a key principle of all argument.

(Double post - server stutter)

I really do not think you have understood Quine. — Banno

I was responding to Count, not exegeting Quine.

rather than addressing the issues raised — Banno

You are <the one who can't address the issue for the life of you>.

Humpty Dumpty — Banno

Trolls will troll. The ignorant will demonstrate their ignorance.

which is from Lock — Banno

Wrong again.

I will make a thread that includes the topic of intentional reference/identity sometime in at least the next month. It will be a reading group, so trolling will not be tolerated.

If arguments from undetermination show there is no "fact of the matter" about something... — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would say that:

translation is underdetermined to some extent — Leontiskos

We are always in via, growing in knowledge, whether it be with essences or references or logic, etc. A robust epistemology of what is being referred to would note not only that 'gavagai' is underdetermined, but also that it is not indeterminate. "Gavagai" has something to do with rabbits. Even someone with a poor theory of language will understand that much. And the fact that signification can be narrowed down makes all the difference between underdetermination and indetermination. The experiences of the linguist constitute a narrowing of the meaning of "gavagai" to something that has to do with rabbits. Further narrowing can then take place, which is what actually happens in reality when folks learn new languages, even through pure immersion.

Quine's complexification of the situation fails if he thinks it shows that there is no starting point; that there is pure indetermination.

(And because substance metaphysics is true and widespread, most people will begin with the thesis that 'gavagai' names the rabbit rather than, say, its ear, and they will usually be right.)

Similarly, our supposition that "gavagai" means rabbit might be worth considering on the basis of our other beliefs about the community we are interpreting.

We need to take care here. There need be no truth to the matter of what it is that "gavagai" refers to, but there might well be. If the men go off hunting gavagai and return with rabbits, and if they offer you gavagai and hand you rabbit stew, that may well suffice. — Banno

This is just you having your cake and eating it, too. If reference is inscrutable then we cannot be confident. If we are justified in our confidence then reference is not inscrutable.

There need be no truth to the matter of what it is that "gavagai" refers to, but there might well be. — Banno

The chorus throughout this thread has been, "There is no fact of the matter. There is no fact of the matter. There is no fact of the matter." Now you have switched direction, "There need be no truth to the matter, but there might be." Your self-contradiction hasn't gone unnoticed.

So after all that wind, you agree with what was said. — Banno

Maybe if you wouldn't go around lying, trolling, and making up shit we would all save a bit of time. You still haven't managed to address the central issue raised <here>, but that's no surprise.

That's not the point though. — Janus

It is the point, though, because you are giving the tired argument, "Show me a perfect essence if you want to justify essentialism," and I am saying, "What essentialist has ever claimed to have access to perfect essences?"

What essentialism says is that we have an imperfect grasp of essences. Someone who studies tigers or triangles has a better grasp of their nature than someone who does not study them.

It seems uncontroversial that Plato considered the forms to be perfect and their physical manifestations imperfect. Do you deny this? — Janus

Even Plato never claimed that we have perfect knowledge of the Forms, or that we can give a perfect account of the Forms.

This notion of a perfect form, eidos or essence is the traditional understanding of essentialism. — Janus

So this is a good example of the very post you were responding to. Here is my response:

The response, "Show where you are getting the idea that [absurdity] comes with essentialism." Objections to essentialism tend to be strawmen through and through. — Leontiskos

What source do you use to come to this idea about "this notion of a perfect form"?

- Here are some of the places where I objected to this use of "fact":

The important thing here is to set out what one believes Quine's intended conclusion was. I would suggest avoiding vague words like 'fact' in setting that out. — Leontiskos

* Again, "fact" being a weasel-word. — Leontiskos

A very remarkable weakness of modern theories of reference is that they do not manage to account in any way for speakers' intentions, such as the Medieval theory of "immediate signification" does. This is why I think modern philosophers talk themselves in circles when it comes to reference, and all of this is related to philosophy of language as first philosophy. And it is certainly true that we cannot pretend that this bad theory of reference does not bleed into all sorts of other areas, such as belief, knowledge, doubt, etc.

- I can sort of make your argument work, but most people who are not familiar with the metaphysical background are going to have questions in many different places.

7. Therefore, a series of composed beings must have, ultimately, uncomposed parts as its first cause. (6 & 3)
8. An uncomposed being (such as an uncomposed part) is purely simple, since it lacks any parts.
9. Two beings can only exist separately if they are distinguishable in their parts. — Bob Ross

Here an Atomist will say that atoms (or whatever fundamental building block they choose) is purely simple and yet distinguishable via its "spatiotemporal properties." That is, the spatial location of something is an accident of that thing, but why think it is a compositional "part" of that thing?

- That's an understandable argument. :up:

Well, if your argument had only two premises and a conclusion, like a syllogism, then it would be easier for people to read, and more difficult for people to attack. It would also be easier for you to defend, and more difficult for you to even formulate to begin with, which is one of the reasons why your argument has 41 premises to begin with instead of simply 2. — Arcane Sandwich

But what is easy is not always good. I think the forum could use less easy. Three-premise arguments are almost necessarily superficial, especially in the context of an OP.

To wrap this up, I invite you to a discussion, help me understand one thing: was I wrong in expecting something in return when loving someone, or I did the thing I was supposed to, but the other person wasn't for me? — Dmytro

Great question, and your debacle is unfortunately quite common.

I think you are talking about a relationship or a romantic friendship, not simply love. Friendship always involves mutuality: friends love each other. So if one person loves and expresses their love, and the recipient does not reciprocate, loving in return, then there is no real relationship or friendship (and instead there is a relation between benefactor and beneficiary). That is, friendship requires a measure of equality, including equality of effort and interest. It doesn't have to be completely equal, but if it is completely unequal then it cannot be sustained as a friendship (including a romantic friendship).

That's the foundation, but things can go wrong in many ways. Maybe she was no longer interested in you. Maybe she was being selfish and will regret her behavior. Maybe you were being overbearing and were creating more pressure than the relationship could be asked to bear. Maybe something happened to her that she chose to keep secret, and yet which made a mutual relationship with you impossible. There are many things that could have happened, but relationships cannot survive without mutuality.

Does this mean that love in a romantic context is conditional? I wouldn't phrase it that way, but it is not unconditional. A romantic relationship is a symbiotic growing together. That merging of selves is not based on conditions or contracts, but it does necessarily involve mutuality.

(Cf. Nicomachean Ethics, Books 8 and 9)

I created it myself — Bob Ross

Sorry, I thought you were just copying and pasting something you found elsewhere. I will look at it more closely given that you wrote it yourself. :blush:
(I thought you were pulling from elsewhere mainly because you said, "I am not entirely following the argument that God is all-loving...")

It's actually pretty creative, and I can see some of the things you are drawing from. I have never seen an argument phrased in quite this way. Interesting thread. I will respond again to the OP eventually.

---

Edit:

So, in the OP, I am referring to the composition of a being and not a temporal succession of causes — Bob Ross

So:

5. An infinite series of composed beings (viz., of parts which are also, in turn, composed) would not have the power to exist on their own. — Bob Ross

I am reading "infinite series of composed beings" as individual composed beings ordered in a series. That is, we can't just be referring to the composition of a being because we are talking about the way that multiple beings are related to one another in a series.

Going back to my suggestion that the premise requires defense, why should we accept it? What is the rationale?

For one, there are just too many steps for them all to have any hope of withstanding scrutiny. — hypericin

But this is not a real argument. In fact an argument with many steps is a good argument insofar as it is transparent and does not try to oversimplify things. The problem here is not that there are many steps, but that the conclusion is a 12-part conjunction. Which means that there are only about 3 steps per divine conjunct (i.e. too few steps).

-

5. An infinite series of composed beings (viz., of parts which are also, in turn, composed) would not have the power to exist on their own. — Bob Ross

This probably requires defense. It looks like the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which Aristotle and Aquinas disagreed with (but others, such as Bonaventure or now William Lane Craig, uphold). I forget the common scholarly name, but it is the question of an infinite series of contingent beings ordered per accidens. In a modal paradigm it usually comes down to the question of whether an infinite amount of time will realize all possibilities (and in this case we are concerned with the possibility of a collection of contingents ceasing to exist).

I am not entirely following the argument that God is all-loving, so if anyone understands the Thomistic argument for that part I would much appreciate an explanation; but, besides that, everything else checks out in my head. What are your guys’ thoughts? — Bob Ross

The conclusion is too ambitious in my opinion:

38. A being which is absolutely simple, absolutely actual, eternal, immutable, all-loving, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, all-good, one, unique, and necessary just is God. — Bob Ross

"There is a single being which is all of these things."

The argument is reminiscent of classical theism, but to prove 12 predicates [of God] in a single proof is excessive. Where did you find this?

Are you familiar with a term I've only recently acquired, 'ipseity'? It means precisely 'a sense of self' or of being a subject. And indeed only living beings, so far as we know, can conceivably have that sense (leaving aside the possibility of angelic intelligences). — Wayfarer

I think the question is whether sense of self is direct or indirect. If it were direct, then it would seem that there is nothing I would not know about myself. I would be fully transparent to myself. If it is indirect, then self-consciousness is not always present.

For example, for Kant:

Thought is an activity, in the synthesis of conceptions into a possible cognition; “I think” represents the consciousness of the occurrence of the activity, but not the activity itself. — Mww

-

- :up:

Sure, it can be said that things have essential properties in the sense that they would not qualify as whatever those essential properties would qualify them as if they did not possess those qualities. To say this is very different than saying there is some essence we might refer to as "tigerness' or 'carness". — Janus

"Tigerness" (if you like) for a modal essentialist would just be the essential properties of a tiger. If you think a tiger is defined by its essential properties then you're proposing some form of essentialism. I don't actually think that anyone is truly a non-essentialist, so it's not surprising that your intuitions lead you here.

To say this is very different than saying there is some essence we might refer to as "tigerness' or 'carness". — Janus

When people start bringing out ideas like this I would say they have to try to justify their sine qua non historically. "If [insert absurdity] is not true, essentialism fails." The response, "Show where you are getting the idea that [absurdity] comes with essentialism." Objections to essentialism tend to be strawmen through and through.

What's interesting is that:

listing that set of attributes which only cars (or tigers) possess. — Janus

...we could take the set as a whole as what is unique. So revise it to, "which all and only cars (or tigers) possess," and the inclusion of 'only' vis-a-vis the set is actually a shift in the direction of traditional essentialism, insofar as we are honing in on a reality that is uniquely differentiable from all other realities. That is, Janus is not merely casting a net to collect entities of a particular type, but is also concerned to affirm a unique and repeatable constellation of characteristics. In modal terms this would be saying that essences do not ever strictly overlap.

I'm not sure Rödl spends sufficient time developing his notion of "first-person thinking." He says it is "thought whose expression in language requires the use of a first-person pronoun" (1), but he seems to be assuming that this sort of thought is qualitatively different from other thought. Rödl seems to think that we have some kind of direct access to the self; that we are transparent to ourselves; and first-person thinking exemplifies this as a qualitatively unique mode of thought. (But presumably he is going to try to abolish the divide, not so that modern "objectivity" flows into "first-person thinking," but so that first-person self-consciousness flows into "objectivity.")

is a misapprehension of the argument Quine makes? — Banno

Sure, — Leontiskos

Things have characteristics, not essences.

...

It's not a matter of listing every part that constitutes a car (or tiger), but of listing that set of attributes which only cars (or tigers) possess. — Janus

"Only" is an interesting claim, but you're presumably espousing some form of modal essentialism, which is a characteristically contemporary form of essentialism. That is, "Characteristics, not essences," is a non-starter given that essentialism is now most often defined in terms of characteristics (properties). See, for example, the SEP entry on Essential vs. Accidental Properties.

The important thing here is to set out what one believes Quine's intended conclusion was. I would suggest avoiding vague words like 'fact' in setting that out. — Leontiskos

What do I "make of it"? It seems clear to me that translation is underdetermined to some extent. What is Quine's intended conclusion? I don't think it is as radical as is being assumed. In a 1970 paper he says that the gavagai example is very limited, and demonstrates the inscrutability of terms rather than indeterminacy of translation of sentences.

"has not shown that he understands any of this." Why don't you, "Show that you have understood the argument that Quine presented."

@Count Timothy von Icarus, This is a lecture that is very good in setting out the stakes of essentialism, especially vis-a-vis 20th century logic. You would probably enjoy it. Gyula Klima is great when it comes to these sorts of issues, and I might try to find a paper of his for a thread. Indeed, this whole conference was supposed to be quite good.



(Oderberg would be another source that comes to mind.)

- Jesus is praying Psalm 22, invoking it by its first lines.

You are attacking me instead of addressing the topic. — Banno

My interlocutor keeps lying. Quite relevant.

Show that you understand the gavagai example.

Davidson was talking about Quine, so yes. — Banno

:lol:

You're a joke, man. You're straight up lying about things, such as the idea that I've said, "Yes, [Quine] is clearly wrong." Or when you just remove quotation marks from my words to claim that I am saying something I am quoting. Stop lying. Stop being dishonest.

- Was I talking about Quine? Go have a look. :roll:

You entered this conversation with "Yes, it is clearly wrong". — Banno

Where?

- It's remarkable how habituated you are to burying your head in the sand.

Yes. He'd need to live with the natives for a while to build empathy. — frank

And therefore in order to understand language we must study something other than language, no? He requires more than language.

If you would progress this thread, address the gavagai example. — Banno

Again, here you go:

The point Quine is actually making is that communicating an "immediate signification" is never guaranteed or sure. — Leontiskos

(immediate signification)

Now your turn. If you would progress this thread, address the confidence problem.

- Banno, I literally placed an interpretation of your view in quotation marks, a view which I have been critiquing from the start of this conversation. You removed the quotation marks and acted as if I were asserting it myself. You tried to put your confused position in my mouth and make me answer for it. The dishonesty is unfortunate.

Now either you have an answer about your claim that "we can be pretty damn confident" or you don't. If you do, answer. If not, stop playing games.

- So presumably if Alex had possessed more empathy he would have understood what "gavagai" meant?

I agree that common ground underlies the scrutability of reference, but Quine would presumably ask how linguistic common ground could be established in the first place. (We are driving at the truth that philosophy of language is not first philosophy.)

- Be serious. Stand behind your words.