The OP's question was not about ordinary English at all. — Srap Tasmaner

Tones is interpreting English-language definitions of validity according to the material conditional, not merely the OP. He himself now recognizes this:

And, yes, the equivalence is per the material conditional. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Edit:

And now explicitly:

English as a meta-language regarding formal logic. In that meta-language, 'if then' is taken in the sense of the material conditional. — TonesInDeepFreeze

He thinks the consequence relation of logic (∴) is the material conditional, such that a contradictory set of premises automatically makes an argument valid, irrespective of any explosive argumentation within the argument.

- In short, it removes it. See:

Any argument with inconsistent premises is valid, according to Tones. Weird indeed. It requires a strained reading of the fine print of portions of definitions of validity, taken out of context. Earlier posters usefully leveraged the word "sophistry."

(Note that this is different from the modus ponens reading of the OP and it is different from the explosion reading of the OP. The effect of explosion requires explicit argumentation. The OP, for example, is susceptible to explosion, but it is not wielding explosion. Tones is just doing a weird, tendentious, definitional thing.) — Leontiskos

Lots of people are not paying attention to the differentiation of arguments for why the OP might be valid. Three options have been given: modus ponens, explosion, and the definition of validity. @TonesInDeepFreeze's is the latter, and it is tendentious but also probably just sophistic. It is very close to this argument:

• That which has a privation of life is dead
• Rocks have a privation of life
• Therefore, rocks are dead

Tones' argument:

• An argument is valid when it is not possible for the conclusion to be false while the premises are true
• An argument with contradictory/inconsistent premises cannot have (all) true premises
• Therefore, an argument with contradictory/inconsistent premises cannot have a false conclusion while the premises are true
• Therefore, an argument with contradictory/inconsistent premises is valid.

This is what Srap usefully called "reliance in argumentation on degenerate cases":

I think, though, we can allow a somewhat negative connotation because reliance in argumentation on degenerate cases is often inadvertent or deceptive. "There are a number of people voting for me for President on Tuesday [and that number happens to be 0]." — Srap Tasmaner

(And I would be willing to explain why this sort of thing deserves a negative connotation even apart from inadvertence or deception.)

What's interesting here is that Tones is literally applying the material conditional as an interpretation of English language conditionals, and he is relying on the degenerate case of the material conditional to try to make a substantive point. He has trapped himself within a truth-functional paradigm, and has convinced himself that his "reliance in argumentation on degenerate cases" is a normative reliance, such that he is, "merely applying the definitions of ordinary formal logic." This is an especially clear case of the deep confusion that results from the excessive formalism of folks like Tones or Banno. They cannot interpret real English; they cannot distinguish absence from privation; they cannot discern rocks from corpses; they cannot recognize that validity involves a relationship between premises and conclusion.

(Cf. , , )

-

Edit:

"Therefore, an argument with contradictory/inconsistent premises cannot have a false conclusion while the premises are true" [Paraphrase of Tones] — Leontiskos

This is a matter of different modal levels, so to speak, or different domains or levels of impossibility. Tones is committing a metabasis eis allo genos. He is committing a category error where the genus of discourse is not being respected. Contingent falsity, necessary falsity, and contradictoriness are three different forms of denial or impossibility. The definition of validity that Tones favors is dealing in the first category, not the second or third. The domain of discourse for such a definition assumes that the premises are consistent. It does not envision itself as including the degenerate case where an argument is made valid by an absurd combination of premises. An "argument" is not made valid by being nonsense.

"a major topic in the study of deductive logic is validity. This is a relationship..." — TonesInDeepFreeze

The idea that it is a relationship already excludes your reading. If a relationship between A and B must be established, then one must know something about both A and B. Yet you think that merely knowing something about A—that it is inconsistent—proves validity. If an isolated fact about A proved validity then validity would not be a relationship between A (premises) and B (conclusion). This is another source that excludes your view. The other (single-sentence) sources you presented favor my view but do not exclude your tendentious view.

That is the second time you put quotes around words I didn't say. — TonesInDeepFreeze

It's called paraphrase, and we both know you hold to the paraphrased proposition. You should be a lawyer given the way you constantly complain, nitpick, and manage bizarre readings interpreted via a form of legalese.

"A sentence Phi is a consequence of a set of sentences Gamma if and only if threre are no interpretations in which all the sentences in Gamma are true and Phi is false." (Elementary Logic - Mates)

"An argument is deductively valid if and only if it is not possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false." (The Logic Book - Bergmann, Moor and Nelson). — TonesInDeepFreeze

These are not conclusive in favor of your reading, and you would need to quote the context around these sentences given the way you have shown yourself willing to ignore context.

"It is not possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false" is not uncontroversially fulfilled by a set of inconsistent premises. You are literally interpreting English conditionality via the idiosyncrasies of the material conditional, which is ironic given the way you protest labels which reduce your thinking to truth-functional categories. It is curious to me that you do not recognize the way your argument rests on a mere technicality.

I'm really not convinced this is going anywhere given how many times you have now repeated yourself, but the issue here has to do with consequence or inference vs. the material conditional. I gave examples of sources which agree that a valid argument requires that the conclusion follows from the premises, and everyone knows that the idiosyncratic/trivial case of the material conditional, where a false antecedent automatically makes the conditional true, is not a case of "follows from." This is why logicians refused to admit the material conditional for many decades after Frege had attempted to introduce it.

"Hanover's defense was logically inconsistent, therefore his conclusion follows from his defense," is not correct. B does not automatically follow from A whenever A is incoherent.

Oh. So then any argument that has no true premises is valid. That's weird. — frank

Any argument with inconsistent premises is valid, according to Tones. Weird indeed. It requires a strained reading of the fine print of portions of definitions of validity, taken out of context. Earlier posters usefully leveraged the word "sophistry."

(Note that this is different from the modus ponens reading of the OP and it is different from the explosion reading of the OP. The effect of explosion requires explicit argumentation. The OP, for example, is susceptible to explosion, but it is not wielding explosion. Tones is just doing a weird, tendentious, definitional thing.)

There is no question. He does not presuppose it. — TonesInDeepFreeze

There is no question that he would reject your tendentious interpretation, which fully ignores the bolded sentence of Gensler's.

Suppose you are on the jury. @Hanover presents his defense. It is a garbled mess of incoherent and contradictory gibberish. He concludes, "...Therefore, the defendant is innocent." The jury goes into deliberation. You say, "Well, we must first recognize that Hanover's defense was a piece of valid reasoning." The rest of the jury looks at you with blank stares. You continue, "His premises were inconsistent, and any argument with inconsistent premises is necessarily valid." The blank stares only become more protracted.

Now it would not help you in any way if Gensler and Enderton were fellow jurors. Even more than the other jurors, they would think you were confused. Gensler might say, "Did you read past the first sentence of my explanation of validity? Very few people would construe it in the bizarre way you have, but even so, I went on to clarify the concept in the following sentences."

I did not claim that validity requires that there is no interpretation in which the premises are all true. — TonesInDeepFreeze

And I never said you did (you are falling into the fallacy of affirming the consequent). You think that any argument with inconsistent premises is automatically valid, not that every valid argument has inconsistent premises. Here is Gensler:

We’re just saying that the conclusion follows from the premises – that if the premises were all true, then the conclusion also would have to be true. — Gensler, Introduction to Logic, Second Edition, p. 3

Validity has to do with the conclusion following from the premises. Your claim is, "Whenever the premises are inconsistent, the argument is valid." But inconsistent premises do not show that the conclusion follows from them. Hanover's defense is not valid reasoning just because it is confused.

(Now you can hold to your tendentious position if you like, but it is not the position of Gensler, or Enderton, or SEP, or Wikipedia.)

And the argument is valid by Gensler, Enderton, SEP and Wikipedia. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Let's take the first:

Gensler:

"An argument is valid if it would be contradictory (impossible) to have the premises all true and conclusion false."

It is impossible to have both A -> ~A and A true. Perforce, it is impossible to have the premises all true and the conclusion false. — TonesInDeepFreeze

The question is whether we should read Gensler as presupposing that the premises are consistent. You want to say, "The premises are inconsistent, therefore the argument is valid," and you want Gensler to agree with you. But the quotes I gave from Gensler (and everyone else) do not support your interpretation:

An argument is valid if it would be contradictory (impossible) to have the premises all true and conclusion false. In calling an argument valid, we aren’t saying whether the premises are true. We’re just saying that the conclusion follows from the premises – that if the premises were all true, then the conclusion also would have to be true. — Gensler, Introduction to Logic, Second Edition, p. 3

Your interpretation flies in the face of the bolded sentence. Gensler is talking about a consequence relation between premises and conclusion. A consequence relation is not established by your, "The premises are inconsistent..."

(As I've pointed out, you are turning the consequence relation into a material conditional, and claiming that inconsistent premises trivially show an argument to be valid in the same way that the false antecedent of a material conditional trivially shows the conditional to be true.)

And with the argument mentioned in the original post, it is the case that there is no interpretation in which all the premises are true. — TonesInDeepFreeze

And that does not make the argument valid for Gensler, Enderton, SEP, or Wikipedia.
But it does for you.
Because you are leveraging an idiosyncratic notion of validity.

- Wrong again:

An argument is valid if and only if there are no interpretations in which all the premises are true and the conclusion is false.

In this case there are no interpretations in which all the premises are true. Perforce, there are no interpretations in which all the premises are true and the conclusion is false. So the argument is valid. — TonesInDeepFreeze

An argument is valid if and only if there are no interpretations in which all the premises are true and the conclusion is false.

In this case there are no interpretations in which all the premises are true. Perforce, there are no interpretations in which all the premises are true and the conclusion is false. So the argument is valid. — TonesInDeepFreeze

What you've done is imported the artificial truth-functionality of the material conditional into the consequence relation itself. You have contradicted ↪Hanover's "flows from." You are effectively saying, <Any "argument" with nonsense premises is "valid."> — Leontiskos

As I said, in this particular regard, I'm merely applying the definitions of ordinary formal logic. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Ordinary formal logic does not define the consequence relation as identical to the material conditional. — Leontiskos

Here is Gensler speaking about validity in his introductory chapter:

An argument is valid if it would be contradictory (impossible) to have the premises all true and conclusion false. In calling an argument valid, we aren’t saying whether the premises are true. We’re just saying that the conclusion follows from the premises – that if the premises were all true, then the conclusion also would have to be true. — Gensler, Introduction to Logic, Second Edition, p. 3

Here is Enderton:

What is surprising is that the concept of validity turns out to be equivalent to another concept (deducibility)... — Enderton, A Mathematical Introduction to Logic, p. 89

Here is SEP:

A good argument is one whose conclusions follow from its premises; its conclusions are consequences of its premises.

...

...the argument is valid [when] the conclusion follows deductively from the premises... — Logical Consequence | SEP

Here is Wikipedia:

In logic, specifically in deductive reasoning, an argument is valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false. It is not required for a valid argument to have premises that are actually true, but to have premises that, if they were true, would guarantee the truth of the argument's conclusion. — Validity | Wikipedia

@TonesInDeepFreeze wants to say that an argument is definitionally/trivially valid if it its premises cannot all be true (i.e. if it is inconsistent). He says that he is "merely applying the definitions of ordinary formal logic." Except the reputable sources and logicians simply do not define validity in such a way.

(@Hanover)

analogous predication — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't know what you mean. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Aristotle calls such a thing a "pros hen" homonym.

• Analogy and Analogical Reasoning | SEP
• Medieval Theories of Analogy | SEP

Well, while I think Srap has a good point about our being able to live without A→~A in most situations, I think it is important that statements like "nothing is true," are able to entail their own negation—that logic captures how these claims refute themselves. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But does logic really capture how these claims refute themselves? I don't think so. It merely defines a formal notion of contradiction and shows that a contradiction has occurred. The how/why question is beyond the logic (as is the reductio-remedy), and I believe you yourself pointed earlier to the logical simplification of 'contradiction' (i.e. an all-false truth table).

It may seem bizarre that a valid argument could have at least one premise that is necessarily false at first glance, but I think it is fairly intuitive if one thinks in terms of truth-preservation. If the premises were true, it would preserve truth. But the "truth" of a false premise cannot be preserved.

And it's a good thing that it is valid because we often can reason from necessarily false conclusions in valid arguments to identifying false premises. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Why would it be a good thing? It is good that we can reason from non-necessarily false conclusions in valid arguments to identifying false premises. An argument from a necessarily false conclusion is a reductio, and the question of whether an absurdity is valid is part of the very question at hand.

It may seem bizarre that a valid argument could have at least one premise that is necessarily false at first glance, but I think it is fairly intuitive if one thinks in terms of truth-preservation. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Validity in propositional logic involves a relativization of truth-values with respect to inference-relations. Inference-relations are held steady, and if the truth-values cash out given the stable inference-relations, then we call it "valid." The inference relations are conceived as meaning-stable, and the variables are conceived as meaning-variable (i.e. truth-variable). But in this case what is at stake is the meaning and stability of the inference-relations themselves. The contentious move is to claim that the consequence-relation involved in the OP is the stable, familiar consequence relation of modus ponens. It isn't. That's that place to start.

To claim that it is involves:

...prioritizing truth-functional process over logical telos. — Leontiskos

Put differently, the notion of validity assumes a truth-functional context where truth and form are entirely separable. Yet when we think deeply about inferences themselves, such as modus ponens, truth and form turn out to be less separable than we initially thought. When we stop merely stipulating our inferences and ask whether they actually hold in truth, things become more complicated.

Yes. I edited that post. It's just weird that any argument that can't have all true premises is going to be valid. — frank

We could say with that if the conclusion flows from the premises then the argument is valid.

1. P→Q
2. P
3. ∴ Q

4. A→~A
5. A
6. ∴ B

Now one could say that (3) flows from (1) and (2); and that (6) flows from (4) and (5). But this latter use of "flows from" is very different from the former. 's contention that they are the same use is not "merely applying the definitions of ordinary formal logic."

As I said, in this particular regard, I'm merely applying the definitions of ordinary formal logic. — TonesInDeepFreeze

Ordinary formal logic does not define the consequence relation as identical to the material conditional.

An argument is valid if and only if there are no interpretations in which all the premises are true and the conclusion is false.

In this case there are no interpretations in which all the premises are true. Perforce, there are no interpretations in which all the premises are true and the conclusion is false. So the argument is valid. — TonesInDeepFreeze

What you've done is imported the artificial truth-functionality of the material conditional into the consequence relation itself. You have contradicted 's "flows from." You are effectively saying, <Any "argument" with nonsense premises is "valid.">

Just trying to think of real world examples of a formula like "A → ~A", likely dressed up enough to be hard to spot. Excluding reductio, where the intent is to derive this form. What I want is an example where this conditional is actually false, but is relied upon as a sneaky way of just asserting ~A.

I suppose accusations of hypocrisy are nearby. "Your anti-racism is itself a form of racism." "Your anti-capitalism materially benefits you." "Your piety is actually vanity." — Srap Tasmaner

Isn't that reductio?

I would say that, like argument, contradiction also requires a kind of middle term, and is therefore never direct. For example:

A→B
B→~A
A
∴ B — Leontiskos

People can only make this inference because they do not see that they are being inconsistent. When there is neglect we hold them responsible for the mistake.

So A→~A is never a self-conscious premise.

I'm sure there are more convoluted ways to go about it, but does that satisfy your objection? — Hanover

Your "disjunctive syllogism" is different than my A→A, so in that sense, sure. You are effectively saying that A flows or follows from the contradiction, not from itself.

So a second objection would be that nothing flows or follows from a contradiction (which is the flip side of saying that everything flows or follows from a contradiction).

- I added an edit to that post, which might help. My point about conditionals and arguments would also apply to "proves," "flows," etc.

Only arguments are valid, and "A, therefore A," is not an argument. Argument, at the very least, involves rational movement. — Leontiskos

-

Ergo:

• A→A
• A, ∴A
• A flows from A
• A proves A

These are all based on the same error, that of a non-inference inference.

There is too little knowledge of Aristotle on these forums, and that is why we don't seem to understand what arguments are. :grin:

Another argument:

A -> ~A
A
therefore A
valid — TonesInDeepFreeze

I realize a lot of people like this claim, but I don't think it is right. You are confusing consequence or inference with identity.

Even on a very formal reading, this is invalid. "A→A" and "A, ∴A" are not the same statement. Even so, there is a dispute here about what '→' and '∴' mean. In that way it is the same problem of trying to hold to truth-functionality (turtles) all "the way down."

Only arguments are valid, and "A, therefore A," is not an argument. Argument, at the very least, involves rational movement.

-

The core of truth in @Hanover's variegated posts is that "A→A" is not a conditional and "A, ∴A" is not an argument. If you admit such things to the bar of conditionals and arguments, you are fudging the meaning of "conditional" and "argument." You are prioritizing truth-functional process over logical telos.

The losing party, in one sense, grants that they lost, but continues in the competitive spirit, which means they have to shift ground from whether they "officially" or "technically" lost to whether that was a "real" loss, or whether there had a been a "real" competition in the first place. — Srap Tasmaner

I'm not sure what post you are responding to, but there is of course a substantive issue here. It is the difference between rules-as-arbitrary and rules-as-substantive, and logic-as-arbitrary and logic-as-substantive. There are true charges of cheating and false charges of cheating, and it's not always easy to disentangle the two.

The move is always to a meta-level. What is the game? What is the competition? What is logic? Our world has a remarkable tendency to try to avoid those questions altogether, usually for despair of finding an answer.

As Banno notes, validity is determined by asking if the conclusion flows from the premises, and so he argues under mp, it does, so it is valid.

The wiki cite adds criteria, namely (1) that the negation of the conclusion cannot also flow from the premises for validity and (2) the premises under any formulation must also reach the same conclusion. — Hanover

Right: the conclusion must flow from the premises. The premises must provide the aitia for the conclusion. A contradiction is not an aitia.

As I argued at length in Flannel's thread, contradictions and inconsistencies are not meaningful. To pretend they are meaningful is to become lost in the logical abyss. If you feed the "argument" of the OP into the propositional logic machine, the answer is neither "invalid" or "unsound." It is, "Does not compute."

- Good posts. :up:

But it's not validity we usually disagree over, but soundness, and inconsistent premises make valid inferences unsound. — Srap Tasmaner

In cases of inconsistent premises what happens is that the person arguing arbitrarily makes use of some premises while conveniently ignoring others. For example:

• A→B
• B→~A
• A
• ∴ B

Or a reductio, which has been shown elsewhere to falsify one side of a contradiction rather than the other side for no necessary reason. Is the argument above or a reductio valid? Are they sound? Neither answer is obvious. We can't just say, "Ah, it's cut and dry. The argument is valid but unsound."

Similarly, the arguments over the OP turn on the nature of modus ponens, which is not a simple question. If modus ponens is just a matter of symbol manipulation then the OP is valid. If modus ponens is more than that then the OP is probably not even valid.

- Why do you think dialetheism relates to the consequence relation? Presumably you think the LEM is tied to the consequence relation, and that dialetheism therefore interferes with it, but I'm not sure you have given an argument in that vein.

But I don't really intend to continue this conversation about dialetheism, especially given my earlier demonstrations of the incoherence of the "Liar's paradox." From what I have seen, people are dialetheists for the same reason they dye their hair purple. :grin:

I find this particularly unconvincing as respects "afterlife" beliefs because many ancient visions (and the dominant modern vision) of the afterlife seem significantly more unpleasant than just ceasing to exist. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yep. :up:

I don't think it's that hard to define at all. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I haven't seen anyone define any of the positions in a clear and non-vacuous way, much less go on to argue in favor of one or another.

Their argument is roughly that the intuitive/informal notion of logical consequence is multiply-realizable (granted it is more technical in its details). — Count Timothy von Icarus

"There are multiple formal ways of realizing the informal notion of logical consequence." I suppose this gives us something, but I don't think it is very substantial. If, for example, everyone agrees that Aristotelian syllogistic and propositional logic are two ways of formalizing the informal notion of logical consequence, then where does the actual disagreement lie?

Again, what is needed is someone who believes they disagree and is willing to set out a substantial argument. The polemicists disagree without substance, and the rest of us are not sure what we are supposed to be disagreeing about.

Were debating whether to call certain formulations "modus ponens." — Hanover

I figured this would be an interesting thread. This is the standard set piece where Banno and Tones think logic is arbitrary symbol manipulation and others think it has to do with correct reasoning, but this thread brings it out quickly.

For my money the question here is whether modus ponens is arbitrary or non-arbitrary. (Whether what is at stake is a mere matter of definition.)

The basic idea is "formally correct but misleading". Akin to sophistry. Or to non-cooperative implicature, like saying "Everyone on the boat is okay" when it's only true because no one is left on the boat and all the dead and injured are in the water. — Srap Tasmaner

Yep. :up:

- This is elsewhere referred to as deautomatization.

- I would suggest going back to this post and working out why you felt the need to effectively say, "Well, it's more complicated than my first post allowed..." The contradiction in your thought lies in the tension between down-regulation and play, which are two distinct things. You could try to square your circle by claiming that not all play need be down-regulation, but that we must accept the dogma that whatever Baggs is doing can be nothing other than down-regulation, and that therefore any play that Baggs is engaged in must be located in the context of down-regulation. That seems to be your current approach.

(A key here is to understand that stimulation and down-regulation are not at all identical. Stimulation will also involve, for example, up-regulation. In fact that is probably the more basic orientation of stimulation.)

Nor do I. What about stimming? — fdrake

You are the one who has assumed that all that is occurring in the video is "stimming," and that stimming is always connected with down-regulation. So you exclude the possibility of true play; of non-utilitarian or non-down-regulating play.

- So then play is merely down-regulating? That strikes me as patently false.

I have been around autistic people. I don't interpret everything they do as mere down-regulation.

The intentionality associated with stimming is not toward the stim source, it's a means of the body coordinating to produce a regulated and focussed state. — fdrake

I think you overestimate your comprehension of Baggs. Perhaps their intention is not as simplistic as you assume. Perhaps they are acting with an intention towards the "stim source." There is no reason at all to rule out such a possibility. My guess is that this reductive analysis of the intention as merely down-regulating is almost certainly wrong.

- Is Baggs playing or merely down-regulating?

Good posts. I would still say that until someone proffers logical pluralism, it will just be a moving target. When we talk about "logical pluralism" we are apparently talking about something that no one on TPF holds. And if someone on TPF wants to say that they hold and defend "logical pluralism," then they are the one who needs to tell us what the hell they mean by it, lol. Until that happens the wheels will continue to spin without any traction.

I suppose where the above gets complicated is that being able to stim like that allows a form of stimming play, which is what Baggs is doing. — fdrake

Which is to say that your explanation of "stimming" is self-admittedly not an explanation of what Baggs is doing, which is interesting given that you are the one who introduced this word "stimming."

This is the common conflation of an act with an intention. "They are pitch-matching, therefore they are 'stimming'." Except that pitch-matching is not always "stimming" (in that sense of down-regulation), as you yourself recognize with respect to Baggs' play.

The structuralist approach is to see the signifiers as forming a system, the whole group of them, and what's important is just that they can be and are distinguished from each other, a "system of differences" . — Srap Tasmaner

Okay, understood. I suppose I am seeing the essence of language as bound up with communication, not distinct signifiers. Distinct signifiers obviously aid communication, but a single signifier can still do the job, and is the basis of a multiplicity of signifiers. (Though I realize there will be disagreements about the primacy of multiplicity.)

On the typical road maps I look at, towns and cities are indicated by circles, filled circles of different sizes and stars (for capitals). — Srap Tasmaner

Sure - I thought that by "cartographic" you were referring back to your symbols of Mt. Rushmore and the Eiffel Tower.

If you look at formal approaches to language -- Frege, Tarski, Montague, that sort of thing -- language is a system for representing your environment. That could, conceivably, be just for you. A language of thought.

And it is only because you can put the world, or some part of it, into language, that it is useful for communication. When you communicate, you put part of the world into words (or claim to) and pass those words to someone else. Language as descriptor of the world underlies language as means of communication. — Srap Tasmaner

I think there is a third option, where language is bound up with thought. On this view one could develop a private language and, say, keep a diary in that language and thus in some sense "communicate" with their future self. "Representing your environment" is not quite the same as thinking. Or as Williams says:

One way of telling the story of Western philosophy over the last few centuries is to present it as the rise and fall of a particular view of language. Gradually, piecemeal, the idea of language as primarily a matter of accurate naming and information-sharing has yielded to a recognition of language as what we could call a matter of orienting ourselves in our world—developing a range of diverse strategies for collaboration in finding our way around. The more complex the world we encounter (in introspection as well as observation), the more diverse and sophisticated will be those strategies, and the less they will have to do with carving up our environment into bite-sized pieces with definitive labels. Whatever a still over-con dent popular scientism claims, coping adequately and sustainably with our environment requires more than a catalog of isolated substances with fixed attributes. — Rowan Williams, Romantic Agenda

Reality is what's interesting here -- what I don't want to do is define reality within my logic, though. And I don't think that logic needs to restrict itself to objects since reality is not composed of objects and objects only -- it also contains sentences. — Moliere

Well you can't say what it means, you can't say what a sentence is, you can't say why it would count as a sentence, you can't say how it would ever have any purchase on reality, and you don't seem to think it would ever be utterable in real life. That's a pretty problematic place to be. Again, it looks to me that you are playing a game that has nothing to do with reality.

As I see it right now the objection is — Moliere

The objection was given <here>. You tried to answer it by redefining "false" as "fake," and I think we both agreed that that answer failed. That's where things stand, as you never made another attempt.

I've asked you if you'd accept a defense of dialetheism, the belief that there are true contradictions, as a basis for making the inferences that there is more than one logic. — Moliere

Sure: if dialetheism is true, then strong logical pluralism is true.

Marx and Hegel are philosophers which, like the liar's, utilizes contradiction in their reasoning. — Moliere

No, they don't. This is equivocation. Neither one has anything like the standing contradictions of dialetheism. Tensions which go on to get resolved are nothing like the stable contradictions of dialetheism.

Which was a counterpoint to the idea that one cannot hope to recognise whether something is a language unless one already speaks it. — fdrake

Okay, but in that case it seems like your argument only reaches the weaker conclusion, <Sometimes we can recognize a language we do not speak>.

Calling it a language with a spoken component (the humming) when it's produced by someone who as a premise of the video cannot communicate in spoken language is hopelessly reductive and easily refutable. And for the purpose of normalising autism no less. — fdrake

I agree. Again, I see no reason to believe that Baggs is engaged in a linguistic activity.

Is it not language unless the meaning relation is conventional rather than natural? The traditional answer is obviously "yes" but I'm not so sure. Especially if you wonder how language could get started in the first place. — Srap Tasmaner

Right, I agree.

If it's not absolutely essential, then what's the relation here? Is it the other way? That is, conventional meanings as a subset of linguistic meaning? That looks to be the story with writing. (Or with the use of natural gestures, like folding your arms, to indicate an attitude.) Are there counterexamples? Any cases of conventional but non-linguistic meaning? — Srap Tasmaner

The obvious example was right in front of me: cartographic symbols. While there is obviously structure in the way these are placed on the map, that structure is not grammatical. — Srap Tasmaner

Here "conventional" does come apart from "arbitrary." The cartographic symbol is conventional but not arbitrary. Is it natural?

In any case, I think we are in agreement that a sign need not be arbitrary or purely stipulative.

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One way of "problematizing" the concept of language would be to step back and ask, "What am I/we trying to do by offering the Wikipedia page definition of language?" — J

Right.

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I understand why you might think that, but sign language just is language. Children who are deaf will, if put together in groups, develop sign language just as they would regular language, in the same way, along the same developmental axis, and with the same resulting richness of potential expression. Body language is nothing like sign language or spoken language. It doesn't fulfil the basic criteria I provided earlier, but sign language does (including e.g. distinct linguistic units that can be recombined to produce new meanings, and indicate grammatical categories, such as case, tense, voice, mood etc). — Baden

First it is worth noting that intentionally folding one's arms to convey some meaning is not "body language" in the normal sense, and therefore dismissing such intentional gesturing as mere "body language" is not really accurate.

But it seems that your argument is as follows: <Language has grammar; folding one's arms to convey meaning has no grammar; therefore folding one's arms in that way is not linguistic>.*

My first objection to this idea is that it requires that atomic linguistic units are not language. For example, something like, "Stop!," or, "Yes," or, "Why?," or, "Platypus," are not linguistic given that they lack grammar. Similarly, the arm-folding could be represented as, "I am nervous," or, "I am reticent," and yet the arm-folding sign itself represents this same reality in a grammarless way. How is it that, given two intentional signs which mean the same thing, one can be linguistic and one not? And is the heart of language communication or grammar?

Second and relatedly, wielding a natural sign as an intentional sign is not metaphorically linguistic in the the sense that a claim like, "emotions are a language," is metaphorically linguistic. As indicated, robust language may never have developed at all without the intentional appropriation of natural signs. And grammar itself may not be as straightforward or stipulative as one supposes. For example, if the person intentionally signaling their reticence by crossing their arms moves one hand to their chin, has a grammar developed? In that case we have a sign-juxtaposition which could be translated as something like, "I am reticent but also willing to hear more of what you have to say."


* And the question here related to @Srap Tasmaner's post asks whether grammar is arbitrary or merely conventional.

Is that the kind of answer you were looking for? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, thanks.

Whether the picture is being used as a picture or a sign. — Srap Tasmaner

Okay, but there is an underlying idea in this thread that if a sign does not signify arbitrarily then it is not a real sign. This is captured by 's claim that, "Folding one's arms could conceivably be linguistic as part of a system of sign language, but in that case it could mean anything." This is similar to your premise that if a picture is being used as a picture then it must not be being used as a sign. That is the premise I am picking at.

Is a picture already a sign, albeit a non-arbitrary sign? Does intentionally recording a dance add a sign-layer to the dance? The point here is that we think we know what a sign or a piece of language signifies, but upon closer inspection we may be much less sure. In the first place I would want to say that "leaf" and a picture of a leaf are both signs of a leaf; one arbitrary and one non-arbitrary.

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Edit:

Further reply with example.

Sometimes maps for children will have little pictures. At Paris, a little Eiffel Tower; at South Dakota, a little Mount Rushmore. Here the picture is a straightforward representation of a thing, but used by a sort of metonymy to mean the whole place where that thing is. So in such a case, both. — Srap Tasmaner

Okay good, so you anticipated my objection to some extent. Metonymy is an interesting deviation from a simple picture or image.

I mean, it depends, right? — Srap Tasmaner

What specifically do you think it depends on?

For instance, semiotics has been brought up here. But on the wider Augustinian/Peircrean view of semiotics, all sorts of things are semiotic, so that isn't all that informative on as to language. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I still think I identified the crux here. It is intentional sign use (language) vs mere sign use. The trick is that a mere sign ("folding your arms") can be always be coopted as an intentional sign.

For example, is the person in the OP praying?* Then it could be language. I don't think they are, but the distinction is subtle. If I groan only as a response to pain then I am not linguistically engaged. If I groan to tell someone else that I am in pain, then I am linguistically engaged, even if that aspect of the groan is not a necessary condition for this act of groaning.

To say that the person in the OP is not linguistically engaged requires a number of assumptions, but I think all of those assumptions are plausible.

* Or what if they are a pantheist or a panpsychist?


Edit: Further, is Tallis' Lamentations of Jeremiah or Górecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs language, even for the non-Latin or non-Polish speaker? Is the music itself an intentional sign communicating sorrow?