The more I work with this, the more I'm realizing that the idea of "accompanying" a thought can be given so many interpretations that I wonder if it's even helpful.
— J

Perhaps you're over-thinking it. Rödl's point is that the truth of propositions can't be 'mind-independent' in the way that Frege's objectivism insists it must be. — Wayfarer

This is true. But he's also laying out a thesis about self-consciousness, and about why objectivity must be self-conscious, aware of itself as objective. This is where an innocent verb like "accompany" can become complicated. I'm still working to understand the nature of the accompaniment Rodl has in mind. Is it structural or experiential? Is it a thought like any other thought? etc.

I can't help but think that book you once mentioned, Bernstein's 'Beyond Objectivism and Relativism', might also be relevant to this argument. — Wayfarer

It is, but somewhat at a tangent. Bernstein's approach, through Gadamer, is hermeneutic. He's not focused on the logical/psychological structure of thought, a la Rodl and Kimhi, but more on the challenges to objectivity posed by the thesis that we have to draw a line between what is "out there" and our own ability to know it -- "Cartesian anxiety" is his term for this. There's a PhD dissertation for you -- connect Rodl and Gadamer!

What?? Not ready to declare total understanding of all things yet?!?

:rofl: — Patterner

Fortunately not a requirement! Although to listen to some people on TPF, you'd think it was a requirement, and anyone who isn't quite sure what they think, and pursues possible lines of inquiry, is perceived as "refusing to take a position" or "arguing sophistically" or something like that.

That would have been my answer as well. "Convey," of course, is equivocal, but I took Wayfarer to be referring to an actual "feel," not merely the report that one was experienced. The latter can be conveyed, in a sense, without remainder, but not the former. In any case, I'm not sure Rodl is limiting himself to such cases.

This means that while we can refer to, or quote, a first-person statement like “my hand hurts,” we cannot adequately convey the subjective experience it conveys in a third-person proposition. — Wayfarer

This is a generous, sense-making interpretation, but I'm not sure Rodl is really talking about subjective experiences like pain, for instance. I think he's saying, more radically, that any 1st person statement resists translation in the ways we're used to, such as quoting. And his reasons for thinking this -- one of which you gave -- are still unclear to me. More on this another time . . .

So "The tree is dropping leaves" is a thought, but what about that the tree is dropping leaves? I gather that, being an idealist, Rödl wants that to be a thought too. That strikes me as somewhat odd. — Banno

Just to be clear, would the full thought you're referring to, which I bolded, be "I think that the tree is dropping leaves"?

Did you mean a type of evidence of self-awareness or self-consciousness? Or did you really mean a type of self-awareness or self-consciousness? — Patterner

I think either interpretation could make sense, but the "hardcore proponents" a la Rodl probably mean the latter: Some actual self-consciousness is meant to accompany the thought of p. As opposed to a "soft proponent" like Descartes, who would presumably say merely that thinking p provides evidence that I must be conscious, and aware of being so.

I don't yet know what I believe about all this myself -- still locating the pieces on the board. (My own model might as well be, "I think p ...but slowly." :smile: ) So, sorry if I sound like I'm waffling.

Makes sense. The more I work with this, the more I'm realizing that the idea of "accompanying" a thought can be given so many interpretations that I wonder if it's even helpful.

Frege believes that force is outside content, such that "I think" is outside "p". This means that "p" doesn't require "I think".

Rodl believes that force is inside content, such that "I think" is inside "p", meaning that "p" is "I think". — RussellA

This is what a lot of the controversy on TPF has been about -- whether it's proper to consider merely thinking p as giving it some kind of force. Frege did indeed believe that force is separable from content, but he probably wouldn't agree that therefore you have to separate "I think" from "p" -- because he didn't believe "I think" gives "p" any force at all. Unless we're using "think" in that ambiguous way that can also mean "aver" or "believe".

Rather, I'm working toward understanding what we need to refer to in order to resolve a disagreement about what I'll call "essentiality" (or perhaps you have a term you prefer).

Well, given we agree that there are such things as tigers, stars, and daffodils, it would be whatever makes those things the sort of thing they are and not anything else. — Count Timothy von Icarus

So would it be fair to say that, in the example of the tiger, we must refer to the tiger itself? And a disagreement about the tiger's "essentiality" (or definition, if you prefer) would be investigated by saying, in effect, "Let's return to the tiger. Let's examine him more closely in the relevant aspects so we can learn which of us is right"?

Is that about how you see it? (I do too.)

Not really familiar with "choiceworthy." Is that a synonym for "desirable"?

Again, the meta-ethical dispute seems a long way off from Quine and reference, which was what piqued my interest.

OK, thanks for explaining.

Can you give examples of philosophers who don't think goodness has anything to do with desirability? — Count Timothy von Icarus

On my understanding, the Kantian deontological approach is not about goodness as desirability. It is about goodness as following the dictates of practical reason. A person who does this may be called good, though as you know Kant focused more on "right" as the key ethical term.

Now of course you can reply, "But isn't following the dictates of practical reason desirable?" or "Shouldn't we desire to be good in this way?" But that cannot represent the moral motive, as Kant sees it. To insist on desirability here is simply to misunderstand or disregard what Kant is arguing. For him, it's all about what is right, not what is desirable. Whether I find the good desirable is neither here nor there.

This is a huge topic. Do we really want to pursue it here?

How would they resolve this?

By considering what tigers are. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure. But please be patient with me and describe the process a little bit. Let me show you where I'm heading: It's got nothing to do with disagreement = no fact of the matter. Only a skeptic or a sophist would say there's no way to decide what a tiger is. Rather, I'm working toward understanding what we need to refer to in order to resolve a disagreement about what I'll call "essentiality" (or perhaps you have a term you prefer). And this in turn will set up, I hope, the problem of how this transfers over to philosophical disagreement about words. It's all in aid of clarifying the very important distinction you brought up between defining a word and "defining" an object. (Though I will also argue that we should drop that latter usage on grounds of awkwardness and ambiguity.)

If you find this tedious, just say so. I like it very much as a philosophical process of inquiry, but I know it's not for everyone . . . very slow-moving.

I differentiated different kinds of thoughts, in regards to baseball. What is the significance of it all? Is this a first step toward something? — Patterner

Hopefully. The OP was examining a common but still controversial claim -- that when we think, there is some accompanying "I think" that characterizes the act of thinking, and which according to some is also a type of self-awareness or self-consciousness. In order to give this proper consideration, it seems we have to do a lot of discriminating and disambiguating around "think" and "thought." I thought your post about baseball was very useful in that regard.

I for one would like to understand this issue better. I guess that's the "something" toward which I'm heading. Its significance might be to give me a better self-understanding, a clearer feel for what being me in the world actually is, thought I don't mind admitting that I find the topic interesting in its own right, regardless of any further insights.

I appreciate this thread as well as the general tone within it. Well done! I would not want to dampen it, and so I will not. Better to keep my piece for another time.

Cheers! — creativesoul

And cheers to you. I certainly like it when a thread's tone is inquisitive rather than dismissive or dogmatic. I'll watch for an OP from you . . .

the disagreement is that both parties agree that, for example, 'good' = the desirable, — Leontiskos

But they don't. That's the whole problem.

How would we know the correct definition of "tiger"? — J

Presumably if it specifies the things in virtue of which all tigers are tigers, while not having anything that isn't a tiger fall under the definition. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sounds reasonable. Now suppose there was a disagreement about the first part. A and B offer different specifications of what the essential tiger qualities are. How would they resolve this?

Again, I know this sounds a little baby-stepping, but if you'll indulge me? I just want to lay out the reasoning as simply as possible, with your help.

An utterance does occur at at a time and place. Indeed, you seem here to run two ideas together - the first, rejecting the notion that a thought occurs in a particular language, the second, accepting that a thought occurs at a particular time. — Banno

Yes, I'm trying to develop a sort of checklist of what has to constitute an utterance and a "thought utterance" (thought1). For a (spoken) utterance, we want to say that it consists of a particular piece of language, spoken at a particular time and place. But do we want to say this for a thought1? I was proposing that the "time and place" criterion is necessary, but found myself uneasy about the "particular piece of language" one.

Possibly I wasn't clear about the reasons for my unease. It's mostly about common usage -- with the caveat that there isn't much common usage to call upon here, as "quoting thoughts" doesn't come up too often. My own experience of thinking suggests that language is supererogatory to thought. Countless times I've had a fully formed thought, and even a response to said thought, occur much more quickly than it could be "said" or comprehended in language. So would we want to allow that a thought1 -- the "utterance" of a thought -- could transcend a particular piece of language? Or is such a transcendence the very thing that makes it a thought2 -- a piece of content that can be the same from mind to mind, time to time?

I'm going to leave that alone for now, as I'm not sure how much depends on a decision.

And you seem to fluctuate between thought2 as "I think that the tree is an oak" and "The tree is an oak". From what Pat said, don't you need it to be the latter? — Banno

My concept of a thought2 is of a proposition -- "The tree is an oak." So yes, Pat and I are talking about the latter.

But on that account, Rödl is on the face of it mistaken, since these two sentences are about quite different things. — Banno

That would be true if the two sentences are meant to occur in two thoughts, two thought1s. But Rodl tells us this is not what he means: “This cannot be put by saying that, in every act of thinking, two things are thought: p and I think p.” If that is the case, it must also be the case that there aren't two thoughts. At least that's how I read Rodl. I suppose one could argue that "one act of thinking" could be imagined as including "two things" being thought, and that this is what Rodl denies. But I think he's saying something simpler: His claim about the "I think" is that it "accompanies" all thoughts in the sense of structuring them or constituting the conditions for their occurrence. I believe I mentioned somewhere earlier that the very term "the I think" may be unfortunate, as it suggests an activity on a par with regular thinking*. A lot of the back-and-forth on this thread is trying to understand what the nature of this "I think" could be . . . or is it just neo-Kantian wordplay?

*And a reminder here that we've noticed how Rodl probably has only propositional, discursive thinking in mind in this essay.

To your last point: yes, I think it is just a question of style. Rodl expressed himself sloppily, and your interpretation is correct. I think that’s what he would have wanted to say.

↪J

How would we know when one was correct?

Well, suppose someone gave a definition of "tiger" as: "a large purple fish with green leaves, a tap root, and horns." Clearly, this is off the mark and we can do better or worse (although in this case, not much worse). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Good. But putting the question in terms of "correct" rather than "incorrect" has a point, so if you wouldn't mind playing interlocutor with me, I'll ask again: How would we know the correct definition of "tiger"? This is going somewhere if you'll bear with me!

Let Think1 = I think "my hand hurts"
Let Think2 = I think my hand hurts

Think1 means that I am thinking about the proposition "my hand hurts". I can think about the proposition regardless of whether my hand is hurting or not. I can know that my hand hurts and think about the proposition "my hand hurts" at the same time, but my hand hurting does not require Think1. I have no propositional attitude towards the proposition.

In Think2, "I think" means "I believe". Therefore Think2 means "I believe my hand hurts". But this is not a valid expression, in that if my hand hurts, this is not a belief, it is knowledge. — RussellA

You've got the "think1/think2" distinction down perfectly. If I understand the issue you're raising, it's whether an experience such as "my hand hurts" can be said to have a thought2 version, in the same way that "The oak tree sheds its leaves" can. I'd have to give this more reflection, but I see the point you're making. I'm inclined to agree that our beliefs about private sensations don't add force to a proposition such as "My hand hurts."

What I'm wondering is, do you think this challenges the thought1/thought2 distinction as such, or is this a special case involving what used to be called "incorrigible knowledge"?

Thank you for your time. — Patterner

You're welcome. I don't at all mind trying to explain this stuff -- if I can't do it, there's something wrong with either the ideas or my understanding of them!

focus on the idea of a thought as being merely entertained qua thought, as something to ponder or question.
— J
As opposed to what?? — Patterner

This introduces the force/content distinction. When I say, "I think X," in ordinary language it can mean two things (and probably more). It can mean, "Right now I'm considering the thought X, just as an idea. [content]. I don't know whether it's true or false, and I'm certainly not prepared to say I believe it. I'm just formulating the thought." Or, it can mean, "Yes, I think X, I believe X is true. [force]" This is giving an assertoric force to the thought of X: not only are you thinking X in the first sense (which you would have to do in order to have any opinion about it), but you are judging it to be true.

Compare:

"I think, 'E=MC2' -- hmm, interesting idea, wonder if it's true."

and

q. Do you think that E=MC2"
a. I certainly do.

But I couldn't make head nor tail of the op. I'll try again. — Patterner

Yeah, see if it's any clearer. And not too far into that thread, @Banno gives a good overview of how Frege (a late 19th century logician) first formulated all this.

Your think1 and think2 seem to parallel the difference between an utterance and a proposition — Banno

Is that what you have in mind on your think1 and think2? — Banno

I think it's very close. "Think1" is meant to refer to the "utterance" of a thought, if you will -- the specific time and place when the thought occurs in a brain. "Think2" is meant to be, quite simply, a proposition, same as in Davidson's discussion of "said." If you or anyone else is interested in really exploring these parallels, it's fascinating to read through "On Saying That" and substitute, as you read, "think" for "say" or "said" (and all the other various cognates). You get things like:

"We are indeed asked to make sense of a judgment of synonymy between thoughts . . . as an unanalyzed part of the content of the familiar idiom of indirect quotation of a thought. The idea that underlies [this] is samethinking: When I say that Galileo thought that the earth moves, [and so do I], I represent us as samethinkers."

and

"[Quine] now suggests that instead of interpreting the thought-content of indirect discourse as occurring in a language, we interpret it as thought by a thinker at a time."

This is indeed what I'm trying to clarify with thought1 and thought2.

Why, then, do I say "very close" rather than "exact"? I do see a difference between thought and speech, as follows:

We all know what it means to quote a sentence, an utterance, but it is not so clear what we mean when we talk about "quoting a thought." To quote an utterance is surely to quote the language used; but must that be true of what we report about a thought? Intuitively, it seems wrong. My thought in English is going to be the same as your thought in Spanish, even at the level of quotation. To put it another way, what makes a thought "thought1" rather than "thought2" is not a matter of holding the language steady, but of occurrence in time: "thought1" specifies my thought or your thought at times T1 and 2; "thought 2" specifies what we are both thinking about.

This difference (if it is one) between saying and thinking is illuminated by the last idea Davidson offers us in "On Saying That":

If we could recover our pre-Fregean semantic innocence, I think it would seem to us plainly incredible that the words 'The earth moves', uttered after the words 'Galileo said that', mean anything different, or refer to anything else, than is their wont when they come in other environments. — Davidson, 108

In other words, the Fregean separation of utterance and proposition does create a certain artificiality in our analysis of what words do. What might this suggest about thinking? Is it "plainly incredible" that we should even make a separation between thought1 and thought2 if that separation is supposed to treat thought1 as a "quoted" item with no semantic content? Undoubtedly that is what some reductionist psychologists might prefer to do. But I'm suggesting that treating thought1 as "extensionally equivalent" (cut me some slack here!) to "neurons 4545d + 2234v doing XYZ at Time T1" is going too far.

I’ve been rereading Davidson’s “On Saying That” and noticed an interesting parallel with our “I think p” question.

The essay is about indirect discourse and quotation. It discusses the logical structure of a sentence such as “Mary says x.” One of the issues is that, if we’re meant to be quoting Mary here, you can’t just substitute logical equivalents and have it come out right.

Mary says, “The evening star is out tonight.”
Mary says, “Venus is out tonight.”

“The evening star” and “Venus” have the same extension but different meanings. So it’s quite possible that Mary said the 1st sentence but did not mean the 2nd (if she didn’t happen to know that the evening star was Venus).

What I realized was: This structure parallels “I think p” using “says” as the verb instead of “thinks”.

(I’ve switched to “I” rather than “Mary” to remind us that this is not an issue that depends on the noun or pronoun.)

A. I think1: “A wolf is a carnivore.” (think1 = have this thought at a particular moment)

This pretty clearly can’t be translated to:

B. I think1: “Canis lupus is a carnivore.”

Not only might I not know that a wolf is Canis lupus, but more importantly that was not actually what I thought, according to statement A. Statement A uses think1 to provide a quotation of my thought.

C. I think2 a wolf is a carnivore (think2 = entertain or propose this propositional content)

The question is, is this translation OK?:

D. I think2 Canis lupus is a carnivore.

Has the meaning changed? Or am I more likely to respond, “No, it’s the same thought. I meant the same thing in both cases.”

let thought1 be understood as unasserted, without force, "merely thought".
— J
Do I have to read much (books? paragraphs? posts?) to learn what this means? — Patterner

:grin: Well, you don't have to. . . . As a short cut, forget about "thought1" -- this is just me trying to specify some terminology -- and focus on the idea of a thought as being merely entertained qua thought, as something to ponder or question. Are you familiar with the force/content distinction? The OP of "A challenge to Frege on Assertion" gives an overview. Take a look and then I'm happy to try to clarify.

In this way it is not an "I think" that accompanies Pat's wondering, but a "we think". Pat is not making an individual judgement so much as participating in a group activity. — Banno

I wish Rodl had devoted more consideration to this. Or perhaps he does, as I've not finished the book yet. Certainly such a "group activity" could be equally constitutive of thought as an "I think" -- doesn't Cassirer talk about this somewhere in Symbolic Forms? It's been years . . .

I'm working towards Chapter 4, The Science without Contrary — Wayfarer

I'm up to 5.6, Nagel's Dream. Much more familiar territory for me.

Lots of good stuff in your reply. Let me begin by focusing on this:

A key idea here is that definitions can be more or less correct — Count Timothy von Icarus

How would we know when one was correct?

Nagel says that "we can't understand thought from the outside."
— J

He says, rather, there are thoughts we can't understand 'from the outside' — Wayfarer

My citation was actually a direct quote from The Last Word, an earlier work than the "Evolutionary Naturalism" essay, I'm pretty sure. I suspect that when Nagel wrote "thought" in that earlier citation, he had in mind something more like "reason" or "justification." So his subsequent descriptions, which you quote, are a little more precise. In any event, yes, this is the territory Rodl wants us to consider and, to a significant degree, amend.

We're trying to understand the ontological status of intelligible truths: are they merely constructs of human cognition, or do they have an independent, universal existence that reason can apprehend? — Wayfarer

I like your whole discussion of this -- very clear and insightful. I'm not entirely sure that your first alternative, above, is what @Leontiskos had in mind when he wrote:

An example of a mental distinction would be a model where there is only one (temporal) thought under two different guises; thought1 and thought2 can be distinguished mentally but these notions do not correspond to separate realities. — Leontiskos

I suppose it depends on what more you want to say about the nature of the "independent, universal existence." For instance, could this existence inhere in what L calls "one (temporal) thought under two different guises"? Is a guise close enough to an existence? Or do you want to hold out for "separate realities"? Talk at this level of abstraction can plunge us into huge terminological problems, as you know.

Well, that looks like saying, "Maybe the translator mistranslated 'my'. Maybe it's not possessive after all." But this looks very ad hoc. It's logically possible that there is some sort of mistranslation or lossy translation, but until we have independent reasons to believe such a thing, it can't function as a plausible claim. — Leontiskos

Just quickly on this one, heading out the door. I didn't mean it was a mistranslation of the possessive. I meant that different languages (and different eras) have different senses of what connotes "possession," what sorts of things can be mine. I think this is relevant in a case like this, where the issue of the subjectivity (the my-ness) of thought is the very question. Sorry if I confused you.

Who held such a position though? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Plato, for one. When Socrates questions Euthyphro about the meaning of "piety," they are both assuming that there is a word, eusebeia, that corresponds correctly with a certain content or concept. Since they can't look it up in a dictionary and get a definition, they try out various possible concepts that the word might correspond to. So what is this about? Is it about conceptual investigation? Or is it about the meaning of a word? Would Plato be open to the idea that eusebeia is not wedded to a particular concept?

It's obvious that different peoples use different words for different things and that anything can be said in many ways. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But think about this re Socrates. I believe he'd dispute it vigorously. Or at best he'd say, "Yes, this is no doubt true about what people do, but they shouldn't. Words mean one thing and not another. Hence my quest to understand the meaning of troublesome words like piety and justice -- surely someone can tell me what they mean?"

(In other words, don't take Quine literally as writing about translation problems only between languages.
This is about the word/concept relation generally.)

I also take MacIntyre's idea that we've lost the meaning of classical terms to exemplify this. The assumption seems to be a kind of "one word, one meaning" theory, so that if A comes along and says,"I'd like to use 'virtue' and 'essence' in the following ways" (giving cogent reasons, we'll assume), B replies, "No, you can't, for that is not what 'virtue' and 'essence' mean."

But it's the general tendency I'm more concerned about, and I think Quine was concerned about too. We see it here on TPF. People will quote dictionary definitions or squibs from SEP as if these could lock down the connection between word and concept. There are of course many words you can do that with, but precious few, I'd argue, in philosophy. "Gavagai" means "rabbit"? Fine, but does "justice" mean dikaiosyne? Does "justice" pick out the same things for us that dikaiosyne picked out for Plato? How do we tell? And does it matter as much as we might think it does? Isn't the conceptual map itself more important than the shifting labels?

I want to respond to a couple more points you raised but I'm out of time right now . . . later!

I haven't gotten to 9.3 yet! (I read philosophy really slowly.). I'll try to remember to come back to your post when I have.

Ah, ambiguity!

Frege argues that thought2 can exist in the absence of thought1. The content of a thought can be objective, independent and accessible to any rational being.

Rodl argues that thought2 cannot exist in the absence of thought1. In opposition to Frege's anti-psychologism, this leaves no space for the psychological concept of judgement. — RussellA

Good.

When I think that the oak tree is shedding its leaves, I know that this is my thought rather than Pat's thought, for example. I am conscious that this is my thought.

To know something means consciously knowing something — RussellA

This is tricky. Using my terms, "When I think1 that 'the oak tree is shedding its leaves', I know that this is my thought1 rather than Pat's thought1, for example. I am conscious that this is my thought1."

So far, so good. But what do we do about "To know something means consciously knowing something"? Which sense(s) of "thought" is being appealed to here?

Again, really appreciate your précis. A few thoughts:

Judgment is a fundamental activity of thought—when we make a judgment, we assert something about the world, such as "the sky is blue." Rödl is interested in the self-consciousness inherent in judgment: the way in which, whenever we make a judgment, we implicitly understand what it means to judge. This self-consciousness isn't an explicit, theoretical knowledge but an implicit, practical understanding embedded in the act of judging itself — Wayfarer

Two important points here: First, as @Banno and others have noted, Rodl is clearly using "thought" in a way that excludes many perfectly ordinary examples of thoughts: memories, questions, musings, etc. Second, we mustn't understand "self-consciousness" as explicit, a "further thought."

The validity of judgment, then, not only is objective; it is also self-conscious' — Wayfarer

This is where he winds up, but the argument is complicated. I read him as saying that we couldn't have a conception of "objective" that was not self-conscious. He brings in Nagel here to support this idea. Nagel says that "we can't understand thought from the outside." For Nagel, the very concepts of objectivity and validity can only be maintained within thought (or within the bounds of reason); any attempt to understand them (or refute them) from a 3rd person view will fail. I'm not totally comfortable with whether Rodl can use Nagel's point here, but it's interesting to consider.

His task is not to discover something new but to clarify and express the implicit understanding that makes judgment possible — Wayfarer

Yes. We should resist all impulses to read Rodl as talking about "layers of thought" or "thoughts about thoughts." Implicit understanding is key. This is oddly transcendental -- a point about what is constitutive of thought -- another link he has with Kant.

Rödl attempts to show this, by saying we’re not being told anything we don’t “always already know”, but of course, we don’t always already know that, e.g., “I think” must accompany all my thoughts — Mww

Yeah, I'm not happy with that either. But I don't like that move in general -- too gnostic for my tastes.

An example of a real distinction would be the Platonic model where there are real "Fregian" propositions and there are real temporal acts in which we leverage those propositions, such that there is a real distinction between thought1 and thought2 (i.e. a distinction in reality). An example of a mental distinction would be a model where there is only one (temporal) thought under two different guises; thought1 and thought2 can be distinguished mentally but these notions do not correspond to separate realities. — Leontiskos

Hmm. I don't know how to answer this without pulling in a lot of metaphysical commitments -- which I'd rather not do because I think the thought1/thought2 distinction is important and relevant no matter whether one thinks it's "real" or "mental," in your terminology. Sorry to lob this back to you again, but if you could say a little more about what might hinge on the choice of "real" vs. "mental," I might have a better sense of what we ought to say about that.

there is a strong way in which thought1 resembles force and thought2 resembles content. — Leontiskos

Yes, there is, and unless we want to go back to Kimhi's arguments, we should probably resist this. Where we stand in the discussion right now ("we" meaning all on this thread), let's go ahead and let thought1 be understood as unasserted, without force, "merely thought". We may have to change our minds at some future point.

What I am suggesting is that no matter how we rearrange the various senses of thought1/thought2, we won't get an answer to the self-consciousness question. This is because thought1 (event) and thought2 (Fregian proposition) do not possess the qualities necessary to generate conclusions about self-consciousness. — Leontiskos

That may be true, but I was suggesting earlier that we don't have to understand "self-consciousness" as a new thought. You may be right that tinkering with the targeted sentence won't produce any insight, but I think it might. I can take a shot at it if you'd rather not.

It just feels very odd that this is what we mean by "thoughts" in that second sense. Note that for Kant:

The I think must be able to accompany all my representations;
— Kant, CPR, B131-133 (pp. 246-7)

..There is a possessive ("my"). A Fregian proposition is not possessed, being "timeless, unspecific, 'the same' no matter who thinks it, or when." When we talk about "my representations" or "my thoughts" we seem to be talking about things that are temporal, specific, appropriated by a subject, etc. This makes a lot of sense given that Kant is apparently saying that the I think (which involves self-consciousness) accompanies some thoughts1 but not others. — Leontiskos

Good questions. I know I often blame translation for difficulties with Kant, and here again I'm tempted to say, "How would a German speaker of Kant's era understand 'my representations' or 'my thoughts'?" Would that possessive be taken to refer to a mental event Kant is undergoing, or would it be understood as pointing to the content? I'm not clear how the kinds of distinctions we're discussing here would have been conceptualized by Kant and his readers. Honestly not sure.

Your own grasp of the intelligibility of things and understanding of what it is to be human. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Our eyes are not on our backs, and so we'd have no idea what we are identifying. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think you're pointing to there being limit-cases in all of this, which is fine. Neither I nor (I believe) Quine is trying to say that translation is impossible or even, in most cases, especially problematic. Rather, we're trying to shake up a very common assumption among philosophers, which is that there is some sort of binding action (I called it "metaphysical Superglue" elsewhere) that makes a word inseparable from its object or meaning or concept -- take your pick of these imprecise terms. ("Cannot be grounded in any infallible a priori knowledge," in the words of the SEP article.) One of the pernicious effects of this belief is that, if someone wants to argue for a conceptual change, they're told they can't because "that's not what the word means."

Let's assume for the sake of argument an older, realist perspective. Things have essences. Our senses grasp the quiddity of things. — Count Timothy von Icarus

OK, for the sake of this argument, that would mean that a rabbit has an essence, a quiddity, that the linguist grasps, right? And on some version of charity, he's going to attribute that same grasping of essence to the native. To me, all this reveals is that "gavagai = rabbit" is a likely guess, because we do indeed associate "thingness" or quiddity with objects that are spatially distinct from their surroundings (and in the case of the rabbit, it can also move about, a further point of distinction). Does this help us understand the relation of word and object, which I believe is Quine's point with "gavagai"? Not a rhetorical question -- you may well be seeing something here that I'm not.

There is a sort of parallel between this and what Rodl is saying about not removing the thinker from thoughts. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There may well be. Rodl devotes an entire chapter to discussing Nagel's "view from nowhere," and one of his criticisms is this problem of the "loss of the viewer" -- what it does to 1st person propositions.

"Fregian proposition". What's that? — Banno

The basic drift is that formal ideas - arithmetical proofs for instance - are true regardless of being judged so by anybody. They are in the 'third realm' of timeless truths which exist just so, awaiting discovery. It is at the nub of the argument. — Wayfarer

Yes, that's what I meant. I phrased it that way, in the context of disambiguating "thought," because of this from "Sense and Reference":

[Thought is] objective content that is capable of being the shared property of many. — Frege, 32n

Julian Roberts points out that "thought," therefore, is directly congruent with "sense," in Frege's usage.

All of this just goes to further indicate what a terrible time the word "thought" gives us, when we try to understand how it gets used. I'm hoping my thought1 and thought2 will be helpful; they don't by any means exhaust the field.

Anyhow, I tend to agree with Kierkegaard that the more common risk in Hegelianism (if not present for Hegel himself, properly understood) is not the elevation of the self and of human particularity/authenticity, but of washing it out and ignoring it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, especially if Hegelianism is reduced (as it apparently was when Kierkegaard was writing) to a weird version of scientism, and a complete collapse of the subject/object distinction.

These notes are terrific, thank you. I'm going to read them more carefully and see if I can anything to supplement. But it's great to have someone else doing a close reading.