I agree that we cannot think without the I think at the very least subtly implied or lurking in the shadows of thought, but I do not think that reflects the ultimate reality. — ENOAH

Sure. I believe someone who agreed that the "I think" is ubiquitous could go either way on whether there was more to reality than this relation -- whether the "I think" constitutes reality or only reflects or discovers it in some way.

Yeah, the reflexivity gets confusing. How about if we do this:

p = "The oak tree is shedding its leaves."
q = "I think, 'The oak tree is shedding its leaves' = "I think p"

So Pat is saying, "I think p but I am not aware of thinking q."

Now, you're wanting to add a new relation -- a new reflexivity:

r = "I think 'I think p'" = "I think q"

That's the move I don't understand. Can you say why this next level of reflexivity is needed to make the situation clear? When does r arise for Pat?

Also, I'm not sure the first-person is all that important to the distinction being drawn. We talk about other people's mental events, just as we talk about other people's affirmations and claims and all that. "Judy thought you had gone home." "Judy thinks you should go home. — Srap Tasmaner

Right. The disambiguation between the senses of "I think" applies equally well to "you think" and "she thinks."

I guess the biggest question is how you intend to handle the mental events side. Space of reasons or space of causes?

"Judy thought you had left because she heard the front door" as causal: "If Judy had not heard the front door, she wouldn't have thought you had left"; or as not: "If Judy had not heard the front door, she would have had no reason to think you'd left." ― The trouble with the second is that it should really have "and so she didn't" at the end, but it's pretty hard to justify. People think all kinds of stuff, or fail to.

Does any of that matter for the theory? — Srap Tasmaner

Good question. My allegiance, apart from this particular theory, is usually with reasons rather than causes. I haven't worked it out here yet at all. Put a pin in it!

So, the 'cleavage' is not so much 'oppositional' in nature so much as comparative. — creativesoul

Good. It only becomes a cleavage if we find that some philosopher, in putting forward the theory that the "I think" is ubiquitous, is depending on one or the other of these construals of "think."

So, #4 is 'right' in some way/sense of being right.

Pat is right to deny that that is always the case. However, some of the other answers are also correct, depending upon the specific candidate of thought under consideration. — creativesoul

Say more about that? Can you give an example of a thought-candidate that would make one of the other answers also correct?

However, this whole thread just glosses over the underlying issue. Kant did not draw the distinction between thought/thinking and thinking about thought/thinking. Rödi just assumes and further reinforces that error. — creativesoul

No, it's the opposite. Here's what I wrote in the OP, with relevant passages bolded:

The “I think” accompanies all our thoughts, says Kant. Sebastian Rödl, in Self-Consciousness and Objectivity, agrees with this but points out that “this cannot be put by saying that, in every act of thinking, two things are thought: p and I think p.” He calls this a confusion arising from our notation, and suggests, not entirely seriously, that we could devise a more accurate notation “that makes I think internal to p: we may form the letter p by writing, in the shape of a p, the words I think.” He interprets Kant as saying the same thing: for Kant, “the I think is not something thought alongside the thought that it accompanies, but internal to what is thought as such.” — J

Both Rödl and Kant agree with you that these do not represent two thoughts.

'p', 'I think p', and "I think 'p'" all presuppose truth. — creativesoul

See my attempt to disambiguate these. To report that I have a thought p is not to claim truth for it, at least according to the "standard model."

There's a lot here. Let me start with this (I italicized p when it stands unquoted, for clarity):

Why isn’t the p/“p” dualism backwards? Objectivity is the thing given to sensibility, whatever it is, it is that thing, so should be denominated as p. What I think about is nothing more than the affect that thing has on my senses, the affect cannot possibly be identical to the (p) thing itself, so can justifiably be denominated “p”, which in turn is referred to as representation of p. Shouldn’t it be the case that objectivity is p, subjectivity being how I am affected by p, which would be thought by me, post hoc ergo propter hoc, as “p”. — Mww

Are you suggesting we call "the thing given to sensibility" -- that is, the object we encounter -- p? So p doesn't stand for a proposition any more, on this usage, but names an object? And then "p" would be the representation (or thought) of that object p? If I've got this right, it seems reasonable enough except that traditionally p is used to refer to a proposition, not an object. Also, if "p" is any sort of representation, don't we still need a 3rd term to use for actual propositions? When you say, "What I think about is nothing more than the effect that thing has on my senses," you close the door on the idea of propositional content, it seems to me. Which may be what you intended, but it's an unusual construal, unless you're limiting the discussion to objects of perception.

So with these recent posts, we’re going a bit deeper into the question of “I think p” and its relation to p.

Let’s start with an important disambiguation, which is going to affect everything from Rödl’s “self-consciousness” to the standard Fregean model of force and content.

“I think p” can be understood and used in two distinct ways:

1. “I think ‛p’.”
2. “I think that p is the case.”

Filling it in:

1. “I think, ‛You’ve left your book in my car’.”
2. “I think that you’ve left your book in my car.”

1 is about an act or occurrence of thinking. It’s a report about something that has happened “in my mind.” It carries no commitment to the truth or affirmation of the content of the thought in question. Similar constructions would be: “I had the thought that Cindy was tired,” “Right now I’m thinking, ‛The dog is on the log’.” This version of “I think” foregrounds the thought, the act of thinking. The person addressed isn’t being asked to agree with whether Cindy was tired, or the location of the dog. Rather, an appropriate response would be something like, “Oh, so that’s what you’re thinking.”

2 is an affirmation in the Fregean sense. We can go so far as to say that, taken in this sense, it’s synonymous with “I judge p” or “I affirm p”. By reporting my thought that “Cindy was tired,” I mean to additionally report that I believed this thought to be true. Similar constructions would be: “Q. Did Washington cross the Delaware? A. “I think so.”; “I think you lost this”; “I think that I see a wren.” We can note that, in ordinary usage, “I think so” can be a somewhat diluted form of affirmation, but it’s an affirmation nonetheless; it expresses the speaker’s agreement with p.

Now we can ask, when philosophers contrast “p” with “I think p”, which usage do they mean, 1 or 2? This will vary case by case. But for idealists/monists like Kimhi and Rödl, I believe that they mean to dissolve the distinction between 1 and 2. They want to say that the very act of thinking always affirms something (though neither likes to use that language). And this is a major reason why they question Frege: There is no such thing, for them, as a thought of p that is only a report of a mental event which in turn contains a “propositional content.”

This sounds outrageous and wrong. But before I go any further, I invite comment on the above. Is it reasonably clear?

"I think" necessitates a self that is conscious of thinking. — RussellA

This is one of Rödl's key points.

Possibility one = p is external to the self, internal to the self but not a part of the self or accompanies the self. If this were the case, the self would have no way of knowing about p. — RussellA

I don't follow this. Can you say more? Why couldn't the self have knowledge of something external to it?

I wasn't as clear as I should have been, thanks for your patience.

the issue is contingent on what one interprets the term “thought” to signify. — javra

I tend to agree, based on the interesting responses to the OP. The key cleavage seems to be whether thought is meant to be essentially sentential or propositional, as opposed to "representational". As usual with philosophical terms, there's no dictionary we can consult about this, and usage differs, so we have to make our best choices for clarity as we go along.

you asked about a statement made from a thesis concerning pure speculative reason, which couldn’t be anything other than metaphysical — Mww

Again, I'm not sure this is right. Is the thesis "The 'I think' accompanies all our thoughts"? I was trying to include, in my possible replies to Pat, the possibility that this is meant as a report about experience, not a metaphysical position. We may not find that very promising, but we should at least be able to say why. In other words, let's be completely clear that the thesis of the ubiquity of the "I think" is metaphysical, that no one's experience can discredit it.

Something here bothers you, but it remains unclear what. So I'm taking this thread as your articulating what it is you find troublesome. If you can see some error or lack of clarity in what I've said, it might help. — Banno

Good way of putting it. This is a quintessentially philosophical experience: something is bothering me, for all the evident clarity, and I'm trying to put my finger on it. Maybe I can construct some Rodelian replies to your laying out of the "standard model." Something to do during the massive snowstorm we're about to have . . .

As a thesis, can it be falsified by experience?
— J

As a thesis, speculative metaphysics can’t be falsified at all, without altering the parameters upon which it rests. ‘Course, neither can it be proved from experience. — Mww

OK, but we don't want to beg the question that it is speculative metaphysics. On one construal, we're supposed to be able to actually experience the "I think" as an accompaniment or component of our thoughts. In that case, I would say that's an empirical question that could be falsified. Especially if the construal claims that we must experience it.

Someone recently told me about Noesis and Noema — Patterner

I know these terms from Husserl. I'll read it and get back to you, thanks.

Pat is correct. I know this isn't what you're after, but... — creativesoul

Sure it is, or could be. If I thought this had a cut-and-dried answer, I wouldn't be bothering y'all with it. All opinions are welcome. So, same question to you as to @Banno, earlier: If Pat is correct, does that mean that my #4 is the right response?

Really appreciate everyone's participation here.

I don't get from the discussion where this "I think p" resides. — T Clark

Right, I'd say that was the very question up for discussion, or one of them, at any rate. I was trying to lay out some possibilities about the "I think" -- is it meant to be an experience? a thought in addition to whatever I'm thinking about p? an unexperienced structure? another way of naming or describing self-consciousness? etc. And one of the problems of conceiving the "I think" as a new thought is precisely the one of infinite regress.

See @fdrake's post.

there are thinking things that do not have a sense of self. — Philosophim

A cat is thinking about the leaves falling off the tree as it playfully leaps up to attack them as they're falling. But I do not believe a cat is capable of thinking about thinking about the leaves falling off the tree. That's a different level of thought, of which cats are not capable. — Patterner

some animals are definitely aware of themselves but don't have language. — fdrake

This is a question that I doubt would even have occurred to Kant, given his era's primitive understanding of animals. I'm not sure what we should say about non-human "thinking things." Certainly it could represent a limit case about self-consciousness. For now, I want to resist the temptation to divvy up "think" in terms of whether only humans can do it. If we need that discrimination later on, we can double back to it.

Even if I can't think the higher level thought without the lower level though, I can think the lower level thought without the higher. — Patterner

Yes, if "I think p" is indeed meant to be present to consciousness at all times that "p" is thought.

there's a bunch of sentential content bubbling up from/in the mind, some surveyor partitions it into A-OK and "dump it" - the latter of which is discarded somehow. The A-OK stuff gets labelled/willed as "I think", associated with the selfhood/subjectivity of that person, and that stuff can get asserted by that person. Call that account A.

Alternatively the "I think" is what takes mental/bodily gubbins and puts it in sentence form and filters it into A-OK and "dump it". Then the remainder of the first account holds of the sentence forms. Call that account B. — fdrake

Good, that's clear. These are different accounts of when thought becomes propositional, if I understand you. And yes, the respective qualia would be different.

"I think" has an implicit sentence placeholder — fdrake

This is one of the points that has come up quite quickly in this discussion. Is that what Kant meant? When Rödl considers "I think p", does he understand the thinking to begin with the sentential formation of p? How plausible is that?

I, personally, am just not aware of a cloud of sentences associated with environmental objects and my own thoughts. The majority of my meta-awareness is perceptual rather than sentential, and the parts of it which are linguistic are more broadly narrative than declarative. — fdrake

That's my experience as well, especially if you add in "memories". This could point us toward deciding that whole "'I think' is ubiquitous" thing is misguided. Or, we could accept B as the best account of when the "I think" emerges.

the expression of an idea rather than a particular sentence, — fdrake

Another way of forming the same question. Some philosophers will object that ideas don't occur separated from sentences. I think they can.

If I had no thoughts, "I" would not exist. "I" could not exist if I had no thoughts. — RussellA

Do the quotes around "I" mean that there is literally no self without thoughts, or only that the "I" of philosophy, so to speak -- the self-conscious cogito -- is constructed from our thoughts? And same issue here, of course: "thoughts" as sentential, or more broadly as images, perceptions, etc.?

the simple and in itself perfectly contentless representation “I” which cannot even be called a conception, but merely a consciousness which accompanies all conceptions. By this “I,” or “He,” or “It,” who or which thinks, nothing more is represented than a transcendental subject of thought = x, which is cognized only by means of the thoughts that are its predicates, and of which, apart from these, we cannot form the least conception…. — Mww

I bolded Kant's phrase, above, because it focuses on what we'd like to understand better -- just what the heck does it mean for consciousness to "accompany" something? Would we know it when it happened? As a thesis, can it be falsified by experience?

Meaning it's a regress, and therefore untenable?

...a new way of conceiving something...
— J
New?

It's just (illocutionary force(predicate(subject)), what is done with the proposition, or Frege's judgement stroke. — Banno

Well, the new way, if Kimhi and Rödl are on target, would deny the force/content distinction, as we know from that earlier thread about Thinking and Being. Another way of putting it: There is no way of stating p without stating p. Someone has to be doing the stating. Even reserving any judgment of p doesn't get you off the hook from having thought it, in some sense, to begin with.

In what sense, is the question. Are all propositions first-person propositions? Does it make a difference that a proposition can only occur as someone's thought? According to Kimhi, that makes a big difference in what "propositional content" means. Rödl looks to be going about the argument in a different way to get to the same place, but more of that later. For right now, let's just say that this possible "new way" is either genuinely new and useful, or a somewhat perverse misunderstanding about how logical language works. I am not sure, yet, which view is correct. Like you, like all of us, I'm super-trained in the "old way" -- which is enough to make me wonder if there's more to it.

Kant says “I think” must accompany all my representations (B133, in three separate translations), not my thoughts. Some representations are not thought but merely products of sensibility, re: phenomena. — Mww

This is a good clarification. Do I think a representation? German-to-English may be an issue here. Kant uses the "I think" to structure all mental representations; Rödl probably means only propositions -- I say "probably" because I'm still in the middle of reading the book so there may be further discussion about that. (Note: Although Rödl is German, he appears to have written S-C & O in English. Anyone know if that's true?)

I vote '1'. — Wayfarer

Yes, #1 has its attractions, but notice that, in its entirety, it commits us to the belief that the "I think" can be experienced. This may be hair-splitting, but the kind of self-awareness you're describing sounds less like an experience and more like an understanding, an enlightenment about what thought is. That would be closer to the spirit of #3, as I intended it. I wanted #3 to be the thoroughgoing transcendentalist position.

To be sure, there are no thoughts that could not be prefixed by "I think..."; but that is a very different point to the suggestion that all our thoughts are already prefixed by "I think...". — Banno

Right. And for Rödl (and I think Kant and Sartre) it isn't even a matter of "prefixed"; the "I think" is supposed to be structural or internal. That's why the question of whether this "I think" is experienced comes to the fore.

That there is a difference between a proposition and one's attitude towards that proposition - thinking it, believing it, asserting it, doubting it - is so ingrained that I have difficulty making sense of the alternatives. — Banno

Me too. It's almost like a phase shift, a new way of conceiving something that had always seemed obvious. Both Kimhi and Rödl are asking us to rethink what we thought we knew. The issue is difficult enough (and technical enough) to preclude just waving it away, though I wanted to when I started reading Kimhi.

What is the relationship of "p" and "I judge that [think/believe/propose etc.] p"? That's the most bare-bones way of posing the question.

Good start! Re Davidson, I'm not sure. But since I'm more or less thinking about three phil topics at once these days, I wouldn't be surprised

So, if Pat is right, #4 is a good response?

as a professional metaphysician (I think I've earned the right to call myself that, I have enough metaphysical publications in professional journals to qualify as such), — Arcane Sandwich

Now you've got me curious! Would you be willing to share a link to one of them with us?

OK. Rödl is dealing with some similar issues in Self-Consciousness and Objectivity. His "absolute idealism" leads him to very different conclusions, of course, but he and Rouse are both trying to supply an account of the given, what is present to consciousness.

Well, this is a pretty general formula. I was hoping you could use "a cat" as an example and describe what the "contingent discursive account" looks like, which allows us to use it to "specify the nature of the world."

It seems to me that it will be harder to find agreement on things like truth and goodness because those are extremely general principles — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think that's the problem. Rules of math and logic are also extremely general principles, but we don't have trouble finding agreement there.

Quine proceeds by essentially assuming something like behaviorism, and this is crucial to how he makes the argument — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sort of. Since the example concerns two linguistic communities who don't yet share a common translation for "gavagai", what else besides behavior would we have to go on? The whole problem is that the linguist can't ask the native, "What do you mean?" I think Quine is asking us to transport this problem into English-to-English exchanges, and ponder the question of how a term receives a meaning.

Meaning, in the sense that is "disproved" seems to have already been eliminated from the outset, — Count Timothy von Icarus

I read him rather as using the gavagai story to show why the word/meaning pair is problematic. I don't think he assumes that words don't mean anything; he's trying to push back harder on our common assumptions about it. The question of certainty is important, because what sorts of things can we have certain knowledge of? Quine didn't think the word/meaning pair was in any sense analytic.

Rouse is helpful here in showing this connection among the five philosophers. Whether all their accounts fail, I couldn't say. When he writes, "The underlying dif­ficulty is their effort to separate rational, normative relations among semantic contents from their realization by humans as living organisms who evolved and developed in discursively articulated environments," is this a somewhat awkward equivalent to "There are no propositions that aren't 1st person singular or plural"?

. . . to specify the nature of that world (two birds, or a cat and a dog) on the basis of our contingent discursive accounts of it. — Joshs

Just to keep the argument clear here, what should we say the description "a cat" is contingent upon? Obviously I'm not looking for a reply along the lines of "It's contingent upon language" -- that goes without saying. But what else? What are the factors that suggest that particular bit of language?

"The soul" is proposed as an actuality in the sense of substantive form. And, that "form" itself, is substantive is supported by his "Metaphysics". This allows for the proposition "the soul is our subject of study". — Metaphysician Undercover

I see how this all hangs together, thanks.

IDK how closely Rodl follows Aristotle (or Hegel), but in their case this has to do with the identity of thought and being (something Plotinus brings out in Aristotle in his rebuttals of the Empiricists and Stoics). This ends up being, in some key respects, almost the opposite of Wittgenstein, although I do think there is some interesting overlap in that they tend to resolve epistemic issues in ways that are isomorphic. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, everyone finds their own Wittgenstein! Kimhi, in Thinking and Being, claimed Witt as a fellow exponent of the monistic unity of thinking and being, which in turn he (Kimhi) derives from Aristotle. And this is very much Rödl's view as well.

Again, it's not that someone can play various major chord, record and read them, and recognise them when they hear them, and yet not have, or not understand, what a major chord is, because they are missing something more... the concept. — Banno

OK, that's clearer to me.

All language stops with showing and doing.

But again, I don't think I've quite understood your point. — Banno

My point -- somewhat off the point, perhaps -- is that we never arrive at something we can simply take as what it is, as opposed to "counts as." Or do we? This is reminiscent of that Wang essay about Davidson, a while back.

To make his argument go through, I think Wang has to show not only that common-sense experience is possible, but that the other kind – raw, unmediated perceptions, "thin experience" – is impossible. — J

Should we say that, at some given level of demonstration, we have "raw, unmediated perception"? Something we can point to and say, "This," sans interpretation?

So the Major is the root, third and fifth. It's that string, that string, and that string - and usually the root, again. That's a doing. Then you slide it up and down the fretboard, and set it out in tab or notation. More doing.

if someone blithely says that the major is the root, third and fifth, but doesn't play or listen, do they understand the concept of a major chord? Does an AI have the concept, becasue it can form the words?

On the other hand, if someone can form the shape and slide it up and down the fretboard, but can not tell us about thirds and fifths, do they "have" the concept? — Banno

This is tricky. I want to say that a major chord is not "that string, that string, and that string." If I'd given such an answer back in school, I would have flunked, at any rate. We both know that the term describes three notes, sounded simultaneously, that stand in a certain relation to each other. That's what I'm calling "the concept."

It sounds like you've moved to talking about what it would take to have that concept, and here we're in agreement. Someone who doesn't listen, someone who only goes up and down the fretboard, and "someone" who is an AI do not have the concept, quite right. But I thought you were saying that "concept" itself is doing no useful work here, and I'm still not seeing that.

"Wouldn't it have to follow that 'being a piece of wood' is a way of treating Object A"
— J
Yep. This counts as a piece of wood.

But here I am relying on the grammar of the demonstrative, with all that this implies. This is shown. — Banno

So the "counts as" locution stops with the demonstrative? If I could give a sufficiently accurate set of coordinates for the location of the object we "count as" a piece of wood, along with a chemical description, wouldn't we have to pursue the matter further? "'Being at [coordinates] and consisting of [chemical analysis]' is a way of treating Object A-prime"? And you can see where this is going . . . right into the realm where you can't use demonstratives at all, or at least not in any ordinary-language way.

I'm not trying to refute this way of talking, I just want to understand what it commits me to.

What remains is that being a bishop is a way of treating that piece of wood, — Banno

OK, but the annoying question is, "Wouldn't it have to follow that 'being a piece of wood' is a way of treating Object A [specify space-time coordinates here]?"

But I'm not clear as to what you are getting at. If you understand that the major is the root, third and fifth, while the seventh chord is the root, third, fifth and seventh note of the scale, is there again something more that is needed in order to have the concept of major and seventh? — Banno

No, exactly that. I think that is (with a couple of technical tweaks) the concept of a major chord. But I thought you were saying that we didn't have such a concept, only the various things we can do with said chord.

@Banno I just came across this, which speaks to the Wittgensteinian theme being discussed over in the "Mathematical platonism" thread:

There is nothing I may encounter, encountering which will equip me with the idea of it as real, or a fact. If I lack this idea, nothing -- nothing real, no fact -- can give it to me. The concept of things' being as they are is possible only as it is at work -- not in thinking this or that, but -- in thinking anything at all. — Rödl, 61

"Only as it is at work" . . . I think he means that we can't find the concept of reality or facticity as the object of thought; rather, it's contained or implied in the act, the "work", of thinking that anything is so. No doubt Witt would approve.

Hence concepts are no more than being able to work with whatever is in question, and thinking of them as mental items in one's head is fraught with complications. — Banno

I can definitely do without "mental items in one's head," though in fairness that's a somewhat tendentious way of putting it. But I'm wondering whether, by choosing "seven" as our example concept, we haven't picked an outlier. Thinking about "seven", it does seem as if there's nothing left once we enumerate all the things we do with it. Are all concepts like this, though? Don't most concepts include structural parts, often definitionally so? Consider a major chord. I can list all the things we do with such chords, but beyond that I can describe what it is that makes this group of three notes a major chord. Why wouldn't we want to call that description the "concept" of a major chord? You see the difference with "seven" -- there isn't a similar description of what comprises "seven" or makes it what it is.

This is something h.sapiens can do that no other creature can do. — Wayfarer

Don't be too sure. Our ignorance about what other species can do is astonishing. It wasn't so long ago that scientists questioned whether other animals could even think or be conscious. Anyway, would it really affect your point very much if it turned out that some other animals could do it a little bit?

a real hard slog to maintain focus — Wayfarer

I do a section a day, after coffee, when if I'm lucky I can concentrate for 30 minutes. :halo:

But please don't slog on my account . . .

Nozick's politics — Banno

Yeah, I know, unfortunate. But he's a good meta-philosopher for all that.

if we are going to take philosophical pluralism seriously, shouldn't we avoid the sort of over-arching story found in Philosophical Explanations? Shouldn't we avoid saying that philosophical explanations are thus-and-so? — Banno

Pretty sure Nozick would agree with that. The tone of the book is discursive and investigative, not didactic. It contains one of my favorite passages about doing philosophy:

Philosophical argument, trying to get someone to believe something whether he wants to believe it or not, is not, I have held, a nice way to behave toward someone; also, it does not fit the original motivation for studying or entering philosophy. That motivation is puzzlement, curiosity, a desire to understand, not a desire to produce uniformity of belief. Most people do not want to become thought-police. — Nozick, 13

Roughly, post-PI the "sense of the world" remains unstated, but can be either enacted and shown, or left in silence. In neither case is the sense of the world said. — Banno

True, but evidently it can be referred to. That may be all we need.

It is difficult to maintain a distinction between what is conceptual and what is terminological, between the structure we accept of how things are and the labels we apply to that structure. This because using a term just is using a concept. — Banno

Yes, everything you say is a nice concise view of the problematic territory here. I'm more comfortable with Davidson than Witt on this topic but that's just me.

As I wrote earlier, I need to rethink what I want to say in a way that would be a reply to Davidson, which ain't easy. Maybe the place to start is "Using a term just is using a concept". What if we reply, "Yes, but is using a concept just using a term?" So the question is still, "How, and to what extent, can we dissolve that metaphysical Superglue that seems to bind term to concept?" but reverses the grounding. The Davidson/Witt position would, I think, be that there can't be any grounding because "concept" is parasitic on our terms.

Now you may want to say, "It's not metaphysical Superglue at all, it's the opposite of what metaphysics proposes" and/or "If there is no conceptual scheme, no appeal to shared meanings, but merely a congruence of beliefs, acts, and worlds . . . then what's left for 'concept' to be about?" Those would be meta-challenges, for sure. I need to think more about how I in fact use concepts, and find a couple of paradigm cases of terminological changes that really do hold a concept steady. Then I might be in a better position to restate my case. Should take about a year . . . :smile:

the primness of small numbers — Janus

I'm sorry, I can't resist a good typo. Yes, I too find small numbers to be prim, even reticent. But then there's π, which is small but goes on and on forever . . .

Right, I wasn't asking the second question. I don't think in terms of superior ways of existence—I am not a fan of hierarchical notions of being. — Janus

I realize that, sorry if I implied otherwise. I was just using your question to compare with a type of question that I think others have been asking.

The irony in all this is that I sort of am a fan of hierarchical notions of "being," if by hierarchy we just mean structure or grounding. My idea, not to belabor it to death, is that we'll do a better job by dropping the word "being" to the extent that we can.