My friend, there's nothing here to be angry about. We all use the forum to question and debate each other's ideas. I think you haven't gotten my point, but that's OK, and please feel free to move on.

But notice that nowadays even reason is relativised; it is social convention, it is a useful tool, it has nothing to do with the way the world is. To even appeal to reason is nowadays covertly regarded as an appeal to authority — Wayfarer

Granted, there are many versions of an appeal to authority, including the argumentum ad baculum (check your Thomas)! Those who regard an appeal to reason as illegitimate on that ground are wrong, I think, but so are those who want to say that the ancients nailed down the meaning of all our key philosophical terms.

I didn't want to neglect this, in the flurry of posts here.

Call these your axioms:

Existence is a property.

All material objects have this property.

To exist is to have a spatio-temporal location.

All material objects have the potential to change their spatio-temporal location.


So my question is, Is this further statement:

Only material objects have the property of existence.

a conclusion drawn from some subset of the above axiomatic statements, or is it a separate axiomatic statement itself? If the latter, it’s what I was referring to as a coincidence. It seems to demand further explanation.

↪J Nice work. I'll go along with that.

I baulk at your distinguishing "conceptual" from "terminological". Our terminology sets out our "conceptual framework" as it were. — Banno

Thanks -- but if we can't distinguish "conceptual" from "terminological," then what I'm saying wouldn't make sense. How about this? We likely construct our conceptual maps using language, the language we're taught as children and the further technical language, if any, that we acquire as philosophers. At a certain point we can realize that we now have a pretty adequate conceptual map -- we see where the pieces ought to go, more or less -- but there's a problem with the words we were taught. So we can abandon some of the terms, while retaining the map. This is what I mean by "conceptual" versus "terminological." Another way to describe it would be "structural" versus "labeling". We all know what it's like to view a structure, note the various pieces, but find the names (if any) for the pieces to be confusing or silly.

The contrary view -- that language goes all the way down, that thinking or conceptualizing is irreducibly linguistic -- I think is wrong. The path may depend on language, but what we find there has got to be independent, because otherwise the problem will metamorphose into Everything Is Language -- cats and so forth. I'm too much of a realist for that.

You've happened on the forums at a time when the fashion is towards mediaeval thinking. — Banno

I know what you're getting at, but discussing the Divided Line is a different matter, no? Surely we can adapt the ideas of pistis and dianoia into our modern debates. And very interesting contemporary philosophers like Kimhi and Rödl are using Aristotle in new ways.

What is "medieval" to me -- and this has nothing to do with Thomism as such -- is the appeals to authority. It's not so much "X is correct because Plato said so" but rather "X is incomprehensible to modern thought unless we agree with how Plato viewed X."

Thanks, and you've put your finger on what I'm wondering about too. Can Rödl go on to say that nous cannot be included in any domain? It gets finicky, because I'm not clear on what either philosopher means by "included," exactly. Are your suggestions -- "contained," "exhausted" -- synonyms for inclusion? Couldn't "included" simply mean "studied" or even "taken into account"?

He is not arguing from the premise, "There is no science which includes everything in its province." — Leontiskos

No, that seems clear. I rather see him, in the passage you quote, arriving at this as a conclusion about natural science, which strikes him as a reductio -- but that may be because natural science isn't the right science to do this, not because no science does so.

I don't quite follow your argument. Again, I don't see what I'm arguing as exceptionally obtuse or difficult. — Wayfarer

I think we're in agreement, actually, and if you don't follow, the fault is likely mine. We're both saying that there is a conceptual division that we want to acknowledge; in your words, it's "'Platonic' in that it mirrors the division between sensory (pistis, doxa) and mathematical (dianoia) knowledge in Plato's thought." I think that's exactly right, as far as this particular debate about "existence" goes.

It provides a conceptual framework for distinguishing the phenomenal (the domain of existents) from the noumenal (the intelligible domain). These two are intertwined in our thought, yet the distinction is discernible — Wayfarer

The difference in what we want to say about this division, however, is this: You want to use the term "existents" for the phenomenal domain, and I'm recommending we stop doing that, as the word is so fraught and unsatisfactory. I'm simply urging us to notice that "the distinction is discernible" no matter what terms we use, and that is what counts. On the important point -- pistis and dianoia as picking out two different areas on the conceptual map -- we agree. And when we examine the various relations between the objects of pistis and dianoia, we may find yet further agreement. So we shouldn't let logomachy get in the way!

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the three first-order translations, taken together, describe the conceptual territory covered by "exist" in loose talk. We can of course recommend drawing a line under this and saying, "Please use these three disambiguated terms. While there's nothing pre-ordained about them, they attach easily to three important conceptual areas that cover the field, we can use them to refer to and describe those areas, and they're reasonably familiar from previous usage."

Now on this understanding, the question is not "Is there something that is not covered by these but is available in being or existing?" We've stipulated that the conceptual ground is indeed covered. Rather, the question is "Will it ever be helpful to use the words 'being' and 'existing' to talk about this ground?" Again, notice how much depends on separating term from concept. We want maximum fidelity as to concept and maximum flexibility as to term. So, to my amended version of your question, I would reply, "Sure, it's quite possible. Let's find out. Let's read Heidegger. But what we mustn't do is mistake the question as being about additional conceptual territory. If we do that, we fall once again into the endless battle about what counts as Existence. No, we are asking a terminological question."

Final thought: This is all based on: "for the sake of argument, the three first-order translations, taken together, describe the conceptual territory covered by 'exist' in loose talk." They may not, in which case an entirely different conversation will occur. Here the friends of Existence and Being have the task of convincing us that the issue is conceptual, not terminological.

Existence, in my philosophy, is what has a spatiotemporal location. It has nothing to do with the concept of "being made of material stuff". — Arcane Sandwich

OK.

existence and matter are not the same thing. — Arcane Sandwich

OK.

I hold that material objects, and only they, are the ones that exist. — Arcane Sandwich

But now you've lost me. Is this a coincidence? You've said there's no definitional relation, so how and why does this relation obtain?

I used this as a kind of wedge to distinguish 'being' from 'existence', which I think is a fundamental but generally forgotten or neglected distinction — Wayfarer

This, to me, is starting to step in the right direction, because with this distinction we're at least no longer asking "existence" to do more work than it can handle.

Cool.

As a materialist, I can confidently say the existence of rights, truth and justice is not incompatible with the materialist premises and conclusions of my philosophy. — Arcane Sandwich

Good! But that must mean that "existence" is being given a much broader interpretation than "made of material stuff." So here we go again . . .

Yes, if I thought there was a hope of ever settling it. But using the "existence" terminology to do so just doesn't seem to get anywhere. Instead, let's talk about the ways that rocks show up in our lives, and what we can say about them -- also the ways that justice shows up in our lives, and what we can say about that -- and whether there might be various grounding relations obtaining between physical things and values -- but do it all without trying to award the Grand Prize of Existence to anything.

That's one of the better defenses of continuing "existence"-talk that I've heard. I woudn't want to cut all ties with one common usage (and I'll come back that) if it's genuinely helpful to folks. The ethical obligation to remain in communication with as many interested parties as possible is a real one.

That said . . . is it genuinely helpful? A great deal of damaging nonsense on this subject is spoken in the name of "good common sense," which too often means "ways of thinking that are common to me and the people who share my views." People who think only physical stuff exists -- materialists, in other words -- are the same people who often want to say that "rights" and "truth" and "justice" also don't exist. What they believe exists may influence them on issues from abortion to contract law. I know, it looks very unproblematic to point to Pegasus vs. rocks, and if that's all one ever needs the concept for, I guess no sweat. But if we really have an obligation to help clarify thought when it gets difficult, then we can't stop there.

My other response also refers back to what's "good common sense." I dunno, is it really your experience that the average non-philosopher you know is quite settled in the opinion that rocks exist but numbers don't? I get into a fair number of semi-philosophical discussions with friends and acquaintances, for obvious reasons, and when they're not ordering me a cup of hemlock, they seem to be very alive to why this question of what exists is not cut and dried. They also seem to move quite quickly to noticing that it looks like a terminological dispute. So again, I think we should be really wary of invoking a notion of common sense that may not stand up under inspection.

I'm fine with the concept of existence; you can even use it in logic as long as you confine it to existential predication. What I'm urging (tongue a bit in cheek, obviously, since it will never happen) is to retire the term "exist". I'm recommending a separation of term from concept and/or content.

The words "exist" and "existence" cause nothing but trouble, because they call like Sirens to philosophers, inviting us to argue about which use of the word is correct. "My use is correct!" says one group, "because when I use it, I mean concept A." "No, my use is correct!" says another group, "because when I use it, I mean concept B." "Well, Plato used it for concept A." "Well, Kant used it for concept B."

Oh dear, which concept is the right one to be called "existence"? The answer is, Neither, none, because the word doesn't matter. What matters -- and it matters a great deal, if you believe metaphysics is worthwhile -- is getting straight on the conceptual territory, on concepts A, B . . . n. But you can do that with any vocabulary you please. So pick one that doesn't bring 2,000 years of ambiguity and dispute along with it.

It just says that one cannot be certain as to which name refers to which thing. — Banno

Yes, it's not a very exciting result when applied to things like rabbits, because, as has been said, we can be pretty damn confident.

I think it gets interesting when we move to names for more ambiguous or abstract items. There is a strong tendency among some philosophers to attach a name to a thing or a concept with metaphysical Superglue, such that, if there is a question about translation or clarification, we’re told we can't suggest a name change without also changing the thing named. In the case of the rabbit, that seems wrong. If for some reason we decided we needed a new (better?) name for Leporidae, that could be effected with minimum difficulty, since we could always point to the creature itself if anyone had doubt, and say, “No, the object remains the same. This is only a recommendation for a terminological change.”

This is much harder with abstracta. If A says, "Let's change the name of Goodness to 'Rational Self-Interest'," it's unclear what B, who objects, can point to in protest. B can say, "That is not how Goodness has traditionally been used” or perhaps even “That is not what Goodness means” but if A’s reason for wanting to make the change is because A believes the previous usage was mistaken, what are we to say? I think the best response is a straightforward, “No, it’s you who are mistaken,” and allow the argument to be a legitimate one that can sensibly continue. But the type of philosopher I referred to above (call them C) wants to disallow the argument, on the grounds that it isn’t coherent to change the name of Goodness to something else. If you do that, C urges, you’re no longer talking about Goodness. Name and concept are metaphysically wedded together.

I suggest that it’s this sort of intransigent approach that can benefit from considering Quine’s point about gavagai. There is no certainty (or necessity) about the connection of name and thing-named. Often enough – perhaps usually – we’re pretty damn sure. But not always, especially in philosophy. I don’t know how general the inscrutability of reference is; whether it goes “all the way down,” so to speak. What if Quine had used “truth” instead of “rabbit,” e.g., as the thing being referenced as “gavagai”? The linguist visiting the tribe could be supposed to follow a simple if-then argument between speakers, using words she already knows, and then a native listener smiles, nods, and says “Gavagai!” Our linguist wants to ask “Do you mean ‛That’s true’?” but since that’s impossible to ask, what should she do next?

if a cause necessarily leads to its effect, it makes sense how two and two necessarily lead to four, while two by itself does not necessarily lead to it at all. So the bringing together of 1 and 1 and 1 and 1 is the cause of 4, but 1, 2, 3, or any other smaller number by themselves can’t cause 4 — Pretty

That would be one answer to what I was calling a more interesting question, yes. Addition does seem a more plausible candidate for causal efficacy than mere sequence. But does any of this really work? You use the term "lead to" to describe what a cause does, re its effect, but I think we have to make it stronger, and say forthrightly that a cause causes the effect, it doesn't just "lead to it" in some weaker way. On that understanding, I don't see numbers, even when added, multiplied, etc., causing their results. This may just be a spade-turning commitment on my part to viewing cause as separated in time from effect.

But that was why I then moved on to thoughts as causes. In a functionalist, psychological way, we can talk about thought A (viewed as a brain-event) causing thought B, even though as yet our science doesn't really know what this means. The question is, is that the same kind of "causing" that we mean when we say that "my thought of A" causes B? We want to say that thought A justifies or explains, rather than causes, thought B -- but that is to bring in the Fregean notion of a thought/proposition that can be abstracted from any given instance of its occurrence in a brain.

Perhaps a more interesting version of this question is to ask, "Does the addition of 2 and 2 cause the result 4?" That is certainly not how we speak about it ordinarily, probably because we limit our concept of causation to the spatio-temporal world. So what about this version?: "Does my thought of the addition of 2 and 2 cause me to conclude that the result is 4?" (if you're willing to accept "my thought" as an event in space and time, not as a Fregean proposition).

The deflationist stops at the schema structure, it's a barrier to all further inquiry. — fdrake

Got it, thanks. And I would say that the ban on connections between being and thought goes in both directions, so to speak. A deflationist won't entertain any modeling between thought, in general, and concept -- indeed, that wouldn't even be considered modeling -- and will likely also reject any talk about my thoughts or consciousness, since reference to such arcana aren't necessary to behavioral modeling, on this view.

So, yes, to understand this thread, the first thing is to understand that there will never be anything anyone can come up with that will force the functionalist to say "I can't model that." Never anything that has to be acknowledged as substance rather than behavior. — Srap Tasmaner

I think this is substantially right, but pressing the functionalist on what they mean by modeling can be useful, along the lines of @fdrake's "weak correspondence." The problem may be as much with the whole modeling project as with a functionalist approach to metaphysics.

Good. Your "weak idea of correspondence" is an excellent limit case, calling into question whether we would even use the term "model" for a mapping that perfectly matched B and B' but provided neither structural, pictorial, nor functional resemblance -- no "accuracy or internal coherence." In what would that perfect matching consist? A mere stipulation that "b' is to count as b"?

My earlier issue about whether a model of a duck could reproduce is, in contrast, a limit case in the opposite direction. It raises the same question about how b' and b relate, though. Is it reasonable to expect a modeling of B to not only mimic B perfectly, but also produce the same real-time results -- in this example, the fertilizing of an egg -- as B?

We may want to find a middle ground by being clearer about what counts as a behavior. Is it merely something I do? Do I "do" digestion? Blood circulation? These are strange ways of speaking, but what is it about the idea of behavior that seems to rule them out, and limit behavior to something that's . . . intended? deliberate? Is that the criterion?

I think where a deflationist who also enjoys the functionalist paradigm above would disagree with a functionalist simpliciter is whether metaphysical {and maybe even epistemological} questions can only concern specific instances of the mapping between true behaviours and our descriptions. In effect, they disagree on whether the only salient questions about objects and concepts are of the modelling form. Which is roughly describing how things work, or describing {how describing things work} works. — fdrake

Can you say more about this? I want to read you as saying that the deflationist doesn't countenance any abstract structural modeling but I'm not sure that's what you mean.

I'll take the liberty of repeating something I wrote previously:

No, my beef is with the term "existence", which I think we should retire from the field with all due honors. Same for "real". I believe we will learn a lot more about the concepts that those terms try to refer to, if we stop the endless, unresolvable bickering about them. — J

The posts on the last couple of pages make an excellent argument for my case. What would happen if we tried to reframe the "existence" question in terms of structure, grounding, and quantification, retaining full rights to claim metaphysical truth, but did so without once using the term "exist"?

Pretty good. So do we want to say that this example has met the challenge?:

OK, the challenge is to come up with something that is both a) inexpressible, and b) whose inexpressibility can be explained. It also ought to be something worth worrying about, — J

I'd be inclined to say yes. You? I suppose we could quibble about whether your account, above, really counts as an explanation, but I think it does. It's certainly an elucidation. Nor do I see us falling into the contradiction dilemma; we're not saying "ineffable" with one mouth while making it effable (is that a word?!) with the other.

Infinitesimals can be the subject of a quantifier, and in that way, they exist; they can be in the domain of discourse. If there is something more to their existence, some "platonic" existence, then it's up to the advocates to set out what that amounts to. — Banno

That's good, as far as it goes. But the other kind of "more" that some philosophers (I think including @Arcane Sandwich?) want to claim is physical or spatio-temporal existence. I think we agree that quantification is agnostic about that, as it is about platonic existence. So is there a case that can be made for preserving the term "existence" for that sort of thing? I'm saying no -- that this is still trying to privilege a particular word and make it do something we don't need it to do. We understand the concept of "something in space-time" -- isn't that good enough? Why do we need to praise it by additionally saying it "exists" in some superior way -- so superior that it casts doubt on whether other non-spatio-temporal items exist at all?

Hinge propositions are said, but never quite rightly. "Here is a hand" isn't justified, at least not by other propositions. It's shown. "If you do know that here is one hand, we'll grant you all the rest". — Banno

Let's lean into that a little. "Here is a hand" is certainly expressible. It's a proposition that states a fact about the world. You now say of it, "But it isn't justified by other propositions." Fair enough. Have we reached inexpressibility -- what "can't be spoken"? How, exactly? Is it the alleged justification that is supposed to be inexpressible? That doesn't sound quite right. I would have thought the (propositional) justification was simply absent or non-existent, rather than inexpressible.

Or is this a blind alley? I may not yet be quite seeing the expressibility problem here.

Slow down thar, pardner! You say "Whatever they may be (the epistemic rights)" so let's start there. What are they meant to be?

There is no epistemic difference between the epistemic rights of professional physicists and the epistemic rights of professional philosophers. — Arcane Sandwich

This needs a lot of expansion. What exactly is at stake with this premise?

Yeah, that might be a little strong, but as a contrast to pure formalism, the point is useful. I realize that my own comments might lead one to think that I regard formalism as the only legitimate language for philosophy. I don't. Formalization is a brilliant tool, and often a necessary one, but we can certainly do many important philosophical tasks without it -- if not quite in genuinely "ordinary" language. No, my beef is with the term "existence", which I think we should retire from the field with all due honors. Same for "real". I believe we will learn a lot more about the concepts that those terms try to refer to, if we stop the endless, unresolvable bickering about them.

Perhaps until we have a clear idea of what sorts of things are ineffable, we don't have a clear answer to the issues being discussed around ineffability. Trouble is, we don't have a way of saying what it is that is ineffable without the danger of thereby contradicting ourselves. — Banno

Your exploration of the high-C example is helpful. I know it was my own example, but I'm no longer happy with it because I don't think it's to the point of what Witt meant. What you write above puts it quite well -- words like "inexpressible" and "ineffable" and "indescribable" run a double risk. Not only are they like fly-paper for the flies of ambiguity, but there's a legitimate question whether even merely indicating or pointing to the inexpressible makes it no longer inexpressible.

Staying with that last point (which was the one I originally indicated doubt about), we still want an example. Two possible paths to take: We could try to state (try to!) what Witt himself had in mind when he referred to "that which cannot be spoken." I do not believe he was only making a formal point. I think he had a large range of such items in mind, having to do with values, God, and bedrock metaphysics. We could also take your suggestion about how such expressions are used in ordinary language. This dovetails with a theme that @Arcane Sandwich has taken up: whether ontology can be sensibly expressed in ordinary language.

I'd like to hear your thoughts about what might be "inexpressible in Wittgensteinese." And as an example of common usage, how about this: "We have a sense that life has a purpose, a meaning, that there is more to my existence than birth and death. But what that deeper sense may be, we find impossible to express -- not because it is incoherent, but because we don't know how to conceptualize what it is we are intuiting when we speak of 'the meaning of life.'" Might this be an example of something that's more or less describable, yet remains inexpressible?

Again, the question of what is expressible in ordinary language. Let me see what I come up with for @Banno.

existence itself, is a physical "thing", if you will. And in being a physical "thing", it cannot be formal. — Arcane Sandwich

Thanks, I see where you're coming from now. I think equating "existence" with "physical 'thingness'," no matter how many scare-quotes we use, is debatable, though not for the reasons you suggest. I don't know whether forms or concepts are really "out there," but I'm pretty sure that the term "existence" only takes on meaning when given the sort of contexts you and @Banno are discussing. But what about Existence?!, we of course want to know. Yes, well . . . that takes us out of the Philosophy Room entirely.

No formal language can deal coherently with the problem of the meaning of existence. The concept of existence is not a concept of a formal language. — Arcane Sandwich

I’m going to assume you meant “the meaning of ‛existence’” as in “what the term means,” as opposed to “the meaning of existence” in the more existential, what-is-my-life about? sense. If that’s right, can you explain how “existence” could be anything other than a concept of a formal language? The question connects, surprisingly, with my convo with @Banno about inexpressibility, which I’m about to try to continue.

First of all, good OP! You've got your eye on something important in philosophical method.

the question is whether the duck being modelled could possibly exhibit any behavior that could not be modelled. That is, whether there is any reason, in principle, not to expect that the models can be kept in synch.

For the moment, I'm inclined to assume that there is not. — Srap Tasmaner

Do you think a model duck can eat, digest, excrete, and reproduce? These are all behaviors. For myself, I can just about imagine, in some future state of technology, a model duck doing the first three, or at least imitating them in a way that would be indistiguishable from what a live duck does, but not the fourth. And this connects with the deeper question you're raising, about whether behavioral models neglect "being," or life, or consciousness. It may turn out that consciousness is a feature only of living things, in which case the model won't have it. I suppose that would not be an issue if "behavior" is defined exclusively as what is visible to the naked eye. Is this a good definition, though?

Whenever a question is raised about what something is, it is immediately rewritten as a question about how that thing behaves, so that we can get started modelling that bundle of behavior. — Srap Tasmaner

I'm curious to know which philosophers you have in mind (not on TPF!). I don't seem to run into this approach very often, in my reading.

Quine is averse to it because he thinks that it does have ontological import. But he's just plain wrong. Deluded, even. Frege and Russell had the same problem. — Arcane Sandwich

Well, I'm glad we've got that straightened out! :smile:

You might be interested in a recent thread on quantifier variance that tackles this question from number of perspectives.

Quine meant, I suppose, that ¬∃x P(x), where P is the predicate corresponding to "Pegasus". Is your question about whether predicates need to be understood as verbs, a la "Pegasize"? Or is it the larger question of whether ∃x itself is a type of predication?

I am no expert either, but I understood that in the Tractatus Wittgenstein was concerned to make a distinction between what can be propositionally claimed and what cannot. I think that for him a coherent proposition just is a proposition which is truth-apt.
— Janus

↪J

I wonder whether you have a response to this — Janus

Thanks for checking -- I was sort of assuming you were right. It makes it easier to get a grip on what Witt meant, anyway. Talking about objects being "expressible" doesn't seem on target. I think Witt wanted to say something about what can and can't be said, sensibly. I'm not sure whether, for him, "sensibly" means "using truth-apt propositions," but it seems plausible. And there's the whole self-reflexive question about demonstration versus expression -- when Witt says that certain things can't be said, does he go on to show this or give it propositional expression?

EDIT - I meant, "give propositional expression to the impossibility of something being said."

I agree about the table, and I'm glad you spelled it out, because that's why I added the proviso that the desired "inexpressible something" should be worth worrying about. A mere category mistake -- which is what I think you've described -- isn't what we want. Nevertheless, we could look at the table example and ask, "Is there something we can learn from the kind of explanation that's being offered for the table's inexpressibility?" I suspect so, but we'll need to find an adequate example first. @Banno may not think the passage from Witt is any use in generating such an example.

That's what I'm not sure about. I don't think I'm asking for the inexpressible itself (call it P) to be expressed; that would indeed be impossible. Rather, I want to know why P is inexpressible. Call that explanation Q. Does it really follow that, if P is inexpressible, Q must be as well? — J

So give an example of something that is inexpressible... — Banno

OK, the challenge is to come up with something that is both a) inexpressible, and b) whose inexpressibility can be explained. It also ought to be something worth worrying about, I would add.
How about starting from the quoted Witt passage?:

The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen

.

Would it follow from this that the sense of the world is inexpressible, because it lies outside the world? I know what Witt means, more or less: sense, values, interpretation, none of these things are items in the physical world, which is only a collection of happenings, probably accidental. We import these items. So the question is, in doing so have we rendered “the sense of the world” expressible, or is it still inexpressible?

This is just a preliminary question. If you think we can express the sense of the world in this fashion, then my example won’t serve.

Can I whistle it in French?

Q. How many Wittgensteinians does it take to change a light bulb? A. Shut up and screw!

Yeah, the high-C example has problems with equivocation on "expressible" -- we can express the fact that she cannot express the note. I'll see if I can come up with a better example . . . tomorrow. (And yes, I perceive the fiendish trap that awaits me as I try to somehow denominate or refer to what I also claim is inexpressible! :wink: )

No need to apologize. We all jump in as the spirit moves us. And sure, the passage you quote is very germane.