in natural language "assert" is normally taken to imply "assert to be true". — Ludwig V

Right, that was more or less my point. It's not a logical entailment or something that's true by definition. We have to agree on it.

No, I agree that I can't. So if I merely assert the sentence, without you and I stipulating what an assertion is going to mean, are you able to come to a conclusion about whether I think it's true, or only quite likely to be true?

I don't see how you could assert a sentence without thereby stipulating that you judge it to be true. Asserting the sentence counts as judging it to be true. — Banno

This might seem like nit-picking, but I think I could assert a sentence without also judging it to be true. I could merely mean, "Yes, I'm saying this, and it's most likely true -- close enough that I'm willing to assert it." That's why it's a further stipulation that, in some discourse, "to assert" is going to mean "judge to be true." Or, as you say, "counts as judging it to be true."

I realize you want us both to accept the perfectly reasonable definition of what it means to assert something. But that definition is somewhat stipulative, somewhat technical. In particular, it hinges on a particular force of "true" that I maintain is not always intended in everyday assertions, as in the example above. No doubt we should mean this, if we want to have good tight philosophical discussion, but that's a different story,

Does any of this matter? Not as long as we know what counts as judging to be true, in our talk.

I have more to say about your other questions about why there'd be any question about my other sample sentences, but that's for later.

But does this get us to "I judge that the cat is on the mat" or "I judge that it is true that the cat is on the mat"? Are these formulations also meant to say the same thing? How?
— J
Those two statements do not assert the same thing, in my book. The link between them only holds in a very special situation. — Ludwig V

See my reply to @Banno, above. Yes, the link is situational, but perhaps not so very special.

I don't see that this is not captured.

The cat is on the mat.
J judges that to be true
Banno judges that to be true. — Banno

I'm claiming that all three statements have different truth conditions. J and Banno may be "saying the same thing," but the statements are not.

If you assert "That sentence is true" you have also committed to "I judge that sentence to be true" on the grounds that to assert a sentence counts as to judge it to be true. This is not an entailment but a performance. — Banno

OK, this was my question. I agree, and the fact that you make a distinction between asserting the sentence and simply stating the proposition bears out my/our view. "That sentence is true," put forward abstractly in the semi-mysterious manner that propositions are supposed to be statable, doesn't commit anyone to judging it to be true. You need the further statement, "J asserts 'That sentence is true'" in order to do that.

By calling the connection between asserting and judging a "performance" rather than an entailment, some interesting questions surface. I agree that this is not an entailment relation. If we say it's a "counts as" relation, do we mean that it's in some sense arbitrary or stipulative? I think we should. I think we're saying that, among the many ways of using "assert" and "judge," we want to privilege this usage because it captures a relation that's important, and needs to be talked about precisely.

We're not saying that "to assert a sentence is / must be / means to judge it to be true." To say that would required consulting some reference work that lays out logical uses and/or definitions, and we've already said that this is not an entailment relation. All that's going on here is an attempt to capture a typical or standard usage: If I say "The cat is on the mat" and you ask me, do you think that's true, and I reply, "Yes, I do," then we agree that two things have happened. I've judged that the cat is on the mat, and I have asserted this in my statement about it. Could there be nuances and exceptions? Sure. Might other terms be substituted? Sure. But -- bringing in "counts as" again -- this is what generally applies in this sort of discourse.

I don't mean it in terms of expressing their personality, but there's a reason that thinker or researcher is there. . . . There's someone that has to do the interpreting and thinking. It's a creative process, rather than something read off the evidence. — Moliere

Yes, that makes sense to me.

that choice to pursue some line of thought or deeming some evidence as relevant to the topic at hand -- that takes interpretation, which in turn takes standards -- i.e. aesthetics. — Moliere

I was with you till the final word. Sometimes the standards purport to be more than, or different from, aesthetics, no? Plain old pragmatics, for instance. To say that all standards come down to aesthetics requires some justification.

Is that not so? — Banno

Yes. My question is whether "I judge that sentence to be true" ever follows from "That sentence is true"? If I assert the latter, have I also committed myself to asserting the former?

Alternately, after Davidson: aren't "the cat is on the mat" spoken by J and "the cat is on the mat" spoken by frank both true under the very same circumstances? That is, they are extensional equivalent - so what's the issue? — Banno

Right, this is tricky. The question is about "I judge that the cat is on the mat," spoken by each of us in turn. These are different assertions, you'll agree? The "I" in each case is different -- the person who is judging. They aren't extensionally equivalent, despite being phrased identically.

If P is false, then you are mistaken about what you thought. You aren't wrong about having thought it.

The cat definitely doesn't have to be on the mat in order for you to truly express what you think about it, either way. — frank

Good, that's how I see it as well.

How would you revisit it? — frank

Have you read "Thinking and Being" by Irad Kimhi? Or "Self-Consciousness and Objectivity" by Sebastain Rodl? I'd revisit it along their lines, difficult thought that is.

The emoji indicates that you know the answer is "everyone", right? — Srap Tasmaner

Yeah, I was kind of burlesquing the response some novices have -- "Oh, that's a great idea, let's look into it!" not realizing it has, to put it gently, occurred to others before.

The vocabulary around this is incredibly rich and therefore compicated and difficult to organize. I don't think that there are answers waiting in natural language - anything we do would be a specialized use of the terms. — Ludwig V

I'd still like to explore the natural-language usages a bit more, because some of them are fairly common and intuitive, and might teach us something. I bet @Banno knows who's already done this?

For instance, the idea "We're both saying the same thing" is easily grasped by a bright child. So what does that mean, when it comes up in typical contexts? How might it need to be modified in order to serve more rigorous philosophical purposes? Wonder if anyone's ever thought of that before! :lol:

Why would the truth of 2 be dependent on the truth of P? — frank

If P is not true, then the cat is not on the mat. So if I assert Q -- "I think that the cat is on the mat" -- some would allege that I am mistaken. But what am I mistaken about? Not my own thought, presumably. I must be wrong about the cat. This seems to show that the cat needs to be on the mat in order for me to speak truly when I say 2.

But I think all of this is wrong. The truth of 2 has nothing to do with whether P is true.

You're adding another layer to this. — frank

Precisely, following some of Rodl's concerns especially, about how to handle 1st-personal assertions.

I'm not really sure what you're saying though. — frank

That the use of intentional operators is conventional, and admits of different interpretations, especially around "I think". Or, more interestingly, our entire understanding of what a proposition is supposed to be -- as @Ludwig V suggests above -- is in need of revisiting.

If on the other hand, the quoted part is supposed to represent a proposition, then yes, it's definitely two different things. The proposition has all the context of utterance, truth conditions, etc. worked out. — frank

I think we have to let the quoted part represent a proposition; that was my intention, anyway. Though it may not matter, in this sense: If the quoted part is merely a speech act, an utterance, by prefacing it with "I assert" I have arguably turned it into a proposition.

But OK, you agree that the two assertions mean two different things. Now we go back to the question, "What's the problem with 1st- and 2nd-person assertions?"

1) I assert, "The cat is on the mat." - call the quoted material P.
2) I assert, "I think that my cat is on the mat." - call the quoted material Q.

1), "I assert P", is an assertion about a state of affairs that is independent of me, the speaker.

2), "I assert Q", is, or can be taken as, an assertion about me, the speaker -- specifically, about a thought I have concerning my cat.

But this seems to claim that the truth of 2) isn't dependent on the truth of P. The truth of P -- whether or not the cat is on the mat -- will have no bearing on whether the same speaker had a particular thought. This is a very uncomfortable position to defend.

What has gone wrong, if anything has, will be the result of how "think" is being interpreted in Q. We all know that a statement of the form "I think that . . . " can be used to describe a mental event, though we would more commonly say something like, "I have the thought that . . . " or "It's just occurred to me that . . . " In philosophy, though, "I think that . . . " is more often supposed to be transparent. It doesn't refer to some particular mental occurrence at all, but instead to a belief or a position about whatever is being thought: "Do you think so?" "Yes, I do." So "X" and "I think that X" are both taken as 3rd person propositions. Can this be right?

I won't get any deeper into this, because you only asked me where I saw the problem, and this should be a good enough explanation, I hope.

If there were ideas definite enough to be discredited (or not) put forward, Williamson wouldn't have written this paper. Since they refuse to get in the game, as he sees it, they have discredited not their ideas but themselves. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, and this comes too close for my liking to "flaw-based" resolution of a difficult issue. The anti-realists "refuse to get in the game" -- hmmm. What do they say about that? Would they accept that characterization?

The debate in turn centers on whether self-expression is a key element of art;
— J

Self-expression is a necessary element of philosophy. — Moliere

Interesting. I guess you're using "self-expression" in a very general way. A technical discussion of some point in modal logic, for instance -- you could say that Prof X, who holds one view, is "expressing himself" by doing so. But then what are we comparing self-expression to? What is not self-expressive?

We know how this would go, in an artistic discussion, too. Artists like T.S. Eliot and Stravinsky claimed to be doing the very opposite of expressing themselves -- they wanted to escape from self, and focus on the work, appealing to the much older idea of art as involving making a good thing rather than expressing anything about the maker. But many have replied, "And yet something of yourself is surely being expressed, otherwise how is your work so immediately recognizable as yours?"

This probably hinges on exactly what we want the concept of "expression" to cover. In English, I think we tend to associate expressivity with the personal, the psychological.

I don't think it makes sense to say that a statement makes an assertion. People make assertions. — frank

OK. Let me rephrase:

Compare
1) I assert, "The cat is on the mat."
2) I assert, "I think that my cat is on the mat."

Would you agree that these two assertions by me assert different things?

I'm talking about the confidence that a person's intention is knowable in principle. I think that's probably a priori. — frank

Ah, sorry, I was off track. Interesting. I guess I'd respond that we have the same confidence about this re some other person as we have re ourselves. So that leaves a couple of questions: How confident is that? and, Do you mean a priori to the given circumstances, or a priori in some more deeply metaphysical way? I doubt the latter; I think we learn to be confident just as we learn anything else.

Clarity is a necessary condition for arguments to matter, but clarity can only resolve a disagreement if that disagreement was actually a misunderstanding. — Srap Tasmaner

this is not what happened in the realism/antirealism argument. No solution was found, no one side was shown to be discredited. So was the argument pointless? I don't think so. . . . The turn was towards metametaphysics - and still is, I suspect. — Banno

This is a very good exchange. It shows that a protracted disagreement isn't simply left to rot, with a shrug of the shoulders, nor is it (we hope) dismissed by one side or the other as merely showing that their opponents aren't smart enough or whatever. Rather, it forces questions and new understandings at a different level. It produces insight, not resolution. This is peculiarly characteristic of philosophical inquiry -- that a lack of knowledge and consensus about some point can lead to what turns out to be a more interesting knowledge about another "frame-level" point.

No, we're actually in agreement here. The difficulty with posting is that it's hard to convey the tone of voice, or the fact that something is being proposed for consideration rather than asserted as true! I also think the Fregean conception is, if not a mess, at least deserving of hard questioning. The "contextless sense" of assertion has been critiqued, fairly recently, by both Kimhi and Rodl.

That said, I do think the "utterance/assertion" distinction is useful, as a place to start talking. After all, we need some way to acknowledge that something said by me at time T1, and something said by you at time T2, can assert the same thing, on one reasonable understanding of "assertion." As long as it's 3rd personal.

What's the problem with 1st and 2nd person assertions? — frank

Compare
1) The cat is on the mat.
2) I think that my cat is on the mat.

Would you agree that the two statements assert different things? If so, the problem is how to understand the context of 'The cat is on the mat', and its truth conditions, in some alleged independence of anyone's thought (or statement).

In a court room, the disposition of the defendant may depend on what a witness says, so we're very confident.
— frank

This sounds interesting but I don't quite follow. What is it we're confident about?
— J

That the content of an assertion is knowable in principle. I thought you were leaning toward skepticism about determining what a speaker means. — frank

OK, I see. No, my puzzlement is about how to understand what "assertion" refers to, not so much a skepticism about "meaning" in general.

So my answer to this question:

But is this confidence based on observation? On reason? Or is it apriori? How would you answer that? — frank

would be, "Some combination of observation and reason. Not a priori. Perhaps especially not in a courtroom, where a hermeneutics of suspicion is appropriate."

It's this idea that every assertion X(p) has to be a judgment. If I assert, in this special sense, "The cat is on the mat," I'm understood also to be asserting, "I judge that the cat is on the mat."
— J

Have you said more here than that to assert "the cat is on the mat" is to assert that "the cat is on the mat" is true? Not seeing it. — Banno

I'm trying to bring in the 1st person judgment. We can stipulate that we will use "assert" so as to mean that "The cat is on the mat" and "It is true that the cat is on the mat" assert the same thing. Indeed, this is very often how we use "assert." But does this get us to "I judge that the cat is on the mat" or "I judge that it is true that the cat is on the mat"? Are these formulations also meant to say the same thing? How?

But the meaning of an assertion is often, if not always, determined to a greater or lesser extent by the context. For example, whether "the cat" refers to Felix or Tiger or... is determined by the context. So is the reference of "the mat". Then what does the unity independent of the context of assertion amount to? — Ludwig V

Yes. I was using "we want to imagine" with a skeptical accent. Can we really imagine it? How much of formal logical structure depends on this imagining?

The implication is that every time I assert P, I am also asserting every logical consequence of P. I don't think that works at all. — Ludwig V

This is another way of showing the issue. In one sense of "assertion" -- the "contextless" one -- any statement asserted as true would carry with it all the logical consequences. But if "assertion" is understood as a perspectival, 1st-person activity, then no, just as you say.

At the same time, because you asserted it and I asserted it, there are clearly two assertions. It just depends on what criteria of identity you choose to apply. — Ludwig V

And perhaps a good way to talk about that is to distinguish between assertion and utterance. You and I have made two utterances of a single assertion, not two assertions. More in line with Fregean "thoughts".

That's to stipulate that we are playing by Frege's rules, keeping "the cat is on the mat" constant in order to look at "it is true that..." and "it is possible that...". We might alternately stipulate Wittgenstein's approach from PI, and look to the use of "the cat is on the mat" - a hedged assertion, or an expression of hope or fear, or a counter to someone's denial.

. . . .

It's just not the case that one and only one of these ways of talking must be the correct one in all circumstances. — Banno

Yes, good. My question was closer to Witt than Frege. As you've shown me, 1st-person assertion is a bit of an issue for Fregean logic. I was wondering how two individuals might separately use an assertion about the cat -- or the blanket.

They also want to say, it would seem, that there's no logical space between "You are cold" and "I judge you to be cold."
— J
There's clearly a logical space between the two. If the first is true, the second may be true or false. — Ludwig V

No, sorry if I wasn't clear. The issue is not that "You are cold" could be true, independent of whether I judge it to be the case -- I think that's the example you're describing. Rather, the issue is that if I assert "You are cold," I must also be asserting, "I judge that you are cold."

It's this idea that every assertion X(p) has to be a judgment. If I assert, in this special sense, "The cat is on the mat," I'm understood also to be asserting, "I judge that the cat is on the mat."

I agree with that, but I can logically separate him from the proposition he's asserting. — frank

Yes, hence the rather mysterious nature of a proposition. We want to imagine a proposition as independent of a context of assertion. That's why 1st- and 2nd-person assertions give so much trouble -- they can't have their indexicals paraphrased away (on some accounts).

In a court room, the disposition of the defendant may depend on what a witness says, so we're very confident. — frank

This sounds interesting but I don't quite follow. What is it we're confident about?

He might write ""The speaker holds true the sentence 'The cat is on the mat.'" This makes clear that the speaker is doing something with a sentence. — Banno

I feel a little foolish, but . . . does this construal allow for us also to say things like "The speaker suggests that 'The cat is on the mat' is likely to be true"? This, to me, isn't simply the same as saying "The speaker holds possible the sentence 'The cat is on the mat'." It's not just that the speaker is pointing out a possibility; they're also opining on a likelihood. I'm trying to work this back around to the ways we actually say things, which are so often in various grades of assertivity and certainty. The more I think about this, the more I appreciate the assertion-stroke!

Can someone relate it back to the theme? — Banno

We've gone off Williamson, sorry.

I judge someone to be cold and hand them a blanket, then I am asserting that they are cold; I cannot remove myself from my assertion, — sime

I agree, but if I also hand the guy a blanket, I'm making the same assertion you are: that he's cold.

My act of asserting can't be your act of asserting, but the proposition we're asserting is the same. — frank

This is the example I raised the assertion problem about.

Let's allow that handing someone a blanket counts as some kind of assertion; perhaps phrased as "You look cold to me."

But sime wants their blanket-assertion to mean something different: "I judge you to be cold." They also want to say, it would seem, that there's no logical space between "You are cold" and "I judge you to be cold."

Now if you also hand the guy a blanket, we really don't know what you're asserting. Is it more like the general version I was suggesting?: "You look cold to me." Or might you be claiming something stronger, like sime?: "You are cold" or "I judge you to be cold." Or some third thing, perhaps, "If I were you, I'd be feeling cold"? (Let's not even bother with examples like "I thought you might like to have a look at this blanket," or its infinite cousins. We'll assume both of you can read the (cold) room!)

Hence my question: Are you two really asserting the same proposition? You may be. But the concept of assertion is just too elastic for us to know for certain.

That's all the question amounted to. Nothing tricky, I hope, I just wondered whether, in this case, you saw some way in which an assertion is automatically pegged to the same thing both are "saying".

Are you pointing to the ambiguity that may be there with communication, especially nonverbal? — frank

Sort of. I'm pointing not simply to ambiguity about communication, but ambiguity about how we understand assertion. As you say, many philosophers want to nail this down, but doubts have been raised, I think rightly. We could have you and sime speak very precisely to the cold guy and there would still be issues about 1st-person assertions.

I don't think It's true that and it's possible that have the same meaning. — frank

Right. Can they both frame assertions? I would say so. Then is "the proposition we're asserting," in the blanket example, really the same? How would we state that proposition?

That's an especially interesting category [preference for the new] because I can see how it ties into the ideas of thinkers, too. — Moliere

And virtually the entire history of 20th century arts in the West! As I'm sure you know, the question of novelty or originality as an aesthetic value has been championed and then derided, back and forth. The debate in turn centers on whether self-expression is a key element of art; if so, then one ought to strive at least for a degree of originality. One wants to "sound like myself," and not some predecessor, however influential.

How far does this parallel philosophy? Great question. (My hesitant answer: Not very far. But that's my taste again.)

My act of asserting can't be your act of asserting, but the proposition we're asserting is the same. No ontological implications there, it's just how we understand assertions. — frank

Digging a little more deeply into that: Does this understanding of assertion commit you to including both "it is true that . . ." and "it seems quite possible that . . ." as assertions? If so, do they assert the same thing?

Why are you more drawn to particular philosophers, schools, styles, or problems?
They tend to focus on aporia which align with my own speculations or reflectively throw me into question. — 180 Proof

Yes, the theme of being drawn to inquiry or puzzlement as an aesthetic choice in phil. I resonate with that, especially if "aesthetic" is broad enough to include a desire to shape my own life through inquiry.

What if the aesthetic justifications we offer are such as they are on account of our culturally/ historically conditioned intuitions and preferences? — Janus

Yes. They're hardly ever otherwise. The OP question prompts us to ask, So what about that? Is this a mark against using our (conditioned) aesthetic criteria? Not universal enough? The discussion around that question might look very different from one that's similarly phrased, but concerns rational justifications that are called into doubt as culturally or historically relative. Here we're used to seeing an often acrimonious debate about whether "historical rational standards" is even coherent.

Got it, thanks.

But it is important to appreciate that it will never be the exact same sense, because the form of life or hinge making Moore’s assertion intelligible in the way that he means it is slowly morphing over time , but much more slowly than the empirical assertions and language games that it authorizes — Joshs

This is an interesting point, but I missed what follows from it. You go on to show how the duck-rabbit "game" is embedded in a host of other background conditions. And you draw attention to Witt's point that we don't apply a rule when we play this game. All fine, but what were you meaning to say about the slow changes that occur as a form of life "morphs along"? That the duck-rabbit game may eventually no longer be playable?

The dependency seems rather indirect — Pierre-Normand

I'm not completely convinced it's a dependency relation, but something in the neighborhood for sure, and I could be persuaded. Other than that, both you and @Leontiskos are drawing the right conclusion from Darwinism, seems to me. Surely Darwin would agree?

Thinking more about this, I guess everything I’ve said boils down to me being interested in what I find satisfying, not necessarily what I find beautiful. Is that an aesthetic judgment? — T Clark

Good question. Pretty sure the OP wants to encourage an expanded use of "aesthetics," so I'd say yes. And it's interesting again because to really reflect on your question about "satisfying," we have to step away from received or common meanings, and ask what it means for me to be satisfied by an idea or its presentation. Is it like "feeling good"? Not exactly . . .

It’s the ideas that matter. — T Clark

What I'm asking is if there's a reason you're attracted to this or that idea/author — Moliere

For some reason I keep reflecting back on this.

Partially it's because the concept of something "mattering" is nice and broad, and invites real reflection. It allows for the OP's questions about aesthetics to be introduced. It's also a reminder that what matters to me is probably not much constrained by "what ought to matter" -- if there is such a thing.

But I'm also thinking about an idea mattering. I take T Clark to mean, more or less, that they'll pursue a philosopher depending on whether the ideas are in some way intriguing or important. I certainly do the same. And yet . . . the ideas in almost any work of philosophy interest me, when viewed from the correct angle. If it's good philosophy, it's going to intrigue me, and most of my candidates for reading are good philosophers. So why this one rather than that one? Rorty used to say that he just didn't have an itch where some philosophers wanted to scratch. And vice versa, I suppose.

How this fits into an aesthetic appreciation, I'm not sure, but "an idea that matters to me" seems to be square in the middle of why I'll read the next book I'll read. Oh and I guess I should add: The more I'm familiar with some particular conversation around an issue, the more I'm likely to feel that the next contribution to that conversation will contain "ideas that matter."

But then he faces another challenge, to explain how come those truths that he doubted a little while ago are now seen as are irresistible. — Ludwig V

That challenge, he can handle, in the same way he restores certainty to all the items formerly doubted. More troubling is the "appeal to inattention," a curious defense. Does D have to say that he should not have doubted the "eternal truths"? Or that he should not have been inattentive to them? Does this amount to the same thing, if they're irresistible?

Is the duck-rabbit’s not being a lion is simply true, is it simply true in the same way as Moore’s declaration that ‘this is a hand’?
— @Joshs
I think the duck-rabbit's not being a lion is simply true. — Ludwig V

May I rephrase? Neither of you is debating some point of identity. The claim boils down to, "When I look at the duck-rabbit, it is not possible for me to see a lion." That, at any rate, would be the first-personal version. Should we expand it?: "It is not possible for anyone to see a lion." This all seems to depend on what sense of "possibility" you want to invoke. I guess we should ask Joshs, "Do you mean that we should acknowledge that someone, somewhere, could be taught to see a lion in the duck-rabbit?" If that's the idea, I agree; it is not strictly impossible. But I agree with Ludwig that this has little to do with metaphysics, unless the sort of "Continental-style" use of the word that Josh mentions is needed in order to imagine these uncanny lion-seers. That is, perhaps you need a whole different "inheritance from a community," not just an odd fact about what can be seen in the duck-rabbit.

What about "this is a/my hand"? (If we say "my," we arguably up the certainty factor.) There are two possible rephrasings here, I think: "1) It is not possible for me to not see this as my hand" and "2) It is not possible that this is not my hand." I think Ludwig, and maybe Moore, mean the first; my hand, when seen, has the property of self-evidence. Again, though, is it possible to imagine a tribe or culture in which "being a hand" was not an important thing to notice? In such a case, I suppose I could see my hand but not be sure that "this is a hand," because I don't know the concept.

As for the 2nd rephrasing, we enter semantical issues. Could what I believe is "my hand" be something else? Depends on what we want "my hand" to mean. If I include in "my hand" the idea of "flesh and blood part of my body, which is also flesh and blood, and to which I am related in the ways I believe I am," then sure, doubt is possible. Brains in vats, Matrix, et al. But if we simply mean (as Descartes does, when speaking about "thought" or "doubt") "this apparent experience of an object that I am having," then it's hard to see how this could be doubted by some other metaphysic or belief system. (allowing "object" as a neutral noun, for lack of a better one)

So, is there a difference between "not being able to see the lion" and "not being able to not-see my hand"? Does either one equal "simply true"? I'll keep mum.

Natural selection isn't a mechanism that renders teleological explanations otiose. It is rather a general mechanism that explains how the development of teleologically structured organisms is enabled by random mutations and selective pressures. — Pierre-Normand

I would underline this as the key point in the discussion: If it's true, which I think it is, then it allows us to say that "birds gather twigs in order to build a nest" is explanatory. The role of natural selection arises at a different level of description, having to do with how such bird-intentions wind up being chosen and facilitated. (And of course we mustn't read this as saying that a bird "knows what it's doing" under the same description we would use.)

Very interesting discussion, thanks.

Terrific questions, thank you. Also terrifying!

Just for a place to start: Yes, I have a sense of my own taste in philosophy, and I've noticed that it can change over the years.

Some things stay consistent, though. I appreciate good writing and have trouble with what I consider turgid prose, though this is not a very profound reason for choosing Philosopher X over Y. I also want the philosophy I read and practice to help me understand who I am. What that means continues to be an open question for me, but it unquestionably involves what you're calling aesthetics.

One more observation: I enjoy the philosophical activity of questioning, of finding good questions and understanding why they provoke me. I'm much less interested than I used to be in the possibility that true-or-false philosophical answers will turn up -- or perhaps I should say, T-or-F answers to good questions.

There's a ton more to say but I want to read what some others will respond.

what it is that explains that whatever physical state B the system happens to be caused to instantiate would be such as to subsequently lead to a state C that instantiates the relevant goal is the specific functional organization of the system — Pierre-Normand

Yes, very good. The indeterminacy doesn't carry over to the functional level, so to speak, where all As and Bs and Cs have the same function relative to that system.

I don't recall any commentary that takes on board his inclusion of mathematical truths in his methodical doubt.
Perhaps J could check Williams' book and see what he says? — Ludwig V

I think I have Williams' answer here.

He says that Descartes used the term "eternal truths" for what we might call the truths of mathematics, logic, or analyticity. Such truths have the characteristic of "irresistibility" -- once understood, they are seen as necessarily true. When Descartes begins his journey back from doubt, he finds that these eternal (analytic) truths are indeed clearly and distinctly seen to be true. So, Williams asks, how did Descartes overlook this fact previously? How was he able to apply methodical doubt to a series of propositions he now finds irresistible? I think this was your question as well.

Williams writes:

The Doubt got as far as it did only by a measure of inattention. Descartes suspended in the Doubt, managed not to believe, a number of propositions which he now acknowledges to be irresistible; so he cannot have been, at the time of doubting them, properly thinking of them. Descartes accepts this [Williams provides several references]. This gives us another sense in which the Doubt is a 'fiction', besides the now familiar point that it is the procedure of a Pure Enquirer: it also has to proceed by not totally attending, in some cases, to what it is doubting. So a proposition can be really irresistible, and yet there be times at which I can doubt it, namely if I do not think clearly enough about it. — Williams, 186-7

Hmm. What to make of this? It sounds like a flaw in the process of methodical doubt, though Williams doesn't go that far. Also, while he provides the references for Descartes' agreement to this construal, he doesn't quote from them. I think I will chase them down and find out what Descartes actually said. Presumably D himself didn't think this was a flaw, and I'd like to know why.

To be continued.

Extremely interesting reply, thank you.

Continentals, by contrast, have a zest for beginning with every conceivable question that can be asked about every conceivable aspect of the world — Joshs

This is what I would have called genetic priority, a statement about method, and it's very true. The ordering of ideas in Anglophone phil is usually pretty clear, and not every idea -- especially the perceived foundational ideas -- is questioned or even mentioned. Whereas with much Continental phil, there is this sense that what comes first, methodologically, really matters, and has been carefully examined. So again, I'm raising a brow at calling this "ontological priority" but so what, the insight is important under any name.

The result is that not a single word of the language can be simply taken for granted by way of a conventionalized meaning, and reading a work requires learning an entirely new vocabulary — Joshs

I hope we agree that the bolded phrases are exaggerated -- this is the kind of hyperbole that can be off-putting. I'm fine with saying that most key terms can't be taken for granted, and in reading this kind of phil we have to resist our impatience, our desire to settle for a familiar meaning. Are you OK with that?

the differences between writers like Heidegger and Deleuze on the one hand and writers like Williamson are more than just stylistic. They are also substantive. — Joshs

Definitely. I've been interested in the comments on this thread which focus on aesthetics, but I don't think that's whole story, and maybe not even the most important part, though it makes me eager to continue that discussion.

When one stumbles upon what one believes is an original way of looking at the world, there are many styles of expression one can adopt to convey these fresh insights. — Joshs

I like this way of putting it because it sidesteps the tendency you noted, of throwing shade on ways of doing phil that are either "too conventional" or "too obscure," depending on one's preferences. Questions will come up about the relative value of originality, and whether the insights are in fact insightful, but that ought to be considered within the discourse, not prejudged.

I am not well-read in Descartes, but I have the impression that he is looking for substantive or metaphysical proofs of existence, not merely stipulative semantic ones. — Janus

I agree. So the question is whether the "I" in "I think" can survive the change to "there is thinking going on," not semantically, but in terms of a demonstration of some actual entity called "the self" or "I". As I mentioned, Williams goes into a lot of detail on this and I don't have it all under my belt, but his main point boils down to claiming that "thinking is going on" can't be given content without some indexical, and that it would be perverse not to accept the most likely candidate, namely "I". He acknowledges that this doesn't provide much knowledge about the self -- but so does Descartes. In fact, Williams says:

The question whether there could be a replacement which fell short of 'A thinks' [that is, something impersonal we could use to replace 'cogito'] is not one that I shall pursue further. The point is that some concrete relativization [indexical] is needed, and even if it could fall short of requiring a subject who has the thoughts, it has to exist in the form of something outside pure thought itself. — Williams, 100

So that's possibly equivocal. I read him as mainly wanting to defeat the idea of an "impersonal formulation," not necessarily concluding that the Cartesian "I" is our only alternative.

Questions of interpretation don't have closure in the way that questions of information or even rationality sometimes do. — Ludwig V

Something like this would be part of my reply to @Janus as well. But as both of you have noted, we can construe "metaphysics" in a number of ways, any one of which will be more or less conducive to the "closure" question. So perhaps not a fruitful line of inquiry.

I don't know enough to argue about the finer points of 17th century French or Latin usage in 17th century France. Does he back his claim up? — Ludwig V

He quotes this, from the Principles:

"All forms of consciousness (modi cogitandi) that we experience can be brought down to two general kinds: one is cognition (perceptio), or the operation of the intellect; the other is volition, the operation of the will. Sensation, imagination, and pure intellection are just various forms of cognition; desire, aversion, assertion, denial, doubt, are various forms of volition."

and concludes that

For Descartes, a cogitatio or a pensee is any sort of conscious state or activity whatsoever; it can as well be a sensation (at least in its purely psychological aspect) or an act of will, as a judgment or a belief or intellectual questioning. — Williams, 78

To give the most charitable hearing to Descartes' project, I think we ought to agree that this is what he meant. Consider a memory -- say, of the Brooklyn Bridge. When it comes to mind, do we say that I have "thought" the Brooklyn Bridge? Not really; in English, that's awkward. But such an example would surely serve for Descartes' point -- if I can have such an experience, I must exist. Whether we call it an English "thought" or a French "pensee" or simply a mental event doesn't really affect the point.

When you say “actual questions of right and wrong” are you thinking of judgements justified by rational thought and violating them would be irrational? — Mark S

Good question. No, I wasn't wanting to bring rationality into it at this point. The comparison I'm inviting between "actual" and "descriptive" would be this: An actual question of right and wrong would not reduce to its description. And I admit that "actual" is probably tendentious; perhaps I should have said "traditional." In other words, traditional moral talk asks whether X is "really" good or "really" right. It doesn't explain those terms by describing them in some other terms. Whereas descriptive moral talk does just that. It proposes that the only "real" thing going on here is an evolutionary strategy that helps humans survive. X may be characterized in those terms, and it may be pointed out that X is therefore also, traditionally, considered a "moral" behavior, but "moral" is always in quotes, because it is a description, not a conceptual analysis.

I can add that Joe is morally “wrong” to violate what is inherently moral in our universe . . . However, I cannot say that his choice is irrational. — Mark S

Again, I agree about the rationality question, and I wouldn't confront Joe on those terms. True, if we're going to say anything to him, we'd probably propose some reasons or arguments why he should prefer the inherently moral in our universe. But that can be done without claiming he's irrational to disagree. My question is, Are there any such arguments, given your thesis? It sounds like you agree that there are not.

Could Joe’s rationality or irrationality when he acts’ immorally’ be a distinguishing characteristic (along with moral ‘means’ vs moral ‘ends”) between the two kinds of ‘morality’ under consideration: Cooperation Morality and traditional moral philosophy’s moral systems? — Mark S

I don't think so, as above.

When uncertain, we'll try to discover which choice will most advance cooperation." — J

If I understand your OP question, this is a good result, or at least good enough. For my part, I think it leaves a lot of unanswered questions about what ethical choice is, largely because I'm a semi-demi-Kantian about ethics and I don't think we can leave anyone out -- it has to be universalizable. So if we can't earn Ornery Joe's assent, we haven't set the problem up correctly.

A whole other thread!