But I can't say more. :wink: — Banno

Good joke, and just to be clear: We can say more, using language in all of its delightful manifestations, we just can't say more in rational discourse, with the apparatus of a formal system. Notice I'm trying not to equate "rational discourse" -- or anything else -- with "philosophy", full stop. @Wayfarer and others are right that philosophy as a practice has meant many things over the centuries.

Brilliant post. — Banno

Thanks but isn't it just how we talk? I wasn't feeling particularly insightful when I wrote it, only trying to clarify that an assertion generally has to be marked out as such, to avoid ambiguities.

Which is the same as saying that the program was written incorrectly and/or is handling input that is was not designed to handle.
— @Harry Hindu
Or, perhaps, the solution is not algorithmic. — Banno

That was the "radical reconsideration" I had in mind.

I think it's monolithic in that it's a philosophy that swallows all philosophies, and one need only spend time studying Hegel to see the truth of that. In a way one cannot disagree with it -- they can only misunderstand it. — Moliere

The closure we're talking about is methodological. — Banno

Both these comments are trying to come to grips with the question of what sorts of objections are seen as legitimate by a philosophical method. I think you're right about the formal, methodological closure, and @Moliere is also putting their finger on a characteristic of "big" philosophies such as Hegel's: The appeal is to a kind of linguistic or conceptual closure. It's not that the system is unfalsifiable -- though it may be -- but that it's uninterpretable in any way other than as laid out. Certain foundational questions or objections are necessarily misunderstandings -- on the grounds that there is only one way to understand what's being said.

Here's another way we could think about it: When Peirce and Habermas talk about the ideal forms of communication -- communicative action, the best ways to carry on a public conversation -- they seem to have in mind that there is an endpoint, or at the very least that there could be, but we do not now know what that will look like, nor could we possibly. In other words, what I'm calling "armchair philosophy" is an inadequate method. Whereas someone like Lonergan, who is a brilliant and under-appreciated thinker, seems to picture something different: Conversation is a forum to answer and refute objections, because the endpoint is already clear. I read him as saying that philosophical conversation should involve principles already known to be true, and that we can benefit from sharpening and expanding these principles by hearing the objections of others and responding. On this point, I think Peirce and Habermas have the more justifiable and more reliable method.

Mathematics is not closed to contradiction, to criticism, to what is contrary to it. — Banno

That is true, but I was using the math example to show how a deductive system may not permit different "correct" answers within that system. Probably I shouldn't natter about math, as it isn't my forte, but isn't that more or less right? If we're doing algebra, solving an equation isn't open to the "objection" that there might be another correct solution. And stretching a point, you can even call this authoritarian: If you say otherwise on a test, the teacher will flunk you! But there's nothing pernicious about any of this. It comes with the territory of an accepted formal system. The problems arise when we start to treat philosophy as such a deductive system.

OK, I see where you're coming from. Most of philosophy, in that sense, isn't very useful, I agree.

Yes, this can get complicated and nit-picky very quickly, and I doubt that we really disagree about assertions. What I'm claiming is that it takes more than "saying" something to make an assertion.

To assert X is to claim that X is true -- I imagine you agree with this, and so do I. But life, and language, has many shades of meaning, and we don't always draw such a clear line. I might say, "That man over there is my old roommate." But if you ask me, "Are you asserting this?" or "Are you saying this is true?" you shouldn't be surprised if I pause for a moment and then reply, "Well, not quite. I think it's true, it appears to be true, but I'm not 'asserting' it as if I were under oath."

Point is, we need to stipulate what counts as an assertion. That's why I was focusing on "To say 'p' is to say 'p is true'." I don't think that's right, but it is right that "To assert 'p', and make clear one is doing so, is to say 'p is true'."

Define "useful". — Harry Hindu

In this context, I meant philosophically helpful or provocative -- something worth our time to understand. Is there a way you prefer to think of it? -- I'm certainly not married to this one.

Your edit of my post isn't what I intended to say.

anything = everything about every X — Harry Hindu

Oh sorry, didn't mean to misconstrue. As for "everything about every X", I guess I don't know what to say about that!

If understanding is the first step, can you say you have successfully completed the first step if your questions that would help you understand are not answered (they get defensive by the simply fact that you are questioning anything they say)? — Harry Hindu

Fair enough. My nice division into steps is oversimplistic.

A possible outcome - yes. A useful outcome - no. — Harry Hindu

I dunno, the aporetic dialogues of Plato seem quite useful. But we may be saying the same thing -- that aporia is an invitation to reconsider. My idea is that the reconsidering is a lot more radical than looking for a "bug" in the logic, because I think aporia is often a sign that we've set the whole problem up incorrectly.

If you have reached the conclusion that we don't know anything [about X] - doesn't that constitute knowledge? — Harry Hindu

Yes, but not about X. So no contradiction, I'd say.

There is arguably logical convertability as well. To say "a man is standing," is to say "it is true that a man is standing," (assertoric force), which is also to say "one man is standing" (unity) — Count Timothy von Icarus

What we've seen in the threads about Frege, Kimhi, and Rodl is that we can't rest content with this formulation. Consider what you just "said": "a man is standing". Did you also say "it is true that a man is standing"? I certainly didn't take you to be saying that. If I were to reply to your statement by asking you, "Is it true that a man is standing?" you would be puzzled, because you intended no assertion. You would try to explain the difference between use and mention, quite rightly. And yet you said what you said.

Moral: There is no one thing called "saying", which carries with it certain corollaries (such as assertion). A statement can be used or mentioned. It can be performed in a play or suggested as a possibility. It's the same insight we find in Rodl about "p" -- we want to think of "p" as innocent, just a sort of placeholder whose meaning is obvious, but it isn't. What we choose to allow "p" to stand for makes a difference in what we can go on to say.

the idea that wisdom might transcend discursive articulation isn’t foreign to philosophy — it runs through Plato, Plotinus, and arguably into Wittgenstein himself. It’s also central to Eastern philosophy, where sometimes silence becomes the highest form of answer, akin to 'see for yourself!' — Wayfarer

Yes, and we shouldn't find this surprising or confusing. What philosophy can talk about is not the same thing as what philosophy can mention or acknowledge. That would be like saying that, because cell biology isn't a philosophical topic, it somehow fails to be legitimate. I can say that philosophy has shown me that there may be realms of experience beyond the discursive. That's not to claim that philosophy has talked about them. It's the old image of philosophy as pointing to a door you must open by other means.

The whole architecture is authoritarian in form. That style of philosophising is structured to preclude objection. — Banno

There's a lot of truth in this, but I want to dwell on why it appears this way. Let's take math. Is math authoritarian? Is it structured to preclude objection? Well, yes, if by "objection" we mean an alternative correct answer in a given math language. Math is deductive, apodictic -- in some grand sense, if we could really understand numbers, we could have predicted the Mandelbrot set. Even incompleteness was "there from the beginning," from this perspective.

Now let's take music. Is musical creativity authoritarian? Does it preclude objection? I admit it's not clear just what that might mean, but something like: Is there a right and a wrong way to write music, are some musics intrinsically beautiful, apart from context, and others not? etc. Surely not, because creative work is not deductive. You can't start from some axioms and work out what's going to be great music. My "objection" to Haydn might be to write like Bartok. But that doesn't make Haydn wrong. This whole terminology is a misfit.

OK, so where does philosophy fit between these two extremes? If one thinks of philosophy as a deductive system, beginning from something like axioms or first principles, then you get what I call "armchair philosophy" -- it appears one could just sit and think, and with rigor and persistence discover all the correct answers. So, is such a philosophy authoritarian? That's a bit strong, but it rather depends on how the first principles are justified. If there is some literal appeal to authority, then yes, philosophizing in this way can be quite uncompromising. Moreover, if the principles contain moral elements, this will collapse the idea of "being wrong" as mistaken and "being wrong" as immoral, definitely an authoritarian move.

Is this kind of philosophy structured to preclude objection? Not in the sense that it may not welcome questions and critique. But it takes "objection" to mean "something that can be overcome by the system," not "something that casts legitimate doubt on the system itself." That kind of objection is presumably ruled out in principle. This is because, as you say, "Every disagreement is downgraded to a misunderstanding of the system." Or if this is not the case, we need a clear explanation of what could make a closed deductive system revisable -- perhaps internal inconsistency?

To me, one of the most interesting questions is, "If you have a longstanding and vigorous commitment to some philosophical method, what would it take to change your mind about it?" Needless to say, this question applies to analytic philosophers just as much as Kierkegaardians or whoever. But I do think that deductive, foundationalist philosophies run a higher risk of being trapped in a method that, for structural reasons, cannot see a different viewpoint as anything other than a deductive mistake or misunderstanding.

So I guess it is a philosophical question!

If we're not careful, this is going to turn into a wrangle about the correct definition of "philosophy." NOOOooooo! :groan:

I would rather say we should try to interpret people as they themselves do, but trying to save their ideas from their own interpretation is also a great philosophical art. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's plenty good enough for me. So what we'd like to see a lot less of, both on TPF and in general, is the sort of interpretation -- if I can even call it that -- that recasts someone's view as "but what you're saying really comes down to . . ." or "but that's the same as ___ [fill in label of disliked philosophy]" and then draws a very negative and unintended conclusion. Such an approach is the opposite of "saving an idea from their own [poor] interpretation"; it actually strives for that poor interpretation and then insists that the speaker now must interpret it that way too.

There is an irony here in that many of the "great names" do this to each other. Nietzsche is obviously offender #1, — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, I see what you mean, except . . . I really did mean "the barest glimpse," i.e., people who've read a little bit of K or A or W in a class and feel themselves to be experts. Nietzsche acquitted himself rather better than that, wouldn't you say?

(I especially enjoyed his critique of Wittgenstein. :wink: )

[miserable truth-seeker as opposed to having chosen a more joyous path] Which sort of person is more wise is the question. — Hanover

And a very good one. Now suppose I ask, "What kind of question is that?" I'm genuinely interested in your answer; for what it's worth, mine is, "It's a philosophical question" -- that is, one that falls within philosophy to answer if it can.

The issue I have experienced is that in trying to understand the other's position you find that the person doesn't appear to understand it themselves because they haven't bothered questioning it themselves (reflection). — Harry Hindu

Sure, and that's why a charitable reading can be important. You can help make the position clearer and more compelling! (And maybe start by discarding the assumption that the person "hasn't bothered questioning it themselves." Perhaps they've done so to the best of their ability.)

When I show the discrepancies it is ignored — Harry Hindu

Well, showing discrepancies, that's step two, which requires a whole new mindset, I've found. Quite often, if I start by indicating that I do have some understanding of the position, and can see some value or importance, and then describe the discrepancies I also see, it's received more openly. Or not, of course! -- people get defensive.

I'm asking a question you should be asking yourself about your own position if you reflect honestly upon your own position. — Harry Hindu

Is the "you" here the "British 'one'" -- that is, "one should be asking oneself . . ." etc. -- or do you mean "you" as in me, specifically the position about understanding another's position that I was sketching?

If the conclusion you have reached is aporetic then you've made a wrong turn somewhere in your thinking and would need to reflect. — Harry Hindu

Say more about this? I'm not understanding yet why aporia wouldn't be a possible outcome for a philosophical inquiry.

Interestingly, this approach provides a theory that is consistent at the cost of not assigning a truth value to every sentence. — Banno

I hadn't thought about the Tarksi/Kripke angle. The "cost," when it comes to a philosophical Theory of Everything, may be something very much like this. Not every sentence can be given a truth-value, though such sentences may be needed for consistency. At the least, do we know that a truth-value in a metalanguage -- say, my "different level" in which we'd give an account of explanation -- has to be constructed differently from one within the target language? Logicians invited to weigh in here.

Can I draw your attention to how these posts are now about evaluating what we do so that we can improve? and not just that, but what it is to become better?

I like how this is panning out. — Banno

Indeed. Sometimes opening a meta-discourse such as your OP will draw people into a frame of reference that's fresher than their usual ones -- or at least that's how I experience it.

(Incidentally, from what very little I know, Richard Bernstein was not one of those who neglected [praxis, in favor of theoria]. — Wayfarer

Right. He was kind of a genius at theoretical thinking, but his background in the Frankfurt School and Aristotle never deserted him. The majority of his books turn at some point to the question of praxis, asking what philosophy, and philosophers, are doing. What is the good that we hope to accomplish? This was also why he was such great friends with Habermas, I think.

Explanation has to be on a different level than the thing it explains. Always leaving the explanation itself lacking an explanation. — Fire Ologist

Well, it leaves it lacking for the time being, within the target level. I didn't mean to imply that there might not be satisfactory, non-circular resolutions of this. @Banno has some ideas about that, above. There is also the idea that some version of "explanation" may be non-discursive, non-rational, a kind of showing or demonstration.

You really don't have a right to an opinion until you're sure you've achieved the most charitable, satisfying reading possible.
— J
I'm very sympathetic to that idea. But I don't see how one could ever be sure that one has achieved the goal and even less sure that every idea deserves the same charity. — Ludwig V

Yes, as I replied to Banno above. Maybe amend the Bernsteinian credo to "the most charitable, satisfying reading possible for you, as best you can tell." We'll never get it exactly right; we just want the good habit, the good intention.

I appreciate the Richard Bernstein account. Trouble is, there are limits on our resources. — Banno

Yes, and consider the context: He was speaking to students, young minds, and urging us to develop good habits, not necessarily to practice this kind of thoroughness on every conceivable occasion.

There are views that look to be not worth the effort. And we have to make judgements as to where we start our efforts and what to look at in detail. — Banno

Especially if such views aren't those of a historically important or well-regarded philosopher, but just some folks like us on TPF. So, often the best alternative for me is to not get involved. But if I do want to respond (and again, I wish I lived up to this as well as I should), there's really no excuse for not doing my best to construct that charitable account first.

I think too that Bernstein had in mind an approach to take with major philosophers. It's one thing to slight someone's opinion -- perhaps for good reason -- in a dorm-room bull session, and quite another to get the barest glimpse of Kant or Aristotle or Wittgenstein and then believe you're in a position to refute some key point. This is especially egregious when the refutation is scornful, implying that K or A or W must have been really unintelligent because you have shown them to be wrong! Such arrogance.

Glad you liked it. And a thorough understanding of a difficult position you're pretty sure you won't end up agreeing with is really hard! But if you don't try for it, you're just creating little straw figures in your head to call "wrong" -- or worse, to file away under convenient labels ("modern," "religious", et al.) so as to avoid doing the hard work of thinking through another person's mind.

a theory that explains, for anything that is the case, why it is the case, can't by that very fact take anything as granted - to do so would be not to offer an explanation. — Banno

Your OP has already generated a lot of the good discussion it so richly deserves. I'll chime in on two points. The first relates to the quote above. A Theory Of Everything, in philosophy, would naturally have to include a theory of explanation itself -- what counts as explanatory, how explanations do in fact make sense of things, how we recognize an adequate justification, and much more. So to avoid circularity, a TOE will have to provide this account on a different level than the theory-internal explanations of other things. One of my main difficulties with this kind of grand theorizing is that not enough attention is devoted to recognizing this problem and giving a straightforward account of the necessary postulates or intuitions for explanation. And you can't just name them: Such an account must include the reasons why these postulates or intuitions are free from interpretation by the theory itself -- no easy task.

The second point concerns the discourse vs. dissection idea, which is a very helpful way to think about phil. It overlaps with the idea that philosophy is about some kind of wisdom or understanding. I got to take a class once with Richard Bernstein, and I remember his credo, which was something like this: "You have to restrain your desire to respond and refute until you've thoroughly understood the philosopher or the position you're addressing. [And boy did he mean "thoroughly"!]. You really don't have a right to an opinion until you're sure you've achieved the most charitable, satisfying reading possible. Otherwise it's just a game of who can make the cleverer arguments." I forget this constantly, as we all do, but I still hold it as ideal. You can't start being wise until you first understand. And yes, quite often the wisdom is aporetic, but that should teach us something about the nature of philosophy, not make us look forward to some glorious day when all the questions will be answered correctly, as demonstrated by superior argumentative skill.

Well done! I'm looking forward to responding soon . . .

But I could say, “You should have seen the weather where I grew up” or concede partly “I must still be warm from inside.” — Antony Nickles

Yet more subtleties, but you're right to bring them up. The first response cashes out to "I call this warm, because I'm comparing it to some even colder place." The second response says, "I feel warm despite the temperature, so the reason must be . . . " Both responses propose ways not to be wrong when saying "It's warm out" -- but do they succeed? I think not, because "It's warm out" is taken to be a (more or less) factual description, not a report of how I use words or how I feel.

Also, interestingly, I could make either of the above responses and deny that I believe it's warm out. I could say, for instance, "Yes, I understand that it isn't actually warm, this is just some info about why I use 'warm' differently and/or how I'm feeling right now. If you press me, I don't believe it's objectively warm out; I understand that such a belief isn't consistent with the temp being 0 degrees."

Maybe it takes more, better example of when belief absolutely flies in the face of facts, because it is contingent on me, thus the desire to either discount it, or create something to fix it internally, like “emotion”. — Antony Nickles

I don't understand this exactly. Say more?

Perhaps here we agree that the thermometer reads 0℃ and yet differ as to the appropriate response? — Banno

Another, similar way of saying the above. We concede the fact of the matter but notice that different responses might make sense for different people.

Do we then have agreement as to the facts, but not as to what to do about them? — Banno

Well, I wouldn't have said "what to do about them," but I think I see what you mean. We differ on what to say about them, perhaps, and certainly on what they feel like.

Do we (not you and me, but the two people discussing the temperature) agree or differ, though, on whether it's actually possible to believe it's warm out? I want to say that agreement as to the facts means such a belief is impossible for either of them. But again, that raises the familiar issue of whether one can be said to believe something one knows isn't true.

Even if you point to the fact it is below freezing, I may still hold to my belief (impression, perspective, position). Would we then call that wrong? lacking evidence? unreasonable? irrational? — Antony Nickles

Ordinarily, just talking, I think we would use the word "wrong": "No, you're wrong, it's freezing out!" I hear you asking what, exactly, is being called wrong in such a case. I am wrong on the facts, no doubt of that: "warm" can't mean "freezing." But am I also being told that my belief is wrong? That I am wrong to believe what is not true? Perhaps I'm being told that I can't really believe it's warm out, given the temperature?

I think all these are possibilities, and I don't have a strong intuition about whether there is one correct usage here. It seems to depend on what the interlocutor assumes I do or don't know: If he assumes I don't know it's freezing out, then he probably thinks I've just made a mistake. If he assumes I do know, but maintain my belief anyway, then "wrong" starts to be replaced with either "crazy" or "lying about what I believe, for some reason". Background assumption: I can't believe something I also acknowledge isn't true.

I don't find the view you're sketching here to be absurd, or impossible, or even implausible. It may even be the case that we don't significantly disagree, because, as so often happens at this level of theorizing, we're likely giving different interpretations to certain terms.

Going carefully into that would require a paper, not a post. I'll just give one example of what I mean.

Rather, isn't it the case that our particular needs and capacities as humans allow us to perceive and group items in the world according to categories like "discrete" and "solid"? — J

Yes. That does not mean they do not exist otherwise. — AmadeusD

But I do think they exist otherwise. So what would lead to you believe I don't? Here, it looks like you want to equate what I'm calling "items in the world" with "things that exist." How should we think, then, of an item? In my way of talking, there is a description of such items that we can give, while allowing the possibility that the item could still exist under another description. In your way of talking, that isn't possible. You seem to be saying that for the item not to be described in a certain way would mean it "does not exist otherwise" -- that is, that is ceases to be an existent thing at all. Whereas I'm saying that there is a way of existing that doesn't require our usual terminology.

So we're differing about what to quantify over, I'd say.

shared intentionality and cognition first. . . . — Srap Tasmaner

Good, and your experience with your granddaughter illustrates it beautifully.

The private language argument shows the incoherence of a language that in principle cannot be shared. It remains that something – a reference – may be in fact unshared yet not unsharable. — Banno

That's where I come out too -- "private language" is a bizarre if useful thought experiment, whereas a reference may be private or not, depending. As you say, it's the difference between something that in principle would have to be unsharable, and something that just happens not to be shared.

that feeling is not evidence of the occurrence of “understanding” somewhere in us, — Antony Nickles

Right. One interesting feature of the aha! experience is how strongly it causes us to believe we have understood. I'm guessing this is because, taken all in all, it is usually a good predictor of actually having understood. In my own case, I'd estimate that the times it has led me astray are perhaps 1 out of 10. (Naturally, my aptitude varies enormously depending on the subject!)

"The occurrence of 'understanding' somewhere in us . . ." That can't be right, of course, but the difficulty we have giving a satisfactory explanation of what's actually going on shouldn't blind us to the fact that it is our experience, it is something we do.

The assertion would technically be “I know that there are bacteria on my left shoe.” — Antony Nickles

Must it be? I'd call that a higher "certainty quotient" than just "There are bacteria on my left shoe." Do you think an assertion must claim knowledge? The difference I'm pointing to would be shown by two different answers: Are there bacteria on your left shoe? "Yes." Do you know there are bacteria on your left shoe? "Not strictly speaking, not certainly. I think so, I believe so, it seems very likely to me. That's why I said they were on my left shoe."

Maybe we should say that a simple claim like "There are bacteria on my left shoe" is capable of multiple interpretations, ranging from "I believe so" to "I damn well know it," depending on context.

Honestly I think I'm inclined to push this sort of inside-out approach just because so much of our tradition presumes the opposite. — Srap Tasmaner

And that is by and large a good idea, which I appreciate. We don't want to be taking words like "private" or "mental" to imply some lonely kingdom we inhabit and populate by ourselves, as if it (and we) were something new on the Earth. That never happens.

What is the response then? Things aren't as they are? Things are as they aren't? — Count Timothy von Icarus

"Things are as they are to us."

. . . . should not lead us to conclude that the rock is not actual (existing as it is) prior to our knowing it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The idea is that "the rock" is a construct, a very useful and non-arbitrary and important one for us. But for all we know, God doesn't see it that way at all; perhaps God sees an astonishing interplay of quantum phenomena.

As you say yourself: "this doesn't mean we make them up or that they could be any which way." Yet what determines interpretations? Something must first be something determinant before it can determine anything else in any determinant way. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's fine. But that "something" may not much resemble what we call a rock. See above -- God and quantum beauty. Do you really believe you know "what things are"? Everything I manage to learn about physics shows me that the physicists themselves are no longer able to use such a concept, and remain baffled and fascinated about the ultimate structures, if any, of reality.

That is, crude relativism would assert this without apparently noticing that it's contradictory.

Or they just don't mind contradiction. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's why I call it "crude relativism," somewhat derisively, and contrast it with a relativism worth reading and thinking about. Yes, I suppose there are thinkers who don't mind contradiction, but if you've read any actual relativists, and especially people like Gadamer and Habermas and Bernstein who try find interpretive middle ground between totalizing critique and unworkable foundationalism, you see that the issue of contradiction is very much on their minds. The idea that relativism -- one of the most influential philosophical positions of the previous century -- was espoused by philosophers who "don't mind contradiction," just doesn't stand up under even a cursory reading of their work.

Wittgenstein's thesis about hinge propositions . . . — Count Timothy von Icarus

I've just been following along in that discussion. I don't know enough firsthand about what Witt says on that subject to be entitled to an opinion.

we only have something we call "reference", the thing that we do with referring expressions like names and descriptions, so that we can talk about things with other people. — Srap Tasmaner

Our posts just crossed! So, as to this: That's what I'm questioning. Why couldn't it be true that we need reference equally to talk to ourselves? I'm not even sure that your version would be true as a genetic account -- who knows which came first, private naming or public discourse, or whether they were simultaneous?

It depends on how one is defining "refer" and "language". Is referring and language the same thing, or can you have one without the other? — Harry Hindu

I think this highlights the question we're discussing. I'm just thinking this through myself, but there has to be a difference between "private language" and "private reference," doesn't there? As frank says, we don't need a private language to refer privately. We can use the community language we all know. That's not what's private about private reference -- rather, I'm arguing that it's the independence from "triangulation" or the need to have a listener comprehend the speaker's reference. I read Srap as talking about language, not reference, and if that's so, then what Srap says is clearly true: Robinson Crusoe needs to have inherited and practiced a non-private language before he can make up any designations for the flotsam that washes up on his beach. But once he does that, why would we deny that he's referring to said flotsam when he thinks about it, or perhaps makes a list of tasks?

whatever it is I'm doing, privately, is not an example of referring.
— J

I just don't think that follows from anything. — Srap Tasmaner

That's certainly how it seems to me, and for the same reasons you cite, but I want to understand why @Banno might think otherwise.

Say you were the only person in the world. Why would you even consider drawing scribbles to refer to other things that are not scribbles? Well, maybe you might want to keep track of time, like how many days passed since the last rain, or when the deer migrate, etc. — Harry Hindu

Same point. Surely Robinson Crusoe did some private referring! But again, let's hear more about the "no private reference" case. I do think it's crucially different from "no private language," which may be where Banno is coming from.

“Everything is relative. There’s no true or false. There’s no right and wrong.”
“But I don’t agree with that.”
“Then you’re wrong!”

In an earlier thread, I called this an example of "crude relativism," and said that I didn't think anyone who was familiar with philosophical inquiry could take it seriously. The relativist is obviously contradicting themselves.

I'm wondering whether this is the same position you're alluding to when you say:

Even saying “there is no one truth for all” is a truth for all. — Fire Ologist

That is, crude relativism would assert this without apparently noticing that it's contradictory.

Tell me what you think about this. Could this really be what relativism comes down to?

Things are as they are, and our existence only changes that insofar as our existence includes considerations of truth. — AmadeusD

I think it's a little more radical than that. Consider any physical object - the ever-useful rock example, let's say. But now wait a minute . . . what makes it a solid object for us? Is being the discrete, solid thing that it appears to us to be a feature of "things as they are", which we have only to note and make true statements about?

Rather, isn't it the case that our particular needs and capacities as humans allow us to perceive and group items in the world according to categories like "discrete" and "solid"? This has nothing to do with whether they "really are" this or that. Now I'm not a proponent of anti-realism. For our purposes, certainly they are, and atoms are real, etc etc. My point is that we don't approach the world as a collection of neutral phenomena which hold still for us as we go on to discover what is true about them. We have a large role to play in constituting the phenomena we then say true things about. Again, this doesn't mean we make them up or that they could be any which way, or that the things we say aren't true. It means that "things as they are" should probably be reserved for a particular reductive conception of physics, and even there viewed with some doubt.

Also, if you wanted to confine "things as they are" to terms of intersubjectivity, that would work well for me. It might capture your idea, which I agree with, that the rock is going to appear discrete and solid to any normal human, and it would have this appearance even if, per impossibile, there could be an appearance with no one to appear to.

What other “types of understanding” don’t fit this? — Antony Nickles

I'm able to distinguish, in my own mental experience, a type of (purported) understanding that is best pictured as "the light bulb going on." It doesn't involve words at all. I was contrasting this with the subsequent possible performances that would attempt to demonstrate this understanding -- and in the course of which I might discover that the understanding was indeed only purported.

It's crucial that we see this "mental experience" type of understanding as not being criterial for understanding, since I may be wrong. The light bulb may be functioning faultily. Indeed, if you wanted to call the experience by a different name that doesn't invoke "understanding" at all, that's fine. We could just call it "the light bulb experience." But I do insist that the experience occurs, under whatever description, and that it isn't the same thing as talking (to myself or others) about what I believe I've understood.

Well, a cognitive neuroscientist is happy to talk about conscious and unconscious contents. The word consciousness refers to both. — I like sushi

Yes, but Witt's point, if I'm understanding him, is that we're looking in the wrong place if we look for the location of beliefs in the unconscious. He wants us to break away from the whole idea that a belief refers to a mental content. In the case of background beliefs, I think this is right. That's part of why we're so puzzled about how to talk about all this, as Banno points out:

But it seems equally odd to call such a belief a disposition. A disposition to do what? To confirm certain statements about shoe bacteria? — Banno

maybe it is that we are disposed to fulfill the requirements (criteria) associated with what we believe (or claim to) — Antony Nickles

I can't do any better than that either. Or maybe just say that "I believe there are bacteria on my left shoe" is simply the assertion, "There are bacteria on my left shoe." An assertion is no more certain than a belief, so degrees of certainty wouldn't be an issue. "I believe" = "I assert that" seems to work for this kind of belief, but not all.

Going back over this, it seems to me that the reference is now fixed by the indexical, "the man over there", and not by the description "He has champagne in his glass". — Banno

I think it's yet a third thing: The reference is fixed by the description "the man about whom I say . . ."

This is interesting, thanks. My question to @Banno focused on something a little different. If we say that reference, as a matter of fact, requires triangulation, then it would follow that whatever it is I'm doing, privately, is not an example of referring. That's one way of setting it out conceptually. The second way would be to say that the question is not a factual one at all. We have a term, "reference," and we're considering how best to use it in order to carve up the conceptual territory. So it might be that we want to reserve "reference" for the cases where triangulation is involved. In that case, we need another term to describe what I'm doing, privately. I was asking Banno which of these outlooks he favors -- hope that makes sense.

Yes, but you would be using the criteria we share to judge whether you get the joke, just as we would. Thus the ability to also use them to demonstrate it to others. This makes it no more, but no less, reliable or possible to myself than others. — Antony Nickles

Good, I was making the same point -- neither more nor less reliable.

This is classic distinction between saying and knowing, or it being the case, which is tied to the desire for something more certain (ahead of having to demonstrate it). — Antony Nickles

I don't think so. The distinction I'm making isn't about degrees of certainty. It's much more experiential. I can name two distinct experiences: (purporting to) understand X; and saying (to myself or others), "I understand X," perhaps followed by some performance of this. (As we discussed above, not all types of understanding will fit this, but many do). Certainty aside, I claim them as distinct, based on my own self-reflection, as best I'm able to practice it. It makes me curious: Do you not have these two kinds of experience too? I'm often surprised by how differently thoughtful people experience their "insides."

At least start with "describe," especially if some analysis and discrimination of terms is likely to be needed. Having done that as best we can, I'm fine with suggestions for improving how we talk about difficult subjects. What I particularly don't like, in contrast, are endless wrangles about what is the "right term" or the "correct definition" for something that's been used in countless different philosophical traditions . . .

I would suggest that our actual emotions are just one subsection of the expression of our interests, and that they belong to only part of them, which we could classify or at least characterize as “individual” interest (normally only considered “self” interest). — Antony Nickles

Yes, this is more like it. I wasn't comfortable with privileging "emotions" quite so centrally.

if reference is a product of triangulation, and I think it is, then it is not private. — Banno

Not to put you on the spot, but are you saying that reference in fact requires triangulation, or only that we should reserve the term "reference" for that particular type of reference-fixing, and call my private version something else? I assume you're not denying that I do have the private experiences I'm claiming.

I'm holding out for reference as a potentially private game. Talking, so often, is talking to ourselves, and we need all the apparatus of talking-with-others to do it.
— J
seems to me to be mistaken, becasue we do not usually need any "apparatus" in order to check who [or what] it is we are thinking about. Indeed, the idea is odd. — Banno

Perhaps it is, rather, but I'm certainly familiar with it. As in my "pile of papers" example (which the bolded addition is meant to capture), I find I often have to come up with a system of reference in order to keep straight what I'm trying to think about. Also, more simply, I do in fact talk to myself, both out loud and "with words in my head." Maybe "apparatus" isn't the right word, but I don't find much difference between how I do this, and how I converse with others -- including, as I say, sometimes reference-fixing.

You might ask the same person these two questions in a row, and they are likely to give these answers. — hypericin

I think so. I could imagine something like a "moment of belief" and/or a "moment of consideration" that might actually present to consciousness in that way, but it would be unusual, and not how we ordinarily speak about such matters.

This is not bad language at all . . . — hypericin

Maybe it's fine. But it's always appropriate for a philosopher to suggest that some example of language use could be ameliorated. If that's what @i like sushi has in mind, I'd welcome hearing why.