I think the takeaway is that we cannot hope to get a "one-size-fits-all" definition of 'real', or 'existent'. It seems the best we can do is hone in on a somewhat fuzzy sense of the term and hopefully sharpen that sense up a bit. — Janus

Thanks for taking the time to parse my rather terse "which direction" question! I could try to say it again, better, but your takeaway is pretty much where I was going with it. We can either adopt a definition of "real" and go on to discover things that fit our definition, or we can take a look at what I've called the "conceptual landscape," see how the various denizens relate, and then decide that "real" would be a good term to use for one of the denizens, based on how it's been used in some respectable tradition. But either way, it's a pragmatic effort, in the best sense. As you say, we aren't likely to come up with a "one-size-fits-all" definition. But it may well be the case that something like @Wayfarer's schema, for instance, can do excellent philosophical work for us, without requiring us to pin "real" down to some fact of the matter or some correct usage.

Reading your response, I think I might not have been clear. I was saying that, if we talk about numbers as "real", we likely don't mean "as opposed to fake" or "genuine", or one of the other commonly useful construals of "real". That was what I called a "bad fit."

So if we don't use that construal, which one should we use? The schema you're laying out makes sense, and can clearly be useful in dividing up the conceptual territory, but would you want to argue that it's the correct use of "real" in metaphysics? That's what I'm questioning. I don't think metaphysics is the least bit archaic -- it's one of the most exciting areas of contemporary philosophy -- but I'm suggesting that we now have better terminology than an endless wrangle about what counts as "real."

And BTW, I think (most) universals are every bit as mind-independent as you do. But there we are: "mind-independent" is a property or characteristic we can get our teeth into. Adding ". . . and real" seems unnecessary.

Real" is perfectly clear and useful in most contexts, because we know how to use it.
— J

Real is authentic, not fake, the real deal. Reality is distinguished from delusion, illusion or duplicity. — Wayfarer

Well, yes, that works for many, perhaps most, contexts, as I was discussing with @Janus and @AmadeusD, above. But would you import it into a consideration of numbers, for instance? It seems like a bad fit. My contention is that, the more we enter metaphysics and epistemology, the less useful "real" is. I believe it's a placeholder or term of convenience for various other characteristics that can be more precisely stated. And to make matters worse, those other characteristics vary from tradition to tradition, while "real" remains constant, as if it could cover all of them.

But, as we've said, my view depends on there not being a story in which "real" did have a correct usage, which it lost. This is a specifically philosophical objection. Other uses of "real" observe different constraints.

to agree on the meaning of 'real' would be to agree on what is real. — Janus

And the question is, in what direction does the justification go? Do we discover a knowledge or nous of a certain sort of thing, and say, "This is real", based on what "real" means? Or do we have a term, "real", which we then attempt to match with certain sorts of things in order to discover what it does or could mean?

Some further reflections on keeping truth and justification separate. . .

When we say, “The world pushes back,” what are we describing?

"Truth remains a world-constraint (thin correspondence). If your model predicts rain and it doesn’t, the world corrects you.” — Sam

What if we changed the example from a prediction to an observation? I see a moist situation outside my window that appears to be rain; I offer genuine justifications for my belief, “It’s raining”; but when I go outside I discover that actually it had stopped raining quite a while ago, and what I saw from my window was the rainwater continuing to fall from the high trees in my yard.

What has happened here? Can I say that my belief in the rain was justified, but untrue? Shouldn’t I have taken into account the possibility of rainwater falling from the trees – a phenomenon I’ve seen many times before – when I provided my public-standard reasons for my belief? (the “defeater” criterion). That would make my belief unjustified; at best, I should have said that it was quite likely to be raining. But then again, my “JB” -- my assertion of belief plus justifications – was not offered as a piece of knowledge. Not if I believe in the JTB theory, anyway.

So -- at what point is justification only “genuine” if it indeed tracks the truth? You say, “I can be genuinely justified yet false,” and give the example of the cancelled train stop. Yes, it appears that you were justified in believing the train would come . . . but isn’t another analysis possible? Couldn’t we say, “We all know that train stops can be cancelled. You can affirm your belief that the train will come; you can give your genuine justifications for thinking so; but only the fact (truth) of the train’s arrival will turn this into a JTB, a piece of knowledge.”

I guess I’m asking how we should characterize a “JB” -- a belief that is genuinely justified, according to your criteria, but whose truth is still undetermined. Does a person who asserts a JB assert that they know it? Only the “know of conviction,” perhaps. If JTB is meant to be the definition of knowledge, we can’t say “I know X” until we discover whether X is true – we need all three legs of the tripod. So again, how should we describe “genuine justification” in a way that preserves some daylight between that concept and “true”? How carefully must we consider every conceivable defeater before saying that our justification is genuine?

These are reservations and puzzlements about the JTB concept in general, I think. I want to turn to your more focused version, with its use of Wittgensteinian hinge propositions, especially the idea that hinge propositions “stop the regress (and circularity) that would make any coupling [of methods for determining truth and justification] impossible.” But that will wait for a subsequent post.

BTW – I don’t think you and @Joshs have a serious disagreement about “creative, intuitive modification of norms.” Josh says:

I mean something more like Gadamer’s phronesis — a context-sensitive application of rules that inevitably alters their force. — Joshs

As a third party following along, this seems to me quite compatible with:

Yes, rules are “open-textured;" there is no decision-procedure that eliminates judgment. But that judgment is trained and answerable to public standards. If “creative” means improvisational within the practice (e.g., a physician integrating atypical signs without violating diagnostic criteria), I agree. If it means license to bend criteria ad hoc, I reject it. — Sam26

Gadamer’s phronesis is not at all ad hoc, and I’m pretty sure Josh wouldn’t recommend that.

Amusingly, this is a case of not having rules for knowing when and how to apply rules! And as we know, the lack of “rules for rules” doesn’t make everything ad hoc and chaotic.

Great, this is exactly the pressure point to push on, — Sam26

Glad you agree.

method-dependence of access does not entail identity of property. — Sam26

And this is the result we want. You make a strong case, which also has the advantage of replicating very closely what we actually do when trying to assess the validity of what we think we know.

I'll devote more time to this soon -- real life calls -- and focus on what may be the weak point: a somewhat cavalier acceptance of a "world" that is supposed to remain constant across multiple conceptions of justification. Is the "window/landscape" analogy good enough here? We can see the landscape, but not "the world" -- that might be an objection. But I need to think more about it. TBC.

What is 'real' is hotly debated socially (if you have a diverse social group, anyway). — AmadeusD

Clearly I need to improve my social group! :wink: It's been a long time since I've been part of a debate about "what is reality" that didn't involve green leafy substances. But I take your point. The usefulness of "real" waxes and wanes, but the idea that something is real if it's genuine and not real if it's a fake is robust. This idea will work fine in a lot of situations, and children learn it quickly.

on my view, truth and genuine justification are conceptually independent but methodologically coupled — Sam26

Good. So what we want to know is, does the coupling of the methodologies for determining what is true and what is genuinely justified result in a vicious circle?

That it is a circle seems clear, but that may not be a problem. We might start by asking, is it possible to determine what is true without using the methods that "lock justification onto truth-tracking"? -- that is, without engaging in justification?

I'm guessing not, but then how do we respond to the objection that we have "collapsed into each other" the criteria for truth and justification? Note that this objection doesn't depend on claiming that justification has been reduced to "social agreement," opening the door for some invidious form of relativism. The criteria for both truth and justification can be as "objective" as you please, but we still have the problem of whether they are indeed two separate legs of the tripod.

What do you think?

On this method, the verdict “S knows that P” states something robust: P is true; S believes P; S’s justification meets the public standards of the operative language-game — Sam26

I admire the clarity of this position -- many thanks.

As you no doubt know, there is a question about JTB concerning whether "true" and "(genuinely) justified" are independent criteria. How would your Wittgensteinian version of JTB respond to this?

Let’s go back to the starting point. . . — Wayfarer

What follows is an excellent summary of the epistemological story, and how it has changed over time. You really do have the gift of concision. And . . . not once did you use the terms "real" or "reality"! Was this deliberate? I rather hope not, because it demonstrates, better than any persuasion on my part, that those terms really aren't necessary in order to say what we want to say, philosophically.

I believe there’s validity in the concept of the philosophical ascent. — Wayfarer

I know you do. I was asking why -- and specifically, how we could determine whether the concept is valid or not.

In that allegory, the vision of the Sun as an allegory of the ascent from the cave symbolizes the noetic apprehension of ‘the real’ — Wayfarer

Again, how can we examine this idea? If you say, "What is real can be apprehended noetically," and I say, "What is real is strictly physical" (which I would not!), what are we disputing about? Are we disagreeing about how to use the word "real"? How does that sort of disagreement get resolved, philosophically? Or are we disagreeing about a fact of the matter, not just the terminology? In that case, don't we need to investigate and analyze the characteristics of (in this case) noetic apprehension and physical sensations, in order to learn how they differ, and whether one might indeed be more basic, or reliable, or grounded, etc.? Having done this, what additional work do we want the word "real" to do?

The fact that 'real' and 'reality' don't have 'agreed upon definitions' is actually symptomatic of the cultural problem which the OP is attempting, in its own way, to address. — Wayfarer

This is a very interesting point. The implication, I think, is that "real" could have a definition, in philosophy, that is just as solidly based as, say, "elephant". Indeed, such a definition was in place for the Classical philosophers, and its disappearance is a cultural problem. That makes sense, if we did indeed have a piece of knowledge that has been lost.

I wonder whether there's a way to describe what happened, culturally, that doesn't require this set-up. Another account might be something like: "The Greeks and Scholastics had a view of what constituted the 'real' or 'reality,' and this view was widely accepted, leading to a relatively unambiguous use of the term. But then challenges began to be posed to this view, with the result that, today, there are competing understandings of how to use and interpret 'real'."

On that account, what happened was not a "problem." Rather, it was found that the Classical view of reality could be questioned, and that rich philosophical questions and viewpoints resulted from this questioning. At a minimum, philosophers found themselves forced to do analysis, to discover what these competing versions of "reality" actually entailed. It could even be the case that this movement away from the agreed-upon definition of reality was an improvement, a benefit, freeing us from a frankly incorrect or inadequate understanding -- not so different from what happened in the physical sciences.

I don't exactly think this account is correct, because I think there are ways of knowing that are outside the scope of philosophy. I'm continuing to urge us, as philosophers, to think twice about "dying on the hill" of what is real and what isn't.

We can agree, and do, agree on what's real in most contexts of ordinary usage. When it comes to metaphysics it's a different matter. — Janus

This is important. "Real" is perfectly clear and useful in most contexts, because we know how to use it.

What can we do to encourage conversation about what might lie on either side of that line, without having to call the line "the boundary of reality" or some such?
— J

But it really is a debate about the nature of reality — Wayfarer

This exchange gives us a good view of the issue, I think. (And thanks for hosting the discussion, and being so willing to hear how it strikes others.)

My position is that there can't be a debate that "really is" about the nature of reality, because "reality" and "real," when used in this kind of philosophical context, don't have definitions or references that can be clearly agreed upon, outside of some specific tradition. Your position is (and of course correct me if this is wrong) that we do know what "reality" refers to, or at least we know what we mean when we use it in this context. This knowledge is tradition-independent. Thus, a philosopher can be right or wrong about what is real, and can be shown to be so.

I'm further saying that we can still talk about all the topics we want to talk about -- structure, grounding, primacy, causality, knowledge -- without insisting first on agreement about what is real, or how to use the terms "real" and "reality."

As a next step, I think that it's appropriate for me to ask you how you're using "reality" when you say that we can have a debate about the nature of reality. Is it something close to @Ludwig V's suggestion?: "'real' is the concept that enables us to distinguish between misleading and true appearances." Perhaps even more importantly, can you tell us why you believe that your use is correct?

I'm not at all clear what you mean by scholastic realism. Can you explain, please? — Ludwig V

I was picking up @Wayfarer's term -

You’re aware that scholastic realism was a very different animal from modern scientific realism. Scientific realism, as it’s commonly understood, is rooted in an exclusively objective and empirical framework that sidelines or brackets the subjective elements of judgement, reasoning, and conceptual insight. Scholastic realism, by contrast, affirmed the reality of universals—forms or structures apprehended by the intellect—and saw them as essential to the very architecture of reason. — Wayfarer

scholastic realism was a very different animal from modern scientific realism. . . . Scholastic realism, by contrast, affirmed the reality of universals—forms or structures apprehended by the intellect—and saw them as essential to the very architecture of reason. — Wayfarer

That's right, and the philosophical structure that results from this is intricate and, for me, often persuasive. My beef, if I have one, is with terminology. I'm looking for ways to talk about these things that promote mutual insight rather than disagreement over what words to use. The scientific realist and the scholastic realist disagree -- but about what, exactly? Is there a way to frame their disagreement without each insisting on one view about how to use the word "real"?

I'm trying to be careful, and not say ". . . about what is real." I'm arguing that there isn't a fact of the matter here; all we have is more or less useful ways of using the word. That doesn't cede any ground to either camp. Clearly there's something important that the scientific realist is pointing to, by drawing the line where they do. Equally clearly, that's the case for the scholastic realist as well. What can we do to encourage conversation about what might lie on either side of that line, without having to call the line "the boundary of reality" or some such?

One reservation I have is that this arrangement can be characterized in different ways. It can be characterized as "categories of being" or "modes of existence" or as "categories of objects" or categories of language. It may be that this is less important than the approach. — Ludwig V

Yes. Again, the wrangle over how to name the elements of the arrangement -- what counts is the approach, the arrangement itself.

The same word ["real"] is used, so there is a great temptation to give a general characterization of all the uses. There may not be one, in which case we simply designate the word as ambiguous. . . . However, in the case of real, I wondered whether we could say that "real" is the concept that enables us to distinguish between misleading and true appearances. — Ludwig V

That's a good way to use "real." And if we adopted it, notice what would follow: A disagreement about whether an appearance is misleading or true would be settled, if it can be settled at all, on the merits. We would not be looking in the Great Dictionary under "real" and saying, Ahah, this appearance over here is real, because it's true. Rather, we'd examine the conceptual territory of "misleading" and "true," make what determination we can, and then, having decided that "real" is a good word to use for the true appearances, we use it. If someone doesn't like that use of the word, no big deal: What we want to be talking about is misleading and true appearances, not "reality."

Good stuff. I'm going offline for a couple of days but I'll pick this back up soon.

Interesting response, thanks.

Here's a possible way to approach the problem: Is "real" more like a name, or more like a description?

Compare "donkey". We point to an individual and say, "This is a donkey," by which we mean that the word "donkey" names, but does not as a name further define or describe, that individual. If someone asked us, "But what does 'donkey' mean? By virtue of what property can we determine that the individual is a donkey?" we would explain how to do this. And if we were further asked, "But why 'donkey'? Why call it that?" we would be a bit puzzled, and reply that there is no particular reason.

I'm suggesting that "real" is more like "donkey". (The analogy isn't perfect, but bear with me.) We examine "conceptual space" and discover that, let's say, "Universals, numbers, and the like, are . . . relationships that can only be grasped by the rational mind." (Notice that for the time being I omitted your word "real".) If this is true, then we've learned something important about a category of being which we encounter.

My challenge is, What is added to our knowledge by describing this category as "real"? Is there any non-circular, non-question-begging way of teasing out more information from "real"? Moreover, what is lost by using "real" can be considerable -- we lose clarity and context, because of the enormously diverse history of that word's usage. We are pulled almost irresistibly into trying to justify our use of "real" to describe the ontological category we've discovered.

Suppose instead -- and this part is fantastical, I know -- we said that universals, numbers, and the like, are Shmonkeys. We can also point out, "In many cultures and traditions, Shmonkeys are equated with what is real, but it is unclear just what that means, apart from being a Shmonkey." And we can go on to give names to other elements of ontology -- perhaps including names for ways of existing. (Quantification!) We'd end up, ideally, with a clear and organized metaphysic that can still speak about grounding, structure, and epistemology, thus covering what most of us want from terms like "real" and "exist," but without the contentious, ambiguous baggage.

To anticipate your response, what this picture leaves out is the idea of "a fundamental distinction which is almost entirely forgotten." I think you're wanting to say that there used to be a correct way of talking about what is real, about what exists, but we no longer remember how to do this. Part of me is sympathetic with this, but not the philosophical part. I think our talk of Shmonkeys can be just as correct, and can reveal the same important properties that (some uses of) "real" is supposed to do, including, as it may be, a fundamental grounding function.

Thanks, I needed that! (something to smile about)

An attempt to coin technical terms for the purposes of philosophy. . . . [they] have a certain currency amongst philosophers, but I don't think they have penetrated ordinary language (yet). I don't find them particularly exciting, though. — Ludwig V

Well, that's right, technical terms are kind of a drag to use, especially when they don't originate in English. The Continental stream you point to is one example, but so is the analytic-phil tradition, actually. Or maybe I should back that up and say: The minute you place logic at the forefront of philosophical inquiry, you're going to get what amounts to technical, non-English terminology for a homely concept like "existence."

I frankly don't think my proposal to abandon terms like "existence" or "reality" will work, because thus far we don't have a ship to jump to. Unless you're in the Heideggerean tradition and are willing to adopt that very difficult vocabulary, or you want to do more with the Anglophone logical apparatus. (I've often said that Theodore Sider is really good on this.) For our purposes on TPF, I'd just like to see less contention about "the right definition" for a Large philosophical term, and more attention to the conceptual structure the term is meant to describe or fit into.

I'll be interested in your overnight thoughts!

you would want the new terms to capture it. But we would need to describe it accurately to do that. — Ludwig V

Yes. I'm not implying that this is some easy task that philosophers have inexplicably shirked!

They expect them to have a univocal meaning. ("Good" is another example, by the way.) — Ludwig V

It certainly is. I'm not sure how much "univocal" covers, but the problem is partially that these terms are thought of as natural kinds, somehow.

However, there is something fundamental about the idea of a concept being instantiated or a reference succeeding. Perhaps that's what we should look at — Ludwig V

Well, I thought that [Quine's] idea, together with the idea of domains of discourse, that would define what a formula quantified over, (numbers, rocks, sensations &c.), would work pretty well. — Ludwig V

Yeah, I think it's one of the most useful frameworks available. As long as we promise not to claim it's the right way to define "existence"! What quantification gives us is an ordinary, unglamorous way to capture a great deal of the structure of thought. This effort, I believe, is roughly the same project as trying to understand what exists.

The advantage of dropping words like "real" and "exist" is that it would allow us to replace them with more precise terms that might avoid equivocation and ambiguity. "The meaning of both "real" and "exists" depends on the context - on what is being said to be real or exist," as you say. So they are notoriously difficult to use precisely and consistently.

In practice, take the number example: Would you agree that there is an important ontological difference of some sort between a number and a rock (or the class "rock" too, perhaps, but let's not overcomplicate it)? Does it really matter whether we say, "Rocks are real, numbers exist," or "Numbers are real, rocks exist"? What is actually being claimed here? As far as I can tell, the purpose of such formulations is to highlight a distinction. And the distinction often seems to have something to do with what is basic, essential, grounding, etc. But which term is supposed to be "more basic", and why? How would we find out? Might it not be better to formulate the distinction precisely, say exactly what properties an item must have in order to belong to one or the other or both categories, and leave it at that? How does the choice of "real" vs. "existent" add anything, other than a muddle stretching back thousands of years?

In his own somewhat unsatisfactory way, I think this is what Quine was trying for by equating existence with what can be quantified over.

Very good. And an excellent demonstration of why I never dispute what the term "existence" means!

We have a number of candidate construals, including what you're calling "common speech." (Also Quine's "To be is to be the value of a bound variable."). Is there a way of determining which is correct?

I think not. An understanding of how to construe "existence" can be more or less helpful, more or less perspicuous to a given framework, more or less flexible as it may apply to different cases, but beyond that . . . we have yet to discover the Philosophical Dictionary in the Sky that can answer such questions.

I agree that, for instance, there are good reasons for sometimes distinguishing "exist" and "real," such the numbers example. But I'm sure you wouldn't maintain that it is true that numbers are real but not existent. We can go so far as to say that drawing such a distinction illuminates something interesting and important about numbers. But that something -- the distinction itself -- does not depend on our use of "real" and "existent" to describe it. Arguably, two invented technical terms would do even better.

But I also believe this is broadly compatible with the phenomenal-noumenal distinction. The problems arise when we try to 'peek behind the curtain' to see what the in-itself really is. — Wayfarer

Good, agreed. That there is a distinction is all I insist on.

This is exactly the wrong attitude. By giving the name "world" to the noumenal, you imply that what exists independently is in some way similar to our conception of "the world". — Metaphysician Undercover

We can be more precise, terminologically, if that suits you. I have no stake in what's called a "world" and what isn't. Again -- what I care about is the difference, not what terms we use for it. I don't think attitude has much to do with it. We can call the "noumenal world" the in-itself, and "our world" . . . well, whatever you'd like, that you believe would be less misleading. No arguments here.

OK, I'd forgotten the context of the OP.

It's against my religion to dispute about how to use the term "exist". :wink: I'll just point out that if the world neither exists nor does not exist, then to say "our perception of the world is mind-dependent" is a bit of a puzzler. How can I perceive something that transcends the category of existence? It's hard enough to perceive things that don't exist! Unless -- as I was trying to suggest -- "the world" and "the in-itself" are not the same. This was the distinction I was drawing between "our world" and "the world of noumena."

This is all cogent and helpful, very clearly written. Just one thing:

The kind of world we experience depends on the kinds of senses we have—and, in our case, also on the concepts and structures we use to interpret them. This doesn’t mean the world is illusory. But it also doesn’t mean it exists independently of the properties and meanings our minds contribute to it — Wayfarer

To me, this muddles the idea of "world" a bit. As you say, a world without perceivers, a world of noumena, is a kind of "placeholder world," granted as necessary but by definition unknowable in itself. The world we experience -- let's call it our world -- is not illusory, but nor is it the world of noumena. But when you say, "[the world] doesn't exist independently of the properties and meanings our minds contribute to it," you're talking about our world. The noumenal world does exist independently. So, if I may:

"This doesn’t mean that our world is illusory. But it doesn’t exist independently of the properties and meanings our minds contribute to it; that sort of world, the noumenal world, does have such an independent existence."

I only bother with this because otherwise is tempting to read the position as saying that there is no independent reality, which I don't think is what you mean. "What reality is in itself" may be a mystery, as you say, but it is not an empty phrase. We can't jump from the inevitable fact that our world is co-constituted, to the conclusion that our world is all there is. But you know this.

Is that where some confusion lies? — Hanover

Possibly, thank you.

Kill #1. It's dead. — Hanover

Consider it dead.

OK, the analogy with qualia is clear. In #2, "burj" is like a quale. In #3, "burj" is like a quale that has been made public. You're saying that there must be qualia, otherwise the transition from 2 to 3 would make no sense. "Burj" is still lingual, still a word, even at 2.

Something like that?

Moving it a little further, is there any process for making qualia public? We more or less understand what happens to "burj" in #3, but what is the analogy for qualia here?

I generally avoid engaging with people I assess as hostile or aggressively obtuse. I suspect many who come across as belligerent aren’t necessarily self-aware, they likely see themselves as committed to truth or other ideals that, to them, justify what others experience as harshness or dogmatism. — Tom Storm

This is generally my practice too, both here and elsewhere.

I always assume people are doing the best they can, even the rude ones. — Tom Storm

You're more charitable than I. Looking at my own behavior, it's apparent that I am often not doing the best I can, so I tend to assume that's true for others as well.

The other thing that helps with civility, when disagreements occur, is an attitude of genuine curiosity. This puts the discussion into an entirely different dimension than "dueling refutations." But what is genuine curiosity? See under "humility" -- not one of the Greek virtues, but many today regard it as an improvement over megalopsyche.

For us, not for cats, this is a language event — Astrophel

Then, as noted before, we have no real difference. I too think that language permeates human experience, though calling sense perception a "language event" is perhaps too strong. I'd taken you to be saying that the thing we perceive is also a piece of language, but that, of course, is different, and I'm pleased you're not recommending such a view.

obviously there are things there that are not language. Obviously. This is why we have the term qualia — Astrophel

Well, and the term noumena as well. But again, no problem, as long as something, whether noumena or qualia (depending on the degree of idealism you adopt, I guess!) pre-exists our efforts to talk about it.

Really, can't this all be said quite simply? We don't (as adults with language) encounter the world innocently, seeing objects like fenceposts and cats "because they're there." Both biologically and socially, we've learned over the history of our species to make choices about how to concatenate and discriminate our perceptions into the categories that are important to us. More often than not, we're aided (or on occasion constricted) by our language, which provides ready labels. Whether some sort of "true being" is to be discovered beyond this, we don't know, or at least I don't.

I would say there are three terms, not two. Substrate, encoding, and content. — hypericin

Good. So the substrate of a numeral would be, e.g., ink on paper.

Please, try to give me an example of a 'non-physical' bit of information that exists.
— Philosophim

A song on a vinyl LP that is the same as the song you hear on Spotify. — hypericin

It seems that @Philosophim is thinking of information as requiring the physical substrate, while @hypericin believes information is some further item that the physical substrate may instantiate. The analogy with numbers illustrates this: The numeral "3" would be an instantiation of the number 3. Or, using music, both the vinyl and the digital are instantiations of the song.

I don't have any stake in which way is the better way to use the term "information."* I'm just pointing out that, either way, a complete account needs to include both halves of the relation, so to speak. If information is like numerals, then we need to know the status of numbers -- "informational content", perhaps? Or, if information is like numbers, what do we understand numerals to be? I'm calling them "instantiations", but maybe "informational vehicles" is better. Or just "symbols"?

*Unless the "information is like numerals (hence physical)" position entails physicalism. Which it needn't. But if taken that way, I don't think physicalism gives a convincing account of abstracta in general.

You likely won't be very pleased. — Astrophel

Oh hell, nothing in philosophy pleases me! :grin:

But the philosophical insight that acknowledges that language recognizes its own delimitations is a pivotal recognition in that it forces, really, one to face a world without the confidence and security of any authority at all. — Astrophel

OK. But how does that turn the world into language?

I say Look a cat!, you ask, whaty is a cat? I look in the dictionary, find other explanations, and each of these bears the same indeterminacy. — Astrophel

Let's switch the example to something I might really find puzzling -- an echidna, let's say. You point to the thing, calling it by name, and I say, "What's an echidna?" For starters, you'll say, "That is," and I'll have a good look and form some sense impressions. We might then discuss its features. If I then go on to ask, "What sort of beast is it?" you might have recourse to a biology text to give me some info. But that can't be the point at which what you're calling the "indeterminacy" enters. Nothing in a written text is any more indeterminate than the language you and I are already using. So for me, the question is, How indeterminate is that? At the level of philosophy, we all know the arguments that can be made. But none of them prevents you and me from agreeing with perfect certainty on what counts as an echidna, and what are the correct and incorrect ways of describing it. Isn't that good enough?

primordiality, as Heidegger puts it, is really "equiprimordiality": a bottom line analytic that is itself manifold, complex, open to the world for more penetrating discovery — Astrophel

You do realize this is opaque? Perhaps not in context, but it doesn't do the job of explaining why the world must be made of language, which is what I was asking about.

He didn't posit, but explicitly denied, any metaphysical primordiality to our existence, anything like qualia. — Astrophel

Who said qualia, or some qualia-like sense of existence, were metaphysically primordial? (Not me.) I'm asking why you think language is. Do you perhaps mean that the only alternative to the primacy of language is some story about what is self-evident about my own existence? Why would that be?

the cat seen and accepted as a cat is all there is to being a cat, in this everyday world. There is another world that IS this familair world and is also a more penetrating analytic into the presuppositions of all this familiarity. — Astrophel

Fair enough. Can you describe the cat in terms of the more penetrating analytic, showing how a relevant difference in description occurs?

I'm really not some AnalPhil opponent of Continental philosophy. Nor am I trying to broaden the discussion to make you defend an entire approach to philosophy. I just want to get a sympathetic grasp on how it might appear to an intelligent thinker that the external world is at bottom linguistic, which I take to be your position. Far from wanting to refute it, I'd like to inhabit it, at least provisionally, and see what I can learn.

OK, here's where I am with this, and please tell me if you think I'm off track:

First of all, you're showing that this is not about private language as Witt understood it. There's nothing intrinsically private about "burj," or at least I don't think there is -- that's why I've been so concerned to understand the circumstances in which it's introduced. It got a little confusing because, by telling us that it refers to a somewhat ineffable feeling on the part of the speaker, you incline us toward believing that it is private in Witt's sense, but the subsequent details don't bear that out. "Burj" is merely a potential new word in a public language. It would make no difference to the case whether "burj" referred to a somewhat ineffable feeling or a type of perfectly effable tree.

I think this fits with your saying:

That means we need not subject a word to public use to make it lingual. A private word is just as much a word as a public word — Hanover

though you take it a bit further. For you, "burj" is already a word at T-2, by virtue of its meaning something to you, the speaker. I'm calling it a "potential" word but the difference is unimportant because we're both saying that, either way, it's not private in the invidious sense that would lead someone to conclude that meaning lies exclusively in usage. (It is an open question, however, whether meaning can be determined in any other way.)

If all that rings true, then I see the analogy with qualia. Your (a) is the internal state which analogizes to a quale, in that both exist and are "meaningful," if I can put it that way, yet have no appearance in public. You're saying it isn't possible to demote either (a) or a quale, claiming they're irrelevant to the experiences of language use and sense perception, respectively. Subjectivity matters, in short.

The analogy might break down when we ask how a quale could become part of public experience, but that's outside the scope of your story here.

Well, this is interesting and complex enough that I might have it all wrong! But see what you think.

So if we subtract 2 from the 3, we isolate our quale. — Hanover

OK, sorry if I'm like a dog with a bone here, but . . . if we dispense with the referent, as Witt suggests we can, are you arguing that the word itself at T-2 is now like a quale -- something personal and not yet "used," but still meaningful? Is that the case you're illustrating against usage as meaning?

Again, your patience is appreciated. I don't like posts that clearly haven't tried hard enough to understand what they're responding to, so I don't want to be guilty of that.

Reference here is to form of life: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_of_life

"If a lion could talk, we could not understand him" — Hanover

Yes, though as is often the case, I think Witt was exaggerating a bit to make his point.

But that being a cat becomes a cat when I take it into my perceptual apparatus. Prior to this, it is not a cat. My perceptual, cognitive, affective "functions" manufacture catness. — Astrophel

This is what I meant by saying that "our way of constituting the physical world may be simply that -- our way." And I recognize that all kinds of meaningful debates occur around just how much the human apparatus contributes to what we consider the physical world to be -- in other words, what the cat "is" before it is a cat for us.

But if we agree, more or less, about this, how can language be primordial? Unless we're just disagreeing about what "primordial" ought to mean. I took it to refer to something extremely basic, ontologically, something that, at the very least, precedes human cognition. If all you mean is "Language is basic for humans, without which we could not recognize items we call 'cats'," then that's fine. Yet I sense you mean something quite different and more radical, but it still isn't clear.

thought is directed to something palpable in time and space, and what could be more "real" than this [biological entity], but when asked what a biological entity IS, you find more language, and this leads to more language still . . . — Astrophel

I want to understand why you believe the experience bottoms out in language. It seems to me that the necessity of thinking in language does not mean that what is thought about is also language. Can you help me see why this is false? With respect, you just keep asserting it. Can you perhaps describe how that experience happens for you -- the moment at which you lose contact with a reality external to language?

However, if you were a cat, my story would be better all things considered, but I digress. — Hanover

And if you were a cat, there'd be no story, so there! :joke:

OK, I just wrote a post in reply to your "burj" story that was coming along very nicely until I realized I had another question I needed to ask. So, if you'll be patient with me:

When you say that a quale is like "burj" at T-2, do you mean the word "burj" or the reference of the word, i.e., a feeling about the park? I had been taking you to mean the word itself, but in replying I realized that a lot hinges on that interpretation, so I'd better check it out.

We have three cats and they are adorable, and they are endowed with emotional abilities, are sensitive, yearning for affection. — Astrophel

Very good! And do you never wonder what they're thinking? I find this especially interesting precisely because I doubt they have language, yet I'm quite sure they engage in ratiocinative mental processes and are able to represent facts about the world to themselves, somehow.

But we [the corporation] were NOT just years before. How does existence simply come into being just by talking it into being? A person is like this, no? — Astrophel

Well, no. I'm happy to grant existence, for philosophical purposes, to both corporations and persons (however galling that may be in U.S. politics). But if we agree that both exist, we should also agree that they exist in very different ways. A corporation is a sort of mereological construction, whereas a person is a living biological entity. (I'm assuming you don't mean to get into the intricacies of whether every human is properly a "person."). A living thing doesn't get talked into existence. A corporation does, and must, along with a few other social requirements.

The point is, language is primordial, and that makes being complicated... or does it? — Astrophel

Again, I recognize that this is what you're asserting, but I don't see the case for it yet. Let's imagine that all language-users go extinct; is the physical world not still there? If so, how is language primordial? It may be basic and constitutive for us, but that's a different matter, no? Likewise, we can hypothesize that our way of constituting the physical world is simply that -- our way -- but do you want to deny any independent existence to it at all?

OK, the picture is coming a bit more in focus. Is my role at T-1 mute, though? Am I meant to be understood as simply listening, just as I do with the video at T-3? Can we assume that, among other uses of "burj," you define it for me?

I need to get a little clearer about these circumstances before I can hazard an opinion on what is missing, so to speak, during the crucial T-2 events, which take place with neither a present nor a future auditor.

I don't think about the way animals and infants experience the world because it is simply a bore. They eat, sleep, and defecate and stare at things, generally speaking. — Astrophel

I guess this would be a spade-turning difference between us. I am fascinated by the inner lives of animals; to me it's the least boring thing in the world. Infants, a close second. I guess you've never been close to an animal? Eating, sleeping, defecating, and staring are popular activities, all right, just as they are for us! (And you left out sex!). But they don't begin to exhaust the repertoire.

As for our need for language to describe non-linguistic things: granted. You still haven't shown me how this turns the thing described into more language.

The meaning underlying the mutterings are the references to qualia. — Hanover

Ah. But that's different. You asked, "Were the mutterings prior to the tape recording being heard what we properly call qualia?" I think you owe us a story about how the mutterings are conveyers of meaning, which in turn can be analogous to qualia. I took you literally, to be referring to the sounds themselves. Isn't the question (of what [and how] they could mean) at the heart of the thought experiment?

On this day, a community listens to my recorded speech and it decides I have used burj consistently and subject to a rule. — Hanover

I hate to rain on a fun thought experiment but . . . what does this actually mean? Could you give just a few examples of how you spoke to yourself using "burj," and how the community was able to declare your use consistent and rule-bound?

The provocative question: Were the mutterings prior to the tape recording being heard what we properly call qualia? It, to be sure, had ontological status. Why not name it? — Hanover

Nice. The mutterings were "out in the open" but still private because there was no community to evaluate it. I think the analogy works, and makes your point, but no, the mutterings are not what we properly call qualia. They may share the feature of being private by virtue of "no community", but qualia are sensations or individual subjective experiences, not words or behaviors. Allegedly.

this term [qualia] is something that turns up in philosophy forums, but really, nowhere else, and this is because other contexts do not possess the basis for the concept to come forth. Only philosophy. — Astrophel

I've seen this said before, and have never understood it. Anyone with an introspective turn of mind has thought of qualia, often under the name "inner feels." One of the standard childhood puzzles is, "How do I know my 'green' is your 'green'?" I've had innumerable conversations with adults in which the distinction is easily made between the (seemingly public) sensory basis for experiences of sight or sound, and the (seemingly private) experiences themselves.

Why hasn't "qualia" caught on as a term? No idea. But it can't be because the concept is obscure.

" Pain is surely outside of language, as is just about everything else we experience." In this you implicitly affirm the metaphysics of everydayness. — Astrophel

Not sure what that is. But in any case, thinking in language doesn't make the subject of thought also linguistic. Does cutting boards with a saw make every board a tool? Nor does it mean that animals and human infants don't have experiences because they don't have language.

I sense that you basically agree with this latter point, but are holding out for some other way to frame the idea that "Language is what we ARE." Language may be, as you say, the foundation for comprehension, but so much of my experience has nothing to do with comprehension.

It is impossible to imagine a world outside of language, because 'language' itself is a particle of language. — Astrophel

But why would that restrict what can be imagined? I am now imagining a rabbit. Why would it be the case that the rabbit must be within language, because "language" is within language? There could conceivably be some other reasons why imagining a rabbit requires some linguistic component, but the status of the word "language" itself doesn't seem relevant.

Thanks, Hanover, I see your point now, and agree with it. We don't even need to involve cats here; a human infant will do as well.

The answer to the question, what is the nature of pain? is answered in language, or there is no answer at all, and this puts pain outside of language, but this outside is not conceivable, because even the term 'outside' belongs to language. I assume this is already made clear. — Astrophel

Not so clear to me. Is this the "absurd game" you're looking for a solution to? Or do you endorse this viewpoint?

It seems to me that the absurdity is evident. An "outside of language" is not conceivable because "outside" is a word? Pain is surely outside of language, as is just about everything else we experience. Whether we must mediate these experiences through language is a separate question, the answer to which will vary depending on which experiences. Pain, I'm guessing, is pretty language-free.

In a universe only of cats, the cat's pain is qualia, but not his "pain," unless you say pain and "pain" are inseparable, in which case there's no pain and no qualia.

It's just a silly game. — Hanover

This looks interesting, but I can't relate it back to some previous post or comment. Could you expand? What's the pain/"pain" distinction?

'It would be possible', wrote Einstein, 'to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.' — Wayfarer

like trying to capture a conversation by analyzing the acoustic properties of the sound waves of which it consists (although orders of magnitude more complex). Even if successful, it would miss the semantic content, the intentions, the meaning being imparted. — Wayfarer

I question that the brain can be described in solely physical terms or as a physical thing — Wayfarer

Just to clarify -- Aren't the first two examples descriptions in solely physical terms? Understood thus, they would starkly reveal the limits of such description. I'd have expected your point to be that the brain can be described solely in physical terms, but that such a description has to leave out what we think of as the mental.

I think what you mean is that there cannot be a physical brain-description that also describes mental content. Is that close? Or perhaps, the more uncontroversial point that any physical description of a thing may not necessarily tell us what the thing does?