(3) Are you sure this is anything more than a dirty rhetorical trick? Another "heads I win, tails you lose" sort of thing? — Srap Tasmaner

No, I'm not sure. If you've been following this thread, you'll see that at several points I voiced the desire to find something better, more interesting, than what I called "an argumentative gotcha!" Maybe it can't be found, but that's not yet clear. I repeat that, if that's all there is, it's not much of a result.

I would distinguish between a view of philosophy as (either) the highest (or the most fundamental) science, and a view that philosophy holds some particular and special place precisely by not being science. — Srap Tasmaner

Good, and that too is part of what I raised in the OP, in referring to the Top-Level Thesis as requiring that the move from some particular discipline to philosophy be more than a lateral move. It's supposed to be a rung up, according to the TLT. How can we justify that?

Are you sure that no other discipline has this "super-power"? — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, pretty sure. Can you think of an example? How would chemistry, for instance, defend itself strictly within the discourse of chemistry from the challenge that it is really a form of physics?

But we may most-of-us be under a positive obligation to cackle, as long and as much and as loud as needed - calling for truth, calling out the lies. — tim wood

Now you're talking! More cackling, less violence.

I have expressed before the idea that the role of philosophy is to 'take you to the border' - the border of what can be said, explained, expressed in words. Of course the influence of Zen Buddhism is perceptible in that, but the same intuition is expressed in other philosophers. — Wayfarer

Very good. I agree completely.

Well, it depends. If the paper is heavy on philosophical discourse (not usually the case, thank goodness), then yes, running it by a peer-philosopher sounds good. Otherwise, as I said, philosophers have no business offering opinions within a scientific discourse. Their super-power, if any, lies in their ability to defend themselves from challenges that would redirect their discourse into other disciplines.

But also notice the significance of aporia in those dialogues — Wayfarer

I'm glad you mentioned aporia. This is another fruitful way to think about what happens when philosophy -- apparently following its natural bent -- is able to "have the last word" in such a potentially mechanical, trivial way.

I too feel your pain (I'm still reeling from the election), but I can't take your proposal seriously. Or . . . OK, if some legitimate U.S. authority is miraculously empowered to set up a series of Truth Trials, a la Nuremberg, and if they hand down death penalties for the likes of Trump, I might be persuaded that this was "reasonable and appropriate." Maybe. But otherwise, no. I believe honesty is part of an array of virtues that includes tolerance, compassion, nonviolence, democracy, and respect for law. We don't get to pick which ones we like.

I think what we’re talking about here isn’t a dichotomy between something called science and something called philosophy , but a spectrum of explication. — Joshs

I sort of agree, and also sort of don't. I agree that in practice it's difficult to imagine a serious explication of anything in the physical world that doesn't partake of both discourses, scientific and philosophical. Nevertheless, there is an important distinction between what can be said within these discourses, and this has to do with their stated subject matters. As a philosopher I can say nothing about whether a particular proposal for quantum computing is a good one. My physicist friend, who works in this area, can say a lot, but insofar as he also talks about existence or reality or any of those "elevator words" (love that term!) he'll find no support within physics for anything he wants to say. (He agrees with this, by the way, being a firm proponent of the "shut up and calculate" school.)

So, granted the fuzziness of many boundaries, there is a clear difference between these discourses. And for the purposes of this thread, the question is, Why is it the case that philosophical discourse can question, and reflect upon, the discourse of physics, but the reverse is not the case? Does this make philosophy special in some interesting way?

Just to pull us back on track a little . . . It was @Leontiskos, earlier in this thread, who first voiced the question of presuppositions, in this way:

Philosophy could be called highest because it is without presuppositions. But could it be called highest for a more substantive reason? — Leontiskos

I myself, in my OP, wasn't thinking about presuppositions when I ruminated about what might make philosophy the "highest" discourse in some sense. Not to say that L's idea is a bad one, but I was focused more on what he calls "a more substantive reason."

Maybe we could refocus this aspect of the question by asking: What might be the relation between 1) an argument for philosophical discourse as presuppositionless, and 2) the observation that this discourse appears to allow endless recursion?

Scientific theories can and do in fact put into question presuppositions passed down through the history of philosophy. — Joshs

They do, and the issue here is the nature of how they "put into question" those presuppositions. Is it possible to do this without invoking further philosophy -- as opposed to some allegedly pure scientific approach? That's what I'm doubting (and I bet you'd agree), though as I say, I don't think most scientists are engaged in some nefarious conspiracy to demolish philosophy with bad arguments. They're just doing their thing, and rarely get the chance to reflect on their presuppositions.

the "right" answer to Q . . . — fdrake

I'm not completely sure there is a single right answer -- that is, one and only one way the recursion can occur.

I have bolded "would" there since it seems modal. But in my view it's the wrong modality for the question - I think the dialogue must go differently than I suggested in order for it not to count as an counter example. So we'd be left requiring an account of why the flippant repetition cannot count as an answer. It strikes me that it could count as one, even if it is a bad one. — fdrake

Interesting. What must not happen, or at any rate what we don't want to happen on pain of triviality, is the "flippant repetition" version. I think we need to be more precise. Did you mean your repeated "Why?" to be shorthand for "Why is what you just said a justification for what you said before that (eventually recurring back to X)"? Or does the "Why?" question change its character and possibly its reference depending on where we are in the chain of reason-giving? I'm trying to figure out if we're absolutely stuck with what we might call the "2-year-old's version" of "Why?" I think this makes a difference, but say more about how you were using the repeated why's.

And I would say that these cases like the neo-Freudian rely on philosophical thinking to debunk philosophical discourse, and therefore result in a kind of performative contradiction. — Leontiskos

Yes, though many an honest scientist is probably unaware of doing this until it's pointed out.

This is tremendously helpful. You’ve given this a rigor I wasn’t able to achieve – or actually you’ve revealed it to be several interrelated problems. Let me see if I can respond to them.

Roughly what this claim states is that asking for justification eventually terminates in philosophy, but there's no particular argument for the uniqueness of the termination. — fdrake

I think this is right. It depends on the question of other sets of C, which you also raise later. Someone who wanted to argue for the TLT would need to explain a sense of “highest” that corresponds to (at least) uniqueness. We’d have to show how other contexts, even if possible, aren’t relevant.

If you showed that for every initial X there existed an n such that C(Q^n ( X ) ) = Phil, you would have some kind of "termination in philosophy". — fdrake

Beautiful. Yes, that’s what you’d have to show.

But the relationship between the termination of the sequence of contexts in Phil and any properties of the recursive function Q remains unspecified. Why Q has the (alleged?) properties it has is something hitherto unexamined. — fdrake

This is the question I’m raising when I noted that mere argumentation (which I’m now going to call “Q recursion,” a much more apt term) isn’t a very good reason for finding philosophical discourse to be special or illuminating. The reason why Q is what it is, and the reason why we can’t go beyond the Phil-contexts sequence, should match somehow. This should not be coincidence, and it should not be trivial. This needs a lot more thought (on my part). I may not even have understood everything you’ve packed in here, but so far it looks like a formidable challenge to justifying the TLT as stated.

I do notice a bit of a landmine in this discussion, however. — fdrake

Here I think I disagree. Let’s use the Frodo example.

So if X is "Frodo bears the ring", Q( X ) would be the answer to "How do you justify that Frodo bears the ring?", which would be "I read it in the book"... And someone asks you why... And you assert you read it in the book. And someone asks you why. And you assert you read it in the book. — fdrake

I say that the dialogue would go differently. After the first reply of “I read it in the book,” the next recursion is not “Why?” but rather, “Tell me how reading it in the book justifies your answer.” The interlocutor would then need to give an account of fictional realities, and how they may relate to truth and justification, etc. etc. More philosophy, and very interesting philosophy at that. So it’s not just reading comprehension. What it “says in the book” is far from a concluding moment in the dialectic.

What ensures that Q( X ) has this convergent property? And what ensures the convergence always goes to philosophy? — fdrake

Right. I see a path toward the answers in what you also say here:

What I suspect is producing the termination in Phil, if it indeed happens, is that it is a property of Q itself rather than any of the assertions it is applied to. — fdrake

Let’s assume that Q does have some property that produces convergence. I agree that we haven’t yet explained precisely what it is, though I think we both see a pretty good case that it is. Is it necessary, ensured? To me, it does have a nomic character. But must the convergence always terminate in Phil/philosophy? We’re back to the reason why the TLT is attractive: It claims that this termination is both inevitable and important. If at the end of our cogitating, all we have is the Q recursion as our "termination in philosophy," that’s not much of a result. The problem is how to shape it into something more significant, something actually about the nature of philosophy as a pursuit of wisdom, or at least knowledge.

I suppose I am wondering what you meant when you talked about an inquiry being, "brought to an end by absorption into another discipline." — Leontiskos

I was referring to a situation such as the one involving the neo-Freudian. He attempts to short-circuit philosophical discourse by explaining it in terms of his discipline, abandoning any philosophical vocabulary about reasons, arguments, or truth. Another example might be a theological coup, in which someone insists on translating all talk of reasons, truth, etc., into a discussion of the speaker's salvation status (i.e., "You're only saying that because you're saved/damned"). It's a kind of ad hominem argument, but more general and potentially sweeping because it claims to invalidate not only a particular argument but all the premises of philosophical discourse. Many positivist/ordinary-language attacks on metaphysics also have this same characteristic, I think. And I'm claiming they can all be answered with more philosophy.

If an inquiry requires support and presuppositions are the ultimate supports, then an inquiry without presuppositions cannot ultimately be brought to an end in any obvious way. — Leontiskos

I'm not sure about this. I'll think more about it.

But one could speak about "bringing an inquiry to an end" via justification or via termination. I am thinking about justification, where an answer to a question is definitively justified. — Leontiskos

Yes, that's an important distinction. I think the problem I'm proposing in the OP is more about termination than justification. Self-reflection -- that is, the ability of philosophical discourse to always reply with more questions that can only be answered philosophically -- is literally interminable. That's the aspect that I said cannot be brought to an end, and that many philosophers regard as evidence of something important and special about such discourse. Philosophy proudly refuses to be silenced, or translated into silence by some other discipline.

The justification problem is closely related but different. Here, the impulse within philosophy is to silence itself, by reaching conclusions via some definitive proof, refutation, or similarly airtight justification. Justification, thus, can also end a line of inquiry, but in a very different way than a termination due to silencing by some other form of discourse. The fact that silence by justification has so rarely been achieved is surely indicative of something important, but what? Must philosophy also go on ad infinitum in this way, trying to end each line of inquiry with justification for one answer over another? Here, unlike the case of termination, it's not that we know this to be impossible. It's more that it almost never seems to happen. Maybe we could learn from the cases in which it has happened. Though it would be hard to get agreement on which those are!

you've made me think of Ian Hacking's Elevator Words in The Social Construction of What?. Take a gander at page 31* of the pdf and page 21* of the printed page numbers and tell me what you think. — Moliere

This was new to me, and I like it very much. "Elevator words" is a really useful concept. I agree that it's another look at how philosophical discourse can get itself to be "higher." I think it's different from the situation I'm writing about, though. My use of "higher" has to do with the characteristic way that philosophers can respond to challenges both from inside, but especially from outside, the philosophical universe of discourse. We don't have to "blind them with elevator words" (!), we only have to ask for an argument. This inevitably means more philosophy -- so we win! And this is so trivial that I want there to be more to it; something closer to @Wayfarer's ideas about insight or enlightenment.

If philosophy is only reflection then clearly there's something "higher" than philosophy -- action, life, experience, whatever you want to call it. — Moliere

Or, at least, I see action as a part of philosophy — Moliere

Fair enough. That's a reasonable response, which I tried to leave open by saying, at the start of the OP, that there are all sorts of other "discourses" -- including those of action -- that may also be said to be "higher" than rational inquiry. I don't think they're "clearly" so, but they may be. Whether they are, and what that would mean, would be the subject of another OP, perhaps starting with Marx. I'm limiting myself here to the question of what is "higher," if anything, about philosophy understood only as inquiry.

much of philosophy is modeled on the success of science. — Fooloso4

That's true, but science cannot absorb philosophy into its inquiry, whereas philosophy can set the terms for discussing how science is done. See my example of the curious biologist. That's the peculiar self-reflexive quality I tried to describe in the OP. If a philosopher models herself after scientific method, this will be for philosophical reasons, not scientific ones.

I will sometimes argue that there is such a thing as the philosophical ascent, generally understood as moving from a state of ignorance to insight or enlightenment. And also that there are degrees of knowledge, the 'analogy of the Divided Line' in the Republic being a paradigm for that. — Wayfarer

This is a good counterpoint. A philosophical ascent, whether Platonic, Hegelian, or spiritual, ought to be about more than the ability to trump a questioner with yet further philosophy. Surely it can't be that which makes philosophy a love of wisdom? Knowledge, insight, enlightenment . . . these are the things we want philosophy to offer us. The question of the OP is, in part, can we find the path to these qualities by examining the peculiar nature of philosophical reflection?

Other disciplines have fairly clear starting points, but not philosophy. — Leontiskos

This is going to sound paradoxical, but perhaps the starting point of philosophy is in fact the realization that its inquiries cannot be brought to an end by absorption into another discipline. This connects with what I saying about temporal sequence as being different from the "lastness" of philosophy. Clearly we couldn't know that reflection is endless until we'd discovered it to be so, which is a process in time, but having learned this, we can posit that feature as the feature which makes philosophy unique -- and in that sense it's the starting point, the presupposition (of sorts).

there is nothing unique that all philosophical discourse has in common that distinguishes it from other modes of discourse. — Fooloso4

Except, as above, that all philosophical discourse resists being absorbed/reduced into a different discourse. Or at least that's the possibility we're looking at here.

I am uncomfortable with viewing the presuppositionaless-ness of philosophy as "an argumentative trick." — Leontiskos

Oh, I didn't realize that's what you meant. I was referring merely to the "gotcha" aspect, where any questioning of philosophy becomes yet more philosophy. Do you think this has to do with the lack of presuppositions? I'd like to hear more about that.

(Is "presuppositionaless-ness" translated from the German? :wink: )

You seem to want to say that philosophy has to do with thinking qua thinking, and that if all being can be thought, then philosophy has a relation to all being in a way that other disciplines do not. That seems right. Or we might say that there is no thinking or knowledge that is non-philosophical. — Leontiskos

Yes, that would all be in the spirit of what I'm suggesting. I'm sort of test-driving what I'm calling the Top-Level Thesis about philosophy, and trying to find a way in which it might be interestingly true, as opposed to merely a report about an argumentative trick that philosophy can perform.

I wouldn't assume it. But it might be the case. This OP is definitely in a speculative mode. More an attempt to tease out some possibilities as we consider what, if anything, is special about philosophical discourse.

You have used the words, so you must know what they mean, right? — Harry Hindu

Of course not, and neither does anyone else. We are building this particular boat on the ocean. We have, at best, some combination of historical information about how mentalistic terms have been used, intuitions about what they mean for us, and perhaps a sense of how to sharpen them for better use.

Where do we go if we want to know what words mean? — Harry Hindu

I can only say again:

I think a good response here would be to say, "Fine, let's not get hung up on language choices which may not satisfy everyone. I'm happy to consider using your terminology -- what would it be? How would you prefer to distinguish the 'location' of a mind so that we can talk meaningfully about its supervenience on my brain and not on, say, the tree in my front yard?" — J

I really don't mind what language we agree on. Tell me what you'd prefer, as long as it can do the job mentioned above.

How did you come to the conclusion that I did not imply that a view from somewhere isn't a view from somewhere, as in where someone is standing? — Harry Hindu

I think you still haven't taken in the force of my point. Of course it's a view from somewhere, but that isn't what mainly characterizes it. Rather, it's the "someone" that is crucial. Can you imagine a "view" being from some particular place, but with no viewer?

This is why I asked what you mean by the words, "understanding", "trying" and "knowing". You can only say that the computer scientist and biologist is wrong in their usage when you have clearly defined the words themselves. — Harry Hindu

This is a separate point. I'm not saying they're wrong, I'm saying they're not experts. I was replying to your notion that a computer scientist is somehow expert in the use of those words because he or she is a computer scientist. Such a person may be as correct or incorrect as anyone else, and yes, we'd need to get clear on what that would mean, but the point is that there is no built-in expertise, either way, neither mine nor theirs. If you like, I can take a shot at putting some content to mentalistic terms, but I wanted to get the "computer scientist as expert on the mental" thing out of the way first.

Go back and read what I have said. I have clearly steered away from using dualistic terms — Harry Hindu

I don't think so, but we can let that one go. Possibly the only dualism you recognize is mind/body, or mental/physical, dualism; I was pointing to a much wider application.

Are you saying that philosophers should be telling the computer scientist how the computer works? — Harry Hindu

No, but I am saying that we have every right to criticize computer scientists' language when they begin to talk about other things besides computers and science -- such as "knowledge," "thinking," "understanding," et al. The analogy would be no different for a biologist: I wouldn't dream of telling them how DNA works, but if they began using expressions like "the organism knows" or "the cells are trying to . . . " and that sort of thing, I would certainly protest. This also comes up constantly in talk about evolution.

(And I'm not saying that we philosophers aren't guilty of this kind of loose talk too. We certainly are, but we ought to be better on our guard than most, since questions of language loom so large in our concept of what we do.)

What do you mean by "internal" and "external" in this respect? — Harry Hindu

We seem to be getting a little muddled between two different questions. One is, "Is there a place for dualistic thinking in metaphysics?" The other is, "What do we mean when we use 'internal' to describe a feeling or a thought, or the mind itself?" To the first, I'm saying, "You yourself don't seem able to do without dualistic concepts when you talk about this, so perhaps this sort of dualism is important in talking about metaphysics." A statement like "I think this working model is somewhere in the brain" can have no meaning unless it's opposed to "I think this working model is not somewhere in the brain." So the dualism of "in/not in" (internal/external) seems important to what you want to say.

The second question is more complex, because there's likely not a single usage of "internal" when it comes to mentalistic terms -- it may be meant literally, metaphorically, or somewhere quite vague. Your riposte shows this nicely: In one sense, it seems absolutely true to me that mental paraphernalia are internal to the brain, by virtue of direct supervenience. But in another sense, we certainly can't take a scalpel to the brain and locate "the mind," or any single mental event. In that sense, "internal" isn't the right word. I think a good response here would be to say, "Fine, let's not get hung up on language choices which may not satisfy everyone. I'm happy to consider using your terminology -- what would it be? How would you prefer to distinguish the 'location' of a mind so that we can talk meaningfully about its supervenience on my brain and not on, say, the tree in my front yard?"

What does it mean to be "subjective"? Does it not have to do with a view from somewhere as opposed to a view from nowhere / everywhere? — Harry Hindu

I would say no. I believe "subjective" means "a view that someone, some viewing entity has from somewhere," so "to be subjective" means "to be an entity that has such a view." Leaving out the "someone" allows you speak about "a view," as if the view is kind of hanging around. But this is impossible -- a view requires a viewer. Hence subjectivity is crucially about the person who has the view. Or not to beg the question -- if it could be shown that a computer was an entity that could have a view, then it would be a candidate for subjectivity.

To anticipate a possible objection: All kinds of things can be viewed from a computer's point of view, but that's not what we're talking about. The viewer in such cases is me or you, seeing things from the computer's PoV. I'm arguing that the computer per se has no views at all -- it isn't the sort of thing that can have such an experience.

the problem of the subjective unity of experience which currently escapes scientific definition. — Wayfarer

Yes, another way of stating the problem I was raising. No matter how much information we end up with about the brain, we still need to know how and why it gives rise to consciousness, one vital aspect of which is "the subjective unity of experience." I think we will solve the HPoC eventually, but so far we aren't even close. Meanwhile, too many philosophers are overoptimistic that brain-knowledge will somehow "just be the same thing" as knowledge about the mind.

Some might say that this is all loose talk and the machines aren't really understanding or trying anything, but computer scientists use these terms and they authorities in this field? A better explanation is that computation has finally demystified mentalistic terms. — Harry Hindu

This is ingenious, but I see two problems. First, computer scientists are not authorities at all in the fields of linguistics or philosophy -- indeed, in my experience, they often have no interest in these fields. Their use of mentalistic terms about machines is as likely to be loose talk as anyone else's. Second, computation has if anything intensified the mystifying aspects of mentalistic terms. Hard enough to understand how to talk sensibly about human beliefs, desires, thoughts, and perceptions! but now we're also supposed to attribute physical or information-based versions of these states to a computer? Now that's mystifying.

I think this working model is somewhere in the brain, — Harry Hindu

With all respect, surely this is what "internal" is meant to refer to. Why deny that it's different from "external," i.e., not somewhere in the brain?

A first step would be to isolate (if it's not something that the brain as a whole does), how or where sensory information from all senses come together (as the mind is amalgam of the information from all five senses at once) from which the model is constructed. — Harry Hindu

This is reasonable, but if we succeed in doing this, what is the second step? What do you imagine could come next, scientifically? This is a serious question -- in fact, the question of the HPoC. We have to picture some way of explaining the mental with relation to the physical; finding the place in the brain that hosts or constructs the "model" merely sets the stage for this explanation by restating the problem.

Instead of saying that working memory is an "internal" representation of the world, we say it is a working representation of the world. We could say the same thing about dreams. They are a working representation of the world, — Harry Hindu

Where does this working representation of the world occur? Is it discoverable by science? Which scientific discipline would we expect to discover and describe it? What would count as falsifying this theory?

Thanks, "useful analogy" seems about right to me too.

I've been following this conversation with interest but I don't yet understand whether the computer-based terminology is meant to be a useful analogy or a literal description of the brain/mind/consciousness situation. Would any of you be able to help me out here?

I'm glad it was helpful. One way of "problematizing" the concept of language would be to step back and ask, "What am I/we trying to do by offering the Wikipedia page definition of language?" I think the answer would involve Haslanger's first approach, the conceptual one. The person who refers to the Wiki page is saying, in effect, "We do have a common understanding or definition of what language is, and this understanding is captured by the Wiki page. Our task, then, is to compare possible instances of language to the definition given, and decide whether they fit."

In addition, a possible clarification here would involve asking whether we cite the Wiki page because it captures the meaning of the concept "language," a meaning which we already know and can see reflected on the page; or whether we cite the page because we believe that Wikipedia gives or states correct definitions of concepts, by some sort of fiat or authority. I'm guessing we're not that trusting of Wikipedia, so probably the first idea is what we mean: We already (believe we) have a proper understanding of the concept of "language," and we note with pleasure that the Wiki page captures it well, and so we refer others to it as a basis for discussion. And of course a middle ground is possible: We may not trust Wikipedia implicitly, but we may be swayed by a given page's excellent sourcing and references, so that, if there is a discrepancy between what we think language is, and what the page says, we may give ground to the implied expertise of the page, and modify our concept accordingly.

Do you think this is pretty good picture of your intent here, when you refer us to Wikipedia?

Indeed! Which points up that these approaches all have their merits, and none excludes the others.

I'll try. Haslanger argues that there are four main approaches used to answer "What is X?" questions: conceptual, descriptive, ameliorative, and genealogical.

A conceptual approach would ask "What is our concept of X?" and looks to a priori methods such as introspection for an answer. This approach assumes a sort of "common knowledge" about a concept, at least as it's understood in some dialogical arena. Taking into account differing intuitions about cases and principles, the conceptual approach hopes eventually to reach a reflective equilibrium, with basic agreement on what the concept means.

A descriptive approach is concerned with what kinds (if any) our vocabulary about X tracks. The task is to hold the descriptions as givens, and develop potentially more accurate concepts through careful consideration of the phenomena in question, usually relying on empirical or quasi-empirical methods. In other words, we can change the concept based upon new information.

An ameliorative approach begins by asking: What is the point of having the concept in question—for example, why do we have a concept of "language"? What are we using it to talk about? What concept (if any) would do this conversational work best? Is "language" that concept? This approach often ends by proposing a better or more useful understanding of a concept, in terms of getting the job done. Or it may recommend abandoning the concept entirely and replacing it with another that gets better results.

A genealogical approach explores the history of a concept, not in order to determine its true meaning by reference to origins ("truth by etymology"), and not for "sheer historicist fascination," but in order to understand how the concept is embedded in evolving social practices. What role does the concept play in our web of beliefs?

So, for this thread, consider one of the opening questions:

What is the difference between language and communication, if any? — KrisGl

What kind of question is this? What sort of "difference" is being examined?

We could start by asking, "Which of the above approaches are you using to ask this question? Are you interested in how our language-using community of philosophers defines these two concepts (conceptual approach)? Are you asking what sorts of things fall under the heading of 'language' and 'communication,' with an eye toward refining the concepts accordingly (descriptive approach)? Are you asking why we need to have these two concepts in the first place, and perhaps proposing a useful discrimination between them in order to achieve our goals (ameliorative approach)? Or are you interested in knowing how the two terms have evolved within a matrix of social practices here in the U.S. (or the West, or whatever social group seems relevant) (genealogical approach)?"

This hardly does justice to Haslanger, but at least it gives you the flavor. She is pointing out how often we charge into some Big Question about, e.g., language, without first clarifying the kind of inquiry we're making. Is it about words? concepts? practices? best practices? You mentioned metaphorical and literal uses of "language," and that's just the sort of issue that could be approached by asking, "OK, what would 'a literal use of language' be? What concept of language are we going to be talking about here? Is it written in conceptual stone, so to speak? Is there somewhere we could look it up? Maybe we could come up with a better, more descriptive, more useful definition..." etc etc.

Or avail yourselves of this excellent paper by Sally Haslanger that discusses different approaches to answering "What is X?" questions. The "what is a language" question in this thread is a classic example of what she's discussing. (If you're not interested in her opening issues, concerning the language of race and gender, you can skip to p. 12, where she lays out her overall strategy.)

For awhile now I've been searching for a diagnosis of what the exact philosophical issue is that collectively Mainstream, Non-mainstream, and layman physicists have had regarding modern scientific practice. — substantivalism

This is an interesting topic, but I had trouble following you in the ensuing paragraphs. Is it possible for you to offer a fairly short answer to the question you're posing, above? What is the best diagnosis, according to how you understand the issues? Or are there several candidate answers you could draw our attention to?

Thanks, I agree it would be better if we had a good neutral term that wasn't steeped in philosophical history, but I don't know of one either. As long as we both understand each other . . .

As for Quine: "Two Dogmas" only questions analytic statements that are supposed to be true by virtue of meaning-synonymy. If you go back and look at the start of the paper, you'll see that he exempts logical truths.

Now that I think of it, @Srap Tasmaner and I discussed this earlier in the thread:

Quine himself had very mixed feelings about whether the laws of logic were subject to revision. I think his final answer was yes, but it's a last resort, and they are very insulated, resistant to revision.
— Srap Tasmaner

Just as an aside, I think Quine believed the laws of logic were true because we could supply clear definitions for all the operators and connectives. This is in Word and Object. In a subsequent work which I haven’t read, The Philosophy of Logic, he extends this to non-classical logics, according to [Susan] Haack. She says that he accepts “a meaning-variance argument to the effect that the theorems of deviant and classical logics are, alike, true in virtue of the meaning of the (deviant or classical) connectives; which, in turn, seems to lead him to compromise his earlier insistence that fallibilism extends even to logic.” — J

I think the key difference here is "true in virtue of meaning" (of the connectives) as opposed to some kind of truth that is dependent upon empirical facts. If this is right, then math and logical truths wouldn't depend on anything of the latter kind. But anyone who knows where Quine ended up on this should weigh in.

I question whether mathematical axioms count as 'phenomena', which is 'what appears' — Wayfarer

I tried to pick the most neutral word possible. Is there a better term for the denizens (another neutral word!) of the "formal realm"? Happy to use it instead.

Quine’s critique where he argued that even mathematical axioms aren’t purely necessary but depend on the broader network of empirical and theoretical commitments. — Wayfarer

Is there a particular reference you have in mind? Quine's position wavered over the years.

The invisible and visible can't resemble each other unless we make both visible. — jkop

Why not? I must be missing something still. I thought such a resemblance was the point of your saying that "there can be resemblance between two states of affairs such as seeing things and thinking about things." One is visible, the other not. Oh well. Not a terribly important point, either way.

Ah, but can you? — Wayfarer

Good response. Maybe we need three categories: 1. genuinely contingent physical phenomena; 2. phenomena which we can imagine were otherwise but in fact could not be; 3. phenomena like mathematically necessary statements, which we can't even imagine to be otherwise.

I see three distinct grades of necessity in those three categories. 2 and 3 may both produce outcomes that are, in practice, non-contingent, but our ability to imagine 2 otherwise, but not 3, has to make a difference, modally. Rough guess -- 2 is about necessity of Being, 3 concerns necessity of Thought. The capitalizations are meant to indicate that these are placeholder terms, having something to do with the synthetic/analytic division.

There just isn't any reason to make the visible/invisible comparison central to resemblance.
— J

I didn't. — jkop

Not to run it into the ground, but here's what you said:

A resemblance-relation requires at least two objects which can resemble each other. Granted that all objects resemble each other in the abstract sense of being objects, but how can anything invisible resemble something visible?

My point is that they can't, unless you somehow make both visible. — jkop

Surely that makes visibility "central to resemblance" -- indeed, it sounds like the criterion for it ("you can't, unless . . .").