Now our choice is not determined by any physical or neurological state. — EnPassant

I like the creativity of your post. It's a fun idea.

As I think others implied, we would still have to address the decision to 'run' your algorithm in the first place. Someone could claim to ideally be able explain it in terms of physical brain stuff --but this open a supreme can of worms. What is explanation? Have I explained something just because I found an algorithm that makes good predictions? Anyway, I don't think the strong determinist (who might not even appeal to physics) would be forced to admit defeat.

I like the flexibility of the relation R. It responds to issue-appropriate uses of the word 'true.' While you gave a few good examples, I suppose we could plausibly differentiate them further. For instance, an individual is likely to have an idiosyncratic, history-dependent assimilation of the coherence theory or the correspondence theory. So we could start by thinking of a slightly different set of relations in each individual, classified by family resemblance. As you might guess, I would just move from the discrete to the continuous. Admittedly it's hard to work with a continuum without discrete categories. I think we maybe move our bodies in the world or play music more or less with a continuous understanding, but language forces us to categorize.

Do you find it plausible that instead of a few separate relations that we have in practice something more like a continuum? That we clarify 'true' in a sentence by mostly imperfectly categorizing that relation?

OK, sounds good. And I should actually do some work that pays the bills.

I use "subjective" simply as a label for "anything mental." I don't think it's a good idea to attach any normatives to it*, to talk about it as more or less "rich" or anything like that. — Terrapin Station

Fair enough. I'm not big on normative either. Or at least I like putting one my amoral theorist hat and talking about what is. There are more than enough people out there doing the easier thing of talking about what merely ought to be. [Hegel expresses a contempt for the merely-ought-to-be in terms of it being too weak to even exist and not worth talking about.]

So let's abandon rich. My point is that subjectivity contains far more than modelling of the non-mental. We might even say that it mostly models itself --and the relation of itself to models of the non-mental. It seems to me that philosophy is largely a thinking of thinking, operating at a very high level. It, among other things, models the modelling of the modelling, etc.

So maybe I can rephrase my question: what grounds or makes true theories about the relation of the mental to the non-mental? I understand that the non-mental can ground or be said to ground statements about the non-mental. But when we include the mental in our models, it becomes less obvious what makes them true --unless we rank the existence of the mental and the non-mental similarly, etc.

Does the materialist argue that matter is what makes mathematical or logical statements true? — Michael

Maybe not. I probably had the wrong kind of materialist in mind and am derailing your point.

the issue of mathematical realism is independent of the idealist vs dualist vs materialist argument. — Michael

I think I see what you mean, and I agree. I guess my focus is on what we mean by 'real.' What is the thing that makes something real? Or not-just-for-me or not-just-opinion? When people debate about this 'thing' earnestly (with a sense that their own position is not-just-opinion), are they even appealing to the ground they are arguing for ? If someone says that mathematical entities are real and another disagrees, how are the numbers supposed to be present or absent? There is already some grasp of the entities in the first place, else there could be no semi-intelligible debate about whether these entities had a 'further' or 'official' kind of existence. [Forgive me if this is too much of a digression.]

Yeah, that's all I'm saying, really. Subjectivity then is all of those brain states from the first-person perspective. Objectivity is the complement. — Terrapin Station

Thanks for clarifying. That seems very reasonable. Perhaps we can explore this idea: clearly we use some of our subjectivity to mode objectivity or mind-independent stuff, but subjectivity (or our experience) is much richer than this modelling. It includes much more than this one kind of modelling. And subjectivity includes models of itself, of its own modeling, for instance, and models of that modelling. We might ask what makes these models 'true' or 'false' or better or worse.

For instance, you idea of the relationship between brain states and what-it-is-like-to-be-brain-states would seem to be a modelling of this wider context, since it relates the non-objective to the objective.
Would you say that your model of the situation is simply the one you currently find most appropriate? Or is it more certain and grounded than that? If so, by what?

It's a cute thought. I've enjoyed it before myself.

As an answer to your question, I'd say that if you set the bar for proof impossibly high, then no one is going to jump over it with the right combination of words. If someone wanted to meet your challenge, they would probably do it indirectly, by attacking its relevance or inexpensiveness. By inexpensiveness I mean that it is actually easy to generate such issues by simply always setting the bar of proof impossibly high.

Q. How can we prove that arguments aren't an illusion?
A. [Some long argument that proves arguments aren't 'an illusion.']
Q. But how do I know that your otherwise successful answer is not an illusion? Prove to me that I am not deceived in my perception of your sound argument's existence.
A. How? You'll just do the same thing.
Q. Ha. Looks like I win again.
A. What did you win?

It's what the properties are like when you are those properties. That's different than what brains are like from a third-person perspective. — Terrapin Station

OK. I agree. From my point of view you are making a similar distinction in a different terminology. So your idea about ideas 'being' brain states would be the what-it-is-like-to-be of a particular brain state, which makes sense to me. I just think we need some kind of distinction like that to account for what is called the subjective (and I'm not allergic to the dependence of the subjective on the objective in the usual sense: a world 'out there' was here first and will outlast us).

Both the idealist and the external world realist can believe that whether or not 1 + 1 = 2 is “objective” and not just a matter of personal opinion. — Michael

It seems to me that the real issue is the thing that can make opinions not just opinions. When people argue whether there is matter, they clearly are concerned with something that makes their opinion not just an opinion. Those who deny matter or the certainty of matter are still relying on something that makes their idea true for others. Logic is part of that, and some sense of a shared world seems to be part of that. It's as if our 'sense' of there being others is 'deeper' than any explicit conceptualization of this sense (about which we could argue endlessly with others, who are there prior to this elaboration and for this elaboration. )

The only thing is that contingently, I almost always see it wrapped up with religious beliefs. — Terrapin Station

I guess what you mention is common enough. Perhaps we both noticed one of two or more common games being played.

It might seem like a bold assertion to you, but to me it seems incredibly obvious. — Terrapin Station

I find it hard to parse this. If you are only saying that ideas are caused by or related to or dependent upon brain states, then sure, nothing controversial.

I'm assuming though that you are thinking of brain states in terms of 'mind independent reality,' the kind of thing accessible by scientific instruments. And then I think you 'believe' in something that people call the mental. For instance, the experience of a scientist reading the output of one of her machines. Or the experience of the 'meaning' of your own assertion. How are we to understand that these things are the same and not just predictably related?

It's basically the philosophical equivalent of a toddler thinking that mom disappears when the toddler puts a blanket over their head. Some people mentally don't move past that stage. — Terrapin Station

I think it's more about scientism. Doubt is perceived as 'scientific.' It's an asceticism in terms of belief. The less you believe, the better you are. Faith is the basic sin. But of course it ignores our practical situation, which makes it a kind of theological scientism, 'reason' gone wild, getting tangled up in language out for a smoke break.

If you are trying to escape from cultures of superstition, Nature is looking good. — Valentinus

I agree generally, but there is the possibility of scientism. And then if we do think nature is a blind machine, then it doesn't help us much with deciding upon the human issues that mostly concern us --except by opening the space of possibility. I can appeal to a 'greater' and 'colder' authority than the wisdom of my tribe. I can gaze on all the legislators and pointing fingers from my imagination of the amoral atoms in the void. Democritus was the laughing philosopher.

You'd believe in God to the extent that you have some concept/understanding of God, and you'd be able to describe the concept/understanding that you believe. — Terrapin Station

It's nice to be able to agree with you on something. This is actually related to what I was saying about how things exist. To say only that God exists without giving any content to God is to say nothing, really. Whether something exists is trivial apart from how it is supposed to exist (what it is.)

Some might object that God is beyond conception. I can only make sense of this if they mean their experience of God is emotional, sensual, or generally akin to the experience of music, art, and that aspect of communication with other human beings which is not conceptual (a smile exchanged,a hug.)
The only thing that troubles me with this approach is that often 'beyond conceptual' is still insisted upon in an essentially conceptual way, as something that is and isn't concept, mostly to escape the threat of their experience being subjective, since they often want to prove things about God. Not all such theists will grant that 'well, it just felt like a universally accessible and relevant experience.'

Realism is refutable in that it commits one to a contradictory term, ''unperceived object''. — philosophy

So what kind of reality are we talking about when we say that realism is refutable [in that reality]. Is our solipsist just deciding that realism is refutable in his lonely mind? In most cases, philosophers are trying to bring important truths to others, which assumes a shared reality that grounds those truths as true-for-us and not just true-for-me. This notion of the ground of true-for-us seems fundamental. I write it under erasure because it seems pre-conceptual. We can argue about whatever this ground is, but we argue from the very beginning in terms of this elusive ground. Merely bothering to argue with a particular notion in mind already grants the fundamental point, that there is such a notion.

So arguments about whether there is an external world or whether there is a 'real' argument for or against this external world already presume this ground, which we might call the 'real' or 'primordial' external world, except that 'social' might be better than 'external' here.

Whatever I experience I experience as an idea in my mind. — philosophy

Is this a fact or possibly just a relationship between what we usually mean by 'mind' and 'experience'? If you define experience in terms of mediation, then of course you will never directly experience whatever it is that is being mediated.

On the other hand, we also use 'experience' in terms of experiencing something. And perception means roughly that we are perceiving something. Our rough common sense notion (which is used in-explicitly all the time) is that we live in a shared reality which we experience with some individual variation as a function of our individual spatial position, mood, sense organs, education, etc. If we didn't start from a sense of shared reality, then why are you here trying to tell us something about that shared reality? What can truth mean in the absence of others? In the absence of some vague stuff that makes statements true?
[As an aside, I think all attempts to formalize or make explicit this sense of shared world tend to run into difficulties, but that's an issue for another thread.]

It follows from this that belief in the external world, i.e. a world independent of my experience of it, cannot be based on reason but on faith. — philosophy

If one identifies absolute deductive certainty with reason, then science itself is based not on reason but on faith. An a priori deductive certainty is usually just a matter of definitions (learned in time and imperfectly and not really a priori anyway) (with mathematical intuitions being a little more controversial.) Just about everything is suddenly based on faith rather than reason so that the worth of the distinction is obliterated. And you must then take a leap of faith that you are actually talking to other people and not just figments of your imagination. (I don't think it's controversial that our experience of other people is mediated or indirect.)

In other words, of mind-independent matter I can say nothing at all. — philosophy

In a way yes, but mostly by understanding 'mind-independent matter' in terms of that about which you can say nothing at all (in the first place.) What is discovered is a relationship between meanings as you semi-arbitrarily yank them from the usual blurriness into a specificity that serves your conclusion.

In short, IMV you are just exploring the way we tend to talk rather than some reality beyond that talk. I'm not saying I don't understand you or see why you say what you say.

In such cases, I think parties will need to carefully translate each other's utterances, and try to see what sorts of questions their interlocuters are asking. When we come from different paradigms, or have different perspectives (on a smaller, less systematic scale), we tend to ask different sorts of questions. This needs to be kept in mind. — Welkin Rogue

Exactly -- and when the intention is not dominantly combative and instead sincerely curious, this kind of paradigm leaping (or attempted leaping) seems like the natural result. One reason I like semantic holism so much is that it keeps paradigms/personalities foremost.

Hi. I'm not a theist myself, but I have enjoyed reading your posts. Others have also responded well, and this is generally an exciting thread. Thanks!

Thanks for the invite. I mostly like to react. It feels more natural.

In a good way, you kind of remind me of my cat. You push lots of buttons to see what happens. She pushes objects around with a sort of focus and curiosity.

What camp do you fall in? Sorry for pigeonholing here — Posty McPostface

I try to be an original philosopher, synthesizing and paraphrasing everything that seems great. On an 'existential' level, I have no choice. I react to being thrown into this particular life. On a creative level, I just really like pulling phrases out of my soul, especially when I can sketch the forest. It's great feeling when you re-read something and feel that you really captured something potent.

I don't understand your answer at all. You brought up that how most people use language doesn't cohere with my stated view.

I'm wondering why it matters, in your view, that how most people use language doesn't cohere with my stated view.

It implies that you think that our views should cohere with how most people use language. Why?

I was trying to avoid a bunch of posts a la "your response makes no sense to me," because there are at least a handful of posters here who post a lot where maybe 80-90% of the time, I'd have to answer with "your response makes no sense to me." But maybe it's better if I announce that every time rather than trying to "politely" plow ahead anyway, because that doesn't seem to go anywhere. — Terrapin Station

Fair enough, and I appreciate your honesty. I'll grant that when people share their own perspective that there is some whiff of 'be like me: let's all do it this way.'

Does it deeply matter to me that I convince you? Not really, though of course I would enjoy dragging you in the direction of my way of seeing things. That's just how people are. But I also take a real delight in my way of seeing things, and it just revs up my mind to always find a new way to say it. I'm guessing that we are both conscious that our conversation is public, so there is something performative here. We know we are being overheard. Frankly, I am more motivated to write when there is at least a possible audience. And then I think the give-and-take flow of conversation is a very natural structure.

Why do I preach the gospel of semantic holism? I guess I just like my philosophy more literary and existential, so I am making a case for abandoning certain intricate issues for those I find more exiting. I like the cynics, skeptics, stoics, etc. I like 'big' visions of what it means to exist and of what is virtuous. I think philosophy can be continuous with literature and music. For instance, Nietzsche is like conceptual rock'n'roll. He's not exactly systematic, but he's a thrill to read. I hope this helps.

If people were to suddenly disappear there would be no cities, towns, counties, provinces, states, countries, etc. Those things are just abstractions/ways that we think. Things like the moon are a different issues, though) — Terrapin Station

Why is the moon a different issue? Presumably human cognition 'chunks' reality into objects of concern. Most would agree that some kind of ur-object-stuff is out there whether we are around to see it or not, but I don't see any exact threshold between 'models' or 'chunking' like houses and the same 'chunking' into moons or electrons or even theories of knowledge.

"Exists for us" you mean re how you know about it? If so, sure, but it's important not to conflate epistemology and ontology. Facts do not need us to exist in order to be facts. — Terrapin Station

I roughly agree that facts don't need us in order to be facts. I believe that there is a world with particular ways that will continue after all of us talkers are gone. I have just tended to find that any attempt to formulate or make explicit objectivity tends to run into specific difficulties, usually because the theory itself gets entangled in its own assertions. That said, I think I agree with you on the larger vision. I'd just say that once god is dead that the rest is just details that are no longer terribly important. Of course that's preference. I'd just prefer moving on to more existential questions, having accepted something like a mind-independent nature that doesn't care about me 'in' which I have my meaningful 'illusions' or mental states. Since we live and die for these mental states, calling them 'only' mental states mostly has value as an antidote to dogmatism.

The same thing happens to me when I read most continental writers, including (and kind of starting with) Kant. — Terrapin Station

What about the preface to the CPR? I feel like the preface really sketches his motivations and even his conclusions, though without the detailed justifications. (It's amusing too that Hegel's preface to the phenomenology is partially about the impossibility of prefaces and yet is often considered to contain the essence of his philosophy.)

Whenever I read Hegel it very quickly just starts to seem like a list of words to me. — Terrapin Station

If you ever get in the mood, his actual lectures are much more comprehensible. So is his philosophy of history. I find it exhausting to read his more abstract works, though there are some killer passages here and there in the phenomenology.

OK, thanks. But I still think there is some difficulty here. A fact exists for us, it seems, as a state of mind. Would you say that a fact exists for us as a truth? As a proposition that corresponds to the way of the world?

No, I said it's a non-mental fact. That's different than saying it's true. Facts and truths are not the same thing. — Terrapin Station

OK. Could you explain that? (Sketch the relevant difference.)

What are those? — Posty McPostface

But surely you already know. In short, the big meanings of life, the kind of things that religion and art also aim at. Who I am? Who shall I be? What can I become? What is good? What is evil? And these questions aren't idle theoretical curiosity. They are asked sincerely, sometimes desperately. I would include pessimism, stoicism, cynicism, etc. in 'existential' philosophy, simply because they are concerned with our entire existence and not simply with a theory of knowledge. One might say that philosophy is (or can be or should be or shouldn't be) one manifestation of the spiritual, a manifestation especially concerned with clarification and self-consciousness.

Actually, it is more than that, because it's a non-mental fact that "This is pleasant" is just a mental phenomenon. — Terrapin Station

I understand where you are coming from, but I still think there are problems with that approach. It sounds something like a correspondence understanding of truth. But then we end up with problems: if it is the truth that truth is correspondence, then to what does the correspondence theory correspond? Surely not to some Platonic entity called truth which is out there among the atoms-and-void. IMO, I think our sense of objectivity and the shared world is less explicit than that and perhaps evades formalization.

Interesting. I think you are right to treat the atomic propositions with contempt. There's something to be said about arguing over trifle differences. I take the Wittgensteinian approach and push for less ambiguity and vagueness. What are your thoughts on this feature of the language that is 'ambiguity' and 'vagueness'? — Posty McPostface

'Contempt' is a harsh word. You might say that I like philosophy to include the concerns of existentialism. It doesn't matter to me what we call it. If we 'existentialists' get kicked out for being insufficiently scientific or academic, then not much will change. We will be 'anti-'philosophers or alternative philosophers. The word is just a tree. The grasp on existence and what is most worth talking about will be the same. I'm guessing that Dostoevsky will always be more interesting to me than the k-nearest neighbors algorithm.

When it comes to vagueness, I think it's natural that we work against it when the stakes are high. Basically it is 'expensive' to clarify meaning. We have to hang around and talk until we have the mutual sense of understanding one another. But we are busy creatures! Most of the time when we ask 'how are you?' we are more than happy with 'fine, and you?' A general sense of what is going on is often enough and let's us get back to detailed work.

Also in ordinary life we don't usually zoom in on our language. It just flies out of us routinely. Much of our activity is semi-conscious or automatic. Heidegger's first draft of Being and Time is 100 pages of brilliant philosophy that includes this kind of awareness and really complements Wittgenstein. I don't have any big endorsement of Heidegger as a whole. So far I haven't felt my way into his later work. I even find the style off-putting.

macrosoft, what are your further thoughts about atomic meaning? I believe they are important to discourse, and the trifle differences become apparent with their examination. Are you a Pragmatist by any chance? — Posty McPostface

I was strongly influenced by pragmatism, but I guess I'm a macrosoftist, and macrosoftism is always still underway. I am working it out even now in this conversation and highly doubt that I will ever stop working it out. Philosophy is, as W might, say the clarification of thought, not some fixed body of thought. I'd say that existence is endlessly dynamic. The future exists as possibility in a concrete situation with a history.

On 'atomic meaning,' I'd say again that something like holism is 'obvious,' except that it is covered over by a method that is applied uncritically. Why do people want atomic meanings? Why do philosophers think the way to go is to ask 'what is X?' while taking X out all contexts? I'd say that it's largely because of a scientistic approach that takes itself for granted as the only 'objective' or 'rational' approach. You might say that philosophy is just identified semi-consciously with some kind of super-science. It obsesses over the criteria for statements being correct or objective, without asking after its own motives in the wider context of existing as a mortal human being.

There is an obsession with some kind of 'perfect' certainty, which really has a theological flavor. And there is also a sort of (inappropriate to its object) mathematical approach to language. Because so many share this hope, they end up arguing about how to set up the 'object' language. This object language is lots of stipulated definitions that make flexible and vague ordinary language into something more exact in order to make the word-math more plausible.

They don't tend to question the hope or the method to begin with (and the method deserves its due, by the way). It's exactly the 'obviousness' of the method that makes it invisible. The way they reach for the 'object' (existence) is like the way I reach for coffee. The difference is that this way of reaching for the object is actually malleable. But those who grasp the object in a different way (meaning holism, for instance) are not easily understood from within the atomic paradigm. Why? Because those in the atomic paradigm are constantly getting entangled in trying to do math with what the semantic holist says. They think he must be doing the kind of thing that 'of course' philosophers are trying to do. His terms are 'zoomed in' on. His tree math doesn't add up. But the 'tree math' approach is exactly what he's trying to offer an alternative to.

For anyone to respond to, if they like:

Is it controversial that 'nature' is a kind of dead machine that doesn't care about us? Maybe a little, but mostly in terms of theism versus atheism. I think most atheists with an interest in science will agree that 'matter' or 'fields' or 'atoms and the void' or (whatever model is current) don't give a damn about us.

So from the perspective that 'atoms and the void' is the 'really' real, of course humans are just babbling opinions. Atoms and the void don't care if we commit incest or genocide. That's all just 'silly' human preference. And I agree that this seems to follow from a certain vision of nature. We think of the stuff out there that gets in our way and doesn't care about our moral intuitions. While some might find this vision so troubling that it truly freaks them out, many people just take it as educated common sense. For that reason IMO the details are not terribly interesting.

Why? Because we are embedded in communities that will kill us or celebrate us according to our behavior. We live largely in this 'second' nature. As a practical matter, we have to understand and move within the 'illusions' that humans 'project' on this indifferent atoms-and-void stuff. And given a little thought (instrumentalism), we can even say that this indifferent atoms-and-void stuff is one more useful language game or illusion. We might just as well take our immersion in the community as primary. Our most natural and primary experience of the world is that it is inexactly intelligible. I see things that I know how to manipulate. I know what they are for. I look around in terms of what I can use to do whatever it is I currently need to do. And I do little things in terms of larger projects. From this other perspective, our fundamental experience of the world is as something to manipulate and move within as well as the place where there are people to love and fear and converse with. We have lots of language games for lots of different human purposes. Within one of these games, all such games are 'illusions' or projections on the atoms-and-void stuff, even (awkwardly) the same game that proclaims all such games to be illusions/projections.

I am a nihilist to the point that I do not see value in defending or attacking nihilism and so that is not what I do. I am not trying to establish a metaphysical truth that metaphysical truths are impossible here, I am simply asking those who hold the metaphysical truth that metaphysical truths are possible to come and defend themselves purely for the fun of it — khaled

Oh, sorry. I just observed some of your conversation with others and got the sense that you were defending nihilism. Now that you've clarified, I'll try to do better.

"Clever, skillful and pleasant" are all mental judgments we make. "This is not just clever" and so on would also be mental judgments we make, and they're nothing more than that. — Terrapin Station

Well, sure. But then 'They're nothing more than that' is also nothing more than that, and merely one more mental judgement we make. The idea that only some kind of stuff 'out there' is 'really' real is, on its own terms, a mere 'illusion' or 'projection.'

To be clear, I know very well where you are coming from. If I put my amateur physicist hat on, then sure that method treats some kind of mind-independent nature (that doesn't care about us or have preferences) as fundamental. This seems to be something like educated common sense, though admittedly plenty of people do indeed add God to the equation.

But I'd say that most atheists and agnostics think of nature as a blind machine. They will grant that (from within one perspective among many possible and useful) we 'project' value on what is essentially or 'really' dead and meaningless necessity. I'm at peace with this view, but I don't think it's very important to argue over the details. The important thing is whether one grasps existence as situated within such a dead machine or within a world organized by some trans-human intelligence. I think and act as if we are alone down here, and from that perspective I am concerned with what can be made of existence. Where can art take me? To what degree is even traditional religious thought 'true' 'subjectively and intended 'subjectively' in the first place? It seems to me that sometimes individuals with a particular epistemology or ontological ax to grind project that kind of concern onto discussions where that's not really the central thread or intention. The hammer sees only nails. To what degree does method constrain what appears in the first place?

In some cases they are. I've been doing this a long time, and I've had various discussions over the years with philosophers who believe that we literally share meanings in communication. — Terrapin Station

OK, I'll grant you that. But for me this falls under the critique of terminological dispute. It is an issue between philosophers with little or no relevance at all for our actions in the world. 'Differences that make no difference.' I am expressing a different kind of preference of my own in that view, admittedly. I'm not saying 'it is the case that that approach is wrong.' Instead I'm saying 'I don't think that kind of issue is very exciting, because it feels/looks like grammer preferencing. '

You seem to hold a view that we all really believe the same things. That's not at all the case. — Terrapin Station

I'll readily grant that we believe very different things at the explicitly conceptual level. But I think this happens against a receding background of a taken-for-granted sense of the world and a basic know-how with ordinary language.

What do we make of all of these endless differences? One way to try to deal with the complexity is to look for differences that make a significant difference. One philosopher believes that we see the tree. The other that see only the seeing of the tree. They do have different meanings in mind. But these different meanings are mapped to the same behavior away from the study where metaphysical questions have a kind of chess-like fascination. So the meanings are different but the difference is less exciting from a perspective more interested in stronger differences.

No idea what that has to do with the rest of the post. I'm not quite sure what you're saying there, either. — Terrapin Station

I grant that it's a weird approach.All I can say is to really try to pay attention to your reading as you read, your writing as you write. See how the meanings flow non-atomically.

Objective facts in no way hinge on our existence to obtain. — Terrapin Station

I think this is a perfectly fine definition, but I don't think it exhausts the use of 'objective.' As I see it, there is a certain futility in trying to impose preferred meanings on words. For the most part, we have to live in the linguistic wild as we find and make sense of people who do not adopt our jargon. Since they do not adopt our jargon (and maybe have never even heard of it), we have to interpret them top-down and express ourselves top-down, from forest to tree --with the trees being our terms of art that only make sense within a wider context.

Truth and knowledge are things that we do. not things that the universe does apart from us. — Terrapin Station

I personally agree that this is a good way to think of them. But I always try to feel my way into the use at hand as I converse with an individual.

t I'm using "truth" in a rather technical way — Terrapin Station

I understand this. But for me the problem with these technical uses is that they are very local. If you bring back your findings about this technical notion of truth, then your results are going to be misinterpreted by everyone who hasn't followed your entire process in terms of that technical definition. Of course this is fine if one is happy to stay within a particular sub-community (those trained in AP and loyal to its vision of philosophy), but for me this would be too constraining. I want to talk to the weirdos and the autodidacts too, because heretics and outsiders can often see around limitations of method, encrusted 'invisible' stifling presuppositions, etc.

And then as a matter of style I want to be as intelligible as possible to virtuous people who haven't studied AP philosophy (maybe because they are too busy studied engineering or literature or music.) And I don't want to feel the urge to interrupt them as they 'misuse' what for me is a term of art. Better I think to embrace having to learn lots of semi-private languages.

Is logic part of the concept of world coherence? — frank

Yes, IMO, if we takelogic in a wider sense.

I notice that no one believes logic is not innate. But explore that anyway; what if it's basically community norms? — frank

This is a good theme. I can relate to understanding logic more generally in terms of the community's norms for speaking. Some ideas are so 'hot' that merely approaching them with detachment is guilty and suspect. @Jake is exploring this in another thread. Maybe lots of us allow ourselves dangerous thinking in private without finding it worth the trouble to hold that part of the space open. It seems to me that 'deep' individually is related to a distance on some level from what everyone believes. With no distance there is just total self-righteous immersion. This is the mob-self, and I think there is something in us that loves sinking into the warmth of the mob.

And yet also something (stronger in some than in others) that loves a kind of 'violence' against everything settled.

Ask a Pyrenean skeptic "Is knowledge possible" and he would say "I don't know". That doesn't make him "not a skeptic" it makes him a hardcore skeptic actually. — khaled

I like this, and I think it's an important point. That's why I'd say that nihilism 'has' to be expressed as self-conscious 'sophistry.' If it presents itself as a kind of truth about knowledge, then it trips over its own claims. What it can get away with (and this is something Rorty uses to avoid 'really' being a relativist) is understanding itself in terms of suggesting experiments. 'Let's try to doubt our fundamental assumptions. Let's try thinking of things this way.' The whole style of just presenting truths about truth as truths (its impossibility, for instance) is inappropriate if one is really trying to get loose from a dogmatic tendency.

Nihilism tells one to doubt literally all values. — khaled

What about the value of doubting? Nihilism (as you use it there) implies that doubting is of value, does it not? Or why take doubt as a fundamental approach? Why ought we doubt?

And is there a limit to genuine doubt? I say yes, there is. And that's why a certain kind of exaggerated nihilism is no less metaphysical than what it opposes itself to. If basic intelligbility depends on things that can't be doubted, then nihilism sets an impossible goal just as metaphysicians do when they understand 'objective' in absolute terms. To even try to communicate or defend 'nihilism' already assumes the possibility and value of communication, so that it is nakedly absurd in its absolute form.

So what it really comes down to (seems to me) is the doubting of particular 'settled' opinions which aren't 'necessary opinions' which can't sincerely be doubted -- motivated by a sense that settled opinions are suspicious and that being free from settled opinions is (within reasonable limits) virtuous. What dominates is perhaps an image of a particular kind of detached wise man.