Soft ontologist I can live with, but you can’t get “anti-realist” from my “empirical realist, certainly”.

For me to require “some sort of internal reality”, presupposes some sort of speculative metaphysics, because that’s the only means to it.

And I’ll have you know my fins are no more floppy than anybody else’s, thank you very much.

How does your view about private language flow into your ontology? I'm guessing you're a realist. — frank

The easy part, and.....good guess. An empirical realist, certainly, insofar as to deny spacetime reality independent of me, yet necessarily causal in itself, is both contradictory and dangerous. At the same time, there seems to be some sort of internal reality that is very different. And from that seeming.......let the games begin.

Somewhat less easy, is the doctrine of ontology.....taken to reference the science of the nature of being. Ehhhhh.......whatever is, is whatever it is, the nature of its being given immediately to me upon my knowledge of it, which follows seemingly from my own internal reality. In general, epistemology holds the more fundamental metaphysical domain, than ontology. Doesn’t matter what the ontology of a thing is, if a valid methodology for knowledge doesn’t precede. Plus....I prefer to keep my -ologies and -isms as plain and simple and few as possible.

So.....because I know from experience what “language” entails, and I know I can assemble the representations of my conceptions into an organized composition, which is exactly what experience informs me is “language”, I am authorized to think “talking to myself” is a legitimate rational exercise, which is logically the same as having a language contained in, and used by, me alone. Hence, an ontology of private language in the logical sense, is given.

This is, of course, thoroughly refuted by merely changing the prioritization inherent in concept of language itself, from its altogether necessary internal construction by a subject, to its altogether contingent external employment by some other subject, which is exactly what post-Enlightenment analytic philosophers did.
————-

In context.....

So would you argue that the set of things we declare to be real is largely produced intersubjectively and has the stamp of culture on it? — frank

No - I would not use that word; nor the notion of reality that seems implicit. — Banno

I think Mww will say whether he thinks reality is a social construct. — frank

OK. You do see that the question you asked Mww is different to the question you asked me..? — Banno

......it appears Frank equates “the set of things we declare to be real” spoken to Banno, with “reality” asked of me. I’m OK with that part, at least as it pertains herein. It then appears Frank equates “produced intersubjectively and has the stamp of culture” spoken to Banno, with “a social construct” asked of me. I’m OK with that, too, in context herein.

I disagree with Banno in that he claims it is a different question. On the other hand, I agree with Banno, in that I wouldn’t use the term “intersubjectivity”, and I would thereby reject the implication the term carries, with respect to reality, specifically, insofar as I disagree with the notion that reality is a social construct.

The really cool part is, those “Kantian oddities” Banno tosses about in such cavalier fashion, offer the perfect logical exposition for the ambiguity and general logical vagaries contained in the term “intersubjectivity”, justifying its epistemological exclusion. Which, ironically enough, does nothing to exclude it from psychological doctrines, where ambiguity and logical vagaries prosper.

If you were feral, I don't think your natural capacity to speak would be activated. — frank

I dunno....a feral cat does the same basic stuff as a regular cat. A feral human, if there could be such a thing, might just be what we’d call uncivilized. Still have the same innate capacities, I would guess. Again....the reality of it would be inconceivable, even if the logic is not.

Point is, your private language would be built off work done by others — frank

Agreed, hence my (edited) unloaded consciousness stipulation.

You sure you want to throw in your lot with a bloke with an eccentric notion of equality, Mww? — Banno

I was agreeing with the gist of his comment as it relates to mine. No more, no less. I didn’t see anything in it having to do with equality.

I accept you agree with Wittgenstein. I agree private language is entirely impractical for intelligible communication, which is language’s only purpose, but do not agree it is impossible to create. I gave two examples of it.

I don't know how to make an untranslatable language. — frank

Yeah, but.....translatable by who? I don’t need my private language translated, and for somebody else to translate means it isn’t private.

I think I could make an untranslatable language if I had my current consciousness unloaded. But for that, I’d have to be 100% feral, meaning, from birth. But if I was 100% feral I wouldn’t survive long enough to load that version of my consciousness with conceptions words represent, which makes language creation moot. If I was in a vegetative state I might have an unloaded consciousness, or at least a useless one, but what use does a vegetable have for language.

Bottom line is....we’re human so anything we do must be something a human can do. If we’re going to have a language we have to develop one the way humans do. It would, as you say, have to relate to things innate to humans. Trying to figure out a non-human way, post hoc, is doomed to failure from sheer inconceivability.

Could you help me understand this? Isn't it drawing on common sense? — frank

I’m not a fan of analytic philosophy in general, and language philosophy in particular, so I’m not going to give an unbiased critique. See Antony Nickels; he knows this stuff inside out, but that doesn’t guarantee another’s understanding of it.

Does "private" mean untranslatable even in principle? — frank

It does to Wittgenstein. To me, private merely indicates contained in and used by the subject which thinks it. Post-moderns shy away form “subjective”, so they invoke “private” to substitute for it. Nevertheless, why would a private language need to be translatable? Why call it private if it’s not intended to represent a single mind, or consciousness, or user.

Yep. Thumbs up. Still just my opinion though.

What's the PLA's take-away? It's not actually an argument. — frank

Funny, though, the academic/peer-reviewed argument is that the PLA is nothing but argument, because there are no principles on which it could be grounded as a legitimate dialectical thesis, as had always been the wont of pure philosophy. I mean....from Locke to Fodor it’s been said that words are nothing but a map of subjective representation to meaning, and language merely stands for the possibility of a common map, all with no discourse on method.

Personally, I don’t see why there couldn’t be a comprehensible private language, contra Wittgenstein. Because it’s private, it must have been built by me, so it would only have to be comprehensible to me. And if it is absolutely impossible for me to misunderstand myself, and none of the ingredients of a possible private language contradict any of the others, it must be possible.....

It certainly doesn't preclude language use that simply isn't shared with others. — frank

.....just like that.

Oh. Ok. I forgot about that. Exceptions to the rule?

Sure we talk to ourselves, but can we without a language given from experience? Or, as you say, interaction? I don’t see why not. If I’m totally locked-in, say from birth, it wouldn’t be possible to relate my internal speech a posteriori anyway, so the chances of confusing myself are exactly zero. But it’s impossible to conceive these conditions anyway, so......

Pretty much as I see it, yep. Although I think Banno will reject the claim he creates false dichotomies, in that he is on the record as categorically rejecting half of it, that is, private language. I bet he says refusing to grant the validity of a true dichotomy is hardly the same as creating a false one.

It is easily neglected that private language is not self-contradictory; one can readily structure a publicly incomprehensible composition of invented words, however impractical it may be. I gave two examples, and I’d be surprised if there weren’t others.

distinguish between what is potentially comprehensible to others, and what is actually comprehensible to others. — Metaphysician Undercover

Which brings up the notion of intentionality, re: Brentano, 1874. The measure by which the potential transfers to the actual. We usually do wish to be understood when we communicate, which is determined primarily by how much we care about the composition of our expressions.

If you are human; you are, even in a philosophical way, blind to yourself — Antony Nickles

“....(except for psychology’s insights).....”

Ants at a picnic.

The language of their thoughts isn't native to them originally. They learned it through interaction. — frank

No one’s is; everyone does. Perhaps what is native in thought, is images.

But think about someone who's locked-in (they're conscious, but can't signal out in any way). — frank

Locked-in. Like....deaf-mute? Incapacitated somehow? Dunno. If he can’t get a signal out, he isn’t going to communicate anything, which makes words and language irrelevant anyway, as far as he’s concerned.

There’s always exceptions to the rule.

We work together to build the use of a word. — Banno

Yep. That still presupposes the word, and, implies experience.
———-

implying that all our words are subjectively invented.
— Banno

Originally, they were. All of them. No words in Nature.
— Mww

SO... your claim is that originally there were words used only by one person... a private language? — Banno

Could be, if the inventor of the word was the only user of it, in an organized, structured composition. Turns out, that’s not the case, as the historical record verifies, but that is beside the point.

Plus....here we go again with the goalposts; I never said words used by only one person. I said words subjectively invented, which implies one person, but does not imply use, that being merely a possible consequent. While it may not make sense to invent a word then not use it, that doesn’t mean the use is necessary because of invention. The use is necessary for something else, which, again, presupposes the invention.
————-

What do you think they did with these words? — Banno

They created that organized, structured composition I just mentioned.

What function could they have had — Banno

Like I said a couple days ago: represent subjective activities.

the individual grunted in a particular way each time they saw a particularly delicious fruit? — Banno

Sure, why not. A grunt for pleasure, a grunt for danger, a grunt for the fun of grunting. All representing subjective activities, subsequently communicated. You did say individual, after all.

they grunted, and others understood this as indicative of ripe fruit. — Banno

BINGO!!!! One grunts, the others respond according to what they understand the grunt to mean. Now we gots ourselves the basics of grunt-language, and it isn’t private. All started by a lonely grunt over lovely fruit, which was. Hmmmm.....image a pair of these hairy dudes, eating the fruit of the one bush. Would they emit the exact same grunt?

A grunt ain’t nothing but a word that don’t need no spellin’.

Anyway....enough of this. I’m right in what I’m saying, you’re right in what you’re saying. It’s just that mine comes before yours. If you’d just grant the chronology, it’d be a done deal.

Nor does there seem to be any difficulty outside of philosophy tutorials in moving from perception-of-shoe to shoe. — Banno

There shouldn’t be, even within philosophy, which doesn’t give a shit about what is known. Your handy-dandy little formula is mere memory; you musta already known what a shoe is in order to say “perception-of-shoe”. To be perfectly consistent, you are left with “perception-of-x to x”, which makes explicit you can never learn anything at all, if left to your own cognitive devices; for you, x can never be anything but x. And if every human ever, uses that formula.......where in the HELL did “shoe” even come from in the first place?????

Consider this, mon ami: your rational methodology bears striking resemblance to Hume and his “constant conjunction” theory, published a half century earlier than the epistemological philosophy I’ve been advocating, and chastised for as being outdated. Thing is.....humans haven’t significantly evolved since (+/-) the Neolithic era, insofar as the brain works pretty much the same way now as it did when we figured out how to get real food out of scruffy-assed seeds. I trust your intellectual capacity to draw the proper conclusions from such obvious implications.

So yes....things moved on. Things other than an irrefutable, thus entirely sufficient, scientific explanation for human experience. Without that, we are free to hypothesize as we wish. With proper regard to logic, of course. I hope you’ll agree that one is a fool to argue good logic just as much as one is a fool to argue good science.
——————-

the meaning is not private, but constructed and shared in that very use
— Banno

This suggests we always understand each other.
— Mww

I don't see how. There will obviously be misconstruel during the construction process. — Banno

I intended “we always understand each other” to indicate that if use alone was sufficient for both construction of meaning and sharing of it, I would only need your constructions given from your sharing in order to understand your meaning. Nevertheless, by saying there will always be misconstrueals merely admits an inconsistency in the your assertion that meaning is not private. You said it yourself: there will be misconstrueals in the construction process, but without mention of the sharing. Perhaps you were just trying to convey that we share our constructions and we construct what we share, which is true enough, but we certainly do not do both at the same time nor in the same way. It follows that if one of the two is private, then the meaning derived from it will be just as private. It can only be that if both construction and sharing are not private then meaning will not be private.
—————-

implying that all our words are subjectively invented. — Banno

Originally, they were. All of them. No words in Nature.
—————

the suggestion is that we treat of the way we use words.....

Yep, usually. Mutually intelligible language.

.......rather than a secret meaning we must guess. — Banno

Yep, as in codes. Not mutually intelligible language.

What’s common to both?

Your first paragraph contains an existential inconsistency.

I was claiming that the materialist position can only hypothesize the existence of objectively correct perception, not inanimate ontology.
— simeonz

The view that there is only perception, with nothing behind it, is one of the strange garden paths that Kant found. It's a misreading, from what I understand, but Mww would be able to tell us more. — Banno

If “only perception with nothing behind it” is meant to indicate the non-cognitive aspect of perception, then that is indeed Kant’s primary metaphysical consideration with respect to empirical knowledge acquisition. Accordingly, perception is nothing but the passive receptivity from which physical sensations arise; they are necessary for, but never enter into, this particular speculative epistemology. Perception tells us an object is present to sensibility, but not what the object is. I think what baffles the non-Kantian, and thereby turns him away from the theory, is why it should be that even a known object must still run the full gamut of reason, when it doesn’t seem necessary or productive to think about that which we’ve already learned.

I’m guessing the misreading follows from the alternate thesis that objects actually do tell us what they are, merely from being presented to us. This methodology seems to be entirely sufficient for extant experiences, but finer theorizing shows contradictions and absurdities will always arise from it. This is not to say Kant got our human knowledge acquisition system right, but only that a purely materialist position stands no chance at all of getting it right, if it grounds itself in experience alone.
—————

All language is ever meant to do is translate subjective activity into exchangeable representations.
— Mww

A neat statement of the myth. Translation occurs between languages, so if translation is the correct model, then there must be a subjective language to be translated into English. — Banno

Half is categorical error, half misses the point. If you’re interested enough, I’ll lay it out.

Still, it confuses the issue to say subjectively inventing words necessitates a subjective language. It could, re: Lewis Carroll, Lisa Gerrard, but it isn’t necessarily the case that it does.

we do things with word as we use them — Banno

Absolutely; uncontested. The invention of words is never in itself sufficient for intelligible communication. Words nonetheless need their own ontological legitimacy. Most folks don’t care about the origin of words, having learned them by rote, but never consider what each single word actually does.

the meaning is not private, but constructed and shared in that very use — Banno

This suggests we always understand each other. But we don’t, which implies what I mean in expressing something does not relate to what you think I mean when you hear it. It follows that either I’m using the wrong words which explains why you don’t understand me, or, I’m using the same word you would use but I assign a meaning to that word with which you do not find meaningful in the same way, which is just as valid an explanation. Mutual understanding is merely common meaning, but each meaning given by each understanding from individual systems, is itself necessarily private.

Another accountability must be reckoned, in that one of us may legitimately use a word from a common language, for which the other does not even know the meaning.

Superfluous philosophical nonsense for Everydayman? Ehhhhh....perhaps. Probably. OK, fine.....yes. But certainly not mythical.

Kantian never yields any results, proves anything, — Snakes Alive

Under the assumption a Kantian follows Kant text closely, and given that there are 16 uses of “proves” in CPR, of which three are negative and the rest affirmative, it would seem quite the case that the Kantian does in fact prove something. Perhaps you mean to say, the Kantian never proves anything to your satisfaction. Which is fine, you’re far from alone in that regard. Outnumbered, I might say, but not alone.

The Kantian is no better, in thinking that the nature of the mind, or whatever it might be, can be unlocked in the same way. — Snakes Alive

The Kantian knows nature of the mind certainly cannot be unlocked in the same way as the nature of the world, so who is the Kantian no better than, by granting that division?

It's not clear why one would think that the methods of philosophy can unlock general features of the universe — Snakes Alive

It is clear enough to he who thinks there is a necessary commonality between the methods and the unlocking. Perhaps it is that the methods of philosophy are not themselves sufficient for unlocking the features of the universe, but they are necessary for a human to determine how to unlock them. Method informs how to think; thinking informs how too unlock.

It wouldn’t be clear for those who don’t examine their own thinking, which becomes evident in the clarity of fishing catches fish, insofar as the average hook-wetter never stops to think that its absolutely necessary to go fishing in order to catch fish, resolutely confident in the ends, without considering the means. We are reminded of this principle by lottery purveyors when they say, “you can win if you don’t play”.

It’s your thread, so you get to set the parameters. Perhaps you’ll evoke some interest.

Close enough. “what their own strength shall furnish...” absent all else, I can adapt to the domain which he must answer to.

Hobbes doesn’t get the credit he should, methinks.

Nice find.

....all that, and upon finding out what morality is, one might also find another domain to which “getting away with” has power.

We also have thoughts of objects we’ve never seen, but are still possible to see.

To ask if thoughts are emergent properties of brains is the same as to ask if ice is an emergent property of water. If ice is just some condition water can exhibit, does that make ice a property? Even if ice is a condition of a certain combination of elements, can ice then be said to be a property of the elements? Can ice be a property of a certain atomic number?

While brains may be necessary for thoughts, and it may be true thoughts emerge from brains, it does not follow that thoughts are properties of brains.

Guess it depends on how one wishes to classify property.

Language is not as tidy as we might like it to be. — Janus

Pretty much, yeah. Nothing inherently wrong with our conceptual model, nor the representational expressions for it. All language is ever meant to do is translate subjective activity into exchangeable representations. The problem only occurs for those suffering from the notion that the human system primarily operates on representations, and then operates on representations of representations iff the objects of the system given fait accompli, are then communicated. And we all know, don’t we?...that if we don’t like something, it must be wrong, right?

Agreed on your aesthetic response. That which we consider intrinsically private is thereby ineffable, but the representations of it, constructed a priori, as the only possible human means for creating objects which subsequently become perceptions to others, can be shared in a mutual exchange. But the one is not the other, nor can it ever be, for if such were the case, it would be impossible to explain why we are not immediately equipped with language, rather than merely the innate capacity to create and use it.

Which brings us to the cradle. There is nothing about the cradle, as a stand-alone empirical object or as an accurate depiction thereof, that cannot be perceived, and that which can be perceived can be named, and anything that is named can be shared by language. What cannot be shared amongst individual members using some common cognitive system, is the operation of the procedural components of that system which each member uses to relate his perception of some object to the name he gives to it, and by which his knowledge of it is possible.

I mean....how obvious can it be, that we never cognize or know our own thinking as it operates, but only cognize and know what is thought about. I can tell you all about that which I understanding, that of which I may or may not judge, and even what form the judgement takes, but I don’t even know how my faculties arise, where they came from, or even if they are in fact necessarily the case, so I’m not going to be able to communicate anything about them as they are in themselves, but only as I think them to be.

So....you’re correct, in that language is not as tidy as we might like it to be, but I would add it is our own fault that it isn’t, and for that, I would say it is our aesthetic response alone, that is sufficient causality. And that, for the simple reason that aesthetic response, in its common and ordinary iteration, is not predicated solely on logic, as are, theoretically, the remaining cognitive components.

I'm not keen on explaining Kant's errors again here. — Banno

Now THAT I might find interesting. Direct me to it? To read, not to argue, promise.

this type of change in perspective is not reached through argument but in you being able to see for yourself what I am (and Witt is) describing. — Antony Nickles

I do see it; I find it, the description, insufficient. It is like describing the construction of a house, but beginning from the second floor.

The word "concept" here is used as a "term" by Witt with a specific use, not anything like a conception or an idea. — Antony Nickles

Which is the same as re-defining a term. As we all know.....one can make anything stick by simply changing extant definitions to fit what’s being said. If Witt has something new to say, he should use terms specific to the novelty.
————-

you still feel the need to hang on to the feeling that we "all know the same stuff differently". — Antony Nickles

It isn’t a feeling, it’s an empirical reality. One may know an iceberg as a floating chunk of ice, another may know an iceberg as a broken piece of glacier.

we can't be said to "know" our phone number in different ways — Antony Nickles

Correct, only insofar as the knowledge acquisition system is consistent across the species in general. That does nothing to prohibit the validity of me coming to know my phone number under different conditions within the system, from you coming to know yours within the same kind of system. Rote memorization vs. intrinsic pattern recognition. Extrinsic similarity. Hell.....why not mere hypnosis? For PIN’s or license plates....sheer invention.

However, OLP is addressing the issues that are skipped over that only philosophy can still bring to light--self-knowledge through understanding our responsibilities and the implications we are subject to...... — Antony Nickles

Subject to implies empirical psychology or social/linguistic anthropology. Fancy words for “group-think”. Speculative epistemological metaphysics is the doctrine used to bring to light....not skip over.....understanding the implications of that which we are each the subject of.

House description...second story start; house description...foundation start.
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Part of what Witt is trying to show in unearthing our desire for certainty is to turn us around to see our real needs and desires. — Antony Nickles

Our desire for certainty is contained in reason itself; no need to unearth it, for it is manifest as a predicate of an intrinsic human condition.

To turn us around to see our real needs and desires presupposes we don’t already see them. Being both presumptuous, insofar as that which belongs to me necessarily, cannot but be apprehended by me, and self-contradictory, insofar as my intrinsic “desire for certainty” must already contain them. Furthermore, as “real” needs and desires, herein taken to indicate fundamental or characteristically personal as opposed to empirically determinable, they are not susceptible to experiential incursion, for they are derived from purely subjective causality. Which ultimately reduces to some form of moral philosophy anyway, which I wouldn’t think has anything whatsoever to do with OLP.
————

If anything is individual, our interests are, and there is no argument to change that if someone just doesn't care — Antony Nickles

True enough, with the caveat that interest is predicated on, hence determinable by, sufficient reason, while care is merely some degree of relative quality an interest may invoke. I am interested enough in OLP, and by association, what you have to say about it, in accordance with the reasons claimed to be sufficient for it, without having any care whatsoever in adopting it or them.

There’s a French cooking show on tv I watched, that explained how to do this fancy-assed duck recipe that involves pressing out blood....yes, there’s a mechanical press designed specifically for that purpose.... to make the accompanying sauce. Interesting, even if only that it would take a Frenchman to dream up something so bizarre, probably to satisfy a bizarre French king, but trust me when I tell you I wouldn’t care to partake of it.

All in the name of nothing better to do.......

How can subjectivity be shared? — Banno

It can’t. Just as Montana doesn’t share its highway with Idaho, yet there is a highway common to each.

The "transcendental ego" merely names, without explaining... — Banno

In Enlightenment transcendental metaphysics, the transcendental ego both names and explains. It cannot, however, itself be explained from within the confines of the theory from which it is given. The treatise is rife with self-imposed limitations, those of which nothing can be said without invalidating the principles on which it is built. Or, which for all practical purposes carries the same weight, that which if said, would be nonsense, inasmuch as the theory does not grant the warrant for it.

Witt is correct in suggesting we not speak of what we don’t know. Still....

“....It (philosophy) must set limits to what can be thought; and, in doing so, to what cannot be thought. It must set limits to what cannot be thought by working outwards through what can be thought....”
(Tractus 4.114)

......the aforementioned self-imposed limits are exactly this, and the transcendental ego is its representation.

In passing.....

Wisdom.

Somebody asked me to "prove that epistemology is the only correct way of thinking".

What is my best way to respond to this? — Tommy Shiflett

“I wouldn’t know how.”

You gotta love the top comment in the combox — Wayfarer

.....and the name of the commenter.

I think what is happening is you are adamantly defending something you think I (or Witt) is trying to take away. — Antony Nickles

After a fashion, perhaps. If I succumb to the way Witt wants me to understand my language practice, he will have taken away the “framework” I have always understood language to entail. I don’t fear that, however, not because Witt’s argument isn’t justified, but only because it isn’t sufficient......

Witt is trying to allow the interlocutor the "picture" of meaning that they want--the philosophical theory that when we see a cube or say cube, there is an image in our mind (our meaning). — Antony Nickles

........the lack thereof demonstrated right there. My favored philosophical theory characterizing the image in my mind as the identifying representation of an object, has nothing to do with my meaning upon its subsequent use when I talk about it, or just me when I think about it. As such, my naming is nothing but a relation between the image and my conception of it by which it is known by me. Witt has generalized concepts as having optional characterizations which are then used by anybody, when parsimony suggests concept generation is as private as the mind that contains them.

We might be getting tripped up on Witt's term "concept", but, as I laid out above, the concept of, say, "knowing" has a number of different options in which it can be used (a skill, information, acknowledgement). And these don't "relate" to anything, they just are how we use the concept of knowing, how knowing is in our lives. — Antony Nickles

Tripped up indeed, in that “knowing” is not a concept, it is a mental activity, or part of a methodological procedure, as is “conceiving”, and understanding, judging, cognizing. Knowing information and knowing a skill, etc., are all relations between a particular knowledge system, and that which is presented to the system. From that, it is clear that “how knowing is in our lives” is nothing more than......hey, big deal....we know stuff. I mean, it is quite absurd to suggest that we DO NOT know stuff, so how important can it be to wonder how knowing is in our lives? And if the argument is that knowing has a number of different options in how it can be used, again....big deal. No matter how many options there are for its use, the end result is exactly the same. We know stuff. Thing is....we all know different stuff, and, we all know the same stuff differently. So even if how knowing is in our lives is a valid expression, it doesn’t say anything we didn’t already know.

Witt went backwards, as did all analytic language philosophers. It used to be that the fact we know things is given, and the quest was in how is knowledge possible. That fundamentalism evolved....probably because of its intrinsically speculative nature....into the broadening of how knowing things interactively affects us, and that broadening determinable, made possible, because the language we use to express how each of us are affected by different options for knowing, is right there in your face, thus being very far from speculative.

Hardly a satisfying philosophy, I must say.

Your common usage definition is fine.

Some philosophers concerned themselves with problems actually encountered in living and provided reasonable solutions to them, I think. — Ciceronianus the White

Absolutely; no quibble there. Ehhhh.....maybe one. Perhaps these problems and their solutions are the concern of psychologists.

What he is trying to demonstrate is that we use the options (publicly) available in a concept. — Antony Nickles

Yes, we do that. Isn’t it then a matter of what options are available in a concept? If the thought is that there is only one option available in a concept, that being its relation to something, what other options can there be? All that’s left is that to which a concept does not relate, or, a plethora of somethings to which a concept can relate.

So Witt's point is that the picturing of something is not "meaning" something exact, i.e., when we picture the cube are we "picturing" its squareness? its edges? that it's a prism? — Antony Nickles

I guess our differing notions of picturing are irreconcilable. I agree picturing something is not necessarily meaning something exact, but only indicating something exact. When we wish to communicate meaning, we then use the word belonging to the concept belonging to the picturing. If that is the case, we are never going to use the word prism when we mean cube.

So, yes, when we picture a cube we picture the manifold of its form, which immediately eliminates non-cube forms. Even if for the very first time ever picturing an object of nothing but right angles, even if there is no name for it, nothing without right angles is going to be pictured. It just makes no sense to me that we might bring up prisms when we mean to speak of cubes.

Nevertheless, I understand the finer points rely on less definitive conceptions. We in fact do make a mess of some concepts that have multiple relations, or multiple implications for singular relations....apologies, as you say.
————

What Witt is trying to do in this section is grant the interlocutor the framework that they want (meaning as picturing) and still show how it can't account for how language works. — Antony Nickles

To say how language works I take to indicate mutually consistent understandings, language works if you understand what I say, and I understand what you say, and language isn’t working if we just look at each other with empty stares. That about right?

If so, then the framework I want is that in which such understandings are given. But there is no way I can promise you’ll understand me, from which follows that granting my framework is itself not sufficient to grant that language works, but still grants how it can work, if only we eventually agree on the meanings of the words being used. So my framework can account for how language works, even if sometimes it doesn’t, but we cannot say it never does, so the claim we cannot, is false. Or....I’m not right in what Witt is saying.

You tell me.

If you genuinely think all beliefs that are held for any reasons whatsoever are reasonable I don't know what else to to say. — Janus

The answer is in the negation of what you said: there is no belief whatsoever to be held, if there are no reasons whatsoever on which it is constructed, no reasons one thinks as belonging to or describing its object. All that on which reason can direct itself, is reasonable. All reducible to....the only belief unreasonable, is that belief the object of which reason cannot direct itself, which is, of course, to the one thinking, simply empty. Building up on that final reduction, what we......er, commonly....ordinarily.....consider an unreasonable belief, is actually merely an irrational one.

Yeah, well....tell an ordinary somebody something is unreasonable they might argue back. Tell an ordinary somebody something is irrational...they just look at you funny.

(Sigh)

Has any philosophy ever solved any problems? Far as I think about it, philosophy tries to explain something, and leaves it up to others to determine whether that explanation solves anything for them.

I solve my problems; philosophy just sets a proper stage for looking at them.

Common usage. I keep forgetting what constitutes philosophy these days.

You are correct in that regard, yes.

A self-contradictory belief cannot be considered reasonable by any standard. — Janus

How can a belief contradict itself? It isn’t the belief that is self-contradictory, it is the reasons for it, that are, because they conflict with each other or with some established condition, usually knowledge. The belief is still reasonable, if only to its holder whose reasons don’t conflict, just under illogical or irrational conditions from the point of view of someone who doesn’t because his reasons do conflict with the holders’.

You seems to be conflating 'having reasons' with 'reasonable'. — Janus

It’s good it only seems that way.

And here there will be certain things we can imagine and those we can't within the criteria of a cube because we grew up with cubes as we practiced naming and picturing and focusing on aspects of objects and the language that goes with these activities. I investigate above what we imply when we say "I imagine" or "I see an image". — Antony Nickles

You know we can imagine anything we like, any time we like?
(“....Imagination is the faculty of representing an object even without its presence in intuition....” (B151))

It needs explaining why there are certain things we cannot imagine. Why is it we can imagine things about an object without knowing it, but we cannot imagine certain things even if we do know it?

because we grew up with cubes as we practiced naming and picturing and focusing on aspects of objects and the language that goes with these activities. — Antony Nickles

Isn’t naming the source of words? And aren’t words the source of language? If so, practicing naming is not language, but is antecedent to it, and the supplement “language that goes with these activities”, is false. Language doesn't go with it; it comes after it.

We grew up with cubes, which is the same as saying we know them as certain things. This is not in itself enough to satisfy why we cannot imagine things about cubes, but only that such imaginings do not support the knowledge, or, as Witt says, they are not within the criteria of cubes.

We don’t care what a cube isn’t, we don’t usually waste cognitive effort imagining certain things about cubes that do not belong to them as they are known. We want to know how it is that an object becomes named “cube”. So we build a theory around an image we have, rather than imaginings we don’t need. That is what we imply when we say “I imagine” or “I see an image”. Which still isn’t technically correct, in that we don’t “see” the images we use to name objects, but what is implied remains true.
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No: the fact that one speaks of the appropriate word does not shew the existence of a something that etc.. One is inclined, rather, to speak of this picture-like something just because one can find a word appropriate — Wittgenstein, PI

I’m guessing the part left off “Something that etc”, is “comes before the mind”, which transforms the quote into, “the fact that one speaks of the appropriate word does not show the existence of a something that comes before the mind”. Yet, it does exactly that, for otherwise it must be the case there is something named or nameable, that does not exist as coming before the mind, which is absurd.

Speaking of this picture-like something is an inclination, yes, but to speak of this picture-like something, as an act of language use, is never a mere inclination, it is a necessity, otherwise there is no verbal language use at all. And one doesn’t speak because he can find the appropriate word, for he can always be inclined to speak yet speak incoherently, which makes explicit he has not found the appropriate word, perhaps because there isn’t one. Nevertheless, if one is inclined to speak, and wishes to be understood, it is in response to this picture-like something for which there must already be a word representing it.

Finally, to speak of this picture-like something just because an appropriate word can be found, makes no allowance for the advent of new words which by definition can never be found in the manifold of extant words. In that event, without the appropriate word to be found, is it then given that one cannot speak at all? I think not. As such, new words are not found at all, but invented. And even if “one can find a word appropriate” indicates the capacity for word invention, there is still required the existence of the something picture-like with which the newly invented word relates, in order to appropriately speak of it. Recall my mention of quarks?

Was there anything else you edited, that I can make a mess of?

I must say I do not follow his objection - "Kant was right to insist that whether there is something in reality answering to a concept of mine cannot itself be part of my concept" - I gather it's to do with differentiating the actual world amongst possible worlds, but I don't see it. — Banno

Irrespective of the rest of the article, his objection parsed in that piece follows from the explicit Kantian methodology, wherein anything in reality is for us only phenomena, but conceptions arise spontaneously from the understanding, which has nothing to do with phenomena. Things in reality relate to my conceptions, in accordance with Kantian methodology, which could be said to be the same as answering to my conception, but such things are not contained in, nor part of, them, but nonetheless possibly presupposed by them.

It is good you don’t see some differentiating among worlds; no such implication is carried by that objection.
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As regards the article itself......it begins with “Is belief in God reasonable?”.....which of course it must be, for the question must have been thought, which makes explicit there were reasons for thinking it. Kenny didn’t ask whether belief in God was rational, or sustainable, or logical. Even a reason that doesn’t make sense, is refutable, or self-contradictory, is still a reason.

Dialectically familiar your analytical predispositions already, I will still offer that if one wishes to remain with Kant....which could be presumed as a chronological backdrop, insofar as A820/B848 is a section in CPR with the almost the same name as this thread, and covers the same general notions....one will find that belief is nothing but a judgement with subjective sufficiency but no objective sufficiency, which easily translates to....when I arrive at reasons to believe in God, then immediately the criteria for subjective sufficiency is met, hence my judgement for believing is reasonable.

So....what’s all the hoopla about anyway?

I’m working on it. This format makes long posts on different pages, hard to juxtaposition.

I would consider...... — Luke

.....to which you are quite entitled.

Nevertheless, I find nothing you’ve contributed to be sufficient diminution of the components in my adversus dialectica with Antony.