Yes...but the 'words' are contingent on 'directing action' i.e.'transitional states' not permanence. They function as 'nodes of relative persistence'.. So to say 'trees exist' is vacuous unless some hypothetical action is being contemplated by humans' in which the word 'trees' is contextually significant.
The issue of 'time' as inextricable with 'existence' was explored by Heidegger as being confined to humans (Daseins).
Hence my raising of 'time issue' and 'Big Bang' .Without that Heideggerian anchor, there would indeed be an infinite regress implied.

Well buddy, you've forgotten one thing, every theory need a 'theoretician' to function...maybe even the same one who might theorize that 'existence is absolute'.

No it doesn't. Even 'time' had no 'existence' prior to that human concept of 'an event'.

....and prior to that human concept we call 'The Big Bang' ?....

I agree that 'phenomenological' and 'experiential' are synonymous in this case.

(The 'rock' example is irrelevant unless you are claiming that 'sense data emanating from physical objects or situations' is a necessary aspect of 'experiencing'. Later phenomenogists would dismiss the concept of 'an actual rock' and would claim the two adjectives are always synonymous, An alternative adjective of 'illusory' might be applicable in cases of consensual dispute about 'actuality').

BTW ' A direct approach' would be pretty useless to a post-modernist like Derrida, who would argue that even the author himself would later put a different interpretation on the text he produced on a previous occasion. It all about transitional cognitive states and shifting contexts.

Yes, I think the criticism could certainly be expected from 'turkeys being asked to vote for Christmas' !

Okay, but you did use the phrase 'non negotiable' somewhere above (I think)

Please scan the links I have provided above, together with the Von Glasersfeld comments which are googleable. Now it may be that starting another thread may be more appropriate. Let me know what you think.

And re Nieztsche, I am taking Rorty's 'pragmatist interpretation' of it which can be found by googling the video clip for 'Rorty on Truth'

I hesitate in 'elaborating' if you have not read up on Maturana yourself. I appreciate he is 'difficult' and that you would certainly have a problem with that if you were to cling to your 'absolutist stance'. He makes sense to me from a number of pov's ranging from constructivism via pragmatism to post modernism. If any of these is a no go area for you ,we are unlikely to 'structurally couple':wink: .
(The 'no neutral descriptions' point is another version of Nietzsche's point that there can be no operational distinction between 'description' and 'reality'. Some descriptions are simply more useful than others in particular contexts.)

The short answer is 'yes', except that 'languaging' (Maturana) always has an 'organizational function'...there are no 'neutral descriptions' as such.

'Words' can be thought of as any repetitive behavioral gesture used to facilitate 'structural coupling' between individuals, or to internally resolve behavioral uncertainties within individuale. Those 'gestures' could manifest at any level, from the neural to the muscular.
The word 'existence' is merely one such gesture whose import is specifically context bound (hence 'relative').

I suggest you investigate that word 'understand'.
also
There is no logical restriction on 'words' being confined to a phonetic or graphemic domain.

...slightly more digestible...
https://www.rug.nl/research/portal/files/3192504/thesis.pdf

If only some of you guys had read Maturana, who deflates 'thinking' as an epihenomenon of 'languaging' which is a behavior applicable to some animals, I'm sure that much of the above diecussion would have been avoidable !
Don't get me wrong...there is much to swallow in Maturana's views, like the idea that 'predators chasing prey' is merely an anthropomorhism which humans use to describe ('structurally couple' with other humans) an automatic structural coupling in other species. This is a 'systems view' of 'life' per se as 'cognition'.
IMO, Maturana attempts an interesting biological backcloth aginst which iconoclastic attacks on analytic philosophical can be viewed.
http://www.enolagaia.com/M78BoL.html

I'm not sure how you can extricate ontology from epistemolog, other than as an epiphenomon of taking an absolutist stance.

I agree its usage varies non philosophically, but I maintain that what those significant occurences have in common are 'a dispututed exstence' context , It is in those where I claim that 'relative utility' rather than 'absolute evidence' comes to the fore. Note that the agreement or otherwise on 'existence' is significant only interms of subsequent action (or inaction) on the part of the disputees.

The way 'things are' depends on our conception of 'things' and our conception of the duration of 'are'. Other species with different physiologies and different needs would 'see' a different world.
This is crux of the philosophical rejection of naive realism which is a parochial anthropocentric 'rationality'.

You've just named them, so you've answered your own question !

I regret, I cannot philosophically commune with the idea of an 'observer independent world' even though we obviously operate, moment to moment, on that basis as though there were.
What it momentarily suits us to call seperate 'observer and observed' or 'organism and evironment' are in essence coextensive and codefining unities, in which state transitions in the one are isomorphic to state transitions in the other.

As for your assertion of your version of 'the obvious', an entirely contrary holistic view is held by anyone who calls themselves 'a meditator'.

No. Nowhere have I said that internal dialogue wasn't linguistic.
(I can even recall what I say to myself when playing Bach..'question then answer'....'hold the pause from dramatic impact'...'slow to the finale'..)

Yes of course it is, but it's spasmodic with respect to a largely automatic activity like painting. Indeed much of the 'thinking' during such activities could be focussed 'elsewhere' entirely.

No.Your report of that activity certainly involves language, but that activity seems to largely automatic puntuated by occasional internal dialogue. (When I play the piano, it's basically by muscle memory accompanied by critical internal dialogue to modify emphasis).

Yes. We obviously unconsciously 'engage with our environment' as well, just like other non verbal species.

I can't see it can be otherwise since all 'thinking' is done via a socially acquired language.
(I would include the metalanguage of mathematics in that )

Terrapin,

Look at the first para of that post. I used the phrase 'relationship ...with humans'. I apologise if 'human relationships' implies a different concept for you, but for me, all thinging oarises and operates in 'social dialogues' albeit some of those dialogues are 'internal' between seperate facets of 'self'.

We are arguing from very different positions. I look at your posts as trying to justify the 'eternal, and absolute' aspects of 'existence of God', which for me are simply 'essential for the psychological utility' of a God concept. As an atheist, I aknowledge that utility for 'believers' but reject for me as 'an opiate'. The 'utility' argument also extends to 'social control' which accounts for imposition scenarios.

Ah...the 'have the cake and eat it' issue is based on the static set membership of classical logic with its 'law of the excluded middle'. But dynamic shifting 'set membership' departs from classical logic towards QM inspired models of human rationality. (Its in the 'rationality' literature).
This does not seem to imply 'language on holiday'...more like 'the limits of classical logic in philosophical debate'.

I suggest no problem.
The OLP situations I raise are ephemeral context bound episodes.
The post structuralist view recognizes that transience and seeks to generalize about them.

For example, I have already pointed out, above, that the 'fresco' answering a particular point
was a different 'fresco' evoked on previous points. Each 'fresco' might engage in OLP, but the recognition of the dynamic shifts is post structural.

OLP ?

Of course believers would not admit to the 'utility' argument, anymore than a naive realist would admit it equally applying to 'the existence of trees' ( or 'rocks', or any other 'thing')!
From a philosophical pov, the term 'naive realist' neatly avoids 'confusion'.

Is it not obvious that it supports my 'human relationship' comments above ?

To all discussing 'relative existence' as founded on 'relationship', I would say that the only relationship worth thinking about is 'with humans'.
Take the single 'thing' we call 'water'. In other cultures (I forget which) there are at least two concepts of 'things' denoted by different words for that single thing we call 'water' -'water that you can drink' -and 'water that you may cross over which it is taboo to drink'.
In the history of our culture too, not only do we have the four classical elements which 'existed' then, but there was the 'morning star'/'evening star' situation - seperate 'things' then, which were later understood as the single 'planet Venus'.
In short, things require thingers and those thingers are human.

Sorry ...that should have been addressed to EricH.

As far as Heidegger is concerned I think 'clarity' is problematic when the work is considered in isolation. But as a reaction to Husserlian phenomenology, or as a parallel to Wittgenstein's views on language, it makes a lot of sense to me.

I'm simply pointing out that there is nothing - NOTHING AT ALL - added to our understanding by using the term "existence" as a predicate.

...then explain why the word 'existence' was coined in the first place. Surely it can only function in the context of disputes, which is where I claim that relativity refers to consensus, whereas absolutism does not.

Perhaps I should specify normal situational dispute.

Have you mentioned any other dispute...electrons...global warming.. etc ?
If not we are talking past each other.

No...I said disputes like 'existence of God'. But certainly unless you refer to existential disputes, Iwould say you have missed my point.

Once again, I will attempt to emphasize that the word 'existence' matters only in particular contexts like disputes about 'existence of God' . It is my contention that an absolutist stance is not valid because there is no consensus as to 'the nature of God' . But if a relative view is taken, we can validly say 'God exists for believers' because the concept has utility for their interactions..And 'God does not exist for atheists' because the reverse is true. The consequences (i.e.what matters) of this relativity view are that atheists' seeking to argue against 'God's existence' on the basis of 'evidence' are barking up the wrong tree.

To Arne.

Unfortunately your request for 'plain language' begs a multitude of questions about language describing language. This is why philosophers like Heidegger needed to resort to neologisms to account for the coherence of their systems. Think of 'reading Heidegger' like the need for 'cultural immersion' if you were truly to understand the nuances of a foreign language.

For me, the import of this discussion is that I assert 'existence' to be on the same level of every other concept which humans denote by a socially acquired languge in specific behavioral contexts.

Thus when Merdwurdichliebe, for example, asserts that 'a thinker must exist', I suggest this is only valid now,in a hypothetical scenario in which we might 'observe in our mind's eye' a focal entity we call 'a thinker'.
If on the other hand we have in our current 'mind's eye' a Heideggerian scenario of seamless coping in which 'observer' and 'observed' remain inextricable, or 'unevoked' for much of the time, then we might argue that the 'validity of existence of a thinker' is dependent on those contexts in which 'the thinker' (or 'self' or 'observer') is circumstantially evoked i.e. when seamless coping breaks down and 'considering behavior' kicks in.

BTW. The 'fresco' which wrote the above reply was evoked by the interactions above. Like 'a tree' its internal state had shifted but its 'conversational identity' via the word 'fresco' remains functionally the same.

Good post ! If you are following my 'Existence is relative' thread, you may find we have some common ground.