Check out the Rorty clip above. The relativity of 'existence' thesis renders 'things in their own right' meaningless i.e. Kant's 'inaccessihle noumena' was abondoned by later phenomenologists as a useless concept.

Ah...the "Tis so/No it aint game" !:grin:

There is a pov (Maturana) wwhich would view 'awareness' to be anthropomorphic.
But from now on, I will not be continuing a conversation which is tangential to my opening thesis.

I did not use the anthropomorhic word 'aware', you did. The empirical 'evidence' is that the frogs starve to death surrounded by a potential food source. And who knows what 'dead flies' humans may be 'missing' ?

The problem, as I see it, is that what we call 'dead insects' do not 'exist' for starving frogs because their mode of interaction is not attuned to dead insects. And are we not just bigger and cleverer frogs that use transducers to assist the focus of our selective interactions ? And is not the range of our focus only limited by our lifespans, before and after which what we call 'the moon' had or will have no meaning.
And who knows whether 'the thing' we call 'the moon' will not in the future be deemed to be some minor manifestation of a larger 'unit' considered in multidimensional space. (Historical Ref: The Morning Star was found to be identical with The Evening Star')
So does not all this imply that 'existence' is relative not absolute unless we adopt a metaphysical, eternal
'God's Eye' view, in which 'thinghood' gives way to fluxless holism ?




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Are you saying that my assertion about 'existence' is not supported by Rorty ?

Sorry if I triggered the reply button inadvertantly.

Heckling is boring don't you think !

I suggest that anybody actually interested in my position should listen to the Rorty clip before further comment.

I agree with your analysis which places 'value' of the concept of 'alive' at the centre of the debate.
And since that 'value' tends to be negotiable, it boils down to questions like 'how do we differently deal with 'living' versus 'non living' entities. (The Startrek series has played on that dilemma via their android character Data). The fact that general views of 'life' range from 'abiogenetic mechanist' to 'the spiritually sacrosanct' is the subtext to those negotiations.

.....because 'evidence for existence of God' is taken to be the primary issue for debaters, not 'utility of belief'. I have characterized the primary debate to be futile on the basis of the relativity of 'existence' but preoccupation wilth it tends to exclude the second.

Here is a Rorty link giving a backcxloth to my assertion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3enH7ntOAM

That's right...on the basis that 'existence is relative' is an usual or counter intuitive assertion.

I think you are talking past yourself !:smile:
The continuing cacophony of views that you have reported about complexity should be sufficent 'evidence of futility' for you !

I'll throw that one back at you. How often have you come across debate about 'the utility of theism' ?
Other than Marx's 'opium of the masses' or Putin's manipulative promotion of the Orthodox Church, I don't seem to have encountered the 'utility' issue.

No. It means that subgroups of 'believers' have there own parochial observational criteria including, for example, 'the complexity of the life process'. Atheists might agree on that 'complexity' observation but consider it as 'evidence' for some yet to be discovered 'other natural process'.

I don't need 'evidence' to identify that arguments about 'evidence for God' are futile, anymore than I need 'evidence' for the futility of the claim that there is 'evidence for the beauty of the Mona Lisa'. i.e. The context of 'evidential' claims is one of agreed observational criteria.
Your demand for 'consistency' appears to be semantically vacuous.

The reason for the futility of the 'evidence for God' debate, is that The 'properties of God' remain disputed, even amongst believers, hence the choice of 'evidence' is arbitrary.
The 'utility of belief in God' need not be a futile debate if its minimal psychological function (as a palliative) is contrasted with its potentially pernicious social consequences. But that debate is anathema to 'believers' and therefore tends to be hypothetical. In short, the 'utility debate' rarely happens

Sorry Harry, I don't do words chasing words round infinite regresses.
The short answer to your question is 'no' I don't..

Correct Frank! We know when to use it , but nothing can be said about it except for its social signification as to agreement about ' what is the case '.

No. That word game doesn't work. It is the DEBATE based on ' evidence '
which is futile. There is no debate about 'utility' except where the social implications of theism might be imposed on others.

On the contrary all I would argue that ' truths ' are relative except perhaps 'religious' ones. 'Truth ' is a word like any other whose meaning is embedded in a particular transient context.

'Delusions' are defined primarily by social consensus regarding 'inappropriate behavior'. The fact that what we call 'brain functioning' may be correlated with this is a more recent view which has tended to replace 'spiritual possession'.

I disagree. Bohr was in tune with Heisenberg here who said..'we never observe nature directly...only the results of the questions we ask of it'.
This, for me, is an acknowledgment of at least four related issues:
(1) Kant's point about the inaccessibility of noumena (2) Nietzshe's point there is no description -reality distinction (3) Psychological views that perception is selectively active, not passive (4) Measurement begins with 'the nominal', i.e. human naming ,of the selected phenomenon.

The particular case of 'the electron' brings these to the fore, not because of 'size issues' but 'uncertainty' and 'complimentarity' issues highlight point 2.

Your 'blind man' scenario is interesting from a 'comparative physiology across species' pov (...'dead insects dont 'exist' for hungry frogs...) and also the specific human issues of shared language reflecting shared needs. Human use of transducers to enhance active perception could be said to be exemplified by the blind man's stick.

We don't. We simply avoid joint projects in which theistic belief could be an impediment.
If your Joe-Betty scenario involves raising children, one tends to give way to the other.

What answer do you have to the assertion that all concepts of 'deities' or 'holistic consciousness' are basically psychological palliatives which counter the fear of potential 'meaningless of human existence'?
Presumably, any modifications of those concepts is merely a minor 'tweakng operation' to suit the parochial needs of the palliative user.

Let me say it one more time, 'existence' and 'evidence are words triggering concepts the utility of which differs according to the context in which they are used. From this pov all concepts exist by virtue of the words which evoke them, but the concept of evidence presupposes a context open to the possibility of social consenus about the utility of another concept like 'God'. On the nonrepresentational view of language, words do not represent 'things in themselves'. The strong Pragmatist's view is that 'things in themselves' is a dysfunctional or meaningless concept.
As an atheist, I cannot dispute 'the existence of God' for 'believers', because the concept is functional for them, albeit dysfunctional for me. 'Evidence' has nothing to do with it especially when 'faith' is cited as a key issue, and 'observation' remains nebulous and contentious.

...Futile because 'evidence' in the case of 'God' is in the eye of the beholder. The 'utility' of the concept is a psychological and social issue,outside contexts in which 'evidence' is a consensual criterion.

Incoherent to you perhaps, just as some of your comments are incoherent to me !
BTW I note that W's 'meaning is use' is conspicuously absent from your analysis.

I acknowledge that discuesions about 'the existence of God' do occur in what what we might call 'real life' since it can be viewed as a socially contentious issue. However, I assert these 'debates' are always going to be futile precisely because 'existence' is wrongly, in my view, taken to mean 'an absolute state of being' rather than 'a concept like any other which stands or falls on its utility'.

As for your seeming objection to my philosophical 'label jumping', it may indeed be that your appreciation of nonrepresentationalism' has not yet reached the stage of iconoclasm of traditional philosophical,analysis. An extreme view of traditional labelling might relegate that process to a form of 'intellectual dancing'. And just embellish that point, it might be worth reassessing Bohr's position on 'existence' by noting his comments to the effect that 'language has no more than a poetic relationship to physics'. Hence we might assume that attempts to place his ideas under traditional ontological or epistemological labels would appear to be problemic.

Thankyou for that comment about 'physiology'. As far as I can tell, all I must admit to are 'other interlocuters' who agree (structurally couple) with this one regarding contextual interactions. Thus shared 'words' like 'common physiology' constitute 'contextual behavioral co-ordination facilitators' with respect to human projects. Obviously, it is difficult to think of universal concepts like 'physiology' in that way, so instead I think of culture specific words like duende which is a common Spanish term used by flamenco lovers to denote a particular 'emotional essence' of the music.
By admitting to 'other intelocuters' I believe I am serving an ontologically minimum requirement for the social interactions we call 'linguistic', and the acquistion experiences of shared words' . In that way the only 'absolutist' digression I might be accused of with respect to 'existence' is that 'interactions exist'., but since these are transitory I claim to escape a major aspect of absolutist.

One of the most celebrated philosophers of 'being', Heidegger, characterized it as involved with 'caring in time', i.e. 'being' involves 'implications for self action'. The fact that he later promoted 'language' to the fore in his philosophy with 'Language speaks the Man' seems to have escaped you.

TO ALL
There have been many 'mentions' over night (uk) and it is difticult to answer all of you in detail.

The main (Pragmatist) point I want to re-iterate is that questions that imply a regress of definition (language chasing language) fall into what I take to be Wittgenstein's 'language on holiday'. Language is 'not on holiday' when it applies to communicative situations which involve decision about subsequent action either individually or jointly....
e.g. 'Does global warming exist ? ' only has significance if an answer implies subsequent action.
...in short, everyday usage of 'existence' is relative because it involves 'what's it got to do with us ?'

What I am reacting against by using the term 'seminaritis', are academic scenarios such as 'atheists' arguing with 'believers' about 'evidence for the existence of God'. This never happens in 'real life' where the labels 'atheist' and 'believer' never arise except in social conflict situations, like for example, in discussion of 'educational curricula'. In 'real life', believers and atheists just 'get on with it' with or without the functionality of a God' concept.

I note that some dissenters are arguing from pov's like 'this is epistemology not linguistics' but it is this academic labelling which is under 'pragmatic' attack. Concepts stand or fall on the basis of their contextual functionality...and all we've got as thinkers is 'concepts' !

Not a clue what you are talking about, but thanks for the congratulations.

To Terrapin...Wiki quote on Rorty...

Richard Rorty and anti-representationalism
Richard Rorty was influenced by James, Dewey, Sellars, Quine, Kuhn, Wittgenstein, Derrida, and Heidegger. He found common implications in the writings of many of these philosophers. Namely, he believed that these philosophers were all in one way or another trying to hit on the thesis that our language does not represent things in reality in any relevant way. Rather than situating our language in ways in order to get things right or correct Rorty says in the Introduction to the first volume of his philosophical papers that we should believe that beliefs are only habits with which we use to react and adapt to the world.[11] To Rorty getting things right as they are "in themselves" is useless if not downright meaningless.

In 1995 Rorty wrote: "I linguisticize as many pre-linguistic-turn philosophers as I can, in order to read them as prophets of the utopia in which all metaphysical problems have been dissolved, and religion and science have yielded their place to poetry."
Rorty and Pragmatism: The Philosopher Responds to His Critics, edited by Herman J. Saatkamp (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1995).

This "linguistic turn" strategy aims to avoid what Rorty sees as the essentialisms ("truth," "reality," "experience") still extant in classical pragmatism. Rorty writes:

"Analytic philosophy, thanks to its concentration on language, was able to defend certain crucial pragmatist theses better than James and Dewey themselves. [...] By focusing our attention on the relation between language and the rest of the world rather than between experience and nature, post-positivistic analytic philosophy was able to make a more radical break with the philosophical tradition."

Common physiology and common physical needs imply agreement on 'naming' i.e. producing 'concepts'. Anthropology gives examples of how cultures vary on what you want to call 'fundamental', kinship relationships being an example of one 'hot issue' for some. Or consider for example, the four classic elements of antiquity, Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. What could be more 'fundamental' than those at the time.

This is from the Stanford Enc. Phil suggesting appropriate PMN references.

,

…Sellars and Quine invoke the same argument, one which bears equally against the given-versus-nongiven and the necessary-versus-contingent distinctions. The crucial premise of this argument is that we understand knowledge when we understand the social justification of belief, and thus have no need to view it as accuracy of representation. (PMN 170)
The upshot of Quine's and Sellars' criticisms of the myths and dogmas of epistemology is, Rorty suggests, that "we see knowledge as a matter of conversation and of social practice, rather than as an attempt to mirror nature." (PMN 171) Rorty provides this view with a label: "Explaining rationality and epistemic authority by reference to what society lets us say, rather than the latter by the former, is the essence of what I shall call ‘epistemological behaviorism,’ an attitude common to Dewey and Wittgenstein." (PMN 174)

Of course that 'I' feels free by definition, but the concept of 'self' which might emerge according to the thesis may decide to deconstruct the idea of 'feels free'. Thats part transcendene issue !

It would only appear 'flimsy' if you were not familiar with the plethora of literature behind it.
I would suggest perhaps Rorty's ''Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" since this comes to mind regarding Terrapin's comments, but both know what your dismissal procedure is !

I suggest anthing on Rorty's or Wittgenstein's 'antirepreentationalism in language.

Okay...we're talking past each other. I suggest you look up non-representationalism before you get back to me.

And I'm pointing out to you that the 'realism-idealism' debate has nothing to do with the contextual use of the word 'reality'. Dichotomous dimensions are another aspect of 'seminaritis' and before you jump on it, 'relative and absolute' do not constitute such a dichotomy.