The answer doesn't depend on those questions. — Andrew M

I think it might.

On conventional use, there was no language prior to the emergence of life. — Andrew M

Well I failed to clock that you might have shifted your example from the Jurassic period to some pre-life (Hadean) eon. Was this deliberate? Would you rather talk the similarity of inorganic rocks than of animals? Fine with me. I have a rockery, with no language inside it. I'm happy to say that any similarity between any two parts of it is relative to the language used (from outside) to label the parts. I recognise the notion (of similarity) as meta to any physical or mechanical concepts. Maybe that is a sticking point, I don't know. Perhaps if we clarify the example we may find out.

Any theory that describes the universe is going to depend on human language. There's no implication that the universe itself would depend on human language. — Andrew M

Some important-seeming questions of the 'globalising' variety will always arise. The trick is to be prepared to recognise when one's efforts have developed the symptoms described in the OP, and to then have the humility (or strategic sense) to retreat to more solid ground. — bongo fury

Like, my back garden.

Neurath's boat works fine as a metaphor for how we investigate the world from within it, — Andrew M

Whereas... ?

cool

Fair enough. A rock can't even be awake, let alone conscious. :up:

But to be honest, I don't know if ''more conscious'' even makes sense. — Eugen

A sense of consciousness (enabling modern English speakers to coherently use the word "conscious" and perhaps pre-moderns the word "sentient"? I dunno) arises from our ability to think and talk with symbols, wherein we continually (and harmlessly) confuse thoughts (brain shivers), symbols (words and pictures) and objects. The confusion may be fleeting, or persist into our thinking and talking about the inter-relation of the three.

(The alleged illness) Schizophrenia has often been characterised as an excess of consciousness.

The notion of consciousness is explained by opposing it to unconsciousness. — Banno

Yeah but probably not by equating those with wakefulness and sleep. As you say, even computers sleep. But are they conscious when awake?

Ah.

You know you can see all their posts in date order from most recent?

Wasn't the world prior to the emergence of life a world without language? — Andrew M

Depends... Is my garden a world without language? And calling a part of it a tree is correct because it is, independent of language?

There won't be any fact of the matter of implicit conventions, of course, but one that seems to me to be just as widely asserted is that language presupposes a world already formed/carved/sorted in the terms of the language. (Don't blame me.)
— bongo fury

Not "in the terms of the language". For example, scientific language changed as Newtonian mechanics was superseded by relativity and quantum mechanics, and will presumably continue to change in the future. But the world itself didn't change on account of humans using different language to talk about it. — Andrew M

So implicit conventions are a matter of fact? Or do you mean that no one reasonably could, considering your argument, persist in the opinion that a theory was speaking "the language of the universe"?

Not that I'm one of those; my point was that both positions are metaphysical (although possibly redeemable in terms of object- and meta-language), and usually dispensible.

Then it seems your position precludes any rational basis for agreement. That is, people can agree on one fiction or another (per their preference), but not on how the world is independent of their agreement. — Andrew M

But "how the world is, independent of our agreement", though a laudable consideration in some contexts, is metaphysical claptrap in most. Science is on Neurath's boat, remaking it from earlier versions of itself, not from something meta.

That is, that language presupposes a world for language to be about. — Andrew M

Sure. But, a world independent of language?

(the talk just got metaphysical but through no fault of nominalism) — bongo fury

So don't blame me...

For example, would you agree that two brontosaurus dinosaurs were similar in the sense of both having four legs before the emergence of human beings and human language? — Andrew M

But clearly something has gone wrong, as the things that a language (or other symbol system) likens to one another clearly don't have to be contemporaneous with it. So of course we can agree on that. But it doesn't get us any nearer to the chimerical "world without language".

So I'm unclear on how you would make sense of that project. It seems to require rejecting the convention I stated above, — Andrew M

Too right. There won't be any fact of the matter of implicit conventions, of course, but one that seems to me to be just as widely asserted is that language presupposes a world already formed/carved/sorted in the terms of the language. (Don't blame me.)

, but for what purpose? — Andrew M

foundations of math, psychology of consciousness, theory of reference, theory of learning, logic of induction, semiotics etc? [...] plenty of philosophy [...] cheerfully non-metaphysical — bongo fury

And ethics.

I assume there is no empirical fact about it, in the sense of an observable difference. However there may be logical (or absurdity) arguments against one or the other of those choices. For example, the Third Man argument which is an infinite regress argument against Plato's Theory of Forms. — Andrew M

This feeds a suspicion that metaphysics is not being easily given up by some of its supposed critics, who need to disparage nominalism because they would rather not be shown a way out. — bongo fury

The way out is to see that we are social animals who think and talk with symbols, whose wholly fictional connection to things is a matter we have to (and learn successfully to) constantly convince each other we are agreed about. Often we can agree that a word points at an abstraction, and often that is because doing so serves as a shorthand for reference to all of the more concrete instances abstracted from.

but my initial reference wasn't to Norbert Weiner — Wayfarer

Haha, ok forget about Weiner, and this ill-conceived thread.

From that you have retained the Cabanis quote and hope to use it to mock (now that you see that Wiener sought only to bolster) materialism.

No worries.

Mine was a reference to the original quote, by Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis, a French materialist philosopher of the Enlighenment. It was his expression 'Le cerveau sécrète la pensée comme le foie sécrète la bile.' — Wayfarer

Fine, so Wiener used as caricature a phrase from one of the theories whose assumptions he was targeting.

That quote of Weiner's is commenting on the same point. — Wayfarer

Yes, remarking how early attempts to understand brain function without reference to an immaterial soul ended up implying one through carelessness of metaphor.

I would enlarge on Weiner's point — Wayfarer

... on your obstinate (deliberate, even?) misreading of it.

Although, I never found a pdf of the Wiener book, and you had only the wiki-quote; but I would be astonished if my emphasis (above) is incorrect.

Obsessing about definitions seems largely in aid of fixing meaning. If you assume, or have a theory, that meaning is fixable, then definitions will be your tool of first choice, and probably useful early on.

But if you assume that meanings are a myth or social construct that we maintain as best we can in the absence of any consensus as to its nature, mythical or otherwise, then definitions are probably only a specially assertive kind of glossing, and a lesser priority. Each word choice will be more a strategic punt than a clearly motivated decision, and glossing of some sort or other will serve, on a more occasional but ongoing basis (than if we thought meaning fixable), as Public Relations for the strategies, which we aim to share.

I suspect one should see the second, more fluid point of view just as much in cases of triangles etc. Definitions in such cases clearly succeed in oiling the pragmatic wheels of a language (e.g. math) game, but perhaps not necessarily by means of fixing the reference of terms.

:grin: :cool:

Mods could maybe correct spelling mistakes in thread titles?

Or might it ailenate people?

the materialist canard, 'the brain secretes thought like the liver secretes bile'. — Wayfarer

Anyone perplexed by this phrase should know that it is @Wayfarer's bizarre mis-reading of this,

The mechanical brain does not secrete thought "as the liver does bile," as the earlier materialists claimed, nor does it put it out in the form of energy, as the muscle puts out its activity. Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day.
— Norbert Wiener: Computing Machines and the Nervous System. p. 132. — Wayfarer

Which is, as per my added emphasis, harsh on historical theories of brain function that ended up fueling dualism or eleven kinds of pan-psychism, but not on materialism.

I.e., not a "materialist canard" at all, but an apt caricature of how an abstract noun (like consciousness) can conjure up goo as well as woo. Hence the incredulity,

how non-conscious stuff can produce consciousness — RogueAI

Somewhere inside of which there may lurk a valid question, but it won't need to luxuriate in the usual fantastic premises (e.g. pictures in the head, or a world in the head) that phenomenalists claim are undeniable.

Do you mean,

Now it seems to me that if two things are [not similar non-similar in a sense of similarity] independent of language, then applying the same term to them doesn't make them similar. — Andrew M

?

To the nominalist ("extreme" :lol: or not) this sounds metaphysical, although possibly redeemable in terms of object- and meta-language. Are you in the habit of saying "F=ma, independent of language"? Would you then mean independent of any language (the talk just got metaphysical but through no fault of nominalism), or just higher-level ones?

If you mean,

Now it seems to me that if two things are [not never] similar independent of language, then applying the same term to them doesn't make them similar. — Andrew M

then of course the nominalist disagrees, and is interested in how language creates a similarity between the things.

On the other hand, if two things are similar independent of language, that doesn't imply the existence of a third entity for a language term to denote. — Andrew M

But it does often coincide with use of a general term applying to both: a shared name (or adjective or verb). Then we are presented (sooner or later) with the opportunity to reinterpret the general term as singular, and with questions about how such a choice affects just what entities (e.g. a third one) are thereby implied. Platonist and nominalist might come down on either side of the choice as expected, but the modern nominalist is often prepared to be agnostic on the matter, since there is no fact about it, and because a singular reading (referring to a collective or whole or essence or quality) might be a shorthand for the general reading (referring distributively to all the individual instances).

Lazerowitz was right to read Quine this way. More substantial implications are drawn out in Languages of Art. But here we are well out of the metaphysical mud.

The issue in both cases is that similarity doesn't imply a name at all, whether in a Platonic or Nominal sense. — Andrew M

However glorious.

or, do you have examples of such a mirror symmetry?
— bongo fury

Yes. The Platonist embellishes similarities as (capital-N, entity) Names, the Nominalist reduces similarities to (small-n, paper draft [*]) names. Neither side challenges that reclassification nor sheds any light on similarity. — Andrew M

Yes, I know you think that outcome is inevitable, but I was wondering where, or if, you were finding any examples.

You can call it nominalist, but are you telling us any more than how you're classifying it? ;-) — Andrew M

I don't think nominalists will tend to deny that calling anything by one name rather than another can tell us more than how we are classifying it.

That's fine but it doesn't tell us anything about the ontology of the world, only about his preference. — Andrew M

About the what of the what, now?? This feeds a suspicion that metaphysics is not being easily given up by some of its supposed critics, who need to disparage nominalism because they would rather not be shown a way out.

What we do know is that in the course of our investigations of the world, we can identify similarities and differences in things. — Andrew M

Sure.

That's the natural home that those terms arise in and by which we then classify things (according to our various purposes). — Andrew M

What is? The course of our...?

So classification itself depends on a prior notion of similarity and difference. — Andrew M

What do you mean "prior"? Formed in the process of shared-naming, as a nominalist tends to assume? Or do you, like the Platonist (e.g. Russell), want to cling to a notion of something more innate?

Lazerowitz's analysis is interesting and informative because he's investigating and forming a hypothesis about what philosophers are doing, — Andrew M

Yes, this is such a seductive trope in philosophy: to be too wise to solve any problems. But, as I still say, his analysis might as well call itself nominalist because his suggested reading of Platonist arguments does suggest constructive solutions.

, not discussing how to classify similarity (per the Problem of Universals). — Andrew M

Good, not doing metaphysics, then, just as the nominalist isn't, either, and neither should you (or Russell).

More broadly, an investigation and analysis of how language is used in various contexts is also interesting and informative. But, as Wittgenstein notes (quote below), that is not Nominalism. — Andrew M

Do you mean to damn the enterprise with faint praise, or rather to identify it with Witty's own project, whilst initiating a terminological squabble? If the latter, then hooray, more support for exchanging metaphysics for,

let's assume we are talking about physical particulars and also about the talking of organisms such as ourselves, about those particulars, and let's be especially careful not to get confused when the two targets of our talk overlap, which they probably often must. — bongo fury

which Wittgensteinians can call linguistic analysis if they prefer.

Per "material", yes, which is one side of a Platonic dualist framing that reiterates the reductionism implicit in Nominalism. — Andrew M

Yuk. Metaphysics. Give it up :brow:

Similarity, for Nominalists, reduces to just names. Which precludes even the possibility of investigation. — Andrew M

No, stop assuming this (Platonist canard). Examples please, of doomed investigations into shared naming. Languages of Art for starters if you have to throw it back (and require examples of superlative investigations into shared naming).

Nominalists make the mistake of interpreting all words as names, and so of not really describing their use, but only, so to speak, giving a paper draft on such a description. — L. Wittgenstein, PI §383

Meh. It's a matter of emphasis. Ludo probably reacting against some of his own earlier assumptions about naming, which are not necessarily those of a modern nominalist. But the point certainly is,

We are not analyzing a phenomenon (e.g. thought) but a concept (e.g. that of thinking), and therefore the use of a word. — L. Wittgenstein, PI §383

The pointing of symbols at things by social animals.

A better approach to ridding ourselves of relativism is found in dismissing the notion of incommensurate descriptions. Truth is not bound to particular conceptual schemes, but rather is what allows us to compare them one to the other.

The grain of truth in the OP is that it is truth that allows us to determine which descriptions are wrong. — Banno

Alternatively, to see the truth of relativism, notice that truth is relative to conceptual schemes or discourses, but that these are fictions that need weaving from smaller ones and joining into bigger ones.

The grain of truth in the OP is that truth is how we define the consistency we demand in the weaving and joining.

The broader point is that it is easy to be misled by language and there are plenty of examples of this in the history of philosophy. — Andrew M

You don't say. :meh:

The Nominalist, in their attempt to exorcise the Platonist spirits, can end up being a mirror-image or dual of the Platonist because of a deeper framing of the problem that neither side has recognized. — Andrew M

In the fond imaginings of a third kind of philosopher, yes of course... or, do you have examples of such a mirror symmetry?

Lazerowitz does begin with the same too-easy claim, but then proceeds with a perfectly useful analysis that might as well call itself nominalist, like the Quine piece cited. (I'm still not sure you grasped the point of the quoted extract nor Lazerowitz's point about it.) So, examples of the alleged symmetry are lacking.

The Nominalist applies their razor to the immaterial side of that duality (because ghosts, extravagence, etc.), but finds they are left with an impoverished material world that provides no resources for solving the problem. — Andrew M

Which problem? The "problem" of universals? The modern nominalist exchanges that for a more interesting investigation into all of the implications of shared naming...

foundations of math, psychology of consciousness, theory of reference, theory of learning, logic of induction, semiotics etc — bongo fury

Is the material world supposed lacking in resources for these investigations?

Understood metaphysically, — Andrew M

You jest? (Forgive my irony failure if so.)

Wasn't Quine briefly gesturing to a nominalist translation of sets-talk in terms of shared naming before admitting sets as entities for the sake of exposition of the standard Platonism? And then wasn't Lazerowitz seeing the gesture as support for his proposal: where possible, and in a spirit of charity, read Platonists as positing universals as a shorthand for shared naming?

I liked your choice of the Russell as a case study because it is clear and analytical enough to suggest an answer to the OP's question how philosophy becomes metaphysical, often in spite of itself. I'm therefore sorry that my sketch of an answer prompted such an outpouring of metaphysics.

I guess that kind of reaction might explain the tarring of "nominalism" as metaphysical, so I have edited my question to specify modern nominalism, which is what I would like to save from the tar brush. The assumption that to say (e.g.) ...

... that anything is white or a triangle if it has the right sort of resemblance to our chosen particular. — Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy (1912)

... is to say merely that the thing is picked out in our talking as exemplifying the same word as the other exemplar. I.e. that we say it is white when we do. You might complain that is a circular answer, but it's a circular question.

Modern nominalism is happy with that, not only to close off metaphysical misadventures but also to address psychological questions (learning, perception) where some circularity is inevitable, though hopefully to some extent straightenable: with enough care, and enough healthy distrust of woo.

And yes it does reject any obligation to its ancestors. Even Roscellinus . :smile:

So I brought up a discussion of the ontology of universals, from Russell's Problems of Philosophy, and other sources on the ontology of math, referencing a couple of articles from SEP and IEP. I note very little reaction to or comment on those issues, which are actually the kinds of things that academic metaphysics discusses. — Wayfarer

Yes, nice counter-example. Not that @Snakes Alive meant to shield even the likes of Russell from the aspersion that metaphysics makes fools of us all. So can we see how it arises, here?

Perhaps it is inevitable wherever questions posed in (what might plausibly be read as) an object-language get entangled with questions in a corresponding meta-language? Where questions not requiring use of a term like "denotes" merge with questions concerning the same domain but so requiring?

But a difficulty emerges as soon as we ask ourselves how we know that a thing is white or a triangle. — Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy (1912)

So this might be using the word "white" to ask about things, but it might also be asking about the relation of the word (and its relatives) to the things. Probably @Snakes Alive is here begging that we please stick to either the one,

Is it, do electrons exist? Okay, sure. Is it, do electrons have similar properties? Okay, sure.

What else is there to say? — Snakes Alive

... or the other,

Are you talking about the general ability to use nouns? — Snakes Alive

... While @Marchesk is with Russell in happily mixing it up:

Do things share properties and if so, what does that entail? — Marchesk

If we wish to avoid the universals whiteness and triangularity, we shall choose some particular patch of white or some particular triangle, and say that anything is white or a triangle if it has the right sort of resemblance to our chosen particular. But then the resemblance required will have to be a universal. — Bertrand Russell: The Problems of Philosophy (1912)

Which is woo... or where it starts.

But I (like ?) don't understand why [modern*] nominalism should be tarred with the same brush, if all it says is, let's assume we are talking about physical particulars and also about the talking of organisms such as ourselves, about those particulars, and let's be especially careful not to get confused when the two targets of our talk overlap, which they probably often must.

* edit, see below.

What picture?

Do you mean that human understanding is reducible to computer logic — TheMadFool

Only in the almost trivial sense that neurons are quite evidently some kind of switch or trigger.

but that we haven't the technology to make it work? If yes then that means you agree with me in principle that human understanding isn't something special, something that can't be handled by logic gates inside computers. — TheMadFool

I roughly agree with you now (maybe, or maybe the switches will have to be actual neurons; we don't yet know), since you're talking about way off in the future.

But do you at last see the trouble here,

Searle's argument doesn't stand up to careful scrutiny for the simple reason that semantics are simply acts of linking words to their referents. Just consider the sentence, "dogs eat meat". The semantic part of this sentence consists of matching the words "dog" with a particular animal, "eat" with an act, and "meat" with flesh, i.e. to their referents and that's it, nothing more, nothing less. Understanding is simply a match-the-following exercise, something a computer can easily accomplish. — TheMadFool

?

That's to say there is no meaning except in the sense of a consensus. — TheMadFool

If you like. Is that an objection?

What makes you think computers can't do that? — TheMadFool

What, agree and disagree about where each other's words have 'landed', out in the world? If by computers you mean some future AI, then sure. This would no doubt be a few steps more advanced than, say, being able to predict where each other's ball has (actually) landed. Which I assume is challenging enough for current robots.

How do we do it, link the word "water" to the water itself, in your opinion? — TheMadFool

By learning to agree (or disagree) with other people that particular tokens of the word are pointed at particular instances of the object.

Yep. So what is it that a computer so easily (according to you) links to the word "water"? The referent you just described, or merely the description?
— bongo fury

The description consists of referents. — TheMadFool

Ok, well to see "why people make such a big deal of understanding" you need to see that they are interested in how we link the word "water" to the water itself, and not merely to more words for water.

"Referent" usually refers to the designated object itself, not to other words, semantically related or not.

What's the problem with referents? — TheMadFool

Whether they are things out in the world, or merely more words referring to those things.

The clear liquid that flows in rivers and the oceans that at times becomes solid and cold, and at other times is invisible vapor is the referent of the word "water". — TheMadFool

Yep. So what is it that a computer so easily (according to you) links to the word "water"? The referent you just described, or merely the description?

Well, I don't know why people make such a big deal of understanding — TheMadFool

It's about

referents — TheMadFool

They (and I) mean things out there, you mean just more words/data.

I hope you reply soon to this query. — TheMadFool

Why? A quick reply isn't usually a thoughtful one. In my case at least. Actually, I think the site should instigate a minimum time between replies, as well as a word limit.

They don't have to be but they can be, no? — TheMadFool

I don't think I've been understood, here. (Take more time?) I was trying to explain why @A Raybould was non-plussed by your statements about semantics. See also @InPitzotl's recent posts here.

I expect that you, like "they" in the story, haven't even considered that "referents" might have to be actual things out in the world?
— bongo fury

Yes, I did consider that. — TheMadFool

Ok...

Referents can be almost anything, from physical objects to abstract concepts. — TheMadFool

Ah, so after due consideration you decided not. (The referents don't have to be things out in the world.) This was Searle's frustration.

You can be sure you are in the respectable company of his critics at the time. Also of a probable majority of philosophers and linguists throughout history, to be fair.

Searle's argument doesn't stand up to careful scrutiny for the simple reason that semantics are simply acts of linking words to their referents. Just consider the sentence, "dogs eat meat". The semantic part of this sentence consists of matching the words "dog" with a particular animal, "eat" with an act, and "meat" with flesh, i.e. to their referents and that's it, nothing more, nothing less. Understanding is simply a match-the-following exercise, something a computer can easily accomplish. — TheMadFool

I wish I could locate the youtube footage of Searle's wry account of early replies to his vivid demonstration (the chinese room) that so-called "cognitive scripts" mistook syntax for semantics. Something like, "so they said, ok we'll program the semantics into it too, but of course what they came back with was just more syntax". — bongo fury

I'll have another rummage.

I expect that you, like "they" in the story, haven't even considered that "referents" might have to be actual things out in the world? Or else how ever did the "linking" seem to you something simple and easily accomplished, by a computer, even??? Weird.

Do you deny the existence of universal concepts in our language? — Marchesk

I really have no idea how to answer that question. — Snakes Alive

I thought this was fine...

Is the question, for example, how we can use the same word for multiple things? How it is that 'apple' can refer to multiple fruits, for example? — Snakes Alive

It's an interesting line of investigation for sure, — Isaac

Hey thanks.

particularly the actions AI would have to demonstrate before we're prepared to label them 'rational'. — Isaac

Ah well that's more of a Turing Test approach, which I was aiming to avoid. I'm less concerned about our common judgements about people's reasoning and more about the reasoning itself. Hence my proposed clarification of rational as semantical, in a sense further clarified. But then this is a good example of how an armchair method (the Chinese Room) could conceivably be of help.

But that's a very different topic — Isaac

So I agree :wink:

and I don't want to derail the thread talking about it. — Isaac

The OP will be grateful.

What is also interesting about this, and more related to the thread, — Isaac

More relevant than my posts, then, which are about whether non-metaphysical philosophy has plenty to contribute to investigations into the human condition? :wink:

, is the way in which the criteria for the term 'rational' are being created post hoc to reflect the way we'd like things to be. — Isaac

Yes, just like reading a post the way we'd like it to be. :wink:

We've all been using the word 'rational' (or it's equivalent) for 2000 years. What on earth is a discussion about what it means doing 2000 years later! — Isaac

Helping to understand the human condition. E.g. the sense of consciousness. :meh:

This claim is either meaningless or amenable to empirical evidence. Is our ability to reason and navigate grounded in our ability to discern meaning? If it isn't, what would be different about the world, how would we notice? — Isaac

magical thinking [...] "animals don't think rationally like us because.... I really, really don't want them to" — Isaac

I agree it's empirical, but I think what the crows (and current AI) are able to do is less than we are able, which we might distinguish as "rational" but I would propose clarifying as semantical: the ability to discern meaning in the sense of discerning what symbols are supposed to be pointed at.

I agree that I should suggest kinds of supporting evidence if anyone were actually going to dispute my claim.

On the other hand, I might first appeal to mere armchair devices like the Chinese Room, to
ascertain what would count as evidence for my disputant.

Is the question, for example, how we can use the same word for multiple things? How it is that 'apple' can refer to multiple fruits, for example?
— Snakes Alive

That’s close! — Wayfarer

Yep, and by taking the plunge and facing the further truth that reference is never a matter of fact but a sophisticated social game of pretend, you get, if you want, to avoid metaphysics but discover a world of useful work for philosophy.

foundations of math, psychology of consciousness, theory of reference, theory of learning, logic of induction, semiotics etc — bongo fury

And ethics, of course.

Some important-seeming questions of the 'globalising' variety will always arise. The trick is to be prepared to recognise when one's efforts have developed the symptoms described in the OP, and to then have the humility (or strategic sense) to retreat to more solid ground.

I don't see that there is anything in eternalism per se that precludes motion, unless you define it as such. — ChatteringMonkey

And in which case, mightn't this be turned around:

... objects are arranged in space in an orderly way. Their arrangement can be described without referring to "passage of space" or some equivalent of motion. — Echarmion

...?

Spatial patterns just as well can be described in terms of change and motion and passage. The rectangle changes (moves, passes, travels) from red to yellow, from left to right; and a rate of change is measured with respect to a horizontal position, which may represent time or (just as easily) any variable you like (hence we say the rectangle is coloured with a "gradient").

Thanks. Links or recommendations welcome. What did he (or you) think of philosophy that tends to avoid metaphysics? E.g. currents in foundations of math, psychology of consciousness, theory of reference, theory of learning, logic of induction, semiotics etc? Or don't you agree that plenty of philosophy is cheerfully non-metaphysical?

I didn't want to allude some sort of is-ought-fallacy, where racism or xenophobia are (more) acceptable because they are in some way "natural". — Echarmion

No I know you didn't. You made it clear you want to guard against the innate tendency. I just suspect the tendency isn't innate at all, and that that might be relevant to the question how best to guard against it.

I just wanted to point out, partially from personal experience, that not being prejudiced is really hard, — Echarmion

I'm not sure this kind of breast-beating (if that's the figure; pardon if I'm over-doing it) is necessary or helpful.

and that there are mental mechanisms (wherever they come from) that introduce and reinforce prejudice, of which racism is a subtype. — Echarmion

So, do you at least see how, if I were right about the whole innateness hypothesis being (gladly or not) a racism-serving myth, that repeating these psychologisms might be counter-productive?

Just refusing to say the word "black" won't keep your brain from noticing that "these guys over there look different", and if you don't pay attention, your brain may turn "different" into "dangerous". — Echarmion

Ditto, really.

Not sure whether I agree at all with the OP about tweaking the language. But the innateness thing gets in the way.

Racism is part of the human condition. — Echarmion

It may be, now, but were there any pseudo-scientific theories of racial superiority disseminated widely prior to the advent of the trans-Atlantic slave trade?

If not, do you perhaps mean rather that some more general and symmetric relation of xenophobia is innate?

I doubt that anyway (here), but the kind of racism that I imagine I would find especially hard to bear politely would be the kind that dared to assert my natural inferiority. (And compounded the error to the nth degree by seeing my resultant social subjugation as evidence for the theory.)

So I am especially suspicious of the claim of innateness if it is meant to apply to that kind of racism.

Anyway, perhaps by "human condition" you don't mean innate?