Why do linguistic animals think they are each two things instead of one?

his homey task assumes — Davidson

I thought "did you mean 'homely'?", while Google thought "did you mean 'homie'?".

I can talk about the content of... — creativesoul

... a correlation?

Or is it already the content? Of a belief? Or is it the belief?

Blimey. Has @Michael written some code to cure the internet?

:up:

drawing correlations between things — creativesoul

Ok, so drawing of correlations between things is formation of dispositions to respond to them which are relative to each other? Maybe? — bongo fury

Or something else?

Or is it only another way of saying having of beliefs?

Which are?

Irreducible mental stuff?

So they probably hope the use-mention distinction is at least half-way not about pointing.
— bongo fury

Then what do they think use is doing, if not pointing? — frank

Everything in "How to do things with words", for starters? (I presume.)

Which is of course laudable. Why ever assume that thought is all in declarative sentences?

In which case, why ever think that meaning is all pointing?

I was responding to Bongo Fury's comment that confusion of use and mention had reached pandemic status. I was asking for his view of it to set alongside Banno's (which is kind of unique, I think). — frank

Yep. Well, maybe not unique but characteristic. Mention of use incites, in many, insurrection against pointing (naming, denoting, describing) as the presumed basis of meaning. So they probably hope the use-mention distinction is at least half-way not about pointing. They must be frequently disappointed, in that case.

"The cup is on the table" can be dealt with in two ways. We can talk about it, saying things like "The cup is on the table" contains six words, or "The cup is on the table" is true; or we can use it to show that the cup is on the table.

That's not an ambiguity. — Banno

Not if it's the choice between mention and use, no. But it isn't quite that. The first half is about mention and is fine. Use of (other) words to mention or point at a sentence. But what is pointing at what when we

use it [the sentence] to show that the cup is on the table. — Banno

?

Nothing so low class as pointing seems to be implied. Much better, we are invited (roughly every other sentence) to see the cup situation as somehow one with the sentence. Distinguishing between picked-out and picker-outer would obviously spoil that mystical game.

So... you think I am jumbling use and mention? — Banno

I do.

The sentence on the right is being used, not mentioned.
— Banno
Used as in setting out a state of affairs.
— Banno
What is on the RHS is a state of affairs
— Banno — bongo fury

...the world as a metalanguage...
— fdrake

To be clear, the metalanguage is on the left, and contains the truth predicate. The object language is on the right. So the object language is the world. — Banno

I take it you mean the object language considered as a whole domain of symbols plus its own semantic world of denoted objects comprises the semantic world of the metalanguage? (Nothing like "the world as a metalanguage", but fine. Thank goodness, indeed.)

But that wouldn't excuse blurring the distinction between syntactic and semantic layers of the object language.

It doesn't matter that it's natural language, where the layers aren't as clear cut as for Tarski. There's still no need to confuse use vs mention, logical or grammatical subject vs subject-matter, state of affairs or disquotation as in statement vs state of affairs or disquotation as in event (or whatever).

Smoke may be a sign of fire, but it is not a symbol of fire. Seems obvious to me. — Janus

Fair enough. Even Goodman explored in that direction early on. But Catherine Elgin (chapter 8 here, but no pdf or preview) argues that his mature theory shows how being a sign of fire, in the sense meant, is fully explained as a species of symbolising fire. Not something essentially different, and hence (though this isn't Elgin's point) not an excuse to impute symbolic thinking (or an alleged cousin of it) anthropomorphically.

Yes, sorry. :ok:

@Banno is doing it again.

the statement and its disquotation are truth functionally equivalent (despite that one is a statement, and one is a worldly event - ). — fdrake

Now you're doing it. The statement is a disquotation (of its quotation).

the world as a metalanguage — fdrake

Qué?

I think the extension of a statement is it's truth value. — frank

Fine, add that to the parenthetical varieties of "alleged referent" above.

As the difference between using a word or phrase to mention (refer to, denote, describe, point at) an object and using a quotation or other word or phrase to mention the word.

I.e. the distinction ignored here,

any subject of a sentence, anything to which we refer.
— SophistiCat — bongo fury

To be is to be the subject of a predicate.
— Banno — bongo fury

we normally use a sentence to assert something about a (referring) subject.
— Andrew M — bongo fury

I'm cool with phrase extending to cover statement, even though I dispute that (or at least how) whole statements refer. As long as the statement isn't systematically confused with its alleged referent (event, or worldly fact as fdrake puts it). E.g. virtually any reference to "states of affairs".

The sentence on the right is being used, not mentioned. — Banno

Used as in setting out a state of affairs. — Banno

What is on the RHS is a state of affairs — Banno

What's the extension of an apology? — fdrake

While confusion of use and mention is endemic, can we please focus on ordinary declarative statements?

Banno's deflationary view doesn't match the sentence with some worldly fact, — fdrake

Well... it can be hard to tell:

The interesting thing is that a proposition will be true exactly when the state of affairs to which it applies is indeed the case. — Banno

We need a general relation between an individual and a possible state of affairs, to use when someone is wrong as to the truth. — Banno

Which show signs of systematic ambiguity (bordering on sophistry) between state of affairs as (A) unquoted statement and (B) worldly fact. Leading to this kind of thing,

Symbolically, x and "x" pick out the same x. — Andrew M

and

The stuff on the right hand side is in unmediated contact with the world;
— Banno — bongo fury

What do you think we are pretending then? We are not pretending that (some) words (sounds and groups of visual symbols) are associated with objects by us. — Janus

No, agreed, but the association itself is pretended, as you virtually allowed here:

the sound of the word or the visible written marks are associated with the objects they (are understood to [i.e. pretended to]) represent. — Janus

There's definitely a mapping game, but no definition at all to the mapping, unless we "agree to pretend".

It's obvious — Janus

Are you sure it's obvious to a bio-semiotician? With their signs, which are allegedly so different from symbols?

Like the weather or a carburettor, the neural collective is actually pushing and shoving against the real world.
That then is the semantics that breathes life into the syntax.
— apokrisis — bongo fury

We do understand (some) words to represent objects; that's simply a fact of human experience. — Janus

Yep, we know how to play the game of agreeing to pretend that certain words and pictures point at certain things. Pretend seems to me a suitable word for that kind of game. I don't mean we don't actually play it.

@Banno @creativesoul @fdrake @frank

I know quoting from my holy book (apocrypha) isn't an argument, but...

One thread of an argument by Herbert Hochberg runs some­what as follows: that "white" applies to certain things does not make them white; rather "white" applies because they are white. Plausible enough but misleading. Granted, I cannot make these objects red by calling them red--by applying the term "red" to them. But on the other hand, the English language makes them white just by applying the term "white" to them; application of the term "white" is not dictated by their somehow being antecedently white, whatever that might mean. A language that applies the term "blanc" to them makes them blanc; and a language if any that applies the term "red" to them makes them red.

Some of the trouble traces back to Alfred Tarski's unfortunate suggestion that the formula " 'Snow is white' is true if and only if snow is white" commits us to a correspondence theory of truth. Actually it leaves us free to adopt any theory (correspondence, coherence, or other) that gives " 'Snow is white' is true" and "snow is white" the same truth-value.

For animals scents and sounds are signs of prey, for example, but they don't represent prey symbolically. — Janus

Indeed. The scents and sounds become significant(meaningful) as a result of becoming part of a capable creature's correlations drawn between them, possible food items(prey), their own hunger pangs, etc. Prior to becoming part of those correlations, they were not at all meaningful for the aforementioned animal. Rather, they were just sounds and scents. — creativesoul

I'm tempted, but remain skeptical. Seems like another (along with "belief") anthropomorphic over-extension of the real thing, which in this case is humans' game of pretend: wherein, as you say,

the sounds of the word or the visible written marks are associated with the objects they (are understood to) represent. — Janus

The anthropomorphising extends too easily (for my liking) to self-driving cars and Chinese Rooms.

Peirce — Janus

But there just is no fact of the matter whether a word or picture is pointed at one thing or another. No physical bolt of energy flows from pointer to pointee(s). So the whole social game is one of pretence.
— bongo fury

Unless you're a biosemiotician? :chin: — bongo fury

(... and you think reference is real.)

I see. Not symbols at all. Signs.

Hence, they cancel out, — Banno

What do?

So the interpretations cancel out? Or the things on either side of the IFF?

Hence, they cancel out, like paired variables in any equation. — Banno

What do?

Ok, so drawing of correlations between things is formation of dispositions to respond to them which are relative to each other? Maybe?

an example of how
— bongo fury

This makes no sense.

The how part is autonomous. It requires certain biological machinery, etc. It just happens(at first anyway)... the drawing correlations, I mean. — creativesoul

If not how, then in what ways? How am I to think of a cat as drawing correlations? By (perhaps?) appreciating how it is

disposed to respond to the event as to a mouse-running-behind-tree event? — bongo fury

Smart phones do not attribute meaning. — creativesoul

Cool. Agreed.

An artificial neural network can have the nameless anticipation (surge in action potentials). Oughtn't we reserve "belief" for the anticipations of a more restricted class of machines?

I suggest: those very much future machines skilled not merely in the chasing of mice, but in the chasing of the imaginary trajectories of the pointings of mouse-words and mouse-pictures. A skill which is ascribable literally to humans from infancy. Only anthropomorphically to cats and present-day robots.

That's too restrictive for people who are sure cats literally have beliefs, of course. They must exclude robots some other way. If at all. — bongo fury

Drawing correlations between different directly perceptible things, none of which are language use.
— creativesoul

Example?
— bongo fury

Mice, trees, spatial relations between mice, trees, and the creature themselves... — creativesoul

But an example of how the languageless creature draws a correlation between two or more of these?

Attribution of beliefs to phones is a misattribution.

Good. See edit.

Drawing correlations between different directly perceptible things, none of which are language use. — creativesoul

Example?

What would count as a misattribution of belief as compared/contrasted to correctly attributing belief to such language-less creatures? — creativesoul

Smart phones ? — bongo fury

Ok, and then what counts as "drawing correlations" that isn't some kind of a game of symbol-pointing?

Just interested.

Yes. Some language-less creatures are capable of attributing meaning. — creativesoul

Still cool, perhaps. How, though?

If there is some state of affairs, then there can potentially be a statement that picks out that state of affairs. Symbolically, x and "x" pick out the same x.
— Andrew M

So, is the second sentence a typo, or deliberate sophistry? Which the otherwise unacountable banality of the first sentence is designed to camouflage?

Or have you convinced even yourself that the picker-outer is properly identified with the picked-out? — bongo fury

It's worse than I thought, if "x" isn't even abbreviating "x" is true.

Naming and descriptive practices. — creativesoul

Cool. And,

a creature capable of attributing meaning — creativesoul

might do so by other means or in other ways than are implied by such practices?

Yes. Exactly. I thought you were talking about that. Not only about poetry.

Convolute. — Banno

Not the second one: not the (debatably) "languageless" one. To say that the cat,

was disposed to respond to the event as to a mouse-running-behind-tree event — bongo fury

seems to me a fairly credible rough and ready behavioural analysis: a reasonable translation of "the cat believed the mouse went behind the tree" into a form less obviously open to the objection of anthropomorphism, to say nothing of theoretical doubts about beliefs altogether. I don't doubt that it presents problems, but it's fairly straight-forward. You seem to be hoping to exhibit the superiority of the natural idiom here,

The mouse ran up the tree. The cat did not look up the tree, but behind it, and then around the base, not having seen the mouse run up the tree. The cat believed the mouse went behind the tree. — Banno

Point not taken. All I'm seeing is a dogmatic attachment.

I'm not convinced that talk of dispositions is helpful. — Banno

Me neither. But likewise talk of beliefs. I'm just trying to understand how people are understanding this talk. Preferably without having to be uncharitable and conclude mysticism.

Janus was talking about poetry; — Banno

Fine. But I thought this,

To me, that's too close to referent, to there being something that the sentence must be about as a whole denotes, to reified meaning.
— Banno — bongo fury

might be also about eschewing propositions as meanings of statements.

That's plausible, but it doesn't mean we need to recognise any mysteriously non-actual facts ("possible states of affairs" if they can't be just plain old alternative statements). — bongo fury

No mysteries here, just possibilities. — Banno

Qua plain old alternative statements? Cool.

The deluded cat believed the mouse went behind the tree. — Banno

Was disposed to assent (upon being gifted language) to a pointing of "mouse running behind tree" at the inappropriate choice of space-time region? Cool. Apart maybe from the bit about language. So: was disposed to respond to the event as to a mouse-running-behind-tree event?

To me, that's too close to referent, to there being something that the sentence [must be about as a whole denotes], to reified meaning. — Banno

:ok:

Or is a statement not about (at least) what its subject term refers to and (at most) what its predicate term is true or false of?

Or were you just talking about sentences that aren't statements?

Yes, the "hard problem" presupposes epiphenomenalism, which took hold when brain science got in the habit of referring to the "neural correlates of consciousness". Thus placing the ball squarely in front of the goal it should probably have been guarding, and instead stepping graciously aside.

(DPC) For every event E possibly there exists a statement S( E ) such that E is the truth maker for S( E ). — fdrake

Event as in space-time region, or event as in abstract proposition about (or property of) such a region? Or something else? Or both?

Where were we? ... Is the mouse's running behind the tree propositional? Well for the (as for every) event qua space-time region there possibly exist infinitely many statements it makes true, as well as at least that many false. So... ?