Deuterium is, of course, an isotope of hydrogen. It follows then that D₂O is a isotopologue of H₂O.

Hence, heavy water is water.

It seems odd to say that science did not discover that water is H₂O. We used the terms "water", "Hydrogen" and "Oxygen" prior to the discovery. There's two ways to think about it. In the first, "water" refers to a particular substance, and science uncovered its deeper essence. On this view, water = H₂O is a necessary truth, discovered empirically. Profound metaphysical stuff. The other way to think about it, the meaning of "water" is based on its place in our dealings with it — that it is clear, potable, etc. On this view, saying water is H₂O is just a shift in how we describe it.

Different ways of talking about the same stuff. Are we obligated to say one is right, the other wrong? I don't see why.

Another interesting aside.

What we discussed in that thread isn't Aristotle's answer to the question Wittgenstein took up, just an ancillary point that the positive skeptic's position is self-undermining. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Which, of course, was Wittgenstein's response. So I remain puzzled as to what it is you are actually proposing. However, it's a big topic and as you say, peripheral to this thread, so we might leave it there.

unless you have more to add?

I was saying much the same thing. — J

Good, good. So we might have some agreement that there is no paradox in talking about the "pre-linguistic" world.

So back to

Essentially, what we want to know is whether "a reason" must cash out to "an obligatory cause" of holding a particular belief. This is troubling, as discussed on the thread. — J

So, not so sure about the "obligatory".

Yeah - Graylingstein: Wittgenstein on Scepticism and Certainty

Perhaps your point parallels my "what counts as a hinge proposition is not dependent on the structure of the proposition but is a role it takes on in the task at hand". Its not that "What is true for me might not be true for you" but that "if we are going to do this together, we need to act in this way..."

I will go back to Adorno sometime, to see if he can be made a bit more analytic...

Again, yes. We ought not proceed from "The bible says it's so" to "It is so".

Hence, see ; I like my post better because it is not dependent on an the authority of James 2:14.

They didn't even have the number zero. — frank

:gasp:

Then there might be some benefit accruing to those who pay attention to more recent thought? There might be something new in Kripke or Wittgenstein?

Or is it that now, we have nothing? :wink:

I thought the same thing.

Have there been no advances in philosophy or logic in the last few hundred years?

...for someone so averse to conversations of God — Hanover

Yes, here I am! I'm not at all averse to such conversations!

It shouldn't be this hard. That objection is not to talk about god, but to talk that takes some particular holy book as authoritative. to blatant appeals to authority. As explained, I'm not so keen on such theological meanderings, to what may have began here:

Such arguments are very old — Count Timothy von Icarus

Are they? Or is this about having a hammer and seeing only nails? It's easier to only see the arguments they have encountered previously.

As previously, I don't recognise what I understand of the discussion of rules that came from PI and Kripke's Wittgenstein in what you have said.

Yep. Happy for folk to do theology if that's their thing, but theology is not philosophy. The other thread made the additional point that this is a philosophy forum, arguing that therefore theology was inappropriate. The powers that be, probably quite sensibly, apparently decided not to follow through - too hard, no doubt.

The result is that god is now everywhere.... :wink:

I blame ... And of course you are welcome to your views.

...and there's Leon's personal denigration when confronted.

(...and dog whistle to Tim)

Pretty much. The thread was about demarcation, arguing that if the authoritative source is, for example, the bible, the presumption is that one accepts the bible as an authority, and hence the argument is theological not philosophical.

"What philosophy is adverse to is assuming claims upon one's interlocutor, including claims of authority."

Well, I'm intrigued by the acceptance of messiness. Just not sure why it has to be obtuse. If he stuck to "antagonism" instead of "contradiction" things might be easier. But too many threads, too many replies to write...

The "rule following argument," like the many other empiricist arguments from underdetermination, relies on presupposing empiricism's epistemic presuppositions and its impoverished anthropology (which denies intellectus from the outset). Since these arguments lead to all sorts of radical conclusions: that words do not have meanings in anything like the classical realist sense, that they cannot refer to things, that induction—and thus natural science—is not rationally justifiable, that we cannot know if the sun will rise tomorrow, that we don't know when we are performing addition instead of an infinite number of other operations, that nothing like knowledge as classically understood can exist, etc., one might suppose that the original premises should be challenged. Indeed, epistemic presuppositions that lead to this sort of skepticism would seem to be self-refuting; they cannot secure even the most basic, bedrock knowledge we possess. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't recognise what I understand of the discussion of rules that came from PI and Kripke's Wittgenstein in this paragraph. It's as if you are talking about something quite other. To my eye it misrepresents that argument.

No progress here, then.

Edit: I just went back over the last few posts in this discussion. We are indeed talking past each other. Care to look for common ground?

But it is so impenetrable... taking forever to say the obvious. I do kinda get it.

How do we know that it's the language that underpins the metaphysics and the epistemology, rather than the reverse — J

Well, I suppose that's a worthwhile point. Language takes it as granted that there is stuff to talk about, and true and false things to say, so maybe the conclusion is that we can't seperate these out.

...a pre-linguistic metaphysical practice... — J

Like the dog chasing the rat up a tree? Here's a minefield. Fine, but I'll insist that there can be no "pre-linguistic metaphysical practice" that we cannot put into words post-hoc; otherwise how could we be said to recognise it as a practice? I think this a swamp not worth approaching.

I followed your thread for a while, but couldn't get traction in the ideas involved.

Some confusion here, likely my fault. By "two phenomena" I didn't mean p and its negation, but rather 1. the phenomenon of (p v ~p) as what I called a logical law, and 2. the phenomenon of (p v ~p) as a description of what must be the case concerning objects in the world. (Again, by using words like "phenomena" or "objects" I'm only seeking neutral nouns; no metaphysical baggage implied.) So I think your response involving Frege, while true, doesn't address my puzzle. My puzzle wants to know how it is the case -- if it is the case -- that we can understand 'p' as referring either to a logical proposition or, say, a rock. — J

This is difficult. And hence interesting.

I'm stuck on a bit of pedantry, which I will have to set out before I move on. There are limits on what we can substitute for p in (p v ~p). It has to be truth-apt. So you can't treat 'p' as the name for a rock, becasue Fred the Rock is not truth apt.

And notice that these are limits on what we can do with (p v ~p). If you do substitute "Fred the Rock" for "p", then you have stoped playing the game that I had thought we were playing, and we ned to drop back a step and reconsider what the rules of the game are.

So if your puzzle is that you want to know how it is the case that we can understand 'p' as referring to a proposition and not a rock, then my answer will be the same... that's the game we are playing.

How about if, for starters, we both agree to eschew "game" analogies. I've often wondered if Witt understood the connotations of "game" in English. Certainly the implication that "It's all a game!" drives many people batty -- but I doubt he meant it that way, as a trivial pastime we could just as easily not engage in, or exchange for a different one. The point, surely, is about rules, and about how knowing the rules is a spade-turning experience. — J

...but, but...

No, Witti didn't mean it that way, and I agree that the term is overused, but it is so difficult to put up an alternative.

While I'm happy to talk about rules, you can guess where I will go: following a rule is ultimately a practice; it can't be rules all the way down.

But, ok, let's continue.

(trouble is that I get up as you go to bed, so the conversation here is always going to be interspersed with a whole lot of other stuff. Feel free to PM as needed - I do)

Okay, but that's not what you said in the post I responded to. — Hanover

Perhaps. But it is what I had in mind.

I wish you'd number your three elements for clarity. — Hanover

The dots dropped out when I used the quote function. See the original, linked.

1) Not all theological systems require scripture be the word of God, which would mean your objection is to only certain theologies, — Hanover

Sure. Some stuff is both good theology and good philosophy.

(2) you need to define what "philosophical argument" rightly is to explain why your criteria are necessary to remain within in it. — Hanover

I don't agree. It will suffice to point out that "bad" philosophical arguments include those that rest on authority, divine or otherwise.

But practice changes too. I wonder if one of the criticisms of psychologism works against this Wittgensteinian view as much as it does against psychologism: if logic is relative to our practices then it's contingent. — Jamal

Well, there's a lot to unpack here.

Yes, practice changes, but there is the Davidsonian limitation that if it were to change to much it would cease to be recognisable as a practice. One supposes that in order to count as a practice it must be recognisable as such.

Then there's the difference between psychology and sociology. Treating logic as the result of psychological preference fails in much the same way as does grounding it in intuition - it doesn't take shared action into account. And then there's the further step of accounting for the normatively of logic, which might be doable if it is treated as a community activity. Logic is a shared, not a private, practice. seems to miss this point.

That's the classic Wittgensteinian response to accusations of psychologism or even behaviourism.

Then there's the problem that the conclusion - that logic is contingent - doesn't follow directly form the premise - that logic is relative. So taking the extreme, it doesn't follow, from logic being associated with practice, that logic is random.

So from Wittgenstein we might see logic as a practice, and from Davidson we might see it as a constitutive restraint. But you have drawn my attention to is that these views may not be mutually exclusive.

But you also have given me Adorno to think about. Damn your eyes.

I've argued elsewhere that

In summary there are three things that identify a move from a philosophical enquiry to mere theology:
claiming that god is the answer to a philosophical question
using scripture, revelation or other religious authority in an argument
entering into a philosophical argument in bad faith. — Banno

I'll stand by that.

Did you notice the discussion of intuition in the "what is real" thread? Intuition might not be a firm basis for agreement.

I’m thinking that pretty much all a child has is the essence of mum. No words or definitions. Mum may mean security, nourishment, and the like, on an instinctual or just ‘feel good’ level. — praxis

Something like that is perhaps correct. The babe understands the essence of mum, but not yet the details.

Is that the same use of "essence" as that of the Philosophers hereabouts? "that which makes a thing what it is and not another", or whatever?

It's a tempting thought, but what exactly does having the concept "mum" amount to, apart from being able to tell mum from Aunty Jean and getting her to come by calling her name and so on? Some neural net, perhaps, that is active when one thinks of 'mum'? Or a form of "Mumness"?

What is it to "have the essence" of mum, beyond what one does?

If we can identify something we must have some conception of it... — praxis

What is it to have "some concept of it" beyond being able to identify it?


And essences are a bit different to concepts...

Dogs don't know things? A bit harsh on the pup?

...he does not know what is 'sugar' or what is 'intruder'. — Jacques Maritain, The Cultural Impact of Empiricism

He doesn't use the words, perhaps; but his reactions show something....

So why are 'sugar' and 'intruder' in quotes?

First, I didn’t think you could understand me, so why bother. — Fire Ologist

And yet here you are.

Second, There are fifty things prior to my posts with Leon that you didn’t respond to. — Fire Ologist

Again, if you want me to respond, link my name. A common courtesy. I'll not be going over your posts looking to see if you ask me something. You are not that interesting.

Third, Seems muddle-headed for you expect courtesy from me. — Fire Ologist

I agree. Seems I erred in expecting curtesy from you.

Fire, I honestly havn't been able to follow most of what you wrote. I gave it a go. It didn't work. I'll leave you to it.

Well, philosophy tries to get at the underpinnings of empirical thoughts and thoughts in general. That makes it different to the empirical sciences, and also considerably more difficult. Unlike scientists, philosophers don't have the benefit of being able to look around to see if they are right.

Or perhaps they do. The language and logic uses in philosophy is there for all to see.

It is an article of Banno's faith than anything like religious faith has no place at the table of philosophical discourse — Wayfarer

:blush:

Almost. I've writ about it at some length. What's philosophically illegitimate is dependence on divine writ.

And yes, the fora do much resemble the plight of Sisyphus.

Well, perhaps there is some hope for our finding agreement.

The question surely remains as to what the posited "intellectual consideration" in an intuition might be. And the argument I gave previously convinces me that neither intuition nor self-evidence will provide a suitable "Intellectual consideration". In their place I'm offering those specifiable speech acts that inaugurate our language games - those involving "counts as...".

I gather this is all quite foreign to your way of putting things.

If your first point is that rule-following alone does not equate to content, then we might agree. I'd answer this problem by again pointing out that one's understanding of any rule is to be found in the actions seen in following it or going against it. And here we might add that the action is what you call "content".

And this is much the same as my answer to your second point. Whatever "first principles" you might cite will be secondary to what one does with them. The vital difference between action and the "elevation of the will" is that action is public, whereas what one wills is private. What one does can be seen by others, and so can be a suitable basis for the common action of providing explanations and accounts.

Human knowledge is shared. Which is why private intellectus on its own is inadequate.

Are there parts of this with which you might agree?

Demonstrable failure to communicate. — Fire Ologist

Yep.

If you are interested in my responses, please, as a common courtesy, link my name in your posts.

Otherwise, enjoy Leon's company.

I don't want it to be aporetic at all. — J

:smile:

Whereas I don't much mind. Better to not reach a conclusion than to jump to the wrong one.

Oh, and the obvious reason that LNC is taken as a metaphysical or epistemic principle is that it is a grammatical principle, and our language is common to both. Language underpins both.

The leap from "no determinate causes" to "no reason at all" in particular still eludes me, too, and in particular becasue it "raises the unpleasant spectre of there being only one reasonable way to think and do". The idea that the world would be unintelligible without strict casual explanations ignores the great difficulty of setting out exactly what a casual explanation is. It seems arse about; the way the world is, is not intelligible thanks to causation, so much as that causation is intelligible thanks to the way the world is. Perhaps it's not that the world becomes intelligible because we uncover its causes; rather, we see things as caused because the world is already intelligible to us. Causation is not the ground of intelligibility, but an expression of it.

Good chat.

Thanks for a considered and sympathetic response.

Here are a few points I've taken form what you said:

1. that p v ~p is a logical law. There's of course a large literature on the nature of laws or rules, but perhaps there is some consensus that Wittgenstein was correct in pointing out the vicious circularity of claiming that our actions are determined by a rule. Now I'll go along with the tradition that says that the answer here is that ultimately a rule is grounded in a practice, in what we do. I think this is both found in the PI and an adequate answer to Kripke's scepticism.

So better, perhaps, to say that agreeing with either p or ~p is what we do, rather than a rule.

2. There's this, about (p v ~p): "My puzzle is: How is it that these are two phenomena, which resemble each other so closely yet have such different objects?" The trite response is that p and ~p are not phenomena. What they are has been answered at length and in different ways. But further, what is salient, and what we discussed in our previous conversations concerning Frege, is that we read (p v ~p) as about one thing, not two. That's part of the function of "⊢" in Frege.

Now there are puzzles here - perhaps most recently presented in 's recent thread. But I'll stand by this interpretation.

Our difference may be that I think there is a point at which our spade is turned, a point at which the only answer is "It's what we do", but that you would try to dig further. I take the "counts as..." function to be sufficient, so that putting the ball in the net counts as a goal, no further explanation being possible. You seem to me to want to ask why it counts as a goal, to which the answer is it just does.

Does this seem a fair characterisation?

So I'll throw the ball back - can you convince me that there is a further issue here that remains unanswered?

That would be very interesting.

It just doesn't seem all that far from saying "they would not be participating in the same activity" to saying they would not have the intuitions—the experience of the agreement of logic with what we do—that people have when they successfully do x and y. — Jamal

Interesting, and methodologically sound, to have a think about such counter instances.

It's uncomfortable to do what is counterintuitive, of course, so we gravitate to what is intuitive. But also, we begin to intuit by learning an activity. Consider how intuitive driving is, compared to when you were learning.

And the same is the case with logic. You might recall long conversations in introductory logic classes in which folk puzzle over simple syllogisms. Consider:

All roses are flowers.
Some flowers fade quickly.
∴ Some roses fade quickly.

A student says "That seems right—roses are flowers, and some flowers fade quickly, so it makes sense that some roses might be among those that fade quickly." But the intuition that the argument is valid, is misplaced.

Or alternately,

All unicorns have horns.
Charlie is a unicorn.
∴ Charlie has a horn.

were the student replies “But unicorns don’t exist! How can Charlie have a horn?” - examples such as this can be found on these forums. The argument is valid, but for some, counterintuitive.

Point being, what is intuitive is not fixed. Our practices change our intuitions.

So it remains quite problematic to attempt to ground logic on an intuition. Much clearer to ground it on practice.

Also important here, and perhaps this cannot be emphasised enough: while intuition is private, practice is public. We share our practices more easily than out intuitions.

So we might grant your point and still find intuition wanting as a grounding for rationality.

Them as I said in previous posts, I cannot make much sense of what you are saying.

I don't understand what you mean by "attaching some sort of causal priority to definitions/essences" nor how you are using "definition".

So back to diminishing returns.

If I'm misrepresenting you, surely you can lay out what determines usefulness then. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Usefulness isn't determined by some rule. That's kinda the point.

Pick one that does the job you want done, or that will extend and enhance the conversation.

If we do not accept that the frog can be both alive and dead, then a logic that allows this is not suitable.

I've asked this question to Banno many times and never received anything but deflection. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I answered the question quite directly. appears to see this. You insist on misrepresenting that answer. "We decide if a frog can be both living and not living at the same time based on how useful this is to us" has nothing in common with what was suggested.

Perhaps Davidson's Nice derangement of epitaphs goes here. Linguistic competence, and hence our explanations of how things are, cannot rely on fixed conventions or shared meanings, but depend on radical interpretation and charitable understanding in particular contexts.

And this in turn is a corollary of PI §201: '...there is a way of grasping a rule which is not an interpretation, but which is exhibited in what we call "obeying the rule" and "going against it"
in actual cases.'

Now you are misrepresenting what I have said.

And again showing that you have not understood possible world semantics.

Meh.

I'm not sure that qualifies as an answer, even generously. — J

It's not so much an answer as an attempt to show how the question misfires.

You seem to be in the position of someone who asks how it is that their key just happens to fit their front door and no one else's.

First, we do not need to have at hand the essence of some thing in order to talk about it. See the "mum" example given previously. We use words with great success without knowing the essence of whatever it is they stand for. Demonstrably, since we can talk about faith wiothout agreeing on the essence of faith.

Thinking we can't use words unless we first fix their essence is muddle-headed.

Second, we can of course delineate and describe the way a word is used. I did as much using ChatGPT for "faith" a few pages back. We do not, in our usual conversations, use "faith" to mean corned beef, for example. But in other less usual circumstances, we might. So tow things: words do have ordinary uses about which we can chat, and words can nevertheless be use din all sorts of odd ways.

And here again, it is the use that is... useful.

Third, we do far more than just speak about... we command, question, name, promise... Unless you want to use the term in a very odd way, not all words are about; what's "and" about? Or "Hello"? or an expletive? Or your "yes"? Such words do not name anything, but instead do something. "Yes" does not pointed to or named the function of "agreement" (whatever that is); it is to agree.

Forth, I do not think that persons of faith are all of them irrational. What I have argued is that faith can bring about irrationality. Here it is again: when a belief is under duress, one can reconsider or one can double down. Faith can be characterised as doubling down when one ought reconsider.

Fifth, written a reply such as this exemplifies the law of diminishing returns. I'm not getting much out of your repeatedly misunderstanding what I write. Hence, perhaps, what you interpret as sniping.