Bottom line to me, philosophy must concern itself with consistency and coherence of language and argument - that is logical validity. But philosophy must also concern itself with the world and the persons in it and their existential/metaphysical questions - that is where soundness of arguments is measured. — Fire Ologist

None of which implies absolutes, whatever they might be.

It is true that relativity theory and quantum theory undermine the idea of absolute objectivity. — Wayfarer

You have claimed this, but I do not believe that you have succeeded in defending such a view.

And that is becasue the juxtaposition of objective and subjective here cannot be made coherent.

What we might call “objective” is defined with respect to all observers. But this still presupposes observers and their frames—so it’s not objective in the naïve sense of “from nowhere.”

Alternately, what is called “subjective” is often grounded in shared practice as Wittgenstein might say and so not purely private or solipsistic.

Science is not trying to give an account of what the universe would be like were there no observers. It is trying to give an account of what the universe is like for any observer.

Hence it is not denying the observer.

It means precisely the same thing. — Wayfarer

Well, no.

A view from nowhere has no location. A view from anywhere has any location. These are not the same.

The intent of a given principle is that it be applicable in as many cases as possible. It's much the same as that the principles on which we base our physics be the same in all reference frames, including accelerated and non-inertial ones.

That is not to claim that the principles on which we base our physics be the same in no reference frame whatsoever.

What a mess.

Ok, what you assert is true.

Then there's not much point in continuing this conversation, is there.

The “view from nowhere” isn’t a critique of what scientists do, but of what scientific objectivity aspires to — a standpoint purified of subjectivity. — Wayfarer

So it claims. And my reply is that it is not what scientists aspire to.

They are not seeking to remove perspective, but to give an account that works from as many perspectives as possible.

The view from anywhere.

For the viewers, Tim apparently asserts that language is governed by conventions. The best rebuttal of that of which I am aware is Davidson's essay. I've used it before, it has been discussed at length.

Tim and Leon prefer to pretend it doesn't exist.

So you are back to talking about me in order not to feel obliged to do any thinking.

Nothing new.

:rofl:

Here's the argument.


It's against Tim's

But words do have a stipulated, conventional meaning that relies on limited context, that is accessible to all speakers. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You might have to do some work to catch up.

Have fun.

The "view from nowhere" expresses a misunderstanding of the approach adopted by scientists.

They are not attempting to create an account that 'abstracts away from the subjective entity"... or some such.

They are creating an account that will work with the broadest generality, that is pretty much an application of the Principle of Relativity.

It's preference for accounts that work in multiple situations.

It's the view from anywhere.

The quote is the conclusion of an argument presented in the article "A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs", available at https://www.scribd.com/doc/82848058/Davidson-A-Nice-Derangement-of-Epitaphs

There's also a substantive thread here on the article.

Better is defined by best — Fire Ologist

Mere assertion.

"Longer" is defined by "longest'.

Nuh.

This reminds me of the Aristotle's practical syllogism, — Ludwig V

Sure. We learn where to use the syllogism, and where not to. We might do much the same with Ramsey's idea. We are not obligated to shoe-horn.

Again, I'm not seeing a substantive point if disagreement.

So can we set out an argument that making any comparison requires some sort of "absolute"? — Banno

I'll help. I think your intuition is along these lines:

1. Making any comparison requires a standard.
2. That standard must be fixed
3. That fixed standard must be independent on the things being compared
4. to be both fixed and independent is to be absolute
5. hence any comparison requires an absolute standard

Something like that?

Can you see why this is incorrect?

What is an "absolute"?

I juxtaposed "relative" and "absolute" measurements, in the example of hot and cold - I hope that is clear.

We can instead play with "local", as in the example of cardinal numbers. Locally, given any cardinal, we can add one, producing another cardinal. That doesn't lead to the "absolutist" conclusion that there must be a highest cardinal.

So can we set out an argument that making any comparison requires some sort of "absolute"? I don't think so.

I almost left the word "internally" off that paragraph, yet you see it as pivotal. So something is adrift.

The simple point is that we can deal with our present situation without positing some absolute.

I don't have much more to say on the issue.

It seems to me that you do not have an argument, so much as an intuition - something like that we can only have consistency if there is a "metaphysical endpoint", whatever that might be.

But that's not right. It's as if you were to notice that (locally) every number has a higher number, and conclude that therefore there must be a highest number. It ain't so.

The bet is just a portrayal of any act. The philosophical move is from the action representing the belief to the action constituting the belief.

The two accounts are of very different things.

You have a plant. You water it every day. This is not a symptom of a hidden, private belief, on Ramsey's account - it is your belief. Notice the similarity to Ryle.

A Bayesian account presumes some level of belief and modifies it, without saying what that belief is. You think 150ml is enough for the plant, it starts to wither, so you adjust the watering up to 200ml, and so on, adjusting your belief according to the outcome.

Ramsey offers a minimal account of the nature of belief, while the Bayesian account assigns a value to a belief without specifying what that belief might be. Ramsey gives an account of belief’s nature; Bayesianism gives a rule for belief’s revision.

So your criticism that Bayesianism assigns a value to belief without saying what belief is, is quite fair. But does not apply to Ramsey.

Cheap. Worthy of your friend Leon. Read the article and address that.

Ok.

Bayesian analysis takes a prior and updates it given further information. Ramsey is different, more fundamental. His stuff is setting out what rationality looks like in a situation in which we have only partial belief - no certainty. The betting structure shows gives us a way of understanding what a belief and preference amount to, using just behaviour.

I wasn't thinking of Bayesian analysis in my comments, until that was raised by your good self.

So not so much about laws.

This needs a good example. I'll work on it.

I'm unable to work out where we disagree - if at all.

I gather we agree that induction - the conclusion that a general rule is true, on the basis of specific instances - is problematic.

We have it from Hume, Wittgenstein et al. the despite this, it is not unreasonable to believe in some general rule, given specific instances.

We have it from Ramsey and others that there are solid statistical methods for comparing and revising various beliefs, and we agree that these are A Good Thing.

Do we have a disagreement?

I'd already avoided saying that.

In the new order, all comments regarding religion must be deferential, apparently.

Jordan Peterson has a new book. :roll:

But the insistent contempt for nuance and disagreement (“idiotic”, “addled”, “egregious”), and the reduction of any alternative perspective to its most shallow or trivial form, does not encourage the serious engagement Peterson presumably wants. This is an odd book, whose effect is to make the resonant stories it discusses curiously abstract. “Matter and impertinency mixed”, in Shakespeare’s phrase. — We Who Wrestle With God by Jordan Peterson review – a culture warrior out of his depth

Ok. What's the "reification" you are referring to?

...reifying the act and the performing of it as distinct things — bongo fury

??

Should that question be directed at ?

I want to go back to this:

Instead of seeking justification for induction, (Ramsey) explains how we act as if inductive reasoning were valid. — Banno

I hope it's clear that I am not advocating doing induction using probability. Better to drop induction all together and instead look at how a bit of maths can help show us if our beliefs - held for whatever reason, or no reason at all - are consistent.

Not sure what to make of that. The act is a distinct thing - asking a question, giving a command. Things we do with words, and they are recognisable different to the words themselves.

It's not seperate to the words - you can use a screw driver as a hammer. Neither the hammer nor the driver are the act of hammering, but the tool is not seperate to the hammering.

This is good, since I've long puzzled over what you were thinking on this topic.

Making an assertion is an act - like hammering. Various different locutions can be used to make an assertion.

There are conventions, but they do not determine the way in which the locution is to be understood - as is evident from various malapropisms. One can give an order or make a statement by asking a question.

Why not performed that performance, acted that act, etc... — bongo fury

:worry:

If you like; They have acted.

...the sentence is a machine for pointing predicates at things, but it doesn't really happen, it's all made up. — bongo fury

Of course it's "made up". That's not a deprecation. It does really happen. We do make statements, ask questions, give orders.

The process of interpretation is the process of making stuff up.

I would say, the mere occurrence of an assertion (claim etc) doesn't amount to assertion (claim etc) of or about the assertion (claim etc), but that doesn't in the least prevent it from being an instance of that very kind linguistic entity. — bongo fury

What you are doing here is unclear to me.

To be sure, the mere occurrence of a sentence with a declarative grammatical structure does not amount to some's making an assertion - to their having performed that act.

We have the mere concatenation of 'T', 'h', 'e', ' ', 'c'... and so on. (Phonic act)

We can see this as a sentence with a declarative grammatical structure. Same thing, looked at in a slightly different way. (Phatic act)

Then we might give it an interpretation - "the cat" serves to pick out that cat; "the mat" serves to refer to that mat. The truth of the whole is not yet asserted - it might be so, it might not. Here we can say that "The cat is on the mat" is true if and only if the cat is on the mat. (rhetic, and together with phonic and phatic, a locutionary act)

Then we might assign a truth value. "The cat is on the mat" is false. An illocution.

There are various judgements all through this. Austin names some of them phonic, phatic, rhetic, which together form the locutionary act and lead on to the illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. All acts, things we do with words, and all are different descriptions of the very same thing.

To me this is bread and butter stuff, pretty much granted. So I have trouble seeing why it is no obvious to others.

So I can agree with you if what you are saying is that the performance of a phonic, phatic, rhetic, or locutionary act need not amount to the performance of an illocutionary act.

Is that close?

"p" is a place holder. We can replace it with some other sentence.

It's usually understood uncritically as standing for any sentence, but doubtless there are examples that do not work. Nevertheless, it is useful.

A very large part of the issue here - if not all of it - stems from the attempt to substitute illegitimately.

The Judgement Stroke in Frege was a first approximation to a context in which we could substitute while preserving the truth. Within the scope of a Judgement Stroke we may substitute like for like while preserving truth.

"p" and "p is true" are very different.

This is the part of Rödl I haven't been able to make sense of. He seems to want that the phrase “p is true” is not equivalent to the judgment that p, and in doing this he keeps the judgement as "the actualisation of self-consciousness", a substitutionally opaque context if ever there was one.

Simplest approach seems to be that Rödl is wrong. Or at least, doing something very different to logic as it is now understood and used. He wants to play another game, and it's very unclear that his game works - or what use his approach might have.

So while we can't foreclose on it entirely, it certainly needs a lot of explaining if it is going to carry any weight.

Even something like "P = P is true" starts to look bizarre once you let go of the standard accounts of P. If P is true, and is the same thing as P, doesn't that mean that P is a bit of language? So when I see that bit of language, I know it's true? Obviously that's not what we mean; we need some kind of assertion to go along with it. So "P = P is true" isn't right. But how do we provide the assertion? Is there a single way this is supposed to happen? — J

There's a difference between "p = p is true" and "p ≡ p is true".

If we allow "p = p is true" aren't we going to fall victim to the slingshot - that all true statements refer to the same fact? We can avoid this by realising that the mere occurrence of a sentence does not amount to an assertion of that sentence.

But words do have a stipulated, conventional meaning that relies on limited context, that is accessible to all speakers. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Is that so? or is it right, up until we try to pay it out. Then we find that theory rests on a mistaken view of the nature of language.

There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with — Davidson, A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs

There are conventions, to be sure, but those conventions do not determine the meaning of an utterance - this is shown by your example, that any phrase can serve as a password.

We can make sense of the following:

Rather than take for granite that Ace talks straight, a listener must be on guard for an occasional entre nous and me. . . or a long face no see. In a roustabout way, he will maneuver until he selects the ideal phrase for the situation, hitting the nail right on the thumb. The careful conversationalist might try to mix it up with him in a baffle of wits. In quest of this pinochle of success, I have often wrecked my brain for a clowning achievement, but Ace’s chickens always come home to roast. From time to time, Ace will, in a jersksome way, monotonise the conversation with witticisms too humorous to mention. It’s high noon someone beat him at his own game, but I have never done it; cross my eyes and hope to die, he always wins thumbs down — Quoted in Davidson op cit

And we do so despite, not becasue, of the conventions. Any utterance can be used to mean anything.

If we are talking about a conception of absolutely everything, then we’d describe justice and rocks the same way. — Antony Nickles

I like that - a simple argument. There's benefit in having different ways to describe different things, hence collapsing everything into one description is leaving things out?

I assure you, my mind is completely unfurnished. — Ludwig V

As is mine.

But it is also possible to revise my interpretation in the light of more and better information or even to actually misinterpret my action — Ludwig V

Yes, indeed. But if we are to do so consistently, we might do well to presume a few things. Ramsey doesn't tell us how to be certain. He tells us what it means to be coherently uncertain — to reason, act, and believe in a way that fits together, even when the world is incomplete, and we are fallible.

Your preferences reveal what matters to you, that your beliefs are not binary but admit of degree, that you would do well to choose those acts that maximise expected utility, given your beliefs, and that you can update your beliefs, given new information. And perhaps most originally, that you would do well to value your beliefs so as to be internally consistent; so as to avoid a dutch book.

That this is not the whole explanation for your possible actions does not retract from the usefulness of these suggestions.

Only if you can read it correctly. — Ludwig V

What could it be to "read it correctly"? The presumption here seems to be that there is a seperate and "correct" belief, perhaps a piece of mental furniture, apart from the choice to go to the fridge or not.

But neither of us want to say that.

Thanks - there's a lot here. I'm not closing the book on probability, but opening it.

That our deliberations rarely fit propositional or predicate logic clearly and unambiguously does not undermine the use of propositional or predicate logic. It may still provide a model for our reasoning. That same goes for the various examples of the use of probability here. You don't need a confidence of 100% in order to go to your fridge with the expectation of retrieving a beer. Indeed, it makes little difference if there are six or five, if what you are after is one. Your confidence that there is more than one beer is what is at issue. Your confidence in that is shown through action.

Ramsey's contribution is to show the interaction of belief, preference and action, and what must apply if these are to remain consistent despite being partial, fallible, and changing - his axioms.

Ramsey doesn't guarantee that we will always bet rationally. He sets out (or better, begins to set out) how we can understand being rational in circumstances of partial belief. He shifts the question from “Is this belief true?” to “Is this belief coherent with my other beliefs and actions?”

So will you go to the fridge or keep watching the game? Your choice shows your preferences and what you think is so.

Ok. Guess I'll just watch for a bit.

The things phil says about these absolute conceptions are not put forward as true beyond the historical or cultural context of the philosopher -- they are not "known to be true" in the same way that the absolute conception knows things to be true. — J

Ooooo nice...

Trouble is I don't think any of science, revelation, mysticism or whatever can have "absolute knowledge"... 'casue I don't see how we can make that sort of phrase work.

I might as well also play with the toothpaste, while I'm here.

The claim that science seeks a "view form nowhere" is a misrepresentation. Science seeks a view from anywhere. It phrases it's pronouncements in terms that maximise the contexts in which they can be taken as true.

Since the cardinality of contexts is undefined, there is no end to what science has to say.

But having said that, I remain unclear as to the "very original move", so let me reflect it back to you, see if I have it right.

Our problem: If philosophy allows that some other discourse - science, religion, mysticism, revelation... provides an absolute account of the truth, then what is left for Philosophy?

Well, the come back is that philosophy still has at least that it's science, religion, mysticism, revelation or what ever that provides an absolute account of the truth... this becomes the last bastion of philosophy.

But then philosophy does lead to at least this little bit of absolute knowledge... and so philosophy's having allowed that some other discourse is the source of absolute knowledge is itself an absolute knowledge...

But then the "very original move", that even if philosophy provides a conception that includes the idea of absolute knowledge, this doesn’t entail that philosophy knows that the conception is itself true in an absolute sense. It's still presumably the science or religion or revelation or mysticism that performs this task...

How is that? Is that close enough?

Then this seems to me very close to what we have been discussing concerning philosophy as plumbing.

There's the obvious point that we do compare aesthetic judgements. They are not private.

There's the further point that our discussions of aesthetic judgements change those very judgements. Out aesthetics are not fixed in stone.

Calling an aesthetic judgement subjective often serves to stymie the discussion. Worth avoiding.

So back to the account I gave previously, and how it goes astray:

So an aesthetic opinion. will amount to a choice we make in our actions. Vanilla over chocolate. The preference is individual - we do not expect others to agree, and are happy for her to have chocolate rather than vanilla. — Banno

I'll maintain that our aesthetic is shown in our choices. But we do expect others to agree with our aesthetic choices, and are surprised at the choices others make...

Much to do here.