Ok, so is there any evidence that Austin explicitly accepted the Contrast Theory of Meaning? Especially as both he and Wittgenstein advocated looking at use rather than the mysterious, inscrutable "meaning" of a word?

That is, it appears that in thinking of Wittgenstein or Austin as advocating any theory of meaning, Gelner shows he has not understood what they are up to.

So

It does not pay to assume that a word must have an opposite, or one opposite, whether it is a 'positive' word like 'wilfully' or a 'negative word like 'inadvertently'. Rather, we should ask ourselves such questions as why there is no use for the adverb 'advertently'. For above all it will not do to assume that the 'positive' word must be around to wear the trousers; commonly enough the 'negative' (looking) word marks the (positive) abnormality while the 'positive' word, if it exists, merely serves to rule out
the suggestion of that abnormality. — Austin, Plea for excuses, Philosophical Papers, p. 192

Seems to me that there is a difference between holding that every use of a word is dependent on a contrast and holding that this use of a word is dependent on a contrast.

Without looking up the source (pretty sure it's "plea for excuses"), I'm pretty confident that Austin at most holds that some words, not all, suffer this complain.

See also
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14753/austin-sense-and-sensibilia/p1

I hear tell Bluesky was the big winner in Brazil...

I am not aware of either Austin or Wittgenstein explicitly advocating anything close to the Contrast Theory of Meaning - They each advocated close and detailed examination of the use of a word in contrast to such general theories of meaning.

What you suggest seems to be that any theory of meaning must in the end be a Contrast Theory of Meaning, and hence Austin and Wittgenstein must have held a Contrast Theory of Meaning... I'm nto overly content with that.

So I'll maintain that it is up to Gellner to show that they held such a view, rather than up to us to show that they didn't.

Cheers.

I don't have Kimhi's book, so I can't answer any issues raised there directly. In any case it seems what is needed is a thesis, or a series of theses, rather than a thread.

I suggested that there are no sentences that are not about some thing, and so not true sentences that are not about some thing. The obvious response is to ask what "about" is doing here. And so we move to talk of sense and reference, intension and extension, and so on, and the supposed rejection of Frege. The classical solution was, roughly, that an extensional understanding of logic is preferable simply because it is simpler. But there are intensional logics, which as I understand it tend to treat the intension of individuals as propositions; or more recently as algorithms. Speaking roughly, the extension is the thing we are talking about, the intension is the thing we are doing with it.

All this by way of saying that if the point is to improve on Frege, then that's pretty much what logic has been doing; and if the point is to show that Frege is mistaken, then it's somewhat closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

So where does that leave us?

obably the things I'm worrying about in this OP only arise when one begins to question whether the world reflects these same commitments, and whether formalisms necessarily capture everything we want to say, philosophically. — J

Formalism just obliges good grammar. It shows us how to set things out more clearly.

And of course there is the further issue of whether we can indeed say all the things we want to say - philosophical or not.

Looks like this has to be personal.

...but everyone in the thread proved incapable of these metalogical distinctions. — Leontiskos

Well, as one of those who participated, I'd characterise the interaction differently. You were unable to set out clearly what it was you wanted to show.

That, of course, does not mean that your point, whatever it was, was wrong, but that it could not be addressed.

It was also pretty clear that there were a few points of logic that you did not accept. That does not bode well for a thread such as this.

I am of the opinion that Banno at least somewhat derailed your thread on QV by immediately shifting it away from Sider's ontological realism and towards pure logical formalisms which intentionally avoid questions of ontology. — Leontiskos

It's discourteous to mention without linking.

Formalism seeks clarity in otherwise opaque discourse. In this case, what is shown is that there are no sentences that are not about some thing, and so not true sentences that are not about some thing. That seems a direct answer to the OP. (?)

But you want to play with archaic logic again, a topic in which I have little interest. Enjoy.

it’s hard to find the right language in these situations. — J

Indeed, and I think that making use of the grammar of first order logic helps here, in obliging us to take care as to what we mean by "exists". So "∃(x)f(x)" is understood as something like "Of the things we are discussing, some of them satisfy f". "∃(x)f(x)" will be true only in the case that something is f. The ontological commitments here are pretty minimal.

"∃(x)f(x)" will be true only in the case that something is f. So indeed, it may well be in the same "state of affairs" that x is something about which we can talk and that for some f, makes "∃(x)f(x)" true.

I think it's true that meaning is dependent on negation — frank

ALL of meaning?

If Gellner is suggesting that both Wittgenstein and Austin agree here with the most extreme version of Frank's suggestion, what are we to say?

Wittgenstein suggested we look at use instead of meaning, Austin suggested we examine with great care how we use words. Neither of these is prima facie some sort of dialectic.

Yep. I tried to read it, back in the day, but "simply failed to read and understand what was going on".

I'm happy to acknowledge that. Then by all means, set out what Gellner is saying. What is his argument? What is the problem with "the contrast theory of meaning"?

That might give Gellner too much credit. The child at least understands something of what the parents have requested.

I would love to know how — cherryorchard

Well, can we explicated the "Contrast Theory of Meaning"?

As I understand it, he would have it that the meaning of a word is seen in contrasting it with other words. An Hegelian theory of meaning, of sorts. The problem with Hegel is the lack of fixity of the synthesis, which can be almost anything. Gellner both acknowledges and accomodates this lack of fixity with the hedge "The demarcation line between a term and its denial may perhaps shift as we change the meaning of the term".

The purported criticism is that in each case Austin and Wittgenstein use a term "without antithesis". So do they?

Austin, in the sentences quoted, is agreeing that, at least in this case, the meaning of "directly" is dependent on "indirectly". He immediately follows this with a few examples - "We might, for example, contrast the man who saw the procession directly with the man who saw it through a periscope". Austin is thereby showing that Ayer is using "indirect" infelicitously by not setting out what it would be to see directly; It is in this case Ayer, whom Austin is disparaging, who is committing the error Gellner refers to.

Gellner has it arse about. This is even clearer in the case from Wittgenstein. "If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty." Doubt only has a use in contrast to certainty. Wittgenstein is not using "doubt" without antithesis, but pointing out that doubt requires its antithesis, certainty.

If Gellner's criticism is that Austin and Wittgenstein are using a term without antithesis, then he has simply failed to read and understand what is going on in each case.

Which is, indeed, the usual response to his work.

If a child asks me what my coffee machine is for, I will explain that it makes coffee. And this explanation strikes me as perfectly valid, even though it is not possible to imagine any other kind of coffee machine. We simply have no concept of what such a machine would be like. That doesn't mean my explanation was wrong, does it? Or that I was using language incorrectly? — cherryorchard

A coffee machine is not a toast machine.


Except when it is.

To me this seems like a fair description of some passages in Wittgenstein's 'On Certainty' and in, e.g., Austin's 'Sense and Sensibilia'. — cherryorchard

Some examples might be helpful here. Can it be shown that Gellner addressed Ordinary Language Philosophy, rather than his own caricature of it?

Color requires both, colorful things(things capable of being seen as colorful by a creature so capable) and a creature so capable. — creativesoul

Then is there a way in which @Michael is right, that without the creature capable of seeing colour, there are no colours? Well, yes, but it's quite difficult to articulate this; put the green tomatoes in one box and the red tomatoes in another, and close them in - are the tomatoes in that box still red, despite being unobserved? Of course.

Some might have us believe that what is before us are patches "dense and yellowish in colour... composed of chalk, lead white, ochre and very little black..." with "bone black, weld (luteolin, Reseda luteola), chalk, small amounts of red ochre, and indigo" and "ochres, natural ultramarine, bone black, charcoal black and lead white". This is the description of "Girl with a pearl earring" from Wikipedia. If someone were to claim that there is nothing more to the painting than this list of compounds, they would in a sense be right, but also very wrong.

"the predicate 'is red' is used to describe objects which cause red mental phenomena." — Michael

There's that vicious circularity again.

It is an arbitrary fact about English that the adjectives are "red" and "painful" rather than "redful" and "pain". — Michael

Sure, all that. Have a look at How To Speak Of The Colors, by yet another expat from downunder, with a leaning towards Kripke. It begins with the very wise thought:

It seems to me that the philosophy of color is one of those genial areas of inquiry in which the main competing positions are each in their own way perfectly true.

This goes towards explaining the intransigence exhibited hereabouts - we might all be right...

So there is some conceptual work to be done, some plumbing to be set in order, if we are to understand colour.

Hence the need for armchairs.

It's the reverse -- we're saying of some putatively existing individual that it has the property of f. — J

"putatively existing"?

"∃(x)f(x)" says something in the domain of discourse is f. Does that thing exist? Well, "Frodo has hairy feet" predicates hairy feet to Frodo - does that mean he exists?

Trouble is, "exists" is used in various and incompatible ways.

But ok, with "∃(x)f(x)" we are not ascribing a (first order) property to f.

are we ascribing a property to p? — J

Yep.

This has nothing to do with intentionality. This has to do with colours. — Michael

That's just sad.

The difference is brought out nicely in predicate logic. Three differing uses of "is" are used.
1. The "is" of predication - "The ball is red" - f(a)
2. the "is of equivalence - "Two plus two is four" - a=b
3. The "is" of quantification - "There is a ball" - ∃(x)f(x)

This last seems to be what you have in mind, where "existence" ranges over individuals, to whom it ascribes a predicate

Truth is treated somewhat differently. There's ⊤, a statement that is always true. But to get to what is going on with truth we need something like Tarski's T-statements, and talk in terms of metalanguages. That's because truth is a predicate, but of propositions. Here, truth ranges over propositions.

So generally, existence is not a first order predicate; nor is truth.

But also, there is the predicate ∃!, that does range over individuals... as used in free logic.

This doesn't answer your question, but might hint at why there may not be a literature of the sort you seek.

What?

Brilliant stuff, Apo. :rofl:

No, the change is the shadow falling over a part of the red ball, making that part look dark red. That's what there is to see. — jkop

Yet the ball does not change colour...

It might change colour if someone painted it, or if the surface faded in the sun.

So we have an superficially enigmatic situation in which the ball does not change colour but the colour changed. Is this a paradox? Not at all. We understand the background of each description, and we acknowledge the truth of both: this is what a red ball in part shade looks like.

Which brings out again the falsehood of thinking there is one notion of colour to rule them all.

Michael might claim here that the colour does change - it becomes darker as the shadow crosses the ball. But this is to see only one use for "colour": as a "mental percept" (that's an odd phrase, isn't it - what sorts of percepts are not mental?)

But the example gives is telling.

It's odd that @Michael sees Searle as a friend, when Searle has spent so much effort in showing the intentional character of perception.

Searle eviscerates the Bad Argument - "that the existence of hallucinations and other arguments show you never see the real world, you just see your own sense data" - which looks to be the very case that @Michael is attempting to make, that we never see red, only ever percepts-of-red.

The only thing that is relevant is that colour is not a mind-independent property of tomatoes but a mental phenomena caused by neural activity in the brain. — Michael

This is a rather neat summation of the mistake of thinking that either colour is a mind-independent property of objects, or colour is a mental phenomena caused by neural activity in the brain.

There are alternatives. Many have been listed Here.

But perhaps the generic form of the mistake is in thinking that there can be one explanation that will work for all the many and various ways in which we might use colour words.

One cannot do philosophy without giving due consideration to the language with which one does philosophy.

The discussion is about perception, not speech. — Michael

It's you who are claiming that the tomato is red but not really red; these are your words, your word game. All I'm doing is pointing out how silly that is. You pretend not to be involved in a discussion about language but your view hinges on your use of a single word.

Basic stuff. I did not say

=/= They are red. — AmadeusD

That's a misquote.

You're equivocating. — Michael

So you have claimed. I rather think you are equivocating on the notion of "really", wanting to say that red tomatoes are not really red - the implication being that there is one true way of using words such as red, and all those folk who think that their tomatoes are red are mistaken.

I think you know what is meant by "The tomato is red". And without calling on mental percepts.

But I suspect that the account you try to give of what "The tomato is red" means supposes that there must be a something to which the word "red" refers, perhaps the property of being red, that is common to all red things. And such an approach doesn't work here. Rather, if you take a look at how we use the word "red" you will see that it is used to talk about a range of different things, very few of them being mere mental percepts.

I just served you with a paper by Howard Pattee. — apokrisis

So what. It's speculative. Pattee is welcome to speculate.

Try Vision Science – Photons to Phenomenolgy if you want to know more. — Michael

I'm sure you will be able to explain your account without sending us off to such a text. It can't be that hard.

If you don't understand what pain percepts are then read some neuroscience and stab yourself in the foot. — Michael

You want to change the topic back to pain, again. But of course pain and colour are quite different.

The question that you might address is how calling red a percept helps.

So let's go back to what you said was the basic issue: "do objects like tomatoes, strawberries and radishes really have the distinctive property that they do appear to have?"

Now percepts are not mentioned in this. You want to jump to the conclusion that objects like tomatoes, strawberries and radishes do not really have the distinctive property that they do appear to have, but of course that is either nonsense, or a play on words. Your claim to disdain mere wordplay leaves you closed to noticing when you yourself play with words.

Tomatoes, strawberries and radishes really have the distinctive property that they do appear to have. They are red.

An opinion. Served as usual without argument or evidence. You are such a lightweight. — apokrisis

You are no lightweight, but what you serve is also opinion, hidden. Speculative physics mixed with rewarmed dialectic.

Evolution requires the genotype-phenotype distinction, a primeval epistemic cut that separates energy-degenerate, rate-independent genetic symbols from the rate-dependent dynamics of construction that they control. This symbol-matter or subject-object distinction occurs at all higher levels where symbols are related to a referent by an arbitrary code. The converse of control is measurement in which a rate-dependent dynamical state is coded into quiescent symbols. Non-integrable constraints are one necessary conditions for bridging the epistemic cut by measurement, control, and coding. Additional properties of heteropolymer constraints are necessary for biological evolution. — apokrisis

'Tis a thing of beauty, that in style might have been found in Phenomenology of Spirit.

I had to keep reminding her that we drive on the rights side of the road — wonderer1

No, you drive on the wrong side of the road.

Small steps. We might yet derail Michael's train.

Meanwhile here is the relevant physics - The Physics of Symbols: Bridging the Epistemic Cut — apokrisis

Not so much. More speculation than physics. Which is not to say that it is not interesting - just that it is no where near as confirmed as you would have it.

...red is a percept. That's it. — Michael

But not only a percept.

Where are these percepts to be found?

You're asking me which percepts the word "red" refers to. I can only answer such a question by using a word that refers to these percepts, and given that there is no appropriate synonym for "red", all I can do is reuse the word "red". — Michael

Yep. So you have not explained red by equating it with a red percept.

So on to the next problem. If red is a mental percept, who's mentality is it a percept in?

When you have no adequate response, you spit. Hegel is not physics.

The red percepts are red... — Michael

Then you are using the difinendum in the definiens; defining red in terms of the red percept, with the resulting vicious circularity.