The real argument is whether understanding meaning as use can explain all aspects of human language, not whether animals can be said to have some aspects of language. They may or they may not, and you're right, language needs to be defined.

My suspicion is that use (alone) cannot explain abstract thought (or metaphor), and that's what I'm fumbling to get at.

When our retriever wants to go outside in the morning, the first step is a gentle whine. If nothing happens this is followed by nose poking. Then louder whining, finally a loud bark in one's face. — Bitter Crank

For some reason, it reminded me of this Calvin and Hobbes cartoon:

I'll go one step further and claim that philosophy would not exist if meaning were just use.

Maybe Witty would have been happy with that, but it doesn't change the fact that humans ask philosophical questions (and not just professional philosophers).

How is it that we are able to step outside the various language games and ask these sorts of questions? It's because our concepts allow us to.

Thanks for that link.

I would say that discreteness, displacement, and duality of patterning all rely on a conceptual underpinning which is required for those aspects of language, and cannot be relegated to use.

I'll try a different approach that has a similar critique.

The problem of universals shouldn't have cropped up if meaning was just use (I'm not saying that meaning can't be use, only that meaning is not entirely use). The reason it's a problem is because our language has lots of universal concepts, but the empirical world is particular. Use alone shouldn't give rise to universal ideas.

This needs to be further developed, but I see it as related to the difference between signalling, which lacks abstraction.

One could also argue from metaphor instead of universals. Why would use ever evolve into metaphorical speech? How does that come about?

No, the conceptual apparatus has to exist first, then the use can happen.

Why are humans so concerned about whether their many, highly elaborated languages, or even simple languages, are the sole property of themselves? "Only humans... do such and such" seems to suggest an insecurity about their worth. That bees, dolphins, parrots, border collies and the British all exhibit language seems like more a cause for celebration than unease. — Bitter Crank

I'd be excited if were shown that dolphins or birds had language. Pointing out that animals use sounds and what not for communication was just a tool to show the difficulty with meaning being use.

You tell me. What did he work out?

Oh, that we're cognitively closed to such things? Maybe so.

Perhaps you doubt too much. — Banno

Nah, I tend to be more dogmatic than skeptical, but philosophy encourages doubt.

What does McGinn list as not brute? — Banno

I don't know. Haha @ video.

I'm pretty sure most of my moral values come from growing up in the society I grew up in and not from myself. If I had grown up in ancient Sparta, I'm going to guess my fundamental values would be a little different.

So being is necessarily prior to reason, it seems. — John

Yeah, that makes sense. It's tempting to suppose the world just is how it is, while logic, math, language, and scientific models are created by minds attempting to make sense of the world. They are maps, not the territory. But we often confuse the two, and this has led metaphysics, along with plenty of scientists and mathematicians in addition to philosophers, astray for millennia.

But I'm just speculating.

But why does this reason exist? And why does the reason that this reason exist also exist? If something is necessarily existent - why is it necessarily existent? " — darthbarracuda

I'm going to guess that asking why something self-explanatory necessarily exists is a meaningless question.

Finding the explanation should dissolve the question. Of course you can always create a why question for any topic. "Why can't God create a stone that God can't move?" Doesn't mean it's any more meaningful than pondering how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists
Tractatus 6.44 — Cavacava

Maybe so, but what was Witty trying to get at here? That there is a reason why the world exists, but it's beyond our ability to know?

You're also mistaken about Humean causation too. There is not "no reason" any given event occur. The presence of particular states which case other is present defines Humean causation. Why did the sun rise? Because states, causes and effects, were such that a rising sun came to be. That's "why" some alternative outcome hasn't occurred. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But then Hume uses the turkey/thanksgiving metaphor to explain how our belief in the future being like the past is merely a habit of thought and not something guaranteed in the world. Humean causation has no necessity to it. It's just simply constant conjunction, to date. But that could all change tomorrow or a million years from now, for no reason at all.

Doesn't that make a brute fact just a true statement that is not subject to doubt? — Banno

Have to think about that. Take Humean causation. It's a brute fact that the sun has always "risen" each morning. But that leaves me doubting whether the sun might rise tomorrow. In fact, it leaves me doubting everything about the future.

I'm not comfortable with that.

The only way out that I see is some form of infinite regress out of necessity (but what is necessity if not a brute fact?) We could say that the "brute fact" is ABCD, and if we try to analyze what "brute fact" amounts to, we'll end up with ABCD as well. A circular but infinite explanation. Sort of like saying everything can be divisible an infinite amount of times. — darthbarracuda

The best attempt I've seen is trying to argue for God or the universe necessarily existing. That there is some reason why God, the universe, mind, etc cannot not exist. That a final theory of everything would be self-explanatory, and if we could understand it, then we would be like, oh so that's why there is something instead of nothing!

And then the issue is resolved without having to propose something existing for no reason at all. I prefer to think that is the case, because brute facts to me seem like should shrugging and rather arbitrary.

And if something can exist for no reason, why can't other things?

Along these lines, it seems it's always up to the individual to determine his own conception of right action. — Cabbage Farmer

Sure, but the problem with this is the same problem when everyone gets to interpret the sacred scrolls for themselves, and decide what God or the gods are about. You end up with ten thousand different interpretations.

Is that how we want morality to be? Simply up to the individual to define? One might think that is okay with faith, but do we really want everyone determining their own rules of behavior? Not everyone shares the same values. We don't do this with rules of the road, at least not in the part of the world I live in, and driving is mostly sane and relatively safe. I wouldn't want someone to decide that running red lights or driving on the sidewalk is okay for them. Of course some do, but there are well defined penalties for doing so, and everyone else is fine with this (because we do want to discourage dangerous driving behavior).

Of course the other side to this is that society's rules can be bad too. And individual deciding to exact revenge is limited in the amount of damage they can do. A group of people can do a lot more. But on the other hand, there is more wisdom from the group, and certainly over time, than one individual, with their own personality quirks and biases.

If left to my own devices, I would probably default to tribal mentality of duty, and to hell with strangers. But the society grew up in has these peculiar notions about treating people fairly and equally, and discouraging one group trying to take advantage of everyone else. That sense of societal duty has arisen over millennia of people having to live together in groups larger than tribes, and constantly dealing with strangers.

If 2 "brute facts" co-arose from nothing, each contingent upon and sustained by the other, would they be brute facts? — Roke

Would that be like the Son & Holy Spirit parts of the Christian Trinity that eternally depend on the Father or Son/Father relationship for existence?

I don't know what "arising from nothing" actually means, but it's an interesting thought.

Cthulhu — Noblosh

Yes, that. My metaphysics is Lovecraftian. Laws of nature are monstrous beings.

Instead of responding specifically, let's take an example.

One can state that constant conjunction of events is brute. It just so happens to be the case then when A & B then C. But nothing makes that be the case tomorrow. Then again, nothing keeps it from being the case a billion years from now. Humean causation it is.

But then someone else can't accept that events are conjoined for no reason, and that conjunction might not hold at any time in the future. So they propose that there are laws of nature necessitating the conjunction. And those are brute.

So how do we decide between the two? Is it a matter of aesthetics? I'm repelled by radical contingency while you're appalled at some mysterious, non-empirical laws making things happen?

That is an interesting point. But then you're putting the creationist grounds for faith on par with any philosophical considerations, just as one example.

Nominalism doesn't have to explain anything while avoiding concepts/universals/types--and after all, language isn't possible without those things. It's just we're denying type realism. — Terrapin Station

I get that, but if nominalism can't explain why we find it necessary to utilize universal types to make sense of particulars, then it hasn't resolved the universals issue.

t is dissatisfying, but sometimes some old bugger says 'I refute it thus!' and then you're stuck for an answer, and have to wander off to find questions which seem to have replies :). — mcdoodle

Or hand waving, which Landru loved to do with experience, self and language, which is odd, since Moore did it to defend realism. I mention Landru, because he was the foremost defender of anti-realism on the old forum (and was a very eloquent debater).

I wonder if the hand waving away an argument originated in response to Moore's talk.

To briefly summarize the restated problem concerning electron charge in my last post, the similarity between distinct properties is numeric, and numbers are universal concepts. That's a problem for nominalism, because it needs to be able to explain particulars without resorting to universals.

How exactly it obtains is a different issue than saying that they each have their own charge versus saying that they literally share just one charge, which is the nominalism vs. realism (on types/universals) debate. — Terrapin Station

That's a good way of explaining it. But that still leaves a question. How is it that separate properties have the same value? In virtue of what are they the same? You might respond that humans measured them to be the same, and that's the end of it.

But it's not really. The problem is how we recognize sameness. So then we ask what is it about the two properties that make them the same regarding electrons. And that will be numerical. And if anything in the world is identical, it would be numbers. So how is it that electrons have the same numbers while remaining distinct?

Or something along those lines. If the problem of universals were so easy to dismiss with, I'm guessing it wouldn't keep coming up.

Aren't you being circular though? Brute facts don't have explanations. But you want there to be an explanation for what makes a brute fact. — mcdoodle

I suppose. So the only difference between a contingent fact and a brute one is bruteness. It's just odd that some things are contingent and others are brute, but there is no reason for that difference. Maybe it's because one can keep on asking "but why?", which leaves one a bit annoyed and dissatisfied when someone else says, "just because".

Or whether each electron has its own charge, and the charges are both −1.602×10^−19 coulomb. — Terrapin Station

I accept that the electrons each have their own charge, but that raises the question of how it is that electrons would have the exact same property.

:D

So that is what nominalists are denying. — Terrapin Station

Right, so when physicists say that every single electron in the universe has the exact same charge, isn't that like saying every single person shares exactly the same slice of pizza?

And if the physicists are wrong, then why do they measure electrons to have the same charge?

That's the basic idea. Nominalism isn't at all denying this. It's just saying that no two things are numerically identical in any respect. (So |..| isn't identical to |..|--they're just similar in some respects, and more similar than |....| is in some respects to either) — Terrapin Station

So laws of nature would be ruled out. A lot of physics would be approximation. Every electron in the universe couldn't actually have the exact same charge and mass, right? It's just we can't measure the difference?

But then you're positing differences beyond observation to account for similarities that are observed to be numerically identical.

ou're not thinking that either either it's true that there are types that are (numerically) identically instantiated in multiple things or otherwise it's true that there are no degrees of similarity and everything is effectively a completely uniform soup, are you? — Terrapin Station

No, there are similarities and differences among particulars in the world. That much we clearly experience. Maybe I misunderstand nominalism as failing to properly account for how particulars also have similarity.

Before we go further with this, we should probably cement just how you're using "arbitrary." Are you using it with a connotation of "random"? — Terrapin Station

No, I mean like the rules of a game. There is nothing in nature that makes chess have the rules it has. Humans arbitrarily decided how the pieces would move, what the board would look like, that there would be two players, etc.

That doesn't work when it comes to biology. We can't just make up any categories we want and have it map onto living organisms. But we are able to create categories somehow, which would suggest there is something about living things that lends itself to categorization. We don't have to go full hog and call that something universals. But that something has to do with similarities between organisms. The details about them aren't utterly particular.

Concept-formation is something that individuals do. It's a way that individuals think about things--they formulate abstractions, ignoring some details and generalizing others, so that the "same term" (again, it's not literally, numerically the same from instance to instance) can apply to many different particulars. Indviduals do this non-arbitrarily. It's in response to things experienced. And it can't be avoided as long as one is conscious and has anything like a normally functioning brain. — Terrapin Station

I don't understand how humans generalize details in a non-arbitrary way if nominalism is the case. There must be something about certain details that makes them generalizable. That's the problem nominalism has always faced. Similarity between particulars needs to be accounted for somehow.

In my view nominalism and conceptualism aren't distinct. Nominalism isn't arbitrary. Under nominalism, universals are non-arbitrary abstractions that individuals make, where those abstractions are unique to each individual (in terms of whether they're particulars or somehow numerically identical among more than one individual). Under conceptualism, we can't have anything other than that. — Terrapin Station

I don't see how that's possible.

Obviously the ways we talk about the world are going to have some relation to the world. The error is in assuming that they're identical to the world. That's a rudimentary conflation. More specifically a reification. — Terrapin Station

So take the nominalism/realism debate about universals. Reifying universals would be mistaking the universal abstractions in our language for universals in the world. But nominalism would be the opposite mistake in supposing our abstractions are arbitrary. That would mean conceptualism would be the proper alternative, I suppose. There's something about the world (or pariticulars) that's universalizable, leading us to form universal concepts.

Your argument was that if the world itself is not x, then x could not describe the world. — Terrapin Station

How about, if there was not something related to x that is also true of the world, then x could not describe the world.

In the case of paint, that would be visual light. In the case of math, it would be quantity. In the case of physics, it would be fundamental patterns that appear to be universal. And in the case of natural language, it would be similarities between particulars.

Or something along those lines.

I believe that mathematics is an invented language we employ to talk about the world. I don't believe that the world itself is mathematical per se. — Terrapin Station

It is quantifiable, though.

I don't mind so much if they ask 'describe some causes of the Great War' although personally I prefer the talk to be about enabling conditions. — andrewk

Let's say I enable conditions for you to rob a bank. I give you a weapon, a getaway vehicle, code to the safe, and the best time to commit the robbery, and whatever encouragement I think you need.

That doesn't mean you will go through with it. Enabling conditions aren't enough to determine whether you commit the crime.

I'm afraid I don't understand these rhetorical questions, but they sound interesting. Can you explain them, and how they relate to the discussion? — andrewk

For example, isn't gravity posited as the cause of planetary orbits, black holes, the rate of objects falling, etc?

If our universe lacked the force of gravity, then none of those things would be the case. If there was no electromagnetic force, then there would be no molecules. You might wish to think of the fundamental forces in terms of their theories and how they explain things, but I don't know how you do away with causal aspect. Part of explaining how matter attracts is that gravity is the cause of matter attracting.

If we want to say that the state of the entire system at time t was the cause of the state of the entire system at time t+1 then I'd be happy to agree, but I doubt Aristotle would like it. — andrewk

Some causation involves a very complex system such that we can't exactly identify what causes what, except at a high level, such as the sun warming the Earth resulting in water evaporation which leads to rain clouds.

But other events, like throwing a brick through a window, are very straight forward Aristotelian causation, unless one wants to engage in speculative metaphysics where something else, like the code in the Matrix, actually causes the glass to shatter.

So really the issue is that Aristotelian causation doesn't scale up to complex phenomena, not that causation itself is the issue.

I don't doubt for a second that weather has causes, I just doubt our ability to accurately identify all of them at any given time.

That you can spin your wheels forever identifying 'causes' at any arbitrary level of scope is a symptom of dissonance between the paradigm and the world itself. — Roke

Do you doubt that the sun heats the heart? Is there anyway this is mere correlation (outside speculative metaphysics and matrix/God scenarios)?