And then they’re surprised at how it turns out they’re not responsible for anything. That’s because “They” themselves cause nothing in their own setup. Their bodies are “external” to “them” so what the heck does “them” do? When you externalize the source of your agency you’ll end up with the conclusion that you’re just a helpless watcher who has no control over anything that happens. But why would you externalize the source of your agency. “Your honor, I didn’t punch the man, it was my fist the punched him see? I had no choice in the matter!” — khaled

I quite agree with your diagnosis of the main problem but it seems to me that the underlying assumptions that yield this sort of externalization of the human power of agency are shared by @Bartricks and @ToothyMaw. See the latter's original post in the previous thread. This leads @ToothyMaw to conclude that moral responsibility couldn't be ascribed to agents if determinism turned out to be true. In the ensuing discussion, @Bartricks correctly points out that indeterminism wouldn't be of any help either. So, he proposes the ascription of aseity to human beings in order to make free will and responsibility compatible both with determinism and with indeterminism. Relaxing some of the causal assumptions that yield an implausible externalization of agency might be another way to achieve the same result.

This ancient conundrum has a modern variant that has been articulated by the American philosopher D. J. Trump. "If a Russian hoe who Rudy hired peed on me, why should it be me who foots the dry cleaning bill?"

Also, read last September, three excellent papers by Victoria McGeer:

Mindshaping is Inescapable, Social Injustice is not: Reflections on Haslanger’s Critical Social Theory, Australasian Philosophical Review, 3:1, 48-59, 2020

Intelligent Capacitie, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. cxviii, Part 3, 2018

Scaffolding agency: A proleptic account of the reactive attitudes, Eur J Philos. 2018;1–23.

Matthew McManus, The Rise of Post-Modern Conservatism Neoliberalism, Post-Modern Culture, and Reactionary Politics, Palgrave MacMillan, 2020

Halfway through... Very good, so far.

Some of my favorite philosophers, of any gender, are Elizabeth Anscombe, Sabina Lovibond, Jennifer Hornsby, Sarah Broadie, Susan Hurley, Ruth Groff, Karen Crowther and Victoria McGeer.

That leaves entirely open the question of how to decide what the prescriptions to try to conform to are, which makes it sound like option 2 to me. — Pfhorrest

Option 2, that there exists only a descriptive domain? If there were only a descriptive domain, then this domain would be self-sufficient. What there is to be known would be quite independent from our pragmatic concerns. But the present approach denies that; although what it claims the descriptive domain to be dependent on for its constitution isn't a separate domain, or the existence of queer normative facts, but rather co-constituted rational practices and rational concerns.

That sounds to me like either the first of fourth options, depending on whether you think the application of theoretical reason and practical reason are starkly different from each other or very similar. (It sounds like you think they're pretty different, but I'm not completely clear). — Pfhorrest

On the present view, they're different applications of a deeply integrated set of rational skills -- involving both 'knowledge that' and 'knowing how'. Knowing what is (knowledge of the descriptive domain, so called) involves knowing what can be done with elements of this domain and knowing how (knowledge of the prescriptive domain, so called) involves knowing how to make use of what is in order to sensibly conform to contextually relevant prescriptions.

- Else, if an answer to one automatically gives you an answer to the other, is that:

- - because "ought" questions are just a subset of "is" questions (option 2), or

- - because every claim that something "is" inherently implies some "ought" as well (option 3)?

Answering questions to one rely on our also answering questions to the other. But that's neither because of simple relations of inclusion or implication. It's rather because of a relation of co-constitution. Objects in an empirical domain are constituted by us in the way that they are because of the pragmatic point of our constituting them in that way, and our practical concerns are what they are in the light or our historically and materially situated sets of opportunities and capabilities (what is). What is (empirically, for us) and what ought to be (according to our ethical/political/technical practices and standards) arise together, historically, but they're not the same thing since they correspond to movements of thought in opposite directions along the specific/general and particular/universal continua.

I don't think it fits into the middle options. Those options are two ways of collapsing the distinction to one pole, rather than undermining the theoretical apparatus that would make the distinction in the first place. eg pragmatist considerations regarding what it means for something to be a fact containing behavioural commitments for that fact, a reciprocal co-constitution thesis like you might find from a Heideggerian, or Anscombe's virtue-ethical attacks on the distinction. — fdrake

This would also constitute an option I would have voted for, had it been included in the poll. I like the idea of the co-constitution of the two "domains" (prescriptive and descriptive), which of course rather threatens their being meaningfully characterised as two distinct domains to begin with. I am not very well read in Heidegger, but his relevance to the issues of the relationship of (pragmatic) normativity to the constitution of "objective" empirical domains was made clearer to me by the work of John Haugeland (especially the last four essays included in his Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind) where he also draws heavily on Sellars and Sellars' Kantianism.

The connection with Anscombe's virtue-ethics also is suggestive to me since it's closely related to Putnam's own attack on the fact/value dichotomy, his pragmatism, and David Wiggins' own conceptualism (mostly developed in his Sameness and Substance: Renewed as well as several essays on theories of truth, Humean and Aristotelian ethics, and on the subjective/objective distinction.

That's a lot a references and name dropping but maybe I can highlight the gist of this broad line of thinking about facts/values, descriptions/prescriptions, objectivity/subjectivity, etc., by means of an appeal to the Kantian/Aristotelian distinction between theoretical reason and practical reason. Aristotle suggested (this may have been either in On the Soul, in Nichomachean Ethics, or both) that theoretical reason, which aims at knowing what is true, and practical reason, which aims at deciding what to do, are different employment of the (unique) faculty of reason that are distinguished by the direction of their employment, as it were, from the specific to the general, in the case of theoretical reason, and from the general to the specific, in the case of practical reason. Hence, theoretical sciences could be viewed as aiming to generate principles that find application in the development of general statement suitable as to serve as major premises in theoretical syllogisms. Practical wisdom, as well as virtue, on the other hand, enabling an agent to select both a general premise (pertaining to ends) and a particular premise (some statement regarding means and/or opportunity) for concluding in some more specific practical requirement and, ultimately, in a particular (concrete) action.

This view yields a rather pragmatic conception of theoretical sciences (and of the descriptive domains that they are concerned with) since their aim become inseparably linked to the general goal of rationally guiding action.

A second and related idea that I also owe to Wiggins consists in his employment of a distinction between two traditional distinction that are often being conflated: (1) the general/specific distinction and (2) the universal/particular distinction. Wiggins borrows this 'distinction between distinctions' from R. M. Hare who had first deployed it in the context of the philosophy of law. This distinction may help dissolve some puzzles that would stem from too crudely contrasting the employments or theoretical and practical reason in the way I have rather hastily sketched above. So, the main insight here is that although employments of practical reason that begin with some set of general requirements, ends, or desires, in order to arrive at (with the consideration of more local or specific means and opportunities) particular courses of action, the reasoning proceeds, dialectically, both from the general to the specific and from the particular to the universal. That is, in order to be successful, practical reasoning must not only aim at seizing (specific) opportunities suitable as to achieve pre-selected ends but must also contribute to select among the various ends and needs of the agent those that are rendered salient by the practical and moral demands of the current situation. This entails that the principles making a particular action rational (at some particular time and place) become universally applicable (by the light of practical reason) merely to the extend and on the condition that the ends being pursued have been selected in a manner that is sensitive to the specific requirement of the situation of the agent (and hence the role of practical wisdom, and of virtue, in sustaining rationality by making salient to the agent ends suitable as to being pursued in the right circumstances).

"My name isn't 'The Buddha'; it's 'Siddharta Gautama', dammit!"
-- The Buddha

(...) but with the pandemic the ground has shifted. Many protests are happening in various Russian cities (...) — The Opposite

Also, he suffered a big electoral blow recently. He lost the White House.

1. Accuses people of being intersectional feminists based on no evidence. — Kenosha Kid

What's wrong with intersectional feminism anyway? The new anti-woke warriors have a beef with identity politics, as crudely defined by them. But there are few social-intellectual movements that represent greater challenges to crude forms of identity politics than intersectional feminism does (although Marxism may come close!)

https://plan-international.org/girls-get-equal/intersectional-feminism

Maybe because "career women" can afford a shrink? — Benkei

When the issue is the empirical demonstration of a gender pay gap, our science guy is all about confounding variables. When it's about the empirical demonstration that women find their highest fulfillment in the kitchen, confounding variables aren't much of a concern anymore.

I mean, it works for them, that's okay but it might not work for others, let alone everyone. — deusidex

I was just kidding. I said killing animals cures depression: the animal's depression.

While meat-only diet works for them, I don't think it's a great idea to propagate it and portray it as the solution for depression and disease (?), very simplistic. — deusidex

It's been proven to work but it's also been widely misunderstood. Killing a caged animal in order to consume its meat instantly cures its depression.

That's a contradiction! How can feminism repress "their natural tendency to flourish through striving to assert themselves in the human "hierarchy of dominance""? — baker

You don't believe natural tendencies can be repressed? Whatever the case may be, you would have a beef with Peterson.

I suggest you read some women's magazines, esp. those secular ones targeted for teenagers and younger women.
No trace of submissiveness there. — baker

That's great, but then they offer no good complement to Peterson's advice to boys; and no good parallel to his advice to girls. In his college lectures and media appearances, as well as in his writings, he often blames the despair of young men as resulting from the toxic influence of feminism that represses their natural tendency to flourish through striving to assert themselves in the human "hierarchy of dominance". At the same time, he warns women who would attempt to compete on the boy's own turf, in order to achieve professional careers, that they are bound to become very depressed or even suicidal in later life. He likes to provide examples from his clinical experience of career women who became very depressed because they lost their opportunity to flourish through raising children. In his lectures to young college students, he suggest to the girls how they should rejoice at the enviable role Darwinian nature has assigned to them, which is to actively select alpha males and pressure them into being loyal servants to them, and effective competitors against their male peers, or else dump them as the worthless losers that they are. Hurray for Girl Power!

Peterson owes much of his influence to his media appearances and social media productions. I've read his 12 Rules for Life (and chunks of his earlier Maps of Meaning) because friends of mine wanted my opinion. I've tried my best to demonstrate to them how very badly he misrepresents philosophers and the political left. They've shrugged their shoulders and now are under the spell of Lindsay and Pluckrose Cynical Theories that likewise portrays anything that deviates in the least from their understanding of the tenets of classical liberalism, or from Randian objectivism, as an existential threat to human civilization.

The advice market for young(ish) women has been filled to the brim with self-help magazines and self-help books for a long time. But there is no similar parallel for young men. — baker

Yes, young girls have been taught forever how to be pretty and submissive. It's past due time young boys be taught how to be machos.

People on the right align themselves with Jordan Peterson because he is very very nuanced and moderate in his political opinions. For instance, Peterson is able to recognize both the greatness and the flaws of Donald J. Trump. What makes Trump flawed is his provocativeness and intemperate progressivism. He's just not conservative enough... borderline postmodern cultural Marxist, even.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7EaCVnw5n4

On the other hand, Peterson recognizes that what makes Trump great is the fact that he refrained from nuking Mexico (and hurricanes), his formidable business acumen, and the remarkable power of his intellect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EebRtIK4o7c

I've been studying. So there's Cocoa Puffs, Apple Jacks, Lucky Charms, Fruity Pebbles, and Count Chocula. I just hope I remember them while they're kicking me in the nuts. — Hanover

Good luck with that! Trump's own application was rejected when all he could recite was: "Person, woman, man, camera, TV".

In any case, whatever specific wording conveys whatever specific force, the point of my impression/expression distinction is just that there is a difference in force there, where one can express a belief without fully asserting its truth, or impress it upon others. The later normally implies the former, but in the case of dishonesty doesn’t necessarily have to. — Pfhorrest

I am holding on on commenting on this part of your post until I'm finished with a paper I'm currently working on. Some friends are waiting...

I would like to hear if anyone else here thinks that “I believe...” strengthens rather than weakens an assertion, because that sounds very unusual to me. Even “I strongly believe that P” sounds weaker than just “P” to my ear. I asked my English major girlfriend her opinion, within letting her know mine first, and she said the same thing. — Pfhorrest

I wouldn't say either that "I believe(s) that..." has the primary function to strengthen the force of an assertion either, only that it can do so and its ability to do so can easily be accounted for (when it does) on the basis of what it is that I take to be the primary function of that predicate (as used either first- ,second-, or third-personally). And that's to stress that what is thereby being pragmatically modified (the bare assertion made by X, or that X stands ready to rationally defend such a belief when prompted to do so) is supported by X's specific epistemic perspective. In different contexts, such an act of alluding to the specificity of someones epistemic perspective can both function to raise doubt about it or to point out its privileged or authoritative status.

When used first personally, the predicate "I believe that..." may function a little bit like the expression "Bring it on!" when challenged to a fight. It could betray that one is confident in one's defensive skills or it could constitute an acknowledgement of the other person's entitlement to her belief that she might win the fight. "Yes, I really believe it to be true" might be though of, similarly, as the acceptance of a challenge to an epistemic fight.

(Edited above to replace "standing" with "perspective")

Curious that ↪Michael, ↪Pfhorrest, ↪Pierre-Normand and ↪Srap Tasmaner seem to be vehemently agreeing with each other... — Banno

I think we're agreeing that Moore's paradox is instructive and suggestive rather than it being merely trivial or no puzzle at all. We aren't quite all on the same page regarding what it is exactly that it is suggestive of.

I don’t see any pragmatic defect on the part of those by my account. The extra bits besides just “I believe P” are adding back in (some of) the impressive force that the “I believe” took away from just “P”. — Pfhorrest

That's an interesting take. But if the function of "I believe..." in "I believe P" primarily is to take away some of the pragmatic force from just "P", shouldn't "I strongly believe..." take away even more?

It seems to me that there may be a better account of the pragmatic force of "I believe ...", which I already sketched (following Brandom) but maybe should flesh out a little more in a direction Brandom himself might or might not endorse.

One way to make more obvious both the meaning and the pragmatic-perspectival character of "...believe(s) that ..." might be to make explicit its epistemic-perspectival character. Bare unqualified assertions that are simply meant to inform an interlocutor don't need modifiers like "I believe that..." or "I know that..." because they are typically offered in contexts where there is an assumed shared epistemic background between the speaker and listener. The speaker may be offering simple testimony to P, which she may know on some ordinary and unproblematic empirical or testimonial basis that the listener has no special ground or reason for challenging. The claim is expected to be believed by the listener (and impart knowledge upon her) by default.

If the claim that is being made rather has the form: "I know that P", this may make explicit that I take myself to be in a unique epistemic position to know it and therefore that I am in a position to justify my grounds for believing it to a listener that isn't herself yet in a position to take my word for it by default. Something more than mere assertion is required for her to be brought to share my epistemic perspective. When I want to acknowledge that the listener takes herself to be knowing that P while I myself am withholding any such claim to knowledge, because I believe her epistemic grounds to be faulty, then I can claim that she (merely) believes that P. So, in short, "X believe(s) that P" is closely equivalent to "P appears to be known to be true from the epistemic perspective of X". Although our capacity for knowledge is fallible we sometimes are in a position to know things to be true while at the same time recognizing that other wrongly take themselves to know them to be false.

So, on that view, "I strongly believe that P" means roughly: "I take myself to know that P and I have very little doubt that I am mistaken about knowing it" whereas "You strongly believe that P" means roughly "You take yourself to know that P and you have very little doubts that you are mistaken about knowing it". That difference in perspective explains, I think, why qualifying an assertion with the modifier "...believe(s) that..." can both be used to stress what one takes to be the good standing of one's epistemic credentials (when used first-personally) or be used to bring into question (and thereby attempt to weaken) someone else's credentials (when used third personally).

I meant (and thought I said) for impression to be the speech-act equivalent to ordinary full assertions, and expression to be something less than that. — Pfhorrest

Ah! Sorry. I may not have read you carefully enough.

On this account you’re describing, what is the practical difference between saying “X” and saying “I think that X”?

On Brandom's account, the difference is pragmatic and perspectival. When one ascribes a belief to someone else (either second- or third-personally) one thereby takes them to be committed to the truth of the propositional content. (I am assuming that "X thinks that..." or "X believes that..." are equivalent). When one rather ascribes knowledge to someone else, one is likewise taking them to be committed to the truth of the propositional content but one is also thereby endorsing that content. That difference regarding first-personal endorsement vanishes in the case of first-personal ascription (or avowal) of belief or knowledge since one can't avow a personal commitment to the truth of a proposition while at the same time failing to endorse it. So, on that account, saying either one of "P", "I think/believe that P" or "I know that P" are pragmatically equivalent.

On my account, the former is an ordinary assertion that X, which impresses an opinion, pushes it at others in a way that isn’t welcoming of disagreement; while the latter is merely expressing the speaker’s opinion, showing us what they think without any pressure to agree.

Such an account, I think, would threaten to make assertions of the form: "I very strongly believe that P; I'm pretty sure you are wrong to deny it" or "I don't merely believe it strongly, I know it for sure" pragmatically defective, if not outright inconsistent. On Brandom's account, they're not problematic at all.

Saying something like "it is raining and I don't believe that it is raining" is playing the game of language wrong. — Michael

I agree.

What is a "commitment within the language game" other than the same thing as what I've termed "impression"? When you take a stance, commit yourself to that stance, on affirming or denying some statement, what exactly are you doing, other than endorsing that affirmation or denial of that statement as the thing to be done? — Pfhorrest

Brandom's pragmatist account of language (together with his inferentialist semantics), which I am not fully endorsing, only expounding a little, here) is developed in the footsteps of Wilfrid Sellars who viewed language primarily as a game of giving and asking for reasons. A reason offered for believing (or expressing a commitment to) some proposition P may be another proposition Q that your interlocutor is committed to and that P logically is entailed by. You are generally entitled to propositions that aren't logically incompatible with any other propositions that you already had expressed a commitment to (by, for instance, asserting it). Likewise, by asserting P, and thereby incurring a commitment to P, you are losing entitlement to claims incompatible with P.

What you had termed "expression" is similar to the act of incurring a commitment by making an assertion. But your idea of an "impression" is not entailed by the idea of a commitments as just characterized. You interlocutor only must commit herself to propositions that you offer her reasons to endorse on the basis of premises that she already is committed to. Even if she remains unconvinced by your assertion (justifiably, by her own lights) you still incur the exact same commitments to the content of your assertion and to its logical consequences (as well as losing entitlement to incompatible claims) and she can hold you on account for failure to acknowledge some of them.

For whatever reason, Tom is asserting something he believes to be false, but his assertion is true. This is the situation that Moore is imagining. — Michael

Tom's assertion "It is raining but I don't believe it is raining" is Moore-paradoxical regardless of the truth of the component proposition "It is raining". Moore only envisioned the component proposition being true in order to highlight the fact that the same propositional content being asserted by Tom can be truly and unproblematically asserted by Tom's friend (about Tom). It is therefore tempting to conclude that there isn't anything wrong with the propositional content of Tom's assertion. There must be something more to the evaluation of a speech act of assertion beyond the evaluation of the truth of its content. By now, that may seem to be obvious that it must be so, but there is considerable disagreement regarding the characterization of the missing ingredient.

Why does he maintain a true statement has been made? — Ciceronianus the White

Regardless of the statement being true or false, Moore acknowledges that it is defective in some respect. But he points out that it's not defective or false by dint of its being logically inconsistent (since the expressed propositional content isn't self-contradictory and it is identical to the content unproblematically asserted by the speaker's friend). The defect must be found elsewhere.

(I think Snakes Alive had a promising approach.) — Srap Tasmaner

I appreciate @Snakes Alive's approach too. It evokes a pragmatics of entitlements and commitments à la Brandom. It's a pragmatist approach that's interestingly different from @Pfhorrest. Pfhorrest's purported solution relies on a distinction between two distinct components of the act of language of assertion, which he calls expressing and impressing. Snakes Alive's Brandomian suggestion makes the economy of any assumption regarding the speaker's intention to induce ("impress") a belief in the recipient of her language act. It replaces this intention with incurred commitments within the language game. While asserting Moore's proposition, those incurred commitments are inconsistent regardless of the speaker's hopefulness in inducing a belief in her interlocutor.

The sentence "I know it's raining (i.e., it's raining) but I don't think it's raining (i.e., but I think it's not raining)" isn't "true" as the thought experiment proposes. — Ciceronianus the White

(Edited response)

You are making the assumption that the "sentences" (assertions?) "I know it's raining" and "It's raining" are equivalent. One can suppose that the second one (i.e. the sincere assertion, obviously not the sentence or sentence content) implies the first, but what is the nature of this implication? It's not implied as a matter of semantics, grammar or logic. That's in part what's at issue in the discussion of Moore's paradox. It raises issues regarding the pragmatics of language that go beyond mere semantic or logical analysis.

If you say so. But it seems to me not a particularly "tough" experiment; instead a silly one. For me, addressing the question "Why is it absurd for me to say something I would never say?" doesn't strike me as useful. — Ciceronianus the White

It's useful in making trouble for theories of language that fail to account for the absurdity of the utterance. It's not devised to instruct ordinary people what it is that they can or can't sensibly say. (Also, I meant 'thought' not 'tough', sorry).

I should mention, also, that in addition to the early post from @Pfhorrest that I already mentioned, the Wikipedia entry on Moore's paradox is concise and espacially well crafted. The approach promoted by Richard Moran at the end of the article is especially congenial to me since I like to approach problems in the philosophy of thought and of language from the standpoint of the necessary interplay of practical and theoretical reason. And the requisite interplay also presupposes a capacity for self-knowledge.

Only in philosophy would someone think that there is anything to be gained from imagining that someone would say something that nobody would say in a situation which would not take place. — Ciceronianus the White

It's a thought experiment. Physicists also make use of those aplenty, not just philosophy. Their purpose is to tease out hitherto unnoticed consequences of our assumptions. This peculiar thought experiment was especially fruitful since it heralded in some measure the movement away from metaphysical or purely descriptive accounts of knowledge and belief and towards more contextual and pragmatist accounts of belief and knowledge avowals and ascriptions.

Well, it's absurd for you to think it's not raining when it's raining. It's merely stupid for you to say you think it's not raining when it is. In the first case, you're an idiot. In the second case, you're telling people you're an idiot. — Ciceronianus the White

Moore was envisioning a situation where the speaker (MacInstosh) doesn't know nor does he have any reason to believe that it's raining outside. The speaker is sitting in a windowless room and hasn't heard any meteorological report. What the speaker is saying about himself is the exact same true thing that his friend is saying (knowingly and without any paradox) about him: "It’s raining, but MacIntosh doesn’t believe it is."

@Pfhorrest provided what seems to me the best discussion of Moore's paradox in the first page of this thread.

Maybe he’ll sign an executive order disallowing talking about death as a proportion of population. — praxis

At today's news conference, while answering a journalist about precisely this issue, he essayed another metric. He said that if we exclude the deaths that occurred early on in blue states such as New York and New Jersey, then the U.S.A. death rate doesn't look so bad anymore compared with other countries. (Maybe he'll sign an executive order to expel those two states from the Union.)

1. The predictors infallicity does not exclude the existance of free will. It does not take an all-knowing entity to outsmart or predict ones actions. Observing a game of poker or chess with a large discrepancy of skill clearly shows that humans are somewhat predictable — Jacykow

You seem to be arguing that the predictor's being able to reliably predict your choice doesn't rob you of your freedom to see to it that you obtain $1,000,000 by choosing just one box (as opposed to merely obtaining $1,000 by choosing two boxes). But this merely rehearses the standard argument for choosing only one box. It doesn't address the flaw in the argument that supports the opposite choice.

The argument for two-boxing rests on the premise that the content of the boxes already has been determined prior to your making your choice and hence concludes that in any situation (that is, whatever it is that the predictor already has predicted) you are better off taking both boxes rather than taking one. If you are choosing to take only one box in order to see to is that there is $1,000,000 in that box then you are unwarrantedly assuming that it still is within your power to determine the content of that box. But the argument for two-boxing rests on denying that you have any such power at the time when you are called to deliberate and act. The past is the past and you can't alter it. How do you counter this "powerlessness" argument?

(By the way, I am a one-boxer myself, but I am playing devil's advocate here)

I never like these predictor-type puzzles. If you have a predictor you can ask it to predict if its next statement will be a lie. If it says yes then then it told the truth, making the statement a lie. You get a contradiction.

Therefore there is no such predictor. The very concept of a predictor is contradictory, hence anything follows. All such puzzles are vacuous. I get that they're popular, but I don't see the appeal. — fishfry

This doesn't show that the concept of a predictor (or of someone having an infallible predictive power regarding the behaviour of some external system) is incoherent. It merely shows that the predictive power of a predictor can be defeated by the unavoidable effects that the predictor may have on the event that is meant to be predicted. In the case you are envisioning, the person who's behaviour is being predicted is being informed of the content of the prediction before she is called to make a choice. In that case she can indeed act contrary to what she had been predicted to do. But if we ensure that she is not being informed of the content of the prior prediction, and we ensure that her behaviour isn't otherwise causally affected by the predictor's making of his prediction, then there is no such principled limit on the power of the predictor.

This is how we are normally expected to conceive of the act of the predictor in Newcomb's problem. This predictive act doesn't have any causal effect on the subsequent behaviour that is being predicted. (It only has a causal effect on the content of box-B). Although the player was informed that her choice (whenever she will makes it) will already have been predicted by the predictor, she doesn't know what the content of the prediction is until after she has made her choice. She is therefore not in any position to deliberately make the prediction false through acting contrary to it. The paradox remains.

Words, symbols mean or do not mean something solely based on how individuals think about them. It's not just Pierre-Normand. My "you" was the "generic you." — Terrapin Station

How individual people come to judge what words mean also is dependent on social facts regarding how they are conventionally used. Else, per impossibile, everyone would have her own private language and communication would be impossible.

And just because you (or whoever else) think(s) about something in a particular way that might be connected to particular historical facts, that in no way suggests that the way you think about it is correct or that it's the way any arbitrary other people do or should think about it. — Terrapin Station

Its not just because *I* personally think that a word has a certain connotation that it has this connotation; and neither is it because of my personal beliefs about this words history. Just like anyone else, I may be wrong about such socially instituted facts. If some foreigner lands in the U.S. and starts calling black people the N-word out of ignorance of the connotation, which this word has acquired by dint of contingent history, that can be cleared up. That person might be excused, but they will stand corrected (unless they are willfully racist, or they are philosophically confused Humpty Dumptyists).

Isn’t it possible that by doing this they’re allowing white supremacists to take ownership of the flag. Shouldn’t they resist this by actually using it themselves. If you let them own it then it will, like the swastika, become an emblem of what their beliefs and consequently be avoided as seems to be happening. This seems counter productive to me.. — Brett

Yes, that may be a better argument to make than the more simplistic argument (seemingly made by BC) that the symbol didn't have its current connotation many centuries in the past and hence can't be held to have it now.