Sloterdijk is rapidly becoming one of my top 3 favorite thinkers. — csalisbury

Who are the other two? And who is being threatened with being bumped in fourth place?

Regarding Dennett, I agree that Consciousness Explained is very bad in most of its positive explanatory aspirations. Peter Hacker eviscerates him an appendix of Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience. But it also contains quite a few good insights. Among my favorite "intuition pumps" from him is his discussion of the distinction (or rather pseudo-distinction) between the Orwellian and Stalinesque models of consciousness content elaboration. Another gem from Dennett is his critique of Harris' Free Will.

Dennett was Gilbert Ryle's student at Oxford. There are several mentor/pupil pairs in the history of 20th century analytic philosophy such that, reading works from the pupil, I am left to wonder how it is possible for the core insights from his/her mentor to have been watered down or misconstrued so much. Those are the pairs that puzzle me most:

Gilbert Ryle -- Daniel Dennett
John Austin -- John Searle
Wilfrid Sellars -- Paul Churchand
Peter Strawson -- Galen Strawson (father/son, in this case)
Hilary Putnam -- Jerry Fodor

I'd be interested to hear a bit more about this undercutting of the fact/value dichotomy. — unenlightened

I'll make a few more comments later on, but meanwhile let me just provide some of the most relevant references. There is, of course, Putnam's The Collapse of the Fact Value Dichotomy and Other Essays. (Some of the "other essays" are quite relevant to the topic at hand, in addition to the titular one). McDowell's Values and Secondary Qualities (reprinted in Mind, Value and Reality) is a response to John Mackie that presses this analogy. Also relevant in the same volume (MV&R) are Aesthetic Value, Objectivity, and the Fabric of the World and Projection and Truth in Ethics. Finally, but non exhaustively, are David Wiggins' A Sensible Subjectivism (reprinted in Needs, Values, Truth: Essays in the Philosophy of Value) as well as his recently published Truth, Pragmatism and Morality, a commentary on, and refinement of, Putnam's attack on the dichotomy.

Since what's being excluded is that which derives from a (finite) perspective, it's natural to hone in on those elements which relate to vision. But, to my mind, what's most difficult is the exclusion of experienced time. Of course we can say that a year refers to nothing but the earth's rotation around the sun and, as such, will hold just as well absent sentient beings (the earth will still revolve.) But drop the passage of time as experienced and just how quickly does the earth revolve around the sun? We can certainly compare this duration to other durations, but we can't quite grasp what any of it means without bringing it back to our experience of some particular duration. And that experience is always relative to the temporal scale we inhabit (cf Kant's Critique of Judgment, the relevant section of which I'm too lazy to produce at this moment. But I'll furnish it if pressed.) — csalisbury

This, and earlier paragraphs that I didn't quote, is very nicely put. I think you would enjoy Sebastian Rödl's Categories of the Temporal: An Inquiry into the Forms of the Finite Intellect. This treatise nicely complements Gareth Evans' The Varieties of Reference, that focuses rather more on the spatiality of embodied experience.

Brassier IS NOT attacking that people understand Saturn in various ways conceptual ways, some right (bright light in the sky, the planet Saturn) and other wrong (mighty sky god). Rather he is pointing out that the conceptual expression of Saturn is present even when no-one understands Saturn to be there. Here the way Saturn is "sorted" conceptually by us at a given time has no relevance to Brassier's point. He's pointing out the object Saturn expresses the meaning of Saturn no matter how we might understand it. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I am only quoting and responding to this paragraph because it nicely hones in on the ground of my perplexity with Brassier's idea of the thing itself, which you construe (possibly faithfully) as an object's self-expression of its own meaning. Even if we grant Brassier the possible intelligibility of such a notion -- which I am prepared to do for the sake of argument -- I don't see how it can be squared with the idea that this object can be pointed at (i.e. referred to deictically). That's because the understanding that we have of an object isn't something over and above the object's spatial and temporal extension. (I am saying this loosely without committing myself to perdurantism; since I rather favor endurantism regarding substances). Our understanding rather singles it out together with the spatial extension that it has, and temporally delimits the conditions of its coming into, and going out, of existence.

The example that I gave earlier was that of the lump of bronze that constitutes, over some finite time period, a statue of Hermes. One can point at the statue (and thereby also point at a lump of bronze) while being unclear over what kind of object it is. Now, Brassier would say that the object pointed at exists regardless of one's knowledge of what it is. (See paragraph 42). But what object is it that Brassier believes is being pointed at? There are at least two of them -- a statue, and a lump of bronze -- and arguably an indefinite number of different objects that different possible understandings of the ways in which the empirical world can be carved up could single out as the object being pointed at. It could be Hermes' nose, of even, supposing Hermes were a person, Hermes himself (with the demonstration of his statue being a conventional means of referring to him).

Brassier objects to the idea that understanding what Saturn is (the concept Saturn) is required for the object pointed at to exist. He objects that this requirement would commit one to conceptual idealism. I would like to agree but I must ask what "object pointed at" is he is talking about? What we are committed to, with 'conceptual idealism', might not be the claim that our having a conception of the object makes it exist, or is necessary for its existing since the object could indeed preexist our conception of it, in the manner of a living Triceratop that existed a long time ago, and could even dispense entirely with our ever coming to that understanding. What we are committed to, rather, only is the claim that for an object of a specific kind to be existing, at any given time, just is for it to be potentially answerable to a correct conception of that kind of objects. In Fregean terms, for the object to exist just is for it to fall under the intelligible and objective concept (regardless of anyone actually grasping the concept) that determines what kind of object it is (together with its persistence and identity conditions).

Inasmuch as both the old and the new definition each have a point within different scientific (sub)-practices, they can both single out an object, just not the same, on pain of equivocation (and violation of Leibniz's Law). — Pierre-Normand

I am quoting myself because I want to preemptively address a possible objection, but I don't want to dilute the main point of the previous post.

I was discussing a case, or a possible construal, of an episode of 'conceptual revision' (scare quotes explained later), where the proposed revision can be taken to replace, though not annihilate, the point of the old concept. Hence it is still legitimate to say that Pluto still is a planet (old definition), even though Pluto* isn't a planet* (and never was).

The objection is that this way of construing things makes it nonsense to say that Pluto (or whatever you want to call it) still exists but isn't a planet anymore. It is indeed nonsense to say this, and it rests on an equivocation between Pluto and Pluto*, but I must explain why it nevertheless makes sense to say that Pluto still exists (as a celestial body), and is the selfsame object that people knew about before the episode of conceptual revision.

The proper construal of this episode of 'conceptual revision' may be suggested by Putnam's discussion of the meaning of 'water' in The Meaning of "Meaning". It is often proper to credit early users of a concept, who had the old understanding (and were relying on the old definition) proleptically with an inchoate grasp of the new concept, or, at the very least, to ascribe to them a standing rational obligation to be open to good reasons that motivate the 'conceptual revision' (so called). Hence, what occurs isn't conceptual revision at all (that is, a revision of a Fregean concept), but rather a revision of the conception people had of the concept that always had been inchoately understood and correctly referred to. This inchoateness needs not even be a nascent state of subjective undertanding, but -- as in the case discussed by Putnam, of 'water', a natural kind concept that singles out a sort of substance initially referred to deictically by means of an exemplar, and/or by means of a prototypical definition -- rather depends on external factors: e.g. as of yet unknown features of the world (such as the chemical composition of water) that contribute to securing the reference of our concept-names.

Hence, for the case of Pluto, it isn't unfair to credit older folks with the true belief that Pluto now is the selfsame object that they always have (correctly) known as 'Pluto', event though they once incorrectly thought it to be a planet*. What they were understanding to be the conditions for something to be a 'planet' just was an incorrect conception of the selfsame concept (planet*) that has now more perspicuously been expressed with the new definition -- a definition that excludes Pluto from its extension.

I am not arguing that this is the most accurate description of the recent historical Pluto case, but it may be a good construal of very many episodes of 'conceptual revision' (or conceptional revision, ought we to awkwardly say) encountered when progress occurs in our understanding of concepts that we already were (or should have been) aware to have a fallible understanding of. Putnam's own 'water' case may be more fitting. And also, such an account clears up some puzzles about proper names, natural kind terms, identity and reference. One may refer to Gareth Evans: The Varieties of Reference, especially the chapter on proper names, for more background on this neo-Fregean gloss on Putnam (and Kripke).

I'm in thoroughgoing agreement that some kind of transcendental background is necessary to get cognition going. It will not do to begin with raw sense data and nothing but.

But just what is the ontological status of these sortal concepts? Do they exist (insist? subsist?) waiting to be discovered? Are they somehow baked into the objects they determine? — csalisbury

They are ontologically co-eval with the objects that fall under them. So the sortal concepts have the same ontological status, that is, the very same grade of objectivity, as the objects that fall under them. For instance, a particular rabbit (Fluffy, say) may fall under the sortal concept oryctolagus cuniculus. Understanding, and investigating, the sort of thing Fluffy is goes hand in hand with investigating the life form that it belongs to, the species, something like an Aristotelian immanent form.

In the case of a functional artifact such as a can opener, its function, as the kind of tool that it is, and the context withing which it operates, which includes the intentions of its designers and users (mostly) determine what it is.

Objects of scientific inquiry -- so called natural kinds (including chemical substances or elements) -- sometimes fall under sortal concepts that are partially constituted by the pragmatic point of the scientific practice that discloses them. In all cases, for both entirely 'natural', or (partially or mainly) socially constituted objects, the sortal concepts are 'baked' into the objects that fall under them, indeed. This is just to say that something can't exist appart from existing as an exemplar of the kind of object that it is, whatever we may happen to know (or decide) about it. It is only discloseable or thinkable as such. (This doesn't rely on the fallacy of the Gem, I don't think. ) It nevertheless makes good sense to say that natural kinds (one particular kind of sortal concepts) are discovered rather than invented, since, unlike socially constituted objets (such as dollar bills) we aren't responsible for the conditions under which they come to be instantiated.

Since "planet" is the sortal we've been playing with, it seems a good candidate for close examination.

[...]

Yet (as you noted on the Quine thread) there exists a certain celestial mass that has ceased to constitute a planet. Is there no longer Pluto, only a remnant of Pluto?

No object ever ceases to be the kind of object that it was just because some definition has changed (unless the sortal concept is entirely socially constituted, and the objet falling under it is instituted by a performative act). Pluto would cease to exist altogether if Pluto itself was materially altered (or some of its relational properties that is part of the definition of a planet changed) -- through losing mass, say -- and in that case the residual mass left behind could be called a remnant of Pluto, no longer a planet, and no longer Pluto.

If there occurs a conceptual revision within a scientific practice, and "planet" is given a new definition, we are entitled to say that Pluto still exists as a planet, under the old definition, and Pluto* doesn't exists anymore as a planet* under the new definition. Inasmuch as both the old and the new definition each have a point within different scientific (sub)-practices, they can both single out an object, just not the same, on pain of equivocation (and violation of Leibniz's Law).

As you probably know, the revised definition of planethood responsible for Pluto's exile was established by a vote. This vote was motivated by the discovery of new celestial bodies which, according to the definition which afforded Pluto planethood, might themselves qualify as planets.

The reason for Pluto's change of status was not a realization that our conceptions of it were mistaken; rather a new definition of what "planet" meant was constructed

Yes, I agree. But it was constructed with a view towards achieving more coherence and perspicuity in a classification scheme. The view that ought to be resisted (I would urge) is that we can single out objects as they are in themselves appart from the way they are individuated within the schemes that express our understandings of them. Those understandings can't be separated from our practical and/or theoretical interests in those objects, and the systematic relations (laws and norms) that they bear with other objects and phenomena in the specific empirical domain that they populate (e.g. the cosmos).

Now whether or not a given body satisfies the definition of planet indeed depends on the characteristics of the object itself. But, as the vote illustrates, the very concept of 'planet' is a contingent human construction, informed equally by empirical discovery and categorizational expediency. While we may assume that pluto existed before humans, it makes little sense to say that the sortal planet did.

I am unsure why you would think that, though I wouldn't phrase it exactly like that (as sortal concepts existing). All I am saying is that, whatever your definition of a planet might be, assuming only that it has a point (as part of an intelligible conceptual scheme) and isn't utterly confused or incoherent, planets existed as planets, and were thus discloseable as such, for as long as there have been planets. Similarly for rabbits and the life forms that they instantiate. An animal can't come into existence before the life form that it exemplifies (or so I would argue).

Yes, you are right. I misused the term "naive realist". I meant to refer to the stance of some scientific realists, who I believe to be naive ;-). However the label "scientific realist" could also be applied to people who simply argue that theoretical entities are real and not just explanatory. But that would also make me a scientific realist. And since I am a direct realist, I also am likely to be charged with "naive realism". So, all those labels are banana peels; which is why I am attempting to articulate the underlying issues as explicitly as possible whenever I can. In any case, what I was mainly objecting to (and mislabeled) was eliminative and/or reductionist materialism/physicalism; i.e. scientism. What I am advocating instead is (McDowell's) relaxed naturalism.

In fact it might be a useful definition of being - that which does not change just because we change how we talk and think about it. Or is that horribly naive? — unenlightened

This definition might be false and naive under one reading, and unobjectionable, though consistent with the kind of realist conceptualism that I take from Frege, Wiggins, McDowell, Hornsby, Putnam and Haugeland. Under the second reading, things indeed don't change just because we change how we talk about them. But that is true also of planets and intimate relationships. The intimate relationship of course changes if *participants* in it change how they talk about it, but that's just because how they talk about it is partially constitutive of it (just as how we exchange money is largely constitutive of the value that it has). How *other* people change the way they talk about it doesn't have any such impact, except inasmuch as it might disclose different features of the relationship they are witnessing (and, of course, the participants themselves can be influenced by this external gaze if they come to be aware of it). But this is just to say that how they (the non-participant observers) talk about the relationship between Pat and Chris, say, determine which features they are disclosing, not that they are changing those features.

The case of planets is more clear cut. How we talk about them determines (or rather singles out) some determinate concept of a planet (a sortal concept) under which we subsume some celestial bodies. Given one possible perspicuous understanding of the word 'planet', one according to which a planet must (among other things) have cleared out its path, Pluto isn't a planet. But this fact doesn't change when we change how we talk about planets. What changes is the reference of the word "planet" (the sortal concept referred to, also on the level of Bedeutung according to Frege) and hence, also, the truth value of the *sentence* "Pluto is a planet" (since the sentence now has a different meaning).

Most revealing of all might be the concept of a secondary quality. Wiggins and McDowell both defend what has been dubbed secondary quality realism. This realism undercuts both scientism and the fact/value dichotomy (also attacked by Putnam). Secondary qualities, such a color and smell, that we perceive, and ascribe to objects, also don't change when we change the way that we talk about them. Not always, in any case. Talking about them can induce changes in the brute shape of our sensibility and aesthetic appreciation. That can lead to a change in the reference of the words that we use to refer to secondary qualities. That much is easily granted (it is akin to redefining the word "planet" under the impetus of some new pragmatic scientific consideration).

For an object to be red just is for it to look red to normal observers under normal conditions. What counts as normal, in both cases, is tacitly part of the way we understand and use the concept in ordinary use. (This necessary tacit understanding is underlined in Sellars' Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind) It would be an error to view the perceptual concept thus defined as being subjective and our judgments about unchanging objects liable to change if, and when, the conditions of our sensibility change.

This would be to misconstrue the definitional relationship between looking red and being red, rather in the way Russell's (or Quine's) definite description analysis of ordinary proper names misconstrues the naming relationship between names and objects. It misidentifies the modal character of the relationship. This has been highlighted by Kripke in Naming and Necessity. Putnam (implicitly) and Wiggins (explicitly) have brought Kripke's insight to bear on the case of secondary qualities. Just as, when one uses the proper name "Gödel" to refer to Gödel, the Fregean sense of the mane can't be expressed with a definite description, even though such a description may (or may not) have been used to secure the reference of the name when it was first introduced into the language, the sense of the predicate "red" doesn't either reduce to the sense of the definite description "looks read to us". It is rather the reference of the predicate (the sensible quality) that is thereby fixed. The upshot is that "...being red" as predicated of particular objects yields perfectly objective judgments. We may change the way we use the predicate "...is red" (which would amount to changing the reference of the predicate), and, indeed, do so under the impetus of a change in the shape of our brute sensibility, aesthetic appreciation, and/or discriminatory abilities. But that would amount to changing the concept being used, that is, not (necessarily) a change in judgment, but a change in topic. (It can also occur that the conception was revised, and hence also the judgment, but that is beyond the present point).

Naive realists believe that there is a fact/value dichotomy, where values are placed on the side of our contingent sensibilities and understandings. They thus believe science ought to be tasked with peeling off (or explaining away) the appearances that our use of secondary quality concepts yield. What would remain of reality after mere appearances (to us) have been thus peeled of is the objective world as it is in itself. But if the dichotomy is illusory, as I believe it is, then the peeling off leaves nothing.

How am I to understand this 'exist as such', except as 'exist as stuff', as distinct from 'exist as a sortal concept': is this not the dualism of stuff and arrangement sneaked into the analysis without acknowledgement? — unenlightened

I explained this to mean "exist as a P, where P is a sortal concept". It could be, for instance "exist as a bean". I didn't raise any issue about sortal concepts themselves 'existing'. What I was challenging is the idea (which you might not be strongly committed to) that for something to could as a P, quite generally, just is for something to have material parts, or constituents, and for those constituents to be arranged in the sort of pattern that makes them into a P. If this were the generalized explanation of a sortal concept, then every material object would be the object that it is only in virtue of its intrinsic, internal organization. But it often is the case that a material object is the object that it is in virtue of its functional role in a wider context, or some combination of its intrinsic arrangement and the existence of such a role. Consider, for instance, the concept of a planet (such that Saturn is one, but Plato isn't, because it didn't clear up its path, on one possible account of what it is for something to be a planet).

Which is to say that though we must see a bean as a bean in order to count it as a bean, there is no 'seeing as' about how many beans make five. — unenlightened

But there is a seeing as, a sortal concept, that makes something -- or rather singles it out as -- a bean. The question that can't possibly be answered through appeal to 'things as they are in themselves' is "How many objects are there in the pod?". Atoms are objets, so are bean parts, bacteria, and two beans stuck together may count as an object (for some purpose or other). Strip away all purpose and understanding (by us) and you dispense with all sortal concepts. But in that case there is no answer to how many "things" there are in the pod.

Frege got at this idea (in The Foundations of Arithmetic) when he proposed to define the concept of a number, understood as as expressing a specific count of something, as being signified by a second order functor that yields a truth value when saturated with a definite description (a first order functor). It then expresses the count of the objects that fall under the definite description. A definite description that single out material objects of a specific kind includes a sortal concept. The sentence "there are five beans in the pod" can then be analysed as "there are 5 x such that x ..." (a second order functor) saturated with the expression "...is a bean in the pod" (a first order predicate that includes the intelligible sortal concept of a bean). The concept of a pod merely restricts the scope of the quantifier in this example.

I'll respond to your second question later on...

Hi Willow, I'll respond later (and edit this post), just to let you know.

(On edit: I answered below, at long last)

I mean look at this, from paragraph 42.

" It might be objected that we need [ the meaning/sense of] Saturn to say what [the object] Saturn is; that we cannot refer to Saturn [the object] or assert that it is without Saturn [ qua meaning/sense] But this is false: the first humans who pointed to Saturn did not need to know and were doubtless mistaken about what it is: but they did not need to know in order to point to it."

This is downright embarrassing. Yeah, of course the first humans didn't need to have our current understanding of what saturn is to point to saturn. But they quite obvious had some sort of understanding or experience of what they were pointing to. Otherwise they wouldn't have pointed. — csalisbury

I am glad you noticed too. Maybe I should have read the whole thread before commenting.

What in particular concerns me is the exact status of sensation and affect, and the way in which the sensible relates to the rational machinery of rational conception. — StreetlightX

Quite agreed. Brandom offers little improvement over Sellars on this issue, which is why I mostly rely on McDowell and Haugeland for suitable correctives to Sellars' account of experience.

Do sortal concepts (or sortal conceiving) exist in the absence of conceiving beings?
If no, and if Saturn's independence of sortal concepts is implausible, then there cannot be a Saturn without such beings.
If yes, then what exactly is this 'minimal conceptual ground' which is independent of conceiving beings? And how can we maintain such a ground without reverting to idealism? — csalisbury

Following Frege (or maybe, Wiggins' construal of Frege in his The Sense and Reference of Predicates: A Running Repair to Frege's Doctrine and a Plea for the Copula) I tend to distinguish conceptions (our specific, yet communicable, understandings of a concept) from concepts. A general concept (such as a property) predicated of an object yields a truth value, true or false, accordingly, whether the object has or doesn't have the property. All those notions (concept, object, truth value) belong to the realm of reference (Bedeutung) according to Frege. (Which is rather more restrictive than to say, with Quine, that they are values of bound variables). Sortal concepts are a special kind of general concepts rather unlike properties or relations. That's because objects can't have them accidentally. An object such as Saturn can't cease to be a planet, just like President Obama can't cease to be a human being. If something (a large celestial mass, say) ceases to constitute a planet, for some reason, then this celestial mass can't constitute Saturn anymore. It constitutes, at best, a remnant of Saturn. So, sortal concepts are rather akin to essential properties. But it can't be an a posteriori law of nature (something empirically discovered) that Saturn essentially is a planet. It is rather more akin to a conceptual truth.

We grasp sortal concepts through forging conceptions of objects (understandings of what they are). Sometimes, we also contribute in setting up some of the conditions of their existence, as is the case for functional artifacts and many social objects (monetary tokens, chess pieces, etc.) Our conceptions are, according to Wiggins' Frege, the senses (Fregean Sinne) of predicates that refer to concepts. A conception just is an understanding. It may be correct or incorrect and hence is beholden to the object it aims at being an understanding of (or of the laws of nature the object is governed by) for its correctness. Sortal concepts determine the criteria of persistence and individuation of objects that fall under them. Someone's conception of the sortal concept under which an object such as Saturn falls can be mistaken. The reason why this conception (how it is understood for something to be a planet) is beholden to Saturn for its correctness is because Saturn is the focus of a scientific inquiry. This inquiry is objective just because it has a point -- it discloses interesting and predictable features of phenomena, and objects (such as Saturn) as resilient patterns in the midst of those phenomena. We can adjust our conceptions of object in order to track the objective features that they really have, but this means no more an no less than that our conceptions of the objects that populate some empirical domain (astronomy, say) successfully discloses patterns that we are interested in (because they afford prediction, control, explanation, etc.).

What empirical inquiry reveals is first and foremost the discloseability of intelligible objects within some intelligible mode of empirical investigation (which need no be scientific). Discolseability is a modal notion. Actually existing objects, and the empirical domains that are a part of, need not be actually disclosed in order for them to exist, i.e. to be discloseable. So, thus far, there is no threat of idealism involved in the Fregean account of sortal concepts.

What I was invoking with the idea of a "minimal conceptual ground" just is a minimal understanding of the objective sortal concept an object may fall under when it is identified empirically (maybe perceptually) as being a material object at all (rather than, say, an utterly confused bundle of sensations). I am not claiming that this understanding must be actual in order for the object to exist. My point rather is that if we abstract from even such a minimal understanding of the persistence and individuation criteria that determine what an object might be, then we can't make sense of it potentially being the focus of a protracted and systematic empirical inquiry into what it really is. That is, we must start with some understanding in order for our empirical investigation (our experiences) to rationally bear on our initial understanding (that's the inescapable theory ladenness of experience). But since there always must be some such initial understanding, and this understanding is at play in acts of receptivity (empirical inquiry) this background is transcendental, in the Kantian sense. This transcendental background consists in the discloseability (to us) -- of objective Fregean concepts -- not subjective conceptions. It is not transcendent. Concepts are 'objects' of empirical inquiry. So this background is in play, and objects can exist, even before, or without, any actual understanding (conceptions) by us. And yet, those objective concepts only are objective inasmuch at the patterns that they potentially disclose are intelligible to us (rational embodied enquirers). One may call that conclusion conceptual idealism (or pragmatism). But I think such an 'idealism' is innocuous from a naturalistic point of view since it also is a form of realism and it furnishes an account of the objectivity of empirical judgment.

I've just finished reading Brassier's paper, so I can now comment. Brassier is attacking correlationism and other forms of anti-realism (including idealism and conceptual idealism). He is rather advocating for transcendental realism, while claiming some affinity or allegiance to a similar Sellars inspired project -- his "synoptic vision" -- which is a form of scientific realism (scientism, even) described in James O'Shea's book Wilfrid Sellars: Naturalism with a Normative Turn. Brassier contrasts O'Shea's realist appropriation with Brandom's neo-Hegelian appropriation of Sellars. I am familiar with Sellars, Brandom and O'Shea. I share with Brassier his reservations about Brandom's pragmatic inferentialism, but I also have reservations with O'Shea's defense of Sellars' scientism. I rather prefer the appropriation of (the best features of) Sellars by John McDowell and John Haugeland (and the similar views on concepts and objects advanced by David Wiggins in Sameness and Substance and various papers on ethics, practical reasoning, values and Frege). But those pluralist, yet realist and naturalist, appropriations of Sellars aren't considered at all in Brassier's text.

I am unsure if the severe criticisms of Latour and Fichte (and the comparatively milder criticisms of Deleuze and Meillassoux) are fair since I am unfamiliar with them. His targets as he describe them are indefensible, for sure. Some of the criticisms of Berkeley (maybe not all) seem fair but this form of idealism -- esse est percipi -- is an easy target.

I have been puzzled by Brassier's reliance on the "thing in itself" as opposed to the thing "for us". While I was reading Concepts and Objects, I was anxiously awaiting for some positive characterization (however abstract) of the "in itself" but the only thing Brassier provided were vagues gestures in direction of Sellars. It's possible Sellars has an account of the noumenon that I overlooked because it was a part of his philosophy that I had found unconvincing (and it's been 8 years since I read O'Shea), and also, my favorite Sellars' inspired philosophers dispense with this notion altogether. Maybe it is meant to be adequately illustrated by Brassier's discussion of Saturn.

So we come to this part of the text. The discussion of Saturn seemed confused to me. There appeared to be an alternation between true but trivial claims and obscure conclusions that depend on one accepting false dichotomies, as if the refutation of Berkeley's idealism was sufficient to vindicate Brassier's ill explained transcendental realism.

Brassier usefully distinguish 'Saturn' (the name), Saturn (the sense; the Fregean Sinn) and Saturn (the "referent"; the Fregean Bedeutung). But those distinctions still aren't quite precise enough. Following Wiggins, I would distinguish the sortal concept 'planet', which is part of the conception one may have of Saturn, as the sort of thing that it is, from the mode of presentation of Saturn, the Fregean sense Saturn of which this conception is a part. They are not the same thing since two persons can share the same conception of Saturn as a planet and have it presented to them under two different modes of presentation (compare the famous cases of Hesperus and Phosphorus, or Afla and Ateb, discussed by Frege). Oftentimes, when Brassier mentions the 'concept' Saturn, he seems to mean the sortal concept ('planet') rather than the Fregean singular sense, or mode of presentation of Saturn, as this is usually understood in analytic philosophy.

One gesture that Brassier makes towards explaining what Saturn in itself is is to argue that one can refer to Saturn without knowing what Saturn (precisely) is. This is true. Following Putnam, we can argue that it is possible to refer to some sample of water, and re-identify it, or identify it with other samples of the same stuff, without knowing that being H2O is what it is (essentially) for something to be water. But this hardly means that one thereby means to refer to water as it is in itself (something we know not what) as opposed referring to it as being potentially answerable to a conception of what it is (e.g. as falling under some determinate sortal concept or other, we don't yet know which one). Before it has been fully investigated, people who refer to bits of stuffs can already understand that there are some (more or less) essential, or regular, properties that make it the sort of stuff that it is. This is a condition for the reference to be objective at all rather than being a reference to the occurrent and non-repeatable experience that it provoques in us.

Hence, people who refer to Saturn without knowing that it is a planet must at least know that it is something like a 'celestial body', say, that is, something objective that can be seen in the sky and will likely not reappear under the bed. This means that Saturn, thus conceived, falls under a determinable (vague) sortal concept that awaits further determination or revision. But the sortal concept under which it falls, however imprecise, still is a part of our conception of Saturn, and partly determinative of what it is.

Brassier of course accepts that the 'concept' (what he calls Saturn) is determinative of what Saturn is, as something answering to our conception of it. What he denies is that Saturn's being is thereby determined (at some point he says "circumscribed" but doesn't explain this term). This claim can have two readings, one that is quite trivial and another one that is quite implausible. The first one simply is the denial of Berkeleyan idealism, that our concept (Saturn) makes Saturn exist. OK. This seems trivially false (unless one is an idealist).

(Let me note in passing that there also remains an equivocation due to Brassier's failure to distinguish the Fregean sense of 'Saturn' from the sortal concept under which Saturn falls. The trouble is that under one account of Fregean senses (inspired by Kripke and Putnam, and further refined and defended by Gareth Evans and John McDowell) singular senses, such as the senses of proper names, or demonstrative expressions, are object dependent. But I will reserve discussion of this issue to another post. Let us just grant the denial of Berkeleyan idealism, or of the "Gem" argument that this and other idealisms allegedly depend on.)

According to the second reading, for Saturn to exist is independent of the sortal concept under which it falls when we think of it, perceive it, or talk about it, as whatever it is that it indeed is (in this case, arguably, a planet). But this is quite implausible. The reason is that reference just can't get any grip on anything objective without some minimal conceptual ground with which to anchor conditions of persistence and individuation that determine what it is one is referring to (in thought, talk, or demonstratively).

It would be easy to work out an example for an object like Saturn, but a simpler example is the case of a lump of bronze that materially constitutes a statue of Hermes. Can one point out demonstratively to 'this object' while being agnostic about its existing as a statue or as a heavy lump of stuff? Brassier, it seems, would need to acknowledge that we can only refer to it as something or other (i.e. as what it is). But what becomes of his claim that, in addition to being something that we refer to as what it is, it also is something in itself? Is that "it", that it is "in itself" still existing after we have hammered flat the lump of bronze and thereby destroyed the statue? It seems that the answer crucially depends on whether we are talking about the statue or the lump of bronze. But then there is no "it" existing independently of the what it is that is self-sustained in existence for an extended period of time independently of what it is. How long it remains in existence, and hence continues to be whatever it is "in itself" (if this makes sense at all) seems to depend crucially on what it is. Yet, Brassier seems to want to deny this.

That's the dead end/error which drives much of the nonsense about theory of truth. There isn't a "how." At some point we are simply found with awareness of particular empirical or logical patterns. We never sit outside this knowledge to somehow derive it. Our knowledge is given by the presence of the object(s) which is(are) the understanding of something else. It is a question of (our) existence rather than of reasoning.

"Ontologically primary"and "the pre-conceptual" are incoherent. Existence doesn't preceded existence. There is just existence. Anything which does exist, which can be expressed language, expresses the conceptual by definition. There can't be a computer, for example, I discover and learn to talk about if such objects fall outside conceptual expression. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I think this is rather nicely put. I had missed this response earlier. Let me just make clear that I agree with your attack on the presupposition of the question (that is: the idea that there might be some 'preconceptually existing' reality waiting to be conceptualized by us). Hence the paragraph that you quoted from my post wasn't my own question. It was my paraphrase of John's question. The rest of my response was meant to make (or gesture towards) a point similar to yours on behalf of Haugeland (who, like Brassier, albeit in a different manner, was much influenced by Sellars).

Also, though I also reject the idea of the preconceptual, the use that I make of "ontological primacy" is rather innocuous and only meant to signify a one-way conceptual dependence between two domains that both fall, indeed, within the sphere of the conceptual. In the specific case that I mentioned, Zuhandenheit is primary relative to Vorhandenheit because there is no distanced (theoretical) approach to empirical reality that isn't distanced from, or a view of some features abstracted from, a mode of engagement that directly (and inherently or constitutively) involves our interests and embodied capabilities.

I should say more about the reason why the possibility of (sentient) abilities or 'interests' that falls short from being a conceptual abilities (such a the perceptual and behavioral abilities and attitudes of the sentient albeit non-rational animals) doesn't entail that there are any 'preconceptual objects' for us to talk about, and why even (mere) animal 'affordances' (J.J. Gibson) aren't such objects. But I'll come back to this later, maybe in the thread about Brassier (Concepts and Objects).

Hey guys pretty late to this convo BUT — csalisbury

I'm even later to this party. But since this text makes contact both with preoccupations of continental philosophy that I am much ignorant of, but find interesting, and with issues of analytic philosophy that I am more conversant with, I just decided to print and read the paper. I will comment soon.

I was out in the streets early this morning... — Bitter Crank

Bagatelles are little things; the video already disappeared!

This document expresses your stances on several separable philosophical topics (e.g. atheism, free will and hedonism). No doubt, you wish to integrate those stances into a coherent whole. However, for purpose of discussion in this forum, might it not be better to discuss them in separate threads? (Maybe no more than one or two at a time).

One can read Aristotle for the first time, but it is unlikely that the latest new reader will produce any ground-breaking new insights. After all these years, the field of Aristotle has been plowed too many times for something new to be discovered. Still, Aristotle is worth reading. — Bitter Crank

New readers of Aristotle (or Leibnitz, or Hume, or Kant, or Wittgenstein, etc.) produce new insights all the time! This is because their ideas are constantly being brought to bear on new issues that arise in human social and cultural context (and philosophical conceptions) that are constantly evolving.

You may want to say that new insights into the philosophy of Aristotle merely are newer applications of an intellectual product that is, in itself, finished, as you suggest baroque musique is -- i.e. "a thing". But this is to confuse the individuals who were participants in an intellectual/artistic tradition with the tradition itself. The individuals are mortal, but the tradition only dies when it is forgotten. Baroque music, in general, and Bach's spirit, in particular, still live in the ongoing process of musical creation that finds nourishment in them (oftentimes indirectly). The same is true of Aristotle's thinking. He is, in a very real sense, still engaged with us in an ongoing dialogue that will go on until our civilization ends.

On edit: As a conciliatory gesture, let me add that I agree that there is a way for an intellectual or artistic tradition to die and become a "thing" in the sense that you suggest. This occurs in the context where the dialogue is interrupted because some tradition is enshrined and becomes an object of mere reverence or dogmatic adherence. But then, it can still be resurrected by people who are willing to re-engage in a genuine dialogue with the ancient ideas or insights.

Your post raises many issues and I will comment on just one of them. This concerns your idea of a dualism of stuff, or material constituent, and arrangement. I recently provided in another thread a link to Haugeland's paper Pattern and Being. An idea similar to yours was discussed in p.5 of this thread.

In Haugeland's view, to be just is to be an intelligible (and empirically discloseable) pattern. I will leave aside your question whether for X to be part of an ontology, X must be actual (or perceived) or merely discloseable, and thus just potentially existing. I just want to focus on your idea of a dualism of pattern and 'stuff patterned' (as one might put it).

If seeing, or empirically disclosing, a real pattern consists in seing a pattern in the arrangement of some entities that can be independently identified, then seeing a pattern always is a case of seeing as. An example would be seeing an arrangement of chess pieces on a chess board (at a definite stage in the course of a chess game) as constituting a king being checkmated. But, more basically, it could also be a case of some wooden figurine shaped thus and so being seen as a bishop. To be a bishop, in the context of a chess game, just is to be a material figurine (say) that plays a particular role according to intelligible rules. For chess pieces to have the identities that they have (bishop, pawn, king, etc.) is for them to be ascribed roles that disclose intelligible patterns (from the point of view of someone who merely observed the game going on). The constitutive rules and standards that govern the practice of chess playing (when insisted upon by chess players) bring those patterns into existence.

The point of this example, that I am adapting from Haugeland, is that for X to be, in the sense that X is a re-identifiable part of an intelligible pattern that belongs to some empirically discloseable domain of experience, doesn't just depend on the way in which the constituents of X are arranged internally. The internal organization of X may or may not, in some cases, enable X to play the functional role, within some broader context of activity, that defines X as the sort of object that it is. So, whenever something is part of an ontology, because it can be seen as a P (where 'P' is a sortal concept that defines what specific sort of pattern any P is seen as), then P must be discloseable within some broader context of activity (i.e. an empirical domain being governed by constitutive rules, such as the laws of physics, for instance). It may or may not be the case that for some P to exist as such (i.e. as the P that it is, where 'P' is a sortal concept) consists in its being internally arranged thus and so.

Hi John,

You don't need much acquaintance with the current state of neuroscience in order to follow this debate. Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience provides a useful survey of the evolution of the field (with significant contributions by Max Bennett), but the meat of Hacker's arguments (because it's mainly Peter Hacker who argues the philosophy) are found in the detailed elucidations of various psychological concepts. Did you read the selections from Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience provided in pp.3-48 of Neuroscience and Philosophy? Maybe those excerpts are too short to display the full power of Hacker's Wittgensteinian approach.

Hacker is, however, such a devoted and orthodox Wittgensteinian that he is liable to make tantrums when some philosopher (or scientist) deviates, by his lights, from Wittgensteinian orthodoxy and promulgates some doctrine that Hacker diagnoses (often rightfully) and denounces (with excessive fervor) as "nonsense". This explains the harsh tone of his attacks against Searle and Dennett (in the appendixes of PFoN), and the little interpretive charity that he accords them. Nevertheless, much of the substance of his criticism of them, and of a majority of practitioners of modern cognitive sciences, seems to be on target (or so I would be prepared to argue on his behalf).

What it is useful to be acquainted with in order to fully appreciate Hacker's criticisms, I think, besides the philosophy of the late Wittgenstein (roughly from The Blue and Brown Books up to The Philosophical Investigations), and Gilbert Ryle's The Concept of Mind, is the variety of relatively new paradigms in cognitive sciences (and robotics) that are variously labeled externalist, embodied, situated, dynamical, anti-representationalist, etc. J.J. Gibson's Ecological Approach to Visual Perception also belongs to this movement. Many books on the topic of embodies cognition have appeared in recent years, but none of them, to my knowledge, surpasses the deep and insightful survey and commentary by Robert A. Wilson's Boundaries of the Mind published in 2004. Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty are much more than forerunners to those approaches. Cognitive science has not caught up with them, in my view. But the representationalist and internalist paradigms still dominate the scientific fields (where 'Cartesian materialism' reigns), and much of the recent analytic philosophy of mind (with several notable exceptions including, of course, John Haugeland).

Interestingly enough, Dennett was Ryle's student at Oxford, while Ryle's The Concept of Mind was very much indebted to Wittgenstein (and Wittgenstein himself who, like Hacker, was prone to making tantrums, was quite angry at Ryle for 'stealing' his ideas). This indirect influence is manifest in some of Dennett's early philosophical papers about the intentional stance and the personal/sub-personal distinction. Some of those are ideas that Hacker could have stressed as areas of agreement. In later years Dennett has moved away from Wittgenstein, and, strangely, lost touch with some of his own best early philosophical insights. Jennifer Horsby chides him for one such retreat in her paper Personal and Sub-Personal: A Defence of Dennet's Early Distinction.

I just wanted to provide some context to the debate. I'll respond to specific points that you raises separately. The paper by Hornsby that I linked to is a much easier read that her paper on the Identity Theory of Truth. It is interesting because it could be used to harnesses Dennett's own arguments in allying him with Hacker against Dennett and Searle!

That makes sense; even atoms or quarks must have some kind of form. — John

Yes, though Aristotle's notions of form and matter, and of act and power, are more general and abstract, and thus applicable to a broader range of empirical domains, than the domain of material objects (Aristotelian substances) that fall under 'sortal concepts', and that have material constituents.

So "small forms have larger forms to unite 'em, and so on ad infinitum '...or is it " large forms have small forms to disunite 'em, and so on ad infinitum "?

That would possibly be a stretch unwarranted by Wiggins' account. His account just is an account of identity and persistence criteria for material objects (substances). Haugeland has a more general account of the constitutive rules that govern 'empirical domains', broadly conceived so as to also include the domain of natural numbers and their properties, and domains of social phenomena such as chess games (e.g. the phenomena that occur on the chess board such as a king being checkmated, or a rook being threatened by a bishop), etc. When considering a particular sort of material object (specifically), there is no reason to expect that its material constituents will always be other material objects with broadly the same sort of ontological structure (as material objects typically have). Electrons and quarks fall under sortal concepts that determine the kinds of experiments, and experimental set-ups, in which they show up, and what kinds of patterns they show up as. Those intelligible patterns need not be patterns of, or arrangements of, underlying material constituents. What they are 'made of', if anything, is for physics, and the philosophy of physics, to determine. That can't be settled by a general account of concepts and objects or a general theory of language and reference.

This seems to be a very traditional understanding along the lines of saying that the matter remains while the form is transmuted. — John

No, the thesis is quite different. One main point of Wiggins' theory of the sortal dependency of identity precisely is to deny any simple dualism of matter and form. It still is close to Aristotle, though, since, arguably, in Aristotle, form and matter are concepts that are aligned with actuality and potentiality, respectively, and are likewise relative (to one another) rather than absolute concepts (e.g. a dichotomy). That is, if X is the matter of (or the 'material cause of') Y, then Y can likewise, at the very same time, be the matter of Z, etc., and something else, W, may be the matter of X. Generally, if X is some 'matter' that can potentially take the form of Y (and the existence of this potentiality is all that is said in saying that X is matter), then, when this potentiality is actualized, what was initially only potentially Y might or might not still persist as the X is was. (e.g. one might have to destroy a tree in order to make planks, but the planks can persist as they come to make up a house).

What is rather central to the account is the denial that anything could be 'raw matter', as it were, that is, being a material constituents of something else without also itself falling under some sortal concept or other, and thus having persistence and individuation conditions of its own. Everything conceivable (limiting ourselves to material objects and stuffs) that can be singled out in the material world (perceived, individuated or otherwise conceived) also had form. The material constituents of objects also are objects, in this broad sense.

Indeed. It runs all together deeper. Objects which are, later named and categorised by us, ARE something which we later identify (tall, short, soft, round, heavy, a chair, a cat, a tree, etc.,etc.). There is NO criteria of persistence and individuation.

An object, by definition, is persistent (else it would be a given language/experience that was talking about something else) and individuated (else it wouldn't be a specific finite state). All objects express these qualities, regardless of what they might be. — TheWillowOfDarkness

You misunderstand. I wasn't arguing that we are providing criteria for distinguishing objects that do persist from objects that don't persist at all. (Let us put aside objects such as numbers or events that aren't 'material objects' (or gods) -- i.e. the 'substances' of scholastic metaphysics).

Rather, I am following David Wiggins who argues for the sortal dependence of identity in his magisterial Sameness and Substance: Renewed. Material entities persist in time and can be re-identified throughout their careers (until the moment when they die or are destroyed). However, some object such as a statue of Hermes, say, can be materially constituted by a lump of bronze. The lump of bronze can spatially coincide with the statue, and, indeed, be made us of the same collection of atoms, at a time. But they are distinct objects since the statue can be destroyed while the lump of bronze persists for awhile longer. What distinguishes the statue, as an object, that is not identical with the lump of bronze that constitutes it, is its having different criteria of persistence and individuation. (Refer to the puzzles about the Ship of Theseus regarding criteria of individuation). Sticking to criteria of persistence, for simplicity, we can say that they are provided by the sortal concept under which any material object necessarily falls if it is to be counted as such.

Hence, when the statue is melted down, or hammered flat, it is destroyed. It doesn't exist anymore as a statue, which is to say, it doesn't exist anymore simpliciter. There just aren't any statue existing anymore at that location, where there might still exist a lump of bronze.

The issue, then, is what is it that supplies the sortal concepts under which existing (perceptually identifiable and countable) material objects fall? I would say that we do. Objects themselves can't be found in natures labelled with concepts that provide their persistence conditions. But this doesn't threaten realism. We supply the sortal concepts, together with the persistence conditions tacitly associated with them, and then we can look up in the world to see if some objects falling under that concept exist, and we can track them until they meet their demises (not always through our own agencies).

I think there is a subtle distinction between claims about what is and claims about what we should say about what is. — John

It is unclear to me that such a distinction is intelligible. It's like saying that one is entitled to say that some tomato is red while not being entitled to say that it can be said that it is red. How can one possibly argue that P and not thereby be committed to endorse the claim that it should be asserted (rather than denied) that P? Maybe you want to gesture at the idea that there might be things that can't be said at all (or ever). Wittgenstein commented on this in the very last proposition of the Tractatus: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."

What would enable us, pre-linguistically, to reliably pick out objects, or non-linguistic animals to pick out objects ( or "affordances") if there were no ontological distinctiveness, or relevant joints to carve, to produce reliable distinctions. — John

Another way to phrase this would be to ask: how can we come to detect interesting patterns in the empirical world, patterns, that is, that are relevant to our human practices and interests, and hence that we can pick up conceptually, if there aren't distinct and 'ontologically primary' (and 'pre-conceptual') entities there to be patterned by us?

Although Haugeland's paper Truth and Rule Following doesn't seem to be available online, the paper Pattern and Being fortunately is provided here. (It's very nice from the people at the University of Chicago to have left Haugeland's page up after his untimely demise). This paper is a forerunner of some of the ideas further developed in Truth and Rule Following. It's also a criticism of Dennett's quasi-realism about mental states. But is has a much broader ontological import. Haugeland is effectively arguing that reality is conceptually structured all the way down, as it were, but not any less real for all that. He is agreeing with Heidegger that Zuhandenheit is ontologically prior to Vorhandenheit and hence that the latter can't epistemically or ontologically ground the former (my quick gloss on Haugeland's thesis).

I don't wish to burden you with yet another reference to the literature. I only provide it because it's especially good and relevant to your question. But if you would rather prefer that provide my own more detailed response and arguments, I will.

I think what Willow means by "defined in themselves" is something like "definite in themselves" or "distinct in themselves'. — John

Yes, that's how it sounds to me too. TheWillowOfDarkness seems to be defending the metaphysical stance that Putnam argued against and labeled 'metaphysical realism' (and that some call 'naïve realism'). Willow also is arguing that the attack on the very idea of "correspondence" is motivated by a tacit rejection of metaphysical realism (which he calls "realism"). Michael is right to point out that the specific notion of 'correspondence' that underlies 'correspondence theories of truth' can be challenged by people who don't commit to a specific metaphysical stance. That is, one can coherently reject the correspondence theory of truth while being a realist (like me), or while being an anti-realist (like Michael?) who nevertheless acknowledges a semantic distinction between things that belong to language proper and the things referred to to.

A perceptible object's definiteness or distinctness from its surroundings cannot be dependent on language otherwise we would never be able to identify such an 'object' to learn its name in the first place.

I don't think that's true. Objects in nature (let alone those in the human world of artifacts) don't come into existence labeled with their own criteria of persistence and individuation. At what point do some arrangements of wood, glue and screws come to materially constitute a chair, and at what point of disrepair or disfunctionality does the chair cease to exist? This seem to depend on our interests and practices, and those interests and practices leave an indelible trace in the empirical concept of a chair (that is, the criteria of 'chairhood' always are tainted by our practices and interests).

Scientific realists can grant that much for the case of human artifacts but assert the possibility of a conceptual reduction into more primitive terms (i.e. scientific concepts that refer to alleged 'natural kinds') that are said to carve nature at its (natural) joints. This scientific realism is another form of naïve realism, in my view, but my main point is to stress that one need not commit either way (regarding metaphysical realism) in order to grant both that individual chairs exist, in a robust sense (non-idealist), and are distinct from our talk about them, but that, nevertheless, our concept of chairs (or 'chairhood') hardly can be said to 'correspond' to what chairs allegedly 'are in themselves' irrespective of our interests and linguistic practices.

Many of the landmark papers on meaning and reference from 20th century analytic philosophers are collected in the book Meaning and Reference, edited by A.W. Moore. Those are papers by Russell, Strawson, Quine, Davidson, McDowell, Dummett, Putnam, Kripke, Wiggins and Evans. There are many such thematic anthologies on various topics (e.g. free will, epistemology, etc.) This is one of the best.

But, of course, you already have a rather long reading list (and so have I -- it never gets shorter!). Just remaining active in this forum will afford you more opportunities to get acquainted with some of the relevant ideas. Consider also the usually excellent entries in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Let me add that starting off with the topics of meaning and reference is much easier than digging into contemporary debates about theories of truth (many of which might be fundamentally misguided if we trust Hornsby). The latter topic still often causes my brain to overheat and makes me wish for a graft of 40 additional IQ points.

What is said about any thing, event or situation could never correspond completely to the thing, event or situation, and this is Frege's point, I think, but what is said about the particular facts or attributes of whatever thing, event or situation we are talking about, that are highlighted in the saying could correspond to these particular fact or attributes, in fact it logically must in order that it be just those facts or attributes that are being highlighted. — John

What you say here would be correct, it seems to be, if you would restrict it to (Fregean) objects and attributes (Fregean concepts); and drop the idea of correspondence with facts. As I urged earlier, the idea that you seem to be groping for (though I might be wrong) simply is reference. If you believe that A is F, and can accurately express this belief with the sentence "A is F", then for this belief to be true, it must be the case that the object A be suitably related to your thought about it, and likewise that the property F that A possesses be suitable related to the property that you express with the predicate "... is F". But those necessary correspondences that must hold in order for you statement to be meaningful (and for the belief that is purports to express to be an intelligible belief at all) just are relations of reference between the words that you use and the objects and properties that you are talking (and thinking) about.

Thus, those 'correspondence' relations, that really are referential properties of linguistic items, and of the (Fregean) thought components (Sinne) that they express, are necessary conditions, not of truth, but of meaningfulness. The conditions for truth isn't for the full sentence to refer to the fact. (On Frege's account, the reference of a sentence is The True of The False.) The condition for the truth of the sentence (and the thought that is expresses, which is its sense, according to Frege) rather is that the object thought about have the property ascribed to it. But this is just to say that "A is F" is true iff A is F and nothing more than that.

EDIT: My mistake. I was just excited to have found this article and so wanted to share it, but this is really not a good follow-up to "On What There Is", but is obviously better suited to "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" — Moliere

It is nevertheless and essential paper and I second your recommendation. I started typing in some comments about its relevance and its relation to the work of Kripke, which also raises difficulties for Quine's accounts of reference, meaning and proper names (one of them already mentioned by Shmik). But I would probably need to re-read In Defence of a Dogma first.

Maybe. I think the Academy was already concerned with technical issues of no general interest. — The Great Whatever

Some things (1) are of no general interest because they are trite and trivial. This is different from them (2) not arousing general interest just because many don't care, even though they would care if they were wiser or more receptive. Lastly some things (3) are 'of general interest' (in a sense) just because they are practically useful for the community (e.g. specialized crafts) although they need not arouse the interest of wise people. It is quite enough that specialized craftsmen/women would take care of those things.

If the Academy was concerned with things that wise people ought to be interested in (i.e. neither trite nor trivial) then, even though they were of 'no general interest' in the second or third senses mentioned above, there wouldn't be anything objectionable about them akin to what the authors of the article mentioned in the OP (Frodeman and Briggle) blame on the professionalization of philosophy.

The professionalization of philosophy began with Plato, not in the 19th century. — The Great Whatever

No doubt. But one of the main points that the authors make is that there was until recently an expectation that a philosopher should have a special insight into what is good, not just what is technically effective, what is simply true (albeit of little practical concern to someone who is wise) or what is a valid argument. Professionalization was thus going hand in hand with an idea of natural aristocracy. (The Greeks also thought there were 'natural slaves'). The professionalization of philosophy only recently became, in addition, a response to the perceived social need for efficiency and the instrumentalisation of human excellences.

The authors lament the movement of philosophy away from the impetus to cultivate wisdom -- conceived in broadly moral terms -- and towards cleverness, and a disinterested quest for objective knowledge on the model of the natural sciences. The dire portrait that they draw of the current state of over-specialization, and the prevalent concern for 'disengaged' knowledge, seems to faithfully represent 90% (more or less) of the productive activity of academic philosophers, especially analytic philosophers (possibly). But then, one ought to be reminded that 90% of everything is crap.

Maybe it's even fewer than 10% of published academic philosophy that rises above the level of crap. But I tend to be quite tolerant of that. It's always been the case that in any domain intrinsically worthy of human pursuit, a minority excel and very many who don't excel nevertheless are uplifted by the collective achievement to which they contribute more modestly. 'Crap' also is a relative term. It may not just be possible for everyone in the city to be a wise man/woman. But proper respect for the worthiness of the pursuit (of wisdom) is sufficient to enlighten most everyone. There only were one Beethoven, one Mozart, and on J.S. Bach, each, but they had audiences, students, interpreters/performers, and patrons. There are mutual dependencies between the wise individual (who may or may not be specialized) and other specialists, as well as more practically oriented craftsmen/women, 'consumers' of the products of wisdom, and non-specialists.

The authors also seem to contrast knowledge and wisdom (without going quite as far as claiming a dichotomy) while somewhat neglecting philosophy's ongoing contributions to our understanding of the evolving human condition. They are right to deprecate the pursuit of knowledge (or clever arguments) that are divorced from the impetus to seek wisdom (in a moral sense). Once it's acknowledged that it ought not to be expected that everyone will attain self-sufficiency in point of virtue or moral understanding, it ought to be acknowledged also that many more will contribute to understanding. Moral virtue might not always go hand in hand with the ability to explicate itself (just as great novelists don't always have the skill to teach proper style and grammar). Some degree of moral wisdom (or proper concern for the worthiness of the best human aspirations, and contempt for the motivations that ought to be reviled) no doubt is a prerequisite to determining what are the questions of philosophy that are worthy of being pursued, as opposed to merely constituting hair-splitting pointless technicalities. Progress in areas of understanding that are typified by the best products of academic philosophy ought to be appreciated by the morally wise since it responds to universal intellectual aspirations that the attainment of moral virtue likely leaves intact, or else it may procure inoculation against confusions that even the best-intentioned (and most virtuous) people -- including some politicians, activists, reformers, etc. -- are liable to fall into.

I need to finish reading that Hornsby paper (and the Neuroscience and Philosophy book) and then probably reread the Hornsby. — John

Don't sweat it, though. I've just finished re-reading it. It's much more difficult than I remembered it to be. It is likely that I had earlier read an abridged version published in The Nature of Truth, and anthology volume published by Michel P. Lynch -- and forgotten how difficult even that abridged version was. Although the paper contains many insights and pearls of wisdom that I can appreciate, many of the finer points it makes are incredibly subtle, and/or crucially depend on the reader's being fairly well acquainted with the relevant literature (much more than I am).

A paper that I would unreservedly recommend, and that much less depends on prior acquaintance with the vast literature on 'truth theories', is Truth and Rule Following, by John Haugeland. (It was published as the last chapter of his Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind). Maybe you would enjoy that more, rather than coming back to Hornsby's paper right away (when you're finished with Bennett and Hacker!) It makes most of the anti-representationalist points that are relevant to criticizing correspondence theories, and also has acknowledged Heideggerian roots that you will likely appreciate.

By the way, Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind and Language (Bennett, Hacker, Dennett, Searle and Robinson) is a book that was published after Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Bennet and Hacker), which I had mentioned. In Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, there were two appendixes (likely entirely written by Hacker) devoted to criticizing the philosophies of mind of Dennett and Searle. Those criticisms were extremely severe (many deservedly so, in my view, though Hacker's excessively harsh tone was quite unwarranted). The other volume records the contributions to a colloquium where Dennett and Searle were afforded an opportunity to respond to those criticisms. Robinson acted as some kind of a moderator/referee, I believe, and also contributed a very nice introduction to the volume. I would still recommend reading Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience before reading Neuroscience and Philosophy, ideally!

Actually I don't think of experiences as 'mental states'. In the Hornsby paper linked by Pierre there is an interesting distinction between 'thought' differently considered as 'acts of thinking' and as 'the content of acts of thinking'; and that reminds of the distinction I make between 'experience' as 'acts of experiencing' and 'experience' as 'the content of those acts'. Interestingly neither of those seem to be neatly characterizeable as 'mental states'. What if say that I want to experience eating an apple. By, and in, itself that would not seem to entail that there be any mind-independent apple to be eaten. — John

True, but what is at issue in discussions about truth, meaning, knowledge and correspondance aren't the qualitative feels of the experiences (i.e. what it is like to have those experiences) so much as as their conceptual/propositional contents. The latter is what Hornsby settles on calling 'thinkables' in her paper. What you may be thinking of as the content of an experience may be the highest common factor between a true thinkable and a false one. That is, what is naturally conceived to be common to the case of someone having the perceptual experience that P, and someone's merely seeming to have the experience that P (while it isn't the case that P). So far so good. That wouldn't involve anything contentious. What is common to both cases is the same thinkable being entertained as the way the world is.

Representationalists further claim that what is common to both of those cases is a common 'representation' that the subject is directly acquainted with in both cases. To be acquainted with this 'representation' (i.e. having the 'experience' (so called) that P) doesn't indeed entail that there is a mind independent reality that is experienced since the representation could fail to fit (correspond to) the way the world is. Correspondentism and representationalism are indeed good buddies.

The alternative put forth by McDowell, Hornsby and others is disjuctivism about experience. This is the thesis that what is experienced when the experience isn't misleading, confused, or hallucinatory, etc, is the world itself. And just in case the content of the experience isn't thus veridical (or, more generally, doesn't procure knowledge of the world -- because of the occurrence of Gettier-like cases) then the subject is simply, well, misled.

It seems to me that what you are harking for (is 'harking' the correct word here?) with your attachment to the idea of the logical primacy of the notion of correspondance might be something akin to the idea of object dependent singular senses. It has long been thought by many analytic philosophers that the Fregean senses (Sinn(e)) of singular referring expressions, (as distinguished from their references (Bedeutung(en)), can be expressed with general descriptions. Gareth Evans and John McDowell have disputed this possibility. Evans has argued (in The Varieties of Reference) that for one to think that x is F, then one must know which x it is one is thinking about. And this only is possible if x exists. This prerequisite knowledge of an individual is akin to Russell's knowledge by acquaintance (i.e. knowledge of a particular rather than knowledge of the truth of a proposition). This notion had been in disrepute for some time because it was tied up in Russell's thinking with his old fashioned epistemology and the idea that one only is acquainted with sense data and with oneself (one's own 'I'). However, disentangling it from those positivist strictures, Evans advocated what he called Russell's principle as a precondition for one to be able to so much as have definite thoughts about the world (i.e. entertain definite 'thinkables').

I won't detail anymore for now (though I would need to say much more) the accounts by Evans and McDowell of the idea of object dependent singular senses. I just bring this idea up because it dovetails with the idea that the mind can be directly in touch with the world (paradigmatically, when one know that P because one sees that P, and what one then sees, and knows, is what is the case), while allowing us to dispense with the idea that thoughts and facts can be externally related to one another (the idea of correspondence).

I should say a bit more about that in another post, but you may have reached the part in Hornsby's paper where she discusses Frege's objections to correspondence, and, in particular, the troublesome issue about the specific respects in which thoughts, or claims, might at most be intelligibly claimed to correspond to facts. There is a nice regress argument here. Very similar arguments are found in Wittgenstein regarding interpretation, representations and meaning.

Although that issue seems resolved now, it is important when discussing about language and meaning to always be very clear on the use/mention distinction. Michael was right to correct you on that. Nagase would have scolded you too. Quoted expressions function as names for those expressions (i.e. they are linguistic devices used to refer to the expressions themselves rather than use them to make claims. That is, 'snow is white' is the name of the English sentence used to state that snow is white. In the previous sentence, the sentence 'snow is white' was first mentioned (as it is now) and then used. It was mentioned by its name: 'snow is white'. This is why it's ungrammatical to state that 'P' iff P. You need propositions on both sided of the 'iff' logical connective for such a claim to make sense.

Claims, and the sentences used to make those claims, (or express the content of doxastic states such as beliefs or intentions) are different things. Correspondence theories purport to establish correspondence relations between worldly items such as facts, on the one hand, and linguistic items (or mental items that are somehow structured as linguistic items are) on the other hand. The rejection of representationalism entails that one can dispense entirely with the second relata of the alleged correspondence relation. So anti-representationalism (which is consistent with deflationary accounts of truth) makes nonsense of the very idea of correspondence. There isn't anything for the facts to intelligibly correspond to.

A correspondance theorist could object: If sentences aren't representations (such that facts can correspond or fail to correspond to them), then what are they? Well, in themselves they only are syntactically structured marks on paper, or vocal patterns, etc. Those linguistic items don't have any intrinsic semantic properties. That's a bit of a truism. They are meaningless in themselves but the standard, patterned, use that is made of them in a linguistic community can be interpreted. In that case the sentences inherit meanings from the fact that they are used to anchor intelligible patterns in the behavior (including, but not restricted to, the linguistic behavior) of rational agents.

So, you may want to say that a claim (a linguistic act, e.g. a sort of behavioral episode in the life of a speaker) can correspond or fail to correspond to the way the world is. This is true, in a sense, but it just amounts to saying that claims (or beliefs) can be distanced from the world through being false (that's the way John McDowell puts it). In the case where they are true, the world simply is as it is claimed to be by the person making use of the sentence. But this is just say what the corresponding T-shema already states. It is the deflationary account. This doesn't support any further claim of correspondence between facts and sentences. It merely states a condition for a linguistic acts, suitably interpreted, to be expressing something true.

I highly recommend Jennifer Hornsby's Truth: The Identity Theory, a paper that I found much illuminating when I first read it (as anything else that I read from Hornsby) and that I ought probably to read again.

I also wish Nagase would pay us a visit sometimes. That's part of his domain of expertise.

Deflationary conceptions of truth, or coherentist accounts such as Davidson's theory of meaning, which also centrally depend on Tarsky's T-schema, don't commit one to anything like an idea of correspondence between true sentences and facts. Quite the contrary, it seems to me, since the latter seems to presuppose a form of representationalism -- i.e. the idea that (doxastic) mental states, such as beliefs, are a matter of 'having' internal syntactically structured mental representations that represent the world to be (in some respect) thus and so. Deflationary conceptions don't commit one to representationalism at all. If for some agent to believe that P doesn't entail anything like her being related, in some way, to an 'internal' representation (some type of neural state, say), then there is no issue of correspondence that even arise to start with.

This leaves intact the idea that for a cognitive agent to be disposed to endorses the sentence 'P' as expressing a truth, and this truth being the fact that P (look up Jennifer Hornsby on identity theories of truth), then this agent is indeed representing (some feature of) the world to be thus and so (mamely, P). There being such representational acts doesn't entail that there are physical representations (syntactical items) that 'correspond' to the world. This correspondence notion remains rather obscure and quite dispensable. Beliefs (mental acts), and assertions (speech acts) that are expressive of them are actualizations of rational powers that belong to whole rational animals, and aren't features or items ('tokened sentences' or 'mental representations') somehow located in them. Indeed, Davidsonian 'holistic hermeneuticism' (as I would characterize his theoretical apparatus of radical interpretation) shares with Dennett's idea of the intentional stance a natural enmity to representationalism.

That's because, on such interpretivist accounts, definite propositional attitudes can only be ascribed to individuals on the basis of a global assignment of meanings(*) to all the sub-sentential terms that she employs when she endorses the truth of 'P', and this can only be effected in the context of a whole range of attitudes, background beliefs, intentions, etc. (with essential reliance of the constitutive ideal of rationality, and the principle of charity, in Davidson's account) Hence, in the essential background of her endorsement of the claim that P, as she expresses it with 'P', are involved her understandings of all the meaningful words being used. And those meanings (e.g. how she means what she thinks or says) can only be determined, even by her, within a whole 'conceptual scheme' (a notion that Davidson would of course have some reservations about that aren't important here), within, that is, a conceptually informed, and hence rationally structured, way to engage with the significant world (Umwelt) that human beings inhabit.

(*) Those meaning assignments to meaningful expressions (singular terms and predicates) are the 'axioms' that underscore the derivation of the T-shema (the 'theorems') of a Tarskian theory of truth.