"575. When I sat down on this chair, of course I believed [had the hyposthesis] it would bear me. I had no thought of its possibly collapsing... — Antony Nickles

When one has never even had the thought of the chair collapsing, there could be no possible belief that it would not. Believing a chair will bear our weight is to consider(think about) whether or not it will collapse under our weight, and believing that it will not. That's exactly what having the hypothesis that a chair will bear our weight amounts to.

There's a little irony here, regarding the method I'm using.

If you could, would you mind revisiting the post where I described Gettier's mistake? Imagine, before you do, that I'm employing a similar approach to OLP. I'm setting out what Smith(anyone and everyone in that same situation) must mean if he's(they are) talking about himself(themselves), which he purportedly is.

Smith believes, for good reason, that he will get the job. Smith does not believe that anyone else but himself will get the job. Smith believes, again for good reason, that Jones owns a Ford. Smith believes "Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" is true, because Jones owns a Ford. Smith does not believe that "Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" is true because Brown is in Barcelona.

Is this not the aim of OLP? To make explicit what is otherwise implicit in some native speakers' language use?

The underlying, unspoken aim is a better account of meaning.

Part of what Witt is trying to do is elevate the publicness of our communication. — Antony Nickles

I've no issue at all with rejecting the idea of private language. To reject private meaning however, shows an inherent inability to take adequate account of language creation and/or acquisition, successful communication, and/or the minds of any and all creatures prior to having done so.

That's unacceptable.

A statement can be certain and false, and uncertain and true.
— creativesoul

And? Not....or? For a, re: singular, statement? — Mww

Yes... I left the rest unspoken...

Because some belief statements can be both uncertain and true, and certain but false, it only follows that certainty has nothing at all to do with truth.

The attempt to create a dichotomy between belief and knowledge is asinine. It's akin to creating a dichotomy between an orange and a valencia orange. Knowledge is a kind of belief.

The approach depends upon a metacognitive endeavor; to make that which remains implicit explicit. Exposing and/or discovering the implicit content of some particular language use is the aim of the OLP endeavor. It is an aim that is satisfied solely by virtue of offering an adequate account thereof.

All accounting practices require something to be taken account of, something to take account of it, a means in order to do so, and a creature capable of doing it.

OLP is taking account of... how it takes account.

The aim is the implicit meaningful content accompanying specific instances of ordinary language use.

I've asked a few different questions, and raised a few different concerns. Do you believe that you've answered and attended to those satisfactorily?

I've asked a few different questions, and raised a few different concerns. Do you believe that you've answered and attended to those satisfactorily?

This would seem to be a kind of census; like linguistic anthropology. We are not "acquiring" knowledge; we already have it from growing up and learning English at the same time. — Antony Nickles

Well, the claim I'm making is quite a bit more nuanced than that...

We do not have the kind of knowledge about our own minds; about our own thought and belief; about our own imaginings, experience; worldview; about our own operative influences that I'm talking about simply by virtue of growing up and learning English at the same time. If such knowledge acquisition were that easy, none of us would be wrong.

But yes, we certainly do know how to use certain words in certain situations for specific reasons simply by virtue of growing up and learning English at the same time(we learn the Grammar of certain words by learning how to use them at the right time and place for the right reasons).

What is implied when we say/do is justified by your being able to make the same claims, or see for yourself that I am correct. — Antony Nickles

We may agree upon specific scenarios/situations/circumstances in which "I believe" implies a guess. That's one language game(Grammar?) involving the use of "I believe". It's not the only one.

We are just making what is implicit in saying something, explicit. — Antony Nickles

Right. Sometimes this is quite unproblematic. Could be trivial even.

However, and this is to further labor the point being made...

If we take the words "I believe", when spoken by someone with unfettered confidence that something just happened, and what immediately follows that particular use of "I believe" is nothing other than a description thereof(a belief statement about what happened), it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for us to make a universal claim that all English speakers' use of "I believe" implies a hypothesis about future events.

Do you agree?

Sitting around thinking about what other people's use of some word or phrase implies doesn't do anyone much good at all regarding any of the acceptable uses that are unknown to us. It looks like a recipe for some pretentiousness about another's language use.

Ought we not ask others?
— creativesoul

It is not "other people's use" it is a claim on behalf of everyone. — Antony Nickles

I'm not going to object to the idea that we can acquire knowledge regarding everyone's language use. That is, we can make universal statements about each and every native English speakers' use of "I believe", and those claims about that use can be true of each and every native English speaker. However, it will quite simply not be true if we claim that all native English speakers' use "I believe" in the same way/sense of those words, because they quite clearly do not. Otherwise, we would not have different acceptable senses of the same terms. But we do. So, clearly it is false to say that we(each and every English speaker) uses "I believe" in a manner that implies something about what has not yet happened but is expected to(hypothesis about future events).

Need this be further argued?

Two problems immediately come to mind. First, there are multiple different accepted uses/senses/definitions of the same term, and not all of them are compatible. We know that much the same thing is true regarding phrases as well.
— creativesoul

As I discussed above, Witt will call these the "senses" (as in options) for a concept (like "I know" discussed above), and thus why it is important to fill out a context which differentiates one sense from another. These senses are not endless. — Antony Nickles

Again, understood.

I'm still struggling quite a bit here. I'm trying to wrap my head around what the purpose of this method is? What is achieved? What does it have to do with the historical philosophical problems mentioned in the opening paragraph?

Say we follow the metholodogy to a tee, as precisely as possible. We will arrive at multiple different senses of the same words, each respectively accompanied by their own sets of special circumstances and/or implications(whatever those may be).

What have we done here that is philosophically interesting or relevant aside from parsing out different acceptable uses, albeit in a bit more detail than usual? Surely, this is a method capable of acquiring knowledge about language use, what different people in different situations may or may not mean when they say______. But...

It quite simply cannot be done effectively in an armchair. Can't happen. Sitting around thinking about what other people's use of some word or phrase implies doesn't do anyone much good at all regarding any of the acceptable uses that are unknown to us. It looks like a recipe for some pretentiousness about another's language use.

Ought we not ask others?

By the way, I may have very well misunderstood your response to the bit I offered about "I believe" sometimes being accompanied by uncertainty and sometimes not. To be sure, are you denying that "I believe" can be accompanied by certainty and uncertainty both? Are you denying that "I believe" is sometimes used in a manner that is not a guess?

I did say OLP was analytical philosophy that worked within the tradition. I've also said that it looks at what we might say at a time and place (in context) to see what the ordinary criteria are (the implications, etc.). It does not speak in "ordinary language", nor is it trying to explain skepticism to lay people. — Antony Nickles

Understood. Never implied otherwise.

the abstraction ("divorcing") of statements from their expression removes a context for them, which allows for the creation of criteria for certainty, universality, etc. in general--as in the difference between a "true" (certain, universal) statement and a statement of belief (uncertain, contingent). — Antony Nickles

I had to consciously refrain from criticizing this...

It is one of the historical conventional mistaken practices that paved the way to Gettier; misunderstanding belief, and neglecting to take careful note of the differences I laid out earlier in my refutation of Gettier. It's too tangential for this topic though. So...

I'll leave it here.

True belief statements are true statements. A statement can be certain and false, and uncertain and true. So...

By the way, I am impressed by his treatment and discussion about the use of "voluntary" regarding the argument referenced between Ryle and Austin...

I'm still wrapping my head around the three kinds of statements made about ordinary language, and it seems that grasping that is a key part of rightly understanding the methodology.

Attention to the details of cases as they arise may not provide a quick path to an all-embracing system; but at least it promises genuine instead of spurious clarity...

Genuine clarity between and/or regarding what, exactly?

Two problems immediately come to mind. First, there are multiple different accepted uses/senses/definitions of the same term, and not all of them are compatible. We know that much the same thing is true regarding phrases as well. Secondly, we're still left with the need to further discriminate between these distinct uses.




Regarding the first problem...

Looking at common use is a path which arrives at different, accepted but often incompatible, senses of the same term.

Say we find that some native use of the term "believe" is accompanied by doubt. We can recognize some hesitation from the speaker to proclaim assuredness, certainty, or knowledge because we know what it's like to be uncertain. I'm sure most native speakers of an American English dialect would be perfectly capable of making the right sort of sense of someone else saying "I believe so" when the signs of uncertainty appear within their facial expressions and are supported by body language(shoulder shrugging, perhaps). So, we can agree that uncertainty can and does sometimes accompany the native speaker's use of "I believe". However, that's certainly not the only accepted use. There are common ordinary everyday situations where there is no difference of certainty at all in one's use of "I believe", no more certainty; no less certainty; equally on par with "I know", or "I am certain of it". Doubtlessness.

So, this exercise brings us to the crux of both issues. Clearly, instances of native use alone cannot be expected to be used to further discriminate between philosophical notions and native visual dopple-gangers in any meaningful way whatsoever aside from being used to show that there is a difference between them. There's also differences between different ordinary native uses as well. If we throw out the philosophical notions, we would be throwing out one, or several, of many incompatible meanings/senses/uses/definitions, but we would still be left with others. Upon what ground, by what standard are we further discriminating between different uses, aside from some are native, common, everyday uses and some are not?

Reaching a compatibility standard clearly isn't the aim here, nor is eliminating incompatibility. So what does this method provide us with that no other method has been able to? By what measure to we intend to judge which of these terminological uses is worth saving and which deserves forgetting? Which is more valuable to us, as an accounting practice, and how?

From the Cavell paper "Must We Mean What We say?"...

That what we ordinarily say and mean may have a direct and deep control over what we can philosophically say and mean is an idea which many philosophers find oppressive. It might be argued that in part the oppression results from misunderstanding; that the new philosophy which proceeds from ordinary language is not that different from traditional methods of philosophizing, and that the frequent attacks upon it are misdirected. But I shall not attempt to be conciliatory, both because I think the new philosophy at Oxford is critically different from traditional philosophy, and because I think it is worth trying to bring out their differences as fully as possible. There is, after all, something oppressive about a philosophy which seems to have uncanny information about our most personal philosophical assumptions (those, for example, about whether we can ever know for certain of the existence of the external world, or of other minds; and those we make about favorite distinctions between "the descriptive and the normative", or between matters of fact and matters of language) and which inveterately nags us about them.

Particularly oppressive when that, philosophy seems so often merely to nag and to try no special answers to the questions which possess us — unless it be to suggest that we sit quietly in a room. Eventually, I suppose, we will have to look at that sense of oppression itself: such feelings can come from a truth about ourselves which we are holding off.

I've bolded and italicized the portions above which piqued my interest.

Whether or not we can know for certain of the existence of the external world is the kind of consideration that can only be arrived at via very complex self-referencing language use(metacognition). Ordinary people do not become paralyzed by such contemplations. Ask a non-philosophical thinker whether or not an external worlds exists, or if other people have minds(thoughts, beliefs, and human experiences), and they will surely look at you as if you're mad/crazy/insane, and rightly so, because you are not far from it if you believe that doubting the existence of an external world or other minds is warranted. When such an argument comes from an otherwise seemingly intelligent person, it smacks of dishonesty and/or insincerity.

Sure, there are certainly valid logical arguments that lead to having/holding such doubt. What this shows me, beyond a reasonable doubt, is that an argument can be perfectly valid and false; that validity(coherence) alone is insufficient for truth, and as a result of my knowing that much, validity alone is also insufficient for belief/assent/warrant. Hence, logical possibility alone does not warrant belief.

Who assumes such things to begin with? If the charge is made that I am assuming an external world, I would respond by saying that if it were not for an external world, there could be no such a thing as making a mistake, or being mistaken, or unexpected results/consequences, or being caught off guard, or being pleasantly surprised, or experiencing cognitive dissonance, or being in a state of confusion, etc. I grant the possibility and look to see where it would lead. It leads to claims that are in direct conflict with what happens on an everyday basis. If it were true that there was no such thing as an external world, there could be no such things as just described.

But there are.

And what does it even mean to say that we assume that others have minds? To whom would an author stating such a thing even be talking to? Both of these are laughable questions/consideration; patently absurd on their face. Again, who assumes such a thing? If it were not for other minds, and an external world, there could be no such thing as misunderstanding. There could be no correction thereof. There could be no shared meaning. There could be no language use, etc. It is not that we assume that there is an external world and other minds. To quite the contrary, it's that the existence of an external world including other minds is the only way to make good sense of our own human experience and/or everyday lives.






So...

Cavell actually grants far more than I would to begin with regarding those two, by granting the claim that such things as external worlds and other minds are assumed. Although I do strongly agree with much of the criticism of philosophy that s/he puts forth in the paper(I'm still mulling it over), and I also agree with the idea that philosophical discourse has become so disconnected from the lives of ordinary everyday language use, that's it's become so obtuse to everyday language users, and lost touch with everyday life as a result(and lost it's practical application as well). Such historical philosophical 'problems' have led to the demise of value and respect for philosophy and philosophers. That's a sad situation, given that all governments are based upon considerations about how to best govern a nation of ordinary people, and that is nothing but the moral belief of very few being imbued with legal power to impose those beliefs on the many.

All that being said, I do not think that everyday common language use, is the standard-bearer when it comes to acquiring an adequate understanding or knowledge of the human condition; our own minds; our own capability to form, have, and/or hold thoughts and beliefs; or the ability to have what we call "a human experience".

Common language use is how philosophy began, mind you. To labor the point, I certainly agree that it's gone horribly wrong somewhere along the line. Actually, that's an understatement, because it is my considered opinion that it's gone wrong in several different ways, in several different respects, all of them stemming from not getting our own thought and belief right to begin with.

So saying the written word ‘exists’ without us doesn’t tell us exactly what it is that is existing. — Joshs

I thought the argument was clear.

You claimed that standards do not have any existence outside of their use. I argued that they are not always used, despite the fact that they are written. Either written standards do not exist by virtue of being written, or standards have existence outside of their use.

A law of Reason is an imperative or instruction to do or believe something. — Bartricks

So, by the way you define a law of Reason, there is a God. In other words, as you've noted, instructions presuppose an instructor. If the bone of contention is whether or not God exists, you've assumed precisely what needs to be better argued for, proven, and/or justified.

Meta either cannot or will not set aside his framework...
— creativesoul

I do this intentionally, to demonstrate to people like Antony who take agreement, "our coming together", "our shared lives" as a fundamental premise, that their premise is false. — Metaphysician Undercover

Weird that you'd hold up a physical permanent connection such as conjoined twins as your example of what ought count as "our shared lives". Quite sad that you'd use that example to justify your claim that their premiss is false. Ironic that you'd use common language in order to do so.

:rofl:

Well, the Mac I use is not that antiquated, but thank you very much for that providing link.

In general, without yet having read the article you've provided(I'll report back after having read through it enough that I feel confident that I've understood it), the benefit of OLP seems to me to be two-fold. First, folk like Moore show us how certain philosophical tenets/approaches(Russell's???) lead to absurdity, such as not being able to effectively explain why we cannot say something true about ourselves like "it's raining outside, but I do not believe it", when we've no issue at all saying much the same thing about another. Or why so many people refuse to understand that simply knowing what "this is a hand" means proves beyond any reasonable doubt that there is an external world(Witt's private language argument aims at much the same thing, but he struggled with the infinite regress of justification as his remarks throughout OC show).

Another broader benefit leads us to consider specific situational circumstantial context aside from just the statements and/or words being used as a method or means to correctly translate and/or better understand another's meaningful language use. This bit has a few things in common with folk like Heiddy, as well as speech act theorists. It expands the scope of our metacognitive endeavors and considerations seeking to understand how meaning works. I understand that many reject the very notion of one single overarching theory of meaning, simply because there has yet to have been an acceptable one(one that is amenable to evolutionary progression, and is somehow relevant and/or explanatorily powerful enough to exhaust the acceptable parts of all the rest, while also being able to explain the unacceptable parts).

There are numerous papers written that show the shortcomings of conventional academic understanding when it comes to an acceptable theory of meaning. This shortfall has produced many many notions that i find personally unacceptable, but I do not want to get sidetracked here.




I'm puzzled by the lack of clear unambiguous distinction being drawn between statements and belief statements when discussing things like Moore's paradox or Gettier.

Moore's paradox shows that self-contradiction is a natural occurring limit upon our belief, and that there is a difference between accounts of belief and belief. One cannot believe that both statements are true when talking about oneself, but we've no issue believing or saying that it's raining outside but another does not believe it is(both are true regarding another).

The reason/acceptable description/explanation for this has gone largely unnoticed as best I can tell. There is a clear distinction that needs to be drawn and maintained between the truth conditions of a statement(when spoken by an individual that believes the statement) and the statement itself - when take in general - completely divorced from the individual believing speaker. Sometimes, they are remarkably different.

"It's raining outside" is a true statement if it's raining outside. "It's raining outside" is believed true if one believes that it is raining outside and knows how to talk in such a way. Thus, one cannot believe both, that "It's raining outside, and I do not believe that it is(raining outside)".

With Gettier, the difference between the truth conditions of a statement and the truth conditions of a belief(statement) expressed with the same marks is remarkably undeniably different. So, in this way, what one believes does indeed play a determinative role in what it takes for that belief to be true.

"The man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job" when taken as a statement of Smith's own belief has remarkable different truth conditions than that very same statement when completely divorced from Smith. When considering Smith's belief, "the man with ten coins in his pocket" is Smith himself. Smith did not get the job. Smith's belief was not true.

The same approach shows the shortcoming of "Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona". When considering Smith's belief that "Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" is true, we can also confidently know that Smith does not believe that Brown is in Barcelona. Rather, if he believes the disjunction is true, it is because he believes Jones owns a Ford. The only thing that makes his belief true is if Jones owns a Ford, whereas the disjunction is true if either of the disjuncts is... again only when we take that statement completely divorced from the believing speaker.

These, and many more examples of philosophical problems are the result of not getting meaning right to begin with. Meaning arises/emerges within belief formation. Getting meaning right requires getting belief right.

So far 'we've' not.

OLP helps by virtue of expanding the focus upon more than just the words.

Must be closer to needing a new computer to play around with. This one is corrupted, I suppose. This forum is about the only place that it is possible to successfully navigate...

Good enough for now, aside from the fact that I cannot open all linked things... some though. Not this time. Thanks for trying.

Meta either cannot or will not set aside his framework, and thus either cannot or will not understand another's if it is too different from the one he works from. Arguing over definitions for the sake of doing so... never getting to the comparison/contrast between the consequences thereof.

Do you have another link to the paper that's more friendly towards my antiquated mac?

Regarding ordinary language...

I'm all for striving to use as much common language as possible to explain something or other. The simpler the better assuming no loss in meaningful explanation. I'm also inclined to believe that Ockham's razor is worthy of guiding principle status, so...
— creativesoul

If it matters, not at all what OLP is about. — Antony Nickles

It certainly matters. I'm in dire need of getting over the the name of the method, and looking more towards understanding the benefits thereof a bit better than I currently do/can.

Not interested. I've argued extensively on this matter.

Beliefs are not the sort of things that have spatiotemporal location.

Regarding the rules of language games...

One need not know or interpret the rules to learn them. The knowing is shown in the using. We do not call trees "cats". Etc. We learn that trees are called "trees" by drawing correlations between "tree" and trees. Learning the rules is embedded in language acquisition. We learn that "Shut the door" can have several different meanings, depending upon the speakers' tone, facial expressions, volume, etc. The different contextual elements are part of the different meanings(uses) 'tied to' the same words. The same words are part of several different uses. We learn about the differences in meaning by virtue of drawing correlations between the same words and the different contextual elements(tone, volume, facial expressions, etc.)

We do not make promises unless we intend to make the world match our words.

The whole point of interaction theory is that standards don’t have any existence outside of their use... — Joshs

Being written is not equivalent to being used when it comes to standards. Being written is most certainly a way of existing. Interaction theory, if your report is accurate, is wrong.
— creativesoul

We only know what is written by reading it , and reading involves interpretation. Each time we return to a written page to read it , we interpret it slightly differently than the last time. So saying the written word ‘exists’ without us doesn’t tell us exactly what it is that is existing. — Joshs

Moving the goalposts.

Written standards can exist outside of being used, and be perfectly meaningful in doing so. They can be unambiguous and not followed. If they are not being followed, they are not being used, unless to show how they are not being followed. If they are written, not being followed, and not being used to show that they are not being followed, then they exist despite being not being used. Former standards fit here.

Look no farther than the United States Government for real life examples of standards existing in writing but no one following them, or using them to show that no one is following them.

Neither.

:brow:

Witt did not have a good grasp upon human thought and belief. Otherwise, he would not be looking for "hinge propositions" as the 'bedrock'. "All doubt is belief-based" was spot on though.

Regarding ordinary language...

I'm all for striving to use as much common language as possible to explain something or other. The simpler the better assuming no loss in meaningful explanation. I'm also inclined to believe that Ockham's razor is worthy of guiding principle status, so...

The whole point of interaction theory is that standards don’t have any existence outside of their use... — Joshs

Being written is not equivalent to being used when it comes to standards. Being written is most certainly a way of existing. Interaction theory, if your report is accurate, is wrong.

That's what Witt pointed out at the beginning of PI, it's as if a child needs to already know a language in order to learn a language.
— Metaphysician Undercover

He offers this as an example of a common philosophical misconception of language, not as an endorsement of the idea. — Luke

That reminds me of the target of Davidson's paper on malapropisms... what counts as having a language and/or successful communication, conventionally speaking.

Uhhhh... this is the opposite of understanding. — Antony Nickles

In order to understand another thinker, another worldview, another's world, their meaning, their behaviours, their aims, their desires, their fears, their states of mind, etc., we must attribute much the same meaning to much the same things by virtue of drawing much the same sorts of correlations that they've already drawn. It is best when ours match theirs as closely as is humanly possible. That's when we've acquired the best possible understanding; when we've drawn many or most of the same correlations; made all the right connections; associated all the same things one to another. Complete understanding of another's language use requires omniscience, and amounts to drawing each and every correlation that the other has drawn throughout their lives. It's an unattainable criterion. Good thing omniscience isn't required.

When looking at use, when contemplating another viewpoint, when seeing certain words articulated in a novel or curious way, understanding results in thinking anew, but requires the ability to carefully consider another's viewpoint.

We can intentionally suspend our judgement regarding whether or not some position or another counts as rational; or whether or not some statement is true; or some language use meaningful(lacking self-contradiction); or some thought, belief, and/or method practical; etc. We suspend our judgment as a means for carefully considering another's viewpoint; for grasping where another is coming from; what another means by something they've spoken and/or written; especially in order to understand another viewpoint that is itself seemingly contrary to our own in some way...

This is what it takes for understanding another's philosophical position(worldview) when key terms are being used quite differently, or when otherwise familiar things have been shown to have had quite different meanings tied to them by strangers.

Unless we are capable of wanting to hear from another, unless we are capable of satisfying that urge, unless we are capable of carefully considering another's worldview, unless we are capable of entertaining - sometimes said to be "for argument's sake" - we will never quite understand the other. Unless we begin our conversations with strangers with an attitude that everyone deserves a certain modicum of respect, it will be impossible to hear them out as thoroughly as is needed to understand in as complete a manner as possible.

That is exactly how it always happens. Acquiring an understanding, that is...





Regarding the world being always already interpreted...

That which is interpreted is already meaningful. If that were not the case, there could be no such thing as misinterpreting. This is a pivotal tenet on my view.

Our original worldview is almost entirely adopted, and all the stuff you learn to talk about is already meaningful to those with whom you learn to talk about it with. In this way, the world is always already meaningful, if and only if, the world is equal to word(to what one can talk about, what has been talked about, or what can be talked about). It's not.

Putting on the glasses of language use... and nodding to Heiddy's valiant attempt at naming all the different effects/affects language use has upon us...

The way we see the world is effected/affected by the way we've learned to take account of it and/or ourselves. Of that, there is no reasonable doubt left to be had. Until we borrow another's eyes we cannot understand them for it takes borrowing the eyes of another in order to see the world as they see it. We put ourselves in an other person's shoes by virtue of listening to them and imagining if we walked in those very same shoes. Shoes are a metaphorical device here. Walking in another's shoes is understanding what sorts of things have effected/affected an other and in what ways. It's living through the exact same sets of circumstances, as if you were them, by virtue of drawing correlations between what's happened and the effects/affects of those happenings. This is done by virtue of one method alone.

Listening.

...the picture that everything said is tied to a "meaning" or "intention" is the misconception that Austin and Witt spend their entire books overcoming, so maybe I'm not going to get you to see that here. — Antony Nickles

Surely everything said is meaningful at least to the creature saying it, even if it sounds like gibberish to everyone else. Everything said after-all can be said again. No? If nothing is being said, then there is no question of whether or not it is meaningful.

I do not like the phrase "tied to" unless it amounts to having a relation to, and if that's the case, then surely there's no issue here with saying that everything thought, believed, spoken, written, uttered, and/or otherwise expressed is meaningful to the individual creature capable of thought, belief, and/or language use(experience).

We're pretty far apart...

Overlooking the idea of "ordinary language use"... — Antony Nickles

Seems quite an irrational move, remarkably so even, given that ordinary language is one of many irrevocably crucial elemental constituents of ordinary language philosophy.

One would think/believe.

It is an OLP claim that structurally, categorically, the process and identity of believing is not the same as that of thinking. — Antony Nickles

We can think about something without believing it. So, they are different. However, the process of believing is fundamentally the same as thinking. Both consist entirely of meaningful correlations drawn between different things. It is only when one becomes aware of their own fallibility that the two are no longer the same. It is only when we begin to consider whether or not some thought or belief are true, that there can be a difference between thought and belief(that we can think of something without believing it). Generally that is some proposition or another or perhaps carefully contemplating some foreign linguistic framework/conceptual scheme.


I'm not even sure how many different acceptable uses/senses/meanings are attributed to the words "ordinary language philosophy". Thinking about which popular philosopher is and which popular philosopher is not rightfully called some name or another presupposes a criteria or standard for what counts as such. The same problematic scenario underlies many philosophical discussions, and the following questions ought be asked with regard to so many of our own conceptions, notions, ideas, thoughts, and/or beliefs about the world and/or ourselves.

Does the name in question pick out that which existed in it's entirety prior to our picking it out of this world to the exclusion of all else? Are we the final arbiter; do we have the final say, regarding what counts as an "insert name here"?

It's worth mention that the ground of a "no true scotsman" is a refusal to accept that other people use the same name to pick out very different things(what counts as, or the set of characteristics that one must have in order to be rightfully called "a scotsman" - or - the referent of "scotsman", in this case).

However...

It quite simply does not follow from the fact that there is more than one use for the same term that all uses have equal footing, are equally justified, are equally warranted, have equal explanatory power, do the same thing, afford us the same capabilities, etc.

So...

What is the benefit of our taking such a careful account of, and/or placing such high regard upon ordinary language use?

Well...

Our account of everyday ordinary language use must meet certain standards in order for it to be true. Those standards are nothing less than the way that different people across the globe use the same terms.

What's philosophically interesting to me is that we begin to use language as a means to communicate our thoughts, beliefs, needs, wants, desires, expectations, etc. long before we begin taking account of our already having done so; long before we begin talking about doing so; long before we begin to consider our own thought and belief as a subject matter in and of itself. So, in this way, ordinary common use has primacy in that our account of that use can be quite wrong.

Has the conventional academic use "belief" become something quite different than the ordinary everyday use(s) of those same marks? Does academic convention pick out the same things as everyday ordinary people? If academia has altered the use of ordinary terms, and the different senses of the term are incompatible with one another, if the one negates the other, then which sense warrants our assent?

By what measure do we then further discriminate between the two incommensurate notions/ideas?

How are we to possibly determine which of two equally coherent uses of "belief" is better? Coherency is the result of consistent terminological use. If all use of "thought" were different to all use of "belief", then it would not ever be the case that either "thought" or "belief" could be used without meaningful loss. Much more often than not, they can.

Thinking that a mouse ran behind a tree is belief about the location of the mouse. Believing that a mouse ran behind a tree is thinking about the location of the mouse.

That the connection between logic and reality is a deeply contested issue in contemporary philosophy? — Wayfarer

Presupposing...

...that there is only one connection between logic and reality...

...is a problem.

Hey Jeep!

:smile:

Hope life is treating you kindly.

If legitimacy is attributed to different things that follow the rules that govern how we behave in our lives(the laws of the land), if it is what we say about things recognized within a legal framework, then illegitimacy is what we say of things lacking in those regards.

It says nothing at all about genuine, authentic, or real.

Your use of "conversely" was a bit of rhetoric, as is the purported 'definition' of that use of "legitimacy".