There's also the issue of metaphor itself. What exactly is a metaphor ? If human cognition is fundamentally metaphorical, it's an important question. Roughly I relate it to analogy. I sometimes try to open my front door (where I live) by pushing a button on my car keys. The mind exploits skill in one domain in a new domain. Something like that. — plaque flag

Good point. I tend to think of metaphor as a kind of pattern matching process. Interestingly when people have object recognition deficiencies in dementia, they start to use remote controls as telephones and see the kitchen as the bathroom, etc. The metaphors begin to blur and yet you can often see the patterns which inform them. It makes me wonder just what it is that allows us to keep things straight. Someone with dementia can speak like a poet - 'Turn the sun down, my feelings are burning.' This means, switch off the light, it's too bright. (My dad said this at 97)

No. Hinge propositions need not be agreed on, nor need agreement depend on hinge propositions. They are distinct notions.

The remainder of what you say in that paragraph relies on the notion that beliefs must be "rational", whatever that is, apparently something like having a justification. But there is no reason to think this so. Indeed, the point of hinge propositions it that they are believed and yet need not be justified. — Banno

Hence the point is not to understand language but to use it. — Banno

Isn't this leading towards anti-realism? It also sounds a bit like 'shut up and calculate'. That said, this has generally been my utilitarian or pragmatic approach to language.

Isn't one understanding of later Wittgenstien that he was an anti-realist? I am no expert of course, but doesn't he seem to argue that language is social practice? This seems close to a constructivist understanding of how language works. No doubt there are debates amongst the cognoscenti.

But I'm a little confused why he cast this in terms of language and how the claims are made. Presumably because verification is off the table from the start? And the claim that there is something wrong with the very words in which idealism, say, is proposed -- that *is* the old logical positivist diagnosis, that you're not even really saying anything.

On the other hand, if you don't think of language as the home of claims about reality, there's no particular problem with metaphysics. If your endorsing panpsychism gets you a job or gets you laid, it's just another day at the office for language. — Srap Tasmaner

Nice conclusion. Of course logical positivism is untenable based on this too. In the end what all this seems to amount to (as I read it) is that for a non-realist our conversations are doomed, regardless of all the facts and rationalism we seek to muster in favour of our particular fancies. Our language doesn't mirror reality, it is just a tool which humans use to communicate and while it has many useful applications to get things done - metaphysical truth isn't one of them.

Interesting that you raise getting laid - one could almost summarise this by saying - if naturalism and evolution are accurate, they highlight what it takes for a species to thrive. Truth doesn't play a key role in evolution - it's fitness and survival (as per Donald Hoffman's recent theories). This could take us to the venerable evolutionary argument against naturalism. But that's a digression. :wink:

Anyway, I'm sure there's little stomach for political discussion in what's otherwise a nice bit of effete curiosity... — Isaac

I think the beauty of Lawson’s promise (which I still don’t understand) is that if there’s no realist theory of language then discussions about effete topics like idealism and panpsychism bite the dust for good. That would be an interesting development.

We don't seem to be gaining any ground against Wayfarer's statement that "there is no countervailing ideology to consumerism". — BC

As I wrote earlier, minimalism (simple living) is defiantly one example. It's a significant, worldwide anti-consumerist philosophy and I know quite a few folk who follow this practice. I met one person recently who refuses to own more than 150 objects - including clothing. She is a successful writer. YouTube has many videos on minimalism, from personal journeys in anti-consumerism, to lengthy documentaries on the benefits of minimalism. Some of it is virtue signalling tosh, but you'll find this anywhere. I've been a minimalist myself in a modest way for many years.

So, I'm sorry to intervene. — Alkis Piskas

Not at all, I enjoyed your contribution. We're all in this together.

I can't believe you wrote about something w/o having anything in mind! — Alkis Piskas

I'm generally interested in philosophical ideas - these often have no bearing on what I believe. Nor should they. I'm simply interested in what ideas are out there.

I also see that you switched the focus to idealism. — Alkis Piskas

I didn't really. It's in the original quote from Lawson in the OP. The reason this question about language is interesting (if I understand it properly) is in determining whether it is even possible to talk meaningfully about ontology.

And that never actually changes. Language, world, self --- we never achieve full understanding of any of these, so we go on our entire lives in with this partial understanding, just as when we were infants. And it works. — Srap Tasmaner

Probably right, similar to @plaque flags take.

How does language map onto the world? The obvious place to look is children, who have to learn how they work, how the world works, and how language works, and figure out how it all connects. — Srap Tasmaner

Agree, but I guess this is a pragmatic understanding of language, which doesn't address the question of realism. It seems to say, just get on with living and perhaps this takes us back to your statement above.

On the reality issue, I think you already said something valuable -- that it tends to function religiously in certain contexts. IMO, examining the meanings of 'real' is great part of the greater examination of meaning. How do these power words function ? We could also talk about the meaning of 'God' or 'truth' or 'reference' -- endlessly. I started a thread about 'semantic finitude' on this topic, as you may recall, because I don't think we can escape the fog, get a perfect grip, only a better one, or at least a new one, so that we don't get bored. — plaque flag

Yes, good points. I tend to keep coming back to similar notions of 'semantic finitude' too.

What is it to say ? This may get us in Heidegger territory. What is being ? What is meaning ? It's like trying to make darkness visible, but maybe it's just a ghost story. Are humans hilariously ignorant in all of their hubris about fundamental things ? Or are they high on the fumes of not-exactly-questions ? I don't know, but I lean toward some fundamental ignorance and vulnerability which it mostly pays to ignore (or doesn't pay to not ignore) (unless you were a existentialist who sold some books.) — plaque flag

This may well be the case, which either amuses me or makes me sad, depending on my mood.

As someone how holds imperfect knowledge in this realm (in all realms, actually), at this point in our history I find the quoted argument for the most part valid. — javra

Cool.

Nevertheless, for those of use don't remove the objective idealism from out of Peirce's metaphysics of objective idealism (with his notion of Agapism, for example, very much included), his is one example of a description of reality which can - I so far think - at the very least facilitate a "a credible realist theory of language" that thereby makes sense of the very metaphysics addressed - one wherein the physical world is effete mind in relation to which propositions can either be true or false. — javra

I have no idea what any of this huge sentence means. Sorry.

When you ask "How Does Language Map onto the World?" what kind of "world" you have in mind? — Alkis Piskas

I have no world in mind. I am simply interested in what others think of this matter. If this means they need to describe a particular world before they talk about the mapping process, so much the better.

Now, you have said the you have made some modest reading about this subject. And you have selected the views of Hilary Lawson as most appealing to you. Yet, these views only lead to a kind of impasse making you wonder if the problem of creating a realist(ic) theory of language is insurmountable. — Alkis Piskas

I chose Lawson because he put what he thought was a key problem for ontology in plain English - as per below -

metaphysical frameworks, such as idealism and panpsychism, which were derided as baseless nonsense by the positivists of the past, are back in new forms. But such claims cannot be taken as a true description of an ultimate reality for there is no credible realist theory of language that would make sense of such claims. — Tom Storm

I am wondering what people who study philosophy think of this claim as it strikes me as an interesting argument and might breathe some new life into debates about idealism.

I have no commitments to Lawson - I think he is interesting because he comes at this after reading Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Rorty, and others and he has put forth a non-realist metaphysics, which I happen to find intriguing. I am curious about phenomenology and post-modernism. On matters of philosophy, I am interested in what others think and why. This is not about me trying to formulate my own ontology.

Interesting. I see you and ↪T Clark as both talking about intuition as it has developed for each of you. Could you elaborate on what key differences might be? — wonderer1

I don't think so. For me intuition is just a type of sense making. It brings me no joy. It's just a brute fact of interacting with others. It reminds me a little of watching a movie you haven't seen before but knowing where the story will go and who will do what. No doubt this is based on identifiable patterns (gained by experience) that we can interpret quickly without fully understanding the process. Having worked closely with people for many years, I tend to be able to read them quickly and understand their process. But it is not foolproof and sometimes I am wrong.

You get ideas by opening up your mind and seeing what comes out. If you do it with other people, it's called brainstorming. — T Clark

I suspect we are thinking of intuition differently.

For me, in the work I do (moderately reliable) intuition means being able to grasp almost immediately if someone has a hidden weapon on them or not and if they might be violent or not. Or if they are experiencing delusional thinking or psychoses. Or knowing if someone can do a very challenging job or not within seconds of meeting them in a job interview. I can generally tell when someone is suicidal whether they will act on it or not, based on intuition. I've gotten to the point when I meet a new worker I can often tell within a minute or two how long they will last in the field and what path brought them here - a relative, lived experience, etc. I think there are probably key indicators we can read but you need to be 'open' to them in some way and have relevant experience.

I should be out moving soil, but... — Banno

I'm typing this while I'm liaising with the government about funding for the end of financial year acquittals. It's like shoveling dirt but not as much fun...

Or that the difference between realism and anti-realism is more one of choice of grammar than profound ontology? — Banno

This. We jump to profound ontology rather quickly sometimes.

It just seems to me that certain ethical statements are true - that kicking puppies for entertainment is wrong, for example — Banno

I'd like to agree and mostly do. What does it rest on other than the obvious?

I've edited together my notes on realism and antirealism in an attempt to set out my view. — Banno

Thank you and very interesting. I shall mull over them.

I've usually characterised my own ontology as realist. I've argued against typical examples of anti-realism such as pragmatic theory, logical positivism, transcendental idealism and Berkeley's form of idealism. I have however also defended a constructivist view of mathematics, an anti-realist position; and sometimes off-handedly rejected realism in , only to change my mind later. — Banno

Your change of mind here is worth noting. What brings you back to realism in ethics and aesthetics?

I'm amenable to giving consideration to a paraconsistent anti-realism. So I don't think the “middle way” is absurd. The question may be were it is appropriate to apply anti-realism rather than a blanket acceptance or denial. Realism is about there being stuff. Whether our statements about that stuff are true or false is incidental to realism. Whether we understand things about that stuff is also incidental to realism. A realist might well adopt a three-valued logic with regard to statements. Nothing in realism locks the realist into a particular logical system. — Banno

Useful. I don't think this is well understood. In other words, people may be making hasty judgements.

So the argument usually portrayed as realism vs antirealism is perhaps better thought of as about whether we should best make use of a bivalent logic, or use some paraconsistent logic. And for my money the best way to talk about the various bits and pieces of our everyday use is with a bivalent logic.

That might not be the case in other specific circumstances, nor in ethics, aesthetics or mathematics. — Banno

I suspect ethics and aesthetics (and possibly maths do function differently. I personally don't know how you could talk about aesthetic realism, the notion of beauty, say, unless you were a type of Platonist. I don't really understand the logic models you are referencing well enough to make comments on the first point.

The only western institutional practice of asceticism of which I am aware is the practice of poverty among some religious. Most nuns and monks may have little personal property, but collectively they have access to substantial material resources. There are a few monastic communities who are poor by choice, poor in resources, poor in food, clothing, and shelter. — BC

Yes. I am close to a couple of Catholic sisters and for each of them, everything they own fits into one suitcase. They essentially have a couple of changes of clothing and a few personal items. Of course the church helps with accommodation. Both have jobs in the community which help pay for the order's running costs.

I am envious of anyone who can fit all they own into a suitcase. All my stuff would fit into a small room, but I still have much to learn about minimalism.

Intuition is the immediate response you get on a subject based on experience, prior knowledge and culture. In short it’s pretty biased.

As for its accuracy, tests show intuition seems to right about 50% of the time, so you’d have better odds through guessing — Darkneos

I suspect this right - I have certainly had those stats pointed out in seminars on organizational pschology.



One complication with intuition is that it is an umbrella term to describe a range of different, albeit similar phenomena. The intuition of a doctor about matters of health are going to be far more accurate than the intuitions of a photocopier mechanic. Intuition benefits enormously form a person's background, age, experience, education. It practice, it may be worth separating experience and wisdom from sheer guesswork. The more we have seen and done, the more likely our intuitive speculations about something will be informed by a kind of wisdom.

In my experience, intuition is much more than a recognition of a priori or logical truths, it's a fundamental way of knowing. — T Clark

Indeed. Although 'way of knowing' might be too strong for me. I'd probably frame it more in terms of an approach to sense making. Or something like that.

That's the essence of intuition for me - based on 71 years of experience, I have a feel for how the world works, how people work. I have a body of knowledge that I've picked up mostly without formally learning it - just from observation and experience. — T Clark

I think this is right.

What do you think of this? I've noticed that intuition seems to work better when you are feeling well and happy. There's something about the mindset required that for me makes it less accurate or harder to pull off when you are feeling down or troubled.

The plight of workers in general isn't prominent, and it will probably be a cold day in hell before public media gives extended attention to the exploitation of the working class by the predatory rich. One rarely hears much about the history of organized labor, unions, unionization, or corporate and legislative efforts to block unionization. The increased immiseration of large parts of the working class--and its class-related cause--is another neglected topi that affects working men, women, blacks, whites, latinos, and asians. — BC

:up: That's for sure.

:up:

If all reporting is biased, does this mean that all reporting is equally biased? — hypericin

All reporting comes from a point of view - some more so than others. If we are fortunate, it is the point of view of the robust journalist who may work hard to be fair in the reporting. Or, less auspiciously, it may be reporting paid for by a media owner, with a vested interest in describing a particular account of the world. But all reporting is in the business of selecting and highlighting that which the reporter (or news service) believes is important - to imagine that this can be value free would be unrealistic.

But why should our cognition's form be fixed ? — plaque flag

Interesting. What do you have in mind - evolution or deliberate transformation?

About the aliens: How would Kant understand our understanding of their physics ? Would it necessarily be counterintuitive or false for us ? Despite its effectiveness ? — plaque flag

In my sketch here I am imagining that we (Kant and us) would not be able to assess the effectiveness of the physics on the basis that we have no frame of reference for it. This is just one of those preposterous hypotheticals which is of limited application. :wink:

The Greek term logos gives us a better sense of the problem then 'language'. What is at issue is the logic of saying, a logos of logos. The ability to give a comprehensive account. — Fooloso4

There can be no comprehensive account of being without a comprehensive account of non-being. But what is other is without limit and cannot be comprehended. On the one hand this means that there can never be a comprehensive account of the whole, but on the other, it encourages an openness to what might be; beyond our limits of comprehension. — Fooloso4

I got you. Thanks.

Put your hand in boiling water for a few seconds. Can this pain be doubted? — Astrophel

The pain perhaps not, but is this any more convincing of a material reality than Dr Johnson attempting to refute Berkeley by kicking a stone?

So, rather than saying that things in themselves do not exist in space and time, he could have said that they do not exist in cognitive space and time — Janus

Oh nice..

We can imagine augmentation of the senses we are familiar with, but I don't think we can imagine entirely different senses. — Janus

I agree we can't image the different senses, but can't we imagine that they might have an entirely different dimensionality to inhabit? As 'off limits' to us as the hypothetical noumena.

The very idea of things in themselves suggests difference and duration, which seems to depend on the ideas of space and time. — Janus

Indeed. One gets the feeling that at some point we just have to use inadequate terms to give an impression of what is meant because there simply isn't the vocabulary or conceptual framework to explore it. We are stuck with 'us' to speak of 'them'...

According to general relativity that isn't the case. The laws of physics do explain how we process reality (partly, rest is neuroscience). — Darkneos

Could be. I don't know if this is true and it is contested space so all I'm doing is following the speculations without commitment.

IF anything science demonstrates that our intuition isn't a good measure of reality. — Darkneos

Certainly - although I understand it sometimes took intuition to formulate a hypothesis science later demonstrated.

It just seems impossible to us that possible experience could fail to be either spatial or temporal or both. I suppose we could deny that this is synthetic a priori and say instead that it is analytic, in the sense that only spatial or temporally given phenomena count as experiences. — Janus

Perhaps a silly question - but if, as Kant and subsequent others suggest, space and time are built into our cognitive apparatus and not the universe , does this not suggest that the laws of physics are a reflection of how we process reality, not reality as it is in itself (the ineffable noumena). And does it follow from this that hypothetical sophisticated aliens who do not utilize human cognition might have developed an entirely different and efficacious alternative to our physics? A physics which appears to map onto their world the way ours appears to map onto ours? And there's the possibility that even this account of reality, however it might appear, is still just an appearance...

One of my all-time favourite Buddhist texts was subtitled 'Seeking truth in a time of chaos'. Don't loose sight of the fact that modernity - actually, post-modernity - is chaotic. There's a lot of turmoil, vastly incompatible opinions and worldviews all jostling one another for prominence. Learn to live with it, but I recommend not trying to tame the waters. It's beyond any of us to to that. — Wayfarer

I hear you.

Each side stands both together with and apart from the other. There is not one without the other.

Ultimately, there is neither ‘this or that’ but ‘this and that’. The Whole is not reducible to One. The whole is indeterminate.

And yet we do separate this from that. Thinking and saying are dependent on making just such distinctions. — Fooloso4

Thank you for this, but I'm not sure I follow. What are you saying this tells us about language? That its relationship with the world is one of an irreducible dyad? Can you expand this point a little?

Cool. I noticed there is a George Kelly Society. I've read about him, but not in any detail. I'll follow this up. Thanks.

In other words, logical norms are legitimate, but the 'rhetoric' of power is overwhelming. I can't afford to not use a money-making war-winning algorithm, even if I don't understand it. In our complex economy, we are constantly forced to specialists on topics we don't have time to learn about ourselves. As apokrisis mentioned elsewhere, it costs energy to ask questions.

So maybe philosophers are a mostly ignored priesthood, who might as well be stampcollectors in the context of the way we live now. IMO, politicians are junkfood 'applied' philosophers who are nevertheless effective precisely through easily understood oversimplifications. — plaque flag

Yes, I think I see this and agree. As I said earlier, most of us probably recognize we are tied to a world of ideas and platforms built by our ancestors. But we take this as a given and move on. We don't have the disposition for exploration, nor the foundational knowledge to be of any use in unpicking those ideas and imagining alternatives. Except perhaps is a strictly transactional way through incremental improvements in politics and how we conduct our businesses. Or something like that.

As someone who works in the field of mental health, you may appreciate the fact that every major shift in approach to psychotherapy is directly linked to the outcome of these rarified debates. — Joshs

Yes, I do appreciate this and I understand something of the source material. We know our ideas can be tracked back to other ideas. What I am referring to however is that most of us don't have the inclination to 'look under the hood and tinker with the engine.' :wink:

It also allows us to see the revolutionary paradigm shifts from one era of science to the next as an improvement. This is how Rorty puts it in ‘ What Do You Do When They Call You a 'Relativist'?’ — Joshs

Cool. Thanks for the essay.

I guess Rorty argues similarly by saying (my paraphrase) that all of our values are contingent on other values and so on forever, without the possibility of a final resting place or source.
— Tom Storm

That’s a cartoon version of relativism that Rorty often made fun of , and which is why he rejected the label of relativist. — Joshs

Wasn't meant to be a cartoon, it's simply what I hear when I read him put it like this:

There is nothing to be known about anything except an initially large, and forever expandable, web of relations to other things. Everything that can serve as a term of relation can be dissolved into another set of relations, and so on for ever. There are, so to speak, relations all the way down, all the way up, and all the way out in every direction: you never reach something which is not just one more nexus of relations.

- Contingency, Irony and Solidarity


It's not my intention to misrepresent him.

Within a given cultural , ethical or scientific milieu, there is a certain dynamic stability of shared values which makes possible agreement on matters of common concern. This is why scientists are able to reach consensus, technologists are able to build machines, there can be agreement on legal matters. — Joshs

I'm happy to hear it.

Yes, it has transcended its origins. I like it as an undifferentiated cheap shot about pointless questions.

So I ask again: what should we do if neuroscience still hasn't explained consciousness 1,000 years from now? — RogueAI

Perhaps the problem will remain forever unsolved, like the one about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. :razz:

Are you asking if we can dispense with morality? I think we do when we look at ourselves naturalistically, anthropologically. — frank

No, it was a provocation about the relativistic dimensions of postmodern thinking. But your point is interesting.

Seems to me that if one were to follow antirealist ideas into ethics, one would be setting aside any such ethical truths, just as for ontology. Putin, not Christ, is the consequent. — Banno

And given Putin' s war is blessed by the church, they are perhaps not so far apart in some people's worldviews. But that's a separate problem. I agree that foundational thinking (of which morality must be a form) is impossible in the land of the dead metanarrative.

Well, as Searle points out in the podcast, even if we "can't take any particular account as granted", it does not follow that nothing we say is true! — Banno

Yes. It's easy to throw out babies with bathwater. The other (and similar) position is to argue that since truth can't be taken for granted or even identified (whether it exists or not) why worry about it?

The co-creation part comes in with the socially., culturally and linguistically mediated interpretations that produce the model we call "the external world". But let us not forget the more primordial biologically and semiotically mediated dimensions, which we have in common with other organisms. Shall we say that other organisms also co-create their Umwelts? — Janus

Nicely done. Agree. Reality, such as it, is is embodied cognition.

perhaps it is co-creation all the way down. :wink: — Janus

The other option is confusions all the way down. That seems fairly popular too. On a separate note, I did hear a philosopher (I forget who ) in a guided discussion on truth saying, 'What's wrong with endless recursion, anyway?' Not a notion we hear very often. I guess Rorty argues similarly by saying (my paraphrase) that all of our values are contingent on other values and so on forever, without the possibility of a final resting place or source.

I hope that, that you are reading this, now, is not something of which you need philosophical reassurance. — Banno

No, that much I don't find problematic.

Seems to me that there is a clear sense in which two folk can each draw a different picture of the same vase. Joshs seems to deny this. To me, that reeks of sophistry. — Banno

I don't take @Joshs for a sophist and perhaps that's not what you meant. I think he has a very particular and complex frame of reference for these matters, which are not necessarily intuitive or easy to describe (outside of a domain of discourse). Or compatible with other ways of describing the world (for want of a better phrase). I think he is saying in essence that reality is co-created and that we can't take any particular account for granted. What we see is partly, or largely, based on our suppositions and the very words we use. I don't think he is saying there is no truth but that there are contingent truths that they are not all compatible and generally align with particular worldviews or 'value systems'. Anyway, the question at hand is, do we ever arrive at an approach where genocide can't be seen as different to charity?

What I was attempting to say was that a personal morality that doesn't seek to influence others is not, in my view, really a morality - it's aesthetic preference — ChrisH

I think that's kind of what I was thinking too.

Is there a fact of the matter about anything?
— Joshs

Yes. That you are reading this, for example. — Banno

I have to say some of the nuances of philosophical thinking make me long for the simpler world of common sense delusions. I guess any idea can be picked apart using a given schema and will doubtlessly appear coherent to the acolyte. What I find most challenging is not knowing which way to go in matters like this. I suspect these rarified debates about the nature of reality and how language functions are primarily for the benefit of the cognoscenti, a bit like Star Trek lore or stamp collecting.

Oh ok, I get you. In which case my language was insufficient for purposes.

Morality comes into play when the intention behind the actions of a person runs afoul of previously established expectations and trust between that person and others. That person knowingly disappoints a standard of conduct for no good reason. — Joshs

Thank you.

These descriptions are just redefinitions of immorality as willful disregard of what is right. — Joshs

Hmm - I'm trying to see this, nor can I see how this might help us in the matter. Can you sharpen this for me?

If we say, for instance, that the mass murder of a minority group is wrong - is this just a redefinition of immorality as 'willful disregard of what is right' and is so what is the alternative?

These descriptions are just redefinitions of immorality as willful disregard of what is right. They come down to saying that wrongful behavior is a failure to do what is right. Looked at through this vapid lens , it’s no wonder morality doesn’t vary all that much across cultures. — Joshs

Are you saying the observation I made is vapid, or the way morality is generally framed across cultures is vapid?

They come down to saying that wrongful behavior is a failure to do what is right. — Joshs

I partly understand this point, but it's the question of what is defined as wrongful behaviour that is the issue, isn't it? Does what you say change the fact that stealing (which may have various definitions) is generally considered wrong across cultures? (And I am not saying all cultures, or all people in all cultures and I'm not talking about situational exemptions, etc)

How do you understand morality?