Idealism and the study of language

[Luis Dellamary]

Building on Scott's "How Idealism Simplifies Metaphysics" I wonder what it will mean for the study of language to say that "... there is no language/reality distinction in idealism" or that "[with idealism]  one [doesn't] have to worry about the fact that the map is not the territory". It seems to me that he's talking about "representation" or "reference" as a nonexistent process or structural relation under the idealist view. If language does not "refer to" or "represent" anything but is, instead, of the same ontological class that "the world" (it's referent, in the classical structural sense in linguistics) so what is meaning? Why do we talk or write if not to "refer to" our experiences, feelings, and thoughts... is it just a way to bridge the gap between our apparent individual minds?

Under the "simulation theory of communication" we say that we use language as cues "for alter" (the addressee) to effectively "simulate" our state of mind (perceptions, thoughts, feelings...) and approximate mutual understanding, common ground, even when we talk about "first-person perspective", i.e. non-shared experience. But, if there is no distinction, and the brain is just an image of experience so, maybe, talking (or reading) is to open a channel of information between those apparent "alters". Our everyday tool for telepathy. But then I wonder, what about the restrictions in structure, of different languages, the fact that we have to learn them, the diversity of codes and organizations that "conscious activity in the form of words and sentences" seem to have..?

[Scott Roberts]

On Thursday, January 7, 2021 at 7:52:55 AM UTC-10 luisde...@gmail.com wrote:

Building on Scott's "How Idealism Simplifies Metaphysics" I wonder what it will mean for the study of language to say that "... there is no language/reality distinction in idealism" or that "[with idealism]  one [doesn't] have to worry about the fact that the map is not the territory". It seems to me that he's talking about "representation" or "reference" as a nonexistent process or structural relation under the idealist view. If language does not "refer to" or "represent" anything but is, instead, of the same ontological class that "the world" (it's referent, in the classical structural sense in linguistics) so what is meaning? Why do we talk or write if not to "refer to" our experiences, feelings, and thoughts... is it just a way to bridge the gap between our apparent individual minds?

By no means am I saying that representation or reference is a non-existent process. What I am saying is that referential processes are reality, though not all of reality. To elaborate:

All that we are aware of (sensory contents, thoughts, feelings, etc.) has form, where I define 'form' as that which distinguishes an object of awareness from all other objects. A form can be referential or non-referential. A referential form can refer to another referential form, to a non-referential form, or to formlessness. Examples of the last case are the words 'formlessness' and 'no-thingness'. An example of a non-referential form is any mathematical object. This much is ontologically independent. Where idealism makes a difference is that it regards "the world" as more referential form -- one might say that sense contents are the outward expressions of spiritual entities. So if one defines 'language' as a system of reference, then physical reality is a language. Of course, as a linguist one will likely want to find some way to distinguish languages like English from general sense contents, that is, to make distinctions among the varieties of referential systems.

But with the general definition of language as any system of reference, this means that physics is a "linguistic study", though it is currently crippled by not being able to discern meaning in the objects it studies. In effect, it is just studying the syntax of physical reality, while being unaware of its semantics. (It should be noted, however, that we were not always unaware of the meanings of physical objects. See my essay Idealism vs. Common Sense for more on this.)

So strictly speaking, there is a distinction to be made between language and reality, but it is not that which it is customarily thought to be. It is not between "world" and language about the world. Rather there are the distinctions between non-referential form and referential form, and between all form and formlessness. 

 

[Scott Roberts]

I said:

 

All that we are aware of (sensory contents, thoughts, feelings, etc.) has form, where I define 'form' as that which distinguishes an object of awareness from all other objects. 

This could be misread. In idealism, all objects are objects of awareness, so the bolded bit should be removed. 

 

[Luis Dellamary]

When you say that "So strictly speaking, there is a distinction to be made between language and reality, but it is not that which it is customarily thought to be. It is not between "world" and language about the world. Rather there are the distinctions between non-referential form and referential form, and between all form and formlessness." I almost feel that it solves the case in point but maybe I will need to unpack it a little bit. I don't understand well enough your use of the word "non-referential" when you talk about "mathematical objects", are they not based on language? I assume that when you say that "[idealism]  regards "the world" as more referential form" you are talking about "the symbolic" nature of the experienced world, meaning that is conscious activity appearing as form from a self-reflective ("that which experiences and knows that experiences") point of view. This I understand. But what about language as "conversation"? Let me elaborate my way of thinking.

   It makes sense to me that even when we say "both world (perceptions) and language (uttered words) are the activity of consciousness" there are "relations" like "referential relations"  as the apparent links between subsets of the activity of consciousness. In the same way that you have to reach objects even when nothing is "really" far away (another form of information exchange). So let me try to make what is a central point to me introducing Kastrup (from "More Than Allegory"):

1. [Language is] a system of signs for the representation and manipulation of information about the world. Language represents the images of consensus reality—lions, wildebeests, rocks, hills, etc.—with signs like written words, sounds, and other labels.  

2. It then combines these signs through a set of rules, called a grammar, so to represent the interactions found in consensus reality. This way, language allows us to create an internal model of reality within our intellects.

3. [But...] Language isn’t arbitrary: it is what it is because we are what we are. Before being a tool for communication, language mirrors the very way our intellects process information about reality.

   So, clearly, from his view "representation" is fundamental. Meaning the partial image in one subset of consciousness of "something" in another subset of consciousness (here my problem could be to state that "somethingness" is independent of the act of representation itself). But what about "reference"? I don't understand how can you say "manipulation of information ABOUT the world" if "language represents the images of consensus reality" (a.k.a "the world") and "language mirrors the very way our intellects process information about reality". So, for me, this is like saying "language IS consensus reality". Or are we under the assumption that "there is non-linguistic information within our intellect"? We could agree that:

4. Still, the human mind is not limited to the intellect. Where the intellect stops intuition picks up.

    But...

5. Our reasoning and our language overlap and co-define each other. ‘Language is generated by the intellect, and generates the intellect,’

      So our definition of language is confined to what we call "the intellect". What is not clear to me is if "consensus reality" is confined to it. Now, going back to the notion of "process" are we saying that we have something like this (from the self-reflective view called "the speaker")?: (speaker(language(information(consensus reality)))). For language to be "manipulation of information about the world" there has to be "the manipulator", "language", "information" and "world" as subsets, and "aboutness" as a referential activity.

      So, this is what I mean when I question the nature of "reference" and had inferred from your essay that they might as well be a "non-process" or merely a metaphor we use of otherwise a "free flow of information" (with no stages) within apparent subsets of consciousness. Let's also remember that the so-called "human language" is much more about "speaker an addressee" than "about the world" or, to put it differently, is itself the emergent construction of the consensus reality that the conversation is about. Which could be said to be "different" than the reality (although still consensus by way of learning) perceived by a "person" in a non-communicative situation. Since quantum physics says that "perceived reality" is different from "non-perceived reality" we could infer that "communicative reality" could be different from "non-communicative reality" or reality in the absence of communicative interaction of any sort.

       Let me try to wrap this up and, maybe, simplify my point. The classical linguistic reasoning regarding "reference" is that the word 'duck' "refers to" an entity "in the world" that we can express as [DUCK]. Some would say that the referent is the "real" thing in the world, others, that the real referent is "a concept". Or, as Bernado would say, an image of consensus reality since we are not talking from a "cognitive solipsistic" perspective. But, considering that language is between speaker and hearer and that it generates the intellect (the base of consensus reality) while is generated by the intellect, for me, at least, it makes more sense to say that language is its own referent. That the word 'duck' refers to itself since I don't see a way (or the analytic/ methodological need to) differentiate between the word and the image of consensus reality. When I use the word 'duck' when I talk to someone,  can "our consensus reality" be recognized to be "something different than language"?

     I greatly appreciate this conversation.

[Scott Roberts]

On Friday, January 8, 2021 at 8:14:05 AM UTC-10 luisde...@gmail.com wrote:

When you say that "So strictly speaking, there is a distinction to be made between language and reality, but it is not that which it is customarily thought to be. It is not between "world" and language about the world. Rather there are the distinctions between non-referential form and referential form, and between all form and formlessness." I almost feel that it solves the case in point but maybe I will need to unpack it a little bit. I don't understand well enough your use of the word "non-referential" when you talk about "mathematical objects", are they not based on language?

To quote Barfield (internal quote is Coleridge): ""Mathematical lines, points and surfaces are "acts of imagination that are one with the products of those acts." And this remains true of the figures constructed with them. A geometrician draws three meeting lines on a slate; but the 'triangle' which he then sees merely represents to him (and imperfectly) an ideal figure he has first had to produce by an act of thought or (it is practically the same thing) an act of imagination."

Which is to say that the thought of a geometric line is a geometric line, while the thought, say, of the river Thames is not the river Thames. It is the case that the phrase "a geometric line" is referential, but what it refers to (the thought of a geometric line) does not refer to anything else. But the phrase "the river Thames" refers to the thought of the river Thames which is not the river Thames, rather it refers to the river Thames (which, for an idealist, refers to something else).

I suppose one must acknowledge a connotational difference between 'refers' and 'represents', but I would say that when X represents Y there is an implicit referral from X to Y.

As for the rest of your post, I am afraid I am unable to work out what you are getting at. You end with a question:

 

When I use the word 'duck' when I talk to someone,  can "our consensus reality" be recognized to be "something different than language"?

 Well, if by "our consensus reality" you mean the contents of our senses, and by "language" you mean one of English, Chinese, etc., then of course they are different. But if by 'language' you mean "any system of representations" then is this any different from what I said in my previous comment, that the contents of our senses is a system of representation of some thoughts of M@L? So I am clearly missing something. Perhaps you could go through an example of what you think is going on referentially when someone says a declarative sentence to someone else.

[Luis Dellamary]

I have the feeling that I'm finally getting it. At least where we are at regarding this topic(s). Let me try to be as brief as I can so to not lose my train of thought in its own steam cloud.

1. I see what you mean by quoting Barfield. Although I can't seem to see the difference between the referential conditions of "lines, points and surfaces" and the words themselves. Both "classes" of referential forms have no referent in phenomenological experience. What is the difference between "a triangle", the word 'triangle' and some other words like 'one', 'someone' or 'always' which correspond to what is called "generic reference" (which, for me, is no reference at all). We could say that the word refers to a "concept", but, can we really draw a line between the word and the concept or thought? Or are we saying that, ontologically speaking, is just the metaphor of a process with stages such as: word-concept-phenomenon (like in the example of the phrase 'river', the concept of [RIVER] and the "river" itself...) Say the word 'river' and then try to trace its referent... You get caught in a myriad of problems since you can use the word in so many different ways. So diverse indeed that, when you study language use, you wonder, where is the 'basic' meaning that we believe to be the starting point of semantics, I don't see it anywhere... besides being an explanatory abstraction of structural semantics... Also, we should remember that "formal semantics" believes that "nouns" refer to "classes" and not to "entities in the world".

2. So I think we are maybe seeing it from two different perspectives: one of "language" as a system of representations and one of "language use". I will suggest that language as a "volitional act of communication" (the "enactive" perspective) is so unique in the meanings it conveys and so socially (intersubjectively) oriented that their "declarative" referents (like the "river" to the word 'river') are of minimum explanatory power as to "what is a word?" and this is why I think a word is an act of emergent reference, it represents the communicative intention of the social interaction. Is from that point of view that I don't seem to be able to distinguish between language and consensus reality. I mean, a river is distinguishable from the word 'river', but that's when I'm staring at the river and pointing to it. But what about in the rest of (most of) the other contexts of its utterance. Now, for example, when you "point" at things in the phenomenal world, well, that is different. Maybe that would be the act of reference in its pure form.

3. We could also say that there is a "static vs dynamic" perspective on reference. When we say that the phenomenal world "refers to something else" we are talking of reference as a kind of functional organization of information in consciousness or of conscious activity. But if we see reference as an "act of reference", "someone is referring to something" then how is not the use of the word 'river' its own referent? As the act of intersubjective communication is unique and not the product of calculations based on static features of their referential semantics (of course you could collapse this distinction by saying that all consciousness is "volitional" or "agentive").

So this is why when you say "...when X represents Y there is an implicit referral from X to Y" I immediately ask, who/ when/ why is it referring to Y? How can it be implicit?

Now going back to (1), can we really say that when someone utters a phrase it's using certain words in a "non-referential" way? Is it not the same argument in its ontological conception of language that the classic "proof" that syntax is independent of semantics that Chomsky represented with the infamous phrase "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously". Which for me is full of meaning (if we don't constrain "meaning" to the logical/ rational version of it, which would be unfortunate and a rather materialistic view of it). Can we really say that is pure syntax? Maybe reference and meaning is a new distinction that we ought to do...

[Scott Roberts]

On Saturday, January 9, 2021 at 10:27:53 AM UTC-10 luisde...@gmail.com wrote:

1. I see what you mean by quoting Barfield. Although I can't seem to see the difference between the referential conditions of "lines, points and surfaces" and the words themselves. Both "classes" of referential forms have no referent in phenomenological experience. What is the difference between "a triangle", the word 'triangle' and some other words like 'one', 'someone' or 'always' which correspond to what is called "generic reference" (which, for me, is no reference at all). We could say that the word refers to a "concept", but, can we really draw a line between the word and the concept or thought? Or are we saying that, ontologically speaking, is just the metaphor of a process with stages such as: word-concept-phenomenon (like in the example of the phrase 'river', the concept of [RIVER] and the "river" itself...) Say the word 'river' and then try to trace its referent... You get caught in a myriad of problems since you can use the word in so many different ways. So diverse indeed that, when you study language use, you wonder, where is the 'basic' meaning that we believe to be the starting point of semantics, I don't see it anywhere... besides being an explanatory abstraction of structural semantics... Also, we should remember that "formal semantics" believes that "nouns" refer to "classes" and not to "entities in the world".

Isn't the thought brought to mind on hearing 'river' by an English-speaker the same concept brought to mind when an Italian speaker hears 'fiume'? Perhaps not exactly the same, which is why translators have difficulty, but very close. Another way to think of them (word and concept) as different is that in hearing a sentence, say, "The river is flowing fast today", the "is flowing fast", assuming the hearer is thinking of going for a swim, will likely result in the concept "drowning in the river" arising in the hearer's mind without thinking that in words.

 

2. So I think we are maybe seeing it from two different perspectives: one of "language" as a system of representations and one of "language use". I will suggest that language as a "volitional act of communication" (the "enactive" perspective) is so unique in the meanings it conveys and so socially (intersubjectively) oriented that their "declarative" referents (like the "river" to the word 'river') are of minimum explanatory power as to "what is a word?" and this is why I think a word is an act of emergent reference, it represents the communicative intention of the social interaction. Is from that point of view that I don't seem to be able to distinguish between language and consensus reality. I mean, a river is distinguishable from the word 'river', but that's when I'm staring at the river and pointing to it. But what about in the rest of (most of) the other contexts of its utterance. Now, for example, when you "point" at things in the phenomenal world, well, that is different. Maybe that would be the act of reference in its pure form.

Yes, but human linguistic acts (speech, text, grimaces, pointing) are acts occurring within all sorts of other conscious acts, and, getting back to the original issue, I would say all conscious acts are linguistic, though not all are human linguistic acts. (At least, in our experience as alters -- language of any sort is only needed because alters have boundaries.) In any case, I would say that there is more to consensus reality than is put into words.

 

3. We could also say that there is a "static vs dynamic" perspective on reference. When we say that the phenomenal world "refers to something else" we are talking of reference as a kind of functional organization of information in consciousness or of conscious activity. But if we see reference as an "act of reference", "someone is referring to something" then how is not the use of the word 'river' its own referent? As the act of intersubjective communication is unique and not the product of calculations based on static features of their referential semantics (of course you could collapse this distinction by saying that all consciousness is "volitional" or "agentive").

So this is why when you say "...when X represents Y there is an implicit referral from X to Y" I immediately ask, who/ when/ why is it referring to Y? How can it be implicit?

I was just trying to conflate the two words 'refering' and 'representating' to simplify the discussion. If you want to strike the word 'implicit', please do so. And of course for a sign to act as a sign, there must be an interpretant, to use Peirce's term.

 

Now going back to (1), can we really say that when someone utters a phrase it's using certain words in a "non-referential" way? Is it not the same argument in its ontological conception of language that the classic "proof" that syntax is independent of semantics that Chomsky represented with the infamous phrase "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously". Which for me is full of meaning (if we don't constrain "meaning" to the logical/ rational version of it, which would be unfortunate and a rather materialistic view of it).

I agree.

 

Can we really say that is pure syntax? Maybe reference and meaning is a new distinction that we ought to do...

 Yes. I would say that instrumental music has great meaning but is not referential.

[Luis Dellamary]

Isn't the thought brought to mind on hearing 'river' by an English-speaker the same concept brought to mind when an Italian speaker hears 'fiume'? Perhaps not exactly the same, which is why translators have difficulty, but very close. Another way to think of them (word and concept) as different is that in hearing a sentence, say, "The river is flowing fast today", the "is flowing fast", assuming the hearer is thinking of going for a swim, will likely result in the concept "drowning in the river" arising in the hearer's mind without thinking that in words.

 

I almost 100% agree with you provided that we carefully abide within the class of "concrete nouns". But then I wonder about other nouns like "democracy" or even just "society", is in those cases that to me is so fuzzy to say it in the same way like when you explain the relation between the word 'river' and either the concept or the perceived entity of the river. I don't know if to say that "the word refers to a concept (or image of consensus reality)" as a way to explain the relationship between "words and phenomenal world" is a good one, since you simply carry it out to many different classes of words (or communicative instances) where it doesn't really work well. So much that it makes you wonder that maybe the "prototypical case" (A->B, 'river' -> [RIVER]) is made out of a "flawed model of language" or an "explanatory structural metaphor gone too far" and not really the "simplest or starting-point example".

What about Bernardo saying that: "... language allows us to create an internal model of reality within our intellects." and then saying that (an this I'm just paraphrasing) "...to see our internal model (mind) one has simply to see the world"... Maybe you didn't mean it in the same way but "...all conscious acts are linguistic" sounded to me something like this.

I do agree that there is "consensus reality" so much that it lets us "translate" from language to language. But then I think about "colors" and relations between not perhaps English and Italian but English and Piraha that has "no fixed words for colors" and certainly not a concept of 'democracy' or maybe not even 'society' (like the African cultures in which "one and many" is indistinct since the one "is" the many). So either consensus reality "is constructed" differently in every individual or "culture" or is at a level that underlies even our cultural differences, but then, at least to me, it sounds that it would also be infra-conceptual. Meaning that you can't really "refer to" if you have a word on one side and "something that is not even a 'thing' in the same way but maybe a 'probability distribution' of how things tend to be". Maybe what I'm aiming at is the logical necessity of defining what Kastrup calls "levels of obfuscation" to be able to have a good model of language that doesn't require either a static (as a system) view of it or "relations" that presumably work "at all levels" or where there are "not levels at all". For example, there is the problem of "non-verbal" language in which you could try to say that "the meaning" of someone smiling and the meaning of the word 'smile' is just that the first is "non-referential". I mean, it works as a sort of binary taxonomy [+/- reference] but when you look at other "expressions" that you would characterize as "non-referential" it just falls short of explanatory power (as any binary feature that I have tried to work with).  And this is what I think when I consider the possibility that no matter how "simple" it appears to say that "words refer to concepts" that you find so much trouble with this assumption outside the micro-cosmos of "concrete nouns" that maybe it will be better to start with "words are their own referent", "they are the images of consensus reality themselves (in the form of words)" since "reference" still sounds to me like you would have to somehow make the logical argument that A and B preexist as separate entities to the referential act A->B.

This is what resonates with me when Bernado says: "Our reasoning and our language overlap and co-define each other. ‘Language is generated by the intellect, and generates the intellect,’" or that "Before being a tool for communication, language mirrors the very way our intellects process information about reality." Although "about reality" and "mirrors... our intellects" are still metaphors or "ways of speaking" that I believe would have to be handled with care if used as ontological affirmations for language as a general human phenomenon. 

 

Yes, but human linguistic acts (speech, text, grimaces, pointing) are acts occurring within all sorts of other conscious acts, and, getting back to the original issue, I would say all conscious acts are linguistic, though not all are human linguistic acts. (At least, in our experience as alters -- language of any sort is only needed because alters have boundaries.) In any case, I would say that there is more to consensus reality than is put into words.

 

I agree

 

I was just trying to conflate the two words 'refering' and 'representating' to simplify the discussion. If you want to strike the word 'implicit', please do so. And of course for a sign to act as a sign, there must be an interpretant, to use Peirce's term.

 

No, I agree, indeed in this sense, there are referential states that have to be implicit, or to put it in a way that lets me rest my mind "outside of self-referential consciousness", where apparently "now one" is making a reference. Like to say, again, that consensus reality is symbolic.

 

 Yes. I would say that instrumental music has great meaning but is not referential.

Thank you, yeah! this is really helping me make sense of my initial intuitions triggered by your essay.

[Scott Roberts]

On Monday, January 11, 2021 at 9:42:46 AM UTC-10 luisde...@gmail.com wrote:

I almost 100% agree with you provided that we carefully abide within the class of "concrete nouns". But then I wonder about other nouns like "democracy" or even just "society", is in those cases that to me is so fuzzy to say it in the same way like when you explain the relation between the word 'river' and either the concept or the perceived entity of the river. I don't know if to say that "the word refers to a concept (or image of consensus reality)" as a way to explain the relationship between "words and phenomenal world" is a good one, since you simply carry it out to many different classes of words (or communicative instances) where it doesn't really work well. So much that it makes you wonder that maybe the "prototypical case" (A->B, 'river' -> [RIVER]) is made out of a "flawed model of language" or an "explanatory structural metaphor gone too far" and not really the "simplest or starting-point example".

We seem to be concerned with different issues. I agree that human language is just too fuzzy and prone to ambiguity for there to be a formal semantic map from words to concepts. But that isn't what I am on about. What I am concerned with is making the point that what we call physical reality is itself a language, though one that we have lost the ability to "read". A sensory object is a sign if one "reads through it" to its meaning, and that's what I mean by saying it "refers". Now in practice, when we look at a physical object like a rock we do not read through it. But that (given idealism) is a failure in us, like not being able to "read through" a Chinese ideogram if we don't know Chinese. 

 

What about Bernardo saying that: "... language allows us to create an internal model of reality within our intellects." and then saying that (an this I'm just paraphrasing) "...to see our internal model (mind) one has simply to see the world"... Maybe you didn't mean it in the same way but "...all conscious acts are linguistic" sounded to me something like this.

I'm not sure. I am just saying that a rock is a sign.

 

I do agree that there is "consensus reality" so much that it lets us "translate" from language to language. But then I think about "colors" and relations between not perhaps English and Italian but English and Piraha that has "no fixed words for colors" and certainly not a concept of 'democracy' or maybe not even 'society' (like the African cultures in which "one and many" is indistinct since the one "is" the many). So either consensus reality "is constructed" differently in every individual or "culture" or is at a level that underlies even our cultural differences, but then, at least to me, it sounds that it would also be infra-conceptual. Meaning that you can't really "refer to" if you have a word on one side and "something that is not even a 'thing' in the same way but maybe a 'probability distribution' of how things tend to be". Maybe what I'm aiming at is the logical necessity of defining what Kastrup calls "levels of obfuscation" to be able to have a good model of language that doesn't require either a static (as a system) view of it or "relations" that presumably work "at all levels" or where there are "not levels at all".

All this strikes me as "problems with trying to formalize semantics", which, as said above, is not something I am trying to do.

 

For example, there is the problem of "non-verbal" language in which you could try to say that "the meaning" of someone smiling and the meaning of the word 'smile' is just that the first is "non-referential".

I would say they are both referential, the word to whatever thoughts arise on hearing the word, the smile on a face to the emotional state of the person.

 

I mean, it works as a sort of binary taxonomy [+/- reference] but when you look at other "expressions" that you would characterize as "non-referential" it just falls short of explanatory power (as any binary feature that I have tried to work with).  

I simply define a referential object as one that can be read through, while a non-referential object is one that one can't. There are objects (like non-abstract paintings) where one can read through them, but one might choose to appreciate in a non-referential way as well (e.g., admiring the technique).