Language and Truth
Jeff Rubard
of language, yet all manifesting marked similarities, the question may
seem otiose. Yet language possesses a character which may permit us to
search deeper for its meaning. The mark of language which reveals its
unity is to be found in a psychological definition. Language is the
public, objective face of the mind: any and all mental phenomena
surpassing the bounds of subjectivity are linguistic, and linguistic
phenomena are mental in a useful sense, being the product and reflection
of individual minds in concert. If this be the case, the characterizing
of language and the mind ought to demonstrate a sort of maturity
relative to other psychological facts, reflecting that language is the
province of mutual intelligibility: and indeed it does, in the form of
truth.
Truth is often defined metaphysically, in terms of a correspondence
between a linguistic entity and some item in the world. There is another
definition, a psychological one, which seems to me to be more fruitful:
truth is a property possessed by psychological states many-sided enough
to be characterized linguistically, that is permitting of reflection. Of
course, many states complex enough to be captured by a propositional
attitude do not share in truth, but the substantive point is that truths
are distinguished by the operations which can be performed upon them,
the "laws of truth". The reflective theory of truth is thusly not an
empty platitude, but rather results in a typology of the properties
which true statements have: cognizability, shareability, judgeability.
For example, let us take the famous example "snow is white" and subject
it to the proposed analysis. "Snow is white" is true if it can be
reflectively ascertained that snow is white, that is if possession of
the concepts "snow" and "white" permits of their combination in an
exceptionless judgement that snow is white which permits the subject to
entertain the thought that snow is white (to reflectively examine the
judgment). Similarities between this theory of truth and the famous
"semantic" definition of truth are not accidental: if language is taken
for mind, then the psychological fleshing-out of semantics leads to an
alteration in focus, where the mental activity associated with grasping
a truth receives priority rather than the semantic status of the
statement: true contents are then characterized by the sorts of
combination they permit, their thinkability.
However, what is not a candidate for the status of language cannot be a
truth, on account of its inadequacy for the purpose of reflection: a
"true image" can serve as constituent of a shareable thought, but the
thought must enable a community of mind a la Frege, where each person
grasps the same thought. Considered this way, the objectivity of truth
is not a formality, but a substantive property of the element of truth,
language subjected to the application of the concept of truth -- it just
so happens that the employment of truth as a property possessed by
linguistic items marks out psychological states which permit of
synchronization. Truth is therefore a name for a sort of structure,
which permits thought to assume the form of language: without the
structure, we should be bereft of the mental states associated with
reflection and their public availability in discourse.
--
Jeff Rubard
http://opensentence.tripod.com/
The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism -- that of
Feuerbach included -- is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is
conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not
as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Marx
Albert
> What is language?
<snip>
Although there are several points that could be usefully
clarified, if I understand this all correctly, then I think that
I agree with you.
--
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the
range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally
impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it."
-- George Orwell as Syme in "1984"
Jason
Being that can be understood (Gadamer).
> The mark of language which reveals its
> unity is to be found in a psychological definition. Language is the
> public, objective face of the mind: any and all mental phenomena
> surpassing the bounds of subjectivity are linguistic, and linguistic
> phenomena are mental in a useful sense, being the product and reflection
> of individual minds in concert.
Are you saying that language is objective thought that can be shared by many? I
don't mean to simplify or miss-represent you, so sorry if I have, I'm just
trying to get a handle on your definition.
How are mental phenomena objective? That is, how can we inspect and compare
mental phenomena? Or is this not a problem provided that we seem to share in
the same ideas via language?
How does language relate to the world?
> If this be the case, the characterizing
> of language and the mind ought to demonstrate a sort of maturity
> relative to other psychological facts, reflecting that language is the
> province of mutual intelligibility: and indeed it does, in the form of
> truth.
>
> Truth is often defined metaphysically, in terms of a correspondence
> between a linguistic entity and some item in the world. There is another
> definition, a psychological one, which seems to me to be more fruitful:
> truth is a property possessed by psychological states many-sided enough
> to be characterized linguistically, that is permitting of reflection. Of
> course, many states complex enough to be captured by a propositional
> attitude do not share in truth, but the substantive point is that truths
> are distinguished by the operations which can be performed upon them,
> the "laws of truth". The reflective theory of truth is thusly not an
> empty platitude, but rather results in a typology of the properties
> which true statements have: cognizability, shareability, judgeability.
What are psychological states? Physical brain state, mental state or both?
Is truth then, an objective property of thought? That which allows these "laws"
to be performed?
If truth is objective, how can it be examined and compared? Or is it via
thoughts (psych states?) that truth arises.
Amongst your other attributes, is it truth as coherence?
What strikes me is that language and truth here are ideal in nature. That is,
they are mental constructs that do not exist outside the mind. If humans were
wiped out, would there be no truth? Does language have little to do with its
expression?
Appologies again if I miss-read you. I didn't find your post very clear, but
that is perhaps because I'm not familiar with your terms. That said, it is no
small topic you covered and your post is compact.
Jeff Rubard
>>What is language?
>
>
> Being that can be understood (Gadamer).
>
This definition requires that being be understood too generally and
understanding too specifically. I can, offhand, think of many things I
understand which are not linguistic, though language plays some role in
formulating such thoughts, and language is too involved with mind for
being to be a surety in its use.
>
>>The mark of language which reveals its
>>unity is to be found in a psychological definition. Language is the
>>public, objective face of the mind: any and all mental phenomena
>>surpassing the bounds of subjectivity are linguistic, and linguistic
>>phenomena are mental in a useful sense, being the product and reflection
>>of individual minds in concert.
>
>
> Are you saying that language is objective thought that can be shared by many? I
> don't mean to simplify or miss-represent you, so sorry if I have, I'm just
> trying to get a handle on your definition.
The thought I had which I would like to preserve the sense of is this:
language has no existence separate from the mind, and this is because it
is the objective mind -- our thoughts are accessible to others because
they occur in linguistic idiom, as the structures of language represent
an accretion of means for engaging in objective thought.
> How are mental phenomena objective? That is, how can we inspect and compare
> mental phenomena? Or is this not a problem provided that we seem to share in
> the same ideas via language?
Mental phenomena are objective insofar as they utilize shared concepts,
concepts that put experience to a collective test. Pain involves no
conventions, but most other mental phenomena require *for their internal
structure* an objective check on mindedness.
> How does language relate to the world?
The only way I can think of to address this question is by way of a
thought-experiment. Consider any object you are confronted with (say, a
television set). Now imagine there was no word for the object. I find
myself imagining there was no word for "a box with a glass tube that
displays moving pictures", which shows that my world is linguistically
constituted: there's no specification of its contents which lies outside
of the realm of language.
>
>>If this be the case, the characterizing
>>of language and the mind ought to demonstrate a sort of maturity
>>relative to other psychological facts, reflecting that language is the
>>province of mutual intelligibility: and indeed it does, in the form of
>>truth.
>>
>>Truth is often defined metaphysically, in terms of a correspondence
>>between a linguistic entity and some item in the world. There is another
>>definition, a psychological one, which seems to me to be more fruitful:
>>truth is a property possessed by psychological states many-sided enough
>>to be characterized linguistically, that is permitting of reflection. Of
>>course, many states complex enough to be captured by a propositional
>>attitude do not share in truth, but the substantive point is that truths
>>are distinguished by the operations which can be performed upon them,
>>the "laws of truth". The reflective theory of truth is thusly not an
>>empty platitude, but rather results in a typology of the properties
>>which true statements have: cognizability, shareability, judgeability.
>
>
> What are psychological states? Physical brain state, mental state or both?
I meant the definition to be vague enough to side-step questions about
psychophysiological correspondences.
> Is truth then, an objective property of thought? That which allows these "laws"
> to be performed?
Truth is not *an* objective property of *a* thought: it is the medium in
which objectivity is created. The circulation of the concept of truth,
via all the operations which that concept allows to be performed on
thoughts, creates the conceptual environment within which we speak of
objectivity.
The definition of truth as correspondence is closer to the point than
truth as coherence. Of course some sort of coherence is required for
understanding what it is we do with the concept truth, but it's more
complicated than simply avoiding contradiction.
> What strikes me is that language and truth here are ideal in nature. That is,
> they are mental constructs that do not exist outside the mind. If humans were
> wiped out, would there be no truth? Does language have little to do with its
> expression?
The human use of the concept of truth in language is all we have to go
on: the question would simply not arise.
> Appologies again if I miss-read you. I didn't find your post very clear, but
> that is perhaps because I'm not familiar with your terms. That said, it is no
> small topic you covered and your post is compact.
>
Your questions are very general, and I despair of providing useful
answers, but thank you for considering the issue.
Jason
> >
> > Being that can be understood (Gadamer).
> >
> This definition requires that being be understood too generally and
> understanding too specifically. I can, offhand, think of many things I
> understand which are not linguistic, though language plays some role in
> formulating such thoughts, and language is too involved with mind for
> being to be a surety in its use.
Being is the most general concept I would venture, to the point where we have
little to intuit in it. I think Gadamer's is suggesting that understanding is a
linguistic artifice and that understanding is the cradle for thought, so
language constitutes our world (being that we can understand). It is
nominalism, I think, but not denying the existence of the name. On the
contrary, the name is our reality (i.e. the logos). In so far as language
supports our world through our understanding, he seems to be promoting what is
more believable in idealism.
I find Gadamer awesome, but I think you're right. There are things we
"understand" that are not linguistic. Intuitional, know-how, riding a bike,
type things. Perhaps we can't articulate how we do or know certain things, and
perhaps because of this we shouldn't say we understand them, but I think there
is a problem here for Gadamer.
> >>The mark of language which reveals its
> >>unity is to be found in a psychological definition. Language is the
> >>public, objective face of the mind: any and all mental phenomena
> >>surpassing the bounds of subjectivity are linguistic, and linguistic
> >>phenomena are mental in a useful sense, being the product and reflection
> >>of individual minds in concert.
> >
> >
> > Are you saying that language is objective thought that can be shared by
many? I
> > don't mean to simplify or miss-represent you, so sorry if I have, I'm just
> > trying to get a handle on your definition.
>
> The thought I had which I would like to preserve the sense of is this:
> language has no existence separate from the mind, and this is because it
> is the objective mind -- our thoughts are accessible to others because
> they occur in linguistic idiom, as the structures of language represent
> an accretion of means for engaging in objective thought.
Does "objective" mean here the weight of the many? Like an "earth", to borrow
from electronics, a shared common ground where the sharing is essential in it
being considered objective? Or is it objective before the many?
> > How are mental phenomena objective? That is, how can we inspect and compare
> > mental phenomena? Or is this not a problem provided that we seem to share
in
> > the same ideas via language?
>
> Mental phenomena are objective insofar as they utilize shared concepts,
> concepts that put experience to a collective test. Pain involves no
> conventions, but most other mental phenomena require *for their internal
> structure* an objective check on mindedness.
>
> > How does language relate to the world?
>
> The only way I can think of to address this question is by way of a
> thought-experiment. Consider any object you are confronted with (say, a
> television set). Now imagine there was no word for the object. I find
> myself imagining there was no word for "a box with a glass tube that
> displays moving pictures", which shows that my world is linguistically
> constituted: there's no specification of its contents which lies outside
> of the realm of language.
Surely the specification could come from sense experience?
Is your psychological definition fruitful becuase it illustrates how you want to
define truth?
If I ready you correctly, you're saying that truth is a structure that is also
mirrored in reality. While I might have left a few things out, is this part
right?
Not at all. I find you difficult to understand, which means that you may have a
new (for me) and interesting idea.
Jeff Rubard
>>>>What is language?
>>>
>>>Being that can be understood (Gadamer).
>>>
>>
>>This definition requires that being be understood too generally and
>>understanding too specifically. I can, offhand, think of many things I
>>understand which are not linguistic, though language plays some role in
>>formulating such thoughts, and language is too involved with mind for
>>being to be a surety in its use.
>
>
> Being is the most general concept I would venture, to the point where we have
> little to intuit in it. I think Gadamer's is suggesting that understanding is a
> linguistic artifice and that understanding is the cradle for thought, so
> language constitutes our world (being that we can understand). It is
> nominalism, I think, but not denying the existence of the name. On the
> contrary, the name is our reality (i.e. the logos). In so far as language
> supports our world through our understanding, he seems to be promoting what is
> more believable in idealism.
>
> I find Gadamer awesome, but I think you're right. There are things we
> "understand" that are not linguistic. Intuitional, know-how, riding a bike,
> type things. Perhaps we can't articulate how we do or know certain things, and
> perhaps because of this we shouldn't say we understand them, but I think there
> is a problem here for Gadamer.
>
Well, Gadamer is making use of a special concept of "understanding"
(*Verstehen*), which is in the neo-Kantian tradition opposed to
"explanation" (*Erklaerung*). The special concept has an affinity for
language, in that to *versteht* something is to obtain a discursive
awareness of it (as opposed to the natural scientist whose exceptionless
laws *erklaert* natural phenomena). But there is a sense of
understanding (roughly Kant's own) which suggests that reason is much
more the linguistic achievement than, say, grasping the physical motion
of an object. (Your examples of "know-how" add a further complication.)
>
>>>>The mark of language which reveals its
>>>>unity is to be found in a psychological definition. Language is the
>>>>public, objective face of the mind: any and all mental phenomena
>>>>surpassing the bounds of subjectivity are linguistic, and linguistic
>>>>phenomena are mental in a useful sense, being the product and reflection
>>>>of individual minds in concert.
>>>
>>>
>>>Are you saying that language is objective thought that can be shared by
>
> many? I
>
>>>don't mean to simplify or miss-represent you, so sorry if I have, I'm just
>>>trying to get a handle on your definition.
>>
>>The thought I had which I would like to preserve the sense of is this:
>>language has no existence separate from the mind, and this is because it
>>is the objective mind -- our thoughts are accessible to others because
>>they occur in linguistic idiom, as the structures of language represent
>>an accretion of means for engaging in objective thought.
>
>
> Does "objective" mean here the weight of the many? Like an "earth", to borrow
> from electronics, a shared common ground where the sharing is essential in it
> being considered objective? Or is it objective before the many?
>
Absolutely, and that's a marvelous phrase for describing the
intellectual project of Hegel -- who showed, in the *Phenomenology*, how
individual cognitive projects are parasitic upon norms of communal life.
We feel "the weight of the many" through language. It structures what of
our personal experience can be translated into public idiom, but also
what of our experience is meaningful to ourselves.
>
>>>How are mental phenomena objective? That is, how can we inspect and compare
>>>mental phenomena? Or is this not a problem provided that we seem to share
>
> in
>
>>>the same ideas via language?
>>
>>Mental phenomena are objective insofar as they utilize shared concepts,
>>concepts that put experience to a collective test. Pain involves no
>>conventions, but most other mental phenomena require *for their internal
>>structure* an objective check on mindedness.
>>
>>
>>>How does language relate to the world?
>>
>>The only way I can think of to address this question is by way of a
>>thought-experiment. Consider any object you are confronted with (say, a
>>television set). Now imagine there was no word for the object. I find
>>myself imagining there was no word for "a box with a glass tube that
>>displays moving pictures", which shows that my world is linguistically
>>constituted: there's no specification of its contents which lies outside
>>of the realm of language.
>
>
> Surely the specification could come from sense experience?
>
Interestingly enough, no: that's the point of the thought-experiment. It
reveals that perception relies upon language to carve up reality, to the
point that it's impossible to escape from linguistic specifications of
sense-experience when objective purport is in question. We simply think
of another word or set of words to describe our lack of words, rather
than emptily gesturing at something (which would tell you more about the
gesturer than the external world). It sets up one piece of a Hegelian
conceptual framework, where an individual's referential purport depends
on ideas, structures of content abstracting from particulars,
circulating in public language for support.
Yes, the idea is that truth is that mirroring of reality: true thoughts
are "aids to reflection", which make the comprehension of the world
easier. The criterion of a true thought is that it make an act of
reflection possible, where we can focus attention on a content, or in
linguistic terms it makes an assertion possible. The difference between
this and standard correspondence theories of truth is that the
"truthmakers" are psychological, clearer insights into the mind and its
link to reality, rather than external states of affairs found within the
world: there's no reason to export psychological structure from where it
can be dealt with into the environment.
Well, I've tried to be clear here, but taking a "sideways-on" view of
the concept of truth is bound to harbor a few obscurities.
Jason
Truth is intrinsically temporal for Gadamer, the shock of suddenly coming to an
understanding of something. Not the having of a truth, that would be the
expriencing of having information (experience as erlebnis), but the movement
itself as a non-subjective experience that changes us (erfahrung).
Appropriating a new understaning and new language, I suppose.
I like this stuff, but it is a mish to understand.
Okay. In Frege's theory of naming, his idea of a 'sense' being objective is a
weak-point. But I think there is room for it to breath when considering
objective to be the weight of the many. Like your idea I suppose. I think it
is reasonable.
Okay, so sense-data is organised according to our language. If we have no name
for something but have sufficient language 'cutlery', then we are able to carve
up the world anyway into bite-sized pieces. This seems okay to me, but
maintaining an objective world's primacy of language over sense-data does seem
to be a burden for this idea.
Okay. I'm curious about the psychological structure though. Are they
organising aspects of the mind that allow thoughts to be grasped, expressed,
shared, judged, etc. Does this theory differ from understanding as a linguistic
mould that shapes our reality? If so, how?
I like sideways views.
Jeff Rubard
I think you have the German terms mixed up: *Erlebnis* ordinarily means
"lived experience" in the sense you attribute to *Erfahrung* "experience".
Not at all: the objectivity of sense is the core of Frege's theory of
language. If the route by which we reach the object did not have an
observer-independent side, we could never associate the same object with
another person's use of a word.
A conjecture: anything which could count as "sense-data" would have the
structure of the "linguistic cutlery", since what differentiates the
observer's representation of the object from the object itself is the
linguistic depiction of the object. So these sense-data represent the
subjective side of language, the way in which we are free to construct a
picture of the world at variance with palpable reality (in the case of
illusion etc.), but what is important to note is that we are not
defining the sense-datum as separate from the linguistic representation
of the object. Sellars has a sequence of thoughts in "Empiricism and the
Philosophy of Mind" which has a similar upshot.
In a word, no: this is a new bottle for the old theory of *Verstehen*,
one which allows more of the structure of understanding to play a role
in cognitions. But the theory of *Verstehen* is a psychological theory,
in that it offers a substantive theory of what it is for a subject to
grasp a linguistically mediated "historical" content -- it is not
(primarily, or in the hands of most of its practitioners) a metaphysical
theory of what it is we understand when we understand language. These
are idealist choices, but the need to defuse regresses which do not
explain the phenomena in question lead to such choices.
Gadamer's views are not "sideways-on", in that he does not countenance
the need for a depth hermeneutic nor view Heidegger's fundamental
ontology as one such. But to my mind, the theory of understanding which
works employs principles which are, to use the Kantian language,
mathematical: that is, fully constitute the phenomena under
consideration via rules that explain their constituent parts. The
ordinary Tarskian definition of truth is one such, since it fully
explains the concept of truth in terms of the concept of satisfaction,
which explains the behavior of truth. In a sense different from the one
in which mean kinetic energy explains the properties of gases, but not
so different as to avoid being a non-circular definition of truth. Not
every circle is virtuous, since some phenomena genuinely have a
substratum which is responsible for their characteristic aspect, and in
such cases it is necessary to excavate the subsidiary concepts rather
than assuring the greatest harmony between elements of ordinary language.
pensul
> such cases it is necessary to excavate the subsidiary concepts rather
> than assuring the greatest harmony between elements of ordinary language.
>
as to avoid having a non-circular definition of truth, he is at least to be
commended for the scruples, even though non-circularity condemns him to
ontological non-existence. But according to Tarski, does the behaviour of
truth explain how the constituent parts of the phenomena under consideration
produce the concept of satisfaction? I would say that it explains, or rather
manifests, that the production takes place, not the how; for it would imply
that Gadamer has thrown out fundamental ontology along with the need for a
depth hermeneutic.
--
"The world of existence is an emanation of the merciful attribute of God."
Abdul-Baha
http://www.costarricense.cr/pagina/ernobe
Jason
> >>Well, Gadamer is making use of a special concept of "understanding"
> >>(*Verstehen*), which is in the neo-Kantian tradition opposed to
> >>"explanation" (*Erklaerung*). The special concept has an affinity for
> >>language, in that to *versteht* something is to obtain a discursive
> >>awareness of it (as opposed to the natural scientist whose exceptionless
> >>laws *erklaert* natural phenomena). But there is a sense of
> >>understanding (roughly Kant's own) which suggests that reason is much
> >>more the linguistic achievement than, say, grasping the physical motion
> >>of an object. (Your examples of "know-how" add a further complication.)
> >
> >
> > Truth is intrinsically temporal for Gadamer, the shock of suddenly coming to
an
> > understanding of something. Not the having of a truth, that would be the
> > expriencing of having information (experience as erlebnis), but the movement
> > itself as a non-subjective experience that changes us (erfahrung).
> > Appropriating a new understaning and new language, I suppose.
> >
> > I like this stuff, but it is a mish to understand.
> >
>
> I think you have the German terms mixed up: *Erlebnis* ordinarily means
> "lived experience" in the sense you attribute to *Erfahrung* "experience".
True. I'll have to revisit my notes.
<snip>
> > Okay. In Frege's theory of naming, his idea of a 'sense' being objective is
a
> > weak-point. But I think there is room for it to breath when considering
> > objective to be the weight of the many. Like your idea I suppose. I think
it
> > is reasonable.
> >
>
> Not at all: the objectivity of sense is the core of Frege's theory of
> language. If the route by which we reach the object did not have an
> observer-independent side, we could never associate the same object with
> another person's use of a word.
As I understood it, the idea of a 'sense' was the weak point in Frege's theory.
Not that it was a weak point, but that it would be where someone would refute
the theory. ... a sense's objectivity being one objection. I quite like
Frege's theory, but 'objectivity' has to be taken with a grain of salt I think.
There was some analogy he used to the image of a moon in a telescope for
memory... I think you made reference to it as well... where the image of the
moon is observer-dependent (depends upon eye position) but 'objective' in the
sense that it is something seen within the telescope.
<snip>
> > Okay, so sense-data is organised according to our language. If we have no
name
> > for something but have sufficient language 'cutlery', then we are able to
carve
> > up the world anyway into bite-sized pieces. This seems okay to me, but
> > maintaining an objective world's primacy of language over sense-data does
seem
> > to be a burden for this idea.
> >
>
> A conjecture: anything which could count as "sense-data" would have the
> structure of the "linguistic cutlery", since what differentiates the
> observer's representation of the object from the object itself is the
> linguistic depiction of the object. So these sense-data represent the
> subjective side of language, the way in which we are free to construct a
> picture of the world at variance with palpable reality (in the case of
> illusion etc.), but what is important to note is that we are not
> defining the sense-datum as separate from the linguistic representation
> of the object. Sellars has a sequence of thoughts in "Empiricism and the
> Philosophy of Mind" which has a similar upshot.
How far can we reasonably stretch the idea of 'language' though? If we wrap up
all our reality in language then it leaves little room for intuition, know-how,
conditioned-responses, gut-feel, etc. Like those fortunate people that are able
to sex ducklings. They can't put down into words how they do it, they just
'know' instinctively whether the duckling is male or female. Then there are
autistic people who are lightning calculators. Perhaps language works by
distancing us from this sort of direct-interaction with the world. But in
either case, I wouldn't say that language precedes sense-data.
<snip>
> >>Yes, the idea is that truth is that mirroring of reality: true thoughts
> >>are "aids to reflection", which make the comprehension of the world
> >>easier. The criterion of a true thought is that it make an act of
> >>reflection possible, where we can focus attention on a content, or in
> >>linguistic terms it makes an assertion possible. The difference between
> >>this and standard correspondence theories of truth is that the
> >>"truthmakers" are psychological, clearer insights into the mind and its
> >>link to reality, rather than external states of affairs found within the
> >>world: there's no reason to export psychological structure from where it
> >>can be dealt with into the environment.
> >
> >
> > Okay. I'm curious about the psychological structure though. Are they
> > organising aspects of the mind that allow thoughts to be grasped, expressed,
> > shared, judged, etc. Does this theory differ from understanding as a
linguistic
> > mould that shapes our reality? If so, how?
> >
>
> In a word, no: this is a new bottle for the old theory of *Verstehen*,
> one which allows more of the structure of understanding to play a role
> in cognitions. But the theory of *Verstehen* is a psychological theory,
> in that it offers a substantive theory of what it is for a subject to
> grasp a linguistically mediated "historical" content -- it is not
> (primarily, or in the hands of most of its practitioners) a metaphysical
> theory of what it is we understand when we understand language. These
> are idealist choices, but the need to defuse regresses which do not
> explain the phenomena in question lead to such choices.
Okay.
> >>Well, I've tried to be clear here, but taking a "sideways-on" view of
> >>the concept of truth is bound to harbor a few obscurities.
> >
> >
> > I like sideways views.
> >
>
> Gadamer's views are not "sideways-on", in that he does not countenance
> the need for a depth hermeneutic nor view Heidegger's fundamental
> ontology as one such.
What do you mean by 'depth hermeneutic' in relation to these guys?
> But to my mind, the theory of understanding which
> works employs principles which are, to use the Kantian language,
> mathematical: that is, fully constitute the phenomena under
> consideration via rules that explain their constituent parts. The
> ordinary Tarskian definition of truth is one such, since it fully
> explains the concept of truth in terms of the concept of satisfaction,
> which explains the behavior of truth. In a sense different from the one
> in which mean kinetic energy explains the properties of gases, but not
> so different as to avoid being a non-circular definition of truth. Not
> every circle is virtuous, since some phenomena genuinely have a
> substratum which is responsible for their characteristic aspect, and in
> such cases it is necessary to excavate the subsidiary concepts rather
> than assuring the greatest harmony between elements of ordinary language.
Understanding may just be an emotional response to certain patterns our senses
trip-off at. It may not be something that we can schematise as precisely as
Kant would have it. It may not even be as language-swollen as Gadamer or the
French take understanding to be.
Psychology has difficulty being called a science at times. Physiology might to
better but then there is a large abyss between our world and what physiology can
tell us about it. We can see what drugs do to neurons and also experience what
they do to us... perhaps even try to correlate our experience to the story of
the neuron. But we don't yet know enough about the workings of the brain,
language, understanding etc., to get a good scientific picture of understanding.
I think at first it is a stable platform to hang a theory on, certainly safer
than a metaphysical theory, but it opens a can of worms I'm thinking. In
particular, the philosophy of physiology and the philosophy of mind.
Outside of logic's symbol manipulation, Tarki's theory of truth is a theory of
meaning. So it would come down to personal 'satisfaction' here?
Jeff Rubard
[...]
> <snip>
>
>>>Okay. In Frege's theory of naming, his idea of a 'sense' being objective is
>
> a
>
>>>weak-point. But I think there is room for it to breath when considering
>>>objective to be the weight of the many. Like your idea I suppose. I think
>
> it
>
>>>is reasonable.
>>>
>>
>>Not at all: the objectivity of sense is the core of Frege's theory of
>>language. If the route by which we reach the object did not have an
>>observer-independent side, we could never associate the same object with
>>another person's use of a word.
>
>
> As I understood it, the idea of a 'sense' was the weak point in Frege's theory.
> Not that it was a weak point, but that it would be where someone would refute
> the theory. ... a sense's objectivity being one objection. I quite like
> Frege's theory, but 'objectivity' has to be taken with a grain of salt I think.
> There was some analogy he used to the image of a moon in a telescope for
> memory... I think you made reference to it as well... where the image of the
> moon is observer-dependent (depends upon eye position) but 'objective' in the
> sense that it is something seen within the telescope.
>
The analogy is that the sense is the image in the telescope, independent
of the vicissitudes of individual eyesight: individual "ideas" don't
rise to the level of sense's objectivity. This could be hard to swallow,
unless you allow that sense is *ideal* in being the "mental imprint" of
a given reference. Provided this, the objectivity of sense is of quite a
different character than that of physical reality, and the metaphor is
evidently an attempt to concretize the non-physical synchronization made
possible by grasping the same sense.
Excellent example, because the activity of "reliable" knowers takes
place within a linguistic framework: it's still the case that the
sexer's sense-data are linguistically constituted ("this is a
male/female"); what they can't put into words is how they arrive at the
experience of knowledge that such-and-such bird is male/female. In other
words, there is a role for non-linguistic cognition, but it fails to
meet certain standards of reasonability on account of its distance from
public norms.
[...]
>>>>Well, I've tried to be clear here, but taking a "sideways-on" view of
>>>>the concept of truth is bound to harbor a few obscurities.
>>>
>>>
>>>I like sideways views.
>>>
>>
>>Gadamer's views are not "sideways-on", in that he does not countenance
>>the need for a depth hermeneutic nor view Heidegger's fundamental
>>ontology as one such.
>
>
> What do you mean by 'depth hermeneutic' in relation to these guys?
>
The view that there is a structure to discourse which is not directly
implicit in the discourse itself, that we have to do more than simply
adequately gloss a piece of discourse in order to understand it. Marxist
and Freudian views are depth-hermeneutical in that they rely for their
explanation upon concepts not employed in the interpreted field. People
such as Gadamer have a lot of problems with depth hermeneutics, but it
seems to me that any adequate theory of understanding involves
addressing the issue of cognitive structure in a way that ordinary
discourse does not make possible: Frege's theories seem to me to have
the adequate pitch of abstraction necessary to account for the unity of
understanding language.
Indeed, and I'm tossing off "psychological" in its pre-scientific sense,
the sense of idealistic studies of the mind separate from the
observational evidence contemporary psychology relies upon to make
pronouncements about the structure of the mind. However, it seems to me
that much too much of contemporary philosophical discourse operates with
an "anti-psychologism" where it is simply assumed that we don't have to
concern ourselves with the problems of the mind in order to concern
ourselves with problems of thought, where logical constructions are made
available wholly independent of their grounding in cognition and as
explanatory of phenomena like meaning (without, however, the work
necessary to legitimate this as a view of the mind).
> Outside of logic's symbol manipulation, Tarki's theory of truth is a theory of
> meaning. So it would come down to personal 'satisfaction' here?
>
The question of what, if any, allusions Tarski is making in "Concept of
Truth in Formalized Languages" is one which I have never seen addressed.
It actually seems plausible to me that the concept of "satisfaction" is
modeled on Nietzsche's "will to power", in which case Tarski is saying
rather a lot more than is commonly granted to him (and Davidsonians have
more work to do before calling their theory Tarskian). But that's pretty
far-out by most standards.
Jason
> The analogy is that the sense is the image in the telescope, independent
> of the vicissitudes of individual eyesight: individual "ideas" don't
> rise to the level of sense's objectivity. This could be hard to swallow,
> unless you allow that sense is *ideal* in being the "mental imprint" of
> a given reference. Provided this, the objectivity of sense is of quite a
> different character than that of physical reality, and the metaphor is
> evidently an attempt to concretize the non-physical synchronization made
> possible by grasping the same sense.
It seems to me that an idea is a particular and a sense its universal. That
only if we hive-minded we could apprehend a sense's objectivity. Failing this,
discourse allows us to induce some idea of a name and its sense, but what we
induce is anybody's guess. Our induction also becomes part of the hive's, to
become part of the universal, changing it. The objectivity of a made-up name,
shared by two people, would be quite the double-image I imagine.
I can see a sense being a common "mental imprint" as you say, or perhaps a
congitive facade that we each share, that preceeds phenomena. Or more plainly,
what we collectively associate with a name, what the name brings to mind... -
what we think is expressed at least, in so far as language seems to work for us.
So 'sense' may not denote anything sensible. We may be looking at it around the
wrong way... it may be a name's utility, its social currency, that give us the
impression that what it expresses to us, it expresses to others. It is the
phenomena that communication seems to happen that give us reason to suspect
words express the same thing.
<snip>
> > How far can we reasonably stretch the idea of 'language' though? If we wrap
up
> > all our reality in language then it leaves little room for intuition,
know-how,
> > conditioned-responses, gut-feel, etc. Like those fortunate people that are
able
> > to sex ducklings. They can't put down into words how they do it, they just
> > 'know' instinctively whether the duckling is male or female. Then there are
> > autistic people who are lightning calculators. Perhaps language works by
> > distancing us from this sort of direct-interaction with the world. But in
> > either case, I wouldn't say that language precedes sense-data.
> >
>
> Excellent example, because the activity of "reliable" knowers takes
> place within a linguistic framework: it's still the case that the
> sexer's sense-data are linguistically constituted ("this is a
> male/female"); what they can't put into words is how they arrive at the
> experience of knowledge that such-and-such bird is male/female. In other
> words, there is a role for non-linguistic cognition, but it fails to
> meet certain standards of reasonability on account of its distance from
> public norms.
I see what you mean.
Okay, what about an autistic person that learned to sort ducklings into male and
female ponds? This person, by all counts, doesn't have sense-data that is
linguistically constituted.
<snip>
So if I understand you correctly, you use "psychological" in a near
phenomenological sense, but the a priori of phenomenology...?
> > Outside of logic's symbol manipulation, Tarki's theory of truth is a theory
of
> > meaning. So it would come down to personal 'satisfaction' here?
> >
>
> The question of what, if any, allusions Tarski is making in "Concept of
> Truth in Formalized Languages" is one which I have never seen addressed.
> It actually seems plausible to me that the concept of "satisfaction" is
> modeled on Nietzsche's "will to power", in which case Tarski is saying
> rather a lot more than is commonly granted to him (and Davidsonians have
> more work to do before calling their theory Tarskian). But that's pretty
> far-out by most standards.
Perhaps it is in relation to judgement... a way to justify belief in a string of
symbols by offering as much of a mechanical method as possible before yielding
to meaning.
Jeff Rubard
The point is that the sense of a sentence is a thought; that is to say,
what is individual about a sentence's meaning is purveyed by its sense.
Without sense, on Frege's account we would simply have instantiations of
the True and the False, and this makes a hash of the fact that sentences
express individual meanings. But if sense is not objective, then it
would not be possible for two people to have the same thought; and this
is clearly a desideratum for the analysis in question. What we are left
with is the question of how we reach cognitions, that is to say the path
by which thinkers come to similar results at the end of the line in
affirming the same truth-values for sentences. So it doesn't seem to me
that Frege is being particularly restrictive here, just excluding the
case of an individual's idiosyncrasies in thought.
> <snip>
>
>>>How far can we reasonably stretch the idea of 'language' though? If we wrap
>
> up
>
>>>all our reality in language then it leaves little room for intuition,
>
> know-how,
>
>>>conditioned-responses, gut-feel, etc. Like those fortunate people that are
>
> able
>
>>>to sex ducklings. They can't put down into words how they do it, they just
>>>'know' instinctively whether the duckling is male or female. Then there are
>>>autistic people who are lightning calculators. Perhaps language works by
>>>distancing us from this sort of direct-interaction with the world. But in
>>>either case, I wouldn't say that language precedes sense-data.
>>>
>>
>>Excellent example, because the activity of "reliable" knowers takes
>>place within a linguistic framework: it's still the case that the
>>sexer's sense-data are linguistically constituted ("this is a
>>male/female"); what they can't put into words is how they arrive at the
>>experience of knowledge that such-and-such bird is male/female. In other
>>words, there is a role for non-linguistic cognition, but it fails to
>>meet certain standards of reasonability on account of its distance from
>>public norms.
>
>
> I see what you mean.
>
> Okay, what about an autistic person that learned to sort ducklings into male and
> female ponds? This person, by all counts, doesn't have sense-data that is
> linguistically constituted.
>
I would say (provided the difficulties with language are intense enough)
they don't *know* how to sex ducklings, just how to perform the actions
involved in sexing. If they happened to be reliable sexers, we would
have discovered something about the human brain (a reflex) rather than
knowledge per se.
I mean something very similar to the sense in which phenomenology is a
psychological activity; the traditional, "pre-scientific" meaning of
psychology. As for the a priori, I mean to suggest that it is related to
the mind rather than the world: that is, that a priori results are
results of our cognitive capacities rather than external necessity. This
goes back to Kant, but also forward through the idealists down to
phenomenology: the essences the mind discovers by itself are the mind's
own. Otherwise we have an "intellectual intuition" by means of which we
learn about the world as it is in itself by means other than
conceptualizing that world, that is to say making alterations to one's
belief system without taking the appropriate steps in thought.
>
>>>Outside of logic's symbol manipulation, Tarki's theory of truth is a theory
>
> of
>
>>>meaning. So it would come down to personal 'satisfaction' here?
>>>
>>
>>The question of what, if any, allusions Tarski is making in "Concept of
>>Truth in Formalized Languages" is one which I have never seen addressed.
>>It actually seems plausible to me that the concept of "satisfaction" is
>>modeled on Nietzsche's "will to power", in which case Tarski is saying
>>rather a lot more than is commonly granted to him (and Davidsonians have
>>more work to do before calling their theory Tarskian). But that's pretty
>>far-out by most standards.
>
>
> Perhaps it is in relation to judgement... a way to justify belief in a string of
> symbols by offering as much of a mechanical method as possible before yielding
> to meaning.
>
Well, I don't know if Tarski had a metaphilosophical intention in
constructing his theory as he did to avoid the pitfalls of
axiomatization, but it *is* interesting that truth is completely defined
in terms of satisfaction: truth is not a theoretical primitive of the
semantic definition of truth. This means that it is possible to take
Tarski's side, as it were, on the question of the metaphysics of truth
and insist on the importance of satisfaction as against truth: and one
way of understanding satisfaction is as a "will to figurate" not far
removed from Nietzsche. Truth is therefore "submerged" in semantics, and
instead of taking truth as self-explanatory it is necessary to explain
truth's role in various forms of judgement.
RFHall
wrote:
Please don't take my comments as contradictory.
>What is language? Since there are so many different languages and types
>of language, yet all manifesting marked similarities, the question may
>seem otiose. Yet language possesses a character which may permit us to
>search deeper for its meaning. The mark of language which reveals its
>unity is to be found in a psychological definition. Language is the
>public, objective face of the mind: any and all mental phenomena
>surpassing the bounds of subjectivity are linguistic, and linguistic
>phenomena are mental in a useful sense, being the product and reflection
>of individual minds in concert. If this be the case, the characterizing
>of language and the mind ought to demonstrate a sort of maturity
>relative to other psychological facts, reflecting that language is the
>province of mutual intelligibility: and indeed it does, in the form of
>truth.
Language has the advantage of being written and thus able to be
carried around and consulted whenever, and as often, as you want.
However, apparently those who study learning find audio-visual to be a
more powerful presentation. The spoken language is useful in the
moment and definitely gets things done. So, are we talking types of
language in different forms? Would you consider audio-visual a type
of language? Even pornography is considered freedom of speach.
>
>Truth is often defined metaphysically, in terms of a correspondence
>between a linguistic entity and some item in the world. There is another
>definition, a psychological one, which seems to me to be more fruitful:
>truth is a property possessed by psychological states many-sided enough
>to be characterized linguistically, that is permitting of reflection. Of
>course, many states complex enough to be captured by a propositional
>attitude do not share in truth, but the substantive point is that truths
>are distinguished by the operations which can be performed upon them,
>the "laws of truth". The reflective theory of truth is thusly not an
>empty platitude, but rather results in a typology of the properties
>which true statements have: cognizability, shareability, judgeability.
I think truth is derived through possibly: reliability, repeatability,
and consistency.. mathematical truths are synthetic, definitional
truths (a bear is an animal), and truths of faith (G*D exists), and
objective truths (a mass will continue in a direction till it is
stopped) are all truths too. Truth is what works, primarily.
http://www.seanet.com/~realistic/chpt9.html
>
>For example, let us take the famous example "snow is white" and subject
>it to the proposed analysis. "Snow is white" is true if it can be
>reflectively ascertained that snow is white, that is if possession of
>the concepts "snow" and "white" permits of their combination in an
>exceptionless judgement that snow is white which permits the subject to
>entertain the thought that snow is white (to reflectively examine the
>judgment). Similarities between this theory of truth and the famous
>"semantic" definition of truth are not accidental: if language is taken
>for mind, then the psychological fleshing-out of semantics leads to an
>alteration in focus, where the mental activity associated with grasping
>a truth receives priority rather than the semantic status of the
>statement: true contents are then characterized by the sorts of
>combination they permit, their thinkability.
Have you ever thought of something, but been unable to put it in
words. Perhaps eventually, but not at first. That would indicate
language is not all there is to the mind. Experience sometimes leads
to associations that are visual, or emotional, or what has been called
intuition. And there may be another plane of experience to which we
are not all aware, some kind of electro-spiritual energy for which we
have no words to express. But this is just guesswork for which I have
only a small amount of personal experience.
>
>However, what is not a candidate for the status of language cannot be a
>truth, on account of its inadequacy for the purpose of reflection: a
>"true image" can serve as constituent of a shareable thought, but the
>thought must enable a community of mind a la Frege, where each person
>grasps the same thought. Considered this way, the objectivity of truth
>is not a formality, but a substantive property of the element of truth,
>language subjected to the application of the concept of truth -- it just
>so happens that the employment of truth as a property possessed by
>linguistic items marks out psychological states which permit of
>synchronization. Truth is therefore a name for a sort of structure,
>which permits thought to assume the form of language: without the
>structure, we should be bereft of the mental states associated with
>reflection and their public availability in discourse.
Language is certainly prone to be an art form. Look at Sartre. And
visual art can embody and communicate truth, in some circumstances,
far better than language, wouldn't you agree? May be not. Look at
pictures of the holocaust.
Speaking of art, Jeff, (without condescension) your obvious study in
the field of linguistic artists (philosophy) really shows in your
writing style. This is a good and challenging read.
RFHall
Realistic idealism
No dogma, No dues.
Jeff Rubard
> On Fri, 07 Jan 2005 00:04:17 GMT, Jeff Rubard <jeffr...@online.ie>
> wrote:
>
> Please don't take my comments as contradictory.
>
>>What is language? Since there are so many different languages and types
>>of language, yet all manifesting marked similarities, the question may
>>seem otiose. Yet language possesses a character which may permit us to
>>search deeper for its meaning. The mark of language which reveals its
>>unity is to be found in a psychological definition. Language is the
>>public, objective face of the mind: any and all mental phenomena
>>surpassing the bounds of subjectivity are linguistic, and linguistic
>>phenomena are mental in a useful sense, being the product and reflection
>>of individual minds in concert. If this be the case, the characterizing
>>of language and the mind ought to demonstrate a sort of maturity
>>relative to other psychological facts, reflecting that language is the
>>province of mutual intelligibility: and indeed it does, in the form of
>>truth.
>
> Language has the advantage of being written and thus able to be
> carried around and consulted whenever, and as often, as you want.
> However, apparently those who study learning find audio-visual to be a
> more powerful presentation. The spoken language is useful in the
> moment and definitely gets things done. So, are we talking types of
> language in different forms? Would you consider audio-visual a type
> of language? Even pornography is considered freedom of speach.
Yes, a rebus is an example of how language depends on cognitive rather
than semiotic characteristics: a language is what we process in a
linguistic fashion, rather than merely a set of written/audible signs.
>>Truth is often defined metaphysically, in terms of a correspondence
>>between a linguistic entity and some item in the world. There is another
>>definition, a psychological one, which seems to me to be more fruitful:
>>truth is a property possessed by psychological states many-sided enough
>>to be characterized linguistically, that is permitting of reflection. Of
>>course, many states complex enough to be captured by a propositional
>>attitude do not share in truth, but the substantive point is that truths
>>are distinguished by the operations which can be performed upon them,
>>the "laws of truth". The reflective theory of truth is thusly not an
>>empty platitude, but rather results in a typology of the properties
>>which true statements have: cognizability, shareability, judgeability.
>
> I think truth is derived through possibly: reliability, repeatability,
> and consistency.. mathematical truths are synthetic, definitional
> truths (a bear is an animal), and truths of faith (G*D exists), and
> objective truths (a mass will continue in a direction till it is
> stopped) are all truths too. Truth is what works, primarily.
> http://www.seanet.com/~realistic/chpt9.html
The goal of the note is to argue that all truths have something in
common: an increase in the scope and power of thought. Truth is another
name for the ability to express more complex thoughts via judgements
which "hang together" as contents permitting of articulation via the
operations of the laws of truth. The psychological category of
reflection is the key to understanding how such an activity occurs in
the mind: how the knowing subject "constructs" truth as a category of
assessment for the unification of experience through linguistic mediation.
>>For example, let us take the famous example "snow is white" and subject
>>it to the proposed analysis. "Snow is white" is true if it can be
>>reflectively ascertained that snow is white, that is if possession of
>>the concepts "snow" and "white" permits of their combination in an
>>exceptionless judgement that snow is white which permits the subject to
>>entertain the thought that snow is white (to reflectively examine the
>>judgment). Similarities between this theory of truth and the famous
>>"semantic" definition of truth are not accidental: if language is taken
>>for mind, then the psychological fleshing-out of semantics leads to an
>>alteration in focus, where the mental activity associated with grasping
>>a truth receives priority rather than the semantic status of the
>>statement: true contents are then characterized by the sorts of
>>combination they permit, their thinkability.
>
> Have you ever thought of something, but been unable to put it in
> words. Perhaps eventually, but not at first. That would indicate
> language is not all there is to the mind. Experience sometimes leads
> to associations that are visual, or emotional, or what has been called
> intuition. And there may be another plane of experience to which we
> are not all aware, some kind of electro-spiritual energy for which we
> have no words to express. But this is just guesswork for which I have
> only a small amount of personal experience.
Yes, to define language as the public, objective face of thought is not
to deny that there are mental phenomena which do not assume the form of
linguistically expressible thoughts. But, in a normal mature human,
these are in a parasitic relationship to linguistic thought rather than
forming its substrate: visual experiences that do not translate into
observation sentences are deficient from the standpoint of experience,
not only as somehow inexpressible.
>>However, what is not a candidate for the status of language cannot be a
>>truth, on account of its inadequacy for the purpose of reflection: a
>>"true image" can serve as constituent of a shareable thought, but the
>>thought must enable a community of mind a la Frege, where each person
>>grasps the same thought. Considered this way, the objectivity of truth
>>is not a formality, but a substantive property of the element of truth,
>>language subjected to the application of the concept of truth -- it just
>>so happens that the employment of truth as a property possessed by
>>linguistic items marks out psychological states which permit of
>>synchronization. Truth is therefore a name for a sort of structure,
>>which permits thought to assume the form of language: without the
>>structure, we should be bereft of the mental states associated with
>>reflection and their public availability in discourse.
>
> Language is certainly prone to be an art form. Look at Sartre. And
> visual art can embody and communicate truth, in some circumstances,
> far better than language, wouldn't you agree? May be not. Look at
> pictures of the holocaust.
>
> Speaking of art, Jeff, (without condescension) your obvious study in
> the field of linguistic artists (philosophy) really shows in your
> writing style. This is a good and challenging read.
Thank you.
> RFHall
> Realistic idealism
> No dogma, No dues.
Jason
We don't need to be having the same thought. Thoughts could simply be a
desideratum that fills the functional role of coin in social currency. After
all, what is a thought? They might appear to be functionally the same, but may
not be. It seems to me that it is the function that is important.
> and this
> is clearly a desideratum for the analysis in question. What we are left
> with is the question of how we reach cognitions, that is to say the path
> by which thinkers come to similar results at the end of the line in
> affirming the same truth-values for sentences. So it doesn't seem to me
> that Frege is being particularly restrictive here, just excluding the
> case of an individual's idiosyncrasies in thought.
Okay, I see what you mean. I don't agree in this exclusion though. I think it
is a hack to fit his schema.
What if this was a learned "reflex"? We are likely to say that they didn't
*know* how to sex duckling before, but now they do... The theory seems somewhat
prescriptive of what knowledge should be counted as, rather than capturing our
typical use of the term.
Yes, this is interesting.
What do you mean by "metaphilosophical"?
Jeff Rubard
If thoughts are simply a "desideratum that fills the functional role of
coin in social currency", what is left to be desired? If human beings
are successfully socially coordinated by thoughts having
indistinguishable content, why would we find the notion to be an
incomplete one? I am of the opinion that the social character of reason
is not undercut by subjectivity, for the reason that reason is what is
compatible with the forms of receptivity possessed by the individual
subject. Thusly, there's no objection to be mounted against a "social"
concept that is compatible with the operations of the individual mind:
that is what a reasonable notion is.
>
>>and this
>>is clearly a desideratum for the analysis in question. What we are left
>>with is the question of how we reach cognitions, that is to say the path
>>by which thinkers come to similar results at the end of the line in
>>affirming the same truth-values for sentences. So it doesn't seem to me
>>that Frege is being particularly restrictive here, just excluding the
>>case of an individual's idiosyncrasies in thought.
>
>
> Okay, I see what you mean. I don't agree in this exclusion though. I think it
> is a hack to fit his schema.
>
Well, the point is that a full story about how thinkers come to grasp
contents on the level of reference is compatible with the version of
sense sketched above: and this can contain a great deal more of the
cognitive concerns about how individual thinkers are epistemically
related to the world that you raise. There's no reason that the theory
of reference cannot address all the various forms of an individual's
coming to know about certain things, in fact that is what it
historically has consisted of (down to Gareth Evans). But the theory of
sense needs to serve the function of regulating the processing of
information such that various forms of thought we enjoy are not ruled
out by scruples about how reality hooks onto language: it represents the
role of language as instrument of communication, the idealities built
into our attempts to communicate particular matters of fact.
Well, these are not exactly typical usages of "knowledge". But it is
true that I am proposing there is no sense in which a linguistically
inexpressible thought can be had: that I relegate to the vicissitudes of
individual psychology, rather than thought per se. Although this is not
an original thought, it strikes me more forcefully for the reason that a
conception of language oriented to language's social function rather
than words-and-rules militates for a deeper role for language in
epistemology than is commonly allowed.
A comparison of philosophical viewpoints without the advancement of
substantive theses; an assessment of philosophies from a standpoint
"above" them (for example, an analysis of world-views). This newsgroup
is ostensibly dedicated to metaphilosophical issues, although I like to
think metaphysical viewpoints are not out of the question; but it is an
interesting question whether any such thing can actually exist.
Jason
> >>The point is that the sense of a sentence is a thought; that is to say,
> >>what is individual about a sentence's meaning is purveyed by its sense.
> >>Without sense, on Frege's account we would simply have instantiations of
> >>the True and the False, and this makes a hash of the fact that sentences
> >>express individual meanings. But if sense is not objective, then it
> >>would not be possible for two people to have the same thought;
> >
> >
> > We don't need to be having the same thought. Thoughts could simply be a
> > desideratum that fills the functional role of coin in social currency.
After
> > all, what is a thought? They might appear to be functionally the same, but
may
> > not be. It seems to me that it is the function that is important.
> >
>
> If thoughts are simply a "desideratum that fills the functional role of
> coin in social currency", what is left to be desired? If human beings
> are successfully socially coordinated by thoughts having
> indistinguishable content, why would we find the notion to be an
> incomplete one?
It seems incomplete in that a sense or thought's "objectivity" has become a
shadow; the ideal of objectivity drained by qualification. What is left over
is an "objectiveness" that is now itself a token for something-we-know-not-what.
Or worse, an illusion/elusion for the purposes of completing a schema. That is,
if it cannot be established as something tangible and other than arbitrary, then
there doesn't seem to be a good case as to why a sense or thought should be able
to determine a referent or truth value.
> I am of the opinion that the social character of reason
> is not undercut by subjectivity, for the reason that reason is what is
> compatible with the forms of receptivity possessed by the individual
> subject. Thusly, there's no objection to be mounted against a "social"
> concept that is compatible with the operations of the individual mind:
> that is what a reasonable notion is.
Fair enough. It lends itself to a post-structuralist viewpoint of reason.
Individual minds can swim in many directions, but there is an overall current
that is created by them. This current is the social character of reason that
has a lot of momentum behind it - while slow to change it may do so. From what
I understand of the current schema, it is subjective from a social perspective
but "objective" from an individuals'. A closely related question is whether
reason can be truly objective. To labour the metaphor, are there canals outside
of the sphere of society that help shape the overall current of reason? The
answer to this question, I figure, is where modernism and post-modernism differ.
> >>and this
> >>is clearly a desideratum for the analysis in question. What we are left
> >>with is the question of how we reach cognitions, that is to say the path
> >>by which thinkers come to similar results at the end of the line in
> >>affirming the same truth-values for sentences. So it doesn't seem to me
> >>that Frege is being particularly restrictive here, just excluding the
> >>case of an individual's idiosyncrasies in thought.
> >
> >
> > Okay, I see what you mean. I don't agree in this exclusion though. I think
it
> > is a hack to fit his schema.
> >
>
> Well, the point is that a full story about how thinkers come to grasp
> contents on the level of reference is compatible with the version of
> sense sketched above: and this can contain a great deal more of the
> cognitive concerns about how individual thinkers are epistemically
> related to the world that you raise. There's no reason that the theory
> of reference cannot address all the various forms of an individual's
> coming to know about certain things, in fact that is what it
> historically has consisted of (down to Gareth Evans). But the theory of
> sense needs to serve the function of regulating the processing of
> information such that various forms of thought we enjoy are not ruled
> out by scruples about how reality hooks onto language: it represents the
> role of language as instrument of communication, the idealities built
> into our attempts to communicate particular matters of fact.
A fill-in-the-blank theory must demonstrate the necessity of what is to be
filled in. If the role of this blank is to mediate reference then it needs to
attach itself to reality in some way unless by "reference" we don't mean the
world but the world constituted in language. I would argue that we learn
language because of our experiences in the world, but once language is in
operation I wouldn't go so far as to say that our experiences are now fully
linguistic. This seems language-centric and blind to the mechanisms that
produced it; a kind of kicking away of the ladder type thing.
Language has taken the role of idealism and nominalism in contemporary
philosophy, it is the new Cartesian cogito. And for all its arrogated status of
being uniquely human and intricacies derived from trying to carve new ground, it
is in principle still framed in this role of the (shared) cogito and privy to
its critisisms. Except now, instead of the "I", it is the "We".
[snip]
> >>I would say (provided the difficulties with language are intense enough)
> >>they don't *know* how to sex ducklings, just how to perform the actions
> >>involved in sexing. If they happened to be reliable sexers, we would
> >>have discovered something about the human brain (a reflex) rather than
> >>knowledge per se.
> >
> >
> > What if this was a learned "reflex"? We are likely to say that they didn't
> > *know* how to sex duckling before, but now they do... The theory seems
somewhat
> > prescriptive of what knowledge should be counted as, rather than capturing
our
> > typical use of the term.
> >
>
> Well, these are not exactly typical usages of "knowledge". But it is
> true that I am proposing there is no sense in which a linguistically
> inexpressible thought can be had: that I relegate to the vicissitudes of
> individual psychology, rather than thought per se. Although this is not
> an original thought, it strikes me more forcefully for the reason that a
> conception of language oriented to language's social function rather
> than words-and-rules militates for a deeper role for language in
> epistemology than is commonly allowed.
I don't know that I agree, but I respect your view. Derrida plays on the
boundaries of what can't be expressed. Writers often play on this boundary as
well, where words convey meaning by association rather than explicit narrative.
[snip]
> >>Well, I don't know if Tarski had a metaphilosophical intention in
> >>constructing his theory as he did to avoid the pitfalls of
> >>axiomatization, but it *is* interesting that truth is completely defined
> >>in terms of satisfaction: truth is not a theoretical primitive of the
> >>semantic definition of truth. This means that it is possible to take
> >>Tarski's side, as it were, on the question of the metaphysics of truth
> >>and insist on the importance of satisfaction as against truth: and one
> >>way of understanding satisfaction is as a "will to figurate" not far
> >>removed from Nietzsche. Truth is therefore "submerged" in semantics, and
> >> instead of taking truth as self-explanatory it is necessary to explain
> >>truth's role in various forms of judgement.
> >
> >
> > Yes, this is interesting.
> >
> > What do you mean by "metaphilosophical"?
> >
>
> A comparison of philosophical viewpoints without the advancement of
> substantive theses; an assessment of philosophies from a standpoint
> "above" them (for example, an analysis of world-views). This newsgroup
> is ostensibly dedicated to metaphilosophical issues, although I like to
> think metaphysical viewpoints are not out of the question; but it is an
> interesting question whether any such thing can actually exist.
Interesting. I wouldn't have thought there is such a thing as meta-philosophy,
but I see now that this is a function of my view of philosophy. To me there is
no such thing as a philosophical theory because I see philosophy as an activity.
What comes out of this act may result in a theory, but this belongs to the
subject in question, as I see it. For example, a theory of science would belong
to the collective sciences. A commentary on various theories of science would
be meta-science under the philosophy of science. The philosophy of philosophy
is still philosophy, but perhaps meta-philosophy can be a subject under the
science of philosophy or something. But this is just me. I appreciate that
phil is different things to different people.
