On Monday, January 31, 2005 at 10:58:49 PM UTC-8, Jason wrote:
> [snip]
> > >>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.