If I say "I understand X" can I at the same time say "X is incoherent"?
The above.
If I can say "I understand X" and can at the same time say "X is incoherent," how does that play out?
If I can say "I understand X" and can at the same time say "X is incoherent," how does that play out?
Comments (49)
You would understand it is incoherent. Indeed, wouldn't understanding something be a prerequisite for knowing it is incoherent?
I can understand what the person is saying. But the concept of a round square is incoherent because by definition a square cannot be round.
My position would be that you didn't actually understand. That nothing understandable was said.
Let's see what the others have to say. :smile:
Every sentence has a sense.
I can understand that "a round square" is incoherent by juxtaposing the concepts round and square. I get that.
But I can't understand what a round square is. It's ununderstandable.
A hard hat is recommended when standing under anything that does not firmly cohere.
Is there then no such thing as non-sense?
@Banno. What up. This is right up your alley. :smile:
Wittgenstein talks about nonsense. But I think that means incoherence.
Its not binary, you can both understand the sentence is that incoherent and not understand the incoherent bit at the same time. You are understanding the part that communicates something incoherent and recognizing that what is being communicated is incoherent. Its not either/or.
Good explanation.
Right, there are two different things to understand. The sentence, and the concept of a round square.
Thank you
Could be from a surrealist play.
If this wouldn’t entirely miss the point of the OP, maybe if the proposition is rephrased then the connection between understanding and coherency might be better expressed, this while better avoiding the possibility of equivocation. I’m thinking into something along the lines of: “That which is incoherent to S cannot be understood by S in due measure.” (This while granting that one can understand what is and is not incoherent to oneself.)
So, the sentence “this claim is false” (or “square circles exist”) can be understood as a grammatically correct sentence - because its syntax is coherent - while the sentence’s content remains not understood due to being incoherent.
Or, someone could understand the allegorical intentions to Ionesco’s play “Rhinoceros” without understanding the play’s underlying system of logic (granting that it has one and that it is nevertheless incoherent to the viewer).
Or, if the implications of dialetheism are found to be incoherent, then one cannot understand them - this despite understanding what dialetheism proposes via grammatically correct sentences.
... But no worries if this doesn't address the OP's concern.
:up:
Can you expand on what you mean by "incoherent"? And what is it with respect to? Propositions? Arguments? Sentences? Mathematical models? Experimental data?
This thread is a continuation of another thread: I'm trying to link you to it:
Click on ZzzoneiroCosm below. :smile:
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
You just linked me to this page.
Check the edit. :smile:
Got it.
That thread did little to elucidate anything; the only thing I saw that was relevant was the discussion of what it is "like" to be oneself holistically and whether or not one considers that to be coherent and thus a useful construct.
That's the whole bit.
Feel free to take the thread wherever you like. :smile:
Well, I don’t think it’s possible to say both at the same time, but it is possible to believe both at the same time. Any action can be interpreted/observed as ‘saying’ one OR the other, and two people at the same time can interpret you saying “X is incoherent” to mean one or the other.
Some people reduce understanding to the coherence of language structure. An understanding of X is constrained by the language concept of X.
I agree. Believing is easy.
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
To understand some puzzle is at least to some extent to place it within a context. You understand circles, and you understand squares, in that you can recognise them, point them out to others, draw them and discuss their various attributes. That's sufficient to bring about puzzlement when someone posits a round square. What you understand by "round" and by "square" do not go together in an obviously coherent fashion.
What's the problem?
No problem at all with the above.
The problem arose in the Nagel thread when Jackson said he understood the phrase "what it feels like to be me" but thereafter said it was incoherent.
So the issue is: can X be understood and also be incoherent?
I'd link you to it but I don't know how.
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
To which Jackson replied:
Quoting Jackson
Focusing on the incoherence claim.
So what's happening here?
Yet you understand "square" and "circle" but think "square circle" incoherent.
We must be working with different definitions of or usages for "incoherent".
Above, the sentence "I drew a square circle" was presented by Jackson. This is the sort of sentence I would call incoherent. I might define 'incoherent' in this context as 'ununderstandable'. Or, eschewing definitions, I might say that the sentence in question is the sort I would call incoherent or ununderstandable.
To my lights, there's nothing to understand in the sentence, "I drew a square circle." I might imagine someone drawing a square and then drawing a circle and then I might try to reconcile the two drawings. My failure to effect this reconciliation would lead me to say this sentence is incoherent, is ununderstandable, is nonsense.
Obviously, the components of the sentence, taken separately, are understandable or coherent: I, the act of drawing, the idea of a circle, the idea of a square.
Why would you do that?
https://www.etymonline.com/word/incoherent#etymonline_v_30010
in·co·her·ent
/?ink??hir?nt/
Learn to pronounce
adjective
1.
(of spoken or written language) expressed in an incomprehensible or confusing way; unclear.
https://www.google.com/search?q=incoherent&oq=in+ohere&aqs=chrome.4.69i57j69i60l3j35i39i305j0i10i433l3.2524j1j4&client=ms-android-google&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
At any rate that's the disconnect.
If you claim all geese are sheep then the quilt is stuffed with wool.
Not really set on making a point. Just want to understand what's going on in the dialog.
The dictionary defines "incoherent" as (among other things) "incomprehensible." (I prefer "ununderstandable" because of the clarity of the root and my taste for the eccentric.) You and Jackson seem to be working with a different definition. That's why we don't see eye to eye. End of game for me.
If you want to set out a definition for "incoherent" beyond "the opposite of coherent," I'm interested. But I feel like the dialogic conundrum is already resolved.
Quoting Banno
Makes a nice koan. :pray:
Not "understood," "understandable."
Incoherent: It doesn't make sense.
These concepts seem important: Apophenia & Pareidolia.
To get right to the point, incoherence, no such thing!
Good to know you (and the dictionary) see what the problem is. :smile:
Well, I try my best! :smile:
Not sure what you mean but those are pretty words and I'm happy to add them to my vocabulary list.
Visit Wikipedia for details.
Astonishing.
:up:
Here's the confusion:
incoherent
1.
(of spoken or written language) expressed in an incomprehensible or confusing way; unclear.
"he screamed some incoherent threat"
{To my view, definition 1. is more apropos to the dialog above as it's "spoken or written language" that's under scrutiny. But to each his own.}
2.
(of an ideology, policy, or system) internally inconsistent; illogical.
"the film is ideologically incoherent"
{To my view, definition 2. is the wrong choice as it's not at all an ideology, policy or system (or anything resembling these) that's under scrutiny. But again, to each his own.}
This is the issue - or I assume must be the issue, lacking clarification from those espousing a definition different from definition 1. I assume you preference is for definition 2.
Incoherent means either: 1. incomprehensible or 2. internally inconsistent.
So pick your poison, but there's no need to continue the dialog if the word is being used in two different ways. We're quite literally speaking two different languages.
https://www.google.com/search?q=incoherent&oq=in+ohere&aqs=chrome.4.69i57j69i60l3j35i39i305j0i10i433l3.2524j1j4&client=ms-android-google&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8
Quoting Banno
This shouldn't be astonishing to anyone who's watched the forum closely for years and years and years and years. But thanks for popping in with some input.