Deflationary Truth and Correspondence
Does the deflationary account of truth exemplified in the T-sentence: "'p' is true iff p" escape the logic of correspondence? Does it not rely on 'p' corresponding to p? That is, does not the phrase "snow is white" correspond to the actuality snow is white? If not, then how else could it make sense ?
Putting aside the issue of the truth of what we say or whether what we say could correspond to anything 'beyond experience', isn't it necessary, in order for us to be able to speak about our experiences at all, that what we say must be able to correspond to our experience?
If we cannot make any sense of the very notion of communicating about our experience without the idea that our locutions are at least able to correspond to our experiences then does this not commit us to the notion of correspondence? I have raised this question elsewhere quite a few times and no one ever seems to want to address it. Am I missing something obvious?
Note, I don't think a correspondence theory of truth is possible, because I think correspondence, like truth, is unanalyzable; that is, neither can be understood in terms of anything more primary. The most we can have is a correspondence account of both meaning and truth, and I believe there simply is no other account that does not collapse the idea of truth into the idea of belief.
Putting aside the issue of the truth of what we say or whether what we say could correspond to anything 'beyond experience', isn't it necessary, in order for us to be able to speak about our experiences at all, that what we say must be able to correspond to our experience?
If we cannot make any sense of the very notion of communicating about our experience without the idea that our locutions are at least able to correspond to our experiences then does this not commit us to the notion of correspondence? I have raised this question elsewhere quite a few times and no one ever seems to want to address it. Am I missing something obvious?
Note, I don't think a correspondence theory of truth is possible, because I think correspondence, like truth, is unanalyzable; that is, neither can be understood in terms of anything more primary. The most we can have is a correspondence account of both meaning and truth, and I believe there simply is no other account that does not collapse the idea of truth into the idea of belief.
Comments (102)
Nagase (the excellent dude from the other forum) explained that Tarski's goals were not clear. He may have wanted to somehow redeem Correspondence, but the T-sentence doesn't do that.
For a good explanation of Tarski's definition of truth, see Scott Soames' Understanding Truth.
This leaves intact the idea that for a cognitive agent to be disposed to endorses the sentence 'P' as expressing a truth, and this truth being the fact that P (look up Jennifer Hornsby on identity theories of truth), then this agent is indeed representing (some feature of) the world to be thus and so (mamely, P). There being such representational acts doesn't entail that there are physical representations (syntactical items) that 'correspond' to the world. This correspondence notion remains rather obscure and quite dispensable. Beliefs (mental acts), and assertions (speech acts) that are expressive of them are actualizations of rational powers that belong to whole rational animals, and aren't features or items ('tokened sentences' or 'mental representations') somehow located in them. Indeed, Davidsonian 'holistic hermeneuticism' (as I would characterize his theoretical apparatus of radical interpretation) shares with Dennett's idea of the intentional stance a natural enmity to representationalism.
That's because, on such interpretivist accounts, definite propositional attitudes can only be ascribed to individuals on the basis of a global assignment of meanings(*) to all the sub-sentential terms that she employs when she endorses the truth of 'P', and this can only be effected in the context of a whole range of attitudes, background beliefs, intentions, etc. (with essential reliance of the constitutive ideal of rationality, and the principle of charity, in Davidson's account) Hence, in the essential background of her endorsement of the claim that P, as she expresses it with 'P', are involved her understandings of all the meaningful words being used. And those meanings (e.g. how she means what she thinks or says) can only be determined, even by her, within a whole 'conceptual scheme' (a notion that Davidson would of course have some reservations about that aren't important here), within, that is, a conceptually informed, and hence rationally structured, way to engage with the significant world (Umwelt) that human beings inhabit.
(*) Those meaning assignments to meaningful expressions (singular terms and predicates) are the 'axioms' that underscore the derivation of the T-shema (the 'theorems') of a Tarskian theory of truth.
The logic of correspondence is even presupposed in any attempt to question it; so what could justify thinking that correspondence itself requires or could be susceptible of logical justification? Correspondence seems to be the basis of all justification as well as the basis of all sense, since claims about empirical states would be senseless without the assumption that the claims either correspond or fail to correspond ( the negative function of correspondence) to what they are claims about.
A correspondance theorist could object: If sentences aren't representations (such that facts can correspond or fail to correspond to them), then what are they? Well, in themselves they only are syntactically structured marks on paper, or vocal patterns, etc. Those linguistic items don't have any intrinsic semantic properties. That's a bit of a truism. They are meaningless in themselves but the standard, patterned, use that is made of them in a linguistic community can be interpreted. In that case the sentences inherit meanings from the fact that they are used to anchor intelligible patterns in the behavior (including, but not restricted to, the linguistic behavior) of rational agents.
So, you may want to say that a claim (a linguistic act, e.g. a sort of behavioral episode in the life of a speaker) can correspond or fail to correspond to the way the world is. This is true, in a sense, but it just amounts to saying that claims (or beliefs) can be distanced from the world through being false (that's the way John McDowell puts it). In the case where they are true, the world simply is as it is claimed to be by the person making use of the sentence. But this is just say what the corresponding T-shema already states. It is the deflationary account. This doesn't support any further claim of correspondence between facts and sentences. It merely states a condition for a linguistic acts, suitably interpreted, to be expressing something true.
I highly recommend Jennifer Hornsby's Truth: The Identity Theory, a paper that I found much illuminating when I first read it (as anything else that I read from Hornsby) and that I ought probably to read again.
Yes, it seems self-evident that claims correspond or fail to correspond to the way the world is, and that even false claims (as opposed to nonsense) correspond to the way the world could be. I don't have a feel for what "distanced from the world" could mean; the way I see it, all claims are of or about the world, and its possible states.
When you say that "this is just to say what the corresponding T-schema already states" you seem to be suggesting an opposite relation of dependence to the one I see. As I see it the T-schema simply expresses in minimalist form what is implicit in the ancient self-evident and well established logic of correspondence, which was expressed by Aristotle as "to say of what is, that it is" and is itself thus dependent on that logic of correspondence for its very sense. Agreed, it is a deflationary account, because it says that correspondence is not further analyzable than that expression which is just the schema itself. I also think that there can be no theory of correspondence because correspondence is itself logically presupposed in all theories, and we would be using what we are purporting to explain, producing a mere circularity.
Thanks for link to the Horsnby paper; I'll certainly check it out; but my immediate reaction to the idea of an identity theory of truth is to say that it doesn't seem to make sense that the true things we say are the same as the things we are talking about in the saying.
[quote=Frege, 1918]It is worthy of notice that the sentence "I smell the scent of violets" has the same content as the sentence "it is true that I smell the scent of violets". So it seems, then, that nothing is added to the thought by my ascribing to it the property of truth.[/quote]
So what it amounts to is the claim that the sentences "'snow is white' is true" and "snow is white" mean the same thing. It explains the semantic equivalence of predicating a sentence as true and using that sentence. As such it doesn't have anything to do with the correspondence theory.
I am not addressing truth, though, but merely correspondence. I am simply saying that 'snow is white' corresponds to snow being white or else it is senseless; I haven't mentioned truth at all.
The title of the discussion is "Deflationary Truth and Correspondence".
OK, but that title is such as it is only because the T-schema is conventionally understood to be a deflationary account of truth. I am mainly concerned with the logic implicit in the schema and I think it is obvious that it is merely an expression of the logic of correspondence. But I would be happy to hear another account.
I do say in the second paragraph "putting aside the issue of the truth of what we say"...
I've given another account; Frege's account.
That's an account dealing with truth not with the logic of correspondence.
That's an ungrammatical sentence. What's it supposed to mean?
Its exactly equivalent to 'P' iff P.
Which is an ungrammatical sentence.
Ungrammatical or not, you said earlier that "'X' is true" is equivalent to "X" so why would "'P' is true" not by the same logic be equivalent to 'P'?
If "'X is true' is equivalent to 'X' then why can't "'X' is true' iff X" be written as "'X' iff X". I am not particularly familiar with the conventions of predicate logic, so if I am missing something then I'm happy to be corrected. Although, all this is a bit of a distraction anyway because my main point is that 'snow is white' corresponds to snow being white; the argument is that if what we say does not correspond to anything then we cannot be saying anything about anything; we would be merely spinning in the void, so to speak.
The bit in bold doesn't make sense. That "X" is true iff X is not that "'X' is true" iff X.
Does "the present king of France is bald" correspond to something? Or what about "Obama is a senator"?
Yes the words correspond to a possible state of affairs. There could be a king of France and he could be bald. Same with "Obama is a senator". You still seem to be focusing on puzzles about truth; I want to consider correspondence independently of truth.
If 'snow is white is true' is equivalent to 'snow is white' then why bother with the "is true" since that is the one part of the sentence that we don't know what it corresponds to?
Why bother indeed. The redundancy of it is the very thing that deflationary approaches to truth try to show.
Only because you brought up the deflationary theory of truth. It's strange that you brought it up but don't want to talk about truth. It seems to me to be a red herring. What you really want to ask about is the sensibility and correctness of a correspondence account of meaning.
You aren't the only person who thinks correspondence is fundamental. It's assumed in the representational theory of mind (RTM).
To understand why people would abandon that view in favor of something like knowledge externalism, I think you have to zero in on the challenges to representationism.
If you want to do a sort of group reading of this SEP article, we could.
Well, could I have referred to Deflationary Correspondence and expected anyone to know what I was taking about? I explained early on that I am not concerned with the problem of truth but with the question as to whether we can do without the logic of correspondence, and with the question as to whether even the Deflationary account relies on it for its own intelligibility.
In any case, you're right; I am interested in the viability, or even more strongly, the question of the indispensability, of the notion of correspondence for making sense of any account of meaning, and only secondarily to, and derivatively of, that primary concern, am I concerned with making sense of accounts of truth or of the correctness of meaningful statements.
So, since you have had a bit to say about what I am not primarily interested in, do you have anything to say about what I am primarily interested in?
As you say, I am tending to think that the logic of correspondence is fundamental to all discourse and hence to meaning itself. The article you linked is about Metaphysical Realism; I think it could certainly be worthwhile to do a group reading of that, and it is another issue, apart from what I have been trying to address here, that I am certainly interested in.
Do you think my position in relation to what I have been trying to deal with here entails a commitment to metaphysical realism? I had thought I was being cautious in only claiming that what we say must be able to correspond to what we experience, and leaving aside the further questions of whether, or how, what we say could correspond to a mind independent world.
If I say I want an apple, I don't mean that I want a mental state (which is usually what we mean by experience.)
If you mean something other than that... then yea, you're probably committed to metaphysical realism
Actually I don't think of experiences as 'mental states'. In the Hornsby paper linked by Pierre there is an interesting distinction between 'thought' differently considered as 'acts of thinking' and as 'the content of acts of thinking'; and that reminds me of the distinction I make between 'experience' as 'acts of experiencing' and 'experience' as 'the content of those acts'. Interestingly neither of those seem to be neatly characterizeable as 'mental states'. What if I say that I want to experience eating an apple. By, and in, itself that would not seem to entail that there be any mind-independent apple to be eaten.
I'll be upfront and say that my preferred ontology is something like a form of ontic structural realism; I believe it is most plausible that there is some real, that is independently existent (to my experience), structure, whatever that structure might be, that gives rise to the experience of eating an apple. But, would it make sense to call that posited structure an apple, apart from within our everyday talk about shared formal identities? In any case, it is not such ontological or metaphysical questions and the like that I have been concerned with here, and I still can't see how what I have been concerned with necessarily entails such questions (but nonetheless I am interested in them).
OK, but unless you identify the bits that you find unclear and require explanation I can't be of much help.
Try this: do you agree that variously thinking of experience as 'mental states' (or 'activities') rather than, say, as 'the contents of mental states' or as 'bodily states' (or 'activities'), or the constituents of bodily states (or activities) is already to have accepted, and be employing, certain presuppositions?
Probably. ?
We usually distinguish the apple from the experience of the apple for obvious reasons.
Speech can be useful for conveying experience. It's notorious for failing to do so, however... thus a picture is worth a thousand words.
Perhaps you could drop the use of "correspondence" which is already loaded with implications you reject and say that speech conveys or expresses experience.
True, we do usually distinguish between those things, but in the context we are considering, the apple is part of the experience of eating it, and is thus still distinguishable from the experience as a whole, as well as from other parts of the experience. There is also picking the apple up, seeing it, tasting it, biting it and so on and all those are also distinguishable from one another; but none of them seem to necessitate that there be any experience-independent existence of anything.
If I were to speak instead of speech conveying or expressing experience it wouldn't seem to capture the quality of correspondence between the parts of what is said and the parts of experience. Would it make sense to say that 'apple' conveys or expresses apple, or 'biting' conveys or expresses biting; are 'convey' and 'express' in this context equivalent to 'correspond', or are they adequate substitutes for it. I am not sure; I'll need to think more on it...
Five people look at an apple. Each has a different experience. It's the same apple.
Either the apple is experience-independent or solipsism.
True, but what is at issue in discussions about truth, meaning, knowledge and correspondance aren't the qualitative feels of the experiences (i.e. what it is like to have those experiences) so much as as their conceptual/propositional contents. The latter is what Hornsby settles on calling 'thinkables' in her paper. What you may be thinking of as the content of an experience may be the highest common factor between a true thinkable and a false one. That is, what is naturally conceived to be common to the case of someone having the perceptual experience that P, and someone's merely seeming to have the experience that P (while it isn't the case that P). So far so good. That wouldn't involve anything contentious. What is common to both cases is the same thinkable being entertained as the way the world is.
Representationalists further claim that what is common to both of those cases is a common 'representation' that the subject is directly acquainted with in both cases. To be acquainted with this 'representation' (i.e. having the 'experience' (so called) that P) doesn't indeed entail that there is a mind independent reality that is experienced since the representation could fail to fit (correspond to) the way the world is. Correspondentism and representationalism are indeed good buddies.
The alternative put forth by McDowell, Hornsby and others is disjuctivism about experience. This is the thesis that what is experienced when the experience isn't misleading, confused, or hallucinatory, etc, is the world itself. And just in case the content of the experience isn't thus veridical (or, more generally, doesn't procure knowledge of the world -- because of the occurrence of Gettier-like cases) then the subject is simply, well, misled.
It seems to me that what you are harking for (is 'harking' the correct word here?) with your attachment to the idea of the logical primacy of the notion of correspondance might be something akin to the idea of object dependent singular senses. It has long been thought by many analytic philosophers that the Fregean senses (Sinn(e)) of singular referring expressions, (as distinguished from their references (Bedeutung(en)), can be expressed with general descriptions. Gareth Evans and John McDowell have disputed this possibility. Evans has argued (in The Varieties of Reference) that for one to think that x is F, then one must know which x it is one is thinking about. And this only is possible if x exists. This prerequisite knowledge of an individual is akin to Russell's knowledge by acquaintance (i.e. knowledge of a particular rather than knowledge of the truth of a proposition). This notion had been in disrepute for some time because it was tied up in Russell's thinking with his old fashioned epistemology and the idea that one only is acquainted with sense data and with oneself (one's own 'I'). However, disentangling it from those positivist strictures, Evans advocated what he called Russell's principle as a precondition for one to be able to so much as have definite thoughts about the world (i.e. entertain definite 'thinkables').
I won't detail anymore for now (though I would need to say much more) the accounts by Evans and McDowell of the idea of object dependent singular senses. I just bring this idea up because it dovetails with the idea that the mind can be directly in touch with the world (paradigmatically, when one know that P because one sees that P, and what one then sees, and knows, is what is the case), while allowing us to dispense with the idea that thoughts and facts can be externally related to one another (the idea of correspondence).
I should say a bit more about that in another post, but you may have reached the part in Hornsby's paper where she discusses Frege's objections to correspondence, and, in particular, the troublesome issue about the specific respects in which thoughts, or claims, might at most be intelligibly claimed to correspond to facts. There is a nice regress argument here. Very similar arguments are found in Wittgenstein regarding interpretation, representations and meaning.
Unfortunately I'm very pressed for time right now.
This is all going to be a bit off-topic, but what the hell?
I agree that it's reasonable to think that some processive structures (which includes the kinds of processive structures we refer to as 'apples', 'bodies' and 'brains') give rise to situations such as five people responding in kind when they all perceive the presence of an 'apple' type of processive structure, such that they will refer to it as 'the apple'; which reflects the fact that for the perceivers the apple is both 'as subjectively perceived' and is additionally a formal or logical intersubjective identity. It seems obvious there is no intersubjective perception of anything going on (except in the different sense that subjective perception in general is to some degree intersubjectively conditioned).
I think Kant's question about what the apple is in itself apart from the five perceptions of it is still relevant. Whatever the apple is, it is plausibly the same thing we are responding to; I certainly agree with that. But the point is that the knowable (perceptible) being of the apple consists in its being perceived. In addition there is an inferential or formal (in the logical not the physical sense) being of the apple that consists in the intersubjective discourse about it and that is also based on previous discourse that has historically been built up around objects of its kind and objects in general.
Five people look at an apple. The biologist sees a phase in the reproduction of apple trees. The baker sees that it's a Fuji and not a Granny Smith. The Preacher sees the Fall of Man. The toddler sees something red and shiny.
How would the baker's comments correspond with his experience?
I'd say his comments may or may not convey his experience, which as you point out, are bound by the poles of sensation and concept.
Beyond all of this and simultaneously intimate to each observer is the apple noumenon, which is a facet of the world diamond. The observers know they share the same world. They take it that the apple is a feature of that shared world.
Anyway... if you're a Kantian, then your doorway to AP is Carnap.
Don't sweat it, though. I've just finished re-reading it. It's much more difficult than I remembered it to be. It is likely that I had earlier read an abridged version published in The Nature of Truth, and anthology volume published by Michel P. Lynch -- and forgotten how difficult even that abridged version was. Although the paper contains many insights and pearls of wisdom that I can appreciate, many of the finer points it makes are incredibly subtle, and/or crucially depend on the reader's being fairly well acquainted with the relevant literature (much more than I am).
A paper that I would unreservedly recommend, and that much less depends on prior acquaintance with the vast literature on 'truth theories', is Truth and Rule Following, by John Haugeland. (It was published as the last chapter of his Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind). Maybe you would enjoy that more, rather than coming back to Hornsby's paper right away (when you're finished with Bennett and Hacker!) It makes most of the anti-representationalist points that are relevant to criticizing correspondence theories, and also has acknowledged Heideggerian roots that you will likely appreciate.
By the way, Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind and Language (Bennett, Hacker, Dennett, Searle and Robinson) is a book that was published after Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Bennet and Hacker), which I had mentioned. In Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, there were two appendixes (likely entirely written by Hacker) devoted to criticizing the philosophies of mind of Dennett and Searle. Those criticisms were extremely severe (many deservedly so, in my view, though Hacker's excessively harsh tone was quite unwarranted). The other volume records the contributions to a colloquium where Dennett and Searle were afforded an opportunity to respond to those criticisms. Robinson acted as some kind of a moderator/referee, I believe, and also contributed a very nice introduction to the volume. I would still recommend reading Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience before reading Neuroscience and Philosophy, ideally!
I'd say the trick is that the experience of speaking is separate to that of observing. For many people "correspondence" really means "talks about." That's why people are often so vehement in their defence of correspondence, whether it be in reference to an earlier experience of some objects they were aware of. For many people, to deny "correspondence" is to argue language cannot talk about existing things.
There is no "how" to "correspondence" because all it doing is point out language which talks about the world. How does language work? There no such reason. Language just talks about stuff by its definition. The supposed "gap" in correspondence isn't there. Its proponents haven't suggested there is any sort of "how" to correspondence. The objection to correspondence on the basis it hasn't detailed what correspondence means outside language is a strawman. For what correspondence means in these instances, no such meaning was suggested for it. It was always the mere pointing out that our language talks about existing things which are not our language.
In the language of those who understand "correspondence" to mean "talks about an existing state" it does. For this language, "correspondence" means "instance of language which talks about the world."
If you are to insist, referring to this use of language, as your objection purports, and say "correspondence" is incoherent, you are literally saying talking about existing things is impossible.
The OP had something else in mind.
I'd say it all about (perceived) Correspondence Theory of Truth and realism. In the OP, they are defending correspondence as instances where language talks about some other existing state (including our experiences).
They are arguing there is a "match" between what we talk about and what exists, a difference between a state of language and things in the world which language might talk about, that objects are given in themselves rather than by our language which talks about them: realism. The OP is attacking the strawman objections to "correspondence" which lead to a denial of realism.
Thanks for the "Haugeland" recommendation; I have been meaning to read him for some time. In particular I have been wanting to read Dasein Disclosed but I will search for a PDF of 'Truth and Rule Following' as an entree.
Thoughts about something that struck me when reading the Hornsby:
You've earned the cigar Willow 8-)
What? I didn't insist that correspondence – in the sense you described – is incoherent. I said that those who deny correspondence don't claim that we can't talk about things, or that none of the things we talk about exist.
Correspondence – in the sense you described – doesn't lead to realism. Correspondence – in the sense you described – has nothing to do with metaphysics.
Almost everyone says that we can talk about things and almost everyone says that some of the things we talk about exist. But not everyone is a realist and not everyone accepts the correspondence theory of truth. Therefore realism and the correspondence theory of truth aren't simply the positions that claim that we can talk about things and that some of the things we talk about exist.
You accuse others of using straw men to attack your position but then use red herrings to defend it.
No. Frege's argument that truth is unanalyzable rules out Correspondence as a definition. It rules out any definition. Period. The fact that there is no account of how a truth-bearer "corresponds" to a truth-maker is for all practical purposes a side issue.
And if there is a correspondence theory of meaning, could you lay it out?
Did you read the Hornsby paper? There may be other Frege arguments about correspondence, just as you say, but I was specifically referring to this particular passage from Frege, as Hornsby cited it in her paper:
As I have already said I think correspondence is unanalyzable, just as truth is, so no, I do not think there can be a coherent correspondence theory of meaning, but I do think there can be coherent correspondence accounts of both truth and meaning.
Correspondence is not unanalyzable. We can break it down into smaller concepts. It means that one thing is similar to another. As one thing changes, the other will change... and so forth.
So the more basic concepts are:
one
thing
another
similar
change
Truth isn't like that. It doesn't break down into smaller concepts. That's what Frege proves if we assume that truth is a property of statements.
How does an account differ from a definition?
If there is a correspondence theory of meaning, what is it?
This is not a theory of correspondence but a definition or an account. Similarly, I can say of truth that it means that one thing (a statement or a picture, for example) accurately represents another (a situation or an event ) ; we all know perfectly well what it means to say that, but it is not a theory of truth.
As you can see I have not said that accounts are radically different from definitions. The two terms are not absolutely synonymous, either; they are used differently in various contexts.
To say of truth or correspondence (or anything at all I guess) that it is unanalyzable is to say that it cannot be comprehensively explained in terms of some more primary constituent elements.
Again, I think you may be conflating defining something with analyzing or theorizing about it. 'Truth' is defined in any dictionary. Perhaps it could be said that defining some term consists in analyzing its usage; but this is not the same thing as to analyze what the term is referring to.
Thanks, I'll certainly check that out and see if I can afford it. :-$ . I have Soames' history of analytic philosophy in my shelves somewhere, but I am yet to read it.
What you say here would be correct, it seems to be, if you would restrict it to (Fregean) objects and attributes (Fregean concepts); and drop the idea of correspondence with facts. As I urged earlier, the idea that you seem to be groping for (though I might be wrong) simply is reference. If you believe that A is F, and can accurately express this belief with the sentence "A is F", then for this belief to be true, it must be the case that the object A be suitably related to your thought about it, and likewise that the property F that A possesses be suitable related to the property that you express with the predicate "... is F". But those necessary correspondences that must hold in order for you statement to be meaningful (and for the belief that is purports to express to be an intelligible belief at all) just are relations of reference between the words that you use and the objects and properties that you are talking (and thinking) about.
Thus, those 'correspondence' relations, that really are referential properties of linguistic items, and of the (Fregean) thought components (Sinne) that they express, are necessary conditions, not of truth, but of meaningfulness. The conditions for truth isn't for the full sentence to refer to the fact. (On Frege's account, the reference of a sentence is The True of The False.) The condition for the truth of the sentence (and the thought that is expresses, which is its sense, according to Frege) rather is that the object thought about have the property ascribed to it. But this is just to say that "A is F" is true iff A is F and nothing more than that.
I think you're probably right that I am groping towards what is conventionally thought of as reference. For me, to say that 'A' refers to A seems to be pretty much equivalent to saying that 'A' corresponds to (or with) A. I guess I am a little prejudiced against the idea of reference because it seems to imply a magic arrow that flies from word to object, whereas the idea of correspondence just seems to consist in the notion of a conceptual pairing. Although having said that, thinking of reference as an indexical relation could capture the idea of conceptual matching without the 'arrow' association, I guess. I am very untutored when it comes to AP, as I have already acknowledged, so I don't doubt that some of my intuitions may seem, from an AP perspective, pretty naive.
But, of course, you already have a rather long reading list (and so have I -- it never gets shorter!). Just remaining active in this forum will afford you more opportunities to get acquainted with some of the relevant ideas. Consider also the usually excellent entries in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Let me add that starting off with the topics of meaning and reference is much easier than digging into contemporary debates about theories of truth (many of which might be fundamentally misguided if we trust Hornsby). The latter topic still often causes my brain to overheat and makes me wish for a graft of 40 additional IQ points.
[i]' WHAT is the meaning of a word?
Let us attack this question by asking, first, what is an explanation of the meaning of a word; what does the explanation of a word look like?
The way this question helps us is analogous to the way the question "how do we measure a length" helps us to understand the problem "what is length?"
The question "What is length?", "What is meaning?", "What is the number one?" etc., produce in us a mental cramp. We feel that we can't point to anything in reply to them and yet ought to point to something.(We are up against one of the great sources of philosophical bewilderment: a substantive makes us look for a thing that corresponds to it.) '[/i]
Since correspondence usually means "talking about something in the world," a suggestion it is incoherent registers as saying that talking about the world is incoherent, as the criticism professes that what the correspondence argument is suggesting (talking bout things in the world) is impossible.
Indeed, it doesn't form realism. People with other understandings may exist,even as the claim to accept or reject correspondence. The point is, however, logically, realism is the only position which make sense. If there is distinction between language and the things in the world language talks about (what most uses of "correspondence" are talking about)," then realism obtains. Things are defined in themselves rather than by the presence of experiences.
So, indeed, realism and (logically reasoned) correspondence "theory" of truth (i.e. pointing out states of our language talk about other states of the world) is not merely saying we can talk about things. It constitutes a metaphysical claim. In this form, it supposes there are objects which are defined in themselves which we talk about. It's a metaphysical position.
The issue is, of course, this argument is made not on the grounds of what people believe (e.g. whether is possible to, for example, proclaim can talk about things while rejecting realism. Or proclaim correspondence while suggesting objects are not defined in themselves).
Thus, rather than a red-herring, it is actually talking on a level objectors to correspondence are not. This argument is about the logical consistency of one's positions regrading the relationship of things to experience. It's merely daring to mention something that those who don't look beyond immediate experience (e.g. thinking we can talk about things, thinking there is correspondence) are unwilling to examine.
To say that we can talk about things and that some of the things we talk about exist says nothing about metaphysics.
I know that.
The (realist) argument here is going beyond merely whether or not we say there are things we can talk about. It is asserting something about metaphysics: pointing out that talking about things which are distinct from language only make sense under a realist framework, when the existence of things is defined by other than by the existence of a use of language. Here the point is about more than whether or not we say we can talk about things. It is about the relationships of things we can talk about to our language.
If we there are things we can talk about, and the presence of our language is distinct from the state we talk about, then we have an experience which "corresponds" to a thing in the world (i.e. talks about). There are things, defined in themselves (e.g. a chair), and then there is language/experience of thing (someone thinking about the thing of chair). Any position other than realism (although possible) is incoherent. Certainly there are not only "correspondence theories," but only "correspondence theories" (where "correspondence" means a state of language use/experience which talks about/is awareness of a state the world) make sense.
Are you just trying to say that a cat and "a cat" are different things?
That's what your account is missing. It's not just a question of language. Things are not the language used to speak of them. When the cat is sleeping and no-one is talking about it, it still exists. Its presence is not defined by language. It's a thing on its own terms. It is defined not by the presence of language, but by its existence. Here definition is not to do with language, but rather with objects. It is a question of what it takes for a cat or "cat" to exist, rather than what it means to talk about a cat.
So I am saying a cat and "a cat" are different things, but its more than just that. I am also talking about what it takes for the presence of cat and "cat." I'm not merely (as you are) distinguishing things and talk about things. I'm also dealing with the additional question of what it takes to form cat and "cat." And their relationship to each other (e.g. Do we need to say of think "cat" for there to be a cat? ).
As I said before, it's not just "we can talk about things (and some of these things exist)". One can reject realism and correspondence without rejecting this.
But's that's your strawman. There is no criteria. "Correspondence" is merely when there is one thing (language/experience, "cat" ) which talks/is awareness of another (cat ). There isn't a thing about an object or experience which "makes it" correspond to other. In any case it is feature of this objects (i.e. states of the world) themselves. Some things ARE cats. Some experiences ARE "cat." "Correspondence" IS the match between an experience and object, as opposed to how we judge whether or not we know whether someone's aware of something or if a state is talked about in an experience.
The problem with you criticism is it completely fails to engage with the idea of language and objects being separate. So much so that you posit the laughable question of what "criteria" makes language and the object separate. As if they were, in the first instance, the same thing and needed something to make them distinct from each other. They are separate by definition. (i.e. it's not all about language).
Yes. But that they are separate by definition is a matter of semantics, not a matter of metaphysics. If all you're arguing for is a semantic distinction between words and their subject matter then you're not arguing for realism and you're not arguing for correspondence.
Anti-realists can accept a semantic distinction, too. They describe cats as four-legged animals and "cats" as a four-letter word. This way of talking is perfectly within the purview of pretty much anyone, whatever their metaphysical inclinations. And that's because it's not a matter of metaphysics but a matter of using language properly.
Nope. It's not semantics. Logically (i.e. metaphysically), language is not the object it talks about. I'm not just arguing for a semantic distinction. I'm arguing for a logical distinction between language and the objects it talks about. The distinction that some things are not language. (and hence the semantic argument fails because it restricts its commentary to distinctions within language).
And it this metaphysical distinction which the anti-realist does not accept and you cannot envision. So caught-up in language, you only talk about our language. You talk about our description of cats and "cats" (our semantics) rather than thinking of cats themselves. You actually leave out any and all of the relevant metaphysical commentary.
You fail to talk about what, logically, is need for a cat or a "cat" and so always come-up with a circumstance where no metaphysical position is present. You are literally ignoring the issue the realist is commenting on and the proclaiming their argument must be wrong because you don't want to talk about metaphysics.
What's a logical distinction (if not a semantic distinction)?
No I don't. I also talk about cats, and unicorns, and Harry Potter. But this doesn't make me a realist or a correspondence theorist.
I'll say it again. One doesn't need to be a realist or a correspondence theorist to accept that we can talk about things (other than language). And so to criticise realism or the correspondence theory is not to say that we can't talk about things (other than language).
Logical distinctions don't need to be about language. Some distinctions are not about language.
Semantics is a type of logical distinction, that which is expressed in language, but it is not exhaustive of logical difference. There are logical differences which are not about language.
Quoting Michael
For sure. The point was never that you were a realist. It was that the only logical position to hold is realism. No-one's saying you are a realist. They are saying your metaphysical (as opposed to your empirical position) position is incoherent. Even as you talk about cats, Harry Potter and unicorns. It's your metaphysics which the problem here, not your ability to describe or think about specific things which are in (or not in) the world.
Semantics is a type of logical distinction, that which is expressed in language, but it is not exhaustive of logical difference. there are logical differences which are not about language.[/quote]
Then could you explain what a non-semantic logical distinction is?
Except this very discussion was over you claiming that if one criticizes the correspondence theory or realism then one is saying "there is nothing we can talk about in the world". Are you now accepting that this is false? That I can talk about the world even though I'm not a realist or a correspondence theorist?
You are, again, asking for criteria when it doesn't make sense. Some logical distinctions are merely not about language.
[quote="Michael" ]Except this very discussion was over you claiming that if one criticizes the correspondence theory or realism then one is saying "there is nothing we can talk about in the world". Are you now accepting that this is false? That I can talk about the world even though I'm not a realist or a correspondence theorist?[/quote]
There is a difference in what one says and what they understand on an issue. One can say things they don't believe or which is not reflective of their understanding. This is one of those times.
Due to an (unstated) metaphysical position, the critics attack the realist's argument about "correspondence" because it suggests their metaphysics position is incoherent. The realist ties "correspondence" (language/experience which talks about/is awareness of a state of the world) to the realist metaphysical position (things defined in-themselves), so people are compelled to object to it, as it a point the significance of the realist argument depends on. Deny "correspondence" an/or its link to realism, and the idea realism is the only metaphysical position coherent with talking about things disappears.
Thus, people are found saying something "correspondence (talking about things) is incoherent, due to lack of criteria," they don't actually believe.
Yes, you keep saying this, but you're refusing to explain the meaning of "logical distinction". As far as I can see, it doesn't mean anything.
I don't know what you're trying to say here.
Exactly. More or less. "Logic" says nothing. The difference in question is given entirely by "not about language" or "about language." If we want to describe how a logical difference is about language or not, we don't do so by saying "logic." We say say: "about language" or "not about language." "Logic" merely points something is an infinite expression rather than a state of existence.
It similar "correspondence" or "truth." They are equally "meaningless." All those teams do is point to other meanings. If you want to know what's true or what someone is aware of, you actually have to describe it. "Correspondence" or "truth" describe nothing about anything themselves.
You, for example, agree with the realist on what correspondence entails (something talked about), and that it occurs, but are you compelled to oppose the notion because you are concerned about defend your unstated metaphysical position.
The realist ties correspondence (talking about things) to a certain metaphysics, so you attack it out of a concern for opposing that connection. You are trying to avoid a situation where realism is recognised as the only coherent metaphysical position where language is distinct form the things it talks about. You are saying something you don't believe: "talking about things is incoherent (i.e. correspondence is incoherent due to lack of criteria)" to protect your (unstated) metaphysics.
I think what Willow means by "defined in themselves" is something like "definite in themselves" or "distinct in themselves'. A perceptible object's definiteness or distinctness from its surroundings cannot be dependent on language otherwise we would never be able to identify such an 'object' to learn its name in the first place. In other words the dependency is the opposite; the possibility of language depends on the distinctness of its objects. I also think something like that is what Willow is implying in the idea of a logical distinction which is not (necessarily or yet) a semantic distinction; semantic distinctions are necessarily underpinned by pre-semantic distinctions which may well be thought of as logical since all perceptions incorporate conceptual content.
So your claim that language is "logically distinct" from the things it talks about is meaningless? If not then you need to explain what it means to be logically distinct.
No, this isn't about attacking realism or correspondence, or about defending my metaphysics. This is about your claim that "correspondence" equates to "talking about things". It isn't. Correspondence is one of the theories that explains what it means (or is required) to talk about things (or for the things we say to be true) – but it isn't the only one.
Yes, that's how it sounds to me too. TheWillowOfDarkness seems to be defending the metaphysical stance that Putnam argued against and labeled 'metaphysical realism' (and that some call 'naïve realism'). Willow also is arguing that the attack on the very idea of "correspondence" is motivated by a tacit rejection of metaphysical realism (which he calls "realism"). Michael is right to point out that the specific notion of 'correspondence' that underlies 'correspondence theories of truth' can be challenged by people who don't commit to a specific metaphysical stance. That is, one can coherently reject the correspondence theory of truth while being a realist (like me), or while being an anti-realist (like Michael?) who nevertheless acknowledges a semantic distinction between things that belong to language proper and the things referred to to.
I don't think that's true. Objects in nature (let alone those in the human world of artifacts) don't come into existence labeled with their own criteria of persistence and individuation. At what point do some arrangements of wood, glue and screws come to materially constitute a chair, and at what point of disrepair or disfunctionality does the chair cease to exist? This seem to depend on our interests and practices, and those interests and practices leave an indelible trace in the empirical concept of a chair (that is, the criteria of 'chairhood' always are tainted by our practices and interests).
Scientific realists can grant that much for the case of human artifacts but assert the possibility of a conceptual reduction into more primitive terms (i.e. scientific concepts that refer to alleged 'natural kinds') that are said to carve nature at its (natural) joints. This scientific realism is another form of naïve realism, in my view, but my main point is to stress that one need not commit either way (regarding metaphysical realism) in order to grant both that individual chairs exist, in a robust sense (non-idealist), and are distinct from our talk about them, but that, nevertheless, our concept of chairs (or 'chairhood') hardly can be said to 'correspond' to what chairs allegedly 'are in themselves' irrespective of our interests and linguistic practices.
What would enable us, pre-linguistically, to reliably pick out objects, or non-linguistic animals to pick out objects ( or "affordances") if there were no ontological distinctiveness, or relevant joints to carve, to produce reliable distinctions. How would a child learn the meaning of words by ostensive definition if there was really 'nothing there' to be pointed at? This is not to say that when we point to a chair, say, to teach a child its name ( we probably don't need to point at it anyway because she has already sat in it long before she knows its name) that there is a real substantive embodied identity or essence of chair-ness there, but it is to say that what reliably appears to us as a chair does so and could only do so by virtue of some pre-linguistic difference from other things that appear as tables, windows, floors, balls, cats, dogs and so on.
So, I am not talking about the ways in which we conceptualize things; particularly when it comes to artifacts which have assigned uses, as constituting ontological fundamentalities, but I am saying that those ways would not be possible without fundamental 'carveabilities'.
To answer your last question, I would say the chair ceases to exist (as a chair) when it is so altered that we cannot use it as a chair. But it will still be some kind of damaged structure, or heap, or mess of wood or plastic or whatever. Of course, this 'wood-ness' or 'plastic-ness' or 'heap-ness' or 'mess-ness' or 'whatever-ness' cannot be fundamental either, they are all conceptual categories, but again there must be some natural ontological carveability or fundamental difference of structure that allows the damaged chair to be categorized reliably as whatever of these things it is.
Another way to phrase this would be to ask: how can we come to detect interesting patterns in the empirical world, patterns, that is, that are relevant to our human practices and interests, and hence that we can pick up conceptually, if there aren't distinct and 'ontologically primary' (and 'pre-conceptual') entities there to be patterned by us?
Although Haugeland's paper Truth and Rule Following doesn't seem to be available online, the paper Pattern and Being fortunately is provided here. (It's very nice from the people at the University of Chicago to have left Haugeland's page up after his untimely demise). This paper is a forerunner of some of the ideas further developed in Truth and Rule Following. It's also a criticism of Dennett's quasi-realism about mental states. But is has a much broader ontological import. Haugeland is effectively arguing that reality is conceptually structured all the way down, as it were, but not any less real for all that. He is agreeing with Heidegger that Zuhandenheit is ontologically prior to Vorhandenheit and hence that the latter can't epistemically or ontologically ground the former (my quick gloss on Haugeland's thesis).
I don't wish to burden you with yet another reference to the literature. I only provide it because it's especially good and relevant to your question. But if you would rather prefer that provide my own more detailed response and arguments, I will.
I should clarify I'm talking about how most people use actually "correspondence" more so than its status as a theory of truth, at least going off by what most here are describing as a "theory of truth."
The difficulty here is the nature of the requirement of "correspondence". What you and Michael appear to consider the "correspondence," something which sits on top of what falls within the linguistic realm, as if there was something other than merely and object and experience which defined the presence of "correspondence" is not how most people use the term.
My point is very few people actually means this when they talk about the requirement of correspondence. For most "correspondence" isn't the requirement in excess of an object and how it is known experience (as you and Michael are reading it), but rather merely the presence of the relevant object and experience, such that an object is spoken about/thought of/observed. It the identification that, for us to speak about an object, the relevant object and speech are required.
Basically if X, then X is required. Most arguments for correspondence are actually a statement of the deflationary truth. This is what John was alluding to in his OP. In most instances where someone argues correspondence, they are actually making a statement about deflationary truth in the context of relating language/experience to objects.
The correspondence theory of truth which you are attacking, and rightly so, isn't actually held by most people who argue for truth in terms of correspondence. Even the somewhat careless "independent world" realists who fail to identify the connection of the world to linguistically and experiential expression don't really follow it. For most correspondence signifies the requirement of an object and experience of that object, for instances where an object is spoken about.
So Michael is missing the point entirely. It is certainly true one can be realist (non-realist) while rejecting correspondence as used in most instances (i.e. deflationary truth in relation to objects and experiences), but it has never been said otherwise. Rather, the argument is that one cannot have a coherent position if they reject correspondence (and realism) in this sense.
That's the dead end/error which drives much of the nonsense about theory of truth. There isn't a "how." At some point we are simply found with awareness of particular empirical or logical patterns. We never sit outside this knowledge to somehow derive it. Our knowledge is given by the presence of the object(s) which is(are) the understanding of something else. It is a question of (our) existence rather than of reasoning.
"Ontologically primary"and "the pre-conceptual" are incoherent. Existence doesn't preceded existence. There is just existence. Anything which does exist, which can be expressed language, expresses the conceptual by definition. There can't be a computer, for example, I discover and learn to talk about if such objects fall outside conceptual expression.
I actually do agree that in an important sense experience is, must be, conceptual all the way down (as I stated in the 'Logical Content of Experience' thread).
But would this commit me to assent to the claim that reality is conceptual all the way down? I suppose it would depend on whether reality is exhaustively equated with experience or not. I don't tend to support that equation.I tend to be more concerned with questions about what we can sensibly say than with questions about 'what is'. I think there is a subtle distinction between claims about what is and claims about what we should say about what is. My realism consists merely in acknowledging that what we experience could never exhaust, and what we say could never perfectly correspond with, what is. Of course all my views are potentially subject to revision.
Thanks for the link to the Haugeland paper; I will certainly read it.
Indeed. It runs all together deeper. Objects which are, later named and categorised by us, ARE something which we later identify (tall, short, soft, round, heavy, a chair, a cat, a tree, etc.,etc.). There is NO criteria of persistence and individuation.
An object, by definition, is persistent (else it would be a given language/experience that was talking about something else) and individuated (else it wouldn't be a specific finite state). All objects express these qualities, regardless of what they might be.
It is unclear to me that such a distinction is intelligible. It's like saying that one is entitled to say that some tomato is red while not being entitled to say that it can be said that it is red. How can one possibly argue that P and not thereby be committed to endorse the claim that it should be asserted (rather than denied) that P? Maybe you want to gesture at the idea that there might be things that can't be said at all (or ever). Wittgenstein commented on this in the very last proposition of the Tractatus: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
It really depends on you mean by "perfectly correspond."
We tend to get fooled and confused when we approach this topic because while all instances of knowledge must be "perfect" (i.e. one must have the exact idea of what they understand), it is also true that any instance of knowledge is incomplete.
Even one has (perfect) knowledge of an entire library, there is always something else to know, and sometimes it relates to what they do know in important ways (what good is it knowing the stove is hot if you don't know it is damaging you?).
Our world is simultaneously exhausted in the conceptual (there can't be something without meaning, viz Wittgenstein), but never completed in the concepts of our knowledge (each concept we have leaves out knowledge of everything else). We "perfectly correspond" in our knowledge all the time, but it is a mere drop in the ocean of "what is." What our "perfect knowledge"does just doesn't fit with the notion of the exhaustive account we are sometime prone to chasing.
I actually meant something more along the lines of suggesting that strong claims about what is are often understood to be strong metaphysical claims about the absolute nature of reality. These kinds of claims are distinct from the more modest claims about what we might be entitled to say about the things we experience.
I think Wittgenstein's injunction points to the same thing; that is that we should be silent about matters that go beyond sense. Although I actually think we are entitled to make cautious ontological or metaphysical claims like what I said earlier about it being inconceivable that 'things in themselves' are not reliably and regularly differentiable.
It is very difficult to penetrate and speak about such matters without descending into incoherence or at least ambiguity.
Yes, when I wrote 'perfectly correspond' I was thinking about how what we say always fails to be exhaustive. There is always more to the things than we can say about them. Also there is a perfectly coherent logical distinction between 'things as experienced' and 'things as they are independent of experience'. About the latter though we can say very little; and all of what we do say is based on inference from experience. We don't even know what it could mean for something we say about things as they are independent of experience ( about their "absolute" nature) to be true or even false, and that would seem to be a big problem for metaphysics, at least as it is traditionally understood.
You misunderstand. I wasn't arguing that we are providing criteria for distinguishing objects that do persist from objects that don't persist at all. (Let us put aside objects such as numbers or events that aren't 'material objects' (or gods) -- i.e. the 'substances' of scholastic metaphysics).
Rather, I am following David Wiggins who argues for the sortal dependence of identity in his magisterial Sameness and Substance: Renewed. Material entities persist in time and can be re-identified throughout their careers (until the moment when they die or are destroyed). However, some object such as a statue of Hermes, say, can be materially constituted by a lump of bronze. The lump of bronze can spatially coincide with the statue, and, indeed, be made us of the same collection of atoms, at a time. But they are distinct objects since the statue can be destroyed while the lump of bronze persists for awhile longer. What distinguishes the statue, as an object, that is not identical with the lump of bronze that constitutes it, is its having different criteria of persistence and individuation. (Refer to the puzzles about the Ship of Theseus regarding criteria of individuation). Sticking to criteria of persistence, for simplicity, we can say that they are provided by the sortal concept under which any material object necessarily falls if it is to be counted as such.
Hence, when the statue is melted down, or hammered flat, it is destroyed. It doesn't exist anymore as a statue, which is to say, it doesn't exist anymore simpliciter. There just aren't any statue existing anymore at that location, where there might still exist a lump of bronze.
The issue, then, is what is it that supplies the sortal concepts under which existing (perceptually identifiable and countable) material objects fall? I would say that we do. Objects themselves can't be found in natures labelled with concepts that provide their persistence conditions. But this doesn't threaten realism. We supply the sortal concepts, together with the persistence conditions tacitly associated with them, and then we can look up in the world to see if some objects falling under that concept exist, and we can track them until they meet their demises (not always through our own agencies).
This seems to be a very traditional understanding along the lines of saying that the matter remains while the form is transmuted.
No, the thesis is quite different. One main point of Wiggins' theory of the sortal dependency of identity precisely is to deny any simple dualism of matter and form. It still is close to Aristotle, though, since, arguably, in Aristotle, form and matter are concepts that are aligned with actuality and potentiality, respectively, and are likewise relative (to one another) rather than absolute concepts (e.g. a dichotomy). That is, if X is the matter of (or the 'material cause of') Y, then Y can likewise, at the very same time, be the matter of Z, etc., and something else, W, may be the matter of X. Generally, if X is some 'matter' that can potentially take the form of Y (and the existence of this potentiality is all that is said in saying that X is matter), then, when this potentiality is actualized, what was initially only potentially Y might or might not still persist as the X is was. (e.g. one might have to destroy a tree in order to make planks, but the planks can persist as they come to make up a house).
What is rather central to the account is the denial that anything could be 'raw matter', as it were, that is, being a material constituents of something else without also itself falling under some sortal concept or other, and thus having persistence and individuation conditions of its own. Everything conceivable (limiting ourselves to material objects and stuffs) that can be singled out in the material world (perceived, individuated or otherwise conceived) also had form. The material constituents of objects also are objects, in this broad sense.
Yes, though Aristotle's notions of form and matter, and of act and power, are more general and abstract, and thus applicable to a broader range of empirical domains, than the domain of material objects (Aristotelian substances) that fall under 'sortal concepts', and that have material constituents.
That would possibly be a stretch unwarranted by Wiggins' account. His account just is an account of identity and persistence criteria for material objects (substances). Haugeland has a more general account of the constitutive rules that govern 'empirical domains', broadly conceived so as to also include the domain of natural numbers and their properties, and domains of social phenomena such as chess games (e.g. the phenomena that occur on the chess board such as a king being checkmated, or a rook being threatened by a bishop), etc. When considering a particular sort of material object (specifically), there is no reason to expect that its material constituents will always be other material objects with broadly the same sort of ontological structure (as material objects typically have). Electrons and quarks fall under sortal concepts that determine the kinds of experiments, and experimental set-ups, in which they show up, and what kinds of patterns they show up as. Those intelligible patterns need not be patterns of, or arrangements of, underlying material constituents. What they are 'made of', if anything, is for physics, and the philosophy of physics, to determine. That can't be settled by a general account of concepts and objects or a general theory of language and reference.
I think this is rather nicely put. I had missed this response earlier. Let me just make clear that I agree with your attack on the presupposition of the question (that is: the idea that there might be some 'preconceptually existing' reality waiting to be conceptualized by us). Hence the paragraph that you quoted from my post wasn't my own question. It was my paraphrase of John's question. The rest of my response was meant to make (or gesture towards) a point similar to yours on behalf of Haugeland (who, like Brassier, albeit in a different manner, was much influenced by Sellars).
Also, though I also reject the idea of the preconceptual, the use that I make of "ontological primacy" is rather innocuous and only meant to signify a one-way conceptual dependence between two domains that both fall, indeed, within the sphere of the conceptual. In the specific case that I mentioned, Zuhandenheit is primary relative to Vorhandenheit because there is no distanced (theoretical) approach to empirical reality that isn't distanced from, or a view of some features abstracted from, a mode of engagement that directly (and inherently or constitutively) involves our interests and embodied capabilities.
I should say more about the reason why the possibility of (sentient) abilities or 'interests' that falls short from being a conceptual abilities (such a the perceptual and behavioral abilities and attitudes of the sentient albeit non-rational animals) doesn't entail that there are any 'preconceptual objects' for us to talk about, and why even (mere) animal 'affordances' (J.J. Gibson) aren't such objects. But I'll come back to this later, maybe in the thread about Brassier (Concepts and Objects).
I think this single fact about our situation is the source of much misunderstanding and senseless debate.