The Objective Nature of Language
This subject has come up in another of my threads as it relates to epistemology.
The problem with discussing whether something is subjective or objective is that there are not always clear lines between between these two concepts. The concepts themselves are vague, and they have overlapping features, so it's hard to be dogmatic about their meanings. In order to get clear on these concepts it's important to look at them as they're used in particular contexts, and not to make overarching pronouncements about their meaning. In other words, we have to be careful about drawing boundaries where there are no clear boundaries of meaning.
In many cases, there is both a subjective view and an objective view. How we see it will be based largely on what we're emphasizing, not always, but in many cases. This is true of many of the concepts we use, which is why philosophers try to be as clear as possible about the concepts in their arguments.
One of the definitions I use when referencing what's an objective fact, for example, is that which is mind-independent. This definition doesn't cover every use of the word, but generally covers a large swath of uses.
I have referenced facts, let me give another definition as part of the discussion. A fact is a state-of-affairs referenced in our world or our reality. This too, tends to be vague and not as clear as some might want, but as philosophers we generally agree this is the case.
Let's start the discussion based on these two concepts to see if we can agree on anything. I suspect that as usual we will not get a consensus even here. Furthermore, let's not just pull things out of the air because it sounds good, at least put some effort into it, that is, have a good argument.
The problem with discussing whether something is subjective or objective is that there are not always clear lines between between these two concepts. The concepts themselves are vague, and they have overlapping features, so it's hard to be dogmatic about their meanings. In order to get clear on these concepts it's important to look at them as they're used in particular contexts, and not to make overarching pronouncements about their meaning. In other words, we have to be careful about drawing boundaries where there are no clear boundaries of meaning.
In many cases, there is both a subjective view and an objective view. How we see it will be based largely on what we're emphasizing, not always, but in many cases. This is true of many of the concepts we use, which is why philosophers try to be as clear as possible about the concepts in their arguments.
One of the definitions I use when referencing what's an objective fact, for example, is that which is mind-independent. This definition doesn't cover every use of the word, but generally covers a large swath of uses.
I have referenced facts, let me give another definition as part of the discussion. A fact is a state-of-affairs referenced in our world or our reality. This too, tends to be vague and not as clear as some might want, but as philosophers we generally agree this is the case.
Let's start the discussion based on these two concepts to see if we can agree on anything. I suspect that as usual we will not get a consensus even here. Furthermore, let's not just pull things out of the air because it sounds good, at least put some effort into it, that is, have a good argument.
Comments (109)
My general definition of “subjective” would be claims that are viewpoint dependent, and “objective” would be claims that are viewpoint independent. So the problem arises when there is some collective of minds, and thus potential viewpoints, involved in judging claims about a shared world.
To the degree the minds are alike, as when speaking the same language in a historically constrained fashion, then they are essentially speaking for the one viewpoint. That seems pretty subjective, even if many minds might also appear capable of many views.
Yet also we can conclude that for language use to arrive at a historically constrained stability, there must be something invariant or mind independent to force a collection of viewpoints to a position where meanings are shared. Or at least shared to a point where the remaining uncertainties make no practical difference.
Ergo, a pragmatic account of truth claims.
I'm interested in your choice of wording. I say mind-independent or mind-dependent. Are you saying there is a significant or even a difference between my wording and your wording, that is, your choice of viewpoint dependent or viewpoint independent?
So the argument against private language in Wittgenstein, for instance, is not a denial of the reality of private experiences. It just puts talking about them in a particular light. Also, many of our language games play on the theme that what seems private may be easily perceptible by others.
Many choose silence as the way to be alone.
So my choice of words here would reflect my neuroscience. The mind is not a thing but a succession of views.
While it's true that I'm a dualist it doesn't really effect what I'm saying, mind could simply be a reference to the brain, and in fact it's often used as a synonym for brain activities. I'm not trying to evoke anything metaphysical here. In fact, my argument can easily stay within the realm of the physical universe. At least at this point in the discussion.
But the question is, what role does 'the observer' play?
(Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma: Why is the Universe Just Right for Life, p 271)
A triadic modelling relations approach - semiotics - is the consistent way to make sense of what is going on. Rather than the mind receiving the truths of the outer world into its inner world, minding is about forming embodied and adaptive points of view. Mindfulness is the larger thing of that relation in action.
The problem I have with the first part of this statement, is that proximity may have nothing to do with whether something is objective or subjective. For example, one could make the argument that there are objective facts that have nothing to do with my proximity to them, or nothing to do with the fact that they may be hidden.
I do agree that all experiences are real. So even if your experience is a hallucination it still is a real experience, maybe not objectively real, but real nonetheless, at least subjectively real.
Quoting Valentinus
I agree with this, but what was the point of it as it relates to my opening remarks? Was you referring to my other thread where I referenced Wittgenstein?
It's not necessarily dualistic. In fact, many non-dualists will use this kind of terminology. For the purpose of our discussion I have no problem with the term viewpoint. I don't think you can escape the metaphysical by choosing those words though.
Quoting apokrisis
Are you saying that I'm saying, by using the word mind in reference to my particular epistemological view, that it receives truths from the metaphysical? I don't understand your point.
Actually my question has to do with the concepts of objective and subjective. What do these concepts mean. Already people are going way beyond the opening statement, which is understandable, but I'm trying to reach a consensus on the use of these words.
In regards to your opening remarks, I am not trying to reference other discussions (which are interesting) but trying to understand what epistemology is supposed to mean in your version of the word.
If you are talking as if there really is a fundamental division between the mental and the real, the self and the world, the subjective and the objective, then it is dualistic until you can explain how it is not.
If you instead employ it as a common manner of speaking, and don't in fact accept the standard ontic committment that motivates it, then - like me - you could present the alternative ontology you would defend, and hence the alternative language you would prefer to employ in serious discussion.
Quoting Sam26
Escape? I am being explicit about the metaphysics which I am making an ontic commitment to in expressing a linguistic preference here.
Fair enough, but it's the tip of an iceberg.
In any case, a google search on the etymology of 'objective' yields the following:
One point I notice about this is the relatively recent origin of the term.
If we can't generally agree on a basic definition there is no way to continue the discussion, is there?
But, yes, I do agree with your usage above, with the caveat than when discussing it in the context of philosophy, there are underlying issues, which give rise to these deep questions of epistemology and metaphysics.
I agree Wayfarer, but I was trying to find a baseline in which to proceed. My metaphysics when pushed, is that at the bottom of reality is consciousness. I believe it to be the unifying principle of reality in all its forms. So I agree with Max Planck.
But are you looking for some everyday meaning - when everyday meanings are never sharply demarcated anyway? Or are you seeking a well-founded philosophical distinction? In which case clearly it is the metaphysical-strength claims the words might invoke that are in contention. You can't avoid that by some kind of ordinary speech manoeuvre.
By entymology, they are a technical contrast, not everyday terms. Didn't they gain their modern understanding by Kant problematising the issue?
I'm going over there - you stay here. "Here" and "there" are useful terms despite there inherent ambiguity.
Why shouldn't it be the same for "objective" and "subjective"?
SO I agree with you that we should not draw boundaries were they are not needed.
There is no definition that will cover every correct use of many of our words, so I think the pursuit of exactness, in many ways, is an illusion. Especially when discussing subjectivity and objectivity. That's why I usually say that it's generally the case that... I take a Wittgensteinian approach to the study of these subjects, especially as it relates to epistemology. And everyday use doesn't mean that we take what the man on the street says. It means that words develop in everyday uses, and those uses can tell us much about what words/concepts mean. It's the very logic in back of the development of words and language.
I take this to mean that an objective fact will stay the same regardless of the attitude adopted towards it - adopting the word attitude from the notion of a propositional attitude.
This draws the notion of objective fact into the mire of Frege's puzzle and its descendants. That is, the ambiguity is built in to the very distinction between subjective and objective.
So, "I live on the planet Earth," is subjective? Say what?
In previous discussions I have argued that the best way to proceed is often to just drop the distinction between objective and subjective.
I see both of these as objective facts, and both can be tied to speakers, but in different ways.
So a pair of technical terms are developed within metaphysical discourse. And instead of applying dichotomous rigour to clarify the intelligible basis of those terms, we should ... go listen to ordinary folk to see how they bumble about with them?
Sounds legit. :lol:
Did you even read this part, or do you see what you want?
And everyday use doesn't mean that we take what the man on the street says. It means that words develop in everyday uses, and those uses can tell us much about what words/concepts mean. It's the very logic in back of the development of words and language.
There are clear lines between the two in my usage, but the terms don't really matter anyway--it's just a convenient way of making a particular distinction. What matters are the upshots of the distinction, the upshots of whether something is mental/mind-dependent or not mental/mind-independent.
Re "the objective nature of language," the objective aspects of language are the sounds we make, the text marks we make, etc.
I will never not take joy in pointing out that 'objective' used to mean exactly the opposite, and that for the Scholastics, that which was objective was that which existed for - and only for - a mind: "For [Duns] Scotus and [John] Poinsot, something was an 'objective being' to the extent that it existed in awareness. The sun and the sea were 'objective beings,' but so were unicorns - they also existed 'in' our awareness. So, within experience, all beings were by definition objective beings. However, not all of them were physical things or events." (Bains, The Primacy of Semiosis). This being the case for the 'subject' as well, which used to mean that which is precisely independent of someone (as in: 'the subject of analysis'). A silly distinction.
and an archetype of a subjective statement:
again, making propositional attitudes central.
Of course, the meanings of words often change over time, but how does this hurt the goal of this thread, at least the beginning goal, that we should at least be able to agree upon a working definition of what the concepts subjective and objective means. I can always say that at some time in the past such-and-such a word meant this. I don't see how this helps the discussion right now, except to point out that meanings change over time. It surely doesn't mean that the concepts are useless, we use them every day.
I don't see how the proposition you've used here is an example of a subjective statement. Just because one utters a false statement, that in itself doesn't mean it's subjective. Fred may think he has uttered an objective statement, but has just got the objective facts incorrect. It's not like, using your words, the archetype subjective statement, "I like oranges," or even, "Sam likes oranges."
This is an error on my part, the statement isn't false. Duh. Thanks Banno for pointing that out.
You haven't read what I said closely enough. How many times does the mantra have to be repeated, that there are no clearly defined overarching meanings to these words. There is a built in vagueness to these concepts, and Banno also pointed out this fact. However, by the same token it doesn't mean that we can't use the words in contexts where we're being precise. This is true of the word game, there is no clear definition that will subsume every use of the word under one definition. However, if I say, "Baseball is a game," am I being imprecise? No. So context sometimes will drive the precision, based on that one contextual use, but the trick is in realizing that that one use is not indicative of one overarching definition that fits all uses. All games are not baseball games.
You keep making the same error, that I'm talking about ordinary speech in the sense that the meanings are based on what someone might say on the street. I've tried explaining this earlier, at least partially, but your brain seems locked into position.
Why? Without some conceptual motivation to which the distinction responds to, it's just an arbitrary excercise. Kant, Scotus, and Poinsot all had a set of conceptual motivations which made their employment of the terms non-arbitrary. In the absence of this, its just a trivial bit of language wringing. Linguistic engines on idle.
This still doesn't dissolve the distinction. It just redifines objective and subjective into adaptive points of view versus the world itself. Unless you want to espouse some form of anti-realism where there is no world independent of adaptive points of view.
Which would be hard to believe, given what science tells us about the universe.
Warding off epistemological concerns would be one motivation. Wasn't Wittgenstein trying to dissolve issues like solipsism by arguing for the necessary public nature of language?
Yes, but in a way far removed from this kind of arbitrariness. And 'warding off epistemological concerns' is meaningless. What concerns? And why are you concerned to begin with?
Or, Fred feels like it's hot in the car, Jill thinks it's cold, but Raymond feels just right.
Or, Fred believes the salt is poison from his partner, who is an alien doppleganger.
Or, Fred dreams the salt is a bunch of tiny elves cranking his taste buds.
Or, Fred is convinced that salt is no more than how it appears to him.
Same concerns humanity has had since the ancient schools of philosophy in India, China and Greece, if not earlier.
To answer this more specifically, the difference between appearance and reality. Thinks aren't always as they seem. The naive view of things is often misleading.
The subjective/objective distinction didn't even exist until the 18th century or so, so even if one were to try and employ it to address 'the distinction between reality and appearance', there's a great deal of conceptual work needed to articulate the junction between these ideas. There's nothing more philosophically naive than thinking that the terms in which problems are posed are obvious, clear, and well-founded. Most of the time, the problems themselves are rubbish.
I could have sworn the Cyrenaics made that distinction. There's also the modes of the Pyrrhonian skeptics.
Agrippa's Third Mode:
Skepticism and idealism of various sorts predates the 18th century. Hinduism has the concept of Maya where the world is an illusion from the mind of God. Then there's the Butterfly Dream from China.
Early Christianity had the gnostics, with their beliefs in personal gnosis. Some of them believed the material world was an illusion.
You asked what motivates warding off epistemological concerns, and my response is that these sorts of concerns arose a long time ago, have evolved but have never gone away, so it's natural for those discussing philosophy to want to address them. My understanding is this is what is motivating Sam and what motivated Wittgenstein.
As for Witty, he had the acuity to realize that most so-called 'epistemological concerns' were just stupid uses of language taken much too seriously.
This is just so much nonsense. It's an arbitrary exercise, it's arbitrary because you think it's arbitrary. Concepts like subjective and objective aren't arbitrary concepts. And your last sentence, which refers to something Wittgenstein would say, kills me, because your about as far from understanding Wittgenstein as you can get. Stupid philosophy has turned concepts like these into arbitrary notions.
The fact that people are having such a difficult time understanding what should be fairly simple concepts to understand generally, tells me just how philosophically confused people are.
One of the reasons I wanted to stick to coming up with a working definition for these words, is that I knew people couldn't even agree on this. If there is any "language wringing" it's in these kinds of statements.
I didn't say they were. I said attempts to give them substance in the absence of any conceptual motivation would make them so. The OP is one such attempt. It is preferable that people disagree on the use of terms when motivated by different problematics, than trivially agree on such uses without being productively constrained by a need to address a well-founded set of issues.
Is the synthetic a priory proposition 7 + 5 = 12 mind-independent?
But I wasn't trying to dissolve the distinction necessarily. I was responding by trying to make the best sense of it in my lights.
So what I reacted to was @Sam26's simple acceptance of a dualistic ontology where the subjective would be "facts of the mind" and objective would be "facts of the world".
One part of my reply was that all facts are "facts of the mind". This is the semiotic view where "facts" are the signs that form our experiential Umwelt - the world as we construct it, and so the "world with us in it" as its interpreters.
So facticity is generally on the side of the "mental", or informational. And objective vs subjective simply become two opposing extremes of how we regard these facts or signs. We assign some experiences to our "self" as being highly personal, voluntary, variable, unsharable, etc. And other experiences as being "objective facts of the world" as they are highly invariant, recalcitrant, sharable, involuntary, etc.
On closer inspection, this isn't a very good distinction. Is the yellowness of the marigold a fact of the world or a fact of the mind? Is your yellow, my yellow? Why does physics say nothing is actually yellow and that it is all just some kind of information processing trick in your brain?
Semiosis cleans that up. Yellow is a sign that we construct to interpret the facts of the world. It doesn't represent the reality, but it does do the job of mediating an embodied modelling relation with the world as we then can act in a purpose-serving way which has predictable material consequences. I know when the banana is ripe enough eat just at a quick glance.
So that is part of the answer. Objective vs subjective is not that robust a dichotomy principally because it is the jargon favoured by the tradition of dualism and AP theories of truth. Bad philosophy. Semiotics says it is really just a way we categorise experience. We split facticity into that which is, overall, highly personal - "on the side of the controlling self" - and highly impersonal, or "on the side of the resisting world".
And then, the other part of the answer was about a general attempt to shift from a passive to an active understanding of "mind".
Dualism has its cultural force because people find it easy to think about mind as a kind of conscious substance. It is a psychic stuff that feels, thinks and senses. Semiotics paves the way for seeing mind as an action of interpretance, a constantly adapting modelling relation. Every moment of consciousness is some other possible state of attentional focus - some actualised point of view - quickly to be replaced by whatever viewpoint strikes the best adapted state in the next.
So there is no stuff that is conscious, as if consciousness were the property of a substance. There just is a flow of viewpoints that have a coherent past and an orientated future. This is what neuroscience tells us. It is how brains work. The emphasis is put on the relating rather than the existing, where it belongs in a process view.
This model of mindfulness as a semiotic process can then be applied to the subjective~objective distinction. At one extreme is the absolute locatedness of whatever it is that I'm experiencing at this place and moment in space and time. That is the subjective pole. Then at the other extreme would be what I - or any reasoning person - would believe to be the general case at the end of a process of exhaustive inquiry. The most disembodied view we could imagine arriving at - the one as if we stood outside everything. This is of course the Pragmatic theory of truth offered by CS Peirce. He defined objectivity in these terms.
So I was giving my grounds for rejecting the standard dualistic distinction of subjective vs objective, and offering the alternative triadic metaphysics of semiotics or the pragmatism of modelling relations.
This is a misinterpretation, first, in my argument, if you would have read it carefully, you would see that there is much more to the testimony on NDEs than subjective experiences. They are experiences that can be corroborated by the objective observations of those who were there, but I don't want to start that argument in here.
But it's not conceptual motivation that gives these concepts substance or meaning, and I would say that conceptual motivation plays little to no part in the meanings of these words. If the primary factor is conceptual motivation, then it is purely subjective and arbitrary. Unless your saying that part of the way one expresses certain meanings or concepts within a particular argument, is that we choose particular uses of those concepts. However, you seem to imply that conceptual motivation gives them substance.
Another way to interpret what you said is that unless we are talking about a certain context of use, which would involve the use of particular concepts in certain ways based on goals, then we are just fishing for a definition which may or may not work in the context of the problem at hand.
However, my problem is that we shouldn't just arbitrarily pick meanings out of thin air, that there is a general consensus of correct use among concepts. I shouldn't just pick my own meaning based on some conceptual motivation, that's part of the confusion of doing philosophy.
Finally, even outside of a particular theoretical problems words generally have meanings, or at least guides that suggest possible uses. So we might list a variety of definitions of the word game for example, and those definitions have uses that fit within certain language-games. My goal was to come up with certain generalized definitions that would be starting points for pointing out the objective nature of language.
Assuming beliefs can be identified with brain states.
But okay, how about this one?
Sally: "Casablanca is the best movie ever made".
Fred, "Nope, it's clearly the Godfather."
Peter: "I did not like the Godfather. It insists upon itself."
Millenial: "Second and third Matrix movies were better than the first."
Could you examine their brain states to determine the relative merits of the movies mentioned?
Arbitrariness by consensus is still arbitrariness.
All languages are based on rules of use, so in that sense one doesn't just get to arbitrarily choose one's own meaning, no more that you would choose to move a piece in chess one way when the rules dictate another. The rules when set up may be arbitrary, but once set, like the rules of chess, you don't get to arbitrarily suspend the rules to suit your own particular view of the game. If you did you wouldn't be playing chess.
The same is true of language, if you just arbitrarily decided to use your own definition, you would not be playing the language-game by the rules. There are rules of use, i.e., the logic behind the uses of concepts. By the way, the following of those rules is what's objective about language. I can observe your actions to know if you're following the rules of the game. When I say "Slab," did you in fact bring the slab, objective observation.
All facts whether subjective or objective operate within some system of use. And it is the case that some rules are determined by group consensus. The rules of chess for example, or the rules of baseball. Even reality itself, i.e., what's veridical is decided pretty much by what the group calls reality, or what the group calls a hallucination. It doesn't necessarily have to be from above and without, although that can work too.
Some, sure. But it makes little sense to say philosophy belongs, or ought to belong to that subclass. The rules of chess are more or less utterly contingent and utterly arbitrary after all (constrained only by the - already contingent - choice of an 8x8 grid, our physionomy, and our intelligence and history). Insofar as philosophy asks after how things in reality hang together in the broad sense, the constraints which govern its discourse ought to be far more significant that than those which govern a frivolity like chess.
Oh come on Spam26. There are no such rules to language use. We can use the words however we damn well please, and actually do, that's how languages evolve. Where would these rules exist, in the dictionary? A dictionary is not a set of rules. To describe language as being governed by rules reveals an extremely naïve view of language.
Quoting MarcheskObjective (2nd part subjective).
Quoting MarcheskSubjective.
Consider what Wittgenstein demonstrates at the beginning of The Philosophical Investigations. If learning a language consisted of learning rules, then one would already have to know a language in order to learn a language, because the rules would have to be communicated to that person, via language. This is what drove him to inquire into private rules, and private language, to account for the capacity to understand rules, if learning rules is necessarily prior to using language. But that whole line of investigation breaks down into nonsense. So we ought to conclude that learning language does not consist of learning rules at all.
[i]For understanding basic meaning of words (or concepts), it is often wise to take an etymological approach: we just trace the basic meaning of words by examining the form of words (and in some cases, tracing their historical roots, though this is not important in case here).
The basic meanings of “subjective” and “objective” are something to do with “subjects” and “objects”, respectively. Then, what are the “subjects” and “objects”? In a way, this is a grammatical concept: for example, if you say, “I have an apple”, “I” is a subject that takes an action (“to have” here), and “an apple” is an object that is affected by an action.
By following these basic meanings, it immediately follows that when we use these terms in philosophy, “subjective” and “objective”, respectively, mean “from a point of view of the subject” and “from a point of view of the object”.
You can talk about an apple subjectively, that is from a point of view of the subject, that is yourself: it is about how you see it, how you feel about it. More specifically, it looks delicious, you may find it beautiful, etc. All the statements are subjective, that is only from your own point of view. Some other people may not think this apple is delicious, but your judgment that the apple is delicious is not disputed by someone else’s opinion, because it is your subjective manner.
At the same time, you can talk about an apple objectively, that is from a point of view of the object, that is apple: you examine an apple just as it is, forgetting about yourself, but talk about the apple only as if you are actually not there. A given apple may be red, if may be round, or not quite round, etc. All these statements are objective, because you can discuss about it with the other people: you may not be looking at the color of the apple carefully enough. It may be actually more like pink, rather than red, etc. You can discuss about this matter with the others, because it is an objective matter.
These are basic meanings of these two concepts.
However, in actual application of these concepts, the things are pretty much immediately getting complicated, because you cannot talk about anything objectively without yourself, that is the subject: if you are not there, of course, you cannot see the apple, henceforth, you cannot talk about this apple. We can develop a long argument about subjectivity and objectivity, and in short, we must realize that we can talk about subjectivity and objectivity only in a dynamical manner, under interactions between a subject and an object. From this dynamical perspective, subjectivity and objectivity rather mean which has a stronger role between subject and object: there is no pure subjectivity without object, nor pure objectivity without subject.
However, apart from this complication, as I said in the first part, the basic meaning of subjective and objective is very simple, and if you stay with this basic meaning, you will not be confused with many confused arguments about subjectivity and objectivity, as some of the answers try to point out.[/i]
This is just not true. Think of how a child learns to use the word cup. The child has no idea what a rule is, but by learning to use the word in social settings they implicitly learn to follow rules. The two go hand-in-hand.
I agree when Yano says:
"From this dynamical perspective, subjectivity and objectivity rather mean which has a stronger role between subject and object: there is no pure subjectivity without object, nor pure objectivity without subject."
The previous question I put forward about how to understand epistemology was offerred because that term is commonly used to distinguish people who "know" things from what they hope to learn. So, as a matter of use, the one who knows is the subject and the object is thing that gets understood. One does not have to refute Yano's observation to permit the usage. On the other hand, there is a tension between accepted uses of object and subject that makes the term "epistemology" questionable. Not in the sense that thinkers should decide to abandon it or not, but in the sense it needs to carry its own weight, explain stuff and not just assure thinkers it is self-evident, etcetera.
Moral statements are subjective. Talk about how morals evolved is objective.
Minds are part of the world, so speaking about the state of some mind is objective.
What do you see as the difference between a value statement and something like "I was daydreaming that I was flying" that makes one subjective and the other objective?
You do not believe that value statements are about the state of some mind?
Also, why would you think that some people are saying that minds are not part of the world?
Simple. "I was daydreaming that I was flying" is an objective statement about the state of some mind.
"Daydreaming that you are flying is a waste of time." is a subjective statement because it might not be a waste of time outside of your mind. Now, if you were to say that "I believe that daydreaming is a waste of time." That would be objective because, again, you are describing the state of some mind, not trying to make the claim about daydreaming itself being a waste of time. You are referring to your belief, which is a state of mind.
Quoting Terrapin Station
No. Statements about the state of some mind wouldn't be value statements. They would be objective statements about the state of some mind. Only when you attempt to project value (as it relates to how it affects your goals) onto some state of affairs do you become subjective.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Just look at the questions you posed.
But "Daydreaming that you are flying is a waste of time" is the same thing as "I believe that daydreaming that you are flying is a waste of time."
It's not that the person saying that necessarily thinks abiout them as the same thing, but re what's actually going on, they are the same thing.
The person might have a mistaken belief that by saying "Daydreaming that you are flying is a waste of time," they're saying something different than "I believe that daydreaming that you are flying is a waste of time," but the person would simply have a mistaken belief. What they're really doing is the same thing in both cases.
Quoting Harry Hindu
You're wrong about that. Value statements are telling us how an individual feels about the thing in question. Thus, they're about their state of mind.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Doesn't make any sense as a resposne.
No. Go back and read my post.
Is the person mistaken that they have a belief? Whether the belief is right or wrong is a different question.
False beliefs can be a cause of some effect in the world as much as a true belief (false beliefs are just as real as true beliefs). The fact that one has beliefs is objective. Whether or not the belief is true or not is discovered by using the belief to make decisions and then observing the effects.
Whether they have a belief would be irrelevant to the distinction. You can't statement something that isn't a belief.
I said "You can't state something that isn't a belief."
You're not saying that actual states of affairs consist solely of statements we make, are you?
If actual states of affairs are not only statements we make, then a claim about statements isn't going to imply anything about making a distinction between beliefs and actual states of affairs.
"Igneous rock is formed by the cooling of lava," as a statement, which is what the quotation marks conventionally denote in philosophy, is most certainly a belief that someone has. The person who uttered the statement believes that igneous rock is formed by the cooling of lava.
That's different than the fact that igneous rock is formed by the cooling of lava. The fact isn't itself a statement. The fact obtains even if every person were to disappear, or were to never have existed. That's NOT the case for statements. Statements require individuals to make them.
So then every statement of yours in every one of your posts isn't about some state-of-affairs - like "You can't state something that isn't a belief."? So "You can't state something that isn't a belief" really isn't some state-of-affairs. It is a belief. So that means "You can't state something that isn't a belief" isn't really true outside of your own mind.
I didn't say that satatements can't be about states of affairs.
That a statement is about some state of affairs doesn't imply that the statement isn't a belief.
It doesn't imply that the state of affairs is a belief, or a statement.
"P is about F" is different than F itself.
But beliefs can be wrong. States-of-affairs just are. Are you not sure that you have beliefs?
Yes, of course I'm sure I have beliefs.
What does any of that have to do with anything I just said?
When beliefs/statements are wrong then they necessarily can't be about some state of affairs.
When beliefs/statements are right they necessarily are about some state of affairs.
Of course they can be. "Igneous rock is always polka-dotted" is wrong, but it's about igneous rock. "About" is a term that tells us what we're referring to semantically in the sentence in question, or what we're thinking of in a thought that we have. (What we're referring to semantically in a sentence is what we're thinking of, really.)
Quoting Harry Hindu
I'd agree that we can't get something right or wrong if it's not a case where we can match or fail to match what the world is like..
You said: Quoting Terrapin Station
I said: Quoting Harry Hindu
Do you agree that beliefs can be wrong?
If so,
AND you can't statement something that isn't a belief (in other words, statements are beliefs that can be wrong)
then how can you be sure that you have beliefs? You could be wrong.
By being in the psychological state of strong conviction. That's what "being sure" is.
For some reason you're thinking "If it's possible to be wrong about x, then I can't be sure about x," but that's not actually how psychology works.
But it isn't about the igneous rock if the igneous rock isn't polka-dotted. You'd be referring to the igneous rock in your head, not the one outside of it. So it's really an issue of making a category mistake.
For example, take that it's possible for all igneous rock to be polka-dotted, contra the fact that not all (if any) igneous rock is polka-dotted. Unless you simply reject all possibles that are not actuals, the fact that igneous rock isn't (all) polka-dotted isn't at all affected by the fact that it was possible for igneous rock to all be polka-dotted.
"It's possible to be wrong but I'm sure of P" works similarly.
But we are on a philosophy forum where we are skeptical about the very nature of knowledge itself.
Yes, it is. I just explained why, and you just quoted the explanation:
"About" is a term that tells us what we're referring to semantically in the sentence in question, or what we're thinking of in a thought that we have. (What we're referring to semantically in a sentence is what we're thinking of, really.)"
So, among other things, this is turning out that you have no comprehension of "aboutness."
lol re speaking for everyone.
So you don't make distinctions between the idea of igneous rocks and actual igneous rocks. Got it.
Not re aboutness, and if you do, you have no comprehension of aboutness.
I can just imagine you taking the SATs, there being a reading comprehension section that presents "Igneous rocks are always polka-dotted . . . " and then you're asked "What was that passage about?" And you answer "Nothing."
That would help you get into a good school.
"Say, Harry--I've never seen Star Wars. I was wondering if I'd like it. What's it about?"
Harry: "Nothing."
Again, there is a distinction between words about some idea and words about some state-of-affairs.
Statements of what Star Wars is about is about ideas, not about some state-of-affairs.
If you were to tell a person about Star Wars, should they believe that Wookies actually exist and Star Wars is about real Wookies, or is it an idea about Wookies?
When you talk about state of affairs, are you referring to the ideas in your head, or the state of affairs? If you say that you are referring to your ideas, then do your ideas refer to some state of affairs? If so, then aren't you indirectly taking about states of affairs as opposed to beliefs that they refer to? Isn't the fact that you can make that distinction indicative of something? If you aren't making that distinction then are you an anti-realist? Aren't you using a shortcut in language and context to imply that you are taking about states of affairs instead of your beliefs? If I were to admit that I was talking about my beliefs as opposed to some state of affairs would you be more or less inclined to believe what I said?
It seems to me that is realism is the case then we make statements about states of affairs external to our minds. If realism isn't the case then there is no distinction between ideas and states of affairs independent of the mind.
Again, there isn't when we're talking of aboutness. Aboutness is simply the subject of the statement.
No I did not. I didn't say that statements are only of beliefs.
No, you have just made an invalid inference. You claim that if the child has learned how to use the word "cup", this implies that the child has learned how to follow rules. That is begging the question. It's only true if using language requires following rules. But that's what you need to prove, not assume. You will never prove it though, because the converse is obviously what is true.
In reality, rules exist, and are dictated as words, and the person must know words in order to understand any rules. Therefore learning language is necessarily prior to learning rules, and it is impossible that learning how to use a word implies that one has learned a rule. One must learn words in order to understand rules. That is why we must look to something other than rule-following for the true nature of language. The existence of rules is something which requires language, and follows from language. Rules cannot exist without language. Therefore language itself is necessarily prior to rules, and must be based in something other than rule-following, because language produces rule-following.
No, I have not made an invalid inference. Your understanding of this point is just confused. When you learn to use a word, then you have also learned how to follow a rule. There is an implicit rule involved in using the word correctly, it goes hand-in-hand with language. So, to learn to use a word, as in my e.g., is to learn a rule about how to use the word. One knows that the child has learned to follow a rule by observing how they use the word. Just as we know that someone knows the rules of chess by observing their moves. This is not rocket science.
To say that you need to prove that using language requires following rules, is akin to saying that you need to prove that chess moves involves following rules. By definition a language involves rule-following, its an essential property of language, just as the rules of chess are essential to the game of chess.
I could give the following proof, which is not begging-the-question. This is also a valid inference.
Premise (1): If all languages are rule-governed, then necessarily, learning to use a word is a rule-governed activity.
Premise (2): All languages are rule governed.
Conclusion: Therefore, necessarily, learning to use a word is a rule-governed activity.
Of course the discourse of philosophy has broader ramifications than a chess game, but the analogy, as far as it goes, still holds. How we talk about facts, truth, real, exist, etc, is not only contingent on how the world is, but the concepts of language hang together based on how we use the concepts to describe the world.
It's true that there is a kind of arbitrariness to our concepts, but that arbitrariness is only in the choice of the letters and words used (among other things) within language. We could choose what we want to mean by the words car or book, just as we could choose whatever rule we want when setting up the game of chess, or a game of baseball. However, once the rules are set, then we follow them to play the game, or to talk about philosophy. This is what Wittgenstein meant by the logic of use, at least partially. We can see the logic behind the use of words by observing how we use the words in social settings. For example, did the person properly respond to the word slab as given in Wittgenstein's language-game.
Once the rules, say, of syntax are arbitrarily decided, then whether we use such rules correctly or not can be seen objectively. You either followed the rules or not. In baseball, the rules are arbitrary, but whether you follow the rules correctly is not arbitrary. We can observe whether the hit was a home run or not, it's objective. It's not always clear whether someone correctly followed a rule, but generally we know. This is true of our concepts, if it wasn't we wouldn't be able to communicate, which is somewhat what happened at the beginning of this thread.
But what would be the point of that? I mean, in the case of chess, sure, you set up a bunch of more or less arbitrary rules with the goal to make a fun, competitive past-time. And from there, you can see if someone has or has not followed those rules correctly. But philosophy is not - or rather, ought not to be - a merely a fun, competitive past-time. Philosophy ought to shed light on the nature of things (in a broad sense). That's the productive constraint on its discourse, in the same way that 'developing a fun game' is roughly the productive constraint on the rules on chess.
Mere 'agreement' however, would be useless and trivial in both cases. We don't just settle on some arbitrarily agreed upon rules for no particular reason. Communication is not the point of philosophy. It ought to be a minimal condition of philosophy, sure, but that is nothing but a necessary but not yet sufficient condition of its practice. You seem to be mistaking the means for the ends: I'm not just trying to have a conversation with you when doing philosophy - I'm trying to hopefully say something meaningful about the world around us, with my use of language reflecting that. The man who yells 'slab!' isn't doing it just because he wants to communicate (although that's part of it) - he does it in order to, presumably, build something at the end of the day.
The focus on 'objectivity' is, in this sense, totally banal. I couldn't care less if people can or can't agree upon some arbitrarily decided rules and then look to see if those rules are being objectively followed. Communication is nothing but a bare minimum; all meaningful talk takes place in a language-game, yes, but a language game also includes practices which define the context by which that 'game' becomes meaningful and significant. We don't just play 'language-games' for 'language-games' sake, and then look to police those rules to see if one is playing rightly or wrongly. If you don't have some kind of motivation - having a fun game, building a structure - then even the most pristine and elegant rules ever devised are worthless.
The ability to agree with each other tells us there is some consistency between our realities, but in some aspects our realities may be widely different, I may experience things that you don't and vice versa, so how do we communicate about it then?
There are things we seem to be able to communicate through looking into someone's eyes, through some behavior, that we can't communicate with words.
The way we use language rests on a bunch of implicit assumptions, yet we feel as if we can talk about the whole of reality by using words, but we're just fooling ourselves.
Well said.
This is your premise. Now you must prove that it is true, justify it, or else you are just making an unsupported assumption which supports your conclusion (begging the question).
Quoting Sam26
Now you have made an unwarranted qualification, with the word "correctly". We learn how to use language, before we learn how to use language "correctly", (and if there even is such a thing as "using language correctly" is highly doubtful). It is evident that children use language, when learning, in a way which cannot be called "correct", but it can still be called "using language". So we must dismiss this qualification of "correctly", as unnecessary to "using language". Therefore "using words", or "using language" does not require that one do so "correctly".
Quoting Sam26
According to the above, this conclusion is invalid. To use a word "correctly" requires that one learn a rule, but to use a word, does not require that one learn any rules. Word use, and therefore language use itself, does not require that anyone learns any rules. Only "correct" word use, or language use, requires the learning of rules. But whether there is such a thing as "correct word use" is highly doubtful, because we have no set of rules to refer to, by which we could confirm whether a particular instance of usage is correct or not.
Quoting Sam26
Premise (2) is obviously false, and manufactured to support the conclusion (begging the question).
I don't agree that "correct" and "incorrect" are appropriate here. Only "conventional" and "unconventional" are. It's not incorrect to be unconventional.