Davidson - Trivial and Nontrivial Conceptual Schemes - A Case Study in Translation
This thread flows out of a discussion of Davidson's "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme."
https://www2.southeastern.edu/Academics/Faculty/jbell/conceptualscheme.pdf
We'll examine two cases: trivial and nontrivial
Case 1: Trivial: The Ketch and the Yawl
Davidson writes (p. 18):
[i]If you see a ketch sailing by and your companion says, "Look at that handsome yawl," you may be faced with a problem of interpretation. One natural possibility is that your friend has mistaken a ketch for a yawl, and has formed a false belief. But if his vision is good and his line of sight favorable it is
even more plausible that he does not use the word "yawl" quite as you do, and has made no mistake at all about the position of the jigger on the passing yacht. We do this sort of off the cuff interpretation all the time, deciding in favor of reinterpretation of words in order to preserve a reasonable theory of belief. As philosophers we are peculiarly tolerant of systematic malapropism, and practised at interpreting the result. The process is that of constructing a viable theory of belief and meaning from sentences held true. Such examples emphasize the interpretation of anomalous details against a background of common beliefs and a going method of translation. [b]But the principles involved must be the
same in less trivial cases.[/b][/i]
Case 2: Nontrivial: Materialism and Immaterialism
To keep things as precise and straightforward as possible, materialism and immaterialism will be defined as follows:
Materialism: The belief that the universe consists entirely of matter.
Immaterialism: The belief that the universe consists entirely of mind.
In a far less trivial case than the ketch and the yawl, can conceptual schemes be translated?
Can immaterialism be translated into materialism (as defined above) and vice versa? How do we go about it?
Reply to Banno Reply to Janus Reply to frank Reply to Isaac Reply to fdrake
https://www2.southeastern.edu/Academics/Faculty/jbell/conceptualscheme.pdf
We'll examine two cases: trivial and nontrivial
Case 1: Trivial: The Ketch and the Yawl
Davidson writes (p. 18):
[i]If you see a ketch sailing by and your companion says, "Look at that handsome yawl," you may be faced with a problem of interpretation. One natural possibility is that your friend has mistaken a ketch for a yawl, and has formed a false belief. But if his vision is good and his line of sight favorable it is
even more plausible that he does not use the word "yawl" quite as you do, and has made no mistake at all about the position of the jigger on the passing yacht. We do this sort of off the cuff interpretation all the time, deciding in favor of reinterpretation of words in order to preserve a reasonable theory of belief. As philosophers we are peculiarly tolerant of systematic malapropism, and practised at interpreting the result. The process is that of constructing a viable theory of belief and meaning from sentences held true. Such examples emphasize the interpretation of anomalous details against a background of common beliefs and a going method of translation. [b]But the principles involved must be the
same in less trivial cases.[/b][/i]
Case 2: Nontrivial: Materialism and Immaterialism
To keep things as precise and straightforward as possible, materialism and immaterialism will be defined as follows:
Materialism: The belief that the universe consists entirely of matter.
Immaterialism: The belief that the universe consists entirely of mind.
In a far less trivial case than the ketch and the yawl, can conceptual schemes be translated?
Can immaterialism be translated into materialism (as defined above) and vice versa? How do we go about it?
Reply to Banno Reply to Janus Reply to frank Reply to Isaac Reply to fdrake
Comments (46)
Per Davidson, if I'm a materialist and you're and immaterialist, I interpret everything you say with the assumption that we believe the same things even if you use different words, unless there is a good reason to believe that you're mistaken. You may claim to be so-and-so, but if I don't see the evidence that we're different, then I don't believe we are.
So while visiting a cemetery (which we do for fun), I see you talking to a gravestone, and I know something's up. I have reason to be confident that our beliefs are not the same on the issue of talking to graves. You're wrong about something.
Or you are. Or neither of us are. Or we both are, in different ways and for different reasons
Of course this won't apply to observations of events in the commonly perceived everyday world, but that kind of relatively trivial agreement is not what we are after here is it?
I come back to the philosophical problem of what it could mean to say that scientific theories are true. Would this not necessarily be to posit some more elaborate form of hidden correspondence between theories and actuality, between models and the territory (that is visible to us at all only via models)?
Suppose I say: The universe consists entirely of mind. How, as a materialist, do you translate this statement?
My understanding so far: yes, in examining schemes "different, even contradictory, things might be counted true." But these would be translatable in the same way a foreign language can be translated into English. (Weird and worrisome ring of analogy there.) This thread is to help understand how that can (possibly) work.
And going back to the Chinese vs Western medicine example, how would the idea of chi, meridians, energy flow and blockages, Yin and Yang, hot and cold, wet and dry energies and so on be translated in terms of the Western ideas of elctrochemical impulses and nerves?
A reference to Wilfrid Sellars might be helpful here. How does his "manifest image" translate into the "scientific image", or in other words how does the space of reasons translate into the space of causes?
Thanks. Re Davidson, the analytic veterans don't seem to be overly critical in their thinking.
Part and parcel of being entrenched or submerged in a mode of thought. If I'm submerged in anything, it's Pyrrhonism.
Me too. I've been on this site off and on for maybe seven years.
It's a profound pleasure and allows the mind the liberty to scavenge both sides of a position. Unperturbed freedom of intellect. Ideally...
Yes, not always or permanently realizable; but then what is?
Scenario: You're a materialist. I'm an immaterialist.
You don't see evidence that we're different. Therefore you believe - what? - that I am also a materialist?
Is that how it works, in your view?
(I've certainly seen it work that way on these forums - to a clamor of protest...)
Is the difference manifested in words only, or does it affect behaviour more generally?
Does the immaterialist offer to do the dishes by thinking them clean, or does he use the sink? Does the materialist always use his fingers to count?
Quoting frank
Nothing wrong with talking to a gravestone; the difficulty is all in the reply.
I have never met a materialist who treated himself as an object, or an idealist who didn't eat.
Sort of. That's how Davidson sees it. That's what the yawl thing was about: for my interpretation of you, your behavior (which reveals your beliefs to me) overrides your words. You can say it incorrectly, but I still successfully translate your intentions.
He says that's because (rightly or wrongly), I assume that you and I share the same beliefs.
So you might understand that wearing a badge of materialism is important to me, but as long as I dont act strangely, its a hollow claim.
If you think about how we create arguments: that we always rely on premises. You can't donate an understanding of some unprovable starting place. You can only build on our agreement.
Quoting frank
What if I did something strange - like start talking insistently about my immaterialism; in the evangelical fashion sometimes found on these forums? Would this alter your assumption that we share the same beliefs? Would you be content to assume something possibly untrue?
Quoting frank
I agree we can only build on our agreement. The question is: is our agreement profound enough to ensure there isn't a conceptual relativism at work?
I'm on the ontological antirealist side, so it concerns me that a statement of materialism has no truth conditions. I would interpret your behavior psychologically. I may have gotten off topic?
Quoting Janus
Quoting ZzzoneiroCosm
You mean Davidson included?
This thread is to refute that? You see the "non-trivials" as a different problem?
That's what we're not so good at, culturally engineering optimized discourse and transmission of ideas. Its an ethical and institutional issue, hard to talk about. I think you have to get into the specifics of many different domains, and progress can change all participants. Do we temporarily delay some technological advancements to first get everyone generally educated and competently thinking about the issues involved? An extremely difficult social problem. You've got to somehow motivate citizens to give up the familiar and adopt new habits. Probably a multi-generational process always vulnerable to regression and corruption. Maybe fostering a broad historical perspective is a decent start, generating a "species" demographic.
Not interested in refutation. Just exploration.
Quoting bongo fury
I wasn't including Davidson.
Ok, this thread is to question that? Question Davidson's assertion that the problem scales up? You see the "non-trivials" as a different problem?
Not saying you shouldn't question the man's views.
Yes. Learning more about Davidson by criticizing and questioning.
I agree. Davidson waffles on "truth", much to my own dismay. It causes confusion when reading him.
I don't have a problem with the critical attitude. I'm just trying to understand what you and @Janus have against scaling up from analysis at the relatively small-scale, so that you would associate such an approach with a lack of critical attitude.
I suspect by saying "less trivial" Davidson was using understatement to say "even less trivial, if that were possible".
What makes you think your "non-trivials" are a different kind of problem?
There's no relation between the two. "Scaling-up" and a "non-critical attitude" - those two aren't related. You caught the tail-end of a longer conversation. But the two are unrelated.
If you take a look at a person's use of language, the difference between believing such and such is a ketch and such and such is a yawl is of minor significance. There is the entire range of linguistic usage and history to orient an interlocutor toward this minor difference in belief or language use.
Turning to the non-trivial case (materialism v. immaterialism), the distinction between the belief that the universe is matter and the belief that the universe is mind is of nearly infinitely greater significance.
As triviality decreases the background of common beliefs decreases.
There is a shared background of understanding attendant upon simply being human, that all people will agree upon; they are the trivials. Different paradigms consist in attenuated ideas, theories and beliefs, non-trivials, which indeed may not be translatable into each other's terms; and no one has presented anything here. and nor does Davidson's paper, that convinces me that that is not so.
You can come to a new mutual understanding without sacrificing the traditional terms though, especially in cases of intermediately non-trivial translation, like between Buddhist and Freudian folk psychologies for instance. Preservation of original terms is probably preferable if possible, as stable points of reference around which all kinds of formative communicating can align, so you can bring the uninitiated multitudes on board. Preserving terminology particularly assists as a locus of conversation, but can be confusing in writing because immediate, personalized clarification is not available. Authors have to massively elaborate while presciently anticipating the mindsets of their audience, and the resolution of objections is a lengthy process, though capable of reaching deeper, more reflective levels. This is probably an obscure way of describing common practice, but it might be good at this stage of the discussion to explicitly diffuse catastrophic relativism. Currently untranslatable non-trivial conceptual schemes exist, but this untranslatability may be alterable somehow.
That's possibly true, although I don't think we are going to be able to translate the language of geomancy into the language of geology, astrology into astronomy or theosophy into the language of quantum physics or cosmology anytime soon.
The former three disciplines assume that genuine intuitive knowledge is possible, and may be invoked by the effects of symbols on the imagination to reveal arcane truths about the nature of reality. There is no acceptance of this idea in the latter disciplines, and consequently no language in them to deal with it except the language of denial.
I don't think the ideas of the former three disciplines have any place in philosophical discussions of the argumentative kind (except as examples), in any case, because there is no way to inter-subjectively corroborate the kinds of experiences and insights which are claimed by them.
If you have had those kinds of experiences and insights then you may indeed have reason to place your faith in them, but if you haven't, then someone trying to convince you of their veracity will be speaking a different language, analogous to trying to describe colour to a blind person; a waste of everyone's time, in other words.
Many people have described visual experience to blind relatives and friends, the analogy is superficial, come up with a better example! lol Preferably not based on pre-Enlightenment worldviews.
Also, that you try to characterize what I wrote as "based on pre-Enlightenment worldviews" as though (the myth of) progress ensures that those views are somehow inferior suggests to me that I will be wasting my time trying to engage in discussion with you, since it seems to indicate that you are interested only in the usual kind of polemic.
As I already said I don't believe that discussion about so-called religious or mystical experience is worthwhile in a context which demands empirical evidence or self-evident truth, these kinds of things cannot be coherently argued, and I think it is always a mistake to reify the ideas that come with such experiences to form the basis of any positive (quasi-empirical) claims.
In short it seems to me that we probably have nothing to discuss. But by all means, change the tune and surprise me.
Edit: when I commented on your post it was empty. I preferred it that way!
I can tell this is going to be an adventure lol By pre-Enlightenment worldviews, I mean such as geomancy, astrology and theosophy. I have no inclination to get into the details of those perspectives either. By post-Enlightenment views, I mean the ideals of equal access to institutions of education, representative government, justice, some cultural expression, the social foundation that makes a progressing scientific worldview with a species consciousness, general humaneness, even conceivably universalizable. I think post-Enlightenment thinking is largely what makes it possible for millions of people with vision to care about the experience of someone who is blind in general, based on the idea that the impaired deserve assistance, their constraints dignified by legally affirmed equality of need and rudimentary commitment to reciprocate, the social contract. Prior to the Enlightenment, most citizens probably cared about the blind only if relatives, family friends, or a relationship formed incidental to relatively uncommon local conditions. Based on concepts of humanity, many people would find it generally admirable to describe a visual experience to an acquaintance who is blind, not a waste of time at all!
So I'll be Socrates: if describing sight to the blind is viewed as a waste of time by some with normal vision, it must be for a reason besides untranslatability, because every normal visual experience would be similarly untranslatable to someone who is blind, but not every individual with normal vision regards describing visual experience to the blind as an unconditional waste of time.
Are you suggesting that "post-enlightenment thinking" has a unique claim on compassion?
Quoting Enrique
I don't know what to make of this. That some people may persist in attempting to describe things to people who have never experienced them says nothing about the success of such attempts.
I suspect Enlightenment thinking is what made the dignifying of human life in general with social programs a government institution, though opposing trends are also in effect.
I suppose the issue is how we define social success. If its easier for some individuals to translate between their experiences, and they collectively compose the majority, should the minority be excluded completely? Some absolute minorities exist, but what if the minority in one context is the majority somewhere else, or the minority has power, or the minority gets outraged? Can we grow a culture that not only imposes minimum and constantly violated legal obligations, but also fosters self-imposed respect or even compassion for every human being transcendent to relative translatability of concepts or any additional criteria? The charitable approach has solved a lot of social problems, and the world would probably be utter chaos and misery without thought and behavior that troubles to reject stereotypes.
The assessment of translatability depends on beliefs regarding the functions, boundaries and possibilities of discourse. A subject very much in the domain of the humanities, though I gather you guys have more of an analytic approach. Maybe this discussion's angle of reasoning can help bridge the divide. I may be making nearly self-evident claims lol What do you think?
This would seem to be historically borne out.
Quoting Enrique
It seems that in these days of identity politics minorities do not get excluded completely if their voices are loud enough to penetrate the shell of the general level of complacency, or ta least manage to convince the politicians who appear to hold the reins that they have convinced those voters that they, the politicians, believe actually matter to the outcome of the next election.
Quoting Enrique
I don't think cultures can, or ought to be, "grown". Cultures evolve, no one's really in control (although of course the plutocrats do generally set the agenda, even though they cannot control even themselves).
Compassion is a matter of feeling, that is cultivated by those few who viscerally realize the reality of inter-connectedness.
Quoting Enrique
I don't know about others. but I don't see my approach as "analytical". Of course analysis plays a part, but more important still is synthesis. The only purpose of reduction is to assist in making whole. I think the humanities are excluded only to the valorization of scientism and the general detriment of philosophical thought.
And I wouldn't say your claims are "self-evident"; would you want them to be given that if they were they would be mere tautologies?
Benjamin Franklin seemed to think so, but he also almost deliberately electrocuted himself with a kite lol
Edit: I just noticed you wrote "nearly self-evident"; what a sloppy reader I am sometimes!
But that raises the question as to how something could be nearly self-evident; I had always assumed that something is either self-evident or not. :chin: