Using the right words
I think in philosophy a great deal of time is spent “defining”. And defining to me is really “using the right words” to evoke the same idea in two different minds.
It’s obviously necessary. There’s little point talking about something if neither party knows exactly what the topic is about. It will naturally lead to disagreement, contradiction and convolution of the topic which to begin with may have been quite simple.
But words relate to me differently than they relate to you. This can be demonstrated by word association games which highlight the subtle or sometimes overtly different network of meaning, importance and relationship that I have to a concept than you have.
What it really identifies if differences in persona or experience. Take the word “twig” for example. You’re asked to name three of the first words that come into your mind when you think about twigs.
I say “wood”, “tree”, “branch” While you say “growth”, “support” and “fire”.
There is a clear distinction here in how twig related to you and I. I’ve exaggerated it for the purpose of demonstration but I see the twig as an objective solid composed or wood and part of a tree. I see it’s physical Material relationships While you see the functional or purpose related associations. How is it used?
When we talk about difficult to define concepts such as “self” “time” “energy” “purpose” or even “language and meaning” ... we are subject to these same differences in relationship to the concepts.
I can’t see then how an objective definition of any word can ever be met by a group larger than a singular individual. I will always experience and understand a chair in a fundamentally different way to you even if we both know what a chair is. The definition may be similar but it’s position in the collective of definitions and meanings is very different.
So can one really ever “use the right words” to explain or convey an experience/ concept that they hold in their mind That won’t be grossly distorted by the receiving mind? Is language fundamentally flawed in that it’s not highly faithful to “meaning” But only “kind of”.
How can we discuss an issue if we are always talking cross purposes? Or is it the very fact that we talk cross purposes that makes it worthwhile to discuss a topic?
It’s obviously necessary. There’s little point talking about something if neither party knows exactly what the topic is about. It will naturally lead to disagreement, contradiction and convolution of the topic which to begin with may have been quite simple.
But words relate to me differently than they relate to you. This can be demonstrated by word association games which highlight the subtle or sometimes overtly different network of meaning, importance and relationship that I have to a concept than you have.
What it really identifies if differences in persona or experience. Take the word “twig” for example. You’re asked to name three of the first words that come into your mind when you think about twigs.
I say “wood”, “tree”, “branch” While you say “growth”, “support” and “fire”.
There is a clear distinction here in how twig related to you and I. I’ve exaggerated it for the purpose of demonstration but I see the twig as an objective solid composed or wood and part of a tree. I see it’s physical Material relationships While you see the functional or purpose related associations. How is it used?
When we talk about difficult to define concepts such as “self” “time” “energy” “purpose” or even “language and meaning” ... we are subject to these same differences in relationship to the concepts.
I can’t see then how an objective definition of any word can ever be met by a group larger than a singular individual. I will always experience and understand a chair in a fundamentally different way to you even if we both know what a chair is. The definition may be similar but it’s position in the collective of definitions and meanings is very different.
So can one really ever “use the right words” to explain or convey an experience/ concept that they hold in their mind That won’t be grossly distorted by the receiving mind? Is language fundamentally flawed in that it’s not highly faithful to “meaning” But only “kind of”.
How can we discuss an issue if we are always talking cross purposes? Or is it the very fact that we talk cross purposes that makes it worthwhile to discuss a topic?
Comments (75)
Meaning is often thought to be the same as definition, but I think this is a misunderstanding of how we use words. My understanding of the relational structure between meaning, concept, communication and words is a multi-dimensional one. Recognising the complexity of the structure helps us to navigate the distortions and at least find a way to orient ourselves in a discussion, even if we cannot reach an agreement.
If I simply type ‘energy’ for you to read on your computer, then what is essentially a word also has a temporal dimension in which we are now aligned, in a process of communication. Being conscious systems, we also recognise that ‘energy’ is a concept, temporally and physically undefined but existing as a perceivable potential or value in my mind. Finally, as reasoning systems, we recognise that the meaning of ‘energy’ in my particular communication is determined by the overall value or conceptual system in which my understanding of the concept has been constructed from experience.
So I don’t think it’s a matter of ‘using the right words’, but providing enough information to help participants to orient themselves in the discussion in relation to meaning.
tim wood is a strong advocate here of beginning discussions by defining terms. It’s a fast and efficient way to hone in on one’s meaning in relation to the topic, but it isn’t meant to be a constraint. People can get bogged down in trying to agree on a definition, and lose sight of the broader discussion. I think the aim is not to settle on an agreement, but to find a way to discuss the topic from different positions of meaning in relation to it. So long as we have some sense of where they are, even if we’re approaching it from a completely different position, it can still be a worthwhile discussion.
It’s when we assume they mean one thing, but then discover they meant something completely different all along, that we feel like we’ve wasted an entire discussion.
Sometimes I cannot agree with the dictionary definition, in which case I offer it anyway as a starting point, from which I then explain my departure.
Habermas says that our communicative actions derive from a massively shared lifeworld (lebenswelt). This is a background set of assumptions so fundamental that they resist analysis. His observations on specialized languages (from specialist knowledge-domains) are also interesting. Because the value of special theoretical domains can only be measured to the extent that they manage to re-integrate themselves into the universal community, they must eventually find a way to communicate in everyday language. In fact, Habermas says that everyday language is the best meta-language.
I can't say that I'm familiar with Habermas, but if everyday language is supposed to be the best meta-language, how do we approach ontology? Is there a correct (true) way to describe the world, or is the best way the one which is understood by the most people? The latter would be the way supported by "everyday language", but it would also be the most ambiguous way. Ambiguity is a feature of universal understanding. Truth cannot be grounded in ambiguity, so this approach seems to lead us away from the possibility of any ontological truth.
Practical reason (or what Mead calls "value rational") isn't ambiguous. In fact, practical reason is intended to function because it does disambiguate and allow us to be guided by norms and conventions, even when a purely utilitarian calculus might fail. The most important truths on this view are the ones we reach through discursive collaboration.
I feel that perhaps understanding a topic Well is analogous to gps triangulation in that different individuals from different backgrounds of experience, meaning and understanding can “bounce” views off others which in turn do the same in order to build a multiplex concept of the location or in this case “definition/knowledge” of the topic centrally addressed.
This is also kind of like the “collective mean” definition that is to say the sum of all interpretations of a concept laid out graphically would look sort of like a wave with the Scientific or dictionary definition Or functional/utilitarian definition close to the Center and more metaphorical or artistically licensed definitions spread out further and further away from the Center.
For example the meaning of “chair” might have a wave distribution with most people (say 100,000) placing “a solid platform usually on three to four legs that is used to sit on” roughly in the center while a few limited individuals (Say 100) may have “the item I throw at the wall when Im angry” taking central position but obviously as a collective this would be a marginal definition low and far away from the wave peak - the collective interpretation of the word chair.
Are you sure of this? Is something that changes or has a bivalency/ multiple facets any less true than something that stays singular/ the same/identical or unchanging?
Sure for the concretisation of scientific facts and observations, we take truth to be the most objective, consistent, most measurable and repeatable things but the issue is.... one must accept that personal views, emotions and feelings are true to the person who has them. Even demonstrable. That is to say they exist and are true relative to certain beings/ things/ locations in space or perspectives and cannot be proven repeatably by the convention of science.
Is poetry Art music etc not “true“ Because their definitions and the meaning surrounding them are wholly ambiguous by nature? Is ambiguity itself isn’t true Or holds no truth value - either has no meaning or doesn’t exist or is not useful - then what is “ambiguity” And why are we using it in relevance to anything at all?
I have the same basic idea - it’s understanding, rather than a particular ‘definition/knowledge’, that we can arrive at. Any definition/knowledge would be one possible expression or ‘rendering’ of that understanding, among others. I’m not sure that there would be a Center, as such, though - it implies an essentialism that I would have to disagree with here. Any laying out of the concept would depend on the extent of conceptual alignment between parties. To illustrate, I understand a wavefunction to be a graphic representation of the difference between two four-dimensional structures: essentially what it would take for one to align with the other. I imagine this would be the simplest form such an understanding might take.
It seems to me like there is ambiguity within norms and conventions, by the very nature of what these things are. For example, the variety of answers Plato got when asking in The Republic, what is "just".
Quoting Benj96
Ambiguity is not a matter of changing, it is a matter of being different things at the same time.
Quoting Benj96
Then you are defining "true" in relation to honesty. Many people are not honest about their emotions and feelings. Furthermore, most people do not even adequately understand their emotions and feelings, and when this is the case they cannot possibly know the truth about their emotions and feelings. So your statement "emotions and feelings are true to the person who has them" is rather hollow.
There can be disagreement between norms in the sense that there are differing normative positions. That makes dialog more difficult because people are then approaching a topic from different value-positions. So either they agree to make the norms themselves the topic, or they are restricted to "bargaining" about means and ends. But, in general, norms in Habermas' discourse theory function as heuristics to reduce cognitive load
No. I’m definitely not. I’m defining the realness of emotions and feelings as only to the person who has them. Honesty or dishonesty of oneself with regard to their emotions doesn’t negate the emotion they felt. Whether they convinced themselves they were happy or knew they were happy is irrelevant in the fact that their subjective experience is true to them but not to others. I cannot measure objectively exactly what type and how much units of happiness you perceive yourself to feel. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t feel it.
The original point I was making is that many human emotions and sensations can be ambiguous (For example “bittersweet”) but the measure of truth value of these things is not dependent on them being unambiguous such as in scientific method where ambiguity must be removed and concepts objectified and measured. Science only goes so far in measuring truth value/ the trueness of things whilst other forms of human discipline are necessary to comprehend or measure other forms of truth. Mostly being relative.
Your depth of understanding of my statement “emotions and feelings are true to the person who has them” is rather hollow. True does not equal honest otherwise Universal truths could not encompass dishonesties or the meaning of falsity of any kind but unfortunately they are a fact of life and do indeed exist in the realm of what is true about reality.
I do not see how you believe to have made this point. All you are doing is asserting that there must be a truth about emotions and sensations which is independent from, and exists regardless of our ambiguous interpretations of them, without providing any principles to substantiate this claim. You claim that there is a real true emotion which is felt, independently of the person's ambiguous interpretation of the emotion. How is this possible, that the person has a "true" emotion or feeling independent of the confused and ambiguous emotion or feeling that the person experiences? You need to back up your claim, rather than just insist on the truth of it. And, it is in this justification that we will find ambiguity.
I have no idea what you could possibly mean by "other forms of truth" which are "relative". If you are not talking about being true in the sense of being honest, then what are you talking about? I think that you are just proposing "other forms of truth" as a means to back up your supposition that truth can be ambiguous, but it seems to me that you don't even have any idea yourself, what you could be talking about.
Quoting Benj96
Yes, I see this as an incoherent statement, because clearly emotions and feelings are mixed up, confused and ambiguous, conflating elements of the conscious with the subconscious, and I do not see what could possibly make one emotion true, and another false.
Quoting Pantagruel
"Heuristics to reduce cognitive load"? This appears as self-contradictory. Heuristics, by their nature, seem to be a cognitive load. Are you saying, that norms are habits, so that we do certain things without having to think consciously about these things, thereby reducing the cognitive load?
The problem here would be that this seems to take the norms for granted, and doesn't respect the action required to learn them. This learning action itself is a cognitive load, and it shapes the conscious mind in ways which produce an attitude toward the learning of the norms. So for instance one person might develop the attitude that the norms are great, and the best thing for freeing the conscious mind, while another person might develop the attitude that learning all these norms is a constraint to the free mind, and a big waste of time.
Exactly. Habermas' argument is that in a past-traditional, pluralistic society the weight of cognitive processing would be very high otherwise. So social norms ease that burden. And I do think heuristic is the correct term. A heuristic is by definition something that lightens the workload, a shortcut.
Keep in mind, Habermas' position is that the we are primarily intersubjective or social beings, so he doesn't need to explain that, it is fundamental to our makeup. This is a common sociological stance. So when he says we have a "massively shared" lifeworld. He takes for granted these heuristics, which, by their nature hide "underneath" cognition. He also mentions that "reason" is called into play precisely where these heuristics break down.
This is the perspective which I do not agree with, the one which takes intersubjectivity for granted. In my opinion intersubjectivity is not natural, but artificial. It is something which is created through willful effort and moral commitment.
So from my perspective reason is always being called into play, as we are always judging the norms. This is because the norms are generalities, universals, whereas we live in the particular. This means that we must constantly be judging which norms are applicable to the particular situation we find ourselves to be in. So as much as the heuristics may lighten the load in the majority of situations, none of these principles (if we can call them that) can be taken for granted, because circumstances are unique and rapidly changing such that the minority situations actual arise quite frequently, and this is when doubt appears. So reason is actually called upon quite often, pretty much all the time, as we continually judge the circumstances. And unless we have experience in the use of it we are thrust into anxiety and stress when it is called upon.
The facts of evolution and civilization seem to support the position that we are social animals. The very idea of an individual entity abstracted from its species and social context is meaningless. Language is entirely a social construct.
I do not deny that we are social animals. Even insects can be described as social beings. However, I think you present a reversed and therefore untrue perspective of what is real and true, when you speak of "an individual entity abstracted from its species". Clearly, what is the case is that the "species" is an abstraction, nd individual beings are the true existent things. Otherwise, evolution would not be possible. Evolution relies on individual differences as its means of change, and without these particularities the generation of novel species would be impossible.
So the question of what type of construct language is, is much more complicated than it appears. Semiotics places language within the broader category of sign-systems, viewing language as one type of sign-system. When linguistic symbols are viewed as a type of sign, we are exposed to different possibilities as to the reason for existence of linguistic symbols, as there are many different possible uses for signs.
The idea that language is a "social construct" is what is really meaningless, because "social" refers only to an abstraction. There is nothing real in the world, which could be actively constructing a language, which might be called "the social". The closest we can get to a real thing called "social" is individual interactions between individual beings. This is why the concept of intersubjectivity is an over simplification which provides a faulty perspective, therefore producing a faulty attitude toward the reality of language.
Intersubjectivity starts with a generalization concerning human interactions, the idea that there is some concrete thing which can be referred to as 'the interaction'. But this is an abstraction. And, it then proposes that this abstraction is the real concrete aspect of the existing thing, such that there is a concrete thing called 'the interaction', which we can make propositions about. But this neglects the fact that each interaction is uniquely situated in unique circumstances, and uniquely guided by the individuals involved in the interaction, so that the abstraction which is based in similarity misses the true essence of the interaction as unique.
Instead of starting with the reality of fundamental differences between each and every unique human interaction, "intersubjectivity" starts from an assumption of similarity between interactions, the abstraction. But this assumption of similarity is itself a construct which is employed with the intent of negating the true reality that the fundamental character of human interactions is difference. (Check Derrida's deconstruction, and the revelation that the true nature of meaning lies in the complexity of difference rather than the artificial simplicity which is created through the appearance of similitude.) Therefore the founding premise of "intersubjectivity", and "social construct" is just a reflection of the individual's intent to simplify something which is really complex, by starting with an unsound abstraction ('the social'), rather than starting with the true uniqueness of the interactions between individual beings.
The species includes the individual, the individual represents the species.
Just think about what it would mean to build up a framework of communication ab initio. We share much, much, much more than we are unique.
I don't wish to downplay the importance of the individual, but without the social, meaning loses its...meaning. I'm about to undertake Saussure, so I'll certainly be bearing your comments in mind.
Clearly, the species is an abstraction. It is not an entity of which the individual is a part. Evolution itself is evidence that this is the case, because there must be individuals which comprise the links between one species and the next when a new species evolves from an older one. These individuals who are between one species and another cannot truthfully be said be part of the one species or the other, though we might judge them as being one or the other just like we might make any dubious judgement in placing things in abstract categories. But what this indicates is that the species does not necessarily include the individual. And the species is just an abstract concept which we employ for judging things. There is no concrete entity referred to by the named species, like "human being". The named species refers to a category by which we classify things. "Human being" refers to an abstract category, just like the genus "mammal" is an abstract category, and "animal" is a category, and "living" is a category.
The species certainly not an abstraction. It is entirely concrete. And as the overall expression of cumulative genetics, arguably more concrete than the individual. It is a question of perspective. In any case. Characteristics of the species I could see one arguing are abstract, but the species is no less concrete than the entities which compose it. That is like saying, atoms are concrete, but a ball composed of atoms is abstract.
Sorry to have to insist on something so simple Pantagruel, but "species" is a scientific term, with a rigorous definition, and it refers to a system of classification. To use it otherwise is simply an undisciplined use of the word. Your reference to "expression of cumulative genetics" does nothing to justify your claim, because any individual is an expression of cumulative genetics, yet we are all different.
It may indeed be a scientific term, nevertheless, the species is also the sum total of its organic constituent entities on the planet. And we are not in a science class, nor are we using the term for classificatory purposes. If you really think that the term "species" has no organic extension then that would be an end of fruitful discussion I fear.
edit: spe·cies
/?sp?s?z,?sp?SH?z/
noun
1.
BIOLOGY
a group of living organisms
To say that "the sum total of...entities" is itself an entity is a mistake. There is nothing, no principle which makes a collection of entities into an entity itself. A collection is a constructed "set". And to say that the set has a more real existence as an entity than the individuals which make up the set is just a category mistake.
Quoting Pantagruel
In no way is a species an organism. If you want to use "species" to refer to "a group of living organisms", I'm fine with that, so long as you respect that this is a group of individuals being referred to. And if we are to refer to the group itself as an individual, we ought to recognize that this group is an artificially constructed individual (as groupings are). Then we can proceed to discuss the interactions between the members of such groups. In this way we can avoid the mistake of taking the interactions for granted, which might be the case if we assumed that the group itself was a natural individual.
There's a lot of freedom that comes with association for it can be and is personalized - the stuff I associate with the word "god" maybe completely different from that of other people. Having said that, these associations aren't totally arbitrary - we're part of a shared universe and so, our experiences, available associations, will be a common denominator, unifying instead of dividing a language community with respect to words and what we associate with them. These shared associations, the common extraneous meanings that words have over and above their comparatively precise denotative meaning are referred to as connotative meaning.
Nevertheless, connotative meanings, even those that are peculiar to a person, pack a punch in the manner of speaking because they're closer to home, more personal, they're more about yourself than about lexical meanings (denotative meanings) of words and thus are, nine out of ten times, emotionally charged and being so have the power to take you down a path or in a direction not intended by an interlocutor or if intended, in a manner that's going to be so filled with feelings that you wouldn't notice if it were wrong. In essence, you're at risk of either misunderstanding someone or being fooled by someone. That's the reason why, in a logic 101 course, it's emphasized, so often that it becomes tedious, that we're to focus our attention on the denotative meanings of words, meanings that are precise, meanings that we've all agreed upon.
I'm fully aware that there are opposing viewpoints, but I see a large number of very real problems with viewing collectives of biological entities as complex systems. First and foremost, I see a problem in viewing such a collective as an entity itself, which is required by the term "system". And the assertion that the existence of the collective, as an entity is more real than the existence of the individuals which make up the collective, and the claim that the individual is just a reflection of the system, is fundamentally incoherent. It is incoherent because it contradicts the defining premise, which names the multitude of individual entities as the defining feature of the collective. To then name the collective as a system which is more real than the individuals required to produce the collective is incomprehensible. This is like saying that 5 is defined as five 1s, but 5, as an entity, is more real than 1.
Furthermore, I believe it is a mistake to describe the human species as "a system", for a number of reasons. First there is no common function, as required by the term "system", and second, there are not definable boundaries as required by the term. So the proposition that the human species is a system, is simply false. Sometimes, especially in metaphysics I find, more modern does not mean better.
This is the folly of scientism, the belief that the capacity to predict implies a true understanding of the phenomenon. Pragmaticism provides us with no guidance toward ontological truth.
Are you implying that science is the same thing as scientism? If so, you are operating under a massive misconception and a prejudice.
No, obviously I didn't say that science is the same thing as scientism. But assuming that a scientific theory provides us with a true understanding of the events which it predicts, because it has a proven track record in its predictions, is a mistake of scientism.
That is a complete mischaracterization. Scientism claims that scientific certainty is exclusively authoritative, even in domains that are beyond that of its inquiry.
Science obviously provides an accurate understanding of the phenomena it examines, that is the whole point of science.
edit: although scientific knowledge is always an approximation and constantly evolving, I"ll give you that...
It is exactly that which allows a discussion to bear worthwhile fruit. I will expound upon a topic from my perspective, you from yours, and, through effective use of language we will come to a greater understanding of the topic, perhaps enough so to add to, or modify, our original perspective.
That says it all. Scientism attempts to extend "science" beyond its domain of enquiry, through the use of false premises, such as the one you describe above, that the human species is an entity which can be treated as a system. And so you assert that some sort of authoritative "scientific certainty" has been produced through the application of a false premise.
In reality, human intention, which is the driving force behind the creation and use of language, and meaning in general, is outside the domain of science, being the domain of moral philosophy. But your false premise, that language can be defined as an attribute of a species, rather than as intentional actions between individuals, creates the illusion that it can be understood scientifically. That is a case of attempting to extend science beyond its domain. And you, insisting that the application of this false premise provides you with some sort of authority, (arising from the deceptive belief of "scientific certainty") over those who respect the true reality of the situation in this field, which is truly outside the domain of science for the reason stated, are demonstrating scientism.
That is not a false premise, but an established scientific fact. Aggregates of human behaviours have been proven to be amenable to systems theoretical analysis. That is good science.
Rather, what you are doing is attempting to utilize the gloss of scientism to foster your own metaphysical agenda, which is bad philosophy, since it is pure prejudice.
The premise that concepts arose through interaction is pretty fundamental. Think of the genealogy of the mind. Individuals did not evolve in a vacuum, create a set of concepts, then proceed to try them out on each other. All of our concepts, including the concept of the individual self, obviously evolved through the normal, pragmatic, day-to-day interactions through which (the individuals of) our species survived and developed. If we are speculating, that speculation certainly makes more sense than the opposite (that we create our own concepts in vacuo, as it were).
Talcott Parsons and Jurgen Habermas both wrote multi-volume works about this specific concept. So it certainly carries enough weight to be taken seriously.
Prejudice is not an issue in my position, because I am simply showing how yours is wrong. I don't have a strong belief, or position on the exact nature of language or meaning, but I do know that when there is a group of individuals, it is wrong to assign a higher degree of reality to the group than to the individual. That's pretty obvious, for the reasons I've stated, which you seem to have ignored. It's clear that individuals can stray from the herd at any time, and this does not diminish the reality of their existence. There is all sorts of evidence which proves your position wrong, especially the nature of evolution, as I've explained. So the rejection of your position is based in evidence to the contrary, not in prejudice.
Quoting Pantagruel
Surely I agree that concepts arose through the interaction of individuals, that's what I've been arguing. What I've been denying is that there is an individual thing called "the species", and that concepts arose as an activity of this thing, the species. So what I am saying is that if we want to speculate about the nature of concepts, meaning, and language, we need to focus on the activities of individual human beings, not some illusory thing called "the species", and its supposed activities.
If concepts arose as the result of the interaction of individuals A and B, then the concepts are a function of those two organic beings. Since concepts arose as a result of the cumulative interaction of all organic beings (people) then the concepts are a function of the interaction of all those organic beings, aka...the collection known as...the species! It isn't something that has to be proven, it is simply an empirical fact.
So while we may not seem to differ that much on this, I do think you are clutching at something more illusory, since you seem to believe that the individual has some kind of privileged, context-free status. Language is one giant set of inter-relations, where the meaning of anything is conditioned by its context, both present and historical. It's central to hermeneutics. And the same is true of people, qua language users. I don't necessarily ascribe an emergent-ontological status to the collective; however nor do I see any particular reason to deny it.
This would only be the case, if a concept was something which existed independently of the human mind which creates it. And, this is how we often speak of concepts, as independent things. The usual method of supporting these independent Ideas ontologically, is through the premise of Platonic realism. But Platonic realism denies the notion that human minds create concepts, because of the very assumption that concepts are independent from human minds.
So, when we reject Platonism in favour of the idea that human minds create concepts, then we lose the premise which allows concepts to be independent from human minds. Now the concept is right in the human mind, distinct and unique to the individual mind which holds it. My concept of "language" or of "meaning", or of "2", or "4", is created by my mind, and particular in its form as being unique to my mind, having been created by my mind through the education process which was specific to me, due to my personal circumstances.
The point is, that to say concepts are created by human minds, and also that concepts are things which exist independently from individual human minds, is to conflate two incompatible premises. To make a statement about the existence of concepts, and claim it as "an empirical fact" is nonsensical because the existence of concepts is not even supported empirically.
Quoting Pantagruel
The individual clearly does have a privileged perspective, because concepts are known to exist in minds and minds are the property of individuals. If your intent is to remove the concept from the mind, and say that it is something independent from human minds, then I think we'll have to move to some sort of Platonism to support the ontological status of the concepts. Otherwise where would you assume that a concept exists?
.
Rather, this is entirely what is in question. I think we have reached the impasse of a basic difference in approach which your premise about concepts doesn't address for me. It just seems another fiat to rescue the privileged role of the self.
Another tack on this issue is the theory of embedded or distributed cognition:
Cognitive processes may be distributed across the members of a social group.
Cognitive processes may be distributed in the sense that the operation of the cognitive system involves coordination between internal and external (material or environmental) structure.
Cultural artefacts for me are exactly the sedimentation of human actions and concepts. I do take sociology to be an empirical science, as do sociologists. It sounds to me as though you believe you live in a nominalist-idealist world. Charming, but really not reflective of the total gamut of modern understanding.
You appear to be introducing ideas here which have no support in evidence. My cognitive process is proper to myself, and there is no evidence to indicate that my thinking is shared with you. When your theory requires the concoction of unsupported magic, like ESP, to support it, then you ought to just admit that the theory has a problem.
Sure, we share cognitive tasks, and an individual's cognitive system requires external factors, but true understanding of the reality which is the cognitive system, requires a proper distinction between what is internal to the system and what is external to it. A "system" needs an accredited boundary.. We can place the boundary at the individual, according to the evidence which we have, that my cognitive activity is separate and distinct from your cognitive activity, or we can ignore this evidence as you are inclined to do, and seek some other principles to support a boundary. Where would you place this boundary? The members of a family, a community, a state, or country, the species as a whole, animals as a whole, everything as a whole? Now that you have denied the real boundary, the one which we have clear evidence for, the individual, you no longer have anything real to support a boundary, and now the boundary, which supports your supposed system is arbitrary. This will not produce an accurate understanding because the truth as to what is internal and external to the system will be veiled.
If you take a step back, and see the real true boundary, the one which we have an abundance of evidence for, the one which formulates the individual as distinct from other individuals, then you can grasp language as crossing the boundary of the system. Language is employed both internally, within the individual's cognition, and externally, as a communicative device. This is essential to the nature of language. And, I believe it is extremely important to the understanding of language, meaning, and the nature of the use of signs and symbols, to represent the system which employs the signs as an open system, which allows language to cross the boundary of the system. Otherwise you cannot account for the ambiguity which is inherent within language use. If it were the case, that language use occurred completely within a system (human species being the system). there would be no reason why the same word would be used in completely different ways within the very same system.
Quoting Pantagruel
Artefacts, like any works of art, are works of individuals. That many artefacts are a collaboration of individual efforts is testimony to the value of cooperation. But in my mind it is a big mistake to take human cooperation for granted. Cooperation is a product of moral effort. If "modern understanding" takes human cooperation for granted, then I think that's a misnomer and we ought to be saying "modern misunderstanding".
Distributed cognition has been studied extensively and experimentally. Hence it can be said to have empirical evidence. It is certainly a different paradigm of thought from the individual-centric one we have inherited from antiquity. However it just makes more sense inasmuch as it does explain socialized and coordinated behaviours. Outgrowing this individual-centric (selfish) paradigm will be key to the future of our society I believe.
Anyway, yes, distributed cognition, environmental and social, is very much a real thing. I'm not going to try to sell you on the idea, the literature abounds. I've cited many already. George Herbert Mead's views are also insightful:
[i]One of the most important sociological approaches to the self was developed by American sociologist George Herbert Mead. Mead conceptualizes the mind as the individual importation of the social process.
This process is characterized by Mead as the “I” and the “me. ” The “me” is the social self and the “I” is the response to the “me. ” The “I” is the individual’s impulses. The “I” is self as subject; the “me” is self as object.
For Mead, existence in a community comes before individual consciousness. First one must participate in the different social positions within society and only subsequently can one use that experience to take the perspective of others and thus become self-conscious.[/i]
You are free to explore these or not. It seems these domains of study are not familiar to you.
Cheers.
Well, maybe you could show me the empirical evidence of "distributed cognition", and explain how these instances of evidence are not better described as distinct cognitive beings involved in distinct acts of cognition, who are communicating with each other through language, rather than your assumption that these instances are a single act of cognition. Do you recognize the role of intention within cognition, and the fact that different people have different intentions?
Quoting Pantagruel
Until you can either disassociate cognition from intention, or somehow show that my intention is exactly the same as yours, I think It should be very obvious to anyone with the capacity for individual thinking, that your goal of "distributed cognition" is just a pipe dream.
Quoting Pantagruel
You're showing your scientism again, assuming that science can go beyond is limits. This is consistent with your false claims of empirical evidence for distributed cognition. You take the evidence, draw a false conclusion from it, then claim that the false conclusion is empirical evidence from which your supposed "science" can proceed.
Quoting Pantagruel
These studies are familiar enough to me, familiar enough for me to reject them with sound argumentation, as I have in this thread. If it is your desire to continue in this misdirected study, that's your prerogative. I am only trying to show you how this direction is inconsistent with the facts of life, and therefore wrong.
Here, this is a pretty comprehensive article with lots of citations.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13164-013-0131-x
I would never want to persuade anyone who didn't wish to be persuaded of anything. For me, this perspective solves a lot more problems than it raises. I think that about says it.
edit. Here's a nice excerpt from that article:
Transactive memories reside in the memories of both individuals when considered as a combined system, given their shared awareness of the way information is distributed within the group, which can take more or less differentiated and specialized forms.
edit2. I suspect the section on the Metaphysics of Group Memory will also interest you.
Thanks for the reference Pantagruel. I have read through the article, only skipping over some of the closing notes about directions for future research. I really do not see how the evidence presented supports what you are arguing better than it supports what I am arguing.
As I said, the human individual as an agent utilizes external and internal things during cognitive activities. What this indicates is that the individual thinking being is an open system, as described by von Bertalanffy, and as I said, language is utilized on both side of the boundary of that system.
There is nothing in the article to indicate that any aspects of the activity of remembering, or the activity of cognition, occurs externally to the boundary demarcating the individual agent, except of course the activity occurring internally to another agent. The authors of this type of theory which you propose seem to observe an agent's use of external objects in the activities of remembering, and falsely conclude that some aspect of the memory activity occurs externally to the agent. The conclusion is false because the external objects are passive in relation to the act of remembering, and they only enter into that act according to the will of the agent who might make an association, representation, or utilize the external object in some other way.
So to me, the whole article describes a misinterpretation of evidence. The empirical fact that I use external objects as memory aids, I take notes in a lecture for example, is not evidence that part of the act of remembering occurs externally to the individual. Nor is the fact that I use a calculator to sum figures evidence that part of the act of cognition occurs externally. Yet proponents of these types of theories use examples like these to support their theories, without explaining how the factual evidence is actually supposed to support the theory. So what it comes down to is a matter of interpretation of the evidence, and its what I would call misinterpretation.
The section on the metaphysics of group memory provides a good example of this type of misinterpretation. They describe a phenomenon they call "alignment", in which two individuals interacting will behave similarly. Instead of proceeding toward understanding what is going on within each of the individuals, to produce this form of compatibility, the theorists present us with a supposed "alignment system" which exists externally to the individuals, and this is supposed to be what causes the alignment.
You ought to be able to see how this is clearly a misunderstanding, a misinterpretation of the observed evidence. The cause of alignment is the willingness of the two distinct individuals, not an external system. The proof of this is the fact that the alignment, and therefore the proposed "alignment system" does not exist until after alignment has occurred. Therefore the alignment system cannot be the cause of alignment. This problem is endemic to the "systems" perspective on part/whole relations. They assume that the cause of part to part relations, which creates a whole, is a property of the whole itself. But it's quite clear that the whole has no existence until the part to part relations are established, and therefore it cannot be the cause of these relations. The part to part relations must come into existence before there is a whole. So it is illogical propose that the cause of the parts acting in cooperation to form a whole, comes from the whole itself. We must assume that the cause of such cooperation comes either from within the parts themselves, or from something else, completely independent.
It seems as if the authors of the article respect the fact that these theories which you are proposing are just a matter of creative interpretation of evidence. Here is one of the closing statements:
It seems to be, that these theories are dependent on a creative interpretation of empirical evidence in the first place. So they all rely on making up fictitious relations between the actual evidence and the proposed theory. Therefore one theory cannot be singled out as the true theory, because they are all false. They all propose an illogical part/whole relationship which ought to be rejected.
Not so. They are simply based on a systems-aware perspective. One which you reject in favour of your individual-centric perspective. Which is no less an interpretive choice that you are making. The only difference is, the systems-centric perspective tends to solve problems rather than generate aporias.
As an example, the calculation of quantum collisions is a massively complex operation requiring vast amounts of computational power. However a recently discovered mathematical entity known as the amplituhedron, which mathematically reconceives reality as a differently ordered type of system (removing the traditional constraints of locality and unitarity), facilitates the calculation of some quantum collisions on a sheet of paper.
There is no "misinterpretation," just an alternate interpretation. One which can be meaningfully applied across many, many different domains. And that meaningful applicability is itself the best gauge of the power of a theory.
Versus a metaphysical interpretation which only really works if you allow it to be unyoked from the constraints of scientific realism (which was your initial proposal, that ontological truths can/must exhibit independence of scientific truths).
So yes, in a cooked up, abstract sort of way your notion of ontological singularity makes sense. In a much more robust and edifying way, the notion of systemic entities makes better sense, facilitating, as it does, a practical and universally inclusive model of reality.
A person can claim a "system" to exist anywhere, and assert that evidence supports the reality of this system, but the evidence needs to be judged. I've made that judgement. A system has boundaries, and the boundaries of these supposed systems are not identified, nor are they evident. That is the basis of my judgement. I have nothing against a "systems-aware perspective", as I've said, a living being is an open system. The boundaries of that system are evident, yet thing pass through the boundaries. I object to claims of "a system" where evidence of a system is inconclusive, therefore the claims are not justified.
Quoting Pantagruel
Also, I've already explained to you how usefulness of a theory does not indicate truthfulness. That is a fundamental feature of mathematics, it is very useful, but it does not necessarily reveal truth. Truth depends on the soundness of the premises employed in the application. So arguing the pragmatically effectiveness of applying systems theories all over the place does nothing to indicate that these theories might reveal truth.
Quoting Pantagruel
That's your opinion. My opinion is that it is a misinterpretation because it veils the truth of the matter for a principle of pragmaticism. And so I stand by my judgement, that the truth of a theory is a better gauge of the theory than "meaningful applicability" is.
Quoting Pantagruel
I'm afraid you've got that backward. Truth is a much more robust principle than applicability.
As a pragmatist, I would have to disagree with you one-hundred percent.
I knew you were pragmatist. Pretty much anyone who vouches for the metaphysical virtues of systems theory is pragmatist. And pragmaticism is in bed with scientism because it cedes the quest for truth in areas which are beyond the limits of science, through the compromise of accepting what science can give in those areas, useful principles.
But as I explained, systems theory is not applicable to ontology because of the false relationship between part and whole which it assumes. So it cannot give us a true understanding of the relationship between one being and another, and therefore we need to turn somewhere else, like moral philosophy for a true understanding in that field.
I have this boner that I love and love to show it to all my friends especially my dog and when my dog showed my boner to his dog he thought it was so funny he just had to show it to his pup (hes just a little pup about 6yrs old) and of course you know how pup's can get when shown a really good boner.
Now that story probably sounds a bit perverted at first glance but I promise you there is a valid reason for the unusual choice of words .
this little story is to prove a point about how the meaning of words change over time and how even if your talking in your native language you can still get lost and confused as to the meaning of a word or phrase depending on if its from a time period before or after yours.
So in this example I used different meanings ranging from the 1920's all the way to today
As well as a variety of cultural influences
See the name for a cartoon comedy back in the 1920's was called a "boner" because it would make you laugh so much your bones would hurt and only got its sexual meaning after the popularity of playboy in the 1950's
and obviously dogs don't know how to read comics but bestfriends do and so a "dog" is when your in the hood referring to your close buddie/friend.
So with that information I think it should completely change the interpretation of the story as well as shed a new understanding on how the original meaning of words will always change to fit the culture and the times they're in
Now you crossed a line. That's unwarranted and insulting. Clearly you understand neither the meaning of pragmatism, nor scientism.
Is the system going to punish me now?
Quoting Pantagruel
I don't believe there's a system which sets the meanings to those words.
The very idea that, just because metaphysics is 'beyond physics', it somehow implies that physics (science in general) is invalid or untrue is ludicrous and laughable. That is a patent non-sequitur. I know of no serious philosopher who ever held such a view. Henri Bergson, a personal favourite of mine, was extremely well-versed in the science of his day. The only way to truly go beyond science is first to understand what it is you are going-beyond. Likewise Popper, the prototypical philosopher of science, advocated for "metaphysical research programs", which he conceived as building upon, but extending past, the limits of current science.
There are some metaphysical notions that make sense. Yours...do not.
Clearly this does not apply to anything I've said. I've explained the reasons for, and given the logical demonstration as to why your system theory is unacceptable. It is not a matter of 'mine is metaphysics and yours is physics therefore yours is invalid', its a matter of yours has been shown to be inconsistent with the evidence, and illogical through the application of sound metaphysical principles.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The usefulness of a theory certainly is a better indicator of truthfulness than of falsity. Whereas an utterly useless theory, if not false, is at least unsinn, or meaningless. Unless it is to be interpreted as art. I find yours unredeemed in that respect however.
Oh, and just saying that you have refuted my examples, doesn't make it so. I stand by the fact of the entire science of sociology as validating my evaluation of the scientific status of collective-conceptual thought. And, yes, it has proven useful. I'd say that makes it more true than false. At least I admit of a definable and objective criterion of truth, beyond just opinion.
I don't see any logic behind this. Perhaps, statistically speaking, a useful theory might be more likely to turn out to be true than to be false. But even if this is true, (and I doubt that it is), it does not give reason to accept a theory which is demonstrably false, yet useful, as true.
Quoting Pantagruel
Tell me then, what is your response to the simple logic which I presented. The activities of a group of people cannot be described as the activities of a "system", until the people can be observed to be acting in a specific way. The "system" only exists after the necessary behaviour of the people has been established. Therefore it is impossible that the "system" is the cause of the people acting in the specified way, because that type of activity is necessarily prior to the existence of the system. So, if we want a thorough understanding of this specific type of behaviour, we need to look beyond the "system", because analyzing the "system", which is posterior to the behaviour, is incapable of giving us an understanding of the cause of the behaviour. The specific behaviour is the cause of existence of the "system", not vise versa.
Yes, that is exactly what systems theoretic analysis does, establishes that systems of all types exist and behave according to predictive models.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
The system doesn't have to be the cause of the actions per se. Only that the actions of the individual components of the system, taken collectively, have additional effects at the (inter)systemic level. That is the essence of emergence.
Here is Mead's account of how mind and self are social emergents, and language provides the mechanism for their emergence.
In order to express your ideas, you must convey them to an audience. In doing so, you therefore rely upon a commonly accepted vocabulary of "social acts." The social act can be described without introducing the pre-conception of consciousness. (Mind, Self and Society, p. 18)
For illocutionary acts, the intent is to evoke a behaviour from the other. But, in general, communication is an illocutionary act where the intent is to evoke understanding of a specific meaning. So "consciousness of the content and flow of meaning involved depends on...taking the attitude of the other towards [your] own gestures" (p. 47) Gestures become symbols for particular types of responses within communities of understanding. The existence of mind is only intelligible in terms of these symbols.
As Dewey says, meaning arises through communication. In other words, communication is fundamental to identity, not the reverse. The idea that sociation if fundamental to the genealogy of the self-concept is basic to the science of sociology.
Or maybe some genius sat down and, through pure reason, constructed a template of symbolic actions, which the rest of the world then adopted owing to their manifest (although not pragmatic) superiority.
Right, so understanding the supposed "system" cannot adequately inform us about the behaviour of individuals who comprise that "system". And evidence (evolution for example) indicates that it is the unique and particular features of the individual which provide the meaningful aspects of the "system". Therefore systems theoretical analysis cannot provide us with an understanding of meaning.
Quoting Pantagruel
To understand an activity requires understanding its cause. To remove this requirement and claim that you have an understanding of the activity without identifying its cause, is misunderstanding. That's what systems theory and "emergence" give us, when represented as an understanding, they give us misunderstanding. "Emergence" very clearly leaves the cause of what emerges as unknown. If "emergence" is presented as an understanding of that activity which falls under that name, it is a misunderstanding. If you recognize that "emergence" does not give an understanding of that activity, you would see the need to go beyond "emerge" for some real principles.
What terms like "systems theoretical analysis", and "emergence" actually signify is a lack of understanding of the activity being referred to. This is evident from the quote I brought from your referred article on extended memory and extended cognition. They simply describe the evidence in a way which is intended to support their pet theory. There is no real understanding involved.
Quoting Pantagruel
This is a false premise. If it were true that we rely on "commonly accepted vocabulary" to get our ideas across, nothing new would ever "emerge" in the realm of ideas. But clearly new ideas are coming out all the time, and being incorporated into the public domain. And each time we communicate it is actually a different idea which is being communicated. That's the reality of spatial-temporal being. Therefore what is really the case is that we rely on something other than "commonly accepted vocabulary" to get our ideas (which are fundamentally unique), across to others. You will baulk at this and say come on MU, obviously we use the same words. But what we "rely" on, to get our ideas across to others is unique formulations of words, and other unique aspects of context, such as our surroundings. So this proposed premise misrepresents what we "rely" on. Since each one of our ideas is unique and specific, occurring in unique and specific circumstances, what we "rely" on to get that unique and specific idea across to others is a unique and specific formulation of words. And, such a unique and specific formulation of words must be represented as a unique and specific "social act".
Quoting Pantagruel
So this paragraph actually contradicts the proposition which I objected to above. Notice the use of "depends on" in the middle of the paragraph. After first proposing that we rely on something common, the author now states that the flow of meaning "depends on" something very unique and specific, i.e. adopting the very particular, and unique "attitude of the other".
Do you apprehend this contradiction Pantagruel? The obvious way to resolve it is to reject the original premise, that we "rely upon a commonly accepted vocabulary of 'social acts'", for the reasons I explained. The evidence is clear that we rely on a unique formulation of words, rather than something common, to get an idea across. And if it were true that we actually did rely on a commonly accepted vocabulary to get any ideas across, language could never have come into existence ("emerged") in the first place, because we could never have gotten any ideas across.
Quoting Pantagruel
It's starting to appear to me, like the so-called "science of sociology" is one big misunderstanding; if it really is as you say it is.
This is a non-sequitur. Individual features are meaningful at an intra-systemic level certainly.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Exactly. This is why Mead stipulates that, in order to understand the meaning you are trying to convey, you must first understand the way that meaning is going to be perceived by someone else. Which is why meaning, and ultimately mind, is a social construct.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, they signify that there is a layer of meaning (and a corresponding entity) operating at a different level. Again, your conclusion is a non-sequitur which merely contradicts the principles being invoked.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, it means that language evolved through actual social interactions. This is so trivially evident I'm not even going to bother amplifying it.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No I don't apprehend any contradiction. The entire description is consistent, based on my previous clarifications. It is possible that you may misunderstand sociology. Sociology is a very real and valid science.
Alternatively, I'd like to suggest that your conception of metaphysics really amounts to a mass of speculations, loosely attached to some collection of metaphysical notions, not borne out by any significant historical metaphysical thinkers. I reread the introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason last night. Kant certainly never construes metaphysics as contradicting science. Quite the contrary, he maintains the validity of science, within its domain. It just so happens that our current level of science has reached the point where it is able to account for mental constructs and entities, at least to some degree.
I can't believe that you do not see how this is a false premise. To know how someone else is going to perceive something requires that you have communicated with the person already. But you cannot communicate without having an understanding of the meaning being conveyed. So this statement reflects a vicious circle, where it is implied that you cannot communicate unless you've already communicated.
Quoting Pantagruel
Sure, sociology is a valid science. But like in all sciences, theories will be put forth which are illogical and not adequately supported by evidence. And, just like in the other sciences, proponents of these theories will twist the evidence in an attempt to support the illogical theories.
Quoting Pantagruel
Right, "within its domain" being the key words here. And when people twist the evidence to make it appear like science has answers to issues which are outside of its domain, that is called scientism. Do you recognize, that the proposition that the human species, or that society, or the community, is an entity, is an ontological claim. It is metaphysics, and therefore such claims are outside the domain of science.
I have nothing against science, and I do not construe metaphysics as contradicting science. The two must work together. But when someone insists that some theory ought to be called "science", when the so-called "science" is really an attempt to validate bad metaphysics, through the misrepresentation of evidence, it is impossible to call this "bad science". That is because there really is no such thing as bad science. Therefore we must say that it is not science at all. This is what you have shown me in this thread, an attempt to support bad metaphysics (the human species is an entity) through the misrepresentation of evidence (this must be true because systems theory which treats the human species as an entity is useful). There is no science here.
No, it requires the genetic process of sociation in which concepts are formed. It's basic stuff.
The proposition that the individual exists is an ontological claim. And it depends on the perspective being taken. The individual cells in your body exist. The species, as an organic entity, exists, in exactly the same fashion as the cells in your body. Whether you ascribe identity to the cells in your body, or your body/brain/ego complex, or the species, depends on which perspective you adopt. If you adopt the perspective of evolutionary biology, then the species becomes the the operative entity (or a genetic population, more accurately). And that entity has its own unique domain of interactions, consisting of the biotic environment, including the systems composed of other species.
The question is, do you understand how all observation is theory-laden? Every perspective is exactly that, a perspective, with antecedent assumptions. Granted, most of the time, these assumptions are deeply buried and prejudicative. But that is certainly one of the challenges of philosophy. So your assuming that the human body-ego is the exemplary ontological entity is just that, an assumption. And, as I've just explained, you can equally apply ontological primacy to a variety of physical entities, depending on which perspective you take. It really isn't complicated. You are making it so.
This is not true. The cells in your body are united and supported in their existence by physical systems like the blood system, the respiratory system, and the nervous system. The cells in your body cannot exist without the support of these physical systems. There are no such physical systems which are required to maintain the existence of the individuals within a species.
Quoting Pantagruel
From the point of view of science, which proceeds from strict principles of empirical observation, the individual human body is an entity united by physical systems. Therefore the unity of the human body, as an entity is empirically verified. There are no such empirically verifiable physical systems which unite the individuals of a species as an empirically verifiable entity. So this perspective which you propose is not scientific. It is a metaphysical perspective. And unlike my metaphysical perspective, it cannot obtain the requirement of science (empirical verification), and therefore it cannot serve as a perspective which could unite science and metaphysics.
Quoting Pantagruel
Sure, that's what we're discussing. The words used to describe something observed have meaning and this is theoretical. Therefore all descriptive observation is theory-laden. That's why it is very important to use clear, unambiguous terms as descriptors, in application of the scientific method. Otherwise there can be undisclosed theories lurking behind the poor choice of words, which might be validated through ambiguity. In other words, a dishonest observer might choose ambiguous descriptors with the intent of supporting a theory which the observations really ought not support. Or, an unintentional sloppy choice of ambiguous words might lead someone else toward an unwarranted conclusion due to misinterpretation.
Quoting Pantagruel
I know your pragmatic relativism already, you don't need to reiterate. You think that there is no such thing as truth in relation to physical existence, which things have real existence is determined by one's perspective. That's called relativism. And so you think theories ought to be judged by pragmaticism. Honesty and dishonesty are irrelevant because there's no truth anyway, all that matters is that I get what I want.
Dude. Seriously, take some science classes.
I have, that's how I know that in the science of biology "species" refers unambiguously to a system of classification. And from this system of classification we assume a group of individuals, which we call "the species". And this definition is contrary to your very unscientific claim:
Quoting Pantagruel
You already agreed with me days ago, that mine is the scientific use of the word, but at that time you asserted:Quoting Pantagruel Yet now you proceed to insist that your usage is based in some sort of science. Clearly it's not.
I suggest you change your handle from "Metaphysician Undercover" to "Buried in Metaphysics." You seem to forget, Metaphysics is only relevant if it can be made integrated with the comprehensive context of the life-world.
Here's a pretty good survey of "social ontology" including the ontological status of collectives:
https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/jso/5/1/article-p1.xml?language=en#ref_j_jso-2019-2001_fn_003_w2aab3b7c17b1b6b1ab1b2b4b7Aa
Naturally, there are pro and con positions presented. But what I want to emphasize is that, there can be and indeed is serious discussion around this topic.
For example, "Social complexes, as entities, have causal powers that the individuals who make them up do not have, either singly or collectively. For example, a university confers degrees."
Likewise, as I suggested, a species has a cumulative effect on the biotic environment which in turn affects the evolution of other species. Species inter-evolve all the time. Think of symbiosis. I may be wrong, but it sounds to me like you have an antiquated anthropocentric conception of individual identity. I will just emphasize, one last time: what constitutes an identity is directly related to the context of inquiry. So if you are asserting that only entities of type X can constitute an identity, then you are likewise asserting that "inquiry is only valid within certain contexts." Which would be where we disagree.
This is why there is such a thing as "ontology", so that we can have sound principles as to what constitutes an entity, and we can recognize when people make up fictitious entities to support unwarranted inquiries. Theoretically we would not fund those inquiries.
Quoting Pantagruel
So you say, but you have not provided me with the ontology and empirical evidence to back up this claim. As I explained there are physical systems which unite the various parts of my body, and are required to sustain those parts. So I have the ontological principle of unity, and the empirical evidence of physical systems uniting all the parts of my body, which support my claim that I am an entity.
I see no such unity in the human species, because I see no such physical systems which unite the entire species. Let's suppose that possibly language is a type of physical system. The problem still, is that different groups are speaking different languages, so they rely on distinct physical systems. This denies the unity required to say that the species is an entity. And commonly in biology species are divided into varieties. That a physical system such as language, which supports one group in unity, acts to segregate it from other groups, indicates that the unity required to call the entire species an entity, is just not there.
Quoting Pantagruel
No problem, I don't intend to insult, so I apologize if I did. Certain words have connotations which really stir the emotions, depending on the individual. Take a word like "racism" for example. Usually, if you call someone racist they will take great offence. This is just a reaction caused by their acknowledgement that it is very bad to be racist. But the emotion is often so strong, because the connotations are so bad, that the person will be insulted and simply go into denial, thinking "no I'm not". Now, the emotion and denial is so strong that the person won't even consider researching what it means to be racist, and analyze one's own character to see if it might be true, and perhaps better oneself. So instead of thinking that the other person might have identified a fault in my attitude, so I should look into this and see if I need to improve myself, the connotations of the word are so bad, that the response is to think that the person's a mean bully, calling me names, and insulting me.
Quoting Pantagruel
I read through this article on social ontology, and I disagree with the author's concept of "constitution". Constitution is supposed to be responsible for the unification of an entity, but there is nothing to prevent it from being completely arbitrary. Anyone can make up any sort of fictitious entity simply by naming what constitutes that entity. So, for example I could say that these two books constitutes a "library", and now I have an ontological entity called a library, because I have arbitrarily designated these two books as such.
I believe that the author does this because the author is dualist, and wants to allow for the real existence of immaterial objects, like Platonic Forms, as entities. But there is a problem with allowing that any imaginary idea has real existence as an entity, because we need rules of logic, such as non-contradiction, to disallow illogical things from being designated as real entities by way of Platonism.
Furthermore, the author doesn't really explain how "constitution" is supposed to provide unity to the presumed entity. Perhaps we could say that if the concept is coherent, then there is unity, but in the way that it's described in the article, it sounds like all one needs to do is name x as constituting the entity y, and this act of naming is supposed to provide unity.
In the conclusion the author states this:
"Since ontology pertains to what there really is, anyone interested in what really there is, social scientist or not, ought to care about ontology."
But in the argument for social entities, the premise is that anything must be a real entity if we can state what constitutes it. So there are no principles given to us, by which we might distinguish between real entities and fictitious entities. If we give ontological status as an "entity", to anything we can name, then of course social institutions are going to have ontological status. But what's the point in doing this if it requires removing all the principles by which we would distinguish a real entity from a fictitious entity.?
Quoting Pantagruel
Here's the problem I see with this perspective. Let's say that 1+1 does not equal 2 because something else is produced, so we might say that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. But if we do not have 2 when we put 1 and 1 together, by what principle do we have a whole? All we have is 1 and 1, along with something else. Now, 1+1+1 equals something other than 3, and we can't even relate this to 2+1, because we have no principle to say what 2 is. So if your argument is that one person working with another person gives us something more than two people, what is it that it gives us? It's not an entity, because the entity would be simply two people. And three people would make another entity and so on. Yet the argument is that these people make something more than just these people.
Well, we do not need to go to two people, to see the special status which the human mind, with intention, gives to an entity. This special status is just as much within one person as it is within a group of two. It's just the case that the larger the group is, the more the special status stands out. But it's an unsound premise to say that the special status is only the property of a group of individuals, and not the property of one.
Quoting Pantagruel
Right, now I think you've got it. Inquiry under many contexts is simply worthless, without value. We call it barking up the wrong tree. This is where we distinguish the right or wrong use of words. Inquiring in a misguided direction is pointless. Stopping a random person on the street to interrogate that person for hours concerning the bank robbery, when that person has absolutely no connection to it, is a worthless inquiry, and therefore an improper use of words.
Why would you assume that is not so? All evidence is that collectives of entities can specialize and cooperate in ways that maximize their mutual benefit.
I argue therefore, that the reason why 1+1 gives something other than 2 in this context, is because 1 does not properly represent the characteristics of the individual. A human being, with an intellect, and the capacity for intentional actions cannot be adequately represented simply as an entity. The human being, as all living beings, has special powers over its environment, which make it a special sort of entity. When a group of human beings work together, that special power is amplified. We do not know and understand the power itself, well enough to quantify it to say whether the power is simply summed together as 1+1+1..., or whether it's exponential, or something else. Likely its not even quantifiable. However, I believe the evidence is clear, from the historic reference of unique individuals (famous people), that the same special capacity which we observe as the property of a social groups, is also evident in individuals. Therefore it is wrong to say that putting two or more people together into a group magically causes the appearance of a special power, because that same special power is already observable within individuals.
The average individual can reach a piece of fruit seven feet high, let's say. By standing on another person's shoulders, they can reach a piece of fruit twelve feet high. Neither individual has the ability to reach twelve feet high. Ergo that is a unique property of the collective....
Bad example, because the individual could find something other than another individual to stand on, and reach twelve feet without another person. But even if there are things which two people can do, which one person clearly cannot, that doesn't address the issue of my last post. It doesn't indicate that two people are an entity. It just means that we do not have an accurate understanding of, and therefore not an accurate measurement for the human capacity of doing things, which all individuals have anyway, and is in some way increased when people work together.
I haven't read the whole discussion, but I think you needed a word that was capable of tighter definition.
To make my point:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Why would I want a word with a tighter definition? However, you might propose another word which would be more capable of refuting my claim.
Well, Pantagruel argued that a lack of ambiguity is required for us individuals to commune, and exist as part of a whole (the species). I argued that such ideas of groups being social entities are inherently ambiguous themselves, and therefore demonstrate a lack of clarity rather a lack of ambiguity.
By saying "There isn't anything you can point at and say 'if it has this, it's that species'." you seem to be agreeing with me.
What follows, and the point I was trying to make, is that we cannot represent language as the property of the species, or of any other social grouping, because those supposed things, as entities, don't have any real definable existence. To get a clear understanding of language we need to represent it as individual acts of individual people. Such individual acts are responsible for the creation of these social groups, and the ambiguity of the boundaries between these groups is the manifestation of the ambiguity within these acts.