Everybody has a hiatus from time to time. I didn't, perhaps specify clearly enough that my problem with Ayer is that he thinks of material objects are...
It may help to clarify "definition" here. If it means a written set of criteria or list of synonyms that can be entered in a dictionary, rule-book or ...
My supervisor often used to say that being wrong in interesting ways was nearly as good as being right. I've quoted this before on this forum, but I'm...
Yes, I understand that. My point is only that if one remembers the roots of philosophy in ordinary language, it might seem less of an extraordinary ab...
What the dictionary says is not (to coin a phrase) definitive. In other words, the definitions in dictionaries have been developed by human beings are...
I followed your link. That will take some digesting. But I will read it. I assume you mean the whole of the book. I'm afraid I have indeed read lectur...
Quite so. Perhaps this is where philosophy should begin. But it never does. It depends what you mean by "understand". So far as I know, no-one suggest...
I'm sorry to have missed this fascinating discussion. There's this thing called ordinary life. Very intrusive, not to say annoying. Yes. But there's a...
So you believe both positions and that no argument can settle the issue? Basically on the grounds that any argument must be from one position or anoth...
That's true. But it depends on the argument. If my argument is that democracy is bound to fail (as Plato argues), that argument may be absurd, but tha...
Yes, but we see the shadows, never the statues, which are also not what they seem to be, i.e. not men and other animals. So you're right. There are tw...
That's one of the questions. The difficulty is that arguments about metaphysics have to be expressed in language. If the (attempts to express) metaphy...
I think this is a much better way of putting what's going on. Perhaps it is helpful to reflect that lawyers arguing a point in case law are in a simil...
I'm afraid that I'm partly responsible for that. I was curious about his take on Plato (which seemed to be based on some serious reading and thought)....
I'm going to venture into uncertain territory here. His dismantling of Ayer's approach is convincing, as always. I'm convinced, but not satisfied and ...
The first sense and I mean that I am perceiving by the eye a three-dimensional form - except when I am looking at a two-dimensional picture. I wouldn'...
Yes. I think that's right. I agree with that. But what you say implies also that this use is also different from the paradigm cases that are usually o...
The shift from worrying about true or false to commitment and retraction is definitely helpful. One would have to how this works in the context of inc...
Yes, he is cautious about it presentation of it. He's no fool. But that caution is eerily reminiscent of Austin's remark "There's the bit where you sa...
Forgive my pedantry, but "utter" in this sense seems to me to be a revival of the classic and original use of "utter", which survives in the law. When...
There's a intricate issue here. There's no doubt that the meaning of "cricket" is being extended but I don't think it is being transformed in quite th...
Which use is literal and which is metaphorical? I don't think there's any doubt of that, though "metaphor" is a somewhat slippery term. I'll put the b...
Perhaps there can be specialized philosophical terms. But they can only amount to a dialect of English. So ordinary language is inescapable. An intere...
It applies well enough to the kicked wood/door. But it might be more complicated to apply to the duck-rabbit. It is satisfied in an objective sense, b...
Well, that's one way of putting it. But I can't see that it is Plato's way. Surely, for him, there is only one real good, i.e. the Form of the Good? T...
On the two languages issue, Austin reports Ayer as saying that "..they find it 'convenient' to extend this usage (sc. that what is experienced in delu...
These are quite fun and I'm guessing they show something about their work through the decades. But I don't know (and don't understand the Wikipedia ar...
Is the offer you are declining the project . I confess I don't feel tremendously enthused at the prospect in the abstract. Do you mean that Ayer repre...
I don't know what makes this understanding "proper". It is defensible as a view. But people often do things that they think are in their interests, bu...
Yes. I'm afraid I over-generalized. I found it very hard to get to grips with IX, but I think I've finally got my head more or less round it. I was no...
I also know too much to want to argue with you. I had in mind only the cautious idea that "abstract" might have its uses. As so often, we ought always...
You still don't answer the question. So you still believe that you would have to accept the counterfactual if you did and that you would then have to ...
Oh, I never intended to imply that generalization from a single case or two was not extremely rash (to put it mildly). As to abstraction, I intended a...
Quite so. That's the essence of what the "analytic" philosophers believed, and explains why they spent their time talking about language. Does Sebasti...
Why would I want to remove the potential of the underlying matter or substance? All I want to do is to explain it, by giving a fuller account of what ...
Yes. But I think that abstraction and generalization (which, despite Berkeley, I do not think are the same thing) are also sources of truth. So let's ...
I agree that scepticism is a fundamental starting-point for this debate. But there's a question of the burden of proof. Your challenge to me is to pro...
I think that what needs to be said about the tree is 1) you can't cut down a tree (in one sense of "cut down") with 1) words, 2) a fishing net, 3) a s...
Careful, now. I also think that the idea that I'm living in a Matrix situation is an implausible fantasy. In particular, I know that the truth of the ...
Actually, if you are saying that perhaps in this context "real" and "unreal" are more important than "true" or "false", I think you may have a point. ...
I'm not sure what "it" refers to here. I thought my question suggested that I thought that my view that I am a brain in a vat is not illogical. That w...
Thanks for your concern. I'll just make sure that my back-ups are up to date and then get on with it. As you don't quite say, bad things happen - and ...
That's interesting. But it is curious that Austin's reaction would suit Wittgenstein fine. The idea of private experiences makes them a something and ...
Well, that's a question. My antivirus does notify me about trackers, though. And ransomware needs to draw attention to itself. Thanks for this. Nothin...
I am a brain in a vat. How could it be illogical? I know I'm breaking the rules. But we've retreated to dogma and playing games. However, the orthodox...
Somehow I think that Austin has not quite got his act together. I take it that he is concerned about, for example, the difference between appearance a...
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