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OK. A little off-topic. I don't think anyone's talking about "an inner process of solipsistic self-confirmation." What confirmation may be available i...
July 16, 2025 at 16:34
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I was saying the opposite: Self-reflexivity is virtually definitive of philosophy. I was contrasting this with what I took @"...
July 16, 2025 at 15:38
Yes, so would I, but I'm also doubtful about the corrective narrative you offer. I'm not sure what domain you're quantifying over :smile: , and who th...
July 16, 2025 at 15:31
Your entire quote from the Tractatus is very apropos to the question of an Absolute Conception. We could make this substitution: "In the world everyth...
July 16, 2025 at 14:14
Yes, but other hypotheses allow a basis for discussion about how you'd tell. Typing mistake here, I assume? Or else you're getting super woo-woo. :smi...
July 16, 2025 at 13:51
"Just" a matter of agreeing! Would that it were so simple. I'm not holding out for some radical relativism that would make sensible conversation about...
July 16, 2025 at 13:48
But what can now be said about it? It's either true or it isn't, and we don't have any way of evaluating which. Moreover, if everything is consciousne...
July 16, 2025 at 12:32
Compare: "The idea is that there is no non-matter. Everything is material." The interesting thing about both these positions is that they can't be arg...
July 16, 2025 at 00:47
OK, sorry I missed your response to sushi.
July 15, 2025 at 22:23
I just want to understand it, before contributing anything. Mainly the use of "experience." You write: Does a dead human experience being a dead human...
July 15, 2025 at 19:53
The "we" here is understood as referring to those within Williams' hypothesis -- the proponents of the "absolute conception" who might be understood a...
July 15, 2025 at 13:47
I figured this was your method. No reason an OP has to cover the entire ground all at once. It's only worth pointing out that, when "purpose" or "mean...
July 15, 2025 at 12:50
Well, I agree, but I didn't see you arguing for that. I thought you were contending that any sort of biological purposiveness was good enough to answe...
July 15, 2025 at 00:37
Appreciate these thoughts. I'm outta here for now but will definitely reply.
July 14, 2025 at 22:59
In: Assertion  — view comment
I think we're just trying to get straight on terminology. You seem to want any occurrence of a sentence to be an assertion of what it says (just as a ...
July 14, 2025 at 22:47
In: Assertion  — view comment
Yes, I'm not meaning to deny this. Without some such stipulation, we could hardly begin to create a workable structure. Nor could we fit the idea of "...
July 14, 2025 at 21:58
In: Assertion  — view comment
Yes, we could agree as to that. And that's usually what we do: We read "P" as something that can be asserted by someone -- a performance that someone ...
July 14, 2025 at 21:36
In: Assertion  — view comment
Good. Now take it a step further. Call this statement Q: "'S' is an example of P"; and this statement R: "It is true that 'S' is an example of P" ("It...
July 14, 2025 at 20:13
Interesting metaphor. I'm assuming you mean balls of the testicular variety? Is it a good thing to have that kind, when it comes to deciding what to a...
July 14, 2025 at 18:18
You might have a look at the Ring of Gyges tale in Book II of the Republic.
July 14, 2025 at 15:18
Excellent, thank you. I hope Nagel's take on this will be increasingly shared both within and without the scientific community. I have some minor quib...
July 14, 2025 at 15:14
In: Assertion  — view comment
Referring back to Rödl again. He insists we acknowledge that, fundamentally, we don't know what we're talking about when we talk about P. Even somethi...
July 14, 2025 at 14:38
Good stuff. We can't box up "philosophy" and say either that it was only done one way, or that it should be. Thus, what I meant by wasn't the entire W...
July 14, 2025 at 14:04
OK, that's how it seemed to me, thanks.
July 13, 2025 at 12:34
Snake swallows tail again . . . but you're right. I feel bad about this, and will try to think of other ways to clarify what we're talking about. For ...
July 13, 2025 at 12:32
(* the claim is: "as long as I don't claim knowledge about what the conception is, my talk about it can remain "local.") I was with you all the way, u...
July 13, 2025 at 12:26
This may be helpful: So yes, this is spinning off from Descartes' project, and we see this particularly when Williams first names "secondary qualities...
July 13, 2025 at 12:17
But how does this fit with "Derain is a great artist and Banksy is not"? That's what I meant about an aesthetic judgment "cashing out" as merely a mat...
July 13, 2025 at 11:49
Sure. Williams assumes that the "absolute knowledge" problem is real. If one has already settled that satisfactorily for oneself, then this is merely ...
July 13, 2025 at 01:01
Fair enough. "View from Nowhere" has gotten entrenched, via Nagel, but maximal contexts makes sense. And Nagel didn't mean science in particular.
July 13, 2025 at 00:57
Very close. I bolded in an absolute sense to make it even clearer. Philosophy is going to talk about some other inquiry's absolute conception, and tal...
July 13, 2025 at 00:54
Right. Williams' question is about the idea of an "absolute conception," not any one in particular.
July 13, 2025 at 00:36
I know! It's a perfectly valid and interesting topic -- what to make of science and its defenders as an absolute conception -- but not the one I was h...
July 13, 2025 at 00:33
In: Assertion  — view comment
Does it seem less redundant if it read, "I assert that I've made the judgment that the cat is on the mat"? This formulation tries to bring in "making ...
July 12, 2025 at 23:01
In: Assertion  — view comment
Oh, sorry, from your post I thought you acknowledged that "all sentences assert" can't be quite right. I didn't have anything more esoteric in mind.
July 12, 2025 at 22:55
In: Assertion  — view comment
Good. That sets out the issue quite clearly and simply. Some of us around here, following Kimhi and Rödl, want to make "thought" more complicated, but...
July 12, 2025 at 22:51
In: Assertion  — view comment
:smile: You know the answer to that. But for the record: I seriously doubt if your use of the sentence "The cat is on the mat", above, genuinely asser...
July 12, 2025 at 22:48
In: Assertion  — view comment
"My thought of judging that things are so is a different act of the mind from my judging that they are so." - J Just to be clear, that's Rödl, not me,...
July 12, 2025 at 22:40
Yes. So we only need to ask whether your experience falls under the aesthetic, or something closer to the heart. I'm happy seeing it either way.
July 12, 2025 at 22:31
Sorry, just saw this. I love that story. Do you mean that the physical thing, the paper and crayon, just happened to be the vehicle chosen to deliver ...
July 12, 2025 at 21:38
But then again you might. Would the tutoring have had a bearing, do you think?
July 12, 2025 at 21:31
Good. That's how I read Williams' position as well. But the question remains: Does the move he makes in the material quoted from p. 303 suffice to sho...
July 12, 2025 at 20:52
I kinda wish Williams had left natural science out of his argument about the absolute conception, because I can see it's distracting several posters. ...
July 12, 2025 at 20:07
I believe the story's true. But I think Lennon was the one who realized he wanted to splice them. As you say, technique-wise, he didn't know how, but ...
July 12, 2025 at 19:25
OK, I don't mean to be imposing a terminology on you. I'm trying to circle back to your example of knowing without question that the Derain is great a...
July 12, 2025 at 19:01
Right, that is one promising way to challenge Danto's conception: We have to include some kind of origin story as part of the work of art. This leads ...
July 12, 2025 at 15:30
I see. Yes, we can certainly just reject his premises and standpoint. I wonder, though, whether you're able to accept them for the sake of argument, a...
July 12, 2025 at 14:28
You can certainly make that analogy to the wasp sting, and claim that aesthetic appreciation can't be either taught or debated. But which of these pos...
July 12, 2025 at 12:21
Well, this is a whole other approach. I'd begin by questioning how "painting" constitutes a tradition, but since you wind up with a purely subjective ...
July 11, 2025 at 14:39
No, sorry. You seem to be simply restating your position. I suggested an example -- the battle of the bands -- in which we don't appear to need a cons...
July 11, 2025 at 13:13