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Metaphysician Undercover

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Things interacting with each other is not observation, by any stretch of the imagination. If it is accepted in philosophy of science, that things inte...
June 13, 2019 at 19:54
It's not "a something", because he appears to be dismissing "something" for "process". Nevertheless, what he is discussing is in the mind, but as I sa...
June 13, 2019 at 11:00
He uses "picture" as an example, an illustration, it's more like a metaphor, we'd be better off with "picture-like". The point of your emphasized line...
June 13, 2019 at 01:33
If you ask whether the picture fits the use of the word, as Wittgenstein clearly does, ("In what sense can this picture fit or fail to fit a use of th...
June 12, 2019 at 11:06
Of course it's the same sense of "fit". He's asking if the word is fit as an appropriate descriptive term for the picture in mind. The only thing is t...
June 12, 2019 at 02:16
There is a distinction to be made between understanding the use of a word upon hearing it in a particular situation, and judging whether a word is "fi...
June 11, 2019 at 11:00
This is not true, and that's the problem which the op deals with. Science attempts to understand the world, as it appears to us, but it does not revea...
June 11, 2019 at 10:39
According to Wikipedia, "Canada is a country in the northern part of North America." It defines "country" in this way: And this is how Wikipedia defin...
June 11, 2019 at 01:31
I don't see how "what serves a purpose" tells us "what is". What if all the patterns which human beings come up with are imaginary, fabrications, and ...
June 11, 2019 at 01:11
You mean the real estate? I see how inhabitants would own the real estate, but I don't see how the inhabitants would own the country. Real estate is o...
June 10, 2019 at 11:43
What do you think is meant by "imitation" here? I have a hard time imagining "imitation" as we commonly use the word, being used to refer to the mediu...
June 10, 2019 at 11:40
I wouldn't say "Canada comprises" real estate, because real estate is owned. Mon dieu, tabarnouche!
June 10, 2019 at 11:19
It seems we are talking about completely different ontological points. You are talking about the reason why patterns make sense to us, and I am talkin...
June 10, 2019 at 11:05
Constraints do not necessarily cause patterns. The constraints must be designed, or systematic to cause patterns. So you are overlooking the real caus...
June 10, 2019 at 01:41
In your quotes from 2019, you missed the conclusion. The necessity of logic, logical necessity is not rule based, it is language based, and "Important...
June 09, 2019 at 17:47
I've read 2019's post twice fully, and some parts three or four times now, and I've looked very carefully at what Wittgenstein says about logic. I've ...
June 09, 2019 at 12:58
There are two distinct ways of "understanding" outlined in this section (138-142). If understanding a word is to associate something (like a picture) ...
June 09, 2019 at 12:32
My assumptions of what logic is, are derived from Wittgenstein's descriptions. So I see no point in dismissing these assumptions for your assumptions ...
June 09, 2019 at 00:49
Do you recognize the difference between something following rules, and rules being used to describe a thing? In the former case, the rules pre-exist t...
June 08, 2019 at 11:54
No, the issue is that if we assume that an animal must use logic, or reason, to do something like communicate, then we'll find that logic must pre-exi...
June 08, 2019 at 11:27
I don't think so. Evolution does not follow any rules. What are you saying, that evolutionary processes follow some sort of informal logic? Who would ...
June 08, 2019 at 02:44
This says nothing more than "if there is order in the universe, it must be a logical order". But this is the "classical account" that 2019 refers to, ...
June 07, 2019 at 10:47
Schopenhauer1 appears to be trying to draw some sort of ontological conclusions from this Wittgensteinian perspective. If natural languages are not ru...
June 06, 2019 at 11:55
This is otherwise known as the tinted glass analogy. If the glass through which I look at the world is tinted, it will affect the way the world appear...
June 04, 2019 at 11:50
Are you starting to see why you shouldn't have been so quick to trust me? And I've been subjected to many institutions of enforcement. I just don't se...
June 04, 2019 at 01:18
I don't see how you can say "use" does not fit scientific language games. The reality of the world is inherent within "use", as what is used. So "for ...
June 03, 2019 at 10:55
Right, but Wittgenstein does investigate what "how things are for us" means, because "us" implies a communion which is closely related to communicatio...
June 03, 2019 at 01:37
I still don't understand. You are willing to trust anyone, yet no one is entitled to that trust. On what basis do you give your trust? If trust is som...
June 03, 2019 at 01:13
Have you read "On Certainty"? We can say "it is certain" about some things, and I suppose that this is as close as Wittgenstein gets to saying what a ...
June 03, 2019 at 00:39
The issue is, as I described to Schop, how one gets from how things appear to me, to how things are "for us". This is a metaphysical issue, so being c...
June 02, 2019 at 23:59
You imply that Wittgenstein takes "for us" for granted. He does not, he recognizes a relationship between the existence of "for us" and the existence ...
June 02, 2019 at 17:17
Well, there is the bigger issue of how is the "for us" even a real perspective, when everything I apprehend is "for me". Language-games appear to me, ...
June 02, 2019 at 16:48
But isn't the principle of "as they are for us" rather than "as they are for me" for example, a metaphysical principle?
June 02, 2019 at 16:16
Many believe that wanton killing is not a good thing. Killing is a serious action which needs to be only carried out for a good reason, and this needs...
June 02, 2019 at 16:12
How unusual, a contributor to TPF who hides behind terms as if they were a costume.
June 02, 2019 at 16:00
Why do you say that this is "not metaphysical"? To make a distinction between "things as they are", and "as they are for us", is to make a metaphysica...
June 02, 2019 at 15:57
I don't think "paranoid" is a designator at all, because it refers to a property rather than an object.
June 02, 2019 at 15:46
I assume then, that "trust" is an attitude which you have toward me, and others as well. Would you say that you are born to be trusting, so it is inst...
June 02, 2019 at 13:57
Then we could work to make politicians great again.
June 02, 2019 at 11:54
Wittgenstein seems to be fascinated by mathematics and numbers. It appears like he sees that numbers work, but he doesn't understand how numbers work,...
June 02, 2019 at 11:52
But paranoia is a property of a thing (person)), it's not a name of the thing. How is Ralph's statement "my neighbour is a spy" evidence that he is pa...
June 02, 2019 at 10:52
I think I get it. "The drum is empty of liquid", and "the drum is full of vapour", are two distinct focal concepts, referring to the same thing. I thi...
June 02, 2019 at 01:30
Now how do you make it into a counterfactual de re attitude?
June 02, 2019 at 01:12
As I explained, Ralph cannot validly conclude that his neighbour is a spy, whether he suffers delusions or not is irrelevant. Logic doesn't work that ...
June 02, 2019 at 00:30
I don't understand this attitude. Are you saying that if I was close to you for years, a good friend for many years, and I never did anything to incli...
June 02, 2019 at 00:18
Suppose Ralph believes there is a spy, but has not determined the person who is a spy, so he says "there is a spy", this is de dicto. If Ralph believe...
June 01, 2019 at 12:41
I haven't been able to figure out what you mean by "focal concept". Care to explain?
June 01, 2019 at 11:57
Trust is earned, it cannot be enforced. When it is lost, we suffer the consequences. But trust will not be regained through enforcement. That ship has...
June 01, 2019 at 02:29
The problem here being that, as I described in my other post, we have no principle whereby we can say that a language-game is a "real" object. Remembe...
May 31, 2019 at 11:04
Wittgenstein reduces logical necessity to a form of "needed for a particular purpose". This is the pragmatist standard, conception is based in purpose...
May 30, 2019 at 11:11