Terrapin Station

Obviously an interpretation--of literature, say (so that we're talking about words)--isn't identical to the words on the page being interpreted. "Jack...

How would that work? "If the art isn't just made up in the mind by each reader/viewer, then interpretations can not be forwarded endlessly because . ....

Sure. It's a bit harder to communicate it without language, though--at least to communicate it very precisely.

I don't do ontology by speculation or purely by logic.

The short answer is "No," and I'll stick to the short answer to not confuse things. Why would you think that's suggested?

I'm not at all an idealist or representationalist. I don't think that either idealism or representationalism are at all empirically supportable.

So we got into a tangent about so-called "rigid designators." I said I don't believe the distinction holds any water, because of the subjectivity of r...

Hmm . . . I wasn't even talking (or thinking about) ethics there.

In the case at hand, the phenomena only occur as thought. That only applies to all phenomena if we restrict our context to thinking about things.

So, you start out by saying that there is no x aside from F, where the scope seems to be universal, and the claim thus controversial . . . But then yo...

That's like saying "There's no source for anything whatsoever other than suspended pigments applied to canvases. That we can paint, anyway."

Yeah, and in this case it gives the impression of "I don't know--why don't you look it up! There must be something you could find that suggests what I...

There's no purpose period except for an individual thinking about something in terms of purposes. Same with representation. Since different individual...

Which one of those would you say are good evidence of it being unhealthy? If we're simply saying that it's possible to hurt yourself should you do par...

If you're asking me which one I'd say, I'd say that interpretations are endless just in case they keep arriving, otherwise they're not. Same as with a...

??? How do you go from "I wasn't saying anything about x" to " You want to claim y about x"?

And what it is for me to say "He understands me" is for me, from my perspective, to think that his comments make sense relative to what I'm saying (fr...

The only reason I brought up "endless" was because YOU thought I was saying something about that. I wasn't. I wasn't saying anything about whether int...

"really" is a term of emphasis. I can give you my definition of what understanding is.

I just did a search for me using the term "limitless" anywhere on the board in the last month, and there's only one post, in a different thread, where...

Right. What the heck would "rigid" amount to if a designator is variable? That part doesn't make sense to me. Supposedly one of the criteria is that a...

Yeah, I agree. I don't know why NKBJ got stuck on the idea of "limits of interpretation," though, so I'm just trying to play along.

What did you read as me saying something about limits of interpretation? Obviously you thought I was saying something about that, but I don't get why.

"Interpretations can't occur extramentally" is another limitation I'd agree with.

It matters because it's all that I'm claiming. I didn't say anything like "There are limits to interpretation." That was your contribution. I'd agree ...

There's zero rigidity to "what it represents" though.

Let's start by seeing if you can understand what I'm claiming. I'm saying that interpretations are mental phenomena, and only exist as mental phenomen...

I just can't make any sense out of saying/supposing that anything would be rigid. To me that is not at all how reference, meaning, etc. work, and it's...

I don't understand a lot of the content of Mww's posts, either, but so far I'm just attributing it to very different paradigms than my own that I figu...

For the God question, it's not as if there's no data to go on. 100% it's the case that there's no evidence of a God, not to mention that the very idea...

Crimes are a bad example of that re what I'm going to assume, because I agree that it's a good principle to assume that someone is innocent until we d...

But there's no epistemic justification for assuming a 50/50 split on the question of whether someone committed a murder in that case. There would be n...

What are a couple examples of this?

It's like claiming that no one is a hipster, no one is an SJW, etc.

I'm asking for the justification of that claim that I'm quoting, as well as the justification for the claim that if that's known for x, y and z, then ...

So the epistemic justification is?

There's no more reason to choose 50/50 than 100/0. Both are just as arbitrary in lieu of any information.

It's not saying something about art per se. It's saying something about interpretations, what they are ontologically. I already explained this. It's i...

Sure. Such as?

Examples?

Which is completely arbitrary with respect to what's the case without their being any epistemological justification for two options being equally like...

Not sure what you're referring to re "you mean," but in any event, I agree with your criticism here.

Re rigid designators, by the way, this is a good thread to introduce some of the problems I have with the idea: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discuss...

The standard objectification shtick is nonsense anyway.

"All art by all artists" isn't an artwork, though. And we're not interpreting anything by noting an ontological property of interpretations. Noting an...

Because of?

Right. I'm just trying to get him to realize that there would need to be some epistemic justification for assigning a probability to it, otherwise it'...

How exactly would social or cultural values obtain? Consensus is simply a fact that a lot of people feel the same way about something, that they have ...

No, it isn't. "All interpretation of art is subjective" is not an interpretation of art. What artwork is that supposed to be if it's an interpretation...

Starting at any value would be completely arbitrary, wouldn't it?