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RussellA

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Cognition is the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. The I-language exists ...
May 09, 2023 at 11:39
Who judges the degree of roundness? There is nothing in a mind-independent world that can make judgements about the degree of roundness. Judgements ca...
May 09, 2023 at 11:25
The SEP article The Computational Theory of Mind asks "Could the mind itself be a thinking machine?". This brings in the problem of consciousness, in ...
May 09, 2023 at 10:55
E-language is what is written and spoken in our daily lives, and the I-language is the physical mechanism of the brain. E-language is the externalized...
May 08, 2023 at 16:12
If the only way the Empire States Building can remain vertical is because of its foundations, one could also ask, then what do its foundations add ?
May 08, 2023 at 14:48
As the meaning of every word in language derives from convention, in what other way can a statement be analytic if not by convention. When driving thr...
May 08, 2023 at 14:14
Perhaps the advantage of a metaphor is that it doesn't need to be reduced to more primitive ones, but allows understanding by relating a complex abstr...
May 08, 2023 at 11:57
The meanings of words can change. For example, a dog can mean a domesticated mammal or it can mean a terrible film. If a dog means a domesticated mamm...
May 08, 2023 at 10:35
Consider "ya mnara lipo nchi". This object has no meaning until some one gives it a meaning. If there is no one to give it a meaning, it cannot have a...
May 08, 2023 at 08:02
It could be argued that any understanding we have is metaphorical. Some theorists have suggested that metaphors are not merely stylistic, but that the...
May 07, 2023 at 16:44
Is "ya mnara lipo nchi" true if there is no one who knows what it means. If no one knows its meaning, then it isn't a language, it's an object like a ...
May 07, 2023 at 16:04
I think of concepts more as a metaphor than a literal physical thing.
May 07, 2023 at 14:53
I totally agree. I understand certain primitive concepts as innate, such as the colour red, pain , etc. We then use these primitive concepts to build ...
May 07, 2023 at 14:32
Yes. We observe something in the world and then name it "The Eiffel Tower". This something existed before we named it. As this something existed befor...
May 07, 2023 at 14:09
I limit innate concepts to primitive concepts, such as the colour red, pain, simple relationships such as to the left of, simple shapes such as a stra...
May 07, 2023 at 11:33
There seems to be three types of statements: "a bachelor is a bachelor", "a bachelor is an unmarried man" and a "bachelor is always rich". It seems th...
May 07, 2023 at 10:31
I agree that it is very difficult to put a clean break between a person and their environment. Enactivism discusses this. There are two aspects: First...
May 07, 2023 at 10:02
I see my brother enter the room and immediately leave the room. There is no doubt in my mind that I have seen my brother enter and leave the room. The...
May 07, 2023 at 09:32
Chomsky said concepts wouldn't exist without an I-language, so, the semantic part of an I-language are its concepts. Primitive innate concepts such as...
May 06, 2023 at 16:26
The SEP article The analytic/synthetic distinction writes: “Analytic” sentences, such as “Paediatricians are doctors,” have historically been characte...
May 06, 2023 at 14:36
It depends on the definition of "marriage" According to Merriam Webster, "A bachelor is an unmarried man". But Merriam Webster goes on to say that the...
May 06, 2023 at 09:02
Hume is a realist about causation, in that although he believes that causation is real in the world it is unknowable. He rejects the idea that we dire...
May 05, 2023 at 16:23
This answers the OP, "Are there analytic statements?" Yes, the E-language can be grammatical without making sense. One advantage of the I-language is ...
May 05, 2023 at 11:40
I agree, sentient life must evolve through interaction with the world in which it exists, which is why it has taken 3.7 billion years for life to have...
May 05, 2023 at 08:27
There is the I-language in the mind, and the E-language in the world. There is the word "love" in the E-language which refers to the concept of love. ...
May 04, 2023 at 16:24
If I touch a hot stove and see my hand blisters, in my I-language, I am conscious of pain and quickly remove my hand. But if my I-language was formed ...
May 04, 2023 at 12:48
For me, the mechanism linking concepts in the mind and language in the world can be explained by Hume's principle of the constant conjunction of event...
May 04, 2023 at 08:41
There is the E-language, whereby there are statements such as "A triangle has 80 degrees, and is a three sided polygon". The set "180 degrees, three s...
May 03, 2023 at 16:53
Chomsky sensibly believes that a basic range of concepts are innately represented in the human mind, because, after all, life has been evolving on Ear...
May 03, 2023 at 11:33
The Wikipedia article Objectivity (philosophy) notes: In philosophy, objectivity is the concept of truth independent from individual subjectivity (bia...
May 03, 2023 at 08:07
I'll keep reading. True, language is use. Wittgenstein PI para 23 "Here the term "language-game" is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the s...
May 02, 2023 at 10:39
Using the convention of "snow is white" is true IFF snow is white, perhaps one could say: "the sky is blue" is synthetic, the sky is blue is a posteri...
May 02, 2023 at 07:49
Many parts are observed in the world But from any set of parts, numerous mereological wholes can be discovered For example, from the 15 parts shown - ...
May 01, 2023 at 17:43
In the beginning, someone discovered something that had three sides and it had no name. They didn't discover a "triangle", they discovered something t...
May 01, 2023 at 15:58
Would you know what a child meant if they said something more complicated, such as "habari za asubuhi, habari gani" without having to look in a dictio...
May 01, 2023 at 12:04
Chomsky likes Locke. From IEP - Locke:Epistemology Locke defines knowledge as the perception of an agreement (or disagreement) between ideas (4.1.2). ...
May 01, 2023 at 11:54
True, the same word may be defined in many different ways. The Merriam Webster dictionary for "fire" lists almost 42 different uses. Though the same p...
May 01, 2023 at 08:18
Chomsky says that concepts cannot exist without language. See Noam Chomsky on the Big Questions (Part 4). 7min "Even the simplest concepts tree desk p...
April 30, 2023 at 16:21
Thoughts and concepts stand in for words From SEP - Analayticity and Comskyan Linguistics He sharpens this distinction in his (1986, pp. 20–2) by dist...
April 30, 2023 at 12:11
I believe that i) grass doesn't supervene on its properties, a typically short plant, etc. and ii) "grass" doesn't supervene on its properties, "a typ...
April 30, 2023 at 09:36
:100: Definately a worthwhile and invaluable thread. As the question in the OP was "If I were to ask Chomsky a question, it would be "Are there analyt...
April 29, 2023 at 12:18
Both aspects are necessary in language. On the one hand, we need predictability, otherwise, if you said to me "the grass is greener on the other side ...
April 29, 2023 at 10:38
Chomsky also makes the proviso that both the visual system and language need to be stimulated from things in the external world in order to operate su...
April 28, 2023 at 16:56
Chomsky refers to concepts, thoughts and language in Noam Chomsky on the Big Questions (Part 4) Closer To Truth Chats He says that the relation betwee...
April 28, 2023 at 14:03
1) In Euclidian space, there is equivalence between (a polygon with three sides) and (polygons, the internal angles of which sum to 180 deg), and this...
April 28, 2023 at 10:37
Being able to see the colour red and being able to see a link based on constant conjunction, as inherent functions of the structure of the brain, and ...
April 27, 2023 at 14:03
Your example may be reworded as: "a triangle is a plane figure, a polygon, where the sum of the internal angles is 180 deg", thereby defining "a trian...
April 27, 2023 at 11:31
Quine wanted to give a non-circular account of the distinction between analytic and synthetic sentences. Circular in that the notion of analyticity is...
April 26, 2023 at 13:51
In the statement "bachelors are unmarried men", "bachelors" should be thought of as a definition rather than a description. As a description "bachelor...
April 26, 2023 at 08:45
I agree. Whilst on the one hand there cannot be a priori knowledge of "the triangle" until it has been baptised in a performative act, on the other ha...
April 25, 2023 at 15:43