Srap Tasmaner

Did you consider reading, for instance, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument?

The question about this thread is: https://youtu.be/ghj5V5cUo1s

I want to try to make an approach to the "only sentences have meaning" view. (For now, I'll use the word "meaning" without saying what it is.) We'll a...

Quickly, yes I'm going to be following Frege's usage. There's some exegesis you have to get through, because at the time of the Grundlagen he hadn't s...

If you don't like the analogy, that's fine. I'm not in love with it. The motivation was to combine two ideas: that performing a linguistic act is like...

The alternative is to say that words do have sense, and that the sense of a word is the contribution it makes to the sense of a sentence in which it i...

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm tied up at work right now but will get to this soon as I can. Absolutely we'll deny (2) as formulated, but I don't think...

I'm glad you posted this. Is there a particular point you'd like to make about this exchange?

I think one of the things you're missing is that an argument has an audience. You have to expect that what you need/want to treat as a brute fact will...

It's your level of enlightenment, man.

Part of McGinn's point is pretty straightforward, and similar to what @"Moliere" was saying, that relative to a given theory, something is explained a...

I think the bit you're talking about was concerned with representing our knowledge of a language propositionally. There's a whole lot to recommend tha...

I can't help thinking there's a joke here about Buddhism and enlightenment. "Andrew doesn't even know the meaning of the word 'cupidity.'" Something l...

If we find that everything that has a heart has kidneys, and everything that has kidneys has a heart, then the two sets, things that have a heart and ...

I've never thought of Hume as a skeptic.

There are like three different threads in here, which is totally my fault. First off, sure, the piano and your vocal folds are tools. I might even be ...

You mean the observed fact that it always has fallen down?

I'm still not sure. I worry a little that the word "use" makes us think of words as tools. If you play a song on the piano, you strike the right keys ...

"Propositional attitude" is a term of art. Are you really not familiar with it? (Relates to verbs like believe, know, think, doubt, say and so on, tha...

(In Archer voice) Nevermind! It's too late, you've ruined the moment.

If it's to be an insinuation, then I won't. (Did you really miss the joke? I'm about to lose all the newfound respect I had for you.) Huzzah!

There are many sorts of things, musical instruments, tools, and so on, of which I can know what they are and how they are used without myself possessi...

Music makes an even better analogy, because there's the skill needed to perform, but there's also theoretical knowledge (which my son keeps trying to ...

A fair point. In practice, things don't work out that way, and the difference is institutions. It seems to me, the United States is far from perfect b...

Sure, but not everyone's gonna be in on it, and the people left out will try to fuck you. Democracy in action.

Certainly people try. But there are a lot of people involved, interested parties in and out of government, a lot of moving parts, so it's always hard ...

Okay. You're obviously right there. Now look at President Trump's control. Doesn't look very absolute, does it? That's the whole idea. Of course he ha...

What you're missing is that this is the whole point of democratic institutions. You can also look at them as inscribing rights of you like, but they'r...

For the record I don't think I was particularly vague. Whether it was an insinuation, well, who's to say? As for Obama and Trump, I don't actually car...

That's a reasonable distinction. I'll look closer.

Well one interpretation of your posts would be that you don't give a shit, and for some reason don't think anyone else should either. The world's a sn...

Since you've heard of Politifact, here's Barack Obama's scorecard and here's Donald Trump's scorecard. Do you think "as mendacious" properly character...

It pisses me of when you pull this "oh you naive little lambs" crap, but I'm going to make an effort to take your point seriously. So, the founding fa...

I had forgotten some of these are separable and others I didn't know. (a) Do we think these losses are better described as losses of ability or losses...

Just a little amplification. The first analogy I thought of was kids learning how to draw. You don't just learn how-to-draw, as one big thing, and you...

That's a beautiful point. Totally wish I'd thought of it. I think we could do something with that.

1) Polling is complicated and it's silly to pretend otherwise. 2) Money can't change Republicans into Democrats. 3) It's just a trend, and a lot of pe...

Which is why I said I never thought Ossoff had a chance. But he got nearly 50% the first time around. The suburbs and exurbs are changing. It's a fact...

If you think that, you must not live in the United States. Here there is most definitely widespread opposition to science as such.

You're confused or uninformed. Baptists aren't evangelicals. Fulton, Cobb, and Dekalb all went for Rubio in the primary. I couldn't easily find a vote...

The question for Republicans is whether gerrymandering can counter demographics forever.

Also, there is well-known, socially prominent church in the 6th that has been very publicly sponsoring Syrian refugee families, doing what they see as...

There are some reasons to find the race in the Georgia 6th interesting. It's about how changes in the Republican party will match up with demographic ...

I'll believe it when I see it. I recall another recent election...

I've never thought Ossoff really had a chance though. Republicans are a lot better at closing ranks than Democrats.

Handel wanted more debates than Ossoff, which usually suggests they both had internal polling showing either Handel's lead was not what it should be o...

Then now we have a problem and perhaps, sadly, this is where our conversation ends, because I think my last post says nothing at all, but you think it...

So "we experience what we experience as we experience it" should mean: experience is the constituent of reality for us; subject and object are both pa...

The "ours" here refers to a generic individual, right? Because you also say Let's look at an example, however provisionally. Suppose I am holding a gl...