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Janus

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As I see it, there can be no salvation at all beyond either mere indifference (in the sense of acceptance) or affirmation. Acceptance or affirmation o...
November 24, 2015 at 01:50
Presuming you are referring to Douglas Hofstadter, what is his "Disease" and what are the symptoms of it that you, by implication, are suggesting that...
November 24, 2015 at 01:38
You ignored my previous objection, so I will try again. A realist could reject verification-transcendent truth (in the sense of acknowledging that we ...
November 23, 2015 at 23:55
A delayed response; I have been away. Give me an example of an "obvious practical application" of ethics. Just look at the number of posts in Metaphys...
November 23, 2015 at 23:33
A realist may reject verification transcendent truths without rejecting verification transcendent actualities and verification transcendent speculatio...
November 22, 2015 at 22:17
Well, for a start, Ethics is just one part of philosophy. Epistemology and Metaphysics are arguably a much greater part of modern philosophy, and ther...
November 16, 2015 at 21:48
I didn't say philosophy cannot have any practical applications. The suggestion was merely that it does not have anything like the very obvious practic...
November 16, 2015 at 04:09
That's a fair point, Baden, well taken, and I stand corrected. Now I am wondering what it could be that distinguishes a sentence from a word. It seems...
November 15, 2015 at 21:02
I think it's you that doesn't follow ;) .
November 15, 2015 at 08:17
If translation is possible then the sense must be retained, which means that the logic of the semantic units is more or less equivalent. From this it ...
November 15, 2015 at 08:11
Your mathematician is still very much alive, so activities of the body such as breathing and circulation of the blood, as well as thought and percepti...
November 15, 2015 at 04:13
Thanks Cavacava, I'll check it out...
November 15, 2015 at 03:29
They are not so different that translation is not possible.
November 15, 2015 at 03:26
Why not, pray tell?
November 15, 2015 at 01:21
For me, to speak of "subjective elements" is to commit the very mistake you have identified in your first paragraph: that is, the mistake of imputing ...
November 15, 2015 at 01:21
In lieu of me going back to read the whole thread over again can you outline your argument again, in the context of the idea (I presume you are espous...
November 15, 2015 at 01:03
Cavacava, I have been attending a course called Philosophy and Poetry at Sydney University, and by amazing coincidence these very lines from Ezra Poun...
November 15, 2015 at 00:54
Thanks bert, that's a nice observation; that had not been thematically figural for me before. I'm very happy to hear that Tiff, thanks. I am kind of r...
November 15, 2015 at 00:39
They were certainly not successful in your case apparently. Is there any good reason to believe that it will be the same objects which lead different ...
November 15, 2015 at 00:07
The argument turns on the point about what constitutes a word. The usual definition is that a word must be one of a number of types, because a word mu...
November 15, 2015 at 00:04
OK, that's interesting that you should say that, because the specific aim of the Abstract expressionists was a purely formalist one (under the tutelag...
November 14, 2015 at 07:12
Thanks Cavacava. It is oil on canvas 1500mm x 900mm.
November 14, 2015 at 03:03
The English translations of these morphemes: "reindeer-hunt-future-say-negation-again-third.person.singular.indicative" can stand alone and thus be co...
November 14, 2015 at 02:58
This is from Wikipedia: "A morpheme is not identical to a word, and the principal difference between the two is that a morpheme may or may not stand a...
November 14, 2015 at 00:14
Latest painting.../uploads/resized/files/pk/3vks00n7zwe6tb77.jpg
November 14, 2015 at 00:01
Firstly, "unbreakable" does not convey anything other than a definition, so it could not count as a sentence. On the other hand, according to your arg...
November 13, 2015 at 23:51
Keep going, you got two likes for that last post alone! But, on second thought maybe you're right that the value of registering the likings of posts d...
November 13, 2015 at 23:01
All I am asking you to do is tell me on the basis of what criteria such 'words' as the exampled 'word-sentences' qualify as words rather than as sente...
November 13, 2015 at 22:48
Yes, but the point was: what is the salient distinguishing characteristic between that 'sentence-without-any-gaps-word' and a so-called 'normal' sente...
November 13, 2015 at 22:10
Why could the example 'word' "tuntussuqatarniksaitengqiggtuq " not equally be called a 'sentence without any gaps', and the 'morphemes' that make it u...
November 13, 2015 at 21:56
I voted '3' and '2' would be my second option. I can see a value in acknowledgement that individual cases of effort, erudition or even sheer brillianc...
November 13, 2015 at 21:36
I still think individual words are better thought of as having definitions, references or functions than they are thought of as having meanings, A wor...
November 13, 2015 at 21:26
Thanks, Baden, I was going to respond with something like, "Yes, but isn't what you say here just standard linguistics?", but then I turned the page a...
November 13, 2015 at 21:03
I certainly agree that meaning as such does not require reference, but I have been contending that linguistic meaning can only be understood in terms ...
November 13, 2015 at 04:23
Ok, 'hello' can be translated, or at least has it's equivalent functors in other languages or in English. But it does not refer to anything specific. ...
November 13, 2015 at 00:09
If I just gaze emptily at the environment, with nothing in particular becoming present for me; that level of perception is ungrammatical. It is when I...
November 12, 2015 at 22:35
What you are saying seems to point to the idea that it is not merely that linguistic "units" of meaning derive that meaning from a context which is th...
November 12, 2015 at 22:26
Then it must be a mere tautology that any example of language has a linguistic meaning. For me, if a sentence counts as having a linguistic meaning th...
November 12, 2015 at 21:38
If to be linguistically meaningful is not necessarily to refer to something concrete, then what does it consist in? Are you merely saying that any mar...
November 12, 2015 at 20:00
That you think that is nice to know; to know why you think that would be even nicer. In any case, whether it does or does not have a linguistic (which...
November 12, 2015 at 05:01
This sounds reasonable at first glance; but I am not convinced 'hello' has a linguistic meaning. In any case any statement of linguistic meaning is a ...
November 12, 2015 at 02:35
I'm still not clear exactly what you mean by "experiencing an Idea". Do you mean something like 'grasping the form of a thing, in a kind of geometrica...
November 11, 2015 at 21:59
For me, it depends on what you mean by 'truth'. Taking it in the strictly propositional sense I agree with you. Mostly, speakers are not so much conce...
November 11, 2015 at 21:38
What is the reasoning that you take to support a claim that a theory of truth must form part of a theory of meaning, rather than that a theory of mean...
November 11, 2015 at 21:05
Which is arguably equally true of science. The difference with science is that it generates new possibilities for technological inventiveness, and thu...
November 10, 2015 at 22:23
Yes, the common understanding of the phrase "I know" is precisely an expression of the idea of an absolute certainty which is opposed to the uncertain...
November 10, 2015 at 21:53
For me, language, taken as a whole does not represent anything; rather it presents a domain of things out there in the world. Sayings represent things...
November 10, 2015 at 21:36
I have been slowly working my way through this rather dense paper. This is not the style of philosophy I am used to reading, and I agree with Streetli...
November 09, 2015 at 22:19
It might quote me TGW. but it does not address the argument that I made there. The argument is that there is a difference between the claim that we ca...
November 08, 2015 at 21:47
Whether it is sensible to say the glass is half empty or half full would seem to depend on the prior state of the glass. Was it full, and subsequently...
November 08, 2015 at 01:45