Why I think there are no such things as languages

(1) If there are things we refer to as languages then it is possible for a language to persist even during periods when every speaker/writer of the language makes no marks or utterances (imagine a national day of mourning with a coordinated minute of silence and motionlessness).

(2) If languages do not supervene over actual token marks and utterances then languages must supervene over dispositions to make marks and utterances.

(3) In reality, there are no dispositions, only dispositional and design stances we adopt towards things.

(4) Therefore, in reality, there are no things we refer to as languages.

Informative Identity (post reworded)

Frege(1) famously noticed that (a = a) differs from (a = b) in many situations in which the former is trivial and the latter is informative. For example, Hesperus was not known to be identical to Phosphorus until they were discovered to be the planet Venus. Frege’s answer to this problem was to posit senses that determine, and thereby mediate, reference, i.e. different ways of reference to the same thing. Russell’s(2) solution was to argue that many apparent names are disguised definite descriptions, whereby no reference need actually occur. Both Frege’s and Russell’s run in to problems with Kripke’s arguments against descriptivism. The proposed solution is that judgements of identification are always trivial if true. However, by informative identification, reference to one of two things is dropped in favour of reference to only one of them. It may simply be the case that the referents of thoughts and speech about either or both of Hesperus and Phosphorus were bogus things that do not really exist. Thus, the problem of informative identity is but a subset of the problem of so-called empty reference. The thinker/speaker may be in atomic error about the things to which they refer being real even as they are right about the predicates that apply to them. So, if their reference to Hesperus is errant, though their reference to Phosphorus is correct, unreal thing Hesperus, i.e. as represented, still has all of the properties attributed to it. When they see that, ‘Hesperus is Phosphorus,’ they substitute Phosphorus for Hesperus in all of their previous judgements about Hesperus (including beliefs about what should properly be called ‘Hesperus’ in discussion with members of the same linguistic community). The point is that informative identity is a strategy of eliminating errant atomic representation as much as possible by using identity to consolidate such representations. Identifying things with distinct names is about changing those things to which those names apply, rather than noticing that two references were actually to the same thing. This suggests that an extremely high level of error is possible with our references. So be it. This is what Frege’s problem tells us. Admittedly, it is problematic on this view as to when reference is satisfied by the real existence of a referent, if we can so easily fall into errors of reference to real things. One might adopt something like Russell’s theory of acquaintance to the effect that only sense data are referred to without atomic error. Yet, this would seem to be an extremely sceptical, and unnecessary, conclusion.

What of referential opacity? What about Lois Lane believing that Superman can fly but not that Clark Kent can fly? There occurs an equivocation between Lois’ use of Superman and/or Clark Kent and the use of a person who knows that Superman is Clark Kent. Lois has, at least, the wrong Kent in mind in that she fails to refer to any real person. When we say that Lois believes that Clark Kent cannot fly, we will equivocate between these two uses unless we find a way of separating Loi’s Clark Kent out from ours.

1. Frege, G, ‘On Sense and Reference’ in Geach, P. & Black, M. (eds) ‘Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege’ (1966) Blackwell: Oxford pp. 56-58

2. Russell, B., ‘On Denoting’ in Lackey, D. (ed.), ‘Essays in Analysis by Bertrand Russell’ (1973) George Braziller: New York p. 119

Anniversary

It has been 2 years since I began posting on this blog (as of 5 December). Happy Birthday to Intentional Objects.

Promises, Promises

I now realise that I cannot explain my solution to the Liar paradox without first explaining my whole theory of concepts and propositions. I won’t be posting that any time soon.

Taking stock

Looking back, I realise:

I don’t appear to have blogged on Fodor’s ‘Concepts’ before, though I implied I had in the last post.

I have previously promised a post on the Liar paradox and a post on the Specious Present Part 2 that I have not delivered.

I hope to remedy the latter point soon.

The former point is beyond my power to affect. While presentists should not be worried about backwards causation any more than they worry about forward causation, it is still the case that facts about the past are set for all eternity.

What is Philosophy?

As a conceptual relativist, I find questions of definition to be vacuous, best answered with the question, “Well, what do YOU mean when you say X”.

 

 

What I mean when I talk about philosophy is the study of that which may be known a priori.

 

 

This, of course, gives rise to the further question: what may be known a priori?

 

 

My answer is this: the a priori is one’s fundamental commitments. Ontological commitments, normative comments, epistemological commitments, logical commitments, existential commitments…. What they are and how they fit with each other.

 

 

Such commitments are fundamental in that they are unrevisable in the face of evidence. That is, they are the anchor points of one’s web of beliefs such that anything else will be revised before them in order to accommodate unexpected data.

 

 

Famously, Quine argued that there are no such unrevisable commitments, only those that are more or less revisable than others. Yet, reflexively, Quine would need to hold that he was not fundamentally committed to this view about commitments in order to remain consistent. Further, it is not clear that Quine was not committed to classical logic in a way that did not sit well with his view on revisability.

 

 

Then again, Quine was probably concerned, not so much with the commitments we do, in fact, have, but rather the normative question of the commitments that we should have. Indeed, we all have commitments that (at any given stage in our life) we would not give up for anything (even if publically we express openness to revising our position). It is this fact of one’s commitments that I want to label the a priori.

 

 

Now, such commitments may not seem like knowledge, because they could be fallible. To bring this out, it may be pointed out that two people could have inconsistent commitments, e.g. a theist and an atheist may each find their respective world views to fundamental commitments for them. Yet, surely one of them must be wrong (unless you wanted to be a Hegelian about God, I suppose). Further, the fundamental commitments of some are more sparse than others, so that fundamental disagreement is inevitable.

 

 

This just brings out the essential subjectivity of the a priori. The choice of one’s fundamental commitments is your choice about that which is not negotiable in the way the world will be interpreted, and you can never achieve any greater justification for one’s such commitments than that they are your commitments.

 

 

Philosophy is about subjecting one’s seemingly fundamental commitments to reflection and conversation with others in order to test their standing as fundamental for you. If you hold a fundamental belief in the existence of a theistic God then nothing will be able to dissuade you of that commitment, though a great deal of other beliefs may become casualties of this commitment in the face of new data, including scientific and historical data.

 

 

It may be felt that fundamental commitments cannot amount to knowledge because they are not objectively warranted or justified, not even in the Kantian sense of being necessary conditions for human consciousness. I think that this is beside the point. I think that a priori justification comes from a belief being a fundamental commitment, and from the inability for any of us to transcend our subjectivity in the attempt to do better to ground our world view.

 

 

 

It is only our non-fundamental beliefs that require evidence.

 

 

I guess that I am proposing a form of pragmatic foundationalism. Foundational in the sense that some beliefs have a different standing before the tribunal of the senses than others. Pragmatic in that it is merely our inability to do better than to have these commitments that makes them inviolate.

 

 

The role of philosophy is to subject our ostensibly fundamental commitments to each other, and to those of other people, in order to attain a higher degree of certainty (read psychological stability) that our ostensibly fundamental commitments are truly fundamental to us. What is the point of this exercise? Well, the answer to that question must be found within the exercise. Some people never feel the need to go there.

Social Facts a Powerful Humbug

Last night I spent about 30 minutes trying to convince my parents and my wife that companies (corporations, incorporated entities, non-natural persons) do not exist – that there are simply people out there who will take your stuff, imprison you and possibly hurt you if you do not pretend that such entities exist.

Not only did I not make any ground with my argument, but I do not think that they even understood it.

It just goes to show how pervasive certain falsehoods are in our culture. It is no wonder that postmoderns can get leverage in their arguments about the slippery nature of truth, when people are so committed to the existence of things that are, in principle, ‘brought into existence’ by someone’s say so.

I proceeded to compare belief in companies with the prevalent belief that fictions are true in some sense. Again, I found resistance to the idea that all fictions are just plain false and there is not correct telling of a story except for a true story (non-fiction).

What does it mean when one’s intuitions are so out of step with one’s community?

What is more concerning: what kind of a folk ontology do people have that allows them to bring things into existence by social consensus? Or do they just not think it through? I know that Heidegger’s phenomenology makes a lot of social facts, taking them at face value. Yet, in phenomenology, everything turns out to be irreducible (it seems to me) and nothing is truly explained until one starts overstepping the mark with regard to the phenomenological method.

 Just a few semi-formed thoughts.

Contra modal realism

This past weekend I re-read Lewis’ ‘On the Plurality of Worlds’.

I have decided that my position with respect to Lewis’ modal realism is as follows:

1.      A world is only a possible world if it could have been the actual world (“@”).

2.      @ is defined as the world that I occupy (de se).

3.       No world other than the one that I occupy (de re) could be/ have been the one that I occupy (de re), on pain of contradiction  (and taking on Lewis’ stand against trans-world identity).

4.       Contradictions are impossible.

5.       Therefore, there is no world other than the actual world that could have been the actual world.

You might take issue with 1. as a proper characterisation of possibility, but I think it makes the right difference between possible worlds and actual, closed space-times.

Fictional Objects

In the never-ending quest for effort-free blog content, I reproduce below my comment here:

I was quite surprised when I first realised that there is a serious philosophical discourse concerning fictional objects, apart from the usual problems with any non-existent intentional objects. It struck me as a complete non-issue. There is no truth, no fact of the matter, concerning what happens in fiction – that’s what makes it fiction. Fiction happens when we use the forms of language that we usually reserve for reporting truth to say something that everyone knows isn’t true (but has some value for us anyway). I would put it in the same category as a game in which everyone purports to be confined to agreed rules. If there is no agreement on the rules then we are not playing the same game. It is probably up to Potter fans to decide whether it is the cult of Rowling and she gets the final say on this collective pretense. It’s all a bit of fun… I question whether there is any philosophy in it.This is not to suggest that there is no problem of intentional objects. Just that there is no extra problem of fictional objects. (I’m sure I will be proven wrong by a continuing debate – demonstrating that many think it is a problem).If the tone of this comment seems at all hostile, it is because this issue was first put to me after I presented a paper on non-existence and I am still smarting from being left speechless…

Conceivability and Possibility

Here is my two cents on the question as to whether conceivability ever entails possibility:

It is often assumed that finding that something is contradictory is grounds for concluding that it is not possible.

As Graham Priest likes to point out, there is no prima facie basis for making this assumption. Even the actual world could (epistemological ‘could’) contain contradictory things or states of affairs.

Without agreeing with Priest (because I do not), I think that this shows that it is not the conceivability of some state of affairs that shows us that it is possible.

First, we conceive of it, then we make a judgement as to whether it is possible, using criteria such as consistency.

I see no principled difference between conceiving of contradictions and conceiving of consistent states of affairs prior to the application of such criteria. Yet, such criteria make the sufficiency of conceivability for possibility circular, i.e. something must be conceived of AS POSSIBLE before we can conclude that the thing or state of affairs conceived of IS POSSIBLE.

What does this do for Kripke’s proof that minds are not material? Well, it may be conceivable that minds can exist without material bodies, but this might simply be a conceivable contradiction. Our knowledge is advanced no further.

Which is not to suggest that there are not other good reasons to be a mind-body dualist…