Hugo Holbling

John:

Regarding this thread and your latest comments in the relativism thread, i quote here a passage from Derrida's afterword to Deconstruction and Pragmatism. I thought you might find it interesting and pertinent to this discussion. We can mull it over subsequently, if you like.

John Page

Yes, but my beef is when language is emphasized as "prime mover". Belief does not start with the mouth's utterance of word, that is just the start of communicating the belief.

I am happy to agree (with Kantian's comments) in that the development of human beliefs was likely symbiotic with the development of language - after all, through language we are influencing each other's thoughts.

However, underneath all this I argue there are mechanisms at play that support all this semantic activity. Vive l'Ontologique!

Cheers, John

Hugo Holbling

Je comprende, but the point made by Wittgenstein, Derrida, Saussure, et al, is that there's no getting 'outside' of language or anchoring belief; talk of a 'prime mover' is then moot.

John Page

So they say!:notworthy

Hugo Holbling

That's the point of differance... :notworthy

jpbrooks

I think John's posts above summed it up pretty well. But I would add that it would also be impossible to confirm, for example, that our knowledge of the origin of our knowledge was genuine. Without believing that something exists, we could never learn to test our knowledge claims.

I'm really pressed for time now. I'll be back later.

Plump-DJ

JP,

Well i'm not so sure I follow what you say. For me, the meaning behind the terms we employ is the claimed correspondance to reality. In otherwords science and philosophy (and even religion) and our thoughts about them are meaningful because they can correspond to reality and we can at least have some certainty about that. Now you say that the 'real world' is the test of any philosophy? But doesn't this statement already presuppose an epistemic or an ontological filter that must be in place before that statement has meaning? Otherwise what you're saying sounds very much like pragmatism, which from what I gather fails to deal with any of the epistemic problems but just ignores them and sorta 'gets on with it'.

I suspect that I have missed your point here.

That's an interesting question. I'd say I believe the truth is somewhere in the middle. I'd say any item of knowledge we claim to have only has meaning because of the truth of the first choice above. If I were to admit the second choice as "how things are" then I find myself floating into the blackhole of nhilism.

Despite my own personal belief in God I find too much reflection on these deep philosophical issues leads down the path of subjectivism. (or relativism) Each to their own and all that..

junkyardgod

Suppose none of this is "real", there is no matter, energy, etc.

Suppose all knowledge is just a dream within a dream.

Would it make any difference? Would it feel any different? How can we KNOW?

I sure don't. Although i did stub my toe on the way to the bathroom this AM.

jyg

John Page

I didn't mean a real world test in the sense of pragmatism, accuracy or coherence would be more accurate like you suggest correspondence. BTW, I used "real world" in quotes earlier in this thread to differentiate between "real" and "imaginary" - although I acknowledge that people do imagine things and their imaginations are real.

Yes, my statement does suppose an "ontological filter" operates before statements have meaning and I further suppose that in the case of humans this filter is our minds.

Mind Experiment Example: A simple invertebrate has a brain/mind that does not contain/cannot comprehend a philosophy or even is conscious that it knows things. Nevertheless, the creature's brain/mind activity could be linked to its sense data and the knowledge derived from it. Through study of the creature we could therefore map out what the creature knew (an epistemic map) and how it possessed this knowledge (an ontologic map).

Does this make sense in the context of your meaning for the word "filter"?

Interesting. I'm firmly in the camp of meaning coming from your interpretation of what's outside of "you". If meaning was intrinsic (to outside objects), I think we would find it much more difficult to argue about that meaning - it would be easily measurable as a quality of the outside object.

Please consider that meanings are not abstract universals but values within the mind/brain that we share intersubjectively through communicating with each other. When you read a meaning in the dictionary it feels fixed - on the contrary the dictionary attempts to standardize the meaning through (the writers) observations of convention and usage.

This view does not tend to Nihilism, as you suggest. Meanings are abstract entities, but ultimately rely upon the sense data we receive from reality for their context.....which brings us back to the real world test of philosophy.

Have I convinced you that meaning is contained within the domain of the mind and is not an intrinsic quality of, say, a dog in external reality?

Cheers, John

Keith Russell

John:

The fact that meaning is abstract in no way means that it is subjective.

And, your use of the phrase 'intersubjective', has the same exact meaning as my use of the word 'objective'.

Also, saying that something is 'objective' certainly does not mean one believees that it is 'intrinsic', by the by...

'Intrinsic', 'objective', and 'subjective' are three different things.

Keith.