Bill Snedden

Yeah. That's why I said "still seems."

Understood. I should have been more explicit. I meant deniable without contradiction given our intersubjectively agreed-upon semiotic construct.

Uhhh....okay. I'm feeling rather dense today and I'm having a little difficulty parsing this. Does the above mean you agree with me or not?

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Bill Snedden

Hehehe...wise words....hehehe...

In the interests of full disclosure, I moderate this forum because I have an interest, not because I have any idea what I'm talking about. I'm not very well read in this area and the level of expertise displayed by you, Tyler, John, and others often leaves me feeling quite out of my depth. But that's one of the great things about philosophy. Knowledge of the history and other people's ideas really helps, but all you really need is a good brain. I think I'm adequately equipped there...

With that said, I think I'm speaking in an ontological sense, reacting to what Tyler wrote about ontological priority. I know that we specifically should want to avoid assumptions, but some "bare bones" ontology, even one without definite characteristics, seems logically necessary (that too!) given any reasonable theory on "truth", even a strict coherentist one.

I think the point I thought I made about signifiers is most directly related here (see below).

Interestingly, I just recently ordered A Derrida Reader via Amazon (along with a pre-order for the latest Harry Potter book!). I'm hoping that was a good place to start.

I hope that Luise will indeed provide some insight, for it seems to me that regardless of whether or not the signifier ever reaches the signified, the question is whether or not there is a signified in the first place.

How do ideas arise? If there's nothing but language, how do we get started? As I asked Tyler, if nothing admits of any particular characteristic (no intrinsic properties) then how do we differentiate between "things"?

I remember that you and I had a conversation resembling this at one point and I seem to recall that you averred that you were unsure if "reality", whatever that might be, admitted of any actual form. In terms of structure, I think I follow that line of thought. But in terms of actual content? I'm not so sure.

I don't really want to avoid realism, per se. I started my "philosophical explorations" as a realist, and at this point I think I remain a realist, albeit certainly not a dogmatic one. But, in exploring these ideas, I want to try and avoid "sneaking in" any "realist" assumptions. I'm trying to understand how coherentist conceptions of truth function WRT ontology; do they merely ignore it (it's there, but it doesn't matter) or do they actually militate against it (it doesn't exist).

At least, that's what I think I'm doing.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Hugo Holbling

I've stayed up late to answer you, Bill. I'm shattered, mind.

You are most kind. Payment will be made into your numbered account, as usual. Fwiw, i'm all for keeping this free of arcane and autistic rambling, wherever possible.

What do you propose, then?

Harry or Derrida? I have the former, so you can refer to passages directly in this discussion.

To be honest, i wonder in Wittgensteinian fashion if this question can be meaningful. From the prespective of the philosophy of science, i don't think so. I invite you to do so.

May i turn the question back on you to investigate the assumption that intrinsic properties are necessary in order to differentiate? This isn't a rhetorical move, i assure you.

How so? Please expand.

A coherentist would prefer to decide the truth of a statement by reference to the web of beliefs in which the proposition functions (i think that's how Tyler would put it). That said, it's meaningless to ask whether said statement gets at ultimate reality or not. I hope you see, then, my reluctance to discuss reality and yet my refusal to say that it doesn't exist or doesn't matter. It would make no sense for me to say either.

I'll clarify any of this as best as i can, but not tonight.

Dominus Paradoxum

Sorry, but I don't think you understand coherentism. What coheres is not beliefs or propositions, but judgements, and also experience. The reason the Idealists abandoned "correspondence" was because it clashed with their epistemological monism. As my friend Scott Ryan put it, if I have a genuine piece of reality right here in my head, why worry about "correspondence" with external fact? To the Idealists, there is only one ultimate metaphysical entity, to whit, The Absolute; in which everything, including experience cum judgements are coherently included. As H.H. Joachim or the early Blanshard would put it, the all embracing system which is the Absolute just is truth and reality at the same time.

Wittgenstein would say that you're confusing the grammar of the word "to mean" with the grammar of the word "to aim". As long as our words have an established use, he would say they have a perfectly good meaning.

And Bill, I suggest you check outWilliam P Altson's defence of realism about truth.

John Page

Hugo, it may interest you to know that an uncle of mine who was in the diamond business in Sierra Leone left me an absolutely ginormous amount of valuables in a safe deposit box at Willams & Glynn's bank, Dollis Hill Branch.....
I'm intersted in Bill's response, and to yours to the question "How do you differentiate, today?" Of course, it could be the same answer as Bill's, but I'm damned if I couldn't tell them apart.

Cheers, John

Amos

I like your courages Dominous Paradoxum.

It amounts to essence precedes existence and reality will sure follow truth (wherefore the word is God after all). We as humans look at the Absolute from the exterior and therefore see small fractions of truth that seem to be coming and going, as Luiseach suggested. If we were at the centre of our own universe the Ultimate Truth would be ours and all truth would come our way (just as all raods are said to lead to Rome).

Plato had the forms and the Ultimate Form.
Aristotle had the ousia's and Parousia.
Catholics have the daily mass and the Christ-mas.
Buddhist have the daily rounds of samsara and the Final Round of Samsara. All four of these are the same and the movement is always from Realism to Idealism (if that is what you people call it.)

Hugo Holbling

No, i think i do.

I'm glad you have a hotline to him. However, i think not.

Then send some of them my way and i'll answer your questions.

Without reference to a hinterland of intrinsic meaning, perhaps? I can only speculate as to what Tyler would say, but if i differentiate and someone claims it's on the basis of intrinsic properties, i'll be waiting on them to show me before i provide an alternative.

Gurdur

Neat !
I'll be in much later today to add my own responses.

Bill Snedden

Many, many thanks! (btw, I checked my account; are you sure you xfrd enough? )

/begin obscure Monty Python reference

I'm sorry, we only want questions about farming.

/end obscure Monty Python reference

At this point, I don't really have any well thought-out propositions, mostly just questions. However, in the course of this response, I hope to give a better account of what I'm questioning and why. I say I hope to do so...

Ooh. Aah. Neither? The book is titled A Derrida Reader, is edited by Peggy Kamuf, and consists of excerpts and essays from Derrida's writing.

I suppose, in a sense, that I agree. But let's subsume this issue within the next:

My question directly involves the experience of sensory perception. Let me attempt to illustrate by way of example.

Suppose I have two objects in front of me and am unsure of what (if anything) they might be. To narrow the focus, let's suppose further that I cannot see, hear, or smell these objects; I may only touch them.

So, I touch each one in turn and in doing so determine that they appear to be different in some way. Let's suppose that I'm able to qualify one as "rough" (like sandpaper) and the other as "hot" (like fire).

Arguably, once I experience the sensation and begin to conceptualize them (as "hot" or "rough") I enter into the realm of semiotics with all its attendant issues (ala Derrida et al), but let's grant that for the moment.

My question involves that which gives rise to the sensations themselves. If there are no properties intrinsic to existents, then why do I experience differing sensations upon encountering differing existents?

If there is no necessary connection between the existents and my sensations (i.e., some form of causality), then why do I have any sensations at all?

I'll leave it there for the moment. I realize that this is not a new question, I know that Hume, for one, discusses this in the Enquiry, and Russell, for another, in Problems, and I'm sure there are many, many others, but I'm trying to evaluate what little I already know in the context of what little I'm able to learn.

I understand structure to mean the relations between existents (in this context, anyway), including what we might think of as "universals". Content I see as dealing with the nature and characteristics of particulars.

Yes, I see that, but I wonder to what is that reluctance due?

IF there is a reality that is ontologically prior to representation and IF our sensory perceptions are somehow connected to that reality (causally or otherwise), THEN it stands to reason that realist accounts of truth are not simply doomed from the start. I'm not suggesting that it provides any sufficient support for them, merely that they are cannot be considered a priori worthless.

In addition, IF the above is "true" (in either sense of the word), then it would seem that coherentist accounts of truth got some 'splainin to do!

As a side note, I found it interesting that the reviewer notes of Alston's book that DP linked to contain the following tidbit:



Regards,

Bill Sneden

John Page

Not until I know why you think "Something exists". Please understand that I'm not asking you why you think you think that, I actually want to know why and how you think that.

Come to think of it, I want to know why everybody thinks what they think.

Cheers, john