For the discussion of all things philosophical.
https://canzookia.com/
Talk about a Freudian revelation.
Yes, here is your deflection point, which was the answer to your first questions.
That's basically my point as well. There can be a precise relationship between words and worlds when the words describe and encompass a world derived from the laws of nature. Words that are "naturally" true for everyone.In reading the Tractatus, we are not being presented with arguments which attempt to establish a conclusion, for to do so would rely on the subject matter being the kind of thing that can be talked about meaningfully.
On the other hand, science continues to clarify any number of material interactions. How else to explain extraordinary engineering feats and, well, this technology in and of itself. Where's the philosophical equivalent of that pertaining to ethics and political science?But the aims of the Tractatus, and of philosophy in general, are not the same as the aims of science. Instead, for Wittgenstein, philosophy aims at the clarification of our thoughts. Through pursuing philosophy as an activity, we come to realize the boundaries of sense.
Like this will stop the moral objectivists among us from insisting their own facts regarding conflicting goods have allowed them to embody the One True Path to Enlightenment. Or, for others, acquiring immortality and salvation.The Tractatus ends on a mystical note, a term Wittgenstein did not shy from (unlike many analytical philosophers). Traditional philosophical problems such as the will, the soul, God and scepticism, cannot be resolved by appealing to the facts of our world. This is why they are mystical. In fact, it is not even correct to call these ‘problems’, for only issues that can be settled by appealing to the facts, such as the problems of physics or psychology, should be counted as problems to Wittgenstein.
This, however, gets really, really problematic, really, really fast. After all, how on Earth did Wittenstein and those in the Vienna Circle actually demonstrate that metaphysical propositions are meaningless? And that philosophical speculation regarding them is nonsense. What, they are exempt from The Gap and Rummy's Rule?The logical positivists of the Vienna Circle were attracted to the Tractatus. They too held that metaphysical propositions are meaningless, and agreed with Wittgenstein that philosophers should demonstrate that such speculations are nonsense.
And in particular from my own frame of mind "here and now" are human interactions that revolve around morality, politics and religion. Here even science has been stumped.But according to Wittgenstein, any allegiance to the logical positivist’s verification principle – which says that only those sentences that can be verified count as meaningful – is itself meaningless. The logical positivists wanted to align philosophy with scientific method, but Wittgenstein would regard this as misguided.
Mary does not want to 'bring concepts down to earth'.Pistolero wrote: ↑Sat Apr 26, 2025 4:15 pm How is language made more objective?
How do we define concepts, so that they refer to what all can experience and validate, independently?
How do we "bring concepts down to earth?"
Concepts represented by words such as 'god', 'free-will', 'morality', 'love/hate'....'male/female', 'gender/sex'.....'race/ethnicity.'
How do we test our definitions?
Popularity or application?
Here however, in my view, the distinction between language used in the either/or world and language used in the is/ought world is still basically the same. Yes, we might be at a loss to understand what those who speak an entirely different language are saying. But there are those able to translate it into their own language. And the translation either denotes objective truths or it doesn't. Same with those in specialized fields who have their own technical jargon. Those outside the field may be overwhelmed trying to figure out what is being conveyed. But again, there are others able to grasp it and then reconfigure it into an assessment more effable.Languages seem an important feature of our lives. The languages we speak determine who we can communicate with, where we can work, and what we can read or listen to.
The politics of human interaction. In other words, the extent to which the "rules of behavior" -- rewards and punishments -- in any given community revolve around particular combinations of might makes right, right makes might and democracy and the rule of law. Also, the reality of political economy and class.Languages are also political. For instance, recent years have seen laws requiring migrants to the UK to learn English. An apparent decline in numbers of Welsh speakers led to calls for government money to be spent on Welsh language promotion. Kiev saw rioting in 2012 in response to moves to allow the Russian language, rather than Ukrainian, to be used in public institutions.
Then this part...how deep do you want to go in order to untangle this given our day to day social, political and economic interactions, given in turn the multitude of variables involved. Or, perhaps, more important still, how deep are you able to go given The Gap, Rummy's Rule and the Benjamin Button Syndrome. The BBS in particular here. Why? Because so much embedded in human interactions is often beyond our either fully understanding or fully controlling.Given the powerful role that languages play, it is perhaps surprising that some thinkers claim that such languages do not actually exist. These thinkers – who include significant linguists and philosophers such as Noam Chomsky (1928-) and Donald Davidson (1917-2003) – argue that terms such as ‘English’ or ‘Russian’ signify convenient fictions rather than real entities. These thinkers challenge our common sense notion of language, and force us to explore not only the nature of language, but the nature of reality itself.
So, 'now' 'we' are, again, back to,
As well? Or, are you actually going to answer, and clarify, 'my question', this time?
Language and philosophy? Linguistics? Linguistics is said to be "the scientific study of language".Three initial challenges seem to undermine the common sense view that languages such as English actually exist.
The first challenge: Much of our modern understanding of the world has come about through natural sciences such as physics and biology. These sciences aim to give an account of the natural world based on observation and experiment. Given the success of natural science, several thinkers, including Chomsky, suggest that linguistics – the study of language – should proceed according to its methods. Thus, linguistics should examine the natural world and the place of linguistic phenomena within it.
So, what important point am I missing here? The common sense view I construe regarding the English language revolves around the historical reality that, for all practical purposes, encompasses its invention and its use and its evolution over the centuries. The vocal chords? The brain? Clearly they are crucial biological components embedded in the use of any language. But the words still have to convey something about the world that is intelligible to others who speak the same language. Then for those of my ilk that crucial distinction between the use of language in the either/or world and its use in the is/ought world.This is where a problem arises for the common sense view. For although studying observable aspects of linguistic phenomena may tell us, for example, about the vocal chords or the brains of language users, it is hard to imagine how we could observe any entity called ‘the English language’.
Now, this may well encompass a point that I am simply unable to wrap my head around "here and now". But for those of us who use the English language existentially, it will always come down to the words we choose [given free will] and the extent to which others either agree or disagree with the assessment we chose to describe things with.It is true that we can observe sounds that we call ‘English expressions’, but the English language cannot just be a collection of all the sounds English speakers have made (some English sentences have never been uttered, while some sounds, such as hiccups, are not language). The challenge argues that if languages like English cannot be observed in a natural scientific manner, they are not real; rather, the idea of ‘the English language’ is a pre-scientific notion, like ‘the devil’. We may talk about it in daily discourse, but the term does not represent anything actually existing in reality as revealed by natural science.
Now we're talking. Once you do get down to the language of any particular individual, the more my own assessment of dasein kicks in. Meaning, in other words, a distinction is made between language that is applicable to all of us essentially, objectively, universally [like the laws of nature and mathematics] and language that conveys only our own rooted existentially in dasein moral and political and spiritual prejudices.The Idiolectal View
Given these challenges to the common sense view, some folks believe that the phenomenon of human language is best understood not as a series of languages like English or Welsh, but as a series of idiolects.An idiolect is the language of one individual. A description of one person’s idiolect includes all the vocabulary and grammatical features of that individual’s personal way of speaking (or writing). Their idiolect is an independent, self-contained system. So Bob’s use of “I don’t know nothing” is simply a feature of Bob’s idiolect. It is not ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ according to any external standard.
Yes, but only if the distinction I make above is recognized in regard to the limitations of language. Given, in other words, ever evolving historical and cultural contexts and individual lives that can be widely -- wildly -- distinct.This view holds that individuals’ idiolects, as opposed to mass languages like English, are the only form of language that exists.
Again, however, in regard to these descriptions, what happens when we do encounter conflicting goods? For example, noting the manner in which the world around us is described politically on Fox News and on MSNBC. Thus the "linguistics" here will often be anything but "continuous with natural sciences like biology".It is an approach that fits well with a linguistics based on natural science. For while it seems impossible to observe and experiment on ‘the English language’, we can describe the idiolect of one individual, and study the way in which it manifests itself, for instance in that individual’s behaviour or brain. In this way, linguistics now becomes continuous with natural sciences like biology.
