Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Thu Nov 10, 2022 12:10 pm**

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 11:35 am
Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 11:26 am
Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 11:13 am are true claims "are not metalanguage.For the sentence to be metalanguage I'd have to add "and these are both simple sentences composed of subject and predicate with no subordinate clauses".
That's not what I am saying.

All claims are claims. That's what they are.

This claim claims that this color is red.
This claim claims that this color is blue.
This claim claims that this colour is my favourite purplish blue.
This claim claims that this colour stands for a united Ireland.

Asserting which of the above claims is a "true" claim is an assertion coming from some metalanguage.
Why not work with examples less dependant on qualia.

Like say the difference between....
Many people make claims.
and
Blue is the best color.
or
Blue is morally better than red.

Because, qualia or abstract ,your three examples are claims about what they claim. None of your three examples is a claim about language itself. Your entire post is metalinguistic in its intention, but your illustrations are linguistic.

Posted: **Thu Nov 10, 2022 12:37 pm**

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 11:35 am Why not work with examples less dependant on qualia.

I am not making examples based on qualia - that's just another useless word that brings with it a fuckton of philosophical baggage and connotation which always gets us further and further from agreeing on denotation.

I am making examples based on the linguistic encoding/expression of my own experiences.

I can encode the experience of this color as "red".
I can encode the experience of this color as "blue".
I can encode the experience of this color as "red".
I can encode the experience of this color as "blue".

No linguistic description gets closer to reality than any other!

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 11:35 am Like say the difference between....
Many people make claims.
and
Blue is the best color.
or
Blue is morally better than red.

They do. And so what? It's just words. Language doesn't correspond to reality - it correspodns to our percepts of reality; so even if you had direct access to Objective Truth at your disposal - what difference does it make?

And should I believe your words when you say that "blue is the best color" when you keep buying only red stuff?

Posted: **Thu Nov 10, 2022 1:21 pm**

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 12:10 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 11:35 am
Skepdick wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 11:26 am
That's not what I am saying.

All claims are claims. That's what they are.

This claim claims that this color is red.
This claim claims that this color is blue.
This claim claims that this colour is my favourite purplish blue.
This claim claims that this colour stands for a united Ireland.

Asserting which of the above claims is a "true" claim is an assertion coming from some metalanguage.
Why not work with examples less dependant on qualia.

Like say the difference between....
Many people make claims.
and
Blue is the best color.
or
Blue is morally better than red.
Because, qualia or abstract ,your three examples are claims about what they claim.

I'm not sure what you mean about two things here. Qualia or abstract. Are you equating those two terms? Then second 'isn't any assertion about what it claims. The sun is a star. Is that not about what it is is about.

None of your three examples is a claim about language itself. Your entire post is metalinguistic in its intention, but your illustrations are linguistic.

I could have misunderstood the context.

Posted: **Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:44 pm**

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:53 am The question is: do moral assertions describe actually existing features of reality? And, pending evidence for the existence of anything non-physical, actually existing means existing physically.

No, it does not, of course. There are things that exist but are not physical. Numbers, mind, emotions....and saying "they're just chemicals" is merely assumptive again.

And the equating of "physical" with "existing" is not at all obvious: most people continue to both believe and act as if these other non-physical things you call non-existent, and a whole lot more, are real. Moreover, the very existence of this sort of delusion lacks an explanation from the physical. So the burden does not automatically fall on your opponent to make his case, leaving you to pick up the default. It falls on you, at least equally, and arguably more, to show that the world is full of the deluded, who are simply imagining things that do not exist.

But really, it doesn't matter, either way, at least to my question. If "actually existing" means only "physically," then by your own account, morals simply "do not exist," and of course that means that not a one of them has any legitimacy at all. The quality of "wrongness" some people attach to slavery, rape, murder, incest, pedophilia, racism, etc. is non-physical, and therefore refers only to non-existent, delusory ideas.

So be plain: is that what you think?

Or am I wasting my time even asking you? Are you addicted to begging off on some minor point of wording, in order to avoid taking an intelligible position, because you know you can't? I'm starting to think that's how it is. You don't want to follow the logic of your claim to its ugly conclusions, so you're "taxicabbing" your view, riding it when it suits you to do so, but jumping out and running away without "paying the fare" for your decision.

Posted: **Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:59 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:44 pm that means that not a one of them has any legitimacy at all.

What are you smuggling with this unusual use of the concept of legitimacy?

If Pete is overstepping by saying that things which exist can only exist as physical objects or as properties thereof, you are similarly overstepping by insisting that there is nothing "legitimate" about constructed entitites.

Posted: **Thu Nov 10, 2022 4:28 pm**

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:59 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:44 pm that means that not a one of them has any legitimacy at all.
...this unusual use of the concept of legitimacy?

It's not even remotely "unusual." I'm using it in the routine way, and in the way that a substantial body of philosophical literature also uses the term.

If Pete is overstepping by saying that things which exist can only exist as physical objects or as properties thereof, you are similarly overstepping by insisting that there is nothing "legitimate" about constructed entitites.

The response to this complaint is easy, and is the same I would give to Peter: give me a "constructed moral entity" of your choice, and then explain what makes it "legitimate," as opposed to, say non-requirable, non-obligatory, merely local, merely temporal, arbitrary, optional, and essentially authoritarian in force.

Posted: **Thu Nov 10, 2022 4:45 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 4:28 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:59 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:44 pm that means that not a one of them has any legitimacy at all.
...this unusual use of the concept of legitimacy?
It's not even remotely "unusual." I'm using it in the routine way, and in the way that a substantial body of philosophical literature also uses the term.
If Pete is overstepping by saying that things which exist can only exist as physical objects or as properties thereof, you are similarly overstepping by insisting that there is nothing "legitimate" about constructed entitites.
The response to this complaint is easy, and is the same I would give to Peter: give me a "constructed moral entity" of your choice, and then explain what makes it "legitimate," as opposed to, say non-requirable, non-obligatory, merely local, merely temporal, arbitrary, optional, and essentially authoritarian in force.

The problem with all of that is the assumption you are making about morality needing to be "real" because that is obviously your conditional for the term "legitimate" to be used. But as neither Pete nor I agree with this moral realist assumption, it's not a valid line of attack.

You recently mentioned numbers as things that hold some form of existence. They don't exist as stuff or things, in fact they are made up, that doesn't mean all maths is arbitrary or illegitimate.

Logic is invented by humans, it could be different to the way it is - just look at all those options for alternative logics that Skepdick is trying to sell to you - that doesn't make it arbitrary (if it were Skepdick's args would be less silly) it makes it contingent upon certain circumstances and choices.

Morality is constructed, it is not arbitrary, but neither is it entirely fixed. It has contingent qualities that you are attempting to deny by smuggling talk of "legitimacy" and hoping that this concpet has no contingency, which isn't likely to work out.

Posted: **Thu Nov 10, 2022 6:26 pm**

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 1:21 pm
Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 12:10 pm
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 11:35 am Why not work with examples less dependant on qualia.

Like say the difference between....
Many people make claims.
and
Blue is the best color.
or
Blue is morally better than red.
Because, qualia or abstract ,your three examples are claims about what they claim.
I'm not sure what you mean about two things here. Qualia or abstract. Are you equating those two terms? Then second 'isn't any assertion about what it claims. The sun is a star. Is that not about what it is is about.
None of your three examples is a claim about language itself. Your entire post is metalinguistic in its intention, but your illustrations are linguistic.
I could have misunderstood the context.

I was not equating the two terms . I meant either or both qualia or abstract, different from each other but each , qualia and abstract , applicable in the context of propositions such as the propositions you provided as illustrations.

I'd certainly agree "The Sun is a star" is a proposition about the Sun. But "The Sun is a star is a proposition about the Sun" is metalanguage. I'll try bracketing.
"(the Sun is a star)is a proposition about the Sun" is metalanguage.

Posted: **Thu Nov 10, 2022 6:42 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:44 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:53 am The question is: do moral assertions describe actually existing features of reality? And, pending evidence for the existence of anything non-physical, actually existing means existing physically.
No, it does not, of course. There are things that exist but are not physical. Numbers, mind, emotions....and saying "they're just chemicals" is merely assumptive again.

And the equating of "physical" with "existing" is not at all obvious: most people continue to both believe and act as if these other non-physical things you call non-existent, and a whole lot more, are real. Moreover, the very existence of this sort of delusion lacks an explanation from the physical. So the burden does not automatically fall on your opponent to make his case, leaving you to pick up the default. It falls on you, at least equally, and arguably more, to show that the world is full of the deluded, who are simply imagining things that do not exist.

But really, it doesn't matter, either way, at least to my question. If "actually existing" means only "physically," then by your own account, morals simply "do not exist," and of course that means that not a one of them has any legitimacy at all. The quality of "wrongness" some people attach to slavery, rape, murder, incest, pedophilia, racism, etc. is non-physical, and therefore refers only to non-existent, delusory ideas.

So be plain: is that what you think?

Or am I wasting my time even asking you? Are you addicted to begging off on some minor point of wording, in order to avoid taking an intelligible position, because you know you can't? I'm starting to think that's how it is. You don't want to follow the logic of your claim to its ugly conclusions, so you're "taxicabbing" your view, riding it when it suits you to do so, but jumping out and running away without "paying the fare" for your decision.

I agree that the delusion that non-physical things exist, somehow, somewhere, is ancient and persistent. The original philosophical delusion was mistaking abstract nouns for things of some kind, so that the question 'what is truth/knowledge/goodness/etc?' seems to be asking for a description of a thing.

This is not a minor point of wording, and I'm not 'overstepping'. See if you can honestly answer these questions, rather than just dodging them or dismissing them as trivial and 'beneath' serious consideration.

What and where are so-called abstract or non-physical things, and in what way do they exist?

Posted: **Thu Nov 10, 2022 6:50 pm**

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 4:45 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 4:28 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:59 pm
...this unusual use of the concept of legitimacy?
It's not even remotely "unusual." I'm using it in the routine way, and in the way that a substantial body of philosophical literature also uses the term.
If Pete is overstepping by saying that things which exist can only exist as physical objects or as properties thereof, you are similarly overstepping by insisting that there is nothing "legitimate" about constructed entitites.
The response to this complaint is easy, and is the same I would give to Peter: give me a "constructed moral entity" of your choice, and then explain what makes it "legitimate," as opposed to, say non-requirable, non-obligatory, merely local, merely temporal, arbitrary, optional, and essentially authoritarian in force.
The problem with all of that is the assumption you are making about morality needing to be "real" because that is obviously your conditional for the term "legitimate" to be used.

Of course that's a condition. But I'm not "making" it. It's analytic in the whole idea of "legitimate morality."

You can't say, "You ought to do X, but my ought is not real," and expect it to have any persuasive or moral power in the mind of your hearer.

Now, if Peter wants to say "All morality is unreal," he can. That's at least consistent. What he can't say is, "All morality is a mere construct of the local society and time in which it's found, but you ought to regard it as obligatory to you anyway."

That just doesn't add up.

And I notice that you didn't provide me any such case. But I'll still take one, if you've got one.

You don't.

Posted: **Thu Nov 10, 2022 6:52 pm**

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 6:42 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:44 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:53 am The question is: do moral assertions describe actually existing features of reality? And, pending evidence for the existence of anything non-physical, actually existing means existing physically.
No, it does not, of course. There are things that exist but are not physical. Numbers, mind, emotions....and saying "they're just chemicals" is merely assumptive again.

And the equating of "physical" with "existing" is not at all obvious: most people continue to both believe and act as if these other non-physical things you call non-existent, and a whole lot more, are real. Moreover, the very existence of this sort of delusion lacks an explanation from the physical. So the burden does not automatically fall on your opponent to make his case, leaving you to pick up the default. It falls on you, at least equally, and arguably more, to show that the world is full of the deluded, who are simply imagining things that do not exist.

But really, it doesn't matter, either way, at least to my question. If "actually existing" means only "physically," then by your own account, morals simply "do not exist," and of course that means that not a one of them has any legitimacy at all. The quality of "wrongness" some people attach to slavery, rape, murder, incest, pedophilia, racism, etc. is non-physical, and therefore refers only to non-existent, delusory ideas.

So be plain: is that what you think?

Or am I wasting my time even asking you? Are you addicted to begging off on some minor point of wording, in order to avoid taking an intelligible position, because you know you can't? I'm starting to think that's how it is. You don't want to follow the logic of your claim to its ugly conclusions, so you're "taxicabbing" your view, riding it when it suits you to do so, but jumping out and running away without "paying the fare" for your decision.
See if you can honestly answer these questions, rather than just dodging them or dismissing them as trivial and 'beneath' serious consideration.

Hilarious projection.

You answer my question, then we'll see about yours.

Posted: **Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:06 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 6:50 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 4:45 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 4:28 pm
It's not even remotely "unusual." I'm using it in the routine way, and in the way that a substantial body of philosophical literature also uses the term.

The response to this complaint is easy, and is the same I would give to Peter: give me a "constructed moral entity" of your choice, and then explain what makes it "legitimate," as opposed to, say non-requirable, non-obligatory, merely local, merely temporal, arbitrary, optional, and essentially authoritarian in force.
The problem with all of that is the assumption you are making about morality needing to be "real" because that is obviously your conditional for the term "legitimate" to be used.
Of course that's a condition. But I'm not "making" it. It's analytic in the whole idea of "legitimate morality."

You can't say, "You ought to do X, but my ought is not real," and expect it to have any persuasive or moral power in the mind of your hearer.

Now, if Peter wants to say "All morality is unreal," he can. That's at least consistent. What he can't say is, "All morality is a mere construct of the local society and time in which it's found, but you ought to regard it as obligatory to you anyway."

That just doesn't add up.

And I notice that you didn't provide me any such case. But I'll still take one, if you've got one.

You don't.

You recently mentioned numbers as things that hold some form of existence. They don't exist as stuff or things, in fact they are made up, that doesn't mean all maths is arbitrary or illegitimate.

Logic is invented by humans, it could be different to the way it is - just look at all those options for alternative logics that Skepdick is trying to sell to you - that doesn't make it arbitrary (if it were Skepdick's args would be less silly) it makes it contingent upon certain circumstances and choices.

Morality is constructed, it is not arbitrary, but neither is it entirely fixed. It has contingent qualities that you are attempting to deny by smuggling talk of "legitimacy" and hoping that this concpet has no contingency, which isn't likely to work out.

Posted: **Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:28 pm**

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:06 pmYou recently mentioned numbers as things that hold some form of existence. They don't exist as stuff or things, in fact they are made up, that doesn't mean all maths is arbitrary or illegitimate.

No, but mathematics has a stable relationship to reality: it's adjectival, but it's utterly predictable, reliable and definite.... 2 remains 2. 3 remains 3. And 2 and 3 can be used to calculate spans of bridges , masses of objects, and properties of flight in the real world.

Not so with morality. Different people "do the math" on morality quite differently. They think burning your wife to death (suttee) is sometimes moral, sometimes not, depending on the "constructions" of the society in question. (Traditional Indian versus Western) The natural world does not offer an unequivocal reading of which you are going to have to take, but rather only probable interpretations, at most. And many people think even those are unavailable.

Peter would have to be one of them. He says morality is unrelated to physical facts. So burning wives would have to be fine. And which society one is in doesn't really matter at all, since societies themselves are stable, changeable and not determinative when it comes to setting what the objective moral status of any act is.

Or else slavery in the pre-bellum American South was just fine.

Logic is invented by humans, it could be different to the way it is

Actually, it couldn't. It would not be logic, nor do what logic does, if you did that.

Like maths, logic is a closed system of formal rules and symbols. I think you mean only "inductive reasoning," not "logic."

Morality is constructed, it is not arbitrary,

The first clause denies the truth of the second. "Constructed" means "made up." "Not arbitrary" implies "not made up."

Posted: **Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:41 pm**

FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:06 pm Logic is invented by humans, it could be different to the way it is - just look at all those options for alternative logics that Skepdick is trying to sell to you - that doesn't make it arbitrary (if it were Skepdick's args would be less silly) it makes it contingent upon certain circumstances and choices.

All this time and you aren't even close to groking the actual issue; or the point.

Your account of your own logic is incorrect. Whatever logic you claim to be using - it's not actually the logic you are using. Because the principles you claim to be applying don't lead to the conclusions you keep arriving at - if they did you'd just be able to explain them to your computer.

The logic humans use is, in fact much closer to the "alternative logics I am trying to sell you".

So yeah, your description/account of your own logic is 100% arbitrary. Because it's just a bunch of retro-fitted justifications, but it doesn't quite describe the actual reasoning processes you actually undertake - you acquired the description from the society you were born in.

If you were born in China; or India you would literally account for your logic very differently.

Posted: **Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:58 pm**

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:28 pm
FlashDangerpants wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:06 pmYou recently mentioned numbers as things that hold some form of existence. They don't exist as stuff or things, in fact they are made up, that doesn't mean all maths is arbitrary or illegitimate.
No, but mathematics has a stable relationship to reality: it's adjectival, but it's utterly predictable, reliable and definite.... 2 remains 2. 3 remains 3. And 2 and 3 can be used to calculate spans of bridges , masses of objects, and properties of flight in the real world.

You're quite correct, maths (arithmetic anyway) does map simple concepts to a visible world in a straight forward way. But numbers don't have existence except as man made concept. So that's an example where it's relatively easy to put together a very coherent and reliable man made system. So that one is "legitimate" without be "real" just because it's so easy to reach agreement that anybody who just decides to quus is easily identified as mad, foolish, or at the very least mistaken.

All that even tough numbers aren't real. Or "legitimate" if you insist that legitimacy entails concrete reality.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:28 pm Not so with morality. Different people "do the math" on morality quite differently. They think burning your wife to death (suttee) is sometimes moral, sometimes not, depending on the "constructions" of the society in question. (Traditional Indian versus Western) The natural world does not offer an unequivocal reading of which you are going to have to take, but rather only probable interpretations, at most. And many people think even those are unavailable.

Morality is the same basic problem, except it's a difficult version. Instead of simply agreeing that iterating through a counting sequence one time more than four times gives us "five" we have to make concepts such as fairness and loyalty and ownership all map to the real world at once even though they are as often in competition with each other as in harmony.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:28 pm Peter would have to be one of them. He says morality is unrelated to physical facts. So burning wives would have to be fine. And which society one is in doesn't really matter at all, since societies themselves are stable, changeable and not determinative when it comes to setting what the objective moral status of any act is.

Or else slavery in the pre-bellum American South was just fine.

I don't know how many more times he has to write that there is no such thing as an objective moral status before you will realise the problem in what you write there.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:28 pm
Logic is invented by humans, it could be different to the way it is

Actually, it couldn't. It would not be logic, nor do what logic does, if you did that.

Like maths, logic is a closed system of formal rules and symbols. I think you mean only "inductive reasoning," not "logic."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-classical_logic

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 7:28 pm
Morality is constructed, it is not arbitrary,
The first clause denies the truth of the second. "Constructed" means "made up." "Not arbitrary" implies "not made up."

Implies?

We have constructed rationales by which to reason about morality. It is therefore by definition not arbitrary. If you have difficulty distinguishing between arbitrary, contingent, random and so on, that is a you problem, they are not the same thing.

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