My website!!

[Asher]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
and adjective

Only if it was at the start of a sentence, capitalized like that...

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Asher

All of the above.

Please don't show us your dangling participle.

[Immortal Wombat]

Same as if it were a noun then.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Please don't show us your dangling participle.

It's never dangling when I talk with you.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Asher

It's never dangling when I talk with you.

That's so gay.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Agathon
In what way is the nature of snow dependent on my way of thinking about it?

"Snow is white" has a universal quantifier. It applies to all and only snow. That's what the proposition means. It isn't necessarily true that all snow is white, it simply happens to be true.

What elijah means by out of context is a completely different world. Imagine a world where snow has never fallen. There, since snow does not exist, it is completely out of context. Therefore, snow is white and snow is black are equally valid. However put them into context, into any context where snow exists, and snow is white has more validity (being true). What elijah means by out of context, is without any context at all. When you put it in context, you have what he called "wildcards". Those wildcards determine the validity of anything.

Elijah's form of relativism, as far as I know, is that when taken out of any context, everything is equally valid, however when put in context, 'wildcards' apply, and thus some may be more valid than others.

I may be wrong, but that is what I think he means in the arguments we have.

Originally posted by Agathon
All this n dimensions thing sounds fishy to me.

I know what you mean, it sounded a little fishy to me, however it is just how elijah explains this (being a Physicsy person).

Originally posted by Agathon
It isn't more or less "valid" it is simply true if snow is white and false if it isn't.

Isn't something more valid if it is true and less valid if it is false?

Just a few thoughts. I don't agree with total relativism, but them I sometimes wonder if that is what elijah is advocating.

[Whaleboy]

No. You are making a mistake. "Dog" means dog. It doesn't mean you are in a different context. It means you swapped the phonemes

From your perspective, as the context that defines dog as being dog! Thats pretty much it.

It also happens that there is no such thing as an untranslatable language

German?

Like what?

The point where an idiolect/sociolect becomes a completely different language so indecipherable to the original language. I fail to see why language is specifically relevant to this argument.

You need to specify what a "context" is

Two boxers (n dimensions). Two fighters in a ring with a ref = context (n+1 dimensions).

So called "cultural assumptions" aren't really that fundamental

A lexical ambiguity on my part. I use the term loosely to describe the means by which different people can come to speak the same language (in most cases growing up in the same cultural context, the obvious stuff).

In what way is the nature of snow dependent on my way of thinking about it?

As far as you are concerned, it is dependent on your perception of it. A sort of idealism would be applicable, especially since you are actually perceiving to be not only the concept of snow, but also having certain properties, including aesthetic qualities.

"Snow is white" has a universal quantifier. It applies to all and only snow. That's what the proposition means. It isn't necessarily true that all snow is white, it simply happens to be true

Are you arguing it to be a sufficient condition?? Again you are applying the proposition to snow, whereas I am arguing that the proposition and the context are different entities. Think of it in terms of payload and method of delivery.

But there is never an absence of a context of beliefs and reasons so it is not the case

There is if you use the working definition of context as being judged by a psuedo-objective.

All this n dimensions thing sounds fishy to me

On the contrary, I advocate it on the grounds that it is the fundamental principle of logic. Dimensions are simply an abstract way of solving a problem, dont confuse it with spatial dimensions. If you have a problem in n dimensions, you have to go to n+1 in order to solve it, if you think about it, its the case everywhere.

It isn't more or less "valid" it is simply true if snow is white and false if it isn't.

But only necessarily in that context. "All snow is white" context of all snow, position "all snow is white" is true.

In the absence of any context, they are nothing, not even a set

Dont confuse definitions of context, I refer to the situation where there is no psuedo-objective method of judgement.

Which shows that it's a crazy theory

Now where else have I heard that?

Consistency, at the basic level I am talking about is merely not transparently claiming the same proposition to be true and false at the same time

In other words, something is true, it is true? I find that unsatisfactory because it does not account for hypothetical situations where it is false, unless one includes the actual context as a property of the position, in which case, one has merely created a new position, and the same situation applies, which is why I used the "deck of cards" structure in objectivity.

I don't understand what this means

Disregard it, it was an over-simplified analogy, you're better off reading objectivity for a more concise explanation.

Reality is not "a context" it is the only context

There's your problem. Begs questions of what is reality, and then Platos old one of different realities of different people, which would seem to bore out my position. Also to what degree is it an context and to what degree are hypothetical alternate contexts relevant. Also who is to define reality if one rejects Platonic idealism? It falls back down to my dimensional analysis.

Fine, it doesn't alter the point

On the contrary, unless you can prove there are physical/epistemological/metaphysical ( ) constants, absolutes etc etc, then relativism stands.

I don't see how this has any relevance to the philosophy of language or epistemology

It doesnt, I was merely describing the background to the method of analysis I used that *is* relevant.

But no judgement, not even a "relativist" one occurs outside of a context

YES!!! Precisely!!

You need to show just how this is supposed to apply to language and epistemology

Its a method of analysis, a means of solving/viewing a problem.

It just sounds whacked out the way it is

You should have seen the state I was in when I thought of it!!

That is debatable

So debate it

There isn't a "reality proposition" there is simply a fact

Ah thats another problem. I'll use a slightly unrelated but clearer example. Consider all that can be as your baseline. Then consider all that is, has (and will be? depending on your stance on determinism, its not really important here) in the sense of reality. This second layer of assumption goes on top of the bottom layer. Arguments are then constructed on this. Those that do not necessarily refer to reality use a different assumption to reality.

It is impossible to understand another person unless one shares the vast majority of their beliefs. Fortunately, it is also the case that there is no such thing as an untranslatable language. Thus relativism is false

The latter proposition is something I disagree with, so please explain, also what level of understanding is one referring to, and how is it relevant to relativism. I find your conclusion to be wholly unrelated to the reasoning in that case, please elaborate.

The reason for this is that since an utterance only makes sense in a context

Precisely! Out of context, as you described, it does not, so one has to rely on other assumptions in a different context, for which the beliefs you said are true but only in that context.

there doesn't seem to be a logical barrier to a being knowing everything

I'll spare you on this one , such a statement demonstrates relativist thinking

The absolutist argument therefore depends on omniscient facts/positions/true objectives etc, in order to defeat relativism and scepticism (in the absolutist context, not the relativist context, as the latter can of course always counter them, such is the nature of logic, nothing is beyond refutation).

If you want to make a case for total relativism you have to make it for simple cases as well - so it is better to stick to them.

I dont make the case for total relativism. In a society, after a point, relativism becomes irrelevant to the society (in terms of its consitutuent individuals) as it is forced after that point to impose itself on them. Liberty (as you put it, phenomenological liberty), in the case of the Mill Limit is maximised by rolling that point back as far as it can go without absolutism increasing as a result. However, a degree of absolutism is needed, when, in this case, someone breaches the Mill Limit.

And agreement most of the time. We only focus on disagreements because they cause trouble

An intriguing proposition, in the context of my argument, that would instead of creating discrete positions/subjectives, it would rather create a largely homogenous sea, with figurative "islands" of extraneous assumptions forming the dependent positions (some being indepedent to the dependents of course, i use the term to mean in debate/conflict).

[Whaleboy]

Sorry, I probably left way too many ambiguities by not including an article on transdimensional theory, but it wasnt finished in time. I'll post up when it is!

[Urban Ranger]

Get rid of the image maps (what are they for?) and use straight URL hyperlinks.

The interface could use some improvements, not bad for a first timer, though.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Drogue

What elijah means by out of context is a completely different world. Imagine a world where snow has never fallen. There, since snow does not exist, it is completely out of context. Therefore, snow is white and snow is black are equally valid.

In a universe where snow does not exist, the noun "snow" is an empty term. It is not a term out of context. In that case "snow is white" and "snow is black" are equally meaningless. Just as "Flop is wet" is in ours.

However put them into context, into any context where snow exists, and snow is white has more validity (being true).

Since truth value is a binary operator there are no such things as "degrees" of truth. This is also a hideous misconstrual of a technical philosophical term, validity.

What elijah means by out of context, is without any context at all. When you put it in context, you have what he called "wildcards". Those wildcards determine the validity of anything.

But this is such a bizarre view, it is hard to know where to start. The terminology is ill-defined. At one point a "wildcard" is said to be a personal disposition to believe something; but it isn't clear what role it is supposed to play.

Elijah's form of relativism, as far as I know, is that when taken out of any context, everything is equally valid, however when put in context, 'wildcards' apply, and thus some may be more valid than others.

If by equally valid, you mean "equally true" then this is simply a false claim. Philosophers use the term "logically possible world" to describe what elijah means by context (or at least what he seems to mean some of the time). A world where squares are round is logically impossible, but a world where snow does not exist is perfectly possible.

But none of this has, on the face of it, any interesting connection with alethic relativism, which is the claim that "a man is the measure of all things, of those that are that they are, of those that are not, that they are not" as expressed by Protagoras, or the claim that the truth of a proposition is relative to an individual.

As it stands there is no compelling reason to believe either of these.

I may be wrong, but that is what I think he means in the arguments we have.

But it needs to be explicated in plain language. As it stands it seems confusing.

I know what you mean, it sounded a little fishy to me, however it is just how elijah explains this (being a Physicsy person).

There's a book called "Intellectual Impostures" which MtG mentioned a couple of weeks ago. It is written by two scientists who complain about French (pseudo) philosophers using scientific concepts in philosophy without adequate justification. How ironic that the opposite is occurring here.

Isn't something more valid if it is true and less valid if it is false?

It depends what you mean by "valid". No, if that term is being used as philosophers use it.

Just a few thoughts. I don't agree with total relativism, but them I sometimes wonder if that is what elijah is advocating.

Fair enough. I don't know quite what he thinks.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by elijah

From your perspective, as the context that defines dog as being dog! Thats pretty much it.

The fact that the letter combination "dog" means dog in our language is entirely arbitrary. I can swap letters or sounds and the meaning doesn't change at all. "Hunt"in German means the same as "dog" in English. What determines the meaning of these words is their use in a linguistic community.

German?

I have translated German myself and Greek (which is a much harder language to translate from).

The point where an idiolect/sociolect becomes a completely different language so indecipherable to the original language. I fail to see why language is specifically relevant to this argument.

Because it is propositions which are true or false and propositions are expressed in languages. For example, "The man spoke" and "ho anthropos eipon" express the same proposition, but in different languages.

Two boxers (n dimensions). Two fighters in a ring with a ref = context (n+1 dimensions).

I find this explanation completely opaque.

A lexical ambiguity on my part. I use the term loosely to describe the means by which different people can come to speak the same language (in most cases growing up in the same cultural context, the obvious stuff).

Why does this matter so much. I don't see how it is relevant.

As far as you are concerned, it is dependent on your perception of it. A sort of idealism would be applicable, especially since you are actually perceiving to be not only the concept of snow, but also having certain properties, including aesthetic qualities.

First. We dont perceive concepts, they are abstract items. No one has ever seen or physically sensed the concept "Justice".

Second. Idealism and Phenomenalism are philosophical old hat. No one has ever seen a sense datum or a sense perception and they can't be detected empirically. They are really philosophical inventions invented to solve certain puzzles (which they turned out to be really bad for).

Are you arguing it to be a sufficient condition?? Again you are applying the proposition to snow, whereas I am arguing that the proposition and the context are different entities. Think of it in terms of payload and method of delivery.

That doesn't make it any clearer. In a possible world where snow doesn't exist "snow is white" either isn't a proposition because "snow" is a meaningless word, or it is false since an enumeration of the white objects in said possible world would yield no snow.

There is if you use the working definition of context as being judged by a psuedo-objective.

No - if you believe in semantic holism, actually.

On the contrary, I advocate it on the grounds that it is the fundamental principle of logic. Dimensions are simply an abstract way of solving a problem, dont confuse it with spatial dimensions. If you have a problem in n dimensions, you have to go to n+1 in order to solve it, if you think about it, its the case everywhere.

It has nothing to do with the formal logic I've done. And in any case formal logic is independent of a theory of truth. You can embrace formal logic whilst holding a coherentist or correspondence or identity theory of truth.

This just seems to me to be the use of a scientific theory without argument in a philosophical context where it doesn't belong.

But only necessarily in that context. "All snow is white" context of all snow, position "all snow is white" is true.

"All snow is white" is true in all possible worlds where all snow is white. In those where all snow isn't white it is either false or meaningless (depending on further theoretical constraints).

But none of this has anything to do with relativism since in our world snow is white (except for the stuff drunk skiers piss on) and people who believe otherwise are entertaining a false belief.

Dont confuse definitions of context, I refer to the situation where there is no psuedo-objective method of judgement.

Whatever that means.

Now where else have I heard that?

You would also hear it if you presented this as a paper to a group of philosophers.

In other words, something is true, it is true? I find that unsatisfactory because it does not account for hypothetical situations where it is false, unless one includes the actual context as a property of the position, in which case, one has merely created a new position, and the same situation applies, which is why I used the "deck of cards" structure in objectivity.

It does account for hypothetical situations where it is false. I can perfectly well imagine that Asher is the prime minister of Canada, even though he isn't. I can't imagine that Tassadar is both a man and not a man in the same respect.

Again, our ordinary objective notions of truth and meaning can handle all these so called "problems", it doesn't entail relativism.

Disregard it, it was an over-simplified analogy, you're better off reading objectivity for a more concise explanation.

More concise? You need a longer and more detailed explanation. It is opaque as it stands.

There's your problem. Begs questions of what is reality, and then Platos old one of different realities of different people, which would seem to bore out my position. Also to what degree is it an context and to what degree are hypothetical alternate contexts relevant. Also who is to define reality if one rejects Platonic idealism? It falls back down to my dimensional analysis.

I warn you now. Don't ever attempt to tell me what Plato means unless you want to be severely embarrassed, or unless you have read the relevant texts in Greek and are a competent translator of Plato's work (I can send you a rough copy of the majority of my translation of Plato's Sophist if you like).

Plato's dualist (or trialist if you count the Timaeus) view of reality doesn't really affect my point. One could make such a case, but it would require an implausible reading of Book 5 of The Republic and problems with parts of the Sophist.

As Wittgenstein put it. "The world is all that is the case. The world is the totality of facts, not of things."

Unless you are David Lewis (which would be hard, since he's just died) possible worlds are abstract constructs not real things. So since we are stuck with ours there is a set of propositions which accurately reports every single fact (i.e. are true) and their negations are false.

Nothing you have said so far, except idealism which is a non starter, implies relativism at all. Philosophers have a well developed vocabulary for discussing the issues you seem to be indicating and they don't have these problems.

On the contrary, unless you can prove there are physical/epistemological/metaphysical ( ) constants, absolutes etc etc, then relativism stands.

Nope. You can prove that relativism is senseless by reducing it to absurdity. Compare: I don't have to prove that there is not a God if I can prove that the symbol "God" is meaningless.

It doesnt, I was merely describing the background to the method of analysis I used that *is* relevant.

But not how.

YES!!! Precisely!!

No - because I'm referring to semantic holism, which you aren't.

Its a method of analysis, a means of solving/viewing a problem.

Or creating more.

You should have seen the state I was in when I thought of it!!

So debate it

I'm not interested in local relativisms. They may well have some merit. But global relativism about truth seems to me to be mistaken.

Ah thats another problem. I'll use a slightly unrelated but clearer example. Consider all that can be as your baseline. Then consider all that is, has (and will be? depending on your stance on determinism, its not really important here) in the sense of reality. This second layer of assumption goes on top of the bottom layer. Arguments are then constructed on this. Those that do not necessarily refer to reality use a different assumption to reality.

Presumably all this means is that there is a set of propositions (infinitely large) which properly describe the world at every instant of time. Theologically minded theologians have been saying for years that this is what God knows, so it's hardly a new idea.

The latter proposition is something I disagree with, so please explain, also what level of understanding is one referring to, and how is it relevant to relativism. I find your conclusion to be wholly unrelated to the reasoning in that case, please elaborate.

If you understand how everyday interpretation works then you'd understand why there are no untranslatable languages. Read the papers "Radical Interpretation"; "Belief and the Basis of Meaning"; "Truth and Meaning" and "On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme" by Donald Davidson in his volume "Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation". You should be able to find this volume in any university library.

The upshot of Davidson's view is that meaning is holistic (is spread over groups of sentences rather than atomistically divided by individual sentences). Beliefs are also holistic, they do not occur singly, but in groups (think of how many other beliefs your belief that "the cat is on the mat" presupposes).

What this means can be shown by a thought experiment (not mine). Say I want to translate a heretofore untranslated language. I meet a native and observe his verbal and somatic behaviour. I take along a pad and write down what he says and my translations next to it.

So say a rabbit runs past and the native says "Gavagai!". I write "Lo a rabbit!" as my translation. But he could have meant "Lo a collection of rabbit parts", or "Lo a collection of rabbit time slices". I take him as saying "Lo a rabbit" because that is the simplest translation for me. Note that since I don't have access to the native's background of beliefs I have to impose my own on him. Why? Because I can't have him holding true "Lo a rabbit" unless he holds lots of other beliefs true as well. Without this belief imposition, translation could never proceed since an infinite number of translations will fit the observed facts.

Say eventually I seem to get a good handle on the native's language and manage to communicate effectively with him and get him to do what I want. That's all I want to do. As long as communication is effective translation serves its purpose.

But if all I do is write down what I think the native means I will be writing down what he thinks is true (excepting lying which is a special case). But occasionally I may have to revise my translation manual to make him consistent. But on some occasions the revisions may be so radical as to be impractical. All I do in that case is assume the native has a false belief.

Cont...

[Agathon]

Continued... but there is no one way of assigning the false belief. I choose the way that makes communication easiest.

For example, if I have the native saying "Cats are the most common domestic creatures" and "Cats can fly" then I can either make horrendously complex alterations in my translation manual (e.g. the term cats used in this context means that and in that context this and so on), or I can assume that he believes (falsely) that cats can fly.

In no case can I have the native as systematically deceived about everything since I have to hold most of his beliefs to be true and the same as mine) in order to have him mean anything or to express a false belief.

I can cash out the division between what he believes and what he means in an infinite number of ways, but I am always going to choose the most practically useful one for communicating.

The same goes for the native with regard to me and everyone with regard to everyone. You might think that this means that relativism goes wild since an infinite number of translations is theoretically possible for every utterance. But all are under the constraint that I can't find the native systematically deceived about everything (since then I wouldn't have any idea what he meant and no translations).

What relativism tells us, is that I could meet a person who I could understand whose belief set was almost wholly false from my point of view. And that is impossible because in order to understand him at all I have to assume that most of his beliefs are true. Hence, if we can understand any speaker then relativism is false. And we can understand any speaker since there is no theoretical limit on the production of a translation manual that will be effective in communication and predicting the creature's behaviour.

The omniscient interpreter is just a way of bringing out the implications of Davidson's semantic holism.

Precisely! Out of context, as you described, it does not, so one has to rely on other assumptions in a different context, for which the beliefs you said are true but only in that context.

You misunderstood what I meant by "context". I mean holism.

I'll spare you on this one , such a statement demonstrates relativist thinking.

It does not.

The absolutist argument therefore depends on omniscient facts/positions/true objectives etc, in order to defeat relativism and scepticism (in the absolutist context, not the relativist context, as the latter can of course always counter them, such is the nature of logic, nothing is beyond refutation).

Nope. The very fact that relativists can understand us and we them disproves it.

I dont make the case for total relativism. In a society, after a point, relativism becomes irrelevant to the society (in terms of its consitutuent individuals) as it is forced after that point to impose itself on them. Liberty (as you put it, phenomenological liberty), in the case of the Mill Limit is maximised by rolling that point back as far as it can go without absolutism increasing as a result. However, a degree of absolutism is needed, when, in this case, someone breaches the Mill Limit.

That's ethics. It has nothing to do with general alethic relativism.

An intriguing proposition, in the context of my argument, that would instead of creating discrete positions/subjectives, it would rather create a largely homogenous sea, with figurative "islands" of extraneous assumptions forming the dependent positions (some being indepedent to the dependents of course, i use the term to mean in debate/conflict).

It doesn't "create" anything. It's a simple observation of what actually happens.

It's late.

[Az]

Originally posted by elijah


Does it show?

I wanted to say something about this, but then I said to myself "Nah, too easy".

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by elijah
Thats one area where Windows has Linux by the jugular: Website development!!

Website wizards hammer out front-ends by writing CSS and XHTML code into a text editor. WYSIWYG editors are for wuzzies.

[Az]

UR is right. ahh, I remember my first website.....

It had much better design than yours.

( too bad the account was deleted, since I didn't give a **** about maintainance. )