Thesis, antithesis, synthesis

Gatorojinegro:

Yes, and they also say things like "I hope you change your mind".

Does that indicate they believe in radical brain surgery?

Well, I'd like to be able to take your word for it, but on this occasion I cannot, but even you are not using it that way.

You are using it to depict a relation that holds between a linguistic expression and a state of affairs. Health cannot work as a relational term.

But to cope with false sentences, you now have to patch this up with talk about 'potentialities'. So the example you give presumably names a potential state of affairs, which does not exist.

So, once more, this 'name', this sentence, is empty, and like "Sherlock Holmes" it denotes nothing.

To give it a denotation you now bring in a potentiality, something called for by the theory, not by our use of negation. So, if I deny that the named individual can speak Russian, I am not denying a potentiality, nor am I admitting one -- except on your say so.

You might like to respond with a claim that it does denote a potentiality in GWB. But, that might be to attribute to him a capacity way beyond his potentialities (excuse the pun). The alleged denotation creates the potentiality you need; you have to magic it into existence to provide a denotation for your sentence. So, a requirement of language alters reality!

But, once more, he might not have this potential. But we still understand the sentence in ignorance of that fact.

So it cannot feature in the sense of that sentence.

But there are several other difficulties with this; your theory will not work except perhaps with a very narrow range of cases.

If I say the following, does it even hint at a potentiality?

"The Nile used to be in Newark, New Jersey, but George W Bush had it moved last week to pay for his glass eye."

This is all in the past, completely false, but readily understandable.

Not a single 'potentiality' in sight.

[And since what it says is in the past, one such would be useless anyway, since the past cannot change.]

If it named (designated/denoted) something, you would not be able to understand it any more than you could understand this:

"Arthur Farfanickle"

You do not seem to have yet grasped the fundamental distinction between naming and saying.

Don't like that one; what about this one?

"Photons change into Cheshire cats every five nanoseconds."

What 'potentiality' does that name, yet you understood it right away.

Now you back-track:

But you are happy to say the following sorts of things:

So, they are names in all but name, then?

They work like names, picking out (designating) an individual (a state of affairs) in reality.

But this implied logic falls foul of the objections I listed.

Failing to use the word 'name' to name them, in no way alters this.

Like a name, if you were not acquainted with that individual (or knew of him/her in other ways), you would not understand a sentence said to you.

[By the way, I tried the 'states of affairs' link you posted, and it was dead.]

Quite right, but that does not in any way help your case.

Then you must be aware of the difficulties Wittgenstein got into when he tried to go down this route. You either end up with an infinite regress (and thus senseless sentences/propositions), or with a crazy theory of infinite complexity, and hence not one we could ever use (implicitly or otherwise).

[And a PhD does not guarantee you are right. Mine was on Wittgenstein.]

One can reason with fiction, and that need have no ontological implications.

I see no need to go off at a tangent into a metaphysic of the sort you seem to be suggesting.

Certainly, none if it requires we treat propositions (or indicative sentences) as if they were names, crippling our capacity to understand falsehood.

Thanks for the example, but what a monstrosity!

We would normally, I think, say:

"GW can speak English, which meant he could speak to Susie, since that is her only language"

No need for a complex ontology of named states of affairs to make that work.

Even if it were false.

And since I do not know if it is true or false, I do not need to know of the state of affair to which it allegedly refers to grasp its content.

We certainly do, but why do this in philosophy just to make a theory work?

[Especially if that theory does not work anyway.]

In that case, as I am sure you must know, we should have an infinite regress, with tendencies to develop tendencies.

But even if you were right, such tendencies cannot be governed by 'internal contradictions' or even 'unities of opposites', since they are vulnerable to the objections I raised.

So, even if you were right, 'tendencies' are of no use to dialecticians.

[And 'tendencies' no more account for things than does the old example: sleeping pills work because of their dormative qualities.]

Thankyou for that correction, but its title was:

"The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature"

So your description was not the most accurate one I have ever seen (since it was not about Aristotle, even if he featured in it).

His dissertation was on Democritus, as I said. Perhaps Marx got the title wrong?

Now try to answer the objections to your theory I raised in my last post (and above).

i'm pretty sure marx stresses there is an aufhebung, it's not just workers beating bosses, but workers overcoming their condition as workers and becoming free human beings. also marx stresses that the capital is progressive at the same time as regressive - it sweeps away parochial social relations and creates a massively interconnected humanity on a world scale, yet the bulk of that humanity is in chains. so i don't think it's simple dualism, the point isn't just to negate capital, but also to negate ourselves as proletariat.

Rosa, let me remind you that I agree with you in advising people to ditch the Hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis stuff and so-called "dialectics".

Now, i will address your reply to me.

Rosa:

Does that indicate they believe in radical brain surgery?

People used that expression before there was brain surgery. That is not a plausible hypothesis about what it means. Your total mental capacities and dispostions, including beliefs, make up your "mind". When you lose one belief, your mind changes. It's as simple as that.

me: ""Truth" is a term like "health"."

Rosa:

I said that it is a biological function of descriptive sentences to designate real states of affairs. So, you're here suggesting that biological functions can't be relational. But it is the biological function of a sperm to merge with an ovum in conception. That is a relation. Hence biological functions can be relational.

Rosa:

Why do you find it necessary to attribute to me things i don't say? I've already repeated several times that it is NOT my view that sentences are names.

Are you capable of comprehending English? I also pointed out, to repeat myself again, that there are two ways to deal with false sentences, consistent with Millikan's hypothesis that sentences denote states of affairs:

(H1) We can take false sentences to not designate anything at all. This in fact is Millikan's own view.

(H2) We can take false sentences to designate states of affairs that do not obtain.

By Ockham's razor, hypothesis (H1) is preferable to (H2) but only if it can account for all the evidence. The problem is, I think there are a number of things that hypothesis (H1) cannot account for.

So, let's go with hypothesis (H2). Now, you say that a false sentence such as "G.W. speaks Russian" is "empty", i.e. denotes nothing. That is obviously false. On hypothesis (H2), this sentence denotes the state of affairs of G.W.'s being able to speak Russian. This is a possible but unrealized state of affairs. Since there is something that this sentence denotes, it is not "empty".

Now, you object to this hypothesis as follows:

This is nonsense. We have independent reason to posit such a possibility. All of our causal hypotheses about the world denote dispositional properties. Such properties are an essential ingredient in explanations. All dipsositional properties are possibilities. For example, to say that this chunk of metal is conductive is to say it COULD conduct electricity. This is true even if no actual circuit ever flows thru it. That G.W. had the capacity to learn Russian follows from what we know of human potentialities.

Since you question hypothesis (H2), let me explain one of the reasons in its favor. There is a well-know problem with truth-functional Frege/Russell logic, the logic taught in symbolic logic classes throughout the world these days. The problem is that it is a failure at accounting for the logic of the words "if", "or", "not" and "and" in ordinary language. Yet this was supposed to be its great advance. But it is well-known among logicians that the Frege/Russell logic can validate fallacious arguments. Logicians don't currently have a consensus on a new theory to replace the old Frege/Russell logic. I think relevance logic may be the best replacement. But the semantics for relevance logic requires that there are possible but unreal states of affairs. I'll give an example to illustrate the problem.

The following argument is an instance of inference pattern that logicians call "antecedent strengthening". This is an inference that is provable in the Frege/Russell logic.

(1) If Alfred goes to Richard's party, he'll have a good time.
(2) Hence, if both Alfred and Betty go to Richard's party, Alfred will have a good time.

In the situation I'm thinking of (1) is true but (2) is false. It is therefore an invalid inference. In the situation I'm thinking of, if Betty goes to the party it will ruin it for Alfred. He'll be miserable, given how he feels about Betty. Hence (2) is false.

But in the actual situation there is no chance Betty will go the party. She doesn't know Richard or any of his friends. She has no way to even hear about the party. So (1) is true. Hence this is an invalid argument. But it is an argument that is provably valid in the Frege/Russell logic. Examples like this could be proliferated in large number. The Frege/Russell logic simply cannot account for the logic of conditionals ("if,then" statements) in natural languages. This is a huge failure of the Frege/Russell logic.

Now, how does relevance logic handle this situation? In relevance logic we evaluate an if-then statement by asking whether the consequent (the "then" part) would be true in all the real and relevant possible states of affairs where the antecedent (the "if" part) would be true. And we must use the same set of real and relevant possibilities to evaluate all the premises and the conclusion of an argument. The only real and relevant possibilities where (2) is true are situations where Betty has developed some sort of connection with Richard or the others in the circle who will be partying. A connection that makes it likely she'll be at the party. In those possible situations, (1) is false. Hence, this argument cannot be validated in relevance logic. This is why relevance logic is superior to the Frege/Russell logic.

But the semantics of relevance logic requires that we suppose that there ARE possibilities other than the actual facts, possible courses of events other than what has transpired. Since relevance logic seems to me the best way to account for the logic of conditionals, i think we have reason to go with hypothesis (H2) above, and assume there are possible but unrealized possibilities. This is in addition to the argument I gave about how to understand what capacities and tendencies are.

Now, as to how we "understand" the sentence "G.W. speaks Russian." This is a subject/predicate sentence. The relevant terms are "G.W." and "speaks Russian". These each denote something that exists. "G.W." denotes the imperial command in chief. "speaks Russian" denotes a certain capacity that millions of people have. It is therefore a real property. Humans use predicates to track things in the world. Whatever the mass of English speakers track using a term is the denotation of that term. We also have certain cognitive dispotions or capacities that correspond to these terms. This is how we "understand" the term. We can also understand words that have no denotation. For example, in the 17th century there was a theory of combustion that posited a fire element called "phlogiston." Subsequently that theory was disproved, and the commpeting oxygen theory, which is now accepted, won out. But people understood the term "phlogiston" even tho it denoted nothing.

Rosa:

"The Nile used to be in Newark, New Jersey, but George W Bush had it moved last week to pay
for his glass eye."

It's an empty sentence. We can understand it because the terms denote things, and we have concepts that go with these things. But this combination of terms fails to pick out even a possibility. As I said, sentences can be false either due to denoting nothing (failing to pick out a state of affairs) or due to picking out a possibility that is unrealized but possible. To be able to be false, the linguistic construction must satisfy conditions that are determined by the social functions associated with the various pieces of language. "George quickly John" isn't a sentence at all and fails to have a sense.

Rosa:

Again, you falsely attribute to me the view that sentences are names. I've already explained the distinction between names and sentences. In a sentence we have a subject and a predicate and we use the predicate to attribute or deny a property of something. We use the names to designate things that we then use predicates to attribute or deny properties to. I've already said this. Now you reply to this as follows:

me: "I would say that sentences are true precisely BECAUSE the state of affairs they designate obtains (or is real)."

Rosa:

No, sentences are not names, nor do they "work like names." See my explanation in the previous paragraph. You need to look at the social function of a linguistic element. The function of a name and of a sentence are different. That's because sentences denote combinational entities. A state of affairs such as G.W.'s being able to speak English consists in G.W. -- a particular animal organism -- having a certain capacity.

The way we claim a state of affairs obtains is by asserting a descriptive sentence in which the property component is attributed to something which we designate with a subject term.

Rosa:

So, let's say i overhear a conversation in which Alfred and Ricardo are talking about someone named "Alexander." I'm not acquainted with the person they are talking about. So, on your theory I can't understand their sentences. But in fact i do understand their sentences. We don't need to be acquainted with the entity designated by a denoting term to be able to use it to make true sentences.

If you were unable to use the URL i posted for my entry on states of affairs, do a Google search on Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The table of contents consists of letters. Select "S" and this will give a list of links to all entries beginning with "S" and you should be able to find my entry on states of affairs.

Rosa:

Millikan has a solution to this. When you find my entry on states of affairs at the Stanrord
site, go to the supplemental article I wrote on biosemantics. You might find this interesting, given your interest in Wittgenstein, since i explain there Millikan's solution to the problem with logical atomism that you allude to. Alternatively, you might take a look at John Post's excellent, clear-headed intro to, and defense of, Millikan's view in his little book "Metaphysics: A Contemporary Intoduction." Post defends what I called hypothesis (H1) above, that false sentences denote nothing, but true sentences denote real states of affairs (facts).

I didn't claim that my PhD makes me right. I wasn't giving an argument from authority. Since there is no consensus on this subject in philosophy, such an argument would be inappropriate. i only claimed that it shows that it is unlikely i'm "confused" about states of affairs which was what you claimed. I might be wrong, but a person can be wrong without being confused.

Your suggestion that we treat falsehood like fictional statements is consistent with what I called
hypothesis (H1) above. This is, to repeat, Millikan's view. This is the view that false sentences denote nothing. You've not shown why that hypothesis is mistaken. Yet Millikan's theory says that true sentences denote states of affairs that are real. Now, you deny that sentences denote states of affairs. So, to defend that view you need to not only refuse hypothesis (H2), that false but possibly true sentences denote unrealized possible states of affairs, but also (H1), that false sentences denote nothing. Since you think fictional names denote nothing but fictional discourse can be understood, how are you going to refute Millikan's hypothesis (H1)?

An example i gave: "G.W.'s being able to speak English was a necessary condition of his conversing with Susie, who only speaks English."

Rosa:

"GW can speak English, which meant he could speak to Susie, since that is her only language"

No need for a complex ontology of named states of affairs to make that work.

I can give many other examples:

The truck's being heavily loaded caused the bring to collapse.
Susy's stealing the bicycle got her into trouble.
The circuit's being energized is a necessarry condition of the bulb being on.

States of affairs are entities we appeal to to explain what happens. We don't need merely possible states of affairs to explain what happens since only actual states of affairs can be causally effective, but actual states of affairs are states of affairs, and the gerundive nominalization is in fact a construction that can be used to construct names of them so that they can be subjects of discussion.

me: "A tendency IS a causal power, like a capacity. The tendency of humans to get wrinkles as they age includes a causal capacity to do so. Now, you can ask reasonably for an explanation for why something has a tendency or capacity. That will require as a component yet another capacity or tendency. That's because dispositional properties (powers, capacities, tendencies, susceptibilities) are necessary elements in all explanations."

Rosa:

Nope. That doesn't follow. That's because there are basic capacities that are the natures of things, and these require no further tendency or capacity in that thing to account for them. The ultimate laws of the physical cosmos, whatever they are, have no further explanation for them.

We need to posit dispositional properties (capacities, susceptibilities, tendencies) in order to have complete explanations. We cannot get complete explanations simply by pointing to events. If i scratch this match on the sole of my shoe, the match lights. The scratching -- the event -- is not sufficent to explain the outcome. What if the match were wet? What if this was a bad batch of chemistry and the matchhead isn't combustive? What if the match stick has become rubbery so i can't get friction? The hardness of the match, the roughness of the sole of the shoe, the combustivity of the matchhead, the dryness of the matchhead -- these are all dispositional or structural components of the explanation of the event of the match bursting into flame. Ordinary laws denote tendencies or capacities. Ohm's Law, which electricians and electrical engineers refer to all the time, denotes a capacity that all metals have.

Rosa:

I don't use the language of "internal contradictions" or "unity of opposites". You seem to be confusing me with the advocates of Hegelian dialectic. But as I've made clear, i think, from the beginning of this thread, I don't agree with that stuff.

But you seem to have a problem of not paying close enough attention to what people write so as not to read things in that aren't there.

Rosa, Your latest reply seems to be mainly nitpicking and doesn't do much to address the earlier points substantively.

Your idea that people are referring to brain surgery when they talk about people "changing their minds" is just silly. If a person "changes their mind" then in virtue of some activity of that person, their mind now has a different property than it had before. If we think of all of a persons' beliefs, desires, cognitive abilities, emotions, and so on making up a person's "mind," their mind changes if they now have a belief they didn't before or they have given up a belief they formerly held.

Rosa:

Now you're making things up. I never said sentences were names. I said they designate states of affairs. I pointed out that names and sentences have different social communicative functions.

me: "I said that it is a biological function of descriptive sentences to designate real states of affairs. So, you're here suggesting that biological functions can't be relational. But it is the biological function of a sperm to merge with an ovum in conception. That is a relation. Hence biological functions can be relational."

Rosa:

You're confusing language with non-linguistic things. I had said that truth is like health. That's because I said it is a biological function of sentence tokens to designate a real state of affairs. When it serves that function, it is true, false otherwise. You objected to this as follows:

If this is an objection to my statement about the biological function of sentences, then it seems you are claiming their aren't biological functions that are relational. But i just pointed to one, namely the biological function of sperm, which is relational. A sperm has this function even if there is no ovum it ever merges with, just as it is a function of sentences to be true -- that is, to designate a real state of affairs -- even if some don't serve this function, just as some sperm don't serve their function.

me: "We can take false sentences to not designate anything at all. This in fact is Millikan's own view."

This was a reference to the hypothesis I called (H1). I differentiate two different ways to handle false sentences consistent with the view that sentences designate states of affairs. You reply:

What relation are you claiming to be asymettric? And why does Millikan's (H1) lead to logical difficulties? You've not shown that there are any difficulties. A large part of your reply just consists in calling ideas names ("Fido-'Fido' fallacy" etc). That isn't a cogent argument but suggests you have none. And how do you know that the example about Richard and Betty is a fictional case? Are you at all familiar with the method of logicians? It seems not. Logic is not about whether conclusions or premises happen to be true or false. Logic is about the connection between premises and conclusion in an argument in virtue of which the premises convey their truth to the conclusion, or at least the probability of that. What i pointed to is an example of an invalid argument that is an instance of the inference pattern that logicians call "antecedent strengthening." Any argument that exhibits this form is provable in the Frege/Russell logic taught in colleges, such as the tidy little truth-tables. Truth tables would tell us that argument is valid. But it isn't. Now, this happens to be a real problem for logicians. I know because I used to teach logic. You can be dismissive if you like, but that doesn't address the problem.

Now, you ask why i talk about conditionals. The reason is because you allege that there is no reason to suppose there are possible but unreal states of affairs to be the entities that false sentences denote. If a theory that is the most plausible theory to account for something requires certain entities, that is a reason to suppose there are such entities. That is how a lot of entities made their way into the physical sciences.

The thesis that sentences denote real states of affairs (an assumption shared in common by the hypotheses H1 and H2) is part of a theory of truth. States of affairs are taken to be the entities that make sentences or beliefs true. If you dislike this theory, do you have another to offer in its place?

Rosa:

Check again. Here is what I said about that:

"The state of affairs designated by "Either Bush speaks English or Paris is burning" is Bush's being able to speak English. Designation is not an essential connection between a sentence token and a state of affairs. Sentences can designate different states of affairs in different contexts."

This is explained more fully in the essay on biosemantics that i referred to earlier.

me: "Again, you falsely attribute to me the view that sentences are names. "
Rosa:

On the contrary, i've explained the difference between direct designation and attribution of a property. As I pointed out, names are not the only items used to designate things. We also use demonstratives ("this", "that"), definite descriptions ("the big dog next door"), event designators ("the assassination of Kennedy"). Meaning has several different forms or levels. Designation is a semantic relationship. There are social functions associated with terms. These imply rules concerning the use of terms, and are created by a stable critical mass of native speakers using a term to track certain things, like "black" to track a color. These rules can only be figured out by the method of hypothesis -- we can try to make a hypothesis about what would explain the actual practice of use. Such practices may be held together by propagation, as when a name is introduced for someone or something and then propagates to others who know that person and so on, as when children are first named, or new streets are named, etc. Language is a social practice and thus meaning in this sense here is sustained by social communicative practice, especially the ongoing use of terms in sentences.

Then there is another level of meaning. People acquire concepts when they acquire the ability to use a term. The concept is a capacity or brain "program" in someone that adapts that person to the social practices. Then there is yet a further level of meaning. Millikan suggests a distinction between concepts and conceptions. A conception is simply all the things about something that you belief it to exhibit. Conceptions change as we learn, despite the concept remaining the same.

So, no, there are levels of meaning apart from the thing designated.

To say that it is the "Fido-'Fido' fallacy" to regard sentences as denoting states of affairs is merely to assert that this idea is wrong. You can assert whatever you like. But providing a cogent argument for your assertions is something else again, and they are noteworthy by their absence from your latest reply.

Your discussion of names and our acquaintance with the things they designate (whatever that amounts to) is clever but tangential to the topic at hand. We agree there are names...I would say there are also other designating terms, demonstratives, definite descriptions, event designators, gerundive nominalizations. So, we agree that names denote things. Great. Now, how does that bear on hypotheses H1 and H2, and the view that sentences are true if they designate a real state of affairs? And if you disagree with that theory of truth, do you have any other to offer in its place?

You claim that predicates do not denote properties. I see no reason to accept that claim. I think we use predicates to attribute properties to things or deny properties of things, and in so doing we are also picking out a particular property to so attribute or deny.

Laws denote capacities. So I should have said there are ultimate capacities in nature. You say:

I never said "laws govern nature." What I did say is that laws denote capacities. So Ohm's Law denotes a capacity that all metals have. I also pointed out that capacities and dispositional proeprties in general (powers, tendencies, etc) are only one component in explanations. This means they don't cause any events by themselves.

You claim that Millikan has fallen into mistakes Wittgenstein avoided. It seems to me, on the other hand, she avoided problems Wittgenstein fell into. Of course, you could always try to provide an argument.

And so, we come to the end of your latest reply. I provided quite a few reasons why we need to suppose there are dispositional properties (as philosophers call them): capacities, tendencies, powers, susceptibilities. You know of course that Marx also thought this...his work refers to things like "the tendency for the rate of profit to fall" or "the laws of motion" of a particular social forumation. You cast aspersions on this whole idea but no good arguments against as far as I can see. You'd need to provide an account of causal explanation that doesn't make reference to these properties. Good luck on that one!

t.

Rosa,

I can't see you've provided any new arguments. You say you reject all "philosophical theories", yet you assert a number of things that appear to be philosophical and theoretical claims. As I see it, a theory is a set of hypotheses to explain things we encounter in the world. Whether or not a hypothesis is acceptable depends on whether it holds up through practical test. Practical test can include seeing, through logical debate, whether it is consistent with other hypotheses we have reason to accept. Our knowledge about the world is overwhelmingly based on the method of hypothesis and test,or inference to the best explanation.

Your assertion that i was basing the hypotheses i defended on "what people say" is ridiculous. And saying that truth and falsehold are "symmetrical" or "asymmetrical" i don't understand. What do you mean by that? Millikan's theory of truth (H1) says that sentence tokens or beliefs are true if they designate a real state of affairs. False sentences and beliefs don't designate anything. So, maybe your statement that H1 makes truth and falsehold "asymmetrical" is just a way of sayng that true sentences have a property false sentences don't have, i.e. denoting a real state of affairs. But that's not an argument. You're just saying you don't like this aspect of H1. so what?

Maybe when you say you reject all "philosophical theories" you mean to differentiate the "philosophical" from something else. Presumably you're not rejecting all theory. If so, then what is it that makes a theory "philosophical" and therefore subject to being rejected by you? And what is the reason for rejecting a "philosophical" theory over non-philosophical theories? A number of your own statements have been theoretical statements that are philosophical, like your claim that sentences don't designate states of affairs.

I reject the idea that there is any apriori knowledge. I take a "naturalistic" view of "philosophical" issues. I don't think there is any fundamental difference between philosophy and the sciences or knowledge that ordinary folks acquire via our native cognitive equipment, which includes the method of hypothesis and test (a method that people constantly use in real life without knowing they're using it, because it's an inferential capacity hard-wired in humans). It's not only people called "scientists" who use this method. Scientific communities are merely more self-conscious about it, and develop and clarify the techniques.

Explanation is an actual phenomenon. We can actually explain things. The traditional alternative view of what explanation is, if you reject the reality of capacities, powers, tendencies, etc., is the radical empiricist view, going back to David Hume, and developed in the logical positivists in the early 20th century. That view takes "laws" to be sentences that are generalizations about links between events. That's because Hume had proposed to replace capacities, tendencies, powers etc with mere corelations or patterns in occurrences of events. But it's well-known that this view of laws won't work. It can't differentiate between accidental corelations and real law-like relationships in nature.

Marxists have almost always rejected this radical empiricist view. Radical political economy is based on the idea that socities, or social formations, have structures, such as the class system, and the institutions it is based on in a particular society. Similarly structural racism and structural gender inquality are other structures. These structures impart powers to people. Capital itself is a power relation, in radical political economy. Hence radical political econoomy is committed to structural explanations.

A structural explanation means you differentiate between the course of events, and the structural context, of powers, tendencies, capacities. Thus the likely fallout of certain social events will differ depending on the structure of that society, such as its class system.

This method of explanation is inconsistent with the radical empiricist view of causality as just patterns in the corelations among events. What we want to know is, Why are there certain relationships among events? I'll repeat an example i gave before. I scratch a wood kitchen match on the leather sole of my boots, and the match bursts into flame. There are two occurences here:

(1) my scratching the match on the learther sole of the boots
(2) the match's bursting into flame

(Note the gerundive nominalizations i've used here to refer to two occurrences.)

We'd say that (1) caused (2). But the occurrence of (1) isn't sufficient to explain the occurrence of (2). That's because the matchstick might have been defective and split apart or bent like spaghetti when i tried to strike it. Or I might have had a type of sole that was very slick and couldn't generate enough friction. If i were an astronaut and did this match striking in space, here'd be no oxygen; hence no flame. Or the match might have been wet. Or this batch of match heads at the factory may have had a bad chemistry in that it isn't combustible enough to light. So, a complete explanation has to assume a whole series of structural states of affairs: the match being dry, the sole of the boots being rough enough to generate the needed friction, the matchhead's being combustible, the presence of oxygen in the region where the striking took place, etc.

Every adequate explanation will include reference to structural factors that are part of the explanation of why event E had the effects it had.

t.

The brute facts of nature are only ever accessble within a matrix of relations and signifiers ie what does it mean to light, what does it mean to strike the match, hence any appeal to pure empiricism is itself bound up in meta physics or apriori superscience, albeit one that like post modernism seeks to deny it's own apriori assumptions.

Revo68:

Sound like more a priori superscience to me.

[I am not an empiricist, or a post modernist, I am a nothing-whatsoever-ist.]

Gatorojinegro

Once more, your selective blindness seems to have returned.

I'd stick to this tactic, it means you can ignore what I say.

Once more, your actions/statements belie this propaganda.

I quoted a passage of yours that indicates that the above is not the entire truth; I suggest you re-read it and try to overcome this acute bout of cognitive dissonance as best you can.

Although psychologists tell us that the more you are challenged the deeper the dissonance will become.

Look. I can't solve all your problems for you!

At some point, you are just going to have to do some hard thinking for yourself.

You ignore what I have to say anyway; so there's little point in me trying to help you out here.

Once more, you seek to go beyond this, and aim to do yet more a priori superscience.

I can understand your consternation, though, now that you have been rumbled.

This is merely a metaphysical gloss you a priori superscientists like to put on such 'laws'.

And you can put the 'must' in capitals, block it in colour, or shout it from the roof tops, that won't change a thing.

Moreover, I merely quoted Marx to indicate I am pushing his ideas much further than he did.

And, your knowledge of Marx seems to be none too secure (as we found out earlier); I hope you are not suggesting that his comment about ruling-ideas (etc) only applied to German Idealism!

[Incidentally, I read your article at SIEP; it was excellent, I thought.

I need to read it again very carefully, since I think you gloss over difficulties Wittgenstein tackled 80 years ago, before he decided this approach was wrong-headed.

Even so, it was a nice summary of current a priori superscience.]

There is nothing to respond to in Rosa's latest since it doesn't provide any arguments. When an intelligent person starts trying to psychologically analyze you or tells you to "think it out for yourself", i think we can safely conclude she's run out of arguments.

revol is right that explanation is always contextual, we need to look at the event in a matrix of conditions. Radical critique of capitalist society has always presupposed this because we seek to get beyond what is superficial to the underlying structural causes of what happens.

when a disease is diagnosed, doctors look for a hypothesis that can explain the symptoms -- events or conditions in the patient -- such as some agent or st ructural condition (such as a genetic condition) as well as events (such as a car crash). viruses or bact eria are evaluated as potential explainers in virtue of their known causal propensities.

I think that so-called "dialectics", the thesis-antithesis-synethesis model, the talk of "internal contradictions" and so on only leads to confusion. But i do think there are real phenomena that people who talk like this are pointing to.

I suggested that these things can be understood without the confusing lingo of "dialectics." For example, instead of the Hegelian language of "contradictions", we can recognize that things -- people, animals, physical and social systems -- can have tendencies that are in conflict with each other. The simple example I gave was the biological tendency of a person's hair color to be replicated over the years despite constant cell replacement, a fact explained by DNA structure and various homeostatis body mechanisms. But there is another tendency, to age, and this ultimately may lead to a change in cell structure.

But Rosa wants to toss out all talk of tendencies and powers in things, and the contextual nature of explanation of events, and then I suggest we're not going to be able to articulate adequate explanations. Rosa is throwing the baby of structural explanation out with the bathwater of confusing Hegelian lanaguage.

And, oh, Rosa, "Wittgensteinianism" is the name of a philosophical theory.

t.

What exactly do you mean by "anthropomorphizing nature"? If I say that
gold is dissolvable in hydrochloric acid, I am attributing a causal power or
propensity to gold. If i point out that methane is flammable, i'm attributing a
dispositional trait to methane. If I say that a chunk of metal can conduct
electricity, I'm attributing a tendency or capacity to the metal. Why is this
"anthropomorphizing nature"?

t.

how can he find a clue from some words, surely that requires some sort of relationship beyond what is immediately expressed.

sounds like more apriori prescience to me.

you silly twat.

revol68, you're clearly the kind of person who when he feels the waters closing over, and his lungs starting to fill with water, uses his last gasps to abuse those who are offering him a lifebelt.

Rosa has offered you a consistent materialist approach, drawing from Marx and Wittgenstein, while you, imagining yourself to be a materialist all the time prefer this:

Well of course Rosa does, because unlike you, Rosa doesn't aspire to be a witchdoctor.

Love & kisses,

babeuf

Revol68

Eh?

Eh?

Now, what about those lessons?

Gator:

I rather think you do not.

You were the one who had to ask.

Yes I know, that is why I said a 'clue' could be found there, but not the answer.

You will be telling me grass is green next.

Why are you informing me of the obvious?

You obviously like to lecture people; as I said, my PhD was on Wittgenstein, so I do know about such things. But thanyou for sharing this neurosis of yours.

Whereas you seem to think that material objects/processes are controlled by human-like 'capacities'.

As I said, you are into a priori superscience, despite your denials.

Except in your case you like to animate nature into the bargain.

So, it's more like a priori superstition with you.

I think this is where you are getting confused, it's not that we think that material objects/processes are controlled by human like 'capacities' but rather they are only accessible through human capacity, that is as always already socially mediated. In your crude 'materialist' attempt to assert the 'concreteness' of objects you only manage to idealise subjectivity into a view from nowhere, that is suspsended above all fields of discourse and interpretation. Your hard materialism reifies into neo platoism.