Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Peter Holmes]

The expression 'abstract noun' is a grammatical misattribution, because words such as nouns are real things, so the modifier 'abstract' doesn't refer to 'noun'. It actually refers to the unspecified abstract thing that the noun supposedly names. So abstract reification - Platonism - is built into the phrase 'abstract noun'. Does that sort out the confusion?

If you think that there's something abstract that we're reifying, then you'd think there's something abstract. We can't reify something that doesn't occur as a concept/idea/fantasy/etc.

Aside from this, you're not saying what you think signs and abstract nouns are, exactly. Where do they exist?

I've just written: 'words such as nouns are real things'. They're sounds or marks on paper or screen - such as these on our screens - or signing gestures. They exist in reality. They're features of reality. (Forgive me, but I think this is a very strange question. Where do you think words exist?)

To reify is to turn something into a thing that, therefore, isn't already a thing. I'm saying that what we deludedly call abstract things aren't things at all. To call them concepts, ideas, thoughts, feelings, meanings, and so on, is to (at least) risk reifying them, which is what I think we do when we say that meanings 'exist' 'in' 'the mind'. Abstract things are mysteries invented to explain mysteries of our own invention.

There are dogs, which are real things. The word dog is a real thing we use to talk about what we call dogs. And all the rest - the concept 'dog', 'the meaning of the word dog, the Platonic form 'dog', the universal 'dog' - all the rest are absurd fantasies foisted on us by metaphysicians.

[Terrapin Station]

To reify is to turn something into a thing that, therefore, isn't already a thing.

As a physicalist and nominalist, surely you don't believe that there ARE "anythings" that aren't "already things" though, do you? What could possibly be an "anything" that isn't already a thing?

I'm saying that what we deludedly call abstract things aren't things at all.

But you can't possibly have abstracts in your ontology that aren't things, can you? So what could we be talking about?

Abstract things are mysteries invented to explain mysteries of our own invention.

Presumably you think they're just marks or sounds, right? And there is no meaning?

There are dogs, which are real things. The word dog is a real thing we use to talk about what we call dogs.

Okay, but if you don't allow mentality or meaning, how do you propose that the mark or sound refers to anything?

[Peter Holmes]

To reify is to turn something into a thing that, therefore, isn't already a thing.

As a physicalist and nominalist, surely you don't believe that there ARE "anythings" that aren't "already things" though, do you? What could possibly be an "anything" that isn't already a thing?

I'm saying that what we deludedly call abstract things aren't things at all.

But you can't possibly have abstracts in your ontology that aren't things, can you? So what could we be talking about?

I assume you're being serious. I don't have abstract things in my ontology, precisely because I'm a physicalist. What we're talking about are the fictional things, such as meanings, that you think exist int 'the mind' - another fictional thing. The metaphorical mess deepens.

Abstract things are mysteries invented to explain mysteries of our own invention.

Presumably you think they're just marks or sounds, right? And there is no meaning?

No. No. And triple no. Words are marks or sounds, which are real things. And an abstract noun such as 'meaning' is one such word. That's the thing that's real. It's the fictional thing it's supposed to denote - the abstract thing you think 'exists in the mind' that doesn't exist anywhere. After all, we're nominalists, aren't we?

There are dogs, which are real things. The word dog is a real thing we use to talk about what we call dogs.

Okay, but if you don't allow mentality or meaning, how do you propose that the mark or sound refers to anything?

Does a road sign that points left refer to anything? Does it have a meaning that exists in the mind? When a meerkat squeals to warn the others (using a prototypical language), does it refer to something? Does the squeal's meaning exist in its mind, or those of the others?

These are rhetorical questions - just to avoid any possible confusion. Language began and in large part remains a practical tool and reaction. And why say 'I don't allow meaning'? Please don't be obtuse. We use the word 'meaning' and its cognates all the time, untroubled by metaphysical furkling about what and where meanings are.

[Terrapin Station]

Does a road sign that points left refer to anything? Does it have a meaning that exists in the mind? When a meerkat squeals to warn the others (using a prototypical language), does it refer to something? Does the squeal's meaning exist in its mind, or those of the others?

These are rhetorical questions - just to avoid any possible confusion. Language began and in large part remains a practical tool and reaction. And why say 'I don't allow meaning'? Please don't be obtuse. We use the word 'meaning' and its cognates all the time, untroubled by metaphysical furkling about what and where meanings are.

The task wasn't to ask questions about it. It was to explain to me how it works on your view.

How does the road sign refer to or mean something on your view?

I can explain how it works on my view, but my view is different than yours.

[Peter Holmes]

Does a road sign that points left refer to anything? Does it have a meaning that exists in the mind? When a meerkat squeals to warn the others (using a prototypical language), does it refer to something? Does the squeal's meaning exist in its mind, or those of the others?

These are rhetorical questions - just to avoid any possible confusion. Language began and in large part remains a practical tool and reaction. And why say 'I don't allow meaning'? Please don't be obtuse. We use the word 'meaning' and its cognates all the time, untroubled by metaphysical furkling about what and where meanings are.

The task wasn't to ask questions about it. It was to explain to me how it works on your view.

How does the road sign refer to or mean something on your view?

I can explain how it works on my view, but my view is different than yours.

Okay. I assume that means you agree I 'allow for meaning'. The meaning of the road sign is the command 'turn left'. We might say, 'What does the road sign mean?' And the answer might be, 'It means turn left'. We've learnt to react to the sign in that way. Here are some other uses of 'meaning'.

What's the meaning of this behaviour? (Teacher shouting down the corridor.)
This poem has many meanings.
I get your meaning.

We can explain all such uses, often by paraphrasing, without referring to anything abstract in or going on 'in the mind'. The opening parts of 'Philosophical Investigations', by that crappy philosopher, Wittgenstein, examine how language works in simple situations designed to loosen the grip of what could be called 'mentalism' on our way of thinking.

I guess we've shown each other clearly enough why we disagree - so perhaps we should leave it there. Thanks for the discussion - and I'm sorry I get grumpy.

[GE Morton]

Sorry. Are you a Platonist? If so, what evidence do you have for the existence and nature of abstract things? And can you explain the meanings of the words 'thing' and 'exist' in relation to those abstract things? If you have no explanation, then you're equivocating.

Well, we're drifting ever further from the nominal topic of the thread. But I suppose these metaphysical issues have to be settled before that topic can be approached.

No, not a Platonist (by any means). The evidence for the existence of anything --- anything to which a name, a term, is attached --- is its having a useful descriptive or explanatory function in our overall common conceptual scheme. Whatever satisfies that condition is "real." But there are different categories of "real" things, and their functions in that scheme differ. To say that (say) an idea is "real" doesn't imply that it belongs to the same ontological class as a rock or a star. Neither do such things as electromagnetic fields, quarks, or photons, or economies, theories, laws, or emotions. But they are all "real." They are "real" because they're all useful in describing and explaining some aspect of human experience. Rocks and stars are "real" for the same reason. "Unreal" things are those which have no descriptive or explanatory utility --- unicorns, ghosts, spirits, karma, gods, Platonic ideas, etc.

What is indubitably, undeniably "real" is human experience. Anything we postulate to exist beyond that is hypothetical, but those hypothetical constructs become "real" also, if they help us understand that experience.

Not so - he's learnt the ways we use those words.

Yes indeed. And that learning is nothing but forming an association between the word and the thing. He has learned the meaning of that word, and that meaning is the thing with which the word is now associated. To say that a word has a meaning is to say that it denotes something. What it denotes is its meaning, just as (as I said to TP), Bruno's having an uncle means that one of his parents has a living male sibling. That male sibling is the uncle.

The child's knowledge of the meaning of "dog" is not that meaning, any more than his knowledge that Paris is the capital of France is the capital of France.

Yes, we use ostensive explanations for the ways we use some words. So how do we explain the ways we use abstract nouns?

We learn how to use those terms by observing the ways other members of our speech community use them. If we have to explain a use, we can only do that with persons who already are somewhat fluent in the language.

And merely saying there's an ontological class of abstract things doesn't demonstrate that such a class exists. It's just doing what metaphysicians, such as Platonists, have always done. Where's the evidence? That we talk about such things as love, ideas and meanings? That we know how to use those words?

Yes --- that is exactly what it means, but with a caveat: that we know how to use those words in ways that are informative and have explanatory power. (Which, BTW, was not what Plato was doing, though I'm sure he thought he was).

That's an article of metaphysical faith.

Hardly. It is a matter of direct, and common, experience. But I admit that the "common" part is somewhat conjectural. I know that I have had ideas, experienced love, etc., but I can only infer that you have from your words and behaviors.

And I think you're being obtuse. I'm saying that what a word means can be nothing other than the way(s) we use it. We use the word 'dog' to talk about the things we call dogs. There's no abstract thing - 'the meaning of the word 'dog' - that exists somehow, somewhere. What kind of absurd delusion is that?

Well, you've claimed there are no abstract things. You prefer to reserve the word "thing" for concrete, tangible things which obey the laws of physics. But that is clearly not how the word is used in English, and so restricting it renders the lion's share of common speech meaningless. Yes, the meaning of the word "dog" exists. It exists within every community of English speakers, as do the meanings of every other English word. But the tests for its existence are not the same as the tests for whether a petroleum deposit exists, or whether life exists on Mars.

To quote Hamlet: " There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Correspondence theories aren't merely inadequate. They're mistaken. To say 'the assertion 'snow is white' is true because snow is white' is to state a fatuous tautology - a purely linguistic exercise.

Nope. That is because the truth conditions for a proposition P in language L are specified in a metalanguage, L1. You might read Tarski, or this:

https://www.iep.utm.edu/s-truth/

[Terrapin Station]

We can explain all such uses, often by paraphrasing, without referring to anything abstract in or going on 'in the mind'.

I don't think we can, though, which is why I'm challenging you to do so.

The opening parts of 'Philosophical Investigations', by that crappy philosopher, Wittgenstein, examine how language works in simple situations designed to loosen the grip of what could be called 'mentalism' on our way of thinking.

I could detail all of the problems I have with that text (and I started to on another forum where I used to participate . . . I didn't as far into the book as I wanted to re my comments, but there's quite a bit here):

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... t-together

[Terrapin Station]

The evidence for the existence of anything --- anything to which a name, a term, is attached --- is its having a useful descriptive or explanatory function in our overall common conceptual scheme.

What? No. The evidence for the existence of something is phenomenal occurrences. For example, you're in the forest and you see something scurry by--that's evidence of something mobile living in the forest. It's irrelevant whether that has a "useful descriptive or explanatory function in our overall conceptual scheme" (and it certainly doesn't have to be a common conceptual scheme).

A normal lame objection to comments like I just made is to point out that I'm describing the phenomenal occurrence in conceptual terms, etc., but that's a necessity of writing posts on a board like this. There's evidence for the entity in question regardless of assigning any concepts etc. to it. We just can't type the experience of gaining phenomenal evidence without assigning concepts to it in a post. This sort of objection is once again an example of use/mention confusion.

Whatever satisfies that condition is "real."

Consensus theory of truth crap. The conformism fetishist's wet dream. "Real" doesn't at all hinge on us, our concepts, and certainly not on agreement. It either refers to the fact that something occurs extramentally, or simply the fact that it occurs at all (including mentally), depending on whether we're going with the traditional philosophical usage or the more recent colloquial usage.

Yes indeed. And that learning is nothing but forming an association between the word and the thing. He has learned the meaning of that word, and that meaning is the thing with which the word is now associated.

It's incoherent to say that meaning is something other than the association.

[Peter Holmes]

Sorry. Are you a Platonist? If so, what evidence do you have for the existence and nature of abstract things? And can you explain the meanings of the words 'thing' and 'exist' in relation to those abstract things? If you have no explanation, then you're equivocating.

Well, we're drifting ever further from the nominal topic of the thread. But I suppose these metaphysical issues have to be settled before that topic can be approached.

I agree that we've strayed - and I confess to having missed your answer to my OP question. Perhaps we can get back to that soon.

No, not a Platonist (by any means). The evidence for the existence of anything --- anything to which a name, a term, is attached --- is its having a useful descriptive or explanatory function in our overall common conceptual scheme. Whatever satisfies that condition is "real." But there are different categories of "real" things, and their functions in that scheme differ. To say that (say) an idea is "real" doesn't imply that it belongs to the same ontological class as a rock or a star. Neither do such things as electromagnetic fields, quarks, or photons, or economies, theories, laws, or emotions. But they are all "real." They are "real" because they're all useful in describing and explaining some aspect of human experience. Rocks and stars are "real" for the same reason. "Unreal" things are those which have no descriptive or explanatory utility --- unicorns, ghosts, spirits, karma, gods, Platonic ideas, etc.

I asked for evidence for the existence of abstract things. Your answer is that a thing we've given a name is real if it has descriptive or explanatory utility - which isn't evidence of any kind. Your use of quote marks for the word real in this context is puzzling. I wonder what the difference is between real things and 'real' things.

And anyway, the idea is ridiculous, because things that exist, such as dogs, have nothing decriptive or explanatory about them. Existence has nothing to do with descriptions or explanations. The evidence for the existence of dogs is that there are dogs - demonstrably real things, whether or not we name and describe them. And the same applies to rocks and stars - other demonstrably real things. To say they're real because they help to describe or explain some aspect of human experience is bizarre, back-to-front nonsense.

And, to ice the cake, your claim that things such as spirits, gods and Platonic ideas have no descriptive or explanatory utility is patently false - which is why belief in their existence persists. The absence evidence for their existence is what actually makes it rational to think they don't exist. And that's the case for abstract things. Your criterion for evidence, along with your ontology, is laughable.

What is indubitably, undeniably "real" is human experience. Anything we postulate to exist beyond that is hypothetical, but those hypothetical constructs become "real" also, if they help us understand that experience.

So, you think dogs and rocks are only 'real' because they're 'hypothetical constructs' that help us understand our experience of dogs and rocks. But then, why is human experience 'real' (not real?)? Isn't that another hypothetical construct? (This is nonsense.)

Not so - he's learnt the ways we use those words.

Yes indeed. And that learning is nothing but forming an association between the word and the thing. He has learned the meaning of that word, and that meaning is the thing with which the word is now associated. To say that a word has a meaning is to say that it denotes something. What it denotes is its meaning, just as (as I said to TP), Bruno's having an uncle means that one of his parents has a living male sibling. That male sibling is the uncle.

I've explained this elementary mistake. A dog is a real thing - a feature of reality that exists. It's not the meaning of the word dog. We just use the word dog to talk about the things we call dogs. To say real things are the meanings of names is back-to-front. But I agree with your description of what using the word dog consists of.

The child's knowledge of the meaning of "dog" is not that meaning, any more than his knowledge that Paris is the capital of France is the capital of France.

I don't even understand what that suggestion means - so I'm with you here as well.

Yes, we use ostensive explanations for the ways we use some words. So how do we explain the ways we use abstract nouns?

We learn how to use those terms by observing the ways other members of our speech community use them. If we have to explain a use, we can only do that with persons who already are somewhat fluent in the language.

Not so. Very young children learn the uses of some abstract nouns, such as 'love' and 'good'. The absurdity of metaphysical speculation about what and where supposed abstract things are comes, fortunately, much later, and only to the philosophically deluded.

And merely saying there's an ontological class of abstract things doesn't demonstrate that such a class exists. It's just doing what metaphysicians, such as Platonists, have always done. Where's the evidence? That we talk about such things as love, ideas and meanings? That we know how to use those words?

Yes --- that is exactly what it means, but with a caveat: that we know how to use those words in ways that are informative and have explanatory power. (Which, BTW, was not what Plato was doing, though I'm sure he thought he was).

So you think the ontological class of abstract things exists because we know how to use abstract nouns. Back to the nonsense, I'm afraid.

That's an article of metaphysical faith.

Hardly. It is a matter of direct, and common, experience. But I admit that the "common" part is somewhat conjectural. I know that I have had ideas, experienced love, etc., but I can only infer that you have from your words and behaviors.

We learn how to use abstract nouns such as 'idea' and 'love' in exactly the same way as we learn how to use concrete nouns such as 'dog' and 'rock' - from other people's words and behaviour. And if you can only infer that they have ideas and feel love, how can you be sure that you have ideas and feel love? How can you be sure that you what those words mean?

And I think you're being obtuse. I'm saying that what a word means can be nothing other than the way(s) we use it. We use the word 'dog' to talk about the things we call dogs. There's no abstract thing - 'the meaning of the word 'dog' - that exists somehow, somewhere. What kind of absurd delusion is that?

Well, you've claimed there are no abstract things. You prefer to reserve the word "thing" for concrete, tangible things which obey the laws of physics. But that is clearly not how the word is used in English, and so restricting it renders the lion's share of common speech meaningless. Yes, the meaning of the word "dog" exists. It exists within every community of English speakers, as do the meanings of every other English word. But the tests for its existence are not the same as the tests for whether a petroleum deposit exists, or whether life exists on Mars.

Nope. It's words and the ways we use them that exist. Abstract things don't exist. You've provided no evidence for their existence, and it's bizarre to speculate that they do exist anyway.

To quote Hamlet: " There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

Correspondence theories aren't merely inadequate. They're mistaken. To say 'the assertion 'snow is white' is true because snow is white' is to state a fatuous tautology - a purely linguistic exercise.

Nope. That is because the truth conditions for a proposition P in language L are specified in a metalanguage, L1. You might read Tarski, or this:

https://www.iep.utm.edu/s-truth/

A metalanguage is just another language with different expressions. And so-called truth conditions are nothing more than postulates that end in circular arguments. The truth isn't out there any more than falsehood is. And logic deals with language, not reality.

[Terrapin Station]

I asked for evidence for the existence of abstract things. Your answer is that a thing we've given a name is real if it has descriptive or explanatory utility - which isn't evidence of any kind. Your use of quote marks for the word real in this context is puzzling. I wonder what the difference is between real things and 'real' things.

He seems to often resort to "this normal way that we talk about things is good enough/it's all I need to mention to quell any challenge about it" tactic. Which, given that he seems to lean towards the consensus theory of truth, isn't surprising, but it's a really lame approach to doing philosophy.

Re abstracts, I don't know if it was clear to you before that my take on them is that abstraction is a particular sort of way that we think about things, where we gloss over differences in a number of particulars to create a conceptual category that can arch over the particulars in question and conceptually lump them all together as "the same thing." (This can also be done with respect to thinking itself--for example, the way that we think about relations, which results in concepts of logic and mathematics.) As such, on my view, abstraction amounts to particular, concrete events in our brains. (So in this sense, I fall into the "conceptualist" camp of nominalism--universals are concepts we devise via the process of abstraction, where those concepts are particular, concrete brain events.)

[Sculptor1]

Good. I see. But it was not what you seemed to be saying.
If a thought is a thing, then an idea, a concept and a meaning is a thing.
I think it is worth remembering that such things are no bounded, by co-dependant on many other things concrete or mental or both.

But I would say ideas, concepts, meanings are things. They're concrete brain states. "Mental" things are concrete things--they're brain states.

Whilst I agree, there is a respectable difference between a collection of neurons and what constitutes an idea, You can't dissect one out of a brain and expect it to be a thing you can share.

I'm guessing you're using "codependent" to refer to influences, etc. but that's no different than talking about something like a table. A table requires a lot of different things that aren't the table, otherwise the table won't exist, but that doesn't change the fact that the table is a thing, a concrete object. The table isn't the same thing as the furniture maker who made it, or the lumberjack who provided the wood, etc.

Actually there is no such thing as a table. There is a mass of wood and material that makes it, but what makes it a "table" is the idea of the table.
I think the problem is the idea of a thing, as it is an inescapable fact that a thing is an idea first and foremost.

[Terrapin Station]

Whilst I agree, there is a respectable difference between a collection of neurons and what constitutes an idea, You can't dissect one out of a brain and expect it to be a thing you can share.

Because the states in question consist of complex, discontinuous locations, and the dynamicism of it is essential, you could only "give it to another person" so to speak by giving them a whole brain transplant, although then, of course it amounts to more of a body transplant. Our sense of personal identity occurs as brain states, so the person whose body we're putting the brain into would cease to exist in terms of their personal identity--unless we're hooking their brain up elsewhere, but that doesn't make any brain states shareable in the relevant sense.

Actually there is no such thing as a table. There is a mass of wood and material that makes it, but what makes it a "table" is the idea of the table.

You're committing the sophomoric use/mention fallacy of conflating concepts and what they're concepts of or in response to.

[GE Morton]

The evidence for the existence of anything --- anything to which a name, a term, is attached --- is its having a useful descriptive or explanatory function in our overall common conceptual scheme.

What? No. The evidence for the existence of something is phenomenal occurrences.

No. Only evidence for the existence of certain classes of things is sensory phenomena (which is what I think you mean by "phenomenal occurrences"). Different sorts of evidence are germane to other classes of things. For example, a valid proof is evidence that a that a largest prime does not exist; your ability to state what you ate for breakfast is evidence that memory exists; that a mother sacrifices herself to save her child is evidence that love exists; that some new way of doing something proves superior to previous methods is evidence that ideas exist; that you hand me the salt shaker in response to my request, "Please pass the salt," is evidence that meanings (for words) exist and that we both know what they are for those words. I.e., we don't confirm the existence of love, ideas, meanings, mathematical entities, by looking at them or touching them.

For example, you're in the forest and you see something scurry by--that's evidence of something mobile living in the forest.

Yes, it is.

It's irrelevant whether that has a "useful descriptive or explanatory function in our overall conceptual scheme" (and it certainly doesn't have to be a common conceptual scheme).

LOL. What do you think "something mobile living in the forest" is, other than an explanation for your sensory experience provided by our common conceptual scheme? Every concrete entity you name, and exalt as paradigms of "reality," are constructs invented to explain, to render coherent, an otherwise chaotic kaleidoscope of sensory impressions. (Highly useful constructs, but constructs nonetheless).

There's evidence for the entity in question regardless of assigning any concepts etc. to it. We just can't type the experience of gaining phenomenal evidence without assigning concepts to it in a post. This sort of objection is once again an example of use/mention confusion.

It's not a matter of typing or articulating. You can make no sense of sensory impressions without a conceptual scheme. For a newborn placed in a forest the impressions you cited would not be evidence of a mobile creature; they would be utterly mysterious, just like all the other fascinating, though bewildering, impressions he experiences.

A word about evidence: e can be evidence for P only for persons with prior knowledge and understanding of the relationship between e and P. E.g., tracks in the snow are evidence of caribou for an Inuit hunter. They are not evidence of caribou for Martian newly landed in northern Canada.

"Real" doesn't at all hinge on us, our concepts, and certainly not on agreement. It either refers to the fact that something occurs extramentally, or simply the fact that it occurs at all (including mentally), depending on whether we're going with the traditional philosophical usage or the more recent colloquial usage.

The irony there is hilarious. "Real" is itself a concept, and like all concepts serves an explanatory function. Like most words it is used to make distinctions, e.g., between horses and unicorns, between Donald Trump and Ichabod Crane, between hallucinations and percepts, between truth and falsehood, between sincerity and pretense, between fact and fantasy, between authenticity and forgery, between waking experience and dreams, etc. You said earlier you agreed with Wittgenstein that the meanings of terms are their uses. Yet you wish to write off all the many uses of "real" and "reality" that make distinctions other than that between physical and non-physical. That is, to be sure, a useful distinction, but it does not exhaust the uses of "real."

It's incoherent to say that meaning is something other than the association.

What is incoherent is equating knowledge of a relationship with one of the relatants. Words have meanings, the things they denote are the meanings, and members of that speech community know those meanings (those relationships). The word "meaning" as used in semantics does, of course, imply, connote, both a word and something denoted by it.

[GE Morton]

TP: Sorry for attributing PH's views re: Wittgenstein to you in the above. The point is sound, but not pertinent to your views.

[GE Morton]

I asked for evidence for the existence of abstract things. Your answer is that a thing we've given a name is real if it has descriptive or explanatory utility - which isn't evidence of any kind. Your use of quote marks for the word real in this context is puzzling. I wonder what the difference is between real things and 'real' things.

Please see response to TP (above) for explanation of "evidence." Evidence for a proposition P is anything, any information, that gives us reason to believe P is true. "There is life on Mars" requires one kind of evidence; "Alfie's idea is a good one," or, "Alfie loves Annabelle," can both be true, but require different kinds of evidence. (If love and ideas are not "real," then both would be false).

The difference between real and "real" is that the former denotes what is the case, and the latter what someone claims, or believes, is the case. Whether that claim or belief is true depends upon the evidence germane to that claim or belief.

And anyway, the idea is ridiculous, because things that exist, such as dogs, have nothing decriptive or explanatory about them. Existence has nothing to do with descriptions or explanations. The evidence for the existence of dogs is that there are dogs - demonstrably real things, whether or not we name and describe them. And the same applies to rocks and stars - other demonstrably real things. To say they're real because they help to describe or explain some aspect of human experience is bizarre, back-to-front nonsense.

Well, dogs are certainly real, because that concept --- that there is something external to us which gives rise to certain patterns of sensory impressions --- allows us to describe and explain those impressions. For the newborn experiencing those same impressions there are no dogs; he has yet to organize those impressions and relate them to that concept, which he has yet to learn.

You seem not to realize that all the concrete entities you take to be the sole exemplars of "reality" are themselves conceptual constructs.

And, to ice the cake, your claim that things such as spirits, gods and Platonic ideas have no descriptive or explanatory utility is patently false - which is why belief in their existence persists.

What explanatory utility do you think they have?

What is indubitably, undeniably "real" is human experience. Anything we postulate to exist beyond that is hypothetical, but those hypothetical constructs become "real" also, if they help us understand that experience.

So, you think dogs and rocks are only 'real' because they're 'hypothetical constructs' that help us understand our experience of dogs and rocks.

Yes.

But then, why is human experience 'real' (not real?)? Isn't that another hypothetical construct? (This is nonsense.)

Well, as Descartes pointed out, what is indubitable, undeniable, is my own sensory and cognitive experience. It precedes any conceptualizing or theorizing (this is true for every newborn). Everything we claim to know beyond that results from the conceptual framework we've invented and superimposed upon it. If that framework, that conceptual artifact, allows us to anticipate, predict, alter future sensory inputs then it "works" and the entities and processes postulated are "real."

I've explained this elementary mistake. A dog is a real thing - a feature of reality that exists. It's not the meaning of the word dog. We just use the word dog to talk about the things we call dogs. To say real things are the meanings of names is back-to-front. But I agree with your description of what using the word dog consists of.

A dog is both a "real thing" AND the meaning of the word, "dog." The two descriptive frameworks are not mutually exclusive. A dog is also "Man's best friend," "A cat's worst enemy," "An adorable ball of fluff," etc. There are many truths about dogs that can be predicated of it; being the meaning of the word "dog" is just one of them. To say that dogs are the meaning of the word "dog" is to say nothing more than that there is a word denoting that animal. It has no ontological implications.

We learn how to use those terms by observing the ways other members of our speech community use them. If we have to explain a use, we can only do that with persons who already are somewhat fluent in the language.

Not so. Very young children learn the uses of some abstract nouns, such as 'love' and 'good'. The absurdity of metaphysical speculation about what and where supposed abstract things are comes, fortunately, much later, and only to the philosophically deluded.

Well, how, then, do you think they learn them, other than by observing others' uses of them? Just what are you denying here?

So you think the ontological class of abstract things exists because we know how to use abstract nouns.

No. Because those abstract things allow us to explain and predict various observable phenomena.

Hardly. It is a matter of direct, and common, experience. But I admit that the "common" part is somewhat conjectural. I know that I have had ideas, experienced love, etc., but I can only infer that you have from your words and behaviors.

We learn how to use abstract nouns such as 'idea' and 'love' in exactly the same way as we learn how to use concrete nouns such as 'dog' and 'rock' - from other people's words and behaviour. And if you can only infer that they have ideas and feel love, how can you be sure that you have ideas and feel love? How can you be sure that you what those words mean?

Puzzled. Didn't I just answer that (direct experience)? The question was not, "How did I learn the words for 'idea' and 'love'?," but, "How do I know such things exist?" I learn how the words are used by observing others' uses of them and their behavior. But whether others experience the the inner phenomena they purport to denote I can only know by inference.

Nope. It's words and the ways we use them that exist. Abstract things don't exist. You've provided no evidence for their existence, and it's bizarre to speculate that they do exist anyway.

Answered above. The evidence for any proposition is whatever gives us reason to believe the proposition is true. If "love" helps us explain Alfie's recent behavior and predict future behavior then love exists, just us rocks exist because they help us explain certain impressions and predict future ones (I'll stub my toe if I kick this thing).

A metalanguage is just another language with different expressions. And so-called truth conditions are nothing more than postulates that end in circular arguments. The truth isn't out there any more than falsehood is. And logic deals with language, not reality.

Did you read the IEP essay? For us, language and reality are inextricably intertwined.