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

[GE Morton]

So, as a Platonist, you imagine that abstract nouns are the names of things of some kind that exist somehow, somewhere.

Oh, not a Platonist. Those idealized things he proposed do not exist ---- because they have no explanatory value.

But, of course, like all Platonists, you can't show that those abstract things exist, or where they exist, or in what way they exist.

Not (necessarily) where they exist. Some categories of things do not have spatio-temporal locations. But you can certainly show that they exist. To borrow from a previous post to TP, if Alfie can find his keys after hearing a sentence from Annabelle, then meanings of words exist. Also because he can find the keys, then knowledge exists (he now knows where they are). Each category of existents has its own class of truth conditions --- specific observations which render propositions asserting or presuming their existence true or false. Not all of them involve spatio-temporal coordinates.

Meanwhile, the rest of us can happily use signs to mean things, make true assertions about things we know, count things, behave justly, appreciate beauty, and so on, untroubled by the delusion that abstract things exist.

Huh? How can you mean something, speak truly, know anything, count anything, if meanings, truth, knowledge, and numbers don't exist? Could you bake an apple pie if apples didn't exist?

[Terrapin Station]

That's what I said. Some of the things we experience are not mental things, because we we define them to be.

LOL--not surprising given your definition fetish, but no, it's not because we define them to not be mental. It's because ontically, they're not mental.

[GE Morton]

That's what I said. Some of the things we experience are not mental things, because we we define them to be.

LOL--not surprising given your definition fetish, but no, it's not because we define them to not be mental. It's because ontically, they're not mental.

"Ontically"? What is ontology, other than a theory of reality that you have invented or adopted?

[Peter Holmes]

So, as a Platonist, you imagine that abstract nouns are the names of things of some kind that exist somehow, somewhere.

Oh, not a Platonist. Those idealized things he proposed do not exist ---- because they have no explanatory value.

But, of course, like all Platonists, you can't show that those abstract things exist, or where they exist, or in what way they exist.

Not (necessarily) where they exist. Some categories of things do not have spatio-temporal locations. But you can certainly show that they exist. To borrow from a previous post to TP, if Alfie can find his keys after hearing a sentence from Annabelle, then meanings of words exist. Also because he can find the keys, then knowledge exists (he now knows where they are). Each category of existents has its own class of truth conditions --- specific observations which render propositions asserting or presuming their existence true or false. Not all of them involve spatio-temporal coordinates.

Meanwhile, the rest of us can happily use signs to mean things, make true assertions about things we know, count things, behave justly, appreciate beauty, and so on, untroubled by the delusion that abstract things exist.

Huh? How can you mean something, speak truly, know anything, count anything, if meanings, truth, knowledge, and numbers don't exist? Could you bake an apple pie if apples didn't exist?

Rehearsing the articles of a faith doesn't do anything to establish the truth of its claims.

We understand what words mean - so meaning exists. We know things - so knowledge exists. We make apple pies - so apples exist.

Please. If it's to be this puerile, I have better things to do.

[Belindi]

Peter Holmes wrote:

Rehearsing the articles of a faith doesn't do anything to establish the truth of its claims.

We understand what words mean - so meaning exists. We know things - so knowledge exists. We make apple pies - so apples exist.

Christianity happens to be a religion for which beliefs (such as the resurrection event) are indispensably important. Some other religious faiths are defined less by beliefs and more by ritualistic behaviours. Even within the circle of Christian sects some of those are defined less by beliefs than by rituals such as attending a certain place of worship and engaging in the right actions and speech there.

Meaning depends upon people who mean. Again, Peter, you are enchanted by a noun. There is no such thing as meaning except insofar as there are people who mean(intend, purpose, order in the sense of making orderly patterns).Meanings don't float around like disembodied ghosts.

Even in the case of something as concrete as an apple , this entity, an apple, would be relatively invisible to a person who had never encountered what you and I call an apple.

[Peter Holmes]

Peter Holmes wrote:

Rehearsing the articles of a faith doesn't do anything to establish the truth of its claims.

We understand what words mean - so meaning exists. We know things - so knowledge exists. We make apple pies - so apples exist.

Christianity happens to be a religion for which beliefs (such as the resurrection event) are indispensably important. Some other religious faiths are defined less by beliefs and more by ritualistic behaviours. Even within the circle of Christian sects some of those are defined less by beliefs than by rituals such as attending a certain place of worship and engaging in the right actions and speech there.

Meaning depends upon people who mean. Again, Peter, you are enchanted by a noun. There is no such thing as meaning except insofar as there are people who mean(intend, purpose, order in the sense of making orderly patterns).Meanings don't float around like disembodied ghosts.

Even in the case of something as concrete as an apple , this entity, an apple, would be relatively invisible to a person who had never encountered what you and I call an apple.

(I meant the metaphysical faith - in the absence of evidence - that abstract things exist, somehow, somewhere, in a way we can't actually explain. But I assume you agree that rehearsing an article of faith - such as in the resurrection - does nothing to establish the truth of the claim. If it's true, something else is required to demonstrate that.)

I'm calling out the enchantment. Meaning isn't a thing of any kind whatsoever, so it isn't a thing that depends on people who 'mean' (?), or anything else. Look at the absurdity of what you say, and how natural it seems to say it.

Talk of the 'existence' of abstract things is the actual evidence of metaphysical enchantment/delusion that I'm talking about. Talk of fictional abstract things, such as concepts and propositions, floating about in, say, minds - more fictional abstract things - has been around for so long that waking up and recognising it for the nonsense it is and has always been is extraordinarly hard. GEM's blithe assumption - we know things, so of course there's such a thing as knowledge - is evidence of how deep the delusion runs. And so is TS's talk of the mental and the extramental.

Do you think an apple exists in the way that the concept of an apple exists - as a thing in a location? And would no one's having encountered an apple mean apples didn't exist?

If we describe the concept of a dog, we describe a dog. If we visualise the concept of a dog, we visualise a dog. If we draw the concept of a dog, we draw a dog. These 'dogs' may be of a specific breed, or some composite, identikit, children's version of a dog. But there's no Platonic thing, and no mental thing, which is 'dog' or 'dogness' or 'dogdicity' of which the word dog is the name. That's the nonsense foisted on us by metaphysicians since at least Aristotle and Plato. It's time to wake up.

[Terrapin Station]

LOL--not surprising given your definition fetish, but no, it's not because we define them to not be mental. It's because ontically, they're not mental.

"Ontically"? What is ontology, other than a theory of reality that you have invented or adopted?

The whole point behind the term "ontically" rather than "ontologically" was to stress that we're talking about existence/the world as it is rather than theory qua theory, because I knew that you'd likely appeal to a conflation of theory and what theory is about/what theory is in response to.

Hence, my attempt to nip your mistake in the bud didn't work, but I could have easily predicted that.

[GE Morton]

We understand what words mean - so meaning exists. We know things - so knowledge exists. We make apple pies - so apples exist.

???

Here is what you claimed earlier:

"But, as physicalists, we deny the existence of non-physical things. And supposed abstract things are non-physical things. And what we call - by a grammatical misattribution - an abstract noun is (we delude ourselves) the name of an abtract thing: meaning, truth, knowledge, justice, beauty, identity, being - and so on."

???

[GE Morton]

Meaning depends upon people who mean. Again, Peter, you are enchanted by a noun. There is no such thing as meaning except insofar as there are people who mean(intend, purpose, order in the sense of making orderly patterns).Meanings don't float around like disembodied ghosts.

You're confounding two different senses of "meaning." It can mean an intention or purpose, as you suggest, or just the denotation of a word, which is the sense currently under discussion. E.g., "What is the meaning of 'dog'?", or "What is the meaning of life?"

[GE Morton]

Do you think an apple exists in the way that the concept of an apple exists - as a thing in a location?

Of course not. But it doesn't have to. Different categories of existents have different criteria for establishing their existence (different truth condition for propositions asserting their existence).

But there's no Platonic thing, and no mental thing, which is 'dog' or 'dogness' or 'dogdicity' of which the word dog is the name. That's the nonsense foisted on us by metaphysicians since at least Aristotle and Plato. It's time to wake up.

No Platonic thing, but certainly a "mental thing," e.g., the concept of a dog. You seem to be restricting the word "thing" to physical objects, just as you restrict "exists" to physical objects. "Thing" is the universal noun. Anything you can name is a "thing." By so restricting those terms you render a large part --- perhaps a majority --- of ordinary speech (including your own) meaningless.

That restriction is non-viable. As long as we understand the differences between concrete things and abstract things, we get into no trouble by acknowledging that both exist.

[GE Morton]

The whole point behind the term "ontically" rather than "ontologically" was to stress that we're talking about existence/the world as it is rather than theory qua theory, because I knew that you'd likely appeal to a conflation of theory and what theory is about/what theory is in response to.

Every ontologist claims that his theory describes "the world as it is." That is the aim of his theory. But the only information they, or you, have about the "world as it is" is the sensory phenomena you experience. Anything you claim exists beyond those phenomena is theory.

[Peter Holmes]

Do you think an apple exists in the way that the concept of an apple exists - as a thing in a location?

Of course not. But it doesn't have to. Different categories of existents have different criteria for establishing their existence (different truth condition for propositions asserting their existence).

This merely begs the question: abstracts things exist, but in a different category of existence from real things. Explain what 'exists' mean with regard to abstract things, or this is equivocation.

But there's no Platonic thing, and no mental thing, which is 'dog' or 'dogness' or 'dogdicity' of which the word dog is the name. That's the nonsense foisted on us by metaphysicians since at least Aristotle and Plato. It's time to wake up.

No Platonic thing, but certainly a "mental thing," e.g., the concept of a dog. You seem to be restricting the word "thing" to physical objects, just as you restrict "exists" to physical objects. "Thing" is the universal noun. Anything you can name is a "thing." By so restricting those terms you render a large part --- perhaps a majority --- of ordinary speech (including your own) meaningless.

Nonsense. Ordinary speech is shot-through with what we've called 'mental' words - think, feel, idea, know, believe, and so on - which we use perfectly clearly without any metaphysical delusions as to the actual existence of abstract things.

Please explain the truth-condition for the assertion 'there are mental things'. Is it that we say there are mental things? And is that the criterion for the existence of gods and demons?

That restriction is non-viable. As long as we understand the differences between concrete things and abstract things, we get into no trouble by acknowledging that both exist.

Pure equivocation. What and where is an abstract thing? (Hint: 'it's a concept in a mind' won't do, because concepts and minds are abstract things.) A dog chasing its tail needs to re-think the premise.

[Sculptor1]

The whole point behind the term "ontically" rather than "ontologically" was to stress that we're talking about existence/the world as it is rather than theory qua theory, because I knew that you'd likely appeal to a conflation of theory and what theory is about/what theory is in response to.

Every ontologist claims that his theory describes "the world as it is." That is the aim of his theory. But the only information they, or you, have about the "world as it is" is the sensory phenomena you experience. Anything you claim exists beyond those phenomena is theory.

More confusion from Morton.
That something is a phenomenon is a theory in itself.

[Belindi]

Meaning depends upon people who mean. Again, Peter, you are enchanted by a noun. There is no such thing as meaning except insofar as there are people who mean(intend, purpose, order in the sense of making orderly patterns).Meanings don't float around like disembodied ghosts.

You're confounding two different senses of "meaning." It can mean an intention or purpose, as you suggest, or just the denotation of a word, which is the sense currently under discussion. E.g., "What is the meaning of 'dog'?", or "What is the meaning of life?"

But "What is the meaning of dog?" solicits the social meaning. Some people believe meanings are unchangeably established by God or nature, however the theory of evolution by natural selection is a better theory than Aristotelian form. In support of meaning as social process compare a small child not yet socialised who calls all four legged furry animals "dog".Or recall that some Chinese people hold the main meaning of bats is foodstuff.

[Terrapin Station]

The whole point behind the term "ontically" rather than "ontologically" was to stress that we're talking about existence/the world as it is rather than theory qua theory, because I knew that you'd likely appeal to a conflation of theory and what theory is about/what theory is in response to.

Every ontologist claims that his theory describes "the world as it is." That is the aim of his theory. But the only information they, or you, have about the "world as it is" is the sensory phenomena you experience. Anything you claim exists beyond those phenomena is theory.

"Existence/the world as it is" <---- in other words, how it would be if we didn't exist. When we don't exist, there is no theory, right?