The statement about Bubacar uses the word 'widower' (by which I mean it makes reference to the concept signified by the word). The statement ”the word 'widower' has 7 letters” refers to the word 'widower' and not the concept denoted by the term. Isn't it ingenious and perhaps fallacious to equivocate the two uses of the word when not only do they express different things, they also refer to different things? In other words, in the counterargument are we really interchanging 'widower' and 'man whose spouse has died' salve veritate?
I was thinking the same thing. That sentence refers to the construction about a specific word, and then commenting on that construction. You couldn't say that sentence in another language because it may not be true (more or less letters, or maybe not even letters at all in the case of japenese for example). So I'd agree and say its not really a counter argument?
@Oners82 If quine agrees that the referent is changed then it is literally a fallacy of equivocation. Two uses of the same word but with different meanings? In this context we are actually only referring to the phonological construction of the word. Which is not the same as taking the word to mean 'person who's spouse has died'. Thus you can't and shouldn't even make the replacement in the first place. Also take this example one step further, replace 'widower' with any seven letter word. No one would agree that all seven letter words are synonymous. So this argument doesn't actually put forward much in the way of reason to completely disregard synonymy. There are other reasons, just not this one.
Josiah Bancroft I think you have missed the commenter’s point. When “synonymous” words are exchanged in translation they change, and thus, lose their truth value. You are indeed correct in pointing out the distinction between the phonological USE of a word and the meaning or referent of the word (MENTION). This is the use-mention distinction. The main point is that Quine is challenging analytic statements. When analytic statements are being affirmed they necessarily are affirmed on the basis of a synthetic variety (or synonymy). Given that the truth predicate of synthetic statements are lost in translation, the affirmation is inherently circular. This leads to the conclusion, as already stated in the video, that the term ought to be dropped altogether.
@Oners82 Let's suppose that we introduced new punctuation to English to make it clearer. Any time you are referring to the letters/sounds of the word itself (phonological content), we surrounded it with ` markers. `Saturn` has 6 letters. == TRUE Saturn has 6 letters. == FALSE (because Saturn is a planet and planets don't have letters) `Saturn` and Saturn have different meanings. "6th planet from the sun" is synonymous Saturn but not with `Saturn` because `Saturn` refers to a string of letters and sounds, not the planet. With this new punctuation, can interchangeability be the definition of synonymy without issues?
You're referring to the use/mention distinction. But that doesn't get around the problem of substitution not being a adequate criterion for analyticity. Yes, the USE is different, and we know that. But if we are attempting to find a definition for what makes something analytic, it seems perverse to bring in pragmatics.
@Tattle Boad surely ad homs are a first-year rookie mistake? I am passionate about studying Kant, so I put a picture representing the topic on here. Notice I said, 'appropriate background reading'. Kant's a somewhat decent example of this. Anyone who tries to read Kant before reading various other philosophers finds his work utterly incomprehensible. After reading those works, a lot of that writing (indeed not every sentence) is surprisingly clear. Many people who have come to this video, on a channel that is a hotspot for undergrad students, will have enough background knowledge to extract the most important points in 2 Dogmas.
Although I don't always agree on your approach to exposing some of the theories or with your own views, I do feel impelled to express how much I admire and respect your will and effort to share this content in the platform. It is of great value to expand the reach of questions and thoughts, and I think it is immensely honourable of you to have dedicated your time and mind to offer your contribution. Thank you so very much, as someone benefiting from your great work 🌺
I didn't realize until now how it appears Wittgenstein and Quine had similar ideas on language and the limitations of what can be clearly and unambiguously stated, which is extremely little if anything.
Analyticity = the use of symbols to simply and divide concepts. An extension of Synthetic argument showed by demonstration such as a Triangle is defined as a polygon having 3 angles and 3 sides, which is showed by drawing a triangle, which is synthetic since you have drawn it to show it.
Brushing up on philosophy and wondering if any philosopher (of language in particular) has addressed explicitly that, in a sense, all declarative statements can be considered synthetic as language is (by definition) arbitrary? Thanks for your work on this channel!
Can we define synonyms as words that can be used salve veritate when not referring to themselves? Words are referential, and a word can either refer to itself or it's designated object. Let's call these two usages natural and self-referential. The word bachelor naturally refers to an unmarried man, but in apposition with the word 'word', it becomes self referential. So in the sentence, "the bachelor is tall", 'bachelor' refers naturally to an unmarried man. But in the sentence, "the word bachelor has eight letters", 'bachelor' refers to itself. The word 'word' thus has the special property of being able to change a word from functioning naturally to self-referentially. So we can say that words are synonymous if, when used naturally, they can be swapped salve veritate. Is there any problem there?
Quine didn't understand situational context, and couldn't handle the possibility that everything is subjective or conventional besides sense perception -- but it is.
Structuralism offers the best resolution in that it defines analytical reasoning between cultural patterns and cognitive behaviors. I say bachelor and cannot mean ‘unmarried woman’ because a woman is not a man. Therefore we create a new word which is widow.
Yes we can, because on a conceptual level the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements just can’t be diluted like that. Consider an example, (1+1=2) is an analytic statement based on concept i.e pure math whereas at the same time, (1 drop+1 drop= Another bigger drop) which is a pure fact, you see. Quoting Strawson here- Quine has oversimplified the distinction between the nature of two statements than really it is, can’t hold water for practical purposes.
Quine said there are two kinds of analytics, by it´s logical form: all mice are mice, no birds are non-birds and synonymy, all bachelors are unmarried man. But doesn´t "all dogs are animals" get to be analytic as well? dog´s extension it´s covered by animal´s extension, but doesn´t happen this in the other direction, but that doesn´t matter meanwhile the statement is "all dogs are animals" and not "all animals are dogs", the first one get´s explained by it´s own concept, right? therefore, analytic. I might be wrong, but why Quine did recognize only "by it´s logical structure" and "synonymy" statements as analytic? i don´t think dog is a synonymy for animal, belongs to it, just that.
A system of minds that can somehow come to agree on the implications of semantic content might offer sufficient support for analysity and many other concepts, but this proposal requires a degree of fortitude that Quine did not demonstrate... Why not go back to earlier theories of mind and ontology proposals and reevaluate them given our modern understanding? We can revive Leibnizian Modads and Cartesian dualism IFF we can fix their ontological support. Entire classes of Theories of the World that rest on irredeemable ontologies can then be rendered into the circular file.😎😇
Easy solution: Two words that have an actual extension (not support words like "and", "but", "though"... ) are synonymous if their extensions are identical. If we describe something by using statements containing different words with an extension of their own like in Quine's example, they are synonymous if the extensions of these individual words are also identical. And if not, like in the case of hearts and livers, they do not share synonymy while the statements that contain them can still have the same extension.
For that matter, is there a non-circular definition of truth? And why not? Because it is psychologically a very simple idea and trying to define it instead of understanding it will always involve using concepts at least as difficult to define as truth itself. Not only that but for simple mathematical reasons we always have to start with some primitive terms. We can't define everything without circularity. All Quine does is to take a mean advantage of this fact. "Analytic" is not quite as primitive as truth but it does involve primitive concepts like meaning and this is what Quine uses. And of course his attacks on modality are of the like sort. By asking us to be very precise about the definition of an alternative counterfactual reality, he wants us to abandon the concept altogether Broadly this paper is on the same standing as logical nihilism, the sort of people who say how do we know the laws of logic? To prove them you would need laws at least as arbitrary as what you are trying to prove. This kind of skepticism leads nowhere
In a saner world, we might pass this by as a harmless bit of academic mumbo jumbo. But in an "alternative facts" world, this is the kind of insincere cleverness we need to show up for what it is if we want to progress as a species
There's another problem with defining "brother" as a male sibling. Human females with gender dysphoria believe they're men. So, a female with gender dysphoria may think she's a brother. If dictionary writers redefine "brother," that word will get a new sense. Since I'm an an analytic Thomist, so I usually agree with St. Thomas Aquinas. I'm also an essentialist. I believe people, places, and things have essences or natures. They have properties that make them what they are. For example, a dog's essential properties cause that animal to be a dog. An object's essence distinguishes the object from everything else. Dogs descend from wolves, but dogs aren't wolves. Though Quine believes there are necessary truths, I wonder whether he thinks there are essences. Since he believes logically necessary truths are actual, he must know how to define "logical necessity." Since he's an empiricist, he may disagree with me when I say logical necessity is a metaphysical property. Either way, I suggest the law of noncontradiction is a metaphysical principle. You can produce a liar sentence when you treat the LNC as a merely semantic principle. "I am lying now" is a liar sentence. It represents a proposition that's true if and only if it's false. But Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas avoid that paradox with another definition of the LNC. They tell us nothing can simultaneously be and not be in the same respect.
@Tattle Boad Some meanings are understandable without recourse to other words. If you could only use words that had a definition made up of words then you couldn't use language period. Because for every word youd need a definition, and the words in that words definition would need their own definitions and the words in the those definitions would also need to be defined etc etc etc it leads to infinite regress.
@Tattle Boad do you mean we can only understand a word through a definition that uses words? because that cant be true since it would lead to an infinite regress.
@Tattle Boad If I'm always whistling at certain volumes and frequency whenever I found a pepperoni pizza, you could quickly guess what I found if you noticed my whistling, even if you're not observing me at that moment. "We understand meaning with words", you got it reversed. The meaning became words, symbols, formulas, etc.
It saddens me that this channel doesn't have more subscribers- keep up the great work!
Helped a lot with my understanding of this paper, thank you!
Great! I'm glad you hear that it helped.
The statement about Bubacar uses the word 'widower' (by which I mean it makes reference to the concept signified by the word). The statement ”the word 'widower' has 7 letters” refers to the word 'widower' and not the concept denoted by the term. Isn't it ingenious and perhaps fallacious to equivocate the two uses of the word when not only do they express different things, they also refer to different things? In other words, in the counterargument are we really interchanging 'widower' and 'man whose spouse has died' salve veritate?
I was thinking the same thing. That sentence refers to the construction about a specific word, and then commenting on that construction. You couldn't say that sentence in another language because it may not be true (more or less letters, or maybe not even letters at all in the case of japenese for example). So I'd agree and say its not really a counter argument?
@Oners82 If quine agrees that the referent is changed then it is literally a fallacy of equivocation. Two uses of the same word but with different meanings?
In this context we are actually only referring to the phonological construction of the word. Which is not the same as taking the word to mean 'person who's spouse has died'. Thus you can't and shouldn't even make the replacement in the first place.
Also take this example one step further, replace 'widower' with any seven letter word. No one would agree that all seven letter words are synonymous. So this argument doesn't actually put forward much in the way of reason to completely disregard synonymy.
There are other reasons, just not this one.
Josiah Bancroft I think you have missed the commenter’s point. When “synonymous” words are exchanged in translation they change, and thus, lose their truth value. You are indeed correct in pointing out the distinction between the phonological USE of a word and the meaning or referent of the word (MENTION). This is the use-mention distinction. The main point is that Quine is challenging analytic statements. When analytic statements are being affirmed they necessarily are affirmed on the basis of a synthetic variety (or synonymy). Given that the truth predicate of synthetic statements are lost in translation, the affirmation is inherently circular. This leads to the conclusion, as already stated in the video, that the term ought to be dropped altogether.
@Oners82 Let's suppose that we introduced new punctuation to English to make it clearer.
Any time you are referring to the letters/sounds of the word itself (phonological content), we surrounded it with ` markers.
`Saturn` has 6 letters. == TRUE
Saturn has 6 letters. == FALSE (because Saturn is a planet and planets don't have letters)
`Saturn` and Saturn have different meanings. "6th planet from the sun" is synonymous Saturn but not with `Saturn` because `Saturn` refers to a string of letters and sounds, not the planet.
With this new punctuation, can interchangeability be the definition of synonymy without issues?
You're referring to the use/mention distinction. But that doesn't get around the problem of substitution not being a adequate criterion for analyticity. Yes, the USE is different, and we know that. But if we are attempting to find a definition for what makes something analytic, it seems perverse to bring in pragmatics.
"Two Dogmas of Empiricism" is really clear and well-written --would recommend
Tattle Boad Why would you assume such a thing?
Tattle Boad You and me both brother
@Tattle Boad bro that was very difficult to understand
@Tattle Boad you mean YOU found it hard to understand.
With the appropriate background reading, Two Dogmas is quite clear and to-the-point.
@Tattle Boad surely ad homs are a first-year rookie mistake? I am passionate about studying Kant, so I put a picture representing the topic on here.
Notice I said, 'appropriate background reading'. Kant's a somewhat decent example of this. Anyone who tries to read Kant before reading various other philosophers finds his work utterly incomprehensible. After reading those works, a lot of that writing (indeed not every sentence) is surprisingly clear.
Many people who have come to this video, on a channel that is a hotspot for undergrad students, will have enough background knowledge to extract the most important points in 2 Dogmas.
Although I don't always agree on your approach to exposing some of the theories or with your own views, I do feel impelled to express how much I admire and respect your will and effort to share this content in the platform.
It is of great value to expand the reach of questions and thoughts, and I think it is immensely honourable of you to have dedicated your time and mind to offer your contribution.
Thank you so very much, as someone benefiting from your great work 🌺
I didn't realize until now how it appears Wittgenstein and Quine had similar ideas on language and the limitations of what can be clearly and unambiguously stated, which is extremely little if anything.
If anything!
Interesting. Thanks for the video.
Analyticity = the use of symbols to simply and divide concepts. An extension of Synthetic argument showed by demonstration such as a Triangle is defined as a polygon having 3 angles and 3 sides, which is showed by drawing a triangle, which is synthetic since you have drawn it to show it.
Brushing up on philosophy and wondering if any philosopher (of language in particular) has addressed explicitly that, in a sense, all declarative statements can be considered synthetic as language is (by definition) arbitrary?
Thanks for your work on this channel!
Wittgenstein ruclips.net/video/pQ33gAyhg2c/видео.html
Almost all have
Please make a video on Strawson
Can we define synonyms as words that can be used salve veritate when not referring to themselves? Words are referential, and a word can either refer to itself or it's designated object. Let's call these two usages natural and self-referential. The word bachelor naturally refers to an unmarried man, but in apposition with the word 'word', it becomes self referential. So in the sentence, "the bachelor is tall", 'bachelor' refers naturally to an unmarried man. But in the sentence, "the word bachelor has eight letters", 'bachelor' refers to itself. The word 'word' thus has the special property of being able to change a word from functioning naturally to self-referentially. So we can say that words are synonymous if, when used naturally, they can be swapped salve veritate. Is there any problem there?
this is why you don't always let zero into your vocabulary
Quine didn't understand situational context, and couldn't handle the possibility that everything is subjective or conventional besides sense perception -- but it is.
Structuralism offers the best resolution in that it defines analytical reasoning between cultural patterns and cognitive behaviors. I say bachelor and cannot mean ‘unmarried woman’ because a woman is not a man. Therefore we create a new word which is widow.
h₁widʰéwh₂
That does not solve anything.
Interesting
Yes we can, because on a conceptual level the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements just can’t be diluted like that. Consider an example, (1+1=2) is an analytic statement based on concept i.e pure math whereas at the same time, (1 drop+1 drop= Another bigger drop) which is a pure fact, you see. Quoting Strawson here- Quine has oversimplified the distinction between the nature of two statements than really it is, can’t hold water for practical purposes.
Quine said there are two kinds of analytics, by it´s logical form: all mice are mice, no birds are non-birds and synonymy, all bachelors are unmarried man. But doesn´t "all dogs are animals" get to be analytic as well? dog´s extension it´s covered by animal´s extension, but doesn´t happen this in the other direction, but that doesn´t matter meanwhile the statement is "all dogs are animals" and not "all animals are dogs", the first one get´s explained by it´s own concept, right? therefore, analytic. I might be wrong, but why Quine did recognize only "by it´s logical structure" and "synonymy" statements as analytic? i don´t think dog is a synonymy for animal, belongs to it, just that.
That is a good point.
here because of the library of babel
Good video. "Salva veritate"
You said this article is available for free online. I only find paid versions. Help? Thanks.
Just write PDF after the title and you’ll find it or use google scholar
Quine should define what he means when he says "define" or else Im afraid I will not be able to understand him.
A system of minds that can somehow come to agree on the implications of semantic content might offer sufficient support for analysity and many other concepts, but this proposal requires a degree of fortitude that Quine did not demonstrate... Why not go back to earlier theories of mind and ontology proposals and reevaluate them given our modern understanding? We can revive Leibnizian Modads and Cartesian dualism IFF we can fix their ontological support. Entire classes of Theories of the World that rest on irredeemable ontologies can then be rendered into the circular file.😎😇
Don't you think 'has a heart' and 'has a kidney' are intensions since they define the properties of a human being?
Quine sounds like a Monty Python sketch
synonymity/adjectivity
Easy solution: Two words that have an actual extension (not support words like "and", "but", "though"... ) are synonymous if their extensions are identical.
If we describe something by using statements containing different words with an extension of their own like in Quine's example, they are synonymous if the extensions of these individual words are also identical. And if not, like in the case of hearts and livers, they do not share synonymy while the statements that contain them can still have the same extension.
For that matter, is there a non-circular definition of truth? And why not? Because it is psychologically a very simple idea and trying to define it instead of understanding it will always involve using concepts at least as difficult to define as truth itself. Not only that but for simple mathematical reasons we always have to start with some primitive terms. We can't define everything without circularity.
All Quine does is to take a mean advantage of this fact. "Analytic" is not quite as primitive as truth but it does involve primitive concepts like meaning and this is what Quine uses. And of course his attacks on modality are of the like sort. By asking us to be very precise about the definition of an alternative counterfactual reality, he wants us to abandon the concept altogether
Broadly this paper is on the same standing as logical nihilism, the sort of people who say how do we know the laws of logic? To prove them you would need laws at least as arbitrary as what you are trying to prove. This kind of skepticism leads nowhere
In a saner world, we might pass this by as a harmless bit of academic mumbo jumbo. But in an "alternative facts" world, this is the kind of insincere cleverness we need to show up for what it is if we want to progress as a species
Your comment is ridiculous.
There's another problem with defining "brother" as a male sibling. Human females with gender dysphoria believe they're men. So, a female with gender dysphoria may think she's a brother. If dictionary writers redefine "brother," that word will get a new sense.
Since I'm an an analytic Thomist, so I usually agree with St. Thomas Aquinas. I'm also an essentialist. I believe people, places, and things have essences or natures. They have properties that make them what they are. For example, a dog's essential properties cause that animal to be a dog. An object's essence distinguishes the object from everything else. Dogs descend from wolves, but dogs aren't wolves.
Though Quine believes there are necessary truths, I wonder whether he thinks there are essences. Since he believes logically necessary truths are actual, he must know how to define "logical necessity." Since he's an empiricist, he may disagree with me when I say logical necessity is a metaphysical property.
Either way, I suggest the law of noncontradiction is a metaphysical principle. You can produce a liar sentence when you treat the LNC as a merely semantic principle. "I am lying now" is a liar sentence. It represents a proposition that's true if and only if it's false. But Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas avoid that paradox with another definition of the LNC. They tell us nothing can simultaneously be and not be in the same respect.
not every word can have a definition because that would involve an infinite regress
@Tattle Boad Some meanings are understandable without recourse to other words. If you could only use words that had a definition made up of words then you couldn't use language period. Because for every word youd need a definition, and the words in that words definition would need their own definitions and the words in the those definitions would also need to be defined etc etc etc it leads to infinite regress.
@Tattle Boad we put words on meaning. Words do not give meaning they just help you communicate what you mean.
@Tattle Boad do you mean we can only understand a word through a definition that uses words? because that cant be true since it would lead to an infinite regress.
@Tattle Boad If I'm always whistling at certain volumes and frequency whenever I found a pepperoni pizza, you could quickly guess what I found if you noticed my whistling, even if you're not observing me at that moment.
"We understand meaning with words", you got it reversed.
The meaning became words, symbols, formulas, etc.
@Tattle Boad Well explain how turkey villagers could communicate without words for centuries. ruclips.net/video/l117wfB0g3o/видео.html.
Semantic content requires the existence of minds (plural)!
Antisthenes
you should record over again and not make as many mistakes!
FIRST!