--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@...> wrote: > > .. I have no issues with someone believing in a scientific theory of how the > mind works, and espousing a view that says that philosophy should be > "naturalistic" about these things. In fact, I take that whole line of thought > to be an offspring of Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein would not have opposed > scientific theories of the mind per se; he was opposed to philosophic and > logical theories as a foundation unto itself. OK by me. I'm still giving Wittgenstein much credit for launching Turing's work, even if I deduct Wittgenstein credits for not appreciating it. > But now I'm confused at why you are referring to a computationally-based > theory of cognition (or what have you) as a species of "nominalism." It's more the other way around, I think. > Aren't you committing the sins of borrowing the speaking > conventions of an insignificant language game? I'm not afraid of labels. Nominalism is all about labels. We're as big about qualifying them, tossing them, and deflating them generally, but I seldom see using a term in anything like its normative manner, as being in any way improper. In fact, I probably do not entirely understand your question. >That is, one does not make any intellectual progress with arguments over >whether the tree is real -- in fact, all one does is have mischief with >grammar. Why are you adopting a naming convention from this cereal-box sort of >philosophy? What it seems to say is, "team A won, only we computed." The name is just a convenience, perhaps it's better to coin a neologism, but by the same token, what would that buy? May I suggest you don't let labels bother you. At least, not to the exclusion of reading further. I should probably say something about this "tree" business, but I'm not sure really where that comes from. I didn't bring it up. And you seem to be warning me not to. So, ... OK? And, IF we should ever get to the point where we can say, "team A won, only we computed", that would be FANTASTIC! Out where I live, that's the whole game. > Why not call it computational naturalism? Or computational perception? Or > computational linguistics? Why adopt the nomenclature of a false game of > allegiance? What "false game of allegiance"? Is that on cable, I don't get cable. I have to guess that this is somehow a reference to nominalism, but I haven't the foggiest idea why anyone would say such a thing. But again, I have very low sensitivity to labels, they're cheap and replaceable, and yet useful, and that's the whole point. As to why just those words, well, you don't seem to have any problem with "computational", though I could raise a dozen or a hundred questions about that, too. Others do. But the conventions are more or less common, and I hold them harmless enough. We call it "football" here in the US when the ball is this odd pointy thing, one of the holy grails of a number of different threads of research in philosophy of mind, language, psychology, science, and probably stuff like medicine and biology, insofar as they have philosophies (I guess they do) is something called a naturalized theory of mind. But there is another tradition having to do with that, everybody claims *their* theory is naturalized, and all those others are, well, unnatural, I guess. Some stuff very, very different from mine claims to be "naturalized", often meaning "irreducible". So, for clarity, and because I think the priority works this way too, I want to explain just how it is that my particular theory *works*. Then I can lay claim to as much naturalism as seems ... natural. I'm sure most people reading the literature would read "computational naturalism" as a claim about computation being naturalized. That, is generally granted. On odd Thursdays I suppose it's forbidden, but that's philosophy for ya. I think it has to be argued for. I see a lot on this discussion group of people terrified of words and claims, but isn't the whole Wittgenstein message on these not that they are dangerous, but meaningless on their own, until use gives them meaning? Indeed, isn't that exactly your advice to me, to make the argument and avoid the -isms? Of course the -ism carries no weight, it's just a punctuation mark of sorts. And finally, as long as you've got my fingers warmed up, why "nominalism"? Because the non-nominalist view, which I see as a broad swath of essentialist neo-platonist and "realist" (about propositional attitude) -isms, absolutely prevent a proper understanding of even mundane computation. I need an -ism to throw back, and there is one, of long provenance - too long, it has a big family and you're never sure which one people are thinking of when you raise the -ism. But there is nothing new under the sun, and the conclusion that essentialism is bad and some kind of deflationary *mechanism* is needed, rhetorically, theoretically, was made by the Epicureans long, long ago, and for the most part cannot be improved upon, just filled out into the new niche of computation. Well, actually, it may be that I want to assert it even more broadly, anywhere that a platonistic meme or connotation can be found, which is pretty much everywhere. So, nominalism it is. 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