The subject of obscure writing came up on another thread, and with Steven Pinker’s new book on writing coming out next week, now is a good time for a thread on the topic.
Obscure writing has its place (Finnegan’s Wake and The Sound and the Fury, for example), but it is usually annoying and often completely unnecessary. Here’s a funny clip in which John Searle laments the prevalence of obscurantism among continental philosophers:
John Searle – Foucault and Bourdieu on continental obscurantism
When is obscure prose appropriate or useful? When is it annoying or harmful? Who are the worst offenders? Feel free to share examples of annoyingly obscure prose.
Well, another way to look at it is that dead brains don’t have intentionality. Why is that?
This is helpful in many ways. I find Dennett increasingly fascinating as I get older. (Now, why is that?)
I share Dennett’s admiration for Ryle (who was Dennett’s D. Phil. adviser) and Sellars, and I tend to read the personal/subpersonal distinction in terms of Sellars’s manifest/scientific image distinction (and conversely).
But let’s stick with Ryle for a moment here. When Ryle complains that the ghost-in-the-machine conception of mind rests on a category-mistake, and that we need to pay close attention to the ordinary uses of mental discourse, is he denying that we are genuine semantic engines? Or he is rejecting a specific explanation of what constitutes a genuine semantic engine? I read him as doing the latter — and that’s crucial here. Rejecting a Cartesian picture of semantic engines is not rejecting the very concept of a semantic engine! (Granted, this is perhaps closer to McDowell’s Ryle than to Dennett’s Ryle; see McDowell’s “Naturalism in Philosophy of Mind”.)
For example, one would have to be in the grip of a Cartesian or perhaps Platonic conception of what a semantic engine is in order to think that our immediate grasp of meanings requires that meanings are non-physical. My own view, quite frankly, is that taking biology seriously gives us very good reasons for thinking that we can naturalize semantic engines much more successfully than Dennett lets on.
Meanings are non-physical, in the same sense that mathematical objects (such as numbers) are non-physical.
Note that I am a fictionalist, not a platonist.
When I suggest that the brain is a semantic engine, I’m saying that the brain is not dealing with abstract symbols (so is not a syntax processor). Rather, the brain is dealing with negotiating our way through the world.
It was mostly to point out the ambiguity of “rule following behavior which causally interacts with the world”.
Unless you are a creationist, brains evolved. To understand what they are doing, you need to understand how pre-language brains work. Someting we don’t.
Computers are fine at processing syntax. What they don’t get, and what is really interesting, is how the non-verbal stuff works.
Yes, I agree.
I teach a computer science class on formal languages and automata. Or, more correctly, I did before retirement.
What quickly becomes clear — or should become clear — is that if “language” means what is discussed in theory of formal languages, then a natural language is not a language. Its resemblance to a language (i.e. to a formal language) is at best quite superficial.
The reason I sometimes seem critical of philosophy, is that it tends to treat natural language as if it were a formal language. Kripke comes across that way. Some of the discussion of meaning in this TSZ thread comes across that way. It doesn’t work.
I agree.
Maybe we need a version of analytic philosophy that is not tied to language.
Yet there is philosophy for semantics and pragmatics and language.
This substantial body of work seems to conflict with your characterization of what philosophy tends to do.
Dennett uses those artifacts to explain why there is no principled way to distinguish between derived and original intentionality.
The explanation of intentionality itself using only naturalistic methods is separate. He bases it on evolution, relying on Millikan for the details. (Just compare the list of papers and topics over the last 20 years at his site and at Millikan’s to see why I think that).
I never claimed you claimed that. What I objected to was your remark that Searle is not arguing that semantics is not derivable (in one important sense of that word) from syntax. That is precisely what he is arguing for.
I think perhaps Chomsky did that. He seemed obsessed with the fact that kids learn grammar without formal training, but somehow missed the fact that most human communication involves connotation. Often we mean the opposite of what we say, and yet the message gets through.
Right. The thing is my “initial intuition” is that those causal questions are off topic. OTOH, I like keiths’ remark about the bacterium: that DOES seem to me relevant. But two things are necessary, I think. First, the proto-references that bacteria make have to be reasonably analogous to what we do when we mean things in the world. Second, the bacteria need to utilize nothing but “syntax” to achieve their references. Those both seem plausible to me, but I expect each is controversial. And Neil has explicitly denied the second one (though, admittedly, I have almost no understanding at all of anything he posts).
My understanding of Dennett’s position on this:
First, he is a content externalist. If there is a fact of the matter about what you mean, it cannot be determined solely by what is in your head. He mentions Twin Earth thought experiments as one justification for this.
Now, given that, what types of external situations can determine a fact of the matter.
Well, to determine if something is a fact, there must be standard for judging right and wrong. Where can that standard come from?
Here he relies on evolutionary explanations to provide a naturalistic basis for those norms for right and wrong. The fact of the matter of what you mean depends on the evolutionary and learning history of you as an organism. In particular, on the “proper functioning” of your representations and representation mechanisms. See Millikan for the gory details of that.
There are no objective standards for determining the facts of the matter beyond those historical ones. That leaves open the theoretical possibility that there could be more than one consistent interpretation of all you say — this is how he brings in the Quinian indeterminacy of translation.
Now that is an theoretical concern only in real life, for with the simultaneous constraints of shared world, shared evolution, shared biology, shared linguistic community, only one interpretation works.
But now he can bring up the twin earth thought experiment for a new purpose. Suppose someone is transported from earth to twin earth. Is there a determinable fact of the matter about that persons usage of water (supposing twin earth uses same word for XYZ). Dennett says no, because those constraints no longer apply in that new world where the transported person’s evolutionary and learning history did not occur.
If the bacterium example is the one about following chemical trails for food (and not Dretske’s example of the magnetic particles helping the bacterium avoid oxygen) then to me it is a very limited example.
First: there is no internal representation in the bacterium, or at least it is not made explicit in the posts I saw. It seems to me that to get a start on the nature of the problem, you have to have some notion of representation within the organism.
But once you include internal representations, you get into the philosophical meat of the issue:
1. explain the nature of those representations without invoking intentionality in your explanation
2. explain misrepresentation; that is how to get a naturalistic explanation of norms for right and wrong representations and for distinguishing representations of “horses” from representations of “horses OR cows” (see link to the disjunction issue posted earlier if this issue is not familiar).
On your intuitions about causality:
I cannot see how you can omit causality from the discussion, given that understanding of intentionality must include change. What is the causal nature of changes of state as exhibited by the mind that makes them intentional?
As I said to P., no one claims dead brains have intentionality. Dead brains are syntax. Living brains are syntactical engines. When can we attribute intentionality to the process which is “running on that engine”?
That requires causal interactions with the world, within the brain, and within the mind (using intertheoretic reduction of the causes in the mind and those in the brain, just to throw in one more thought).
Thanks, Bruce. I don’t agree with too much of that–not as to its correctness as Dennett scholarship, but as to its philosophical merit. Mostly, it’s insufficiently realist for my taste. It’s not that I think there must be a DETERMINATE fact of the matter as to whether my belief regards water or twater, however. If there isn’t then….THAT’s what I mean. There is, in a word, a fact of the matter about there being no determinate fact of the matter. (Ewww–philosophy talk) Another way of putting this is to say I disagree with his/your claim that Well, to determine if something is a fact, there must be standard for judging right and wrong. That’s an epistemological claim only. Perhaps that’s why, as I’ve said before, the introduction of evolution or derived intentionality here seems to me off point.
Anyhow, what the hell–I’m only Horn, and he’s ……..DENNETT!!
So I decided it was time to go back and read the original paper.
As best I saw from one reading, he does not even mention deriving semantics from syntax in the original paper. I could not find an online copy to do a search to confirm this, but it is definitely not what the paper focuses on explicitly.
Instead, the paper is about the having the right causal powers. From Searle’s conclusion:
The syntax versus semantics argument was in a later Searle paper. To summarize SEP on this later argument, to make that claim about formal notions of syntactic systems versus semantic systems, Searle has to equate interpretation as used in formal logic of semantic systems with meaning as used in the original CR experiment. That is the issue: is a computer, in particular one implementing the right causal processing, simply a an inert formal system as used by logicians?
To get around counter-arguments that a computer cannot be thought of that way, in 1990 Searle argues that static patterns on walls can be considered computers if properly interpreted by us, and hence computers are no different from static formal systems. But critics counter that computers running programs are not static patterns needing interpretation by us.
Now to get back to his original paper. There is an interesting point: what causal powers of brains have to be instantiated to implement intentionality? And given that list of powers, what physical media will serve to provide those powers? That is an interesting empirical question which could only be answered by research in cognitive science.
That standard can only come from us. This is part of why I said (in another thread), “what we consider to be objective cannot be fully objective.”
I’m happy that I can even provide a coherent account of what Dennett thinks (coherent, not necessarily accurate). A good part of my long posts here are self-test of that capability to write a coherent account but feedback on coherence or accuracy is great when I get it.
I’m not really competent to judge him overall on the philosophical big picture (and is there any other kind of picture in philosophy, Witt 1 aside)..
On the epistemological stuff: I take you as saying that facts of the matter can exist without us having ways to determine them. I suppose that is possible. I guess it would be another way of expressing the mysterianism you sometimes accuse yourself of.
Yes, I agree that it depends on whether you think some kind of pragmatic approach qualifies as objective. I’ve resorted to dodging that issue via “as objective as science” in other threads. Nuff said on that in those threads.
keiths:
Alan:
Bruce:
Graziano:
Bruce,
How can “It doesn’t” be interpreted as anything other than “It does not”?
Graziano:
How can “there is no subjective impression” mean anything other than that there isn’t a subjective impression?
When an author states his position so emphatically and unambiguously, we should take him at his word. The principle of charity does not extend to changing “it doesn’t” to “it does” or “there is no subjective impression” to “there is a subjective impression”.
walto,
“Sorta” semantic engines are syntactic engines that approximate the behavior of true semantic engines (which are impossible). “Sorta” semantic is better than nothing. Evolution exploits what it can get its hands on.
Here’s the relevant Dennett quote:
Keith: Read the book if you want more info.
BTW, I am not saying that I agree with everything he says there. Only that if you want to understand his ideas, the book is your best bet.
The fact that some process, mental or physical is, at base, causal does not require that our explanation of the process be causal. For example, if somebody asks me what an opera or a savings bank is, it will be worse than unhelpful if I start discussing the physics of the buildings or the biology of the diaphragm.
This is not a suggestion that there could be operas or banks without the requisite causal conditions fulfilled: it is simply a point about explication. Failure to see this point is the full flower of the genetic fallacy.
Issues about how brains come to be semantic engines in the causal sense are of great interest to neurophysiologists, of course. But those mechanisms are largely irrelevant to the philosophical questions, IMO.
Bruce,
You’re assuming that the book supersedes the Times piece, but why? The book was published over a year ago; the Times piece, a few days ago. I see no reason not to take Graziano at his (current, unambiguous) word.
That’s why you are an engineer and not in marketing, I suppose.
Again, it is the sorta engine that wants explaining. If it’s purely syntactic, we want to understand how it grows out of proto-designation.
I have no problem with Dennett’s suggestion that an ideal semantic engine is tantamount to a perpetual motion machine. My suggestion is to forget about it completely and deal with the actual datum–our semantic capacities such as they are. I don’t see that a philosopher of any school has to suggest that what humans do is closely akin to a perfect semantic engine, given Dennett’s understanding of what such a machine could do. What I infer from that, though, is that semantic engines (real ones, in the real world), don’t have to be perfect at all. I’ll go further: I think we can I infer from this important difference that the perfect machine Dennett is conceiving is only sorta a semantic engine, because real ones would have to be more like people.
(In other words, one man’s modus ponens is another man’s modus tollens.)
Bruce,
You think Graziano is deliberately, unambiguously lying in order to sell books? And that this is more plausible than taking his Times piece as it is written?
As I understand Millikan (and Dennett), she thinks that evolution-based historical approach is necessary to answering the two questions I noted here. These are questions from philosophers, not scientists.
Do you think there is a naturalistic explanation of intentionality? If so, does it need to address those philosophical issues. If so, is there anyone you think who has a better approach?
Is there a naturalistic, non-causal approach that you are aware of?
I suspect that these big questions are not something science is ready to address, except for isolated chunks, so it looks like an open field for philosophers for now, as long as they stay consistent with those small chunks.
Keith: Well, there is lying, and then there is salemanship. Plus don’t forget to include the editors in your calculations.
If by “explanation” you mean physico-biological, I understand the correct answer is not yet–but I think it will come.
If by “explanation” you mean something like “analysis”–I don’t think so
I don’t know what that would be.
As I’ve said before, a couple of contemporary philosophers I like very much are Thomasson and Pautz. Some of their stuff relates to those questions.
Philosophers only have business monkeying around with the second question above, and I think it’s very important to keep the two questions separate. Understanding the distinction between being and being known is really important to doing good philosophy, IMHO. (I often screw it up myself, in spite of trying trying trying.) In fact, as I posted on the tautology thread, a good portion of why some people think that “Survival of the fittest” is tautological is that they can’t keep this stuff straight.
ETA: I will mention here that I have pushed a causal theory of perception in a couple of papers, but I have long been concerned about a claim made by Hall way back in 1943, that any such theory is itself an example of the genetic fallacy. On his view, even (especially?) for the direct realist, the object of perception is in an entirely different category from the cause(s) of a perceptual event.
(I don’t like thinking about this too much.)
Bruce,
This would be a case of lying to sell books, if you are correct.
If Graziano allowed the editors to publish lies under his name, that would be tantamount to lying.
Your hypothesis might be more plausible if we were talking about Deepak Chopra, but Graziano is a respected scientist with an academic reputation to protect.
It seems far more plausible to me that either a) you misinterpreted his book, inadvertently softening his view to align better with your own, or b) that his position has hardened in the year since he published the book.
If Graziano writes something unambiguous and forceful and Bruce tells me, “No, he doesn’t really mean that,” I’m afraid I’m going to have to go with Graziano.
Thanks, Walt.
I have Ordinary Objects and I see Millikan is referenced in a footnote there. My quick scan of that is Thomasson is saying Millikan is aligned at least in general with her way of looking at some aspects of content. I have not heard of Pautz but I will look for his web page.
I do look at the other thread and appreciate “the good guys” posts there, especially the exchanges on the scientific aspects and the philosophical points that you and KN have raised. But I can only take reading that thread for a limited time, as other than those posts it seems to me to be mostly a rehash of the Monty Python’s argument sketch, except not nearly as funny.
You take this stuff so seriously, Keith.
Lighten up.
That’s the end of what I have to say on the topic.
Here is an article from August 2013 that is a bit more expansive.
BruceS,
It’s a broad church here. We don’t turn anyone away!
Bruce,
Which of us is taking things too seriously? I’m simply disagreeing with what you wrote, and explaining why. Aren’t your claims eligible for criticism at The Skeptical Zone?
You say that Graziano didn’t mean what he wrote in the Times piece. I find that extremely implausible, for reasons already given (and then some). It’s far more likely that you misinterpreted his book or that he has modified his position in the meantime.
Alan,
Thanks for that link. It confirms what Graziano says in the Times article:
keiths,
I wonder if there is a law of the universe that might be stated as “no entity can evolve which is capable of understanding itself completely”.
walto,
My answer is that “sorta” semantic engines are favored by evolution (and by design, in the case of artifacts) for the same reason that true semantic engines would be favored, if they existed: a capacity for representation is extremely useful.
Dennett’s point is that meaning per se — original intentionality, intrinsic intentionality, or whatever you want to call it — would be causally inert, even if it existed. Meanings can’t push particles around.
They don’t have to, but many do think that original/intrinsic intentionality has some kind of causal power.
That seems backward to me. To define a true semantic engine as one that does what people do is to assume that people are true semantic engines, which is the very question at issue.
To me, a true semantic engine is one that responds to actual meanings as opposed to their physical representations (which have only syntactic effects).
The business of pushing particles around reminds me that this is also a discussion of determinism.
Right, that’s what I take to be the datum that philosophers are supposed to explain. I’m much less interested in an explanation of something that is very much unlike what people do when they mean things.
I agree with with the rest of your post.
Claims are. Jokes are not.
When I say things like “that is why you are an engineer, not a marketer” they are meant as light conversation, not logical arguments. I guess I need to use smileys more.
Keith: I’ve read the whole article Alan links to, and reading the whole thing confirms to me what I have said already: Graziano is trying to explain why we have consciousness (ie subjective experience), not deny it. He even makes a point of emphasizing its importance at the end of the article.
(Side point: I think there is an analogy between what Graziano is trying to do and what Dennett is trying to do with syntax versus semantics. Graziano is trying to understand how we can have subjective experiences in physical brains. Dennett is trying to understand how semantics can be explained by physical brains.)
BruceS,
From Keith quoting Graziano:
First, Graziano appears to be doing interesting and useful work with maquaques.
Second, I’m not sure there is a clear, unequivocal meaning for “consciousness” across science and philosophy. I see suggested synonyms are sentience, awareness and subjectivity(!).
Third, I still interpret Graziano as saying that the idea of consciousness is not of much explanatory value in trying to understand how the brain works.
I am afraid I am at a loss to understand what you mean. Let alone the causal connections between the dots on my screen and the relevant neural patterns in your head.
Is the church reference a joke about atheism?
As I replied to Keith (breaking my promise to myself in the previous post, but oh well), I don’t see the harm in posting some lighthearted comments. I’m sorry if they came across as escalating tension in some way. They were meant to do the opposite.
As I also said to Keith, maybe I need to use smileys more. But I try to make my irony and humor more subtle. Possibly the sense of humor is too Canadian for this forum. I should ask Robert B about that, I suppose.
It was a throw-away remark (as most of mine are) intended to lighten the mood.
No. I just mean’t the guideline is to be tolerant of differing views and ways of expressing them.
I like light-hearted. I don’t see any harm either.
😉
When Robert B. says something that seems to be obvious humor, it usually turns out that he is being dead serious.
I think you are right in this and a previous post when you note that I don’t have a good understanding of how an analysis of meaning could differ from an explanation of how meaning works.
I suspect this blind spot about analysis relates somehow to the guilty pleasure I got from reading L&R’s catty putdown of most metaphysics in the initial chapter of their book (no paradoxical harm to cats in that sentence, by the way).
I’ll need to ask my analyst about that possibility at my next appointment.
Is that Adam Pautz? Seems to be a pretty young for this stuff, at least by his picture.
That last sentence seems to resurrect that ancient (in terms of our exchanges in TSZ-years) thread about direct perception versus explaining perception via causal mechanisms.
I agree it is best not to go there right now. But if you ever wanted to write on OP on that, …
keiths, to Bruce:
Bruce:
I took that as a joke, and didn’t criticize it. My criticism was directed at this claim of yours:
I don’t think that’s right, and I’ve given my reasons. I think the Times article represents Graziano’s true position. The article that Alan linked to confirms that impression.
Relax a little, Bruce. If someone disagrees with you, they’re just disagreeing with you. There’s no reason to stamp off in a huff:
Leaving that impression shows the depth his comedic talent.
Keith: Here is a paragraph from the first pages of his book:
That and similar passages throughout the book lead me to understand him as saying he is not denying consciousness but rather explaining it.
I agree the passages you quote might be read another way. And there are similar passages to yours in the book. But I read these passages and the use of strong words like “myths”, when taken in the overall context of the book, as tools authors of popularizations use to help explain their ideas to ordinary people. That is what my lighthearted reference to salesmanship as opposed to lying was trying to convey.
Of course, I may be reading him wrong. But I won’t be convinced of that by quotes of passages without explaining how they fit consistently with other things he says. I explain the existence of the type of passages you quote as the sorts of things one finds in explanations in popularizations, as due to shortening for most impact in a magazine or newspaper, and as the influence of editors who tell scientists how to write with impact for ordinary people. (I assume his book editor also helped with the wording of the passage I quote).
I suppose it is also possible he changed is mind since the book. But then I think he might have mentioned that in the articles.