Aha ...

I've just spotted a difficulty, which I need to scope out:

'I can talk' looks empirical, as does 'You can talk'. For Moorean reasons, they may be slightly different.

Of course, 'You can talk' looks like 'You can walk'. But there are empirical tests which we can agree on for 'You can walk' (without which the statement would begin to lose its meaning ... ).

But while there are some similar empirical tests for 'You can talk', they aren't relevant to the fundamental case that I want to depend on. We might check whether a recovering stroke victim can talk, but we can't 'check' whether 'You can talk' is in general true: in the second sense, there is a normative factor associated with the radical translation argument. I decide (for me) that you can talk - even if only tacitly, by talking to you.

We may, of course decide what 'counts' as 'walking' as well, of course. (And we can probably completely articulate this within general tacit constraints).

But we can still talk even if we can't agree on what counts as walking ...

'Socialisation'...

We might as well call a 'socialised' individual one who can participate in and be represented within the conversation we are now having.

I'd probably have to say 'represented as a person' or 'represented as intelligible' ... which may make this a bit muddy?

Bloor (and others) on enthusiasm, private languages etc.

The private language argument is an also an anti-sceptical argument.

The issue is not whether there can be, in some representation of cognitive processing, something that looks like a private language (or, indeed, a 'language of thought') - a signalling system, for instance, that has a syntactical structure.

It is, instead, whether this thing that looks like a private language can have meanings attributed to its 'signals' that do not depend upon the meanings of language game within which it is described. Bloor thinks of a social matrix, or socialisation here. Wittgenstein is vague, but points to the need for public tests of some kinds. Locke refers to reason ...

As Bloor says, (p55, Wittgenstein, Rules and Institutions), arguments of this kind cannot 'claim absolute cogency or a decisive victory'.

But he's making the same mistake as Quine did - having found a concrete narrative (science, society) of the process which seems to exemplify or underpin public rationality, he mistakes the content for the form. It's like believing a laptop can think, or believing a word processor can speak because it can check grammar.

The normative aspects of attributing meaning, or rationality, cannot be captured in this kind of concrete narrative. Not only is there an open question problem here - about the normative status of the narrative, about it's capacity to confer validity on the processes it seeks to explain - but the very nature of the narrative itself is called into question. What is 'society' or 'socialisation'? If it becomes just 'what underpins rationality' (Spinoza? !), then this empties the narrative of content and the explanation of sense.

And , of course, the narrative depends, for its meaning, on the very categories it seeks to explain (truth, rule following, knoweldge). And, sadly, it can only claim to support them by trying to deny or marginalise the very aspect of them that we most want explained: the validity of their content.

If, on the other hand, we show that these categories can be recursively grounded in our ability to talk about things - an ability which needs no further exposition, since querying it is unintelligible - then we not only have the fundamental argument that Bloor denies is possible, but we also avoid the open question trap.

'Essential' metaphysics ...

Is it possible that being a Platonist makes it easier to do mathematics?

There's no reason why not, and plenty of pointers in the opposite direction: religious people are often better able to survive misery; people with less imagination may be less distracted by fear ...

None of these amount to arguments for the substantive positions, but if the 'heuristic postulate' was true, how should we respond?

Personally, I'd rather do philosophy. Is it impossible to be a good philosopher of mathematics and also a good mathematician?

Scientists tend to be naïve sensory empiricists. Could they do such good science if they weren't?

What delusions must a philosopher entertain in order to be good at philosophy?

Version 10
More on meaning and meaningfulness.

The dogma of any discipline is meaningless within the discipline - empirical science and religion are on equal footing in this respect. Where they are not on an equal footing is with respect to their scope:

It's quite easy to avoid language which makes religious presuppositions, but almost impossible to avoid language which makes scientific presuppositions. We can talk about the world without talking about God, but we can't talk about the world without talking about the world ...

Version 9
Working changes. Not very important.

Irrationality and games

In certain games, it can be wise to undermine your opponents' confidence in your rationality.

In a language game, we are engaged in constructing rationality: in negotiating the conditions of sense-making. In a commercial language game, the material dimensions of this negotiation can't be ignored. They partly determine what makes sense, but they also partly determine which aspects of the negotiation have to remain tacit.

In any language game - in any conversation - some of this negotiation is tacit, of course, but we think this can be ignored in 'scientific' or 'academic' language games.

But even in an ideal academic conversation ideas are products that are bought and sold ...

Commercial language

The reason this needs a closer look is because it provides a useful model of tacit negotiation over what makes sense.

In a commercial discussion, the material objectives of the parties tacitly (from the point of view of the language of the discussion) constrain the sense making opportunities. However a commercial negotiation can only continue if there is a working language within which to negotiate.

In this context, the comforting metaphors which inform the philosophical discussions of scientific truth telling look much less credible.