Tiisala, PFSR, Chapter 1

Winter CGC Meetings - Week 1 - Tiisala, Chapter 1

We began, as per usual, with questions:

1) Relation between regress of rules and structural necessity (p. 20).  Endorsing or describing?

2) What is the normative attitude exhibited in (expressed by?) dispositional understanding (p. 20), i.e. that which corresponds to the normative attitude of endorsemenent exhibited in representational understanding.

3) The account of semantic self-consciousness (SSC) on pages 20-25. How should we understand this to work such that we can give a philosophically robust account of it?

• 3a) SSC enables concept-users to assess and revise concepts (p. 20).  How can we understand the revision of concepts without situating it within the revision of practices?  Do we revise practices in the course of revising practices?
• 3b) When a concept is defective (p. 25), how does an account of SSC explicate or consider the occurence of attachment to defective concepts?  Is the idea that SSC is a sufficient condition for rectification?  Or is it merely necessary?
• 3c) What are conditions of possibility of SSC? Does TT acknowledgment feasibility constraints? Does TT acknowledge constraints in terms of kinds of persons?
• 3d) Re: (3c): How can we model SSC such that it does not violate any important feasibility or kinds-of-persons constraints?
  

4) Sociality -- Tiisala's Brandomian social ontology.

• 4a) Sociality in the form of I-thou versus in the form of I-we (p. 15).
• 4b) Sociality in the form of you-we sociality (p. 17).
  

Discussion ensued:

Section 1.1: Problem of structural heteronomy.

• Understanding (SSC) comes first, then assessment second, then the possibility of rational control (or the possibility of changing concepts in the world).
  

 Section 1.2: Regress of rules argument

• "Understanding, in its basic form, conforms to standards of correctness neither intentionally nor accidentally" (11).
• Understanding is non-intentional (implicit, or "behind our backs") but also non-accidental.  This is dispositional understanding.
  
• We can then make the understanding something we are intentional about (explicit).
  

Section 1.3: I-thou, I-we, you-we

• You-we sociality is fundamental.  I.e., training is fundamental for understanding.

Section 1.4: from Training to Pattern-Governed Behavior

• "One can also conform to a rule because of the rule, thus non-accidentally, without knowing the rule" (18).
  
• "The goal of linguistic training is to produce pattern-governed linguistic behavior" (18).
• This is necessarily social (19), because of §1.3.

Section 1.5: SSC and conceptual control (CC)

• TT on SSC and CC:
• "Rational control over concepts" (20).
  
• Concepts can become objects of thinking as representations (20).
• "Enables concept-users to assess and revise the concepts they use" (20).
• SSC as sufficient as CC: how would this work?
  
• Assertions are speech acts.
• Understanding is essentially assertional.
• SSC means we know how our concepts are connected to each other.
  
• So the account must be that SSC is necessary (but not sufficient) for CC.
• So how does it fare as an account of SSC as necessary for CC?
• What do we have to assume about CC for the 'necessity interpretation of SSC (for CC)' to make sense?
• Is CC something that I can do by myself (wrt my own concepts) or is it something that must be essentially social?
  

 

Further Discussion Points:

Re: (2): Is it acknowledgment?

Re: (3b): Attachment to concepts needs explication.  Subjectivation.

Re: (4): TT's arg. is that you-we is fundamental for I-we and I-thou social relations.