DISQUS

Luka Yovetich · 3 years ago

Will,

Do you think that philosophers have ANYTHING reliable to say about the meanings of words? I mean, I'm of the opinion, as I hope and think that many are, that the meanings of words are determined by something like the usage and intentions of the linguistic community in general. So nobody's intuitiions should count for TOO much more than anyone else's, I guess. But assuming that philosophers are compentent speakers of their native languages (safe assumption) and assuming that they are better trained to examine their concepts, it doesn't seem unreasonable to think that they are going to be at least a bit more reliable than the average person in figuring out things about the meanings of words. (I'm ignoring the problems that philosophers encounter concerning their intuitions going all wacky due to explicit theories they have swallowed...)

Clearly, I think, the best way to figure out what a word means includes doing more than just polling some philosophers...Since philosophers don't make up even a significant portion of their linguistic communities. But what a philosopher thinks is the meaning of a word seems like it should count for something, right?

Will Wilkinson · 3 years ago

Luka, I definitely think that philosophers are better at conceptual analysis than most folk. The problem is, I think, that a good analysis of what the "linguistic community" means by most terms gets you almost nowhere. For instance, an analysis of the basic meaning of "justice" is going to tell you that it has something to do with people getting what they have coming to them. But it is not going to tell you much else. Beyond that, you've got to try to persuade people that there is some benefit in seeing it your way--that you have a conception that fleshes out the basic concept in a way that meshes with the way we have reason to want to think and live. The pure "I've examined my concept and this is what I came up with" method is pretty much useles.

Check out, for instance, Bishop and Trout's paper on the Pathologies of Standard Analytic Epistemology for a good critique of the pointlessness of just ruminating on the meaning of "justification" or what have you.

Robert Schwartz · 3 years ago

What Are Philosophers Good For?

Absolutely Nothing!

That was way too easy.

Luka Yovetich · 3 years ago

Thanks, Will. I'll take a look at that. Not sure that I understand why you think that figuring out the meaning of important moral vocabulary like 'justice' is pointless. I can see why one would think that that is not all there is to figuring out all we want to know about justice. But it seems like a pretty fantastic start to me.

I'll read that paper though. Thanks again for the pointer.