From 0f35a25aeda5c8d0d740ccc0badc557cc9dcfc0a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: grr <grr@lo2.org>
Date: Thu, 2 May 2024 16:45:24 -0400
Subject: break out chapters for philosophy section

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+\chapter{The Flaws Underlying Beliefs}
+
+
+We begin with the question of whether there is a realm beyond my 
+"immediate experience." Does the Empire State Building continue to exist 
+even when I am not looking at it? If either of these questions can be asked, 
+then there must indeed be a realm beyond my experience. If I can ask 
+whether there is a realm beyond my experience, then the answer must be 
+yes. The reason is that there has to be a realm beyond my experience in 
+order for the phrase "a realm beyond my experience" to have any meaning. 
+Russell's theory of descriptions will not work here; it cannot jump the gap 
+between my experience and the realm beyond my experience. The assertion 
+\speech{There is a realm beyond my experience} is true if it is meaningful, and that 
+is precisely what is wrong with it. There are rules implicit in the natural 
+language as to what is semantically legitimate. Without a rule that a 
+statement and its negation cannot simultaneously be true, for example, the 
+natural language would be in such chaos that nothing could be done with it. 
+Aristotle's \booktitle{Organon} was the first attempt to explicate this structure formally, 
+and Supplement D of Carnap's \booktitle{Meaning and Necessity} shows that hypotheses 
+about the implicit rules of a natural language are well-defined and testable. 
+An example of implicit semantics is the aphorism that \enquote{saying a thing is so 
+doesn't make it so.} This aphorism has been carried over into the semantics 
+of the physical sciences: its import is that there is no such thing as a 
+substantive assertion which is true merely because it is meaningful. If a 
+statement is true merely because it is meaningful, then it is too true. It must 
+be some kind of definitional trick which doesn't say anything. And this is 
+our conclusion about the assertion that there is a realm beyond my 
+experience. Since it would be true if it were meaningful, it cannot be a 
+substantive assertion. 
+
+The methodology of this paper requires special comment. Because we 
+are considering ultimate questions, it is pointless to try to support our 
+argument on some more basic, generally accepted account of logic, language, 
+and cognition. After all, such accounts are being called into question here. 
+The only possible pproach for this paper is an internal critique of common 
+sense and the natural language, one which judges them by reference to 
+aspects of themselves. 
+
+As an example of the application of our initial result to specific 
+questions of belief, consider the question of whether the Empire State 
+Building continues to exist when I am not looking at it. If this question is 
+even meaningful, then there has to be a realm in which the nonexperienced 
+Empire State Building does or does not exist. This realm is precisely the 
+realm beyond my experience. The question of whether the Empire State 
+Building continues to exist when I am not Jooking at it depends on the very 
+assertion, about the existence of a realm beyond my experience, which we 
+found to be nonsubstantive. Thus, the assertion that the Empire State 
+Building continues to exist when I am not looking at it must also be 
+considered as nonsubstantive or meaningless, as a special case of a 
+definitional trick. 
+
+We start by taking questions of belief seriously as substantive questions, 
+which is the way they should be taken according to the semantics implicit in 
+the natural language. The assertion that God exists, for example, has 
+traditionally been taken as substantive; when American theists and Russian 
+atheists disagree about its truth, they are not supposed to be disagreeing 
+aboui nothing. We find, however, that by using the rules implicit in the 
+natural language to criticize the natural language itself, we can show that 
+belief-assertions are not substantive. 
+
+Parallel to our analysis of belief-assertions or the realm beyond my 
+experience, we can make an analysis of beliefs as mental acts. (We 
+understand a belief to be an assertion referring to the realm beyond my 
+experience, or to be the mental act of which the assertion is the verbal 
+formulation.) Introspectively, what do I do when I believe that the Empire 
+State Building exists even though I am not looking at it? I imagine the 
+Empire State Building, and I have the attitude toward this mental picture 
+that it is a perception rather than a mental picture. Let us bring out a 
+distinction we are making here. Suppose I see a table. I have a so-called 
+perception of a table, a visual table-experience. On the other hand, I may 
+close my eyes and imagine a table. Independently of any consideration of 
+"reality," two different types of experiences can be distinguished, 
+non-mental experiences and mental experiences. A belief as a mental act 
+consists of having the attitude toward a mental experience that it is a 
+non-mental experience. The "attitude" which is involved is not a 
+proposition. There are no words to describe it in greater detail; only 
+introspection can provide examples of it. The attitude is a self-deceiving 
+psychological trick which corresponds to the definitional trick in the 
+belief-assertion. 
+
+The entire analysis up until now can be carried a step farther. So far as 
+the formal characteristics of the problem are concerned, we find that 
+although the problem originally seems to center on "nonexperience," it 
+turns out to center on "language." Philosophical problems exist only if there 
+is language in which to formulate them. The flaw which we have found in 
+belief-assertions has the following structure. A statement asserts the 
+existence of something of a trans-experiential nature, and it turns out that 
+the statement must be true if it is merely meaningful. The language which 
+refers to nonexperience can be meaningful only if there is a realm beyond 
+experience. The entire area of beliefs reduces to one question: are linguistic 
+expressions which refer to nonexperience meaningful? We remark 
+parenthetically that practically all language is supposed to refer to 
+nonexperiences. Even the prosaic word "table" is supposed to denote an 
+object, a stable entity which continues to exist when I am not looking at it. 
+Taking this into account, we can reformulate our fundamental question as 
+follows. Is language meaningful? Is there a structure in which symbols that 
+we experience (sounds or marks) are systematically connected to objects, to 
+entities which extend beyond our experience, to nonexperiences? In other 
+words, is there language? (To say that there is language is to say that half of 
+all belief-assertions are true. That is, given any belief-assertion, either it is 
+true or its negation is true.) Thus, the only question we need to consider is 
+whether language itself exists. But we see immediately, much more 
+immediately than in the case of "nonexperience," that this question is 
+caught in a trap of its own making. The question ought to be substantive. (Is 
+there a systematic relation between marks and objects, between marks and 
+nonexperiences? Is there an expression, "Empire State Building," which is 
+related to an object outside one's experience, the Empire State Building, and 
+which therefore has the same meaning whether one is looking at the Empire 
+State Building or not? ) However, it is quite obvious that if one can even ask 
+whether there is language, then the answer must be affirmative. Further, the 
+distinction of language levels which is made in formal languages will not help 
+here. Before you can construct formal languages, you have to know the 
+natural language. The natural language is the infinite level, the container of 
+the formal languages. If the container goes, everything goes. And this 
+container, this infinite level language, must include its own semantics. There 
+is no way to "go back before the natural language." As we mentioned 
+before, the aphorism that "saying a thing is so doesn't make it so" is an 
+example of the natural language's semantics in the natural language. 
+
+in summary, the crucial assertion is the assertion that there is language, 
+made in the natural language. This assertion is true if it is meaningful. It is 
+too true; it must be a definitional trick. Beliefs stand or fall on the question 
+of whether there is language. There is no way to get outside the definitional 
+trick and ask this question in a way that would be substantive. The question 
+simply collapses. 
+
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