Chris writes: "when I say "why not try and understand what they are getting at, from their viewpoint", I am simply suggesting applying a little philosophical charity (don't leave home without it), and assume that within the framework of their own natural language (art, science, whatever) their statements have validity."
Chris, two points. 1) Your position assumes that whenever you hear/read a lister's words you see what notion he has in mind, what his "statement" was intended to "express". I've noticed how often people on the list consistently assume they're doing that when they're not. How would I know? By observing how often they don't get what I myself was trying to convey -- because I had been too dimwitted to find the words that would occasion the desired notion in the reader's mind. That's why I urge that we take the time to describe as clearly as we can the notion we have in mind with key words. I grant that this can make for tedium, and I regret that. I don't think any other lister exceeds me in making people reach for Preparation-H. But I find it more tedious when I perceive people talking past each other because it's obvious to me they have different notions in mind even though they're using the same words. 2) You urge: "assume that within the framework of their own natural language (art, science, whatever) their statements have validity." I can't be totally sure what you have in mind with "validity", but, off my interpretation of your intent, I have to respond that this I can't do. Consider the muddled or incomplete notions that many listers have recently had in mind when they used the word 'essence'. One lister defined it as "the minimum needed to distinguish one thing from another". When it was pointed out that 'thing' was ambiguous there -- did he mean distinguish a tiger from a lion, or one tiger from another -- he felt he should improve his "definition" to make clear he meant "kinds", not individuals. But that merely introduced another ambiguity -- the word 'kind'has been the subject of reams of argument in philosophical journals. Our lister would not accept that "Ted Bundy is a different kind of person from Mother Teresa" because, in the lister's view all persons are of the "same kind". In other words he tended toward the notion "natural kinds" that Kripke et al maintain. However, most of us would use the very general word 'kind' to talk about all sorts of differences other than "natural kinds". I was sure his original notion of "essence" was confused, so I questioned it. This is different from your position that I initially should have accepted that "within the framework of his own natural language (art, science, whatever) his statements have validity". Questioned, the lister immediately changed his definition. Boorish though it may seem to you, Chris, I'll stick with my position.
