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I guess at this point I turn into a cliche and find french philosophy not that interesting. It seems to me that (those damned barrel-dwelling philosophers) ask

I guess at this point I turn into a cliche and find french philosophy not that interesting. It seems to me that (those damned barrel-dwelling philosophers) ask all the questions backwards, as if their goal is to eventually gain an adequate non-understanding of something. Besides ambiguity and context dependence "I built this web application using Python" also has a translatable meaning. You might need to translate "python" to "my computer" or "built" to "construit." You will have a hard time without pre-existing notions of computers or web applications. The sentence is translatable though. A lot of things don't exist if you look too closely, but appear as you zoom out. There is no such thing as "species" in nature. It's a classification created by people. Language. Yet, it does describe something that nature abides by sometimes. It exists, even if it isn't discrete.

steveklabnik 6y ago
To each their own :) I don't find the analytic project compelling, generally. Good thing there's lots of room! > also has a translatable meaning Yes. My point is that everything is "translatable." There is nothing that cannot be translated. > There is no such thing as "species" in nature. It's a classification created by people. Yes, this is a fantastic example, and actually pretty close to my favorite French guy's heart. Maybe you've got some continental in you after all. ;) (I think you're arguing that a continental person would argue that species don't exist, but many at least wouldn't. They would exactly argue that it's a system created by people, that is sometimes useful, and sometimes not.)
- dalbasal 6y ago
  >> Good thing there's lots of room! I think you might be misunderestimating. The terms are loser leaves the internet. No quarter. I didn't mean to imply either position by continentals. I don't really know enough about this stuff to have such a specific stereotyping. Also, as an irishman I fart in a specific general direction on anglo-french disputes. I picked species naively. It's just a good example of "exists yet doesn't." I assumed we can all agree that it exists, yet doesn't. I don't see what the problem is, philosophically. Both the word species and the phenomenon are approximations. That kind of "problem" is abundant. Money is that. Language is that. Etc. The problem can be approached from a lot of ways philosophically. Geeky, information-centric understandings. Classical, plato-esque idealism. None of these are incompatible and I don't really see what problem we're trying we're trying to solve. Some stuff isn't stuff. When was this not known?

steveklabnik 6y ago

To each their own :) I don't find the analytic project compelling, generally. Good thing there's lots of room! > also has a translatable meaning Yes. My point is that everything is "translatable." There is nothing that cannot be translated. > There is no such thing as "species" in nature. It's a classification created by people. Yes, this is a fantastic example, and actually pretty close to my favorite French guy's heart. Maybe you've got some continental in you after all. ;) (I think you're arguing that a continental person would argue that species don't exist, but many at least wouldn't. They would exactly argue that it's a system created by people, that is sometimes useful, and sometimes not.)

dalbasal 6y ago
>> Good thing there's lots of room! I think you might be misunderestimating. The terms are loser leaves the internet. No quarter. I didn't mean to imply either position by continentals. I don't really know enough about this stuff to have such a specific stereotyping. Also, as an irishman I fart in a specific general direction on anglo-french disputes. I picked species naively. It's just a good example of "exists yet doesn't." I assumed we can all agree that it exists, yet doesn't. I don't see what the problem is, philosophically. Both the word species and the phenomenon are approximations. That kind of "problem" is abundant. Money is that. Language is that. Etc. The problem can be approached from a lot of ways philosophically. Geeky, information-centric understandings. Classical, plato-esque idealism. None of these are incompatible and I don't really see what problem we're trying we're trying to solve. Some stuff isn't stuff. When was this not known?