Hello FreeDomainRadio members,
I recently came across a Youtube video of Stefan's about free will. I am aware of the ban on free will discussion on these boards and that is not the subject matter of this post. If I reference that video, it is only in reference to non-free will centered theses. In this video "Free Will Part 2" at around 20:52 Stefan mentions the unique ability of human beings to form "abstract, rational, consistent, objective, definitions." Perhaps I am missing some video but it seems like this sums up Molyneux's views on how language works. More precisely I take this to outline Stefan's working theory of meaning. My position is this, meaning of language is how it is used (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations#Language.2C_meaning.2C_and_use). As such, the notion that meaning necessarily is rational, consistent, objective, or that definitions like those in a dictionary are how meaning in language works is wrong. It's overly broad in that there are aspects of meaning that don't require those conditions and simultaneously overly narrow in that there are many other ways that meaning can arise (all of them consisting of usage). "Abstract" won't do the work here unless you can formulate some version of "abstraction" that doesn't contradict "definite," "consistent," and "logical." Mic drop.