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    If ostensive definition and practical mastery can anchor ... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→The semiotic process must continue generating signs ad infinitum (semiotic infinite regress).

    If ostensive definition and practical mastery can anchor meaning without further semiotic mediation, the regress is not necessary but merely possible.

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    Reasons For

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    • 1.Children successfully acquire language through ostensive pointing and imitation without explicit metalinguistic explanation.
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    • 2.Wittgenstein's beetle-in-the-box argument shows private definitions fail, but public ostension with practice succeeds.
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    • 3.Infinite regress only threatens if meaning requires propositional justification; embodied mastery provides non-propositional grounding.
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    Reasons Against

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    • 1.Ostensive definition requires grasping which feature the gesture picks out—itself a meaning relation needing explanation.
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    • 2.Practical mastery demonstrates competence but doesn't establish what makes that competence meaningful rather than merely habitual.
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    • 3.Claiming regress is merely 'possible' concedes it's real; if foundationalism fails, the burden shifts to explaining why these cases work.
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    Truth & Knowledge1 linkedPhilosophy of Language1 linked

    Related

    Children successfully acquire language through ostensive pointing and imitation ...Claiming regress is merely 'possible' concedes it's real; if foundationalism fai...Infinite regress only threatens if meaning requires propositional justification;...Ostensive definition requires grasping which feature the gesture picks out—itsel...
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    Practical mastery demonstrates competence but doesn't establish what makes that ...The semiotic process must continue generating signs ad infinitum (semiotic infin...Wittgenstein's beetle-in-the-box argument shows private definitions fail, but pu...

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