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Carmelics

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Without antecedent mutual knowledge of at least some sema... — Carmelics

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Challenges→Mutual knowledge of a language L sufficient for communication is achieved only after a given linguistic use occurs, not before it.

Without antecedent mutual knowledge of at least some semantic and syntactic norms, utterances would be indistinguishable from noise, precluding any post-hoc convergence.

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Reasons For

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Reason for

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1.Noise lacks systematic patterns; language requires recognizable structure, so some pre-existing norm knowledge must distinguish utterances from random acoustic signals.
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2.Post-hoc convergence requires interpreting initial utterances as *meaningful attempts*—a classification impossible without baseline semantic/syntactic expectations.
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3.Children acquiring language rely on caregiver modeling of norms; complete norm-absence would leave no basis for learning rather than mere mimicry.
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Reasons Against

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Reason against

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1.Humans detect communicative intent through prosody, gesture, and context alone; semantic norms may be jointly *constructed* rather than antecedently shared.
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2.Historical language emergence shows communities created novel norms post-hoc from pre-linguistic signals; mutual knowledge grew *from* convergence, not before it.
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3.Statistical pattern-recognition in neural systems requires no explicit norm-knowledge; distinguishing signal from noise operates at sub-semantic levels.
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Key Terms

knowledge(Distinguished from mere true belief, which may be the product of indoctrination and need not exercise deliberative capacities.): Justified true belief — true belief that has been arrived at through the exercise of deliberative capacities, including comparison of and deliberation among alternatives.

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2 topics

Truth & Knowledge1 linked Philosophy of Language1 linked

Related

Children acquiring language rely on caregiver modeling of norms; complete norm-a...Historical language emergence shows communities created novel norms post-hoc fro...Humans detect communicative intent through prosody, gesture, and context alone; ...Mutual knowledge of a language L sufficient for communication is achieved only a...

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Noise lacks systematic patterns; language requires recognizable structure, so so...Post-hoc convergence requires interpreting initial utterances as *meaningful att...

Details

Type: claim
Perspectives: 2 (1 for, 1 against)
Edits: 1 edit

Statistical pattern-recognition in neural systems requires no explicit norm-know...