Disagree with me.

[Mark Question]

A chair is a chair to me because I call it a chair.
Because I call it a chair, I call it a chair.
Because God is my facebook friend, God is my facebook friend.
Because logic, logic.

[Skip]

Trees don't give a toss about logic, or being seen, or what people call them, or whether there are any gods.
The egocentric concept of the universe is infantile; trees know it's all about them, not you.

[Mark Question]

Trees don't give a toss about logic, or being seen, or what people call them, or whether there are any gods.
The egocentric concept of the universe is infantile; trees know it's all about them, not you.

Are you a tree?! :O

[Skip]

No, I'm a tree-hugger. They don't care.

[Mark Question]

No, I'm a tree-hugger. They don't care.

who do you call a tree!? :O do you hug your family tree, tree diagrams or large herbaceous plants such as papaya and bananas?

[Hobbes' Choice]

I subscribe to the notion I first read articulated by John Stuart Mill: ideas are strengthened, indeed only truly understood, having been subjected to an open criticism and debate. Only then do we properly know the objections of our viewpoint and its retorts.

Thats being said:

A chair is only a chair because I call it a chair.

Disagree?

P.s.

Read my blog at:

http://www.singtoyoursoul.wordpress.com

Your first paragraph is not related enough to the second to justify the "That being said;"
I agree that a chair is a chair because we call it a chair, we can equally call it a seat, a bench, a stool.
But this has precious little to do with "understanding, criticism, debate" issue at the top of the thread.

The fact of the chair requires no understanding, or almost none. It is nothing more than a question of nominalism.
People might as well call a four legged sitting device a nobfuttock, and it would be, by convention, a nobfuttock.
You might argue about the spelling; knobfuttock, but it's not more complicated than that.

People would sit in chairs with a sigh and say 'Whew, its high time I knobbed by futtocks!"
Or if they were siting too long in a chair they might say; "oh, my knobs are far too futtocked, I need to walk about a bit."

There is a conceptual problem shared by many people who think that if there is a word for a thing; that thing must be something. You only have to look at how people choose (subconsciously?) to understand the concept of god; usually far too literally. There is no necessary reason why any attempt must be made to try to understand this idea, and yet those that try so often come up with "god is beyond explanation' sort of argument, whereas for anything else with which this problem is faced usually lead to an abandonment of the idea as a concrete and literal thing.
In this case god is not a god, not even because we call it god.

[Mark Question]

Your first paragraph is not related enough to the second to justify the "That being said;"
I agree that a chair is a chair because we call it a chair, we can equally call it a seat, a bench, a stool.
But this has precious little to do with "understanding, criticism, debate" issue at the top of the thread.

I think it has all to do. Testing ideas and getting you agree.

The fact of the chair requires no understanding, or almost none. It is nothing more than a question of nominalism.
People might as well call a four legged sitting device a nobfuttock, and it would be, by convention, a nobfuttock.
You might argue about the spelling; knobfuttock, but it's not more complicated than that.

People would sit in chairs with a sigh and say 'Whew, its high time I knobbed by futtocks!"
Or if they were siting too long in a chair they might say; "oh, my knobs are far too futtocked, I need to walk about a bit."

There is a conceptual problem shared by many people who think that if there is a word for a thing; that thing must be something. You only have to look at how people choose (subconsciously?) to understand the concept of god; usually far too literally. There is no necessary reason why any attempt must be made to try to understand this idea, and yet those that try so often come up with "god is beyond explanation' sort of argument, whereas for anything else with which this problem is faced usually lead to an abandonment of the idea as a concrete and literal thing.
In this case god is not a god, not even because we call it god.

Logically, god is god. This case god is not all case god.
Thing is a word. Concrete and literally too.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Your first paragraph is not related enough to the second to justify the "That being said;"
I agree that a chair is a chair because we call it a chair, we can equally call it a seat, a bench, a stool.
But this has precious little to do with "understanding, criticism, debate" issue at the top of the thread.

I think it has all to do. Testing ideas and getting you agree.

The fact of the chair requires no understanding, or almost none. It is nothing more than a question of nominalism.
People might as well call a four legged sitting device a nobfuttock, and it would be, by convention, a nobfuttock.
You might argue about the spelling; knobfuttock, but it's not more complicated than that.

People would sit in chairs with a sigh and say 'Whew, its high time I knobbed by futtocks!"
Or if they were siting too long in a chair they might say; "oh, my knobs are far too futtocked, I need to walk about a bit."

There is a conceptual problem shared by many people who think that if there is a word for a thing; that thing must be something. You only have to look at how people choose (subconsciously?) to understand the concept of god; usually far too literally. There is no necessary reason why any attempt must be made to try to understand this idea, and yet those that try so often come up with "god is beyond explanation' sort of argument, whereas for anything else with which this problem is faced usually lead to an abandonment of the idea as a concrete and literal thing.
In this case god is not a god, not even because we call it god.

Logically, god is god. This case god is not all case god.
Thing is a word. Concrete and literally too.

Logically empty concept is empty concept - so what?

"Thing is a word. Concrete and literally too."
This is grammatically meaningless.

[Mark Question]

Logically empty concept is empty concept - so what?

"Thing is a word. Concrete and literally too."
This is grammatically meaningless.

logically full concept is logically full concept.

concrete is a word, literally.
truth is a word.
story is a word too. story is logically full concept of other words, coherent bunch of words.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Logically empty concept is empty concept - so what?

"Thing is a word. Concrete and literally too."
This is grammatically meaningless.

logically full concept is logically full concept.

concrete is a word, literally.
truth is a word.
story is a word too. story is logically full concept of other words, coherent bunch of words.

Excuse me for asking. Please do not take this personally, but is it true to say that English is not your first language?

[Mark Question]

Logically empty concept is empty concept - so what?

"Thing is a word. Concrete and literally too."
This is grammatically meaningless.

logically full concept is logically full concept.

concrete is a word, literally.
truth is a word.
story is a word too. story is logically full concept of other words, coherent bunch of words.

Excuse me for asking. Please do not take this personally, but is it true to say that English is not your first language?

It is True.
i Guess You Have No idea What i Was Säying.
Dont Even try. Keeping The Truth Makes happiness. Amen.
Dungeons and Dragons If You Dare Touch The Truth.

[Banno]

A chair is only a chair because I call it a chair.

The sentence quoted strikes me as nonsense.

On the other hand,
A chair is only a "chair" because we call it a "chair".
is presumably true.

The quotes are important.

[Banno]

A physicists idea of an atom may be different to a chemists idea of an atom. The reason they are not free to apply names to things is because the physicist and the chemist work within different paradigms.

Are you suggesting that the physicist and the chemist cannot understand each other? That's not right.

Are you suggesting that because their ideas of an atom are different, they cannot talk about the very same atom? Surely not.

So what use are paradigms here?

[Hobbes' Choice]

A chair is only a chair because I call it a chair.

The sentence quoted strikes me as nonsense.

On the other hand,
A chair is only a "chair" because we call it a "chair".
is presumably true.

The quotes are important.

The quotes are functionless in this instance. As by their use you are implying an objective reality for chair. This misses the whole point.

An object we call a "chair" is still not a chair in China. It is a cleverly constructed wooden object designed for sitting on.
All of which sentence would have to have quotes by your rubric. In China that object known in English as a chair is called by another name, but that does not make it chair.

[Banno]

The quotes are functionless in this instance. As by their use you are implying an objective reality for chair. This misses the whole point.

An object we call a "chair" is still not a chair in China. It is a cleverly constructed wooden object designed for sitting on.
All of which sentence would have to have quotes by your rubric. In China that object known in English as a chair is called by another name, but that does not make it chair.

Muddled nonsense.

A chair is an object, while "chair" is a word.

I love the statement "In China that object known in English as a chair is called by another name, but that does not make it chair"! So only the English have chairs? You are claiming that the sentence "what is the Chinese word for 'Chair'" is nonsense?