The Void and the Absolute Oneness of the Universe

Actually...that was funny. I laughed.

Didn't realize you had it in you!

All part of the service Frank !

Once again, you fail to provide a reasonable answer to the criticism of your infantile religious views. I'm not surprised, though--your religious views cannot provide you an answer to the question for whence your "languagers." You just won't admit it. Talking about functionally meaningless terms is just a way to dodge the conundrum of your v\being unable to discuss reality unless there is a reality in which you can operate to have your discussion.

Read Habermas. You might be able to work out the "reality" of what you are doing on this thread. You could be in for a surprise !

Why, I wonder, am I not surprised that Fresco responds to a challenge with the command to go read some book, rather than articulate and share his vast knowledge?

You're attempting to dodge the bullet again, and failing. You appeal to other authorities, you attempt to appeal to science (and fail, because you don't understand science well enough), you make snide and insulting remarks The one thing you don't do is answer this criticism.

The so-called "challenge" equates to "what is the turtle standing on". The remedy, if followed, might expose the vacuity of such a challenge and reveal the motives which generate it.
BTW I don't do basic reading for would be philosophers. I recommend the barber's shop if you want idle chatter. Habermas tends to ski "off-piste" rather than toddle around on the nursery slopes.

Set! You know very well that you are the "King of Snide" on A2K !

You are doing so well on the personal invective front here that I might have to rename you "Lavatory Lips" next time you lash the tongue in my direction.

Since you consider yourself so to able to judge scientific ability, why don't you make yourself useful for a change and go play with layman on his SR thread. He looks lonely there and spends most of the time responding to his own responses.

I pity the fool who thinks "linguistic analysis" is "philosophy."

You are the one who indulges personal invective because you are asked a question which you cannot answer. Which is to day, to justify your philosophical position. How very pathetic it is.

Let me guess, eh? It's "languagers," all the way down.

That it?

Okay. Let me try to explain why the question “whence languagers ?"is vacuous.

1. The primary function of language is as a facilitator of human prediction and control of what they call “the world”.
2. Prediction and control involve concepts of “causality” and “time” as a priori concepts.
3. Both causality and time are deemed to be “psychological constructs” by most philosophers rather than ontological aspects of “an independent reality”.
4. Psychological constructs and language are inextricable .
5. Questions of “whence” presume answers in terms of causality and time.

And since “satisfactory explanations” traditionally (in lay terms) involve elements of underlying “cause”, this transcendent account will not qualify as “satisfactory” to those resistant of transcendence.

That's all he has to offer--"languagers" all the way down. His post which succeeds this one of yours is a series of ex cathedra, ipse dixit statements. Leaving aside that there is no reason to assume that he has any authority to make ex cathedra statements, his response does not answer the criticism, it simply finds word games to avoid the burden of the criticism. None of it is a response to the criticism.

He's peddling bullsh*t--he's a snake oil salesman. Luckily for him, societies still respect the discipline of philosophy, and so he can get a paycheck. Otherwise, i suspect he'd be on the dole.

Layman doesn't seem to know much about Latin word games but I may be wrong.

Now lets hear what pearls of wisdom you have to offer about the OP. Prove to us that you are not just the boring old aggressive resentful codger that you appear to be. For example, what does your historical reading indicate about the rise of "holistic movements" with respect to concepts of "modernity" ?

I think we all know how a ho moves, eh?

Ya know how to make a hormone?

Don't pay her.

Fresco's reference to the linguistic basis for meaning comes very close to the general model of the way humans construct and use meaning presented by social anthropology in its examination of the cultural foundations of human behavior.
Anthropology has found considerable empirical support for the realization that we as a species live in symbolic worlds--what we call worldviews. And language is the means by which we universally and automatically translate the objects of sense experience into metaphorical, or constructed, "objects". This is obviously necessary for human survival, but when we accept these metaphorical objects as ontological realities in our philosophical pursuits we become guilty of both naive realism and reification. And I am relieved when I see philosophers, like Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, take this as the reality they must address.
And I suppose it is why I tend to side with the theses presented by Fresco in his efforts to enlighten us to the linguistic nature of philosophical investigation.
The historical expositions presented by Setanta have been undeniably skilled . But because he has been talking about "facts" which, within the context of historiographic convention, have little need for epistemogical justification (except perhaps for some postmodern historians) he seems to see no need for discussion of the tediously subtle issues addressed by Fresco and would simply like us to collectively dismiss them.

Language is, as you suggest, JL, only a "means." And what is it a "means" for? Communicating your own thoughts to others, that's all. You don't need language to "think."

Or would you say that a person who is dumb (can't speak) can't think, either? How is it that blind people can play good, or even great, chess? Do you think "language," as an end rather than a mere means, enables that?

Good points: I agree that language, narrowly defined, is not the only way to do culture. Playing chess is one of the many ways to do culture with others. I do not endorse the Whorf-Sapir thesis in its most extreme interpretation. I refer to "language" in its broader form, viz. as all ways of converting othewise chaotic sensations into socially shared symbolic systems.
Also, I see poetry as the use of language as an end in itself, more like painting art works (for the sake of beauty) than sign painting (for the sake of instruction).

Samuel Johnson was asked how he could possibly refute Berkeley's totally solipsistic philosophy. Johnson said: "I refute it thusly."

Then he kicked a rock.

And he not only winced at the sensations that engendered. He defined and described them as "bad."
His gesture of kicking the rock in that context was a language act, a communication of meaning. (like a wink as compared to a blink, cf. Clifford Geertz)