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Trump is a 'dog', a 'pig; says Robert De Niro but how does De Niro know he is a 'dog'.

Robert De Niro, that American Poet Laureate recently called Donald Trump a 'dog' (amongst other superlatives).  Depending on your political allegiance this was evidence of  a kind of verbal diarrhea, an attack of  Tourettes Syndrome, or if you are of a Liberal bent, on a par with a Shakespearean Sonnet. 

But  be that as it may, let us move on from Mr De Niro, that sylvan tongued poet to 'Fido' and the claim that 'Fido is a 'dog'.

Having said that 'Fido is a 'dog' - does 'dog' stand alone in an uncluttered form?  No, we need objective 
reference to establish that 'Fido' is a 'dog' to avoid falling into a mindless linguistic pragmatism.

 ‘Fido is a dog’ is still a long way from the full apparatus of objective reference, in uncluttered form,  'Dog' is subject to the variables of quantification and in saying the word 'dog'
 we  are launched into the philosophy of language and, in particular, into the theory of linguistic reference.  

So when we utter the word 'dog' that does not permit us to arrive at a fact which is independent
 of the overriding conceptual scheme which  undergirds our claim the Fido is a dog.

For when we think of the word 'dog' the physical input to which we are exposed is the triggering of sensory receptors, the physical output the utterance of the sentences of our theories; the pay-off is our ability to foresee and control later triggerings in the light of earlier claims 
i.e what we are currently doing in a deconstruction of the word 'dog'. 

So by what mechanism do we advance from the crude input 'dog' to the more sophisticated output. 

Our enquiry must be threefold,  semantic, epistemological and – and ontological, since what we count as objects of what we recognise to exist, 'dogs'. For if we accept without a passing thought that 'Fido is a dog'
this can apply to everything else and we arrive at an over-luxuriant ontology.

Such discussion on our friend Fido are not ephemeral for they are constraints on the acceptability of our
construction of the world.


I trust this post comes across as my propounding unlike Mr De Niro who 
was expounding on Mr Trump, '...he's a dog...he's a pig....etc


Oh dear, if  only Robert De Niro had read some Quine before claiming Donald Trump was a 'dog'. But that's actors for you, don't you just love them?  - especially when they offer us their 'views' on
politics.

PS Having dealt with 'Fido' the 'dog'I will deal with 'Hubert' the 'pig' at another date

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