[lit-ideas] Re: Defining the length of a meter with reference to time [was Re: Censorship]
- From: RichardHenninge@xxxxxxxxxxx
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2005 04:24:58 +0200
----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2005 7:43 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Defining the length of a meter with reference to
time [was Re: Censorship]
> Richard Henninge wrote:
>
> "This, however, is an *abgekartetes Spiel*, a con or shell game, a
> circular argument, and a Tarskian truth, a truth by definition ..."
>
> Nope. It isn't an argument nor is it a truth. It is a definition.
To explain the point Phil couldn't find for all the handwaving and rhetoric,
let me refer to a definition of "definition," and you tell me whether there
isn't indeed something like an argument or an attempt at a truth in this
definition of Phil's. The Oxford Concise Dictionary says, for one thing,
that definition is "a statement of the meaning of a word or the nature of a
thing." Phil will say in a later post on this subject in response to Robert
Paul, "I should have said that the current common definition of the length
of the meter refers to time. My point, however, stands: one cannot define
the length of a meter except by ultimate reference to something that is not
itself a length." Unfortunately for Phil's point (i.e. argument or "reason
advanced," usually "for" or "against" something, in this case against the
notion of defining the length of a meter by reference to length and for the
notion of defining the length of a meter by reference to time--his
"something that is not itself a length"), it stands on clay feet since his
"ultimate reference to something that is not itself a length" (i.e. time)
conceals within itself a reference to length (i.e. the speed of anything is
a relation between length and time, the length of a path traveled divided by
the time elapsed in the process).
Permit me to jump ahead to Robert Paul's post on this subject: he remembers
our having it out in friendly fashion over the import of Wittgenstein's use
of the verb "aussagen" as not entirely synonymous with "sagen," that is, not
synonymous enough to justify Anscombe's "bland" translation of it as "say."
Here are Robert's words: "Several years ago, Richard and I had a riff (an
enlightening one, I
must add) about the German rendered [in PI 50] as 'one can say neither.,
etc.
Man kann von _einer_ ding nicht aussagen.'
Richard objected, I believe, to Anscombe's bland rendering of aussagen
as 'say,' on the grounds that the word had some stronger, or a more
special force. (I forget his candidates.) In light of what Wittgenstein
says in the next sentence though perhaps this was much ado about not
much; the possibility of measuring the standard meter against itself (as
opposed to measuring 'ordinary' meter rods against it, is what makes us
unable to say meaningfully that the standard meter is itself either one
meter long or not one meter long. One cannot meaningfully say it because
the practice of measuring a thing against itself to see if it fit would
be incoherent. This is how I see it now, although I don't think that's
the way I saw it then."
I am flattered to at least believe that Robert "see[s] it now" more "the way
I saw it then" than he did then, when he basically believed that what I was
getting at was "much ado about" nothing, now advanced to "not much"! And yet
I'm hungry for more. What he refers to as the incoherency of measuring a
thing against itself is just the point, it is much ado about much,
specifically in later Wittgenstein, even in early Wittgenstein, when you
consider his closeness to the thinking of Frege. Both of them, Wittgenstein
and Frege, were uncomfortable with the sort of "ultimate referents" Phil
seems to be talking about, something outside the mix, so to speak, some
absolute arbiter that can better decide a matter, or define a matter, by not
having the "clay feet," the mortal taint of the matter they are pronouncing
judgment upon. To continue the metaphor, I think Wittgenstein would say that
everything has clay feet, or clay on its feet: it's a dirty business, but
somebody's got to do it, and it's a cheap trick (my reference to the
sharper's shell game) to treat the two sides of the definition of
"definition" I cited above ("a statement of *the meaning of a word* or *the
nature of a thing*) as if they were the same thing. And this distinction
parallels, I believe, the distinction between "sagen" and "aussagen" in
Wittgenstein. Anybody can give his or her "meaning of a word." I think
Wittgenstein would grant that precious little weight in the search for
truth. This kind of "definition" is just a view, an opinion, perhaps a
generally accepted opinion or belief, what Phil at one point refers to as a
"common" definition, but he is moving from a so-called "common" or
"standard" definition that was, to use Robert's legal term, "stipulated" in
an agreement in 1983, arbitrarily "fixed" (as one meter = the distance
traveled by light in some 300 millionths of a second), to an argument that
one *must* (i.e. cannot not) define a specific length, such as a meter, by
reference to something that is not a length. I would maintain that "stating"
that a meter is "the distance traveled by light in some 300 millionths of a
second" is as bogus as the dreamer Wittgenstein wrote of in his final
jottings: he dreams that it is raining while it is in fact raining, and even
so dreams because of the sound of the rain on his roof--and yet should not
say (or rather "state"--aussagen) that he *knows* that it is raining.
Wittgenstein sets a much higher personal standard for "aussagen," for
"stating" or "maintaining," "asserting," or just "believing to be the case."
It is this higher form of saying that comes closer to the definition of
"definition" as the "statement of...the nature of a thing," and for that the
Parisian definition is inadequate. Nevertheless, Phil takes it as golden (a
golden rule--I also follow Eric's arguments concerning the boiling point's
not being a rule much better than Phil's that it is), then, to make matters
worse, raises it to a universal standard practice for establishing
definitions.
Roughly speaking, Phil, how un-Wittgensteinian.
> Richard goes on:
>
> "the meter in this "definition" is still basically the "artifact
> international prototype of platinum-iridium" located in Paris"
>
> Yeah, but with greater precision and reliability. So?
You're being blinded by science and forgetting your philosophical principles
of reasoning and argument. Don't you see a little problem of establishing a
length by saying that it is equal to the length traversed by a photon moving
at a constant speed of so-and-so many times
that-same-length-to-be-established during the interval of one second.
I couldn't find
> your point amidst all the rhetoric and handwaving. Not that I didn't
> enjoy the show.
Perhaps we could meet on the common ground of Frege's Sinn/Bedeutung
distinction. You have accepted one of the "Sinn"s, of which their can be
many, as the "Bedeutung" (the length of that meter bar of platinum-iridium
in Paris), though you could say that the former is the new "Bedeutung" as
decreed in 1983, and the old Bedeutung (the metal bar) is now just another
description, or Sinn, of it. This new meter has the virtue of (smoke and
mirrors) seeming more unapproachable, irreal, ultimate and fixed. Still, it
isn't, and you and Kripke (pretty good company, huh?) are confusing precise
description or positing (and stipulation) with empirical truth and/or the
constitutive structures in Kant.
Richard Henninge
University of Mainz
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