[lit-ideas] Re: Language, Justice and Social Practices (long)

  • From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 19:42:59 -0700

Phil Enns wrote:

I am still interested in hearing Robert's response to the question I
raised earlier.

I had written:

"Without names there would be no way of identifying a mistake since any
move might or might not be a way this piece moves."

Robert asserted that this is simply false.

I gave the following example:

A move is made on the chess board.

My question: Given that Robert does not require a name, is there
anything apart from names needed for Robert to know whether the move was
proper.  If so, what?

A less patient man might have said that he was waiting for Phil to respond to the examples of Treppenwitz and l'esprit d'escalier, both of which pick out a concept which English monoglots certainly have, even though they lack a name for it. (A description is not a name in my book.) My patience though is Cantorian. However…

Yesterday, I wrote: '…One could still have the concept _pawn_ without having any name for the chess piece called in English 'pawn,' (and in other languages, something else, 'Bauer,' e.g.). I might teach someone 'this piece moves in such and such ways, etc.' without giving the piece in question any name at all.

This was in support of something Eric proposed. In light of the intervening discussion, I believe, although I'm not sure, that Phil is willing to accept that if there is some way of consistently picking out certain things, and identifying them as the same as or different from other things, a _name_, such as 'pawn' may not be required; that is, there may be ways of consistently picking out and classifying a thing other than by naming it. And my argument would be, that if this is so, the insistence on _a_ name is pointless.

But I'll pretend that this intervening discussion did not take place (I've probably misunderstood Phil, anyway), and just go with what I said earlier, which is not, of course, the whole story, any more than simply naming is.

Robert Paul
The Reed Institute
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