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

  • From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 00:41:50 EDT

You guys seem to me (I've been rather pre-occupied w/ leaking/pouring tub  
faucets, installing ceiling fans, painting kitchen drawers, and haven't read  
*closely* this thread) to be dancing around the more or less obvious "can/does  
thought exist pre-language".  I sort of thought the jury was in on this  one.  
??
 
Julie Krueger
obviously ignorant in Missouri

========Original  Message========     Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: Language, Justice 
and Social Practices  (long)  Date: 9/27/05 10:37:48 P.M. Central Daylight 
Time  From: _phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx)   To: 
_lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)   Sent on:    
Robert Paul wrote:

"... 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.)"

How  does one know that English monoglots have these concepts?   Certainly
many English monoglots have experienced Treppenwitz but why take  that to
be evidence of a concept yet to be named?  Does one have to have  a
concept of pain to experience pain?  Here again the ability to point  to
something does not constitute an identification of a concept.  As  Robert
himself notes, a description is not a name and I would add neither is  it
a concept.  Isn't it more likely that upon reflection the monoglot  would
search around for some way of conceptualizing the experience and  perhaps
adopt the German name?  And wouldn't it be as likely that  limited to
only English, the experience would remain unconceptualized?   I don't see
how the lack of a conceptualization of an experience in one  language but
not another is evidence that there is a common concept known to  all
people.

Robert continues:

"... 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."

I don't understand what  'consistently picking out certain things' means
except the use of a  name.  It need not be the word 'pawn'.  It could
just as easily be  some variation of
'the-piece-that-starts-at-this-position'.  What else  is a name but that
which 'consistently picks out certain things'?  Far  from being
pointless, the ability to 'consistently pick out a certain thing'  is
constitutive to holding a concept.  One could not hold a concept  without
a criterion of identity that would fix the concept as being  about
something.  There can be no meaning to the concept of a pawn  without
there being certain things consistently picked out by the  concept.  In
this way, the name, or the ability to consistently pick out  certain
things, is necessary to there being a  concept.


Sincerely,

Phil Enns
Toronto,  ON

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