[lit-ideas] Re: Leavis's offensive generalization
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 15:53:42 +0100 (BST)
________________________________
From: "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
>"[T]he Wittgensteinians call the philosophy they are interested in
'linguistic'."
"Actually they are naively fatuous about language: no exceptions to my
offensive generalization, 'philosophers are always weak on language.'">
This is a case where we should distinguish Wittgenstein from some
'Wittgensteinians'. Was W ever naively fatuous? Well, perhaps in some of his
political and moral views (including a naivete about Communist Russia) and
perhaps in his understanding of Goedel's work. But "about language"? Here I
have argued the root of his views "about language" is that there are "limits to
language" such that we cannot express those limits in language but nor can we
say in language the sense of language. Now this may be mistaken or it may be
overstating the "limits of language" but it is hardly a fatuous or naive view.
If it is true, then for W it will be true of all language - even the most
fatuous or fatuous-looking. It will be true where we use a word to name an
object - i.e. that this 'naming' sense is not said by the words used but can
only be shown. It will be true where the sense of a word depends on some kind
of rule-following - i.e. that the 'rule' here can only
be shown not said, for no 'rule' says its own sense. We should not mistake the
fact the W tries to show his POV in relation to such naive and fatuous cases as
meaning that his view is naive and fatuous.
Yet there is a school of Wittgensteinians who would take W as offering
something naive and fatuous. For example, they would extract a Private Language
Argument from his work and say that this PLA comes to something like this -
there are necessarily 'public' 'rules' as to what makes sense "about language"
such that there cannot be a 'private' language in the sense of a language that
has sense without recourse to any 'public' 'rules'. Some, including
Kripkensteinians, then seek to examine what are the grounds for such 'public'
rules. Already they are seeking to say more than can be said given the "limits
of language" and, from W's POV, it is not surprising that what they produce in
his name is often nonsense - and naive and fatuous nonsense to boot.
Donal
(Letter to Eugenio Montale quoted in G. Singh, F.R. Leavis: A Literary
Biography [London, 1995], 212.)
Actually, Eugenio Montale was a genius -- if only for attempting to bring
Walton's "Troilus and Cressida" to Milan's La Scala:
Troilo e Cressida opera in tre atti. by William Walton · Troilo e Cressida
opera in tre atti. by William Walton; Christopher Hassall; Eugenio Montale.
"Rhythmic translation," too.
What Leavis means by "Wittgensteinians" should NOT apply to Grice, who
found himself anti-Wittgensteinian. And while he (Grice) _might_ have been
'academic' he was so NOT in what Leavis calls "a pejorative sense'. For one, he
would combine philosophy with cricket, et al. to the extent that his
obituary in "The Times" came out as "Professional philosopher and amateur
cricketer" (or "Amateur cricketer and professional philosopher", I forget). He
also played bridge, and sang to his own piano accompaniment. A Renaissance
Man, Oxonian style!
O. T. O. H., Witters was Witters.
Re: Leavis on what a 'word' is, I would refer to J. L. Austin, "The meaning
of a word" in his Philosophical Papers, with special emphasis on the word
'rat'.
The online source referred to above makes a citation of P. M. S. Hacker,
who, as things happened, succeeded Gordon P. Baker, who succeeded H. P. Grice
as "Tutorial Fellow" at St. John's, Oxford. It is an irony of history that
rather than a Griceian, Hacker would turn up a Wittgensteinian. The root
for this in Baker's contribution to PGRICE (the Grice festschrift, ed.
Grandy/Warner "Alternative mind styles" -- Frege vs. Witters, from a Griceian
perspective).
Cheers,
Speranza
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