[lit-ideas] Re: PI's 'key tenet' and W's philosophy of mathematics
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2012 09:25:40 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 6/9/2012 11:07:19 A.M. UTC-02, donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx
writes:
"In a critical spirit, I have specified what might refute the
interpretation of PI in terms of an underlying ‘key tenet’ that the sense of
‘what is
said’ is never said in ‘what is said’ but may only be shown (a tenet I
have sought to show is implicit in what W there writes). (1) W explicitly (or
clearly by implication) disavowing any such tenet. (2) A counterexample to
the ‘key tenet’ such as a “rule” stated so that its sense is said in its
statement."
Crowbarring -- or as I prefer ObGrice -- content:
Grice and Griceians assume, rightly, that Witters was confused as to what
he meant by 'rule' -- in general, most German speakers are: the famous
passage in "Three men in a bummel" illustrate this: the little old English
lady
who cannot understand a German 'rule' --. In particular Grice spent some
time with Searle's use of Wittgensteian variations on rule -- also Rawls. For
Wittgensteinians like Rawls, or Wittgenstein, there are two types of
'rules' -- both are confused. So we need to specify.
One is the 'regulatory rule', that Grice found otiose: 'for what can a rule
do but regulate?'. The other is the 'constitutive rule', which is not a
rule.
The idea, a Wittgensteinian one, that we 'follow a rule' is otiose. I
follow a ball, I follow a lamb, I follow a sheep. Or a sheep follows Mary ("It
followed her to school one day, school one day, school one day". If we
assume that we follow a rule, this leads to paradoxes which are against the
spirit of Humanism that Grice (but never Wittgenstein) endorsed. One example
is
in the so-called "work by authors such as Sperber or Wilson", as Grice
writes in WoW: the 'principle' of cooperation, for example, becomes a
'principle' of relevance, that agents don't "follow" -- since they cannot
_avoid_
following.
Although Grice, informally, does use 'rule' informally, as in
'conversational rule', that constitute the 'rules' of the 'conversational game'
-- that
dictates what 'conversational moves' are appropriate here or there, he
was, rightly, dismissive of any serious use of the idea of 'rule' in
philosophy. Kripke and Wittgenstein (or their joint personality) were not.
---
McEvoy continues:
"(3) An alternative interpretation of the text which ‘fits’ better: for
example, one that gives a more persuasive account of why W discusses possible
‘misunderstandings’ of a series of numbers [e.g. ‘0, 1, 2, 3, 4….10’] or
of a formula like ‘Continually add 2 to n’ – better than the suggestion
these examples are used to show that the sense of such a series or formula
is not said in its statement, and that the sense may only be shown.
So far, on the list, no joy in finding a refutation of the ‘key tenet’
conjecture [pointing towards the voluminous work of Hacker and Baker does not
constitute an acceptable refutation in rational terms]."
Well -- we can be more specific. Of course I love both the late Baker and
Hacker. Baker of course succeeded Grice as "Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy"
at Grice's college, St. John's; and Hacker succeeded Baker. In their
"Language, sense and nonsense", they dwell extensively on the misuse of the
term
'rule' by Witters. Baker, in particular, was worshipped by Grice, and Baker
was asked to contribute to the Grice festschrift. He did so with an
excellent essay, called,
"Alternative mind styles".
Alas, one mind style that Baker never considered was Grice's. Rather, the
alternative mind styles that Baker expands on are, naturally:
Witters
and
Frege
--- both German speaking philosophers. Baker wants to say that the most
philosophical mind style is FREGE: for he thought of language as a calculus of
rules. Baker also identifies the mind style of Frege with the mind style
of the EARLY Witters. The alternative mind style is Witter's SECOND mind
style, which refutes all that Witters claimed in his first mind set. And so on.
--- In another excellent contribution to a festschrift, now for H. L. A.
Hart (once collaborator with Grice), entitled, "Defeasibility and meaning",
Baker expands on this idea that may apply to 'rule'. A rule is defeasible,
if it's ceteris paribus: "Mary is following, ceteris paribus, rule R". Note
that to say that the lamb is, ceteris paribus, following Mary to school one
day -- "school one day" -- is not just otiose, but plain nonsense. So one
has to be careful there.
McEvoy:
"No one has suggested anything that would support (1). Richard offered a
counterexample as per (2) but one easily rebutted using what W says in PI. As
to (3), no one has seen fit to proffer their alternative reading with
arguments as to why it is a better ‘fit’. Interestingly A.J. Ayer does have an
alternative interpretation of PI that finds no role for the ‘key tenet’;
but not only is he not on the list, but the shortcomings and ill-fitting
character of Ayer’s interpretation may be left for another post – suffice it
to say, Ayer makes the basic error of taking what W says in PI as
constituting the point of W saying it, whereas the point of what W says lies
in
what it shows. However, Ayer’s interpretation does provoke me to offer a (4)
in this list of possible lines of ‘refutation’: for Ayer touches on W’s
philosophy of mathematics and this may [or may not] provide a source for
rebutting the supposed ‘key tenet’. W’s philosophy of mathematics is the area
in which W himself thought his contribution was greatest [see:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wittgenstein-mathematics/ ]. How might it
bear on the ‘
key tenet’? Perhaps we could establish W’s ‘philosophy of mathematics’,
especially that of ‘the later W’, and on that basis show that it is
incompatible with the supposed ‘key tenet’. Whether this may be done may be
left
open here. But it is at least a lacuna, if not a significant omission,
that my posts have not explained the relation between the ‘key tenet’ and W’s
philosophy of mathematics. And that this post carries on that ignoble
tradition."
Well, whatever Witters thought about his philosophy of mathematics, Grice
was an empiricist alla Mill, so one cannot generalise.
Mills thought that
2 + 2 = 4
is an EMPIRICAL generalisation. This allows to refute a dogma of the
analytic/synthetic. Grice was obsessed with this. He wanted to refute the dogma
with things like:
"Nothing can be red and green all over". Grice knew that this was synthetic
A PRIORI. And it is THIS which is the real realm for PHILOSOPHY. To deal
with purely alleged analytic statements -- as Witters wrongly thinks
mathematics is -- alla Logicism that he learned from Russell and Frege -- is
an
empty game for the intelligent philosopher. And of course a philosopher,
contra Popper's 'impopper' claims, NEVER engages in empirical propositions per
se. The philosopher, even if an empiricist, deals with the conceptual
framework that generates the 'synthetic a priori'. Unfortunately, Kant never
saw
this point, and kept saying that
7 + 5 = 12
is a _synthetic a priori_ judgement, rather than a synthetic a posteriori,
as Mill and Grice prefers.
How Witters's reflections on the philosophy of mathematics contradict the
tenets of the say/show distinction can be foreseen, and they should be
foreseen (to be forebelieved). And so on.
Cheers,
Speranza
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
