[lit-ideas] Re: Philosophical Investigations online




________________________________
 From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Thursday, 22 March 2012, 22:29
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Philosophical Investigations online
 

Donal wrote




>________________________________
> 
>>I have already outlined what might be a
              counter-example to the view that the 'said/shown'
              distinction is central to PI: (i) an example of a 'rule'
              whose sense can be stated without anything further needing
              to be shown for it to have that sense. I will here give
              other possible counter-examples: (ii) W saying that the
              said/shown distinction does not feature in PI (iii) W
              saying something like 'Everything involved in the sense of
              language can be said'. 
>
>I suggest that it is the search for such counter-examples
              that will prove that they are the real 'will-o-the-wisp'
              here. So far none have been produced; and dismissing the
              idea that the 'shown/said' distinction features in PI as
              looking for a 'will-o-the-wisp' is itself just a kind of
              will-o-the-wisp as far as serious argument or explanation
              goes.>
>
>Well, this comes close to argument by bluster. 

We'll perhaps see how close...

> It's claimed that
    there is a clear (if hard to find) distinction between saying and
    showing in the Investigations, a distinction 
identical or quite similar—or at least analogous—to that in the Tractatus.>

These are not quite my claims.

So, for example, the apparent contradiction of my claiming that there is a 
"clear (if hard to find) distinction" does not attach to my claims.

To be clear, my claims are as follows:-

1. A. There is a distinction between saying and showing that is 'shown' in the 
TLP. 
    B. This is clear - or clear enough.
    C. If one is tempted to say the distinction is 'drawn' in the TLP, it 
should be noted that it is part of W's POV that such a distinction cannot be 
'drawn' in the very fundamental sense that to 'draw' the distinction would be 
to try to express what cannot be expressed, or to 'say' what cannot be 'said' 
but which can only be shown. Hence it would be potentially misleading to say to 
the distinction is 'drawn' in the TLP; and so it is better to express the 
position as at 1.A.
   D. This distinction is absolutely central to the TLP - without it we miss 
what is most fundamental and important in W's POV in TLP.

2. A.There is a distinction between saying and showing that is 'shown' in PI. 
    B. This is perhaps less clear than in the case of such a distinction 
'shown' in TLP. How much less clear we might leave open, but it is a much 
lesser matter than whether or not the distinction is there 'shown' and used.
    C. If one is tempted to ask where the distinction is 'drawn' in the PI, it 
should be noted that it is part of W's POV that such a distinction 
cannot be 'drawn' in the very fundamental sense that to 'draw' the 
distinction would be to try to express what cannot be expressed, or to 
'say' what cannot be 'said' but which can only be shown. Hence it would 
be potentially misleading to infer that there is no such distinction in PI 
because it is not explicitly 'drawn' in PI; and so it is better to express the 
position as at 2.A.
    D. This distinction is absolutely central to PI - without it we 
miss what is most fundamental and important in W's POV in PI.

3. There are clear differences between the distinction 'shown' in the TLP and 
that in the PI:-
     A. In the TLP the distinction between saying and showing is inextricably 
linked with a 'doctrine of sense and nonsense' according to which only the 
propositions of "natural science" say anything with sense, whereas PI abandons 
any such doctrine. 
    B. This doctrine in the TLP means that 'what is shown' there is nonsense: a 
consequence W explicitly recognises at the end of TLP; but because PI abandons 
this 'doctrine of sense and nonsense' PI does not have to treat 'what can only 
be shown' as nonsense.

4. There is a key piece of thinking that links W of the TLP and the PI and his 
two different views of 'what can be said and what can only be shown':-
    what gives 'what is said' its sense is never 'said' in 'what is said' - 
what gives 'what is said' its sense cannot be said but can only be shown.

These are my claims. 

I have also offered textual support from PI to show how there W conveys that 
what gives 'what is said' its sense is never 'said' in 'what is said' - what 
gives 'what is said' its sense cannot be said but can only be 
shown.  For example, in text given, W points out that the sense of a 'rule' 
cannot be 'said' because to try to give the sense of a rule by a stated 
'interpretation' would only give rise to a need for a further stated 
'interpretation' to give the sense of that stated 'interpretation', and so on - 
and that the way out of this kind of "logical circle" (or infinite regress) is 
to see that there is a way of grasping a rule "that is not an interpretation" 
but which is "exhibited" [or shown] in what we call 'obeying the rule' and 
'going against it' in actual cases.

Robert seems to think the following tells against the claims above:

>The difficulty is that there's very little agreement as to what this
    distinction amounts to there; 
e.g. does what can only be shown include logical form, the mystical,
    and the aesthetic—none of them, all of them, only one or two, and
    which one or two? And so on. There's no agreement about the nature and 
scope of the distinction in the Tractatus; therefore, to try to match the 
Tractatus account of saying and showing to something in theInvestigations is 
indeed to follow a will-o'-the-wisp. What is it in the former that's also found 
in the Investigations?>

But this does not, in my view, tell against my claims above. First, there is 
agreement that the distinction features, indeed centrally, in the TLP: 
therefore, that there may be dispute or "very little agreement as to what this
    distinction amounts to there" is no argument that the distinction does not 
in fact feature there, indeed centrally. 

As this "little agreement as to what this
    distinction amounts to there" is therefore no argument that the distinction 
does not in fact feature in the TLP, indeed centrally, it is obvious that it 
provides even less of an argument that the distinction is not in fact in PI.

Dare I suggest that thinking the question "What is it in the former that's also 
found in the Investigations?" (reasonable as it might seem) therefore in fact 
comes very close to argument by bluster? It certainly passes over, in silence 
as it were, many of the points made in my recent posts.

Donal
Plymouth

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