[lit-ideas] Re: Philosophical Investigations online - amplification re PI

  • From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2012 10:50:04 +0100 (BST)

There are
longer ways but here is a shorter way with Richard Henninge’s post.
 
Richard, as
I recall, knows important things about the shortcomings of the English
translation of Wittgenstein’s work. Whatever these shortcomings, for example in
conveying the exact sense of W’s writing in German, they were translated by 
humans
not computers. And this for good reason.Their shortcomings would arguably be 
much
greater if the translation had been performed by a computer following some
programme: and that is because computers have no grasp of the “sense” of 
language
as humans do. What computers do by way of processing “rules” does not involve
their grasping the “sense” of the “rules” involved.
 
A simple
example: a computer may contain an error in its programme so that it produces
the calculation ‘2 + 2 = 44’; but where a human would baulk because they grasp
that this must be mistaken, the computer, having no grasp of the sense of what
it processes, will not baulk at this mistake – it will not baulk because it does
not grasp it must be a mistake [it will only ‘baulk’ if another part of its
programme causes it to ‘baulk’ i.e. treat this as an “error”]. A computer will
no more baulk at ‘2 + 2 = 44’ than will a blackboard it is chalked on: for, in
Popper’s useful terms, both the computer and the blackboard are confined to
processing information at the level of World 1, and lack conscious understanding
of the content they process [still less, in Popper's terms, do they grasp the 
World 3 content or mathematical principle according to which '2 + 2 = 44' must 
be a mistake). 
 
And so what
computers do cannot be taken to show anything about the “sense” of a “rule” in
the sense in which W is interested in “rules” and their “sense”: for what
computers do by way of processing does not involve computers grasping the 
“sense”
of a “rule”. And since their processing does not involve grasping the sense of 
a rule, what
they do cannot be taken to show that the “sense” of a “rule” may be said (on 
the basis that
it is “said” in what they process). 
 
Richard’s
attempted refutation is therefore entirely misconceived.
 
What
Richard should really try to do (if he really wants to refute W's position) is 
state a “rule” so that its sense is _said_
in what is stated: but stating a computer programme, even one comprising “rules”
[of computation], is not to state any “rules” whose “sense” is _said_ in what
is stated.
 
Wittgenstein would also agree that Richard’s attempted
refutation is entirely misconceived because [in W’s use of “rules” and their 
‘sense’] stating a computer programme, even one comprising
“rules” [of computation], is not to state any “rules” whose “sense” is _said_
in what is stated. Stating 'a computer programme' no more achieves this than 
stating 'this combination of chemicals always produces this compound' achieves 
stating a "rule" whose sense is _said_ in what is stated (indeed, it no more 
achieves this than actually 'combining the chemicals to produce the compound' 
would amount to 'saying' the _sense_ of the chemical "rule" involved).


Richard's suggested "refutation" is as hopelessly naive as Moore's refutation 
of idealism by holding his hands out. It is no better than if Richard had 
chalked some mathematical "rule" on a blackboard and then claimed, "See, the 
sense of that "rule" has just been _said_ in what I chalked".* Or no better 
than if Richard chalked some proposition on a blackboard and then claimed, 
"See, the sense of that proposition has just been _said_ in what I chalked".**


As to any such claims, the answer is "No, it hasn't" (Ludwig Wittgenstein, both 
'later'* and 'earlier'**).

Anyone who thinks the answer is otherwise simply does not 'get it' re 
Wittgenstein.


Donal
Who thinks history shows people should be careful before being first to allege 
others are hoist by their own petard








________________________________
 From: Richard Henninge <RichardHenninge@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Friday, 13 April 2012, 5:05
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Philosophical Investigations online - amplification re 
PI
 

 
Donal Hoisted On His Own Petard
 
So choose  your weapons as you wish - any example of a "rule" participants 
prefer (though  personally a mathematical "rule" is I suggest best here for 
bringing out W's  POV, and so that i[s] what I offered for discussion).
>
>Bring it on. 
Dnl
>Ldn
>
>So the weapon chosen by Donal is a rule, preferably mathematical 
(since that is "best . . . for bringing out W's POV), with victory to go to 
anyone who can show that it is _not_ the case that 
 
> for W, their sense is not /said/ in 'what is said' but can 
only be
> shown. So all the apparent clear articulation or expression of 
"rules"
> is beside the point and philosophically deceiving if we think 
'what is
> said' contains the sense of the "rules".
 
I will reserve judgment on rules unprogrammable, since they indeed 
fall into the realm of anthropology and linguistics, where only observation can 
begin to reveal what and when something is a rule and what constitutes its 
having been followed. I believe this is a fundamentally open question in 
Wittgenstein and what really makes for all the fun of his Untersuchungen, his 
philosophical "under-seekings" in which he pokes 
at, teases, twists, probes, and twiddles with the freaky human language we live 
and breath in, in an effort to get some kind of grip, hold, purchase on what he 
clearly sees as an infinitely tricky subject that is not about to yield as 
categoric a solution as the purported POV Donal attributes to him.
 
Instead, I will address the easy lob that Donal throws at us in his 
high-arcing gauntlet--a rule eminently programmable, so programmable that any 
computer could be made to play the game according to that rule. And--you must 
be 
getting ahead of me with this argumentation--if a computer, a mindless 
computer, 
mind you, can play the game perfectly according to the rule--say, of taking a 
number and adding 2 to it and then of adding 2 to the number then generated 
[Donal's suggested rule]--(chess would be an acceptable alternative), then the 
"sense" of that rule is most definitely contained in "what is said," since that 
is all a computer can "understand." The commands or instructions do not "show" 
the computer what to do at any given point in the game; it's not as if the 
computer is looking over the programmer's shoulder and learning by 
"seeing" the rule in action shown to it, then applying it, by 
trial and error, over a gradual learning curve, by doing, up to a mastery of 
performing according to it: no, the computer takes the rigorous logic of its 
program, a sequence of written directives that it carries out faithfully, 
mindlessly, to play the "game" according to the rules, which is basically all 
it 
knows and all it will ever need to know. You can program a window to lower its 
blinds when the sunlight hitting its sensors surpasses a specific light 
intensity parameter; you can tell a person to do the same thing, to follow this 
rule, to play this game. In each case the sense of the rule is contained in 
"what is said," and not "in what is shown."
 
Furthermore, Donal's corollary insight into Wittgenstein's 
 _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_
 
[It may be noted that W's position here, re "rules" in PI,  *parallels* [my 
emphasis RH] his position re "propositions" in TLP: for  TLP holds that there 
is no proposition whose sense is _said_, rather than  shown, in 'what is said' 
by the proposition i.e. no proposition 'says' its  sense - rather, a 
"proposition shows its sense". And it may further be noted  that we are 
likewise apt to wrongly think that 'what can only be shown' re the  sense of a 
"proposition" is _said_ by the proposition, for again  'what  can only be 
shown' ordinarily _seems to be there_ in 'what is  said'].
>
>
is but another self-hoisting petard, especially and 
ironically, when he thinks he has discovered a passage in it in which 
Wittgenstein seems explicitly to support his notion that the sense of a 
proposition is not said by the proposition, but only shown by the 
proposition:
 
>[From the C. K. Ogden translation <http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5740>
>
>4.022 The 
  proposition shows its sense.
>The proposition shows how  things stand, if it is true. And
>it says, that they do so stand.>
>[italicization mine, RH, in accordance with the 
  original]
>
A computer "knows not seems." It cuts always to the chase, 
logically speaking. It cannot know "how things stand" unless you tell it "they 
do so stand." The show/say distinction is reserved for the humans in 
attendance, 
but the computer can process the propositions as instructions that it, so to 
speak, takes on faith as being true, according to the sense "on their face." 
For 
the computer, the show/say distinction collapses. Ideally, if a computer were 
fed Wittgenstein's numbered propositions, it could "go on" with the 
language-game they create, by following the rules of the game that they make 
up, 
in so far as it could generate new non-contradictory propositions employing the 
terms used in the TLP. For example, in keeping with Wittgenstein's rigorous 
logic (which is little else than his extreme attention to the wording he 
chooses, and hence my--personal--exasperation when translators play fast and 
loose with his formulations, and, I think, his exasperation when people 
in his midst play fast and loose with their own use of language, hence, too, 
his 
readiness to raise a poker against such abuses on occasion) the computer would 
not be able or allowed to spit out such propositions as
 
The proposition says its sense.
The proposition says how things stand.
The proposition shows that things do so 
stand.
 
You'll notice that these three bogus, infelicitous propositions 
literally violate the rules implied by (or contained in) the 3-prop world 
encompassed in 4.022, a world in which sense, which is how things stand, cannot 
be said, but it, sense, i.e. how things stand, can indeed be shown, whereas 
that things do so stand cannot be shown; that can only be 
said. What we learn from this playing (serious philosophical playing) with the 
language is that the proposition does *double duty*, a double duty in keeping 
with Frege's key Sinn and Bedeutung distinction. Frege's 
interest was to create a language, a logic, that would facilitate the 
advancement of science, or knowledge, by exposing cases in which the difference 
is crucial. For instance, that the moon is made out of green cheese is a 
legitimate Sinn, our word "sense" in the above discussion, but the 
proposition cannot flat-out say that, basically claim that. It 
must take a conservative two-step of (1) presenting or setting out or 
describing 
or showing how things would be if that were so (this Sinn, or 
sense, after all, can turn out to be Unsinn, or nonsense), and (2) saying or 
stating or claiming, maintaining that it is so.
 
As I said, the computer is a fine follower of rules and its 
following of rules is not affected by the saying/showing distinction. "For all 
intents and purposes" the propositions it has to work with in its programming 
"say" their sense directly to it since it accepts the truth of everything the 
program tells it (to do). The fact that one could use the words show and say 
interchangeably when describing how the computer "learns" the rules of a game 
it 
can play thereafter, should be indication enough that the distinction plays no 
rôle here, and hence is not, as Donal says
 
beside the point and philosophically deceiving if we think 'what  is
>> said' contains the sense of the "rules".
> 
Richard Henninge
University of Mainz
 
  
----- Original Message ----- 
>From: Donal McEvoy 
>To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
>Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2012 12:01  PM
>Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Philosophical  Investigations online - amplification 
>re PI
>
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
>
>>Phil 
  wrote
>
>>  >The issue is not the rules, which can be clearly 
  articulated,
>> but rather their use.>
>
>to which Donal 
  replied
>
>> Phil puzzles me by earlier asking for clarity where I have 
  been very
>> clear and indeed have used italics to identify a key tenet 
  that provides
>> a fundamental continuity between TLP and PI: /the sense 
  of 'what is
>> said' is never said in 'what is said/ etc.
>
>In the 
  Tractatus, the sense of a proposition is how things would be if it were 
  true.>
>
>Robert seems to posit this last claim as if it refutes, or is 
  somehow inconsistent with, my claimed "key tenet".
>It does not refute the 
  "key tenet". It is quite consistent that (a) the sense of a proposition is 
how 
  things would be if it were true and (b) the sense of a proposition is never 
  _said_ in 'what is said' by a proposition.
>
>And indeed what Robert then 
  quotes from W plainly reflects that this is W's position:-
>
>>[From 
  the C. K. Ogden translation <http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5740>
>
>4.022 The 
  proposition shows its sense.
>The proposition shows how things stand, if it 
  is true. And
>it says, that they do so stand.>
>
>Exactly as my "key 
  tenet" has it. A proposition "_shows_ its sense". It does not 'say' its 
sense. 
  Its sense is not _said_ in 'what is said' but can only be _shown_ (even if it 
  is shown by 'what is said'). 
>
>So what Robert seems to offer by way of 
  counter-example turns out to be an example of W 'saying' [or, strictly 
  speaking, _showing_] the "key tenet". 
>
>
>Robert then objects to this 
  'key tenet' in PI, in particular my claims below:-
>
>>> Now this 
  tenet means that we can perhaps have rules that seem "clearly
>> 
  articulated" or whose sense is clear. But, and it is a fundamental but
>> 
  for W, their sense is not /said/ in 'what is said' but can only be
>> 
  shown. So all the apparent clear articulation or expression of "rules"
>> 
  is beside the point and philosophically deceiving if we think 'what is
>> 
  said' contains the sense of the "rules".
>
>I don't recognize anything of 
  what Wittgenstein says in this.>
>
>Robert continues:-
>
>>He 
  nowhere explicitly says it>
>
>Here we may agree. (And I have tried to 
  explain why W does not 'say' this explicitly, even though this is his POV - a 
  POV that marks a fundamental continuity between TLP and PI).
>
>>> 
  We might argue out a case to see W's POV here: take the rule 'for 
  every
>> number add 2 and then for that number add two' and then ask how 
  "what is
>> said" determines its sense?
>
>Why should we do this, 
  when much richer examples are right there in the text? >
>
>Fair 
  enough, Robert doesn't like this example (there are reasons a mathematical 
  "rule" is, imo, a good example to start with, but be that as it may). Choose 
  any example you like and we may argue it. What is the argument about? As per 
  the "key tenet", I shall be arguing that no matter what example of a "rule" 
is 
  chosen, W's POV is that the sense of any such "rule" is not _said_ in 'what 
is 
  said' when we state the "rule". And if an example is chosen, where someone 
  claims that they have stated a "rule" whose sense is _said_ in 'what is 
said', 
  I will put what I take to be W's POV - and 'point to' what W takes as 
  'showing' that any such claim _only appears true_ by a kind of optical 
  illusion where we have simply assumed 'what can only be shown' as being 
'said' 
  in 'what is said' (something we are unthinkingly apt to do, as 'what can only 
  be shown' ordinarily _seems to be there_ in 'what is said'). 
>
>While I 
  may express what I take to be W's POV in my own terms, I will also try to 
  relate those terms expressly to what W writes.
>
>The issue is stark and 
  goes to fundamentals. My claim is not merely that there are _some_ "rules" 
[as 
  W means the term] whose sense is not 'said' in a statement of that "rule", 
but 
  that (for W) *there is no "rule" whose sense is _said_ in a statement of that 
  "rule"*. 
>
>[It may be noted that W's position here, re "rules" in PI, 
  parallels his position re "propositions" in TLP: for TLP holds that there is 
  no proposition whose sense is _said_, rather than shown, in 'what is said' by 
  the proposition i.e. no proposition 'says' its sense - rather, a "proposition 
  shows its sense". And it may further be noted that we are likewise apt to 
  wrongly think that 'what can only be shown' re the sense of a "proposition" 
is 
  _said_ by the proposition, for again  'what can only be shown' ordinarily 
  _seems to be there_ in 'what is said'].
>
>So choose your weapons as you 
  wish - any example of a "rule" participants prefer (though personally a 
  mathematical "rule" is I suggest best here for bringing out W's POV, and so 
  that it what I offered for discussion).
>
>Bring it on. 
>
>Dnl
>Ldn
>
>
>
>
>
>digest on/off), visit 
  www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
>

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