[lit-ideas] Re: TLP1: Elements and their relations in giving the sense of 'p'
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:38:30 +0000 (GMT)
This post takes up some points discussed last year and may suffer from memory
lapses since some of this is ‘afair’. Delay in replying is partly because,
reading the ‘TLP’, I can understand why Frege sought more and more
clarifications because “the content is too unclear to me”. (Un)fortunately, I
am past the stage where I assume this is my fault and tend to suppose it is the
writer’s. Though in some quarters extolled for its crystalline clarity, the TLP
offers much that might be called pseudo-clarity – clear only if we aren’t too
set on making the sense that definite.
A key dispute is whether, as Phil Enns claimed [affair], W’s TLP offers the
view that the sense of a proposition is determined only by the relations
between the elements of the proposition; or whether, as I maintain(ed), the
sense of ‘p’ also depends on the character or content of the elements.
If the former view is correct it would appear that the sense of ‘The cat is on
the mat’ is the same as the sense of ‘The mat is on the cat’; on the latter
view, these propositions have quite different senses because while the relation
between the elements of both ‘p’s is that one is “on” the other, the character
of the objects so related are switched . On the latter view, ‘The dog is on the
mat’ has a different sense to ‘The cat is on the mat’ because, crucially, the
character of one of the elements of these ‘p’s has changed – and that is enough
to change their sense.
The latter view might appear to be supported by 3.25: “A proposition has one
and only one complete analysis.”. The particularity of the unique sense of ‘p’
cannot be obtained merely by analysing the relations it asserts nor merely the
“elements” it asserts, since these relations and “elements” may separately
feature in other ‘p’s, and so neither those relations nor the elements are by
themselves sufficient to give the sense of ‘p’.
Phil conceded that nowhere does W state in explicit terms that W holds to the
view that it is only the relations between the elements of ‘p’ that determine
its sense, and nor does W explicitly state that the character of the elements
themselves do not play any role in determining its sense.
To start I concede that I have not found W to anywhere state in clear-cut terms
that W rejects the view ascribed to him by Phil.
We might say the debate depends on what we take W to mean by 2.14: “What
constitutes a picture is that its elements are related to one another in a
determinate way.” This (ambiguous) statement Phil seems to read as saying that
what “constitutes” the sense of a picture is merely the “determinate” relations
it asserts; whereas I suggest it means that what “constitutes” the sense of a
picture is “its elements” and how these are “related”.
Despite W’s lack of utter clarity, I do not think this makes both
interpretations hang equally in the air, as W says enough to show that the
sense of ‘p’ involves not just the relations between the elements but the
character of the elements themselves. Here are some considerations that
indicate that Phil’s view is mistaken.
1. It is commonsense (or the ordinary view) that p1, ‘The cat is on the mat’,
differs in its sense to p2, ‘The dog is on the mat’ – differs even though this
can be only because the character of one of the elements differs.
2. W’s theory in the TLP was not intended to overturn the commonsense view set
out at 1.above or he would have made this clear – and he does not. (That the
TLP ‘picture theory’ is in many ways a commonsense view is indicated by 3. and
4. below.)
3. W saw the picture theory of a proposition as analogous to how a model of an
accident might be used to explain facts (having read about such a model so used
in a court of law). In such a model, the accuracy of the model depends not just
on the model asserting or picturing ‘relations’ between objects that correspond
to relations that hold in reality (for example, that one vehicle was _in front
of_ another) but on asserting the existence of specific objects that so exist
in reality (so that if a _car_ was, in fact, in front of a _lorry_, the model
would be inaccurate if it depicted the _lorry_ as in front of the _car_).
4. The picture/model theory of a proposition is essentially simple: ‘p’
corresponds to the facts only if the elements of ‘p’ are related together just
as ‘objects’ (which the ‘elements’ picture) are related in the world. If ‘p’ is
false (because its elements are not related exactly as ‘objects’ in the world
are related) its sense is nevertheless the ‘picture’ given by its ‘elements’
and their relations. In this view, the relations and elements of a picture must
be clearly distinguished: the relations between elements do not tell us the
character of the elements and the character of an element does not tell us its
relation to other elements.
5. A different view to that set out at 4. might insist that the character of an
element depends on its relation to other elements or that the character of
relations depend on the elements so related. That is, that there is no clear
distinction between ‘elements’ and their relations – because they are
inextricably linked. This view of the TLP, I suggest, is mistaken. What is true
is that the sense of a proposition depends both on the elements and their
relations, and therefore elements and their relations are inextricably linked
insofar as they are both necessary for ‘p’ to have sense (‘p’ would not have
any sense where it consisted merely of relations or where it merely consisted
of ‘elements’ without any “determinate” relations i.e. “on” is not a p with
sense and neither is “dog, cat, ball”; cf. TLP 3.142 – “Only facts can express
a sense, a set of names cannot” – one might think that, pace Phil, W thought it
too
obvious for words to add “And a list of relations doesn’t express any ‘p’ with
sense either”). But the fact both are necessary to the sense of ‘p’, does not
mean there is no distinction between them. That W in TLP speaks both of
“elements” and how they are “related” shows that W works with such a
distinction.
6. It is a separate issue to the one at 5. whether the distinction between
“elements” and their “relations” is one that can be said or one that can only
be shown: even if it cannot be said but only shown, that would still mean there
is a distinction rather than that there is none. The distinction shows itself.
W in notes dictated to Moore in 1914:- “This same distinction between what can
be _shewn_ by the language but not _said_, explains the difficulty that is felt
about types – e.g., as to [the] differences between things, facts, properties,
relations. That M is a _thing_ can’t be _said_; it is nonsense; but _something_
is _shewn_ by the symbol M. In [the] same way, that a _proposition_ is a
subject-predicate proposition can’t be said; but it is _shown_ by the symbol.”
7. Let us assume that distinction between “elements” and their relations is one
that can only be shown and that cannot be said. It is nevertheless a separate
issue to the one at 5. whether we adopt the traditional view and take the TLP
as offering propositions about unsayable matters that, though they are strictly
nonsense, are trying to say what is true – or whether we take the
Conant-Diamond view that the TLP itself is on the same level as the kind of
nonsense it condemns philosophers for traditionally offering because they are
trying to say what cannot be said. On the first view the distinction between
“elements” and their relations, though unsayable, would nevertheless be true
(and perhaps even “unassailable and definitive”). On the second view the
distinction, while not true and indeed nonsense, is still needed as a ladder
from which to gain a perspicuous view of the character of ‘p’s and their sense.
Donal
Basta for now
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