[lit-ideas] What Wittgenstein Showed and Grice Said
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2012 19:50:55 -0400 (EDT)
In his reply to J. Wager
In a message dated 6/24/2012 12:39:57 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
If we maintain that A and C are correct we may need to explain why 'The
grass is green' may have a different sense when given as a description of the
colour of grass in a particular field, a description of the usual colour of
grass in a particular country in a particular season, an instruction for
someone painting by numbers, or a coded phrase used in wartime: it would
appear to be the same 'form of words', yet how can these same 'form of words'
have different senses if their sense if said in their being said? For what
is said is the same. This is enough to show (perhaps even for the life of
me) that the view that "a 'form of words' says its own sense" is at least
problematic.
Of course this disagrees with Grice's dictum (which he called his "Modified
Occam's Razor"):
Senses should not be multiplied beyond necessity.
So
Grass is green (the 'the' is otiose).
surely has ONE sense.
----
For various specifications of 'mean' vide Grice, WoW.
He considers:
If I am then helping the grass to grow, I shall have no time for reading.
And considers the 'meaning' of
"to help the grass to grow". Grice takes this to be an 'idiom' alla
"fertilising the daffodils" or "pushing up the daisies". "The 'sense' would be,
"If I am then dead"".
He considers that strictly,
'to help the grass to grow' can be analysed componentially as in
"help" -- to assist.
"the grass" 1. lawn material.
---------------- 2. marijuana.
He notes that while 'grass' may, on occasion, mean "MARIJUANA", the _sense_
of 'grass' is 'lawn material' rather. It's ony figuratively, due to
drug-dealers's jargon that 'grass' can come to "mean" "marijuana". This is not
a
multiplication of senses.
In the same vein,
'deer' in English, means a special mammal, but in Old English it meant
plain "animal" -- witness German or Dutch. The narrowing of 'sense' is due to
implicature, so it's best NOT to think of a change of sense. What 'deer'
means IS animal (its sense); it's by implicature that it means a special
animal that since Henry VIII's time was considered the epitome of the animal.
---- Now, what Witters is saying is polemical. As Russell noted in his
foreword to the TLP: Witters managed to say a lot about what cannot be said.
Russell, like Grice, respects the ability of lingo to 'multiply' in levels.
Russell speaks of the
object-language --- Grice prefers L1
and the
meta-language: Grice prefers L2, L3, ... Ln.
So, surely, when we say,
"shaggy" means 'hairy-coated'.
we are in L2.
In L1 the most we can do is:
"This dog is shaggy"
Only in L2 can we specify the 'sense' of "shaggy". It's the use-mention
distinction, almost type-token.
Witters was against all this, and it's only natural that he would come up
with false dictums like: "What is not worth saying, SHOW".
And so on.
J. Wager is right that a book can be written about what cannot be said. For
surely "what cannot be said" needs an expansion. What cannot be said by
Witters (or won't be said by Witters --he repressed a lot of the things he
suffered, so it's natural he wouldn't want to _say_ them) may well be said by
someone else.
Note that Witters gives too much relevance to 'show' -- Because if x could
only be shown, but not said -- even THIS could NOT be shown (which is a
reductio ad absurdum of Witters' absurd claim).
And so on.
Cheers,
Speranza
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