[lit-ideas] Re: Wittengstein's Criterion
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 9 May 2014 20:54:06 +0100 (BST)
>For the record, while I _know_ (or _believe_) that 'criterion' (or perhaps
better 'criteria') is a 'technicism' (as it were) in Witters's scheme of
things, it was this below I was having in mind when I brought criteria in:>
It is academic commentators who treat it as a 'technicism': afaik Wittgenstein
nowhere makes such a claim. The explanation may be that it is not a
'technicism' as far as Wittgenstein is concerned, given the purposes for which
he deploys it, but it becomes one in the hands of some commentators.
As I understand it, Wittgenstein is not using the notion of 'criterion' in the
strict sense in which we might say the positivist 'verificationist theory of
meaning' is offered as a strict criterion of "sense" - that is, a definitive
(rather than partial and defeasible) yardstick. In Investigations
Wittgenstein's sense of 'criterion' is looser: more elastic and flexible, as it
is deployed to reflect the sometime elasticity and flexibility of many
different uses of language.
Dnl
Ldn
On Friday, 9 May 2014, 17:32, "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
My last post today!
: There's no criterion? There's not ONE criterion, but criteria?
---
Rather, Witters ON 'criterion' (or 'criteria' if you must).
In a message dated 5/9/2014 12:11:47 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes, among other interesting things:
"This post may help explain why I do not find what W writes about criteria
(mentioned in a previous post by JLS) to be at all incompatible with the
interpretation I am suggesting."
For the record, while I _know_ (or _believe_) that 'criterion' (or perhaps
better 'criteria') is a 'technicism' (as it were) in Witters's scheme of
things, it was this below I was having in mind when I brought criteria in:
McEvoy, under "lw" thread:
"To give examples where names
name is NOT [emphasis Speranza's] to give
an EXPLANATION [emphasis Speranza's] of the naming-relation
but merely to illustrate it: what
the challenge asks is to provide an
explanation so that the relation is
captured in language, PERHAPS [emphasis Speranza's] by way
of some "theory" or "criterion"
by which we can determine that a
word is being used as a name and not otherwise."
McEvoy does write 'perhaps', which is good.
'Criterion' can be difficult.
"Theory" is perhaps a different animal, since a theory introduces what we
may call a 'theoretical object' (as I think it's called) -- a theoretical
posit. And meaning (or what we mean) is said to be a matter of 'intuition'
(as Grice emphasised) -- perhaps even 'analysis' -- rather than 'theory'.
For the record it may do to revise the use of 'ostensive definition' as per
the Stanford Encyclopedia link -- which concerned the 'meaning' of
'metre'.
Cheers,
Speranza
REFERENCES:
Albritton, "On Wittgenstein's use of the Term "Criterion"".
Wellman, C. "Wittgenstein's Conception of a Criterion"
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