[lit-ideas] Re: Wittgenstein the C-ionist*
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 18:30:42 +0100 (BST)
This post offers some evidence from, and comments on, the PI re whether W is
offering a criterion philosophy of sense and nonsense where we can see at
work a variant of the idea that a concept with no criteria for its
application is vacuous.
Whatever kind of ?positivism? combined with ?mysticism? that the PI might
exhibit, it is admittedly much farther removed from Logical Positivism than
is the TLP; and indeed its recognition that sense is not co-extensive with
natural science it is antithetical to the anti-metaphysical bent of Logical
Positivism.
This does not mean the PI does not offer a variant of the idea that
only concepts with criteria for their application are not vacuous. This
thesis may be regarded as the essence of ?positivism?, as per Popper?s
remarks. But we might also ask, not whether W is a positivist, but whether W
is a criterion philosopher of sense and nonsense. This form of question has
the advantage of avoiding some of the confusion that can arise over use of
the term ?positivism?, for example the confusion over whether ?positivism? is
to be understood in terms of offering the kind of narrow criterion of sense
and nonsense adopted by the Logical Positivists, or in some wider sense.
The contention PI does offer a criterion philosophy is compatible with the
view that the ?rules? that provide the ?criteria? are ultimately unsayable
though their existence may be shown; just as the TLP criterion that all
meaningful propositions about the world are analysable into ?elementary
propositions? is compatible with the view that such ?elementary propositions?
are in the final analysis unsayable though their existence may be shown.
So there are two distinct if related issues still at large:
a.Do either TLP or PI offer a criterion philosophy of sense and nonsense?
b.Does either criterion philosophy turn into or on a doctrine of unsayablity?
I have suggested both TLP and PI are criterion philosophies of sense and
nonsense that hinge on a doctrine of the unsayable. This similarity is the
?essence? of Wittgenstein, whatever the important differences between the
earlier and later work.
Many passages need some explaining if it being suggested no such ?criterion?
philosophy is being offered in the PI. Here are some excerpts with comments.
______________
$ 190 ?What is the criterion for the way the formula is meant? It is, for
example, the kind of way we always use it, the way we are taught to use it.?
Is not W here denying that it would make sense to say that the criterion here
could be based on the kind of way we never use the formula, or on the way we
have been taught not to use it?
(Of course, if we allow that all criteria are defeasible, we can fashion an
interpretation of W where he might allow or conceive a case where the
criterion is based on the way we never use the formula etc. But he would
surely be pointing out that this kind of case is atypical, and perhaps only
can arise against a background of more typical cases: that is, sense and
nonsense would disappear if there were no steady if shifting framework
against which judgments can be made ? we would not know how to make sense of
a formula whose application depended on going against the way we
always/typically use it, unless there was a way we always/typically use it).
Here we have a Wittgtn. ?thesis?/therapy that might seem to fit his claim,
$599, ?Philosophy only states what everyone admits.?
(My guess is that Popper would find this thesis banal in so far as it is
true.)
________________________________
$216 ? ?A thing is identical with itself?. ? There is no finer example of a
useless proposition??
Because what useful application does it have? It is vacuous/useless because
no proper criterion for its application can be given in a ?real? as opposed
to idle ?language-game?.
W continues: ? We might also say: ?Every thing fits into itself??.
Here W might also have said ? ?We might as well say..? Using the concept of
identity re one thing and itself is plainly vacuous, W suggests.
______________________________
$246 ??it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am
in pain; but not to say it about myself?.
Where W means, in the sense his context tries to explain, that ..?it only
makes sense??
(Popper would, I think, maintain that it does make sense to doubt whether I
am in pain ? that is, it is logically possible that our belief we are in pain
is mistaken ? hard as it may be to believe this).
_______________________________
$258 ?But in the present case I have no criterion of correctness. One would
like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And that only
means that here we can?t talk about ?right?.?
Here W seems to say: the rightness or wrongness of applying concepts
correctly depends on having a ?criterion of correctness?.
Again here is a seeming example of what everyone would admit, as per $599.
We can put this in reverse: where there is no ?criterion of correctness? for
its application the concept is vacuous. [As per the quotation Popper used].
(Though the thesis - that correct application depends on having a relevant
?criterion of correctness? - might seem incontrovertible, Popper would, I
think, say it is only true in a very trivial sense and in a deeper sense is
false: for we can apply concepts ?correctly? without having a criterion for
so doing. Just as we can make true statements in a language that is
sufficiently rich even though in that language we cannot have a general
criterion for whether those statements are true, as per Tarski).
$572 ?Expectation is, grammatically, a state; like being of an opinion,
hoping for something, knowing something, being able to do something. But in
order to understand these states it is necessary to ask: ?What counts as a
criterion for anyone?s being in such a state?? (States of hardness, of
weight, of fitting).?
W seems here to assert that to understand the relevant concept we need a
criterion for its application.
____________
These kinds of claim all seem to me to fit the view that the later W is
offering a criterion philosophy of sense and nonsense, admittedly a criterion
philosophy that does not consist of some simple one-dimensional criterion
such as the verificationist criterion of meaning but rather where the
criteria may be multi-faceted, complex, vague, defeasible and in the final
analysis unsayable only showable etc.
Unless we assume he is just joking when he speaks of ?criterion??
Donal
London
* Short for Criterionist. Omar be calm.
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