[lit-ideas] Wittgenstein's Show
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2012 21:38:44 -0400 (EDT)
CANCELLED?
Wittgenstein's Show
In a message dated 6/17/2012 8:58:40 P.M. UTC-02,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"it may be suggested that, in the light of the 'key tenet', commentary
that tries to solve the supposed "paradox" as to rule-following [by saying
there are grounds for correct rule-following (for example, in community
sanctioned criteria) - and that these grounds can be SAID] is on the wrong
track."
---
"The solution to the apparent "paradox" lies in recognising that we can
NOT SAY the SENSE of a "rule", and therefore we cannot SAY what amounts to
obeying or going against it, but we can SHOW the SENSE in particular cases"
which totally misses the point of the point of a rule. Kantotle holds that
morality is about the GENERAL cases. The opposite is CASUISTICS which is
hardly a philosophical endeavour.
"... and SHOW in particular cases that some 'what-is-SAID' has a SENSE (or
is a nonsense) [although whether it has sense, or is nonsense, will depend
on much more than 'what-is-said']."
"If we try to do more than SHOW the SENSE [such as 'say' the sense] we
end up trying to SAY what can only be SHOWN."
"And if W thought we COULD do more than SHOW the SENSE he would have SAID
so."
Hardly demontrative. It's a bit like a counterfactual.
"he quite conspicuously SAYS no such thing in PI and he doesn't say he has
ever SAID the sense of anything, including a "rule"."
----
Again, Witters was perhaps confused as to 'say' -- AND WRITE. Apparently,
he once almost sued Toulmin. Toulmin had attended a few seminars by Witters.
Toulmin wrote his Cantab. D. Phil on the place of reason in ethics.
Witters almost sued him, because Witters thought that Toulmin had used
material
from an unpublished source.
YET, in a different context, Witters, discussing St. Augustine, thinks
that 'to publish' has to be understood liberally: to 'make public'.
---- So, never mind what Witters SAID or left unsaid. Anscombe focused too
much on what Witters _wrote_ which did not help much seeing that
apparently, as with Socrates, the gist of Witters's appeal lies in his
"unwritten
doctrines" (agrapha).
-----
Grice never had a problem with the say/show distinction because Grice
disliked the verb, 'say' -- he preferred "implicate" --, and he wanted to
generalise on "mean".
It is what we MEAN that matters philosophically -- never what we say. In
any case, provided 'say' IS an important verb, philosophically, it is
indirect speech, oratio obliqua, that matters. "Saying-That". Wittgenstein
never
understood that, hence his constant fears that he might have ended saying
nonsense.
Note that there are types of nonsense.
"This square is circular".
He said that the square was circular.
It may be allowed that 'saying-that' allows for the report of NONSENSE.
When it comes to 'show', the only philosophically important use of 'show'
is one which, as I quoted from Grice, WoW, has 'show' as a variety of
'meaning'. For what does it matter, philosophically, what Rose SHOWS (in a
strip-tease, say). "Coming up Rosies". Again, it is SHOWING-THAT which matters.
"He showed me that the I was wrong", for example.
"He showed me that p"
In general,
"A showed that p"
"A shows that p".
So, it would be up to any Wittgensteinian still maintaining the dogma that,
for some utterer U, there is some "p" such that it is never the case that
"U said that p"
and ALWAYS the case that
"U showed that p".
-----
From:
_http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/wittgenstein/section1.rhtml_
(http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/wittgenstein/section1.rhtml)
"Wittgenstein draws an important distinction between saying and showing."
"While a proposition *says* that
such-and-such fact is the case'
or, as I prefer,
U said that p.
"it
*shows* the logical form by virtue of
which this fact is the case."
U showed that p.
---- Note that while 'say' is provided as 'say-that' in the above, it is
not 'show that' but SHOW the logical form. But surely the important,
philosophically speaking, uses of 'show' are 'showing-that', which makes 'show'
correlative, as Witters wants, to 'say'.
The above is confused in that propositions don't _SAY_, never mind 'show'.
Note that the above says nothing about what matters: the taming of the
true: for it is the fact that p that makes the proposition "p" true, for
example. Never mind what the proposition shows (its logical form) but can't
say.
"The upshot of this distinction is that we can only say things about facts
in the world."
He said that it was raining.
He showed me that I was wrong when I said that it was sunny, because it
wasn't.
"Logical form cannot be spoken about, only shown."
Here 'speak' is a red herring. "It's a sin to tell a lie" -- millions of
hearts have been broken just because these words were SPOKEN. Speak allows
for nonsense, in ways that 'saying that' doesn't.
Note that while "He said that the square was circular" reports a piece of
nonsense, it is different with
"Caesar is the the Caesar number prime if"
This is something that can be SPOKEN. But if Utterer utterered the above,
it would be ungrammatical to say (unless you are Davidson), "He said that
Caesar is the the Caesar number prime if".
"Because logical form shows ITSELF and cannot be SPOKEN about, there is no
need for the so-called logical objects, the connecting glue between
different propositions that plays a central role in the logic of Frege and
Russell."
Most philosophers would agree that there is no need of 'logical objects'.
But Witters's way to prove a common place (who does think that there are
logical objects? Most logicians are CONSTRUCTIVISTS and cannot help being so)
seems too convoluted to be true or valid.
"Wittgenstein asserts that most philosophical confusion arises from trying
to SPEAK about things that can only be SHOWN."
And he failed to detect that perhaps there are things which should NOT be
shown, even?
Cheers,
Speranza
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