[lit-ideas] cond
- From: Adriano Palma <Palma@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2015 06:06:27 +0000
This is false. Wittgenstein in one of his few lucid moments, gave us the tools
to verify. At a minimum an indicative conditional is verifiable by truth
tables. I am unsure of what the question is. It may still be argued –many
do—that subjunctives are a different set of conditions, Bob Stalnaker proposed
a fiction view, known as ‘Ersatz’ conditions. Others have more demanding
theories, the celebrated ones are theories of counterfactuals. While some idiot
will claim that there are no counterfactuals, it would be useful to be reminded
that causality relies on counterfactuality only. Other deeper idiots claim
there are no causes but ‘conjunctions’, they are not worth the computer time to
answer.
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Omar Kusturica
Sent: 09 June 2015 18:55
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The Genealogy of Disjunction
Well, a point could be made that no conditional statement is verifiable or
falsifiable as long as the condition is not satisfied. Nothing could be said
with certainty about the truth value of "If you hire me, I will do a great job
at your company" unless I am actually hired.
I took W. to be suggesting not that we would have contextual difficulty to
interpret a lion talking about photography, but rather than a lion's mental
life is so different from ours that it would not be conveyable to us even if he
had language. (I.e. I took him to be talking about conceptual rather than
contextual difficulty.) This is not a falsifiable claim to be sure, but neither
is it extremely convincing.
O.K.
On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 6:40 PM, Donal McEvoy
<donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
They certainly give the appearance of speaking to one another. There
vocabulary might be a bit limited, but they seem to get their ideas across. If
speak is taken to mean "communicate" through sound, then lions certainly
speak. They don't speak English so far as I know, but they communicate ideas,
notions, displeasures, desires etc, to one another through the making of
sounds.>
My post in another thread points out that "If the lion etc." is a kind of
aphorism: it is not to be taken as an empirical claim that there are no 'animal
languages' and no 'lion language'. But feel free to treat it as an empirical
claim anyway, especially as this makes Wittgenstein sound silly for ever saying
such a thing. ["I wandered lonely as a cloud" might equally be taken as an
empirical claim: and plainly false, for which of us resembles a cloud? What a
silly poet.]
I also pointed out that the fact we would understand the words "Take a photo"
if they were uttered by a lion does not refute the aphorism, for it does not
mean we would understand "the lion" saying those words (JLS thinks I overlooked
this point because I never mentioned Strawson, but this point is made very
clearly in that post, and it is clearly acknowledged that this is part of
Wittgenstein's point). Finally, I pointed out that an aphorism does not offer
truth of an empirical/falsifiable sort in any straightforward way and that we
do not treat aphorisms like they are refuted by counter-examples: and
Wittgenstein is deliberately using aphoristic language because he is not
intending to say something empirical/falsifiable. Feel free to pass that over
in silence too.
Dnl
Ldn
On Tuesday, 9 June 2015, 16:01, Mike Geary
<jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx<
mailto:jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
"there vocabulary" should, of course, be "their vocabulary" One should always
proof read BEFORE sending.
On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 9:58 AM, Mike Geary
<jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx<
mailto:jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
I concur with Omar's questioning of the determinacy of q in 'if p, the q'. In
fact I would question (and infact, I do question) the belief that lions don't
speak. They certainly give the appearance of speaking to one another. There
vocabulary might be a bit limited, but they seem to get their ideas across. If
speak is taken to mean "communicate" through sound, then lions certainly speak.
They don't speak English so far as I know, but they communicate ideas,
notions, displeasures, desires etc, to one another through the making of
sounds. I dare say -- just watch me -- that lions even speak to us humans, or
at least attempt to. Only those familiar with the language of lions understand
when the lion is saying "I'm bored, I'm hungry, I'm bored. But apparently they
do use sound to communicate their desires but not many are willing to learn
Lion language.
On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 4:49 PM, Omar Kusturica
<omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx<
mailto:omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
"If the lion could talk we could not understand"
Seems to be a subjunctive. In the traditional treatment of material
implication, it would seem that 'if p,then q' is considered true whenever p is
false. (Lions don't appear to speak.) However, I am rather inclined to think
that the truth value of 'if p, then q' is indeterminate when p is false.
Bestest,
O.K.
On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 11:40 PM, Robert Paul
<rpaul@xxxxxxxx<
mailto:rpaul@xxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Donal chides me for posting things, Principia Mathematica, Paradise Lost, e.g.,
without providing a gloss of them. I 'd be grateful for some examples. I try
not to post unfamiliar quotations or citations without explaining them (unlike
some), unless if someone, in asking for the quote, has also asked for an
explanation of it.
The only time I can recall posting a quote from either the Investigations, or
The House at Pooh Corner, is when someone has asked for such a thing to
illuminate something that isn't clear to him. I've never posted any of
Wittgenstein's texts, English or German, just for the hell of it.
This is what Donal wrote, not long ago. I think he was responding to something
Chris said.
'This same tendency, to adduce Wittgenstein as if he is the key expert witness
waiting in the wings to be consulted - but without adducing the character of
his actual evidence, has been seen from others on the list: notably Robert Paul
(who has, additionally, quoted actual words from W like "If the lion could talk
we could not understand" but, crucially, without spelling out what this claim
amounts to). It is (dare I suggest) a bad tendency.'
If this is how I appear to Donal, this is the way I appear to Donal. It is a
distortion of anything I've done: I've quoted actual words (!) from
Wittgenstein, without stopping to explain what they meant. Why would I want to
do that? Perhaps someone's asked what Wittgenstein said, in a certain place, or
where 'what LW said,' means 'what did he mean in saying it?' or, more snappily,
'What does this mean?' Or perhaps someone who's misplaced his copy of something
Wittgenstein wrote, is trying to reconstruct it and
asks...
'If a lion could speak we could not understand it,' or 'If a lion could talk,
we wouldn't be able to understand it,' (Hacker and Schulte). Have I ever used
this expression to whack somebody over the head? No. Have I used it to
illustrate something? I doubt it. Do I want to talk any more about any of this?
No.
Thanks to Donal, and love to all the magicians.
Robert Paul
Other related posts:
