[Wittrs] Re: Wittgenstein's meaning is use.
- From: Nasha Waights Hickman <baghira24@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:47:51 +0100
Reply to CJ:
Just a quickie before I disappear again for a few hours.(by a quickie I
usually mean a tome, not so hot on being concise).
First of all thanks for the comments on thought, I need to think about all
that stuff more, but have no time and my brain will soon be petrified.
You say:
" To me, there is an implicit "natural selection" model which operates in
the back of Wittgenstein's
mind ...according to which it is the survival of the fittest language games
which determine what we see around us and, in turn, the survival of the
fittest words in the configuration of each such language game
which determines the words we find ourselves using. Meaning is predicated
upon this 'fitness" and the fitness the words or expressions contribute to
the game of which they are a part."
I think the question of pragmatism is very interesting in Witt. The natural
selection idea is curious, but how to define fitness?-- Fit, presumably,
relative to a given purpose or need.
I think that while a region of grammar, a set of conceptual apparatus, will
develop to serve certain needs or ends, I think it is a mistake to see them
as 'determined' by these needs or ends, if this is meant in the sense that
implies we could not have chosen otherwise. We could; that is what is meant
by grammar being arbitrary. i guess you mean determined by their
*suitability* given the ends or needs which govern the game...well, I still
think 'determined' may be too strong, especially when borrowed form a
natural selection picture. A conceptual choice may be explained in such a
way, but it remains a choice.
I am incredibly taken with this example of Peter Hacker's re the
development of new grammar, and I will relay it just because I like it
really. The issue here is how it is that conceptual choices are determined,
and we can look as always at a region of language on the analogy of a game.
The example is from tennis:
Suppose in the middle of a match a pelican swoops in, seizes the tennis ball
and lands it in the opponent's box. Did you win the point? Well, who is to
say? There are no rules in the tennis book to deal with what happens when a
tropical bird walks onto the court (what an oversight!! the rules must be
incomplete!!) . Nothing decides things one way or another. Now if enough
pelicans persist in this outlandish behaviour, we will introduce a new rule
to say whether I win the point or not.
The moral here (one of them) : Experience requires, demands if you like,
that a conceptual choice be made, that a new rule be laid down, but what
choices we make and what rules we develop is not *determined* by experience
or by the need we have of incorporating new experience in our conceptual
scheme.
I guess there is an argument to say that in many cases, which way we go will
be informed by the rules in place already, what kind of developments make
most sense given the game as it stands, what would cause least disturbance
to it so to speak (at the risk of getting a bit Quinean here!). But there is
always a choice. ultimately we make a decision and we would say "this is
just what we do"; "this is how the game is played" and there is no more to
be explained. 'Why are the rules of tennis as they are?' -- does that
question really admit of a sensible answer?
So I kinda think that the natural selection idea is not helpful in these
ways:
1) when talking about fitness, we could just say that we develop the
concepts to suit our needs and purposes in life.
2) there is nothing 'natural' about the selection; these are conceptual
decisions.
On the other hand, it might be apt in the sense that:
1) there is a question of fitness relative to the purpose
2) there are considerations which will inform and explain our making one
conceptual choice and not another -- clearly when we say they are in a deep
sense arbitrary we do not mean they are ad hoc, because a game does not hold
together as a game then. the considerations however I'd say are logical and
conceptual, not natural --though the purposes (some of them) may be
naturally determined.(?)
One other thing that won't sit I think is talking of 'fittest words' , as if
a meaningful word stood apart, were intelligible in abstraction of
the network of grammatical rules against which moves are made with it, as if
it lay idle but were full of potential power, and could be picked up and put
to a use already contained within it (One might talk instead of 'fittest
rules'? ). But I take it that you have no such picture of words in mind, and
what you mean is that in a given game it could be useful to invent a new
piece (of course the piece is defined with ref to rules for its use) with
which we could make cartain new moves? does that sound roughly right? We
probably have no dispute, and I'm just being pedantic...
N.
PS: You're quite right in fact in calling me Natasha as this is my given
name. However I've never really used it (grew up in Spain); I'm Nasha/Nacha
( a sort of nick-name if you like) or Natalia :)
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