[C] [Wittrs] Re: Games with Logic and Bachelor
- From: "waveletter" <wavelets@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:06:45 -0000
Good discussion. Just a couple of notes on some of Sean's points that caught my
attention and reminded me of old saws.
(snip)
> 3. I can't agree with several things you have said about what analytic
> philosophers do with statements like "If Tiger is married, he is not a
> bachelor." In fact, this is exactly what the fallacy of analytic philosophy
> of this sort is. It pretends as though the statement is not governed by
> culture and cognition, and that it presents a question that should be
> resolved mimicking science or mathematics. For the truth of the matter is,
> that the statement is only governed by sense of the expression, and that once
> the sense is shared, there is no other issue other than informational (what
> Tiger did, what his "marriage" is like).
(rla) But cf. PI 202: "And hence also 'obeying a rule' is a practice. And to
*think* one is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule."
> If we would treat married and bachelors only as predicate-calculators, we
> would have precluded any counter-examples from being shown by virtue of the
> language game being used. We would have shut them out. You seem to think that
> logic has some status over language. I sense this in you. You must be a
> philosophy professor who teaches symbolic logic. Let me help you with this:
> "I release you." (You like Lord of the Rings?)
(rla) Wow, whatta flame; I didn't think JD was a professor of philosophy, but,
even if he is and does go so far as to teach symbolic logic, I'd be inclined
nonetheless to vouch for his integrity and basic human decency.
> Here's what I think you aren't getting. Definitions don't prescribe the use
> of words, behavior does. What are commonly called definitions in dictionaries
> are nothing but accounts of these uses. Sort of like a newspaper for the
> language game. No one I know of would credibly say that if a use was
> meaningfully understood that it couldn't be made because the dictionary
> didn't yet have it. And so, for the idea of calling Tiger a "bachelor" to be
> a joke can only be true IN A SENSE OF TALKING. You are observing a fence
> again. You use the word "bachelor" and "marriage" with a fence in both yards.
> That's fine. You're allowed. Many people do. Your point is taken. But what
> you don't understand is that if people use these words without such fences,
> they too are allowed whatever goals they score
>
(rla) But cf. PI 242: "If language is to be a means of communication there must
be agreement not only in definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in
judgments. This seems to abolish logic, but does not do so.--It is one thing to
describe methods of measurement, and another to obtain and state results of
measurement. But what we call 'measuring' is partly determined by a certain
constancy in results of measurement."
Thanks!
--Ron
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