[Wittrs] Re: [C] Re: Games with Logic and Bachelor
- From: Glen Sizemore <gmsizemore2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:47:52 -0800 (PST)
--- On Wed, 2/10/10, Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> 1. The "rule" that you think accompanies "bachelor" is only
> a sense. It's a fence in the yard. For two speakers to share
> the sense, they must both know of it. That's all 242 says.
>
> And speakers who do not observe the fence do not break the
> rule of the language community, they just adjust the sense
> (take the fence down, so to speak). The language community
> does this all the time, with all sorts of words. Think of it
> as a volleyball net.
>
> Also, this isn't a policy. It's not subject to anything
> majoritarian. It's governed by how brains process language
> and by what emerges from people behaving in the language
> culture. You seem to think that if something has "minority
> sense," that it breaks a rule. Language has never worked
> this way.
Once upon a time, when I thought it was useful to talk TO Sean, rather than
ABOUT Sean, I said that he had an "anything goes" approach to language. The
above illustrates what I meant. For Sean, there can be no "language takes a
holiday." To Sean, no matter how someone uses a word (under other circumstances
- i.e., with other audiences - I would put "uses a word" in scare quotes), it
will be "language," and if it doesn't fit with the sorts of normative usage
that broadly defines "the game" then they have simply expanded the game. Now.
some of this may occur as when metaphorical extension becomes standard usage
(i.e., one meaning today of "blow up" is "to get angry"), but to argue that no
matter how one uses a word it "do[es] not break the rule of the language
community" is absurd. Now, admittedly, I think that Wittgenstein did a poor job
with "rules," but that is a discussion for another time. But the point here is
that Sean's "anything goes" notion is
quite silly. If you don't think so, come over to my can of peas, and we'll
lick it over a cup of puke. Now, Sean's repeated references to brains, and
"brain scripts," and "brains processing language" etc., is very interesting. It
is now standard cognitive "science" talk. What is interesting is that it is a
sort of institutionalized-language-takes-a-holiday. When I used to teach, I
would joke with my students and say that, for example, one could define
"seeing" as "the creation and utilization of representations of the world in
the brain constructed via light entering the eye*." Then I would point out how
the word "see" (and related forms) is really used as in, for example, "John saw
the police and ran away." What was witnessed when the person said that? Were
they observing John's brain? No, of course not. They observed John's behavior
within a particular context. That, of course, illustrates a part of the
language games in which "see" (and related forms
are used). Now, it is true that saying things like "When we see, we are really
seeing a representation" has become its own little langauge game. But this does
not make it OK. Indeed, this notion is one of the worst things that ever
happened to psychology, philosophy, and now much of neuro"science." It is an
institutionalized-language-takes-a-holiday; it is exactly the sort of thing
that Wittgenstein's "meaning is use" was supposed to illuminate as garbage.
Now, when Sean talks about things that PEOPLE do as "brain behavior" he is, of
course, making exactly the kind of error that later Wittgenstein was trying to
get people to avoid. But, I guess I could be wrong as Sean is a self-proclaimed
"master" of Wittgensteinian philosophy.
*Subsequently, I came across this definition in some piece of trash
masquerading as a scientific paper!
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