[Wittrs] Re: [C] Re: Proper Names --Wittgenstein, Russell, Kripke

  • From: Glen Sizemore <gmsizemore2@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sun, 7 Feb 2010 03:24:59 -0800 (PST)

--- On Sat, 2/6/10, J D <ubersicht@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: J D <ubersicht@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [C] [Wittrs] Re: Proper Names --Wittgenstein, Russell, Kripke
> To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Saturday, February 6, 2010, 8:27 PM

> 
> Now, you seem to want to put great emphasis on the role of
> "presence".  But what sort of presence?  Must the
> bearer of the name be in my field of vision?  Within
> reach?  In my grasp?  Within earshot? 
> Continuously so?
> 
> Taken to extremes, the requirement of presence leads to
> such confusions as Wittgenstein sets out to dispel with his
> remarks on the confused idea of "private ostensive
> definition", the so-called "private language argument".
> 
> When I try to think of words that require presence, I don't
> think of proper names but of indexicals such as "I", "you",
> "this", "that", and so forth.  And as Wittgenstein
> reminds us, these aren't names at all.  (They also
> don't always require the presence of whatever they are meant
> to pick out.)
> 

The above seems somewhat confused. Though "proper names" play many roles in 
language games*, ONE of them is certainly as a verbal response class that is 
under stimulus control of the presence of a particular person. This does not 
mean, of course, that the utterance "Jack Spratt" is ALWAYS under stimulus 
control of Jack's presence. The same STRUCTURAL utterance may occur as a 
function of many different current and historical variables. As such, of 
course, the same structure is actually very different functional response 
classes. Though Wittgensteinians (as well as "Wittgensteinians") bandy about 
the notion of meaning being use, they become embroiled in endless debate about 
issues that should have disappeared. The issues surrounding "proper names" is 
one. This is because "proper names" is largely a structural descriptor, and 
these leads some to think of it as a unitary sort of thing. But, of course, it 
is not. To take an extreme example: say I train an
 individual (who does not speak, say, English) to utter certain sounds in the 
presence of certain stimuli consisting of letters on a page. Now I show this 
person a series of letters and the person says "adjustable wrench." Does this 
utterance "refer" to a particular tool? Is the fragment "wrench" a noun? The 
answer is, "of course not." Not in any sense that captures the meaning of 
meaning. 


*I would say, of course, that proper names, considered as structural entities, 
are under the control of a wide array of independent variables - i.e., the same 
structural utterance is, at different times, in different circumstances, 
different FUNCTIONAL reponse classes. This captures what is important about 
"meaning is use" and in the hands of radical behaviorists and behavior analysts 
it is, so to speak, more Wittgensteinian than Wittgenstein was able to achieve.



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