[Wittrs] Re: Games with Logic and Bachelor
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2010 17:57:34 -0800 (PST)
(Ron)
... I don't think the matter is going to resolve itself. Here's my final try.
(Feel free, of course, to pass along yours or however many you wish)
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.
Indeed, if you were to put this sentence up in front of America right now --
"If Tiger is married, he can't be a bachelor" -- I'd say 50% would say "no."
The reason has nothing to do with stupidity and everything to do with
connotation, sense, behavior and language. (Note, there are studies by
linguists showing this sort of effect even for words like "odd number.") See
Steven Pinker, Words and Rules, last chapter.
2. I also cannot accept either your assertion or their examples of how logic
keeps language free of accidents. This sounds like Wittgenstein-1 or logical
positivists. Logic does no such thing. Logic has never been the custodian of
language; it's the other way around. The mistake people make is to think that
logic in expression is paramount and that language is easy. It's the other way
around. Language is where all the problems are; logic is second-nature.
(This statement here has nothing to to with logic, but rather with grammar.
"He's a two-month old bachelor, but he's a married woman." The problem here is
that grammar is violated, not logic.)
Here's my point: so long as it is meaningful in language to call Tiger a
bachelor -- which it surely is -- you cannot do formal logic upon any statement
involving "bachelor" until you have indicated the sense of the expression.
Let's do it this way: to get where you want to go, it seems you'll need to take
a path other than by means of Wittgenstein.
"A new-born child has no teeth." -- "A goose has no teeth." -- "A rose has not
teeth." -- This last at any rate -- one would like to say -- is obviously true!
It is even surer than that a goose has none. -- And yet it is none so clear.
For what should a rose's teeth have been? The goose has none in its jaw. And
neither, of course, has it any in its wings; but no one means that when he says
it has no teeth. -- Why, suppose one were to say: the cow chews its food and
then dungs the rose with it, so the rose has teeth in the mouth of a beast.
This would not be absurd, because one has no notion in advance where to look
for teeth in a rose." PI, page 221.
"Given the two ideas 'fat' and 'lean,' would you be rather inclined to say that
Wednesday was fat and Tuesday lean, or vice versa? (I incline decisively
towards the former). Now have "fat" and "lean" some different meaning here from
their usual one? __ They have a different use. -- So ought I really to have
used different words? Certainly not that. -- I want to use THESE words (with
their familiar meanings) HERE.-- Now, I say nothing about the causes of this
phenomenon. They MIGHT be associations from my childhood. But that is a
hypothesis. Whatever the explanation, -- the inclination is there." p. 216
PI.
(all from part IIxi)
Regards.
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html
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