[Wittrs] Re: More on "meaning as use" (reply to Josh)
- From: "jrstern" <jrstern@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 06:37:41 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, kirby urner <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> > The point is that language is *independent* from
> > ontological commitments - or fulfillments, not
> > that such referals are never valid, nor that there
> > really aren't cats or minds out there somewhere.
>
> Comparing "cats" with "minds" in the sense that
> both are "out there somewhere" is just playing into
> this sense that minds are localized spatial objects
> of a ghostly nature (ghostly because we have no
> agreement on how to point to them, as distinct
> from brains or cats or cats' brains). This is to fall
> victim to a random image, to buy into a mental
> picture that goes nowhere, a kind of dead end.
I don't know what a mind is.
And I've said I have no further problem with the linguistic
practice of using abstractions like "beauty" the same way,
so if "mind" is that sort of thing, I still lump it with "cat"
in my linguistic concerns.
I rather suspect "mind" is rather ike "boiling water", something
which is out there, but is not quite a simple.
But the question is whether it is *linguistically* valid to
refer to "mind", and I suggest it is.
> > The problem is that holism is as problematic as
> > word-atomism. We need, we use, all sorts of
> > strategies in our everyday language. "Meaning as
> > use" covers many, it doesn't outlaw much of anything.
>
> It's a nudge away from nominalism and towards
> operationalism. What I take from the "meaning as
> use" dictum is "meaning" is not some phenomenon
> staring you in the face (as it were) at the time of
> a singular usage. You need to watch an hour long
> documentary, let us say, to really have a sense of
> the meaning. If you want to study "pain" (it's
> meaning), it's not a matter of pinching your arm
> or biting your tongue and saying to yourself
> THIS is what pain means. That'll reinforce your
> nominalist tendencies, but you won't get that
> Wittgensteinian sense of language games, of
> grammar.
I just don't grok the argument, for me it's always about
operationalism, empiricism, ... science. I suppose there are
philosophers who don't care what actually happens in the world,
and I've sat in their lectures and heard them disclaim interest
in the evidence ... yet I can't quite believe in their existence!
> > Quine's holism is also purportedly reference-free
> > - more like reference-problematic I suppose, but
> > it's over in that direction.
>
> Feel free to elaborate.
I'd have to go refresh to pick up the specifics, but in general
he goes on about "gavagai" and how we pick up the ostensive
definition, but is it ostensive of the rabbit, or some part of
the rabbit, and is it the word or the context, ... his basic unit
of meaning is not a word but a sentence, but even a sentence has
no meaning outside of a full language, and so the unit
of understanding is ... um, I forget. Remember, Quine is *post*
Wittgenstein, and this is I suppose compatible with "meaning is use"
except that Quine *is* trying to find some linguistic mechanics -
and failing, and so advancing the holistic concept instead. But
Fodor has written about how illogical holism is, it fails to
respect that words are used in certain ways, and that "rabbit" is not
"cat" but it seems the learning of the different words would be
logically impossible, if the unit of understanding was *never* just
the word but some holistic blob.
... or something along those lines
> >> For this reason alone I would urge anyone
> >> wishing to understand the later Wittgenstein
> >> to pay some attention to computer languages.
>
> > I absolutely agree, watching the mechanics of
> > how computing systems compile and execute
> > languages is another world that any modern
> > philosopher of language or mind can only
> > benefit from, whether it ever turns out that
> > human brains work this way or not.
>
> So how might we challenge the universities to
> upgrade their philosophy curricula?
New guys move in, old guys retire, says Kuhn.
When the local university philosophy department actually
manages to update their web site more than once every three
years, I'll have some hope that their content begins to
recognize computation as well.
Josh
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