[Wittrs] Searle, Dennett and Wittgenstein
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 14 May 2010 19:13:29 -0000
I took the trouble, this morning to search out Searle on the question of what
he thinks he is doing when he makes assertions about what is conceptually true,
etc.
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
>
<snip>
> you found that someone on Answers.com used 'conceptual truth' as a
> substitute for 'analytic truth' and you assume that Searle is doing so
> also.
>
> this is nothing more than a three card monte scam. you see a meaning
> associated with one use of a given word and attribute it to Searle's use
> of that word
>
> >and from his own statements made with that claim,
>
> are you trying to insinuate that you have some evidence from Searle's
> own writings that he thinks that his claims in the third axiom are
> analytically true? if so, would you quote this material?
>
All right, let's let Searle speak for himself on the subject of what he thinks
it is to do conceptual analysis. The following excerpts are from Minds,
Language and Society:
p. 159:
"A third feature of philosophical investigations is that they tend to be, in a
broad sense, about conceptual issues. When we ask, in a philosophical tone of
voice, what is truth, justice, virtue, or causation, we are not asking
questions that can be answered just by having a good look at the environment or
even by performing a good set of experiments on the environment. Such questions
require at least an analysis of the concepts of "truth," "justice," virtue,"
and "cause," and this means that the examination of language is an essential
tool of the philosopher, because language is the vehicle for the articulation
of our concepts."
[Note his understanding of philosophy as an exercise in conceptual analysis
which finally boils down to questions of language -- and here he is not far
from a classic late Wittgensteinian approach.]
p. 160
"In this book, I have been investigating the structure and interrelations of
mind, language and society -- three interlocking frameworks. The methods are
not those of the empirical sciences, where one would perform experiments or at
least conduct opinion surveys. The methods I employ are more adequately
described, at least in the first stages, as logical or conceptual analysis. I
try to find constitutive elements of consciousness, intentionality, speech acts
and social institutions by taking them apart and seeing how they work. But,
truth to tell, even that is a distortion of the actual methodology in practice.
In practice, I use any weapon that I can lay my hands on, and I stick with any
weapon that works. In studying the subjects of this book, for example, I read
books ranging in subject matter from brain science to economics. Sometimes the
results of the investigations are to reject the existing conceptual apparatus
altogether. Thus, I claim we will not understand the relation of the mental to
the physical as long as we continue to take seriously the old conceptual
apparatus of dualism, monism, materialism and all the rest. Here I am proposing
a conceptual revision on the grounds that the old concepts are not adequate to
the facts as we can understand them, given a century of work on the brain. . . "
[Note here that he explicitly rejects a metaphysical approach based on arguing
for or against dualism, monism, etc. His explicit position seems to be a pox on
all such houses. Unfortunately, his CRA relies on a dualist presumption and
this is made somewhat clearer when we consider his argument that consciousness
is ontologically IRREDUCIBLE, even while granting "causal" reducibility; thus
he creates all sorts of problems by separating ontological from causal
questions (a rather idiosyncratic move, it seems to me) while introducing new
questions by focusing on a use of "cause" which, as we have seen, lots or
people seem to have a hard time agreeing to. So one can ask whether his effort
to start anew, which I generally applaud, solves very much in the end -- and
this before we even get to the question of the success or failure of his CRA.]
p. 161
"The aim of philosophical analysis, as in any serious theoretical study, is to
get a theoretical account of the problem areas that is at the same time true,
explanatory, and general. . . . Thus, my aim -- not one shared by the majority
of contemporary philosophers, by the way -- has been to try to make progress
toward getting an adequate general theory."
[Here he diverges from the classical Wittgensteinian approach by embracing
theorizing in philosophy. Frankly, I don't think he's totally wrong here since
I believe many of Wittgenstein's adherents take his rejection of theorizing too
far. After all, Dennett, who is at least as Wittgensteinian as Searle, and
probably a good deal more so, is no less prepared to enter the theorizing
lists. Why, after all, should our theories not be part of, and subject to, the
same kinds of Wittgensteinian investigations as any of the other things we
think and say? Theories, it seems to me, are just more comprehensive and
systematic formulations than our run of the mill ideas about things and, in
that sense, they are of the same stock. Given that, they are as prone to muddle
and confusion as any other claims we make and cleaning them up will certainly
have an impact on the theories themselves, maybe even leading to new theories
in the process -- see Dennett!]
SWM
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