[lit-ideas] Re: A Wittgensteinian decision? A Popperian one mate.
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:01:15 -0800
Donal wrote
I don't see how this is a Wittgenstn. decision. More comments perhaps to
follow on the actual reasoning, but surely it is not suggested that in
discussing the meaning of 'use'(s) the Court is pandering to a Wittgenstn.
view of meaning as (almost always) 'use'? I think Robert Paul would repudiate
such a conceptually confused and indeed most unWittgenstn suggestion.
The famous, or infamous passage in the Investigations reads
'For a _large_ class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the
word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a words is its use
in the language. [§43]'
From this both friends and foes of the later Wittgenstein have
concocted the slogan 'the meaning is the use,' and argued about the
plausibility or implausibility of this skeletal formula as if it had the
status of the Categorical Imperative or Mill's Utilitarian principle
that the moral worth of an act can be determined in light of how much
happiness it maximizes for the greatest number of people. That is, it's
taken as something on which the entire Wittgensteinian enterprise
depends. It isn't. One can, I think, accept or reject or be puzzled by
it without thereby rejecting Wittgenstein's general claims (or series of
claims) about what happens (philosophical confusion at least) when we
(he means philosophers) kidnap a word and, using it in ways that are far
removed from its everyday setting, create 'philosophical problems' out
of false analogies and fictitious parallels.
"You surely know what 'It is 5 o'clock here' means; so you also know
what 'It's 5 o'clock on the sun' means. It means simply that it is the
same time there as it is here when it is 5 o'clock." [from §350]
So, I was not suggesting that the Justices, in their wisdom, were
appealing to any such formula. I was merely pointing out that they were
appealing to the ordinary use of language, and were rejecting the
Government's attempts to—one might say—invent new meanings for plain
words, or to use perfectly clear words in ways that struck me at least
as stipulative. And one would not want a government to stipulate the
meanings of words in order to win arguments. You can call three grains
of sand a sand pile, but you won't be able to play in it, build castles
out of it, or show which part is the keep, which parts the drawbridge,
the moat, etc.
I called this 'Wittgensteinian' to suggest that it had similarities with
Wittgenstein's warnings about what happens when 'language goes on
holiday.' And I called it this in order to see what others thought and
to see if Donal, as I suspected he might, had any comment. He had and
I thank him.
surely the use (dammed word again) of 'natural and ordinary meaning'
arguments is not Wittgstn. particularly - I would suggest that 'natural and
ordinary' meaning approach to statutory interpretation is one of those useful
fictions, like 'Parliamentary intention', that lawyers use (double-damn) when
setting (rough) boundaries to the permissible interpretations that will be
arguable in court. They are also useful fictions that reflect the legal
culture's cult of 'literal-minded' and hostility to philosophical or other
speculation.
When the meanings of words are in doubt, surely the best appeal is to
their common use (unless the words are part of the jargon of specific
fields of inquiry; and even here, within various practices their
meanings will depend on intramural agreement), and not to dictionaries
entirely or even for the most part.
I wonder what Wittgenstn would have made of the (perhaps apocryhal) defendant
to charges that he possessed drugs for personal use under the British 'The
Misuse Of Drugs Act'; he argued on his own behalf - no lawyer would take the
brief - that the personal use of drugs is their proper use and thus not a
misuse of drugs at all.
It's good to see an example of undisguised nonsense.
Robert Paul
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