[lit-ideas] Re: EP has left the building (Was: Saying an EP)
- From: Henninge@xxxxxxxxxxx (Richard Henninge)
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 03:06:00 +0200
----- Original Message -----
From: "Donal McEvoy" <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, April 18, 2004 3:23 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: EP has left the building (Was: Saying an EP)
>
> > First of all, read the quotes provided by JL from the OED to clear up
the
> > misconceptions you have about EPs.
>
> These "misconceptions" you merely insinuate as if you are some authority
on
> the matter and in a frankly complacent and inadequate way.
>
> Are you claiming that that a name like "cat" that can be analysed in terms
of
> other names (eg. leg, head, tooth) can be an EP? That any name that be so
> broken down can at the same time be "elementary"?
>
> Try to argue more clearly. You might learn something.
>
> Donal
>
Yes, whence my insinuated claim to be "some authority on the matter" (the
complacency in my doing so and its frankness, as well as the inadequacy of
my ways, is not mine to judge)? It is not so much that my authority on the
matter has risen, it is that--at least in my estimation (which you are free
to evaluate)--the authority of others (whom I too had once respected) on the
matter has sunk. Every day, every mention of the matter brings new examples:
Today's lesson is taken from the blurb on the back of the Pears and
McGuinness translation of Wittgenstein's _Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus_,
taken, that is, to illustrate the respect for their *authority*, and from
TLP 2.13, to illustrate why it has (in my eyes, and I would hope in
others')sunk:
"Mr. Pears and Mr. McGuinness have not only achieved a clear and natural
English but have been meticulous in their care for accuracy."--The Times
Literary Supplement [The sole example of 2.13 will show that every word of
praise here is false--"clear and natural English," "meticulous . . . care
for accuracy."]
"Pears and McGuinness can claim our gratitude not for doing merely this (a
better translation) but for doing it with such a near approach to
perfection. The present reviewer can find little or nothing of consequence
wrong with their work."--Mind
I'll start with a sort of run-up to 2.13 to show how things begin rocky and
then fall completely apart in a revealing and representative way in 2.13. We
are in an area of the Tractatus that touches upon that which the back-cover
blurb describes, accurately enough, as Wittgenstein's early "view that
propositions were pictures of reality."
2.063 Die gesamte Wirklichkeit ist die Welt.
2.063 The total reality is the world. [Ramsey's 1922
translation--acceptable]
2.063 The sum-total of reality is the world. [Pears' and McGuinness's
1974 translation--sinking, pseudo accuracy of semi-technical term where none
is required and where such is even misleading (implication of mathematical
totality of reality)]
2.1 Wir machen uns Bilder der Tatsachen.
2.1 We make to ourselves pictures of facts. [The "to" already shows
that Ramsey is faltering]
2.1 We picture facts to ourselves. [seriously sinking--due to
exaggerated respect for Ramsey, P and G attempt to retain his erroneous "to
ourselves" and adapt the rest to fit by being less literal and more
idiomatic--"pictures of facts" is not exactly "picturing facts," which is
kind of significant when what we are talking about is the whole "view that
propositions [are] pictures of reality": "We picture facts" is intellectual
cowardice on the part of the translator because it does not go as far as the
original, that is, to speak literally of making pictures of facts. Fewer
people will criticize the P and G translation because it's nearly a
commonplace. The only people who will criticize such a reasonable
commonplace are those who can read the original and see the difference, see
what has been lost in the translation. But it gets worse . . . . ]
2.1* We make ourselves pictures of the facts. [just a suggestion]
2.11 Das Bild stellt die Sachlage im logischen Raume, das Bestehen und
Nichtbestehen von Sachverhalten vor.
2.11 The picture presents the facts in logical space, the existence and
non-existence of atomic facts. [Ramsey sticking close to Wittgenstein,
figuring that the latter knows what he is doing and preferring to err in his
English before erring in his Wittgenstein.]
2.11 A picture presents a situation in logical space, the existence and
non-existence of states of affairs. ["A" picture because P and G had
verbalized "pictures"; Ramsey retains the "the" and shows that Wittgenstein
is following 2.1 with 2.11 as a clarification and exemplification--and "das
Bild," "the picture" will eventually be "a proposition."]
2.11* The picture presents the circumstances [actually more "the way things
are," "the lay of things" (on the analogy of "the lay of the land") if you
could say that] in logical space, the existence and non-existence of states
of affairs. [just a suggestion]
2.12 Das Bild ist ein Modell der Wirklichkeit.
2.12 The picture is a model of reality.
2.12 A picture is a model of reality. [We are really not far apart here,
it seems, but P and M will continue to talk about *all* pictures in general
while Ramsey maintains the focus on the pictures we make ourselves of
reality, where Wittgenstein is really getting at our conceptuality, our
propositioning of the world, the picture we make ourselves of the world.]
Here it comes . . .
2.13 Den Gegenständen entsprechen im Bilde die Elemente des Bildes.
2.13 To the objects correspond in the picture the elements of the
picture. [Ramsey makes the same kind of mistake he made in 2.1 by slavishly
clinging to the German word order. Here it distorts the meaning, but a
comparison with the German shows that every English word is correct--they
just need to be reshuffled: in the picture the elements of the picture
correspond To the objects. But what do Pears and McGuinness do!?]
2.13 In a picture objects have the elements of the picture corresponding
to them.[!] [This is a marvel of translation science. Am I right in assuming
that Pears and McGuinness see the objects as being *in the picture*? In what
way can an object *have* an element of a picture, in particular one
"corresponding to them"? Does Mona Lisa's smile *have* the painted smile in
Da Vinci's painting "corresponding to" it? Read that several times. "In a
picture objects . . . "! Try substituting some objects: "In a picture [of a
face] a face has the elements of the picture corresponding to it" or "In a
picture [of a city] a city has the elements of the picture corresponding to
it." Try the same experiment of substitution with my suggested translation.]
2.13* In the picture the elements of the picture correspond to the objects.
[In the picture [of a face] the elements of the picture correspond to the
face. In the picture [of a city] the elements of the picture correspond to
the city.
Perhaps if Pears and McGuinness had not made such a mess of this sentence
people like Donal would not have had so much trouble accepting that in the
proposition/picture "The dot at the bottom of this window between 'www' and
'andreas' is blue" is an elementary proposition and all the elements of this
proposition/picture correspond to the objects named/described in it.
I am sorry if I have not been able to "argue more clearly." Such are the
miseries endemic to teaching. I can only hope that it's not always my fault.
In any case, every time I'm not understood, I learn something.
By the way, not you, but maybe some others might be thinking that because
"atomic fact" and "atomic proposition" were Wittgenstein's and Russell's
alternative names for these structures that that would indicate that we're
not there yet if we haven't resolved every element in them to atomic and
subatomic particles. Not you, but others should not think that.
Richard Henninge
University of Mainz
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