[lit-ideas] Re: Everything Old Is New Again
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2015 10:35:24 -0500
Okay: now to the other points.
In a message dated 11/27/2015 9:53:50 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
McEvoy might have been confused by my rather stupid subject line,
"Everything Old Is New Again":>
"My remark was to the effect that [so-self-called Wittgensteinians,
palaeo- and neo-] exhibit such differences that they cannot _all_ be following
W[itters] (unless W[itters] himself varies to the point of contradicting
himself)."
Did Witters read Whitman?
Geary used to teach Whitman:
i. A: I contain multitudes. I may well contradict myself.
B: Multitudes of what?
McEvoy: "I did not suggest they are all always wrong, or suggest what they
write bears no resemblance to the correct interpretation of W[itters]."
I was using Witters' concept of the 'family resemblance', since it's so
Julio-Caesarian. It may be said that all Romans who descend from Julius Caesar
display a family resemblance to him: the infamous Roman nose.
McEvoy:
"On the contrary, I prayed in aid that my suggested interpretation
dovetails with remarks by Monk."
I love that surname. Monaco, in France, was once part of Italy, hence the
name, which means 'monk'. As Geary remarks, "What a monk was doing in a
casino does not escape me. His name was Carlo; hence Monte Carlo."
McEvoy:
"That said, the main shortcomings of W "exegesis" are (1) interpretations
that ride roughshod over W's concern with the 'inexpressible' and which try
to treat his work as simply saying what is the case as if there are no
"limits f language" and no limits to what W can express (2) interpretations
that treat W's work as a drawn-out exercise in banalities and even banalities
that are untrue (see Winch in his criticism of "social engineering" a la
Popper and Popper's reply in Schilpp)"
I actually LOVE Peter Winch (and his interpretation of social sciences) but
then I love Bette Davies, too! (We should explore all that under
"Winchiana").
McEvoy: "(3) interpretations that weave into W's writings problems that W
is simply not addressing and the creation of spurious Wittgensteinian
solutions to these problems. If we take a metaphysical problem like
differentiating the characteristics of a physical event and a mental event,
W's approach
is that we can show how in various ways our language pertaining to mental
events is both similar and dissimilar to our language pertaining to
physical events,"
e.g.
ii. He kicked the ball.
or
iii. Geary kicked him.
"and by showing this we may expose certain claims as a kind of nonsense
[for example, for me to say "My thought went from my head to his" cannot be
true in the same sense in which "The salt went from my hand to his", and the
root of the nonsense may be mistaken assimilation of the communication of
mental events to the sense of language as it pertains to transferring
physical objects]."
According to the Institute of Psychical Research -- a very BRITISH thing
parodied by Sir (as he then wasn't) Noel Coward in "Blithe Spirit", surely
Coward's thought may well go to the head of Graham Payne -- and the worst of
it is: "and viceversa -- with a vengeance."
On the other hand, while, IF the salt is in a salt-container (as in "Pass
me the salt-container") the container can well pass from one hand to
another, it is very possible (in terms of Popper's theory of science?) that
some
grains (or 'pinches') of salt may remain in the original hand.
McEvoy:
"But beyond this 'showing', and its therapeutic use to quell certain kinds
of metaphysical dreaming, we cannot say what it is that fundamentally
differentiates the mental from the physical, and it is pointless to try. Even
if
we disagree with W on the degree to which there are "limits of language",
and the degree to which metaphysical realities are inexpressible, we might
find this therapeutic deflation of certain kinds of metaphysical claim is
salutary - and even effective for many kinds of philosophy (but perhaps not
all)."
Salutary = Deflationary?
I knew one philosopher who used 'deflationary' every other *four* words!
(I know McEvoy means 'salutary' as in "Ave, Caesar!")
McEvoy concludes:
"... W was perfectly well aware of this common-sense reply [that the
Neapolitan gesture displayed by Sraffa meant that Sraffa was disgusted by
Witters's search for logical form EVERYWHERE]. But, as he tries to show in PI,
it
is illusion"
or insight?
Illusion ≠ Insight
-- the title of Hacker's book, with a tweak.
"to think that this reply - or any other - is adequate to show that the
sense has been expressed. W tries to show that in this case, as in all cases,
the sense remains unexpressed in the sense that it has not been said by the
reply (rather the reply is merely another way the sense is shown). Also,
the reply "The gesture means you are disgusted by me" does not give the
"logical form" anymore than the statement "I caught the bus" gives the
"logical
form" of that statement."
Yes, I thought perhaps Witters should, should Sraffa objected -- they
taught in the same town! -- provided a formalisation of
iii. Sraffa is disgusted by Witters.
This seems easy enough. To start, we don't need the passive voice, and we
need to open Whitehead's and Russell's Principia Mathematica in their
section on 'relations'. Let "D" mean 'disgust'
iv. Witters disgusts Sraffa.
Logical form:
v. D(W, S).
-- the kind of stuff that fills the pages of the Tractatus, even if it's
predicate-logic, and Witters sticks with 'atomic' and molecular (or
cospuscular) propositions without caring to distinguish the 'objects' or
things
which stand in relationships with other objects or things (in these case: the
things are Sraffa and Witters). It is true that 'disgust' is perhaps
something that Witters thought pertains to "ethics" of which he'd rather keep
his
mouth shut.
McEvoy:
"Hence the "hence its logical form" is a non sequitur of the sort we have
come to know ... from JLS."
Hey! I was just quoting an imaginary Witters.
Back to the quotation provided by McEvoy:
"Even more than to [Ramsey's]—always certain and forcible—criticism I am
indebted to that which a teacher of this university, Mr. P. Sraffa, for many
years unceasingly practised on my thoughts. I am indebted to this stimulus
for the most consequential ideas of this book."
From Malcolm:
"Witt[ers] was insisting that a proposition and
that which it describes must have the same
'logical form', the same 'logical multiplicity'."
I don't know where Malcolm took this multiplicity from! The only
philosopher I ever understood using this term was H. P. Grice in his Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly essay, "Aristotle on the multiplicity of being". Grice
says there is none!
Malcolm goes on:
"Sraffa made a gesture, familiar to Neapolitans
as meaning something like disgust or
contempt, of brushing the underneath
of his chin with an outward sweep of the finger-tips
of one hand. And he asked: 'What is
the logical form of that?'"
He could have rephrased that as:
vi. Does the gesture display logical multiplicity?
Witters's possible answer:
vii. Yes. As used by Neapolitans, it means the utterer is disgusted by his
addressee. As used by you, dear Piero, it means you LOVE me.
Note that there is a way to express that in purely physical terms, since
McEvoy was using the example of "thoughts" passing from one mind to another
(and the way psychological lingo resembles physical lingo):
viii. Sraffa is brushing the underneath of his chin with an outward sweep
of the finger tips of his right hand.
In logical terms:
verb: brush.
active subject: Sraffa.
object: Sraffa's own underneath of his chin.
construction of instrumentality: 'with an outward sweep of the finger tips
of his right hand'.
other verb:
sweep:
ix. Sraffa is sweeping the finger tips of his right hand as he brushes the
underneath of his chin.
Logical form:
verb: sweep.
active subject: Sraffa
object: his finger tips.
There seems to be a form to that, a grammatical form. And as Russell said,
"grammar is the best guide to logical form -- believe me!"
Cheers,
Speranza
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