[lit-ideas] Re: Grice's Implicature
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2012 22:49:16 +0100 (BST)
Football over but offer this post again with some minor corrections and some
amplifications...
________________________________
From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, 28 June 2012, 21:08
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Grice's Implicature
________________________________
From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
>[I don't follow what Donal says next, but I thank him for going to the trouble
>of writing it.]
> >And I suggested W, in discussing the Augustinian picture and what is
> 'wrong' with it, shows he is open-minded about whether name/naming is to
> be understood in a narrower or wider way - for W does not suggest that
> what is 'wrong' or misleading with that picture is that it
treats verbs
> as names. His point against such a picture is not that we cannot treat
> an utterance such as 'Slab' as a kind of name - perhaps of an object,
> perhaps also of an action such as fetching a particular object [the
> Tractarian W might have made such an objection, but not the W of
> Investigations]. W's point cuts deeper and is that, whatever sense is
> given such an utterance, its sense is never 'contained in/said by' the
> utterance but depends on much more - a much more that can only be shown
>> and not said.
>Where in any of these passages is the sense of an utterance (or any other
>'proposition') even mentioned.
It is implicit that the Augustinian picture is a picture of how we gain the
sense of language: what else does it 'picture' but how certain utterances gain
their sense, or how we gather the sense of certain utterances etc.?
Augustine's words, W writes, "give us a particular picture of the essence of
human language. It is this: the individual words in language name
objects—sentences are combinations of such names." To say this is to say that
it gives a picture of how language has sense: for what is the "essence of human
language" here but its sense? [It does not matter that W will proceed to
undermine the idea that there is a single "essence of human language" as
regards how it has sense, or indeed the idea that there is an "essence of human
language": when W speaks of language it is nevertheless the "sense" of language
he is concerned with.] That W avoids using the word "sense" does not affect the
sense of what he writes here: which is implicitly, though clearly, about what
might be termed the "sense" of language.
Time and again we could interpolate the term "sense" into W's text or deploy it
as an alternative to the words chosen, even in the opening passages of PI:-
5. ...."If we look at the example in §1, we may perhaps get an inkling
how much this general notion of the meaning [or the "sense"] of a word
surrounds the
working of language with a haze which makes clear vision impossible.
It disperses the fog to study the phenomena of language in primitive
kinds of application in which one can command a clear view of the aim
and functioning [or "sense"] of the words.
6. ...."This ostensive teaching of [the "sense" of] words can be said
to establish an association between the word and the thing."
...."With different training the same ostensive teaching of [the "sense" of]
these
words would have effected a quite different understanding [of their "sense"]."
7. ...."We can also think of the whole process of using words in (2) as
one of those games by means of which children learn [the "sense" of words in]
their native
language."
9. "When a
child learns this language, it has to learn the series, of
'numerals' a, b, c, . . . by heart. And it has to learn their use [or
"sense"].—Will
this training include ostensive teaching of [the "sense" of] the words?"
10. "Now what do the words of this language signify [that is, what is their
"sense"]?—What is
supposed to shew what they signify [or what is their "sense"], if not the kind
of use they have?"
13. "When we say: "Every word in language signifies something" [or if we were
to say: "Every word in language has its 'sense'"]
we have so far said nothing whatever; unless we have explained
exactly what distinction we wish to make. (It might be, of course, that
we wanted to distinguish the words of language (8) from words 'without
meaning' [or 'without "sense"'] such as occur in Lewis Carroll's poems, or
words like
"Lilliburlero" in songs.)"
This shows that the sense of language is at the back of what W says:-
not the sound of language, nor the shape of language [in, say, physical terms]
etc. Not the political or cultural importance of language either.
To be absolutely clear: "ostensive teaching" of the kind W is describing is not
needed to teach the sound of words [as W might say: 'We do not need to point to
our mouths to ostensively teach the sound of the words we are speaking']:
"ostensive teaching" is clearly being used as a tool for teaching the sense of
language [for example, by correlating words with objects or actions].
Robert may say that W does not say anything about "sense" because W never says
the word "sense" in these passages. But while there is a sense in which W
[quite deliberately, I would suggest, in the light of the 'key tenet'] says
nothing explicit about "sense", it is easily shown that what W writes
nevertheless concerns the "sense" of language - even if W writes so as
implicitly to show, not say, how language has sense.
>> This point does not mean Augustine's picture is false but
> that it is misleading if we take such a picture as capturing - as in
>> saying - how language has a given sense.
>His criticism of Augustine's view is not so much that it's misleading, but
>that it's incomplete. (See the book.)>
I have seen that part of the book, thanks. And W does say:-
"Augustine, we might say, does describe a system of communication;
only not everything that we call language is this system. And one
has to say this in many cases where the question arises "Is this an
appropriate description or not?" The answer is: "Yes, it is appropriate,
but only for this narrowly
circumscribed region, not for the whole of
what you were claiming to describe.""
So Augustine's view may be here said to be "incomplete" [Robert's word] in that
it is not a complete picture of "everything that we call language". But this is
hardly much of a criticism. In fact, it is not what is most fundamental to W,
as becomes clear as PI develops: and it would be extremely "incomplete" to
suggest this is the extent of W's "criticism" [if it is even a "criticism"] of
the Augustinian picture - which as PI develops we see is but an example of
something more general:-
as I have tried to explain, W's fundamental point of attack is any view that
suggests we can give a 'picture' of language which says how language has
sense:- at the outset of PI, W shows* that Augustine's picture fails to say how
language has senseeven for the kind of 'name-object' language-game for which it
might otherwise seem a complete picture. [This shows that its 'incompleteness'
is not W's main concern.] Subsequently and similarly in PI, W shows that any
'picture' of language having sense via 'rule-following' cannot be taken as a
picture which says how language has sense: for no "rule", W shows, ever says
its own sense.
And W's fundamental POV is that there is no 'picture' of language, of any sort
that can be given, which says how language has sense:- for this reason alone, W
conspicuously avoids presenting his own POV as if it is a picture which says
how language has sense [even though, despite W's efforts, many philosophers
have interpreted him - e.g. Ayer - as if W were offering just such a picture].
However, W thinks it is possible to show the sense of language (and, in this
sense, perhaps show how it has sense).
As I am still here trying to explain: without understanding the 'key tenet', PI
cannot be properly understood. The 'key tenet' is at the back of what W says:
and is fundamental to what W seeks to show.
Without understanding the 'key tenet', the tendency is to mistake what W says
as being the point of what W says [so W's point in discussing Augustine's
picture is its 'incompleteness', for example, for this is what W says]:
whereas, in truth, the fundamental point of what W says lies in what it shows.
In the case of Augustine's picture, what W says has its point because it shows
that such a picture does not say the sense of even a name-object language-game:
for one thing, using items of language - so they have the sense that they name
objects - always depends on much more than what is said in any such case -
indeed, depends on matters [such as "ostensive teaching" of that sense] where
that sense cannot be said but can only be shown. (See the book.)
Donal
*Won't now go through how W shows this [though my previous posts contain much
relevant material]
Other related posts:
