[lit-ideas] Re: Grice's Noise
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 19:01:09 +0000 (GMT)
>After all, he (Grice) did write an essay -- a pretty dry one -- reprinted
in Butler, "Analytic Philosophy" (Blackwell, 1965), to provide a general
audience what 'the Oxonian school of linguistic analysis' was all about -- on
"Some remarks about the senses".>
The dryness of writing does help it not smudge all over the place.
A BBC Radio 4 programme has recently discussed the Ordinary Language School re
what it "was all about". Can't be sure whether it is accessible abroad but the
programme "In Our Time" is here downloadable as a podcast, and here is an 'url':
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/iot/iot_20131107-1115a.mp3
Ray Monk particpates.
Popper's views on this School are scattered throughout his writings but feature
in old BBC interviews given with Bryan Magee and involving Strawson et al.
Popper has said, and was serious in saying, that he regarded these as
philosophers of language who lack a (correct) philosophy of language (he thinks
the philosophy of language that underpins their views is mistaken). The
anti-metaphysical deflationary aspect of this movement (though understandable
given the heaps of metaphysical guano that scar the philosophical field) Popper
regards as fundamentally mistaken - for Popper, metaphysics exists - not merely
as a subject-matter, but what that subject-matter pertains to also exists
whether we acknowledge it or not. So, for example, it is either true or false
that induction exists as a method of knowledge: its existence is a metaphysical
question that cannot be decided scientifically by observation, but there is a
fact of the matter here nevertheless. We can side-step such questions but they
pertain to (metaphysical) reality.
His view of the later Wittgenstein, again seriously stated, is that the "fly
trapped in the fly-bottle" is an accurate self-portrait of Wittgenstein
himself: but Popper says in the interview with Magee that he has read
Philosophical Investigations and (wait for it, because its quite surprising) he
does not disagree it - but it bores him, bores him to tears. (Popper expressly
does not agree with the Tractatus). Now a Wittgensteinian may doubt that Popper
properly understands PI: and it is hard to judge Popper's understanding because
it is largely a matter of conjecture how exactly Popper interprets PI. But it
would appear that Popper viewed PI as true enough as far it goes but also
truistic (or banal) in its contents.
In previous posts I have suggested an interpretation of Wittgenstein where the
key to PI (and to the Tractatus) is that there are inescapable "limits to
language" and these limits place limits on any kind of philosophical
investigation (insofar as this is an investigation using language). In PI,
Wittgenstein continually shows (though he does not say) that the sense of
language is never said by language: for example, the sense of a word as a name
for an object is a sense that is shown by the corresponding use of a word as a
name for an object - but it is not a sense that is said by the word used (for
the word used could have another sense than as a name). The sense lies beyond
mere 'what is said'. Likewise, no 'rule' ever says its own sense [which is the
point of PI's discussion of how we could continue to apply the mathematical
'rule' "take zero and form a sequence by continually adding two", where W seeks
to show that the sense of the sequence is not
something said by the 'rule']. So it is beyond the "limits of language" for us
to try to explain the sense of language in terms of 'rules' (just as it is
beyond the "limits of language" more generally to explain the sense of language
in language): when W points to there being a way of following a 'rule' that is
not an "interpretation", he is pointing to where the sense of following a
'rule' is shown by how we follow it; that sense is not something than can be
captured in language as an "interpretation", and nor is it something that we
understand 'the sense of' because we are following a linguistically-captured
"interpretation".
Does Popper disagree with, for example, the idea that the sense of language
[where it is encoded meaning] lies beyond its mere physical encodement? Of
course not, as his W123 theory shows: but he would want to explain this
'beyondness' in W3 terms. Does Popper disagree with the idea that there are
"limits to language"? No. And he takes these limits seriously in that they may
constitute very serious limits on our ability to investigate the world using
language: but then there may be serious limits to our ability to investigate
the world given the limits of our W1 brains and our W2 minds, and there may be
limits because the character of the world is beyond us (for example, it is
conceivable that physics may end up not with some final unified theory but in
much head-scratching in the face of problems that seem permanently beyond us).
So Popper would frame the question of "limits" not simply in terms of "limits
of language" but in more general W123 terms
(and Popper would account for language in W3 terms).
Nevertheless Popper wishes to suggest these limits are not inescapable, or may
not be inescapable (at least up some unforeseeable point), or so inescapable as
Wittgenstein might be taken to suggest: Popper suggests we can build a language
to overcome the "limits of language" as we find them, and while that language
will have its limits we can build a further language to overcome those limits.
And so on. So we can accept there are always "limits to language" without
thinking those limits mark a fixed and inescapable limit to what we can we do
with language.
The BBC programme alludes to how the School was for a time displaced by people
Davidson who claimed to have a 'theory of meaning'. So, btw, does anyone want
to defend 'anomalous monism' as better than of second or third-rate importance
and as better than an intellectual dead end (contra my post)? I mean, as a kind
of 'monism' so-called 'anomalous monism' is neither fish nor fowl - it seems to
want to take away with one hand ['all causation is physical causation'] what it
gives with the other ['mental events can cause physical events'] in a way that
is not at all satisfactory but which seems merely metaphysical sleight-of-hand
(and that's without addressing its flawed assumption that all causation is
law-like causation etc.)
Donal not Davidson
London
On Tuesday, 12 November 2013, 17:01, "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
wrote:
In a message dated 11/11/2013 11:55:57 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"I didn't do any additional Post Processing of photos before posting them
in this gallery. Some of the earlier ones have a lot more noise than I
would tolerate today"
This is interesting, and inspirational.
I agree that 'noise' can implicate a few _nice_ things! ("Or not", as
McEvoy should disjunct).
Below.
Cheers,
Speranza
----
The idea of 'noise' may interest Helm. After all, he uses the word! The
other day, he was bringing my attention, publicly, to an author's use of a
phrase -- NOT in an audiobook -- along the lines:
"I shall be speaking a lot about this".
"The man", to paraphrase Helm, "was WRITING" -- hardly speaking.
On the other hand, there's the Shannon, I would think, idea of 'noise'.
When Grice, circa 1965, hoped to improve on previous 'pragmatic' models to
deal with certain types of implications, he saw 'conversation' as a
goal-driven efficiency-regulated endeavour. No noise allowed!
Since Grice was quite a perfectionist (if that's the word), or purist, or
literalist, I wonder what he would say about this use of 'noise', as applied
to the visual realm.
After all, he (Grice) did write an essay -- a pretty dry one -- reprinted
in Butler, "Analytic Philosophy" (Blackwell, 1965), to provide a general
audience what 'the Oxonian school of linguistic analysis' was all about -- on
"Some remarks about the senses".
Grice would go with Urmson in thinking that there are FIVE senses:
To quote from Wikipedia:
Traditional senses
1. Sight
2. Hearing
2. Taste
2. Smell
2. Touch
I would assume that literally, 'noise' (pace Shannon) applies to 'Hearing'.
Again to quote from Wiki:
"The Shannon–Weaver model of communication has been called the "mother of
all models."[1] It embodies the concepts of information source, message,
transmitter, signal, channel, noise, receiver, information destination,
probability of error, encoding, decoding, information rate, channel capacity,
etc."
On the other hand, I'm not even etymologically sure:
To quote from an online source, below, and there may be more. Or not.
---
ps.
noise (n.) early 13c., "loud outcry, clamor, shouting," from Old French
noise "din, disturbance, uproar, brawl" (11c., in modern French only in phrase
chercher noise "to pick a quarrel"), also "rumor, report, news,"
apparently from Latin nausea "disgust, annoyance, discomfort," literally
"seasickness" (see nausea).
Another theory traces the Old French word to Latin noxia "hurting,
injury, damage." OED considers that "the sense of the word is against both
suggestions," but nausea could have developed a sense in Vulgar Latin of
"unpleasant situation, noise, quarrel" (cf. Old Provençal nauza "noise,
quarrel").
Meaning "loud or unpleasant sound" is from c.1300. Replaced native gedyn
(see din).
noise (v.) late 14c., "to praise; to talk loudly about," from noise (n.).
Related: Noised; noising.
noiseless (adj.) c.1600, from noise (n.) + -less. Related: Noiselessly;
noiselessness.
noisy (adj.) 1690s, "making noise," also "full of noise," from noise + -y
(2). Earlier was noiseful (late 14c.). Related: Noisily; noisiness.
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