[lit-ideas] Re: PI's 'key tenet' and W's philosophy of mathematics
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2012 17:19:43 +0100 (BST)
________________________________
From: "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
>Grice and Griceians assume, rightly, that Witters was confused as to what
he meant by 'rule' -- in general, most German speakers are: the famous
passage in "Three men in a bummel" illustrate this: the little old English
lady
who cannot understand a German 'rule' --. In particular Grice spent some
time with Searle's use of Wittgensteian variations on rule -- also Rawls. For
Wittgensteinians like Rawls, or Wittgenstein, there are two types of
'rules' -- both are confused. So we need to specify.
One is the 'regulatory rule', that Grice found otiose: 'for what can a rule
do but regulate?'. The other is the 'constitutive rule', which is not a
rule.
The idea, a Wittgensteinian one, that we 'follow a rule' is otiose.>
I am not at all sure W is confused as to a "rule" as suggested, nor that
considering how we 'follow a rule' is otiose - as 'rule-following
considerations' are central to what W seeks to show in PI as to how we gather
the sense of language.
But we should be careful not to assimilate W's position to some position that
is actually antithetical to his, and this is easily done: we must look at the
purpose of what W writes, which lies in what W seeks to show.
On my suggested interpretation of PI, it turns out that W is not trying to say
what a "rule"is, or to say how a "rule" demarcates sense from nonsense, or
tosay what constitutes obeying or going against a "rule", or tosay how the
sense of language is set by its "rules" etc. (even though we might expect that
this is what a philosopher of language should be saying) - on the contrary, it
is central to W's POV that any attempt to say any of these would be a
misconceived attempt to say what can only be shown. For example, it is actually
an implication of the ‘key tenet’ that it
would be futile to try to say what
counts as obeying a “rule” and what counts as disobeying a “rule”, as what
counts as either is like the sense of a “rule” itself: something that can be
shown but not said.
When we understand W's purpose and the underlying 'key tenet', we see that
terms like "rule" and "criterion" are being used to very different ends than
those we might otherwise expect.
That W is against 'saying' what he maintains can only be shown is shown again
and again in PI, for example in his famous view that it is not the task of the
philosopher to propound or say 'theses' or a 'theory'. Why say this except to
show the proper conception of philosophy?
Donal
Plymouth
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