[lit-ideas] Re: Philosophical Investigations online
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:20:46 +0000 (GMT)
JLS' way with the issues is way too easy, and also seems confused, as explained
below.
________________________________
From: "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
>It's full Russellian irony at play there. In a better format.
Wittgenstein thinks that x cannot be said.
But Wittgenstein said x.
----
Therefore, Wittgenstein is wrong.>
But R stops short of any such conclusion. Instead he reserves judgment on
whether the TLP offers a tenable solution by way of its doctrine of 'what can
be shown not said'. R points to a possible meta-linguistic solution as an
alternative to W's, whereby what cannot be said in one language might
nevertheless be said in some higher-order language. R acknowledges "very
powerful arguments" in support of W's solution, without irony; and R does not
claim, as JLS's glib "better format" does, that W's position is clearly
self-refuting. I suggest R's "intellectual discomfort" means what it says,
without irony, and is not meant ironically to reflect the view that R actually
thinks W's solution is obviously self-refuting.
But even if it was self-refuting, this still would not show it was not W's POV
or that W thought it was self-refuting. And R is clear he thinks he is
discussing W's POV.
Equally, to feel some "intellectual discomfort" at the 'exegesis' that the PI
also is based on a view of 'what cannot be said but only shown' (and even to
feel that such a view is self-refuting) would not show that the 'exegesis' is
wrong i.e. it would not show that this is not W's POV.
But below I explain why such a view is not obviously self-refuting at all: what
is perhaps self-refuting is W's view in the TLP that only is what is said has
sense (so what is shown is nonsense), but this view is only W's view in the TLP
and it is not W's view in PI.
To show that my 'exegesis' does not represent W's POV something less glib and
confused than what JLS offers is required. For example, a counter-example might
be if JLS could adduce an example of a 'rule' that, for W in PI, can be
captured in language in a way that shows its sense can be stated without
anything further than what is stated needing to be shown in order for it to
have that sense. But on my view, a central point of the so-called
'rule-following considerations' ['RFC'] is to show that there is no such 'rule'
that can be captured in language in a way that shows its sense can be stated
without anything further than what is stated needing to be shown in order for
it to have that sense.
Other of JLS' remarks simply show no proper understanding of this doctrine of
'what can be shown not said' and confuse it with a 'doctrine of sense and
nonsense'.
For example:
>I agree with Russell that Witters said "a good deal" about stuff. >
So what? Agreeing with R would not mean that what R thought here represented
what W thought.
> I'm less sure than McEvoy is that "PI" concerns the methodology of
> 'philosophy' (philosophy and
logic as 'meaningless', as Russell has it) as TLP does. >
This crowbarring in of some so-called 'methodology of philosophy' is not based
on anything in my posts. Of course, we might say any philosophical work must,
in a trite sense, have its own 'methodology of philosophy'. But in this sense,
a 'methodology of philosophy' does not tell us anything useful about whether or
not PI rests on a view what cannot be said but only shown (as to, for example,
the dividing lines between sense and nonsense). So what it is doing here
baffles me.
Nor have I claimed that in the PI what can shown is considered as senseless (as
JLS seems to imply).
On the contrary, this is one of the key differences between W's view in PI and
the TLP.
In the TLP what can only be shown (for example, the propositions of the TLP
itself) is strictly senseless, according to the theory of sense W there
adopts:- indeed, it is arguably this that makes TLP's position self-refuting,
for it would appear those propositions must have sense for us to understand
what they show [this btw is one of Popper's criticisms, and Popper argues that
W's position in this regard is not merely 'paradoxical' but is self-refuting:-
but, importantly, P does not criticise as self-refuting the idea that behind
the sense of what is said is always something that cannot be said but only
shown].
But in PI there is no view akin to the view in the TLP that only propositions
of "natural science" have sense: and so it is wrong to ascribe to W in the PI
the view that what can only be shown is therefore senseless. For the view that
'what can be shown is senseless' is only true of the TLP and it is only true
because in TLP W restricts his theory of 'sense' to the propositions of
"natural science": in other words, to say 'what can be shown is senseless' only
follows from a specific doctrine of 'sense and nonsense', such as the one in
the TLP, andit does not follow from any broader doctrine that the sense of what
is said always depends on what can only be shown.
JLS' thinking strikes me as confused in these several regards. It almost goes
without saying that it offers nothing telling against the 'exegesis' I am
offering.
Donal
Near the top of the hill
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