[lit-ideas] Re: Philosophical Investigations online
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 11:23:07 +0000 (GMT)
________________________________
From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
>(I think that to look for a said/shown distinction in the Investigations,
is to follow a will-o'-the-wisp)>
May we take it that Robert is saying the 'said/shown' distinction is not to be
found in PI because it is not there (rather than saying it is there but, unlike
TLP where the distinction is drawn by a clear doctrine of 'sense and nonsense',
it is not to be found as a distinction drawn in any very clear or ascertainable
form)?
(I think it shown that we may so take it).
Yet even in the 'Preface' W clearly indicates that a 'said/shown' distinction
is central to PI (though he stops short of saying this, perhaps because it goes
without saying):-
(1) W makes this clear because the 'said/shown' distinction is absolutely
central to TLP and W says in the 'Preface', "It suddenly seemed to me that I
should publish those old thoughts [TLP] and the new ones [PI] together: that
the latter [PI] could be seen in the right light only by contrast with and
against the background of my old way of
thinking [in TLP]."
Are we to suppose that W means something less than what he says when he says
his new POV
could "only" be understood aright "by contrast with and against the
background of" TLP? Are we to suppose that the absolutely central distinction
of 'said/shown' is not part of what we need as "background" in order that PI
"be seen in the right light"? Of course not.
(2) W makes clear his indebtedness to Mr.Sraffa. The point of the story
involving the 'rude Neapolitan gesture' is that when Sraffa asks 'What is the
logical form of that?' [i.e. a 'rude Neapolitan gesture'] Sraffa is showing
that the meaning of such a gesture is not a matter of any logical form [or any
of the tools used to analyse 'sense' in TLP] but of understanding something
that is 'shown' without being said (and, of course, very importantly for its
affect on W's thinking, Sraffa was showing that what is shown may have 'sense'
- something denied in the TLP):-
"Even more than to this—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."
What is the 'this' in "this stimulus"? It is, I suggest, a this that can be
shown not said.
And W's expression is deliberately playful here as he makes the point about his
indebtedness - an indebtedness which centres on W revising his view of what can
be shown not said and, in particular, abandoning the TLP view that only what
can be said has sense.
I have already outlined what might be a counter-example to the view that the
'said/shown' distinction is central to PI: (i) an example of a 'rule' whose
sense can be stated without anything further needing to be shown for it to have
that sense. I will here give other possible counter-examples: (ii) W saying
that the said/shown distinction does not feature in PI (iii) W saying something
like 'Everything involved in the sense of language can be said'.
I suggest that it is the search for such counter-examples that will prove that
they are the real 'will-o-the-wisp' here. So far none have been produced; and
dismissing the idea that the 'shown/said' distinction features in PI as looking
for a 'will-o-the-wisp' is itself just a kind of will-o-the-wisp as far as
serious argument or explanation goes.
Donal
London
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