[lit-ideas] Re: Philosophical Investigations online
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:31:55 +0000 (GMT)
________________________________
From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>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.>
Of course, it is not suggested that these are the only possible
counter-examples. But critics of the view 'that the 'said/shown' distinction
is central to PI' should perhaps lay out what they think tells against this -
adduce, as it were, their counter-examples, their 'counter-evidence'. Then
these may be addressed.
Is it a counter-example that W suggests that "nothing is hidden" in how
language has sense?* For if 'how language has sense' involves what can only be
shown not said, surely then what is involved is therefore "hidden" because it
cannot be said?
But this is a not a counter-example, but might only seem so through some
confusion: for to say "nothing is hidden", as W means it, is neither to imply
"everything is said" nor to imply "'what can only be shown' is hidden". As
'what is shown' is not "hidden" then, for W, language may depend on 'what is
shown' without its sense depending on something hidden.
But rather than arguing against possible counter-examples like this, it might
be more productive if, first, critics made clear what their 'counter-examples'
are, rather than leaving them to be guessed: this might at least indicate the
source of their disagreement and its character and substance. It is not enough
that they may have simply read PI in such a way that it does not involve any
view of 'what can only be shown not said'. (Or so I say).
Donal
* E.g.
"435. If it is asked: "How do sentences manage to represent?"—the
answer might be: "Don't you know? You certainly see it, when you
use them." For nothing is concealed.
How do sentences do it?-—Don't you know? For nothing is hidden.
But given this answer: "But you know how sentences do it, for
nothing is concealed" one would like to retort "Yes, but it all goes by
so quick, and I should like to see it as it were laid open to view."
436. Here it is easy to get into that dead-end in philosophy, where
one believes that the difficulty of the task consists in our having to
describe phenomena that are hard to get hold of, the present experience
that slips quickly by, or something of the kind. Where we find ordinary
language too crude, and it looks as if we were having to do, not with
the phenomena of every-day, but with ones that "easily elude us, and,
in their coming to be and passing away, produce those others as an
average effect". (Augustine: Manifestissima et usitatissima sunt, et
eadem rusus nimis latent, et nova est inventio eorum.)"
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