[lit-ideas] Re: Popper and Peacocke on representation
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2014 09:41:11 +0100 (BST)
>Omar, you MUST take that 'OR NOT' at the bottom of the posts by J.L.
Speranza seriously - indeed it is the whole point of J.L.'s posts! And
that point is: there is no point (i.e. relevant sense, truth, content).
Since
a proposition of the form 'P or not-P' is a tautology, it doesn't
matter what is being said in the part of the post corresponding to 'P'
(i.e., it is completely irrelevant what the truth value or 'content' of
'P' is). 'P or not-P' is ALWAYS true.>
This criticism hinges on the assumption that the "Or not" of JLS' posts has the
same sense as the "or not" in 'P or not-P'. While it may sometimes have a
similar sense, and while it may be construed this way, its sense may be and
should generally be taken differently - for example, as a reminder that what
has just been said may be challenged as untrue and may be untrue. (It is a
separate point that undue repetition of such a reminder may turn it into an
irritating and pointless affectation.)
It is also plainly false and unfair to suggest that all that is contained in
JLS' posts "is no point (i.e. relevant sense, truth, content)." Many
counter-examples could easily be given.
The fact is that the "or not" aspect of 'P or not-P' cannot be excised without
logically changing that proposition in its fundamentals: whereas most of the
"or not" in JLS' posts can be excised without changing anything fundamental
about these posts. This shows the sense of "or not" cannot be the same in both
cases.
I would have hoped anyone who understood Wittgenstein would understand these
points as basic. They are basic from a Popperian POV also.
Dnl
Ldn
On Friday, 4 April 2014, 8:49, palma <palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
the depth of speranza is unfathomable.
he told me in private conversations that theory of demonstrative has got to be
wrong since this is shit when read backwards. the profundity is astonishing
On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 11:01 PM, <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
In "Re: Re-Establish Unmediated Touch With The Familiar Objects" P. Enns is
> kind enough to provide the larger background. Since his point was
>exegetical, this should NOT turn into Davidson contra Heidegger. Or not. We
>can
>always bring Popper in!
>
>Davidson, as quoted by Enns, in providing an exegesis of Heidegger, seems
>to be eschewing, if that's the word, 'representation': we should have
>unmediated touch with things. I'm not sure we can do that.
>
>And what's worse, I'm not sure C. A. B. (love a triple initial) Peacocke,
>former Waynflete professor of metaphysical philosophy at Oxford thinks he is
> sure we can do that. His keyword is REPRESENTATION and CONTENT as
>theory-laden, as it were.
>
>It's all different with Popper.
>
>Or not?
>
>We are interpreting Heidegger in an analytic vein and P. Enns
>interestingly uses a phrase by Davidson, extracted from "On the very idea of a
>conceptual scheme".
>
>Davidson writes:
>
>"In giving up dependence on the concept of an uninterpreted reality,
>something outside all schemes and science, we do not relinquish the notion of
>objective truth - quite the contrary."
>
>This above is interesting. Since the first part of the claim seems to
>IMPLICATE the negation of the second. Hence his need for defense.
>
>I.e. in giving up uninterpreted reality we relinquish objective truth.
>
>But Davidson feels the need to cancel that implicature.
>
>He goes on:
>
>"Given the dogma of a dualism of scheme and reality, we get conceptual
>relativity, and truth relative to a scheme."
>
>"Without the dogma, this kind of relativity goes by the board. Of course
>truth of sentences remains relative to language, but that is as objective as
>can be."
>
>"Truth of sentences relative to a language" would perhaps be what Davidson
>has in mind. But he does distinguish between Language, and a language,
>such as English (that he spoke) or German (that Heidegger spoke).
>
>It's in the final sentence of the paragraph that the phrase used and
>mentioned by P. Enns occurs:
>
>"In giving up the dualism of scheme and world, we do not give up the
>world,"
>
>-- which is fair enough,
>
>"but re-establish unmediated touch with the familiar objects whose antics
>make our sentences and opinions true or false."
>
>I can think of a cat and a mat. I think it was Wittgenstein, but also
>Toulmin in his book on reasoning, that play with the sentence:
>
>"The cat is on the mat".
>
>Actually, this comes from a first-reader (or a book to teach children how
>to read and write), and it more alliteratively goes:
>
>The cat sat on the mat.
>
>In Tarski's vein,
>
>"The cat sat on the mat" is true iff the cat sat on the mat.
>
>-- Davidson's claim to fame, or one of them, being to analyse this for
>'natural' languages -- like English or German.
>
>Note that Davidson is careful to MERGE, if that's the word, 'sentences'
>and 'opinions', because he is a symmetricalist, and he thinks that you cannot
>have a 'sentence' ("The cat sat on the mat") without the BELIEF (or
>opinion) to the effect that the cat sat on the mat. (Grice is on the contrary
>an
>asymmetricalist, and thinks beliefs and opinions come first -- I'm not sure
>about Heidegger).
>
>Davidson's original background was not I think 'philosophical', or
>'philosophical' in the Continental sense, hence his rather free (and
>un-Kantian)
>use of 'object' as in 'familiar object'. This may be due to the influence of
>Quine (who wrote, "Word and Object" and got the reply by Grice in "Words
>and objections").
>
>Here, the 'objects' seem to be the cat and the mat.
>
>In most empiricist accounts, however, it's not the unmediated touch that
>counts but the PERCEPTA or the sensibilia, as it were. The way the cat
>impinges (if that's the word) on the percipient, and the way the mat does, and
>the idea of 'sitting' (as in the cat 'sat'). It's in terms of these more
>basic 'elements' that the opinion to the effect that the cat sat on the mat
>gets 'experienced' by the perceiver, who can then go on and utter, 'The cat
>sat on the mat', most likely with the intention to have an addressee come to
>a similar belief or opinion and proceed accordingly -- 'all morning, so it
>cannot have been her who ate the neighbour's fish' -- or something.
>
>Davidson is possibly eschewing 'propositions'. Peacocke, following Grice,
>eschews propositions also. He prefers to speak of 'propositional complexes';
>in this case, a 'propositional complex' which is formed of all the
>percepts that constitute 'the cat', 'the mat', and her 'sitting' on it, in the
>past of course, -- since it's the alliterative, 'the cat SAT on the mat', that
>I chose as 'familiar' things (or objects) we are looking for an unmediated
>touch with, and that would make some of our opinions (such as "I opine the
>cat sat on the mat") and sentences (such as "The cat sat on the mat").
>True.
>
>Or not?
>
>Cheers,
>
>Speranza
>
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