[lit-ideas] Slabs, bricks, prompts and prayers
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 11:17:00 +0100 (BST)
In
the Preface to Philosophical
Investigations Wittgenstein writes that, “The
same or almost the same points were always being approached afresh from
different directions, and new sketches made.” These same or similar
points are points that bear on the theme of how the sense of language is shown
given that (despite a tempting mirage to the contrary) the sense of language is
never said by that language. So it is perhaps not surprising that same or
similar points to those in this post have been made previously in my posts
which have sought to show the centrality of this theme to both the earlier and
the later Wittgenstein. For example, in observing that the same encodement
‘1,2,3,4…10’ may have a different sense [or ‘decodement’] depending on whether
a child is uttering it in response to a teacher’s request for the correct
numerical sequence or rattling it out at the beginning of a game of ‘hide and
seek’, but that this difference may only be shown and does not lie in the
identical ‘what is said’. Likewise, in observing that the Augustinian ‘picture’
given at the beginning of Philosophical
Investigations may show to us a
name-object sense of language, but this is because we are familiar with being
shown the name-object sense in the
way Augustine pictures (rather than being shown to pray this way) and it is not
because that ‘picture’ says how words
have the name-object sense [for this name-object sense is not something said in
language but is something that can only be shown]. Strange as it might seem, and
as is amplified below, we could imagine a ‘form of life’ where beings learnt to
do what we call ‘praying’ in a way that conformed with Augustine’s ‘picture’:
where those beings are shown how to pray in ways that resemble how we are
taught the names of objects; and such beings might naturally take Augustine’s
‘picture’ as conveying the sense of language where it is prayer. As
Wittgenstein remarks early on in PI [6]: “With different training the same
ostensive
teaching of these words would have effected a quite different understanding.”
Take the builder and his assistant. We observe them for a
day. The assistant says nothing but responds to the only two words uttered by
the builder – ‘Slab’ and ‘Brick’. When the builder utters ‘Slab’, the assistant
fetches what we would call a slab. When the builder utters ‘Brick’, the
assistant fetches what we would call a brick. After a day of this, it might
seem plain that the builder is using ‘Slab’ as a command or request to ‘Fetch
me a slab’; and, likewise, is using ‘Brick’ as a command or request to ‘Fetch
me a brick’. And this may appear so plain that we might also think it plain that
this sense – the sense of requesting or commanding that a named item be fetched
– is said by what is said. [We might indeed feel certain that ‘what is said’ is
not
prayer of any sort.]
But
that the sense here is not said by ‘what is said’ becomes clear if we reflect
that ‘what is said’, and everything else in that day’s observations, is
compatible with the words uttered having a different sense. We might note at
the outset that we can distinguish a command from a request: but which of these
is the appropriate sense to the words uttered is not something said by the
words uttered, for otherwise
we could tell which is their appropriate sense merely from knowing the words
used. But that the sense of ‘what is said’ is not said by ‘what is said’ goes
much deeper than that.
For our interpretation of ‘what is said’ might be altered if
we observed the following day and found that there was no longer the same
correlation between what was uttered and what the assistant did: whenever
‘Slab’ or ‘Brick’ was uttered, the assistant always brought an object – but
sometimes when ‘Slab’ was called the assistant brought a brick, and sometimes
when ‘Brick’ was called the assistant brought a slab. And in none of these
cases did the builder’s response indicate the assistant was bringing the wrong
object or otherwise responding incorrectly. We might wonder whether the sense
of the utterances today was the same as their sense yesterday.
But imagine we pursue the idea that, whatever their sense,
the utterances had a similar sense yesterday as today. What we want is a
“perspicuous” or “surveyable representation” in order to grasp this similar
sense – by the way, we shall also want such an overview if we are seeking to
grasp or understand the possible dissimilarity of sense here. There are many
conceivable possibilities that might be explored. Suppose closer observation
shows
to us that the assistant knows, say by observation of what the builder is doing,
whether to bring a slab or a brick – and so it is not that the assistant is
taking ‘what is said’ as a command to fetch the object named but merely to
fetch the next appropriate object. Closer
observation might likewise show that, on the odd occasion, the assistant brings
the next appropriate object though – for whatever reason, perhaps tiredness –
the builder has issued no request or command: the assistant simply responds in
such cases having observed what is needed next.
We could have many variations on this simple set-up and many
varieties of sense attaching to same simple words ‘Slab’ and ‘Brick’ - depending
on what is shown when we consider the use not in isolation but in terms of a
“surveyable representation”. In one conceivable variation, we might regard the
sense of the builder’s utterance as a prompt – the assistant might pre-empt
this prompt or act when there is no prompt given. And this would make the sense
distinct from a set-up where the assistant acts ‘wrongly’ if they act
pre-emptively – that is, acts ‘wrongly’ unless they act only in response to a
request or command or prompt. Likewise it would render the sense of ‘what is
said’ distinct from a set-up where the assistant acts ‘wrongly’ unless they
bring the named object [‘wrongly’ even if the named object turns out not to be
the next appropriate object (“I realise now that I needed a slab next, but
still - what I told you to fetch was a brick”)].
And we may also imagine a sense to the utterances in such a
set-up that is far removed from using ‘Slab’ or ‘Brick’ as commands or requests
or prompts or where these terms bear any direct relation to their use to name
objects. Say we observed there was a regularity to what the builder uttered – a
pattern where the builder alternated always between ‘Slab’ and ‘Brick’:- so
that, after every uttered‘Slab’, the next utterance was ‘Brick’; and, after
every ‘Brick’, the next utterance was ‘Slab’ (and when perhaps, very
occasionally, the builder did not alternate as per this sequence, the builder
would correct himself, thereby showing the correct sequence). Yet
throughout all this we observed that the assistant did not bring the seemingly
named object but rather what the assistant could observe was the next
appropriate object. The use here might be puzzling. But we might still assume
the use of these terms ‘Brick’ and ‘Slab’ bore some relation to their use as
commands etc. in relation to objects
also named by those terms.
But this assumption is
not validated by anything said and might be shown to be mistaken, as
follows:- the builder subsequently explains to us that a co-worker had been
killed on site a few months ago and that co-worker was known for his
distinctive way of always shouting out ‘Slab’ and ‘Brick’ (even when there was
no need, as the assistant often could act without prompt, request or command),
and that this person typically shouted out in the alternate given the way
bricks and slabs were usually combined in the walls they built. And so the sense
of the builder’s utterances – even if they might also occasionally function as
a prompt when the assistant was dawdling – was as a ‘tribute’ of sorts to this
dead colleague. Or if not a tribute, then their sense was as a solemn reminder
of that colleague – or even an affectionate joke. But now imagine that it was
explained that the dying colleague asked that he be prayed for, and asked that
the prayer take the form of uttering to the heavens some characteristic phrase
of
his that would remind God of him: now we might understand that the sense of the
utterance was indeed a prayer of sorts. Nor is it beyond possibility that these
distinct senses might be combined: that the builder’s utterances could be
part-prompt, part-memento mori, part-joke and part-prayer.
We might note that the ‘sense’ of language that concerns the
later Wittgenstein is here the actual
sense of language as it is used and not, as he came to view his earlier
approach in the Tractatus, some ‘sense’
attributed to language in the light of a stipulative philosophical theory as to
how language has sense.
In all these conceivable cases, the sense of ‘what is said’
is something that is never said by ‘what is said’ but is something which may
only be shown – as becomes clear if we imagine varieties of the same set-up and
what may be shown by a deeper and wider “surveyable representation” of the use.
As language never says its own sense and as its sense cannot be said in
language (because of the “limits of language”), so the sense of language lies
beyond language: it always lies beyond what can be said but it is a ‘sense’
which nevertheless may be shown. This, for Wittgenstein, is
fundamental.
Donal
Stop me if...
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