[lit-ideas] Re: The Order of Aurality ratification of fiction
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:02:37 -0800
Donal wrote
We might perhaps admit that "For Wittgenstein, any language is, in
principle, open to understanding by any language user who shares a
sufficiently similar 'form of life'" but not that, without that 'form
of life' qualification, "For Wittgenstein, any language is, in
principle, open to understanding by any language user (irrespective of
whether their kind of language and 'form of life' bear any similarity
to the language in question)".
I wrote, with a certain referential opacity,
I don't understand the sentence in quotes. It seems just mistaken. The
reason it's mistaken is epitomized at 327 in 'Philosophy of
Psychology—A Fragment,' [Hacker and Schulte's revised translation of
the /Investigations/]: 'If a lion could talk, we wouldn't be able to
understand it.'>
I meant to refer only to the last sentence in quotes, which ends with an
italicized clause, that begins '/irrespective of whether/...' My
objection to this is that Wittgenstein nowhere says this, nor does
anything else he says imply it. I read the last quote-enclosed sentence
as saying that one can understand any 'language' whatsoever, independently
of whether or not the 'language' in question is used by persons,
non-human animals, or intelligent mushrooms whose forms of life are
/completely/ different from our own. What's meant by 'completely
different' may border on circularity, but Wittgenstein apparently
thought that there were some more or less clear cases, e.g., that of the
talking lion.
I don't quite understand what Robert does not understand here. There
aretwo sentences in quotes, and they represent two incompatible
claims. They are attempts to reframe Phil's unqualified claim that
"For Wittgenstein, any language is, in principle, open to
understanding by any language user" in terms of whether or not this
claim must be qualified by the additional words "who shares a
sufficiently similar 'form of life".
The first sentence might be close to what Wittgenstein's views would
look like after having been run through a Cuisinart, but the second,
which appears to detach languages
from forms of life would not come close to anything Wittgenstein says,
even if it were engraved in platinum. At §19, he says 'It is easy to
imagine a language consisting
only of orders and reports in battle—Or a language consisting only of
questions and expressions for answering Yes or No—and countless other
things.—And to imagine a language is to imagine a form of life.'
What troubles me is the generality of the two sentences in quotes. It's
as if 'scholars,' or 'philosophers' had pretty much agreed that there
are some main theses or doctrines in
the /Investigations/, but were quarreling over just what they were and
what form they should take. Let me suggest that this is not a fruitful
way to approach the /Investigations/.
The book is neither a collection of aphorisms, nor an extended
philosophical argument concerning one or two clearly defined positions;
such arguments having pretty much the
the form of philosophical treatises which are full of therefors and
hences and thus-we-may-concludes. Wittgenstein sketches out what a
reader should expect to find in the /PI/, in his /Preface/. What she
should not expect to find is anything resembling Hume's first Treatise, e.g.
A warning of where philosophers go wrong can be found in the /Blue
Book/, where he calls attention to their 'craving for generality,' and
their 'contempt for the particular
case' (something he accuses Socrates of). He resists that craving, and
scorns such contempt, in his later writings. 'Don't think, but look,' he
says, admonishing Socrates'
ghost. Enough. I am not made for a discussion of Wittgenstein's theses
or principles, so I will withdraw, and leave the subject matter to those
who are.
Also I don't understand how "If a lion etc." at all shows how the
first of these sentences in quotes is mistaken; nor is it, of course,
an argument that the second of the sentences in quotes is mistaken, so
much as a way of 'epitomizing' that it is mistaken [because 'Aslan'
would not share our 'form of life'].
I think Aslan was a follower of Grice.
Robert Paul,
sometime student of Mordant College, Oxon.
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