[lit-ideas] Re: The nothing noths
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2015 18:09:02 -0500
O. K. writes:
"[S]urely it is possible to argue that certain statements that purport to
be metaphysical are actually nonsense without making the sweeping claim
that they all are. Neither is it necessary to posit the criterion of empirical
verifiability for statements to be meaningful as the positivists did. (It
might be argued that statement has to be meaningful in at least some sense
in order for us to be able to tell whether it expresses an empirically
verifiable proposition.) Here are some of the possibilities: A statement in
metaphysics [a metaphysical statement, proposition] may have at least three
values: 1. It may be nonsense -- i.e. an undefined combination of words. (Of
course this might be the value of a statement in any subject, not just
philosophy.)"
Well, this seems to be Carnap's and Ayer's view re:
Heidegger
i. The Nothing noths.
or
ii. The nothing noths.
D. P. Henry notes that a mediaeval philosopher said something like, "By
necessity, nothing must be nothing", which Henry claims is like the
predecessor of Heidegger's claim.
Henry does not find the verb 'noth' nonsensical at all. And his use of the
"[[ ... ]]" is meant to provide a corresponding verb for any noun ('noth'
for 'nothing'). We are familiar with that from Quine, "Pegasus pegasises".
"2. It may be a disguised rule of grammar (PP p. 312) -- rather than the
statement of fact ("real definition") its author the metaphysician intends it
to be."
Well, if Henry is right that there is some deductive system in which "The
Nothing noths" becomes a logical truth, we may find this conclusion as being
yielded by premises and axioms in the system which are the logical
correlates of 'rules of grammar'. So "The nothing noths" fits here too.
"3a. It may be a suggestive picture -- i.e. one that suggests images to us,
but that takes us no further. The proposition 'It's 5 o'clock on the sun'
illustrated by "a grandfather clock which points to 5" (PI§ 350), and maybe
the "questions without answers", are examples of these. Many such pictures
give a false account of the way we use some "sign" or other of our
language -- i.e. they are a mistaken understanding of the sign's "grammar"
(The
distinction between a sign and its use in the language), e.g. the word 'mind'
as the name of an invisible object."
Well, this applies perfectly to
"The Nothing noths".
Henry spends some time discussing Lewis Carroll's
"Nobody runs faster than me".
"That's not true," said the King, "or he had come here earlier".
"3b. Or it may be a way of looking at things -- i.e. speculation that is
not subject to falsification by anomaly. (Note that some scientific theories
are also ways of looking at things -- that is, ways of summarizing
[organizing] a selected set of data [Every scientific theory is facts plus
imagination] -- that are not falsifiable, e.g. the heliocentric and geocentric
models of the solar system.) Of course it may also simply be an idle picture
--
although note well that metaphysicians know that their pictures cannot be
compared with "perceptible reality" -- i.e. that their metaphysical
propositions are not empirical propositions -- and therefore it does not
trouble
them that their speculative propositions cannot be verified or tested by
experience. For, metaphysics says, "Our experience is only experience of
appearances, not of reality itself"; cf. Plato's cave image (Republic 515c).
Which statement may be an example of senses (2) or (3a) of the word
'metaphysics'."
Well, I do think Heidegger was illustrating 'annihilation' and nihilism,
and came up with "The Nothing noths" as a good adage to abbreviate that way
of looking at things.
"Some religious pictures may resemble these "idle pictures", because they
also are not hypotheses; however, pictures in religion are used very
differently from the way metaphysicians use pictures, e.g. they are not
speculative. 3c. Or it may be a picture that it is "logically impossible" for
us to
be taught how to apply: "How is this picture, e.g. Michelangelo's God
creating Adam (LC, p. 63), to be compared with what it is said to be a picture
of?" But there is no answer -- i.e. the word 'compare' is not defined in this
particular case; indeed, the artist did not intend for a comparison to be
made."
Well, there are some paradoxes associated with "Nothing" that Henry
considers:
iii. Nothing taught me to fly.
iv. No-thing taught me to fly.
was a well-known sophisma. Henry notes that the best answer to the sophism
is: "Well, then: show us how you fly".
The references to 'signs' is apt in that 'nihil' was much discussed by
mediaeval philosophers as a 'sign' of some second imposition, and not a real
name. And so on.
Cheers,
Speranza
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