18. Do not be troubled by the fact that languages (2) and (8) consist only of orders. If you want to say that this shews them to be incomplete, ask yourself whether our language is complete;---whether it was so before the symbolism of chemistry and the notation of the infinitesimal calculus were incorporated in it; for these are, so to speak, suburbs of our language. (And how many houses or streets does it take before a town begins to be a town?) Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses.
In a message dated 10/2/2011 12:42:59 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx writes: I don't relate to language intellectually as most philosophers seem to. I'm much more attracted to the ways that words in combination awaken worlds in us. The basement of language -- linguistic philosophy? ---- R. Paul should be able to expand (as to what he meant, metaphorically). For Grice, metaphors are falsities, so 'basement of language' literally involves a category mistake (Grice's example, "You are the cream in my coffee" -- hardly used literally, Grice notes). A house is not a home. A basement is not an attic. Perhaps linguistic philosophy is the right expression. There are other metaphors usually used (sic) with lingo: berths, deep berths of language (Grice uses), 'seas of language' Kripke uses (and Dummett acknowledges). The fact of 'being trapped' is a resolution by R. Paul of Witters's (Wittgenstein's) point about 'language on holiday', betwitched by language. Trapped without a key, he means. Witters said that a language is like an old city (I think he meant Amsterdam): where you get lost easily. Unlike Washington, DC, say. This he said in German. Finally, back to Geary's point about linguistic philosophy. The idea indeed that the philosopher's job is to demistify (if that's a verb) the _categorial_ structure of lingo. Grice and many others (e.g. Sapir and his sometime 'lover', Whorf) thought that this categorial structure reflects a deeper ontological if not cognitive structure. "Sometime", sometimes, all time, all times, no time, every time, etc. all reflect ways -- hence R. Paul's point that while both 'sometime' and 'sometimes' (sic) are BOTH adverbial, he still feels trapped in the basement of language, by which he meant English (rather than Latin, where 'sometimes' is untranslatable -- cfr. modern Italian). Etc. Cheers, Speranza -- from the Open Loggia of Language, overlooking IT ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visitwww.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
