[lit-ideas] Re: Wittengstein on Ostension
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 9 May 2014 17:00:09 +0100 (BST)
>Gupta, Anil, "Definitions", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring
2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/definitions/>, under
'ostensive definition':
"Ostensive definitions look simple but, as Ludwig Wittgenstein observed,
they are effective only because a complex linguistic and conceptual capacity
is operative in the background. It is not easy to provide an account of
this capacity.">
This is in line with the interpretation I am suggesting, even in relation to
Augustine's "picture" (n.b. even Augie refers to what is "shown" by bodily
movements): but I am further suggesting that, for W, it is not merely that it
is "not easy" to "provide an account" (so as to explain how we gain sense from
ostensive definition etc.) but that it is impossible to give a complete such
account in language - it is beyond the "limits of language" to capture in
language the conditions by which language has its sense.
So we may show that we use 'names' in different senses: and we may refer to
these differences in terms of "criteria" of a partial and defeasible sort. But
it is beyond the "limits of language" to provide a conclusive criterion or set
of criteria by which these various "senses" may be definitively captured in
language - we can only exhibit the differences via a range of examples, without
these examples constituting a "theory" or "criteria" that further explain the
differences they show.
Our language shows many varieties of different senses but never allows us to
'say' or 'state' these "senses" in a way that they are fully explained by what
we say. For example, we may accept that 'Fido!' has a different sense when used
to call the dog from the garden [to beckon] than when it is used to admonish
the dog or when it is used to warn the dog - certainly at the human level this
kind of different sense may be communicated by tone: and a child whose name is
shouted may know whether it is being beckoned, admonished or warned (of course,
the child might mistake a warning or admonishment for a mere beckoning etc.:
but this mistake shows there are different possible "senses" to the same
utterance). We can exhibit or show different examples corresponding to the
different senses or uses of a 'name' being uttered: but these examples only
show the differences in sense, they do not explain in any further way how these
differences in sense are
constituted.* And Wittgenstein thinks there is no further way available given
the "limits of language".
This post may help explain why I do not find what W writes about criteria
(mentioned in a previous post by JLS) to be at all incompatible with the
interpretation I am suggesting.
Dnl
Ldn
*To think they do is an illusion: like my thinking I have explained how names
name by getting my dog out from his kennel and calling out 'Fido' (and perhaps
thinking that I have simultaneously explained how a linguistic term can refer
to a non-linguistic reality).
On Friday, 9 May 2014, 16:03, "dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In a message dated 5/9/2014 10:35:02 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Wittgenstein's point about pointing ... is a serious one...
as is Augustine's:
"Cum majores homines appellabant rem aliquam et cum secundum earn vocem
corpus ad aliquid movebant, videbam et tenebam hoc ab eis vocari rem illam,
quod sonabant cum earn vellent OSTENDERE hoc autem eos veile ex motu
corporis aperiebatur."
(Oddly, 'ostendere' is translated otherwise than 'ostend' in the edition
of Philosophical Investigations that actually cares to give a translation:
"When my elders NAMED some object & accordingly moved towards something,
I
saw this and I grasped that the thing was CALLED by the sound they
UTTERED
when they meant to point it out. Their intention was shewn by their
bodily
movements."
----
And as is Quine's
Noonan, Harold and Curtis, Ben, "Identity", The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Summer 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2014/entries/identity/>.
In “Identity, Ostension and Hypostasis” Quine suggested that when a
predicate is an I-predicate in a theory only because the language in which the
theory is expressed does not allow one to distinguish items between which it
holds, one can reinterpret the sentences of the theory so that the
I-predicate in the newly interpreted theory does express identity.
Every sentence will have just the same truth-conditions under the new
interpretation and the old, but the references of its subsentential parts will
be different.
Thus, Quine suggests, if one has a language in which one speaks of persons
and in which persons of the same income are indistinguishable the
predicates of the language may be reinterpreted so that the predicate which
previously expressed having the same income comes now to express identity.
The universe of discourse now consists of income groups, not people.
The extensions of the monadic predicates are classes of income groups, and,
in general, the extension of an n-place predicate is a class of n-member
sequences of income groups (Quine 1963: 65–79).
Any two-place predicate expressing an equivalence relation could be an
I-predicate relative to some sufficiently impoverished theory, and Quine's
suggestion will be applicable to any such predicate if it is applicable at all.
Now from
Gupta, Anil, "Definitions", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring
2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/entries/definitions/>, under
'ostensive definition':
"Ostensive definitions look simple but, as Ludwig Wittgenstein observed,
they are effective only because a complex linguistic and conceptual capacity
is operative in the background. It is not easy to provide an account of
this capacity."
From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostensive_definition
John Passmore tells us that the term was first defined by the British
logician William Ernest Johnson (1858-1931):
"His neologisms, as rarely happens, have won wide acceptance: such phrases
as “ostensive definition”, such contrasts as those between ... “
determinates” and “determinables”, “continuants” and “occurrents”, are now
familiar in philosophical literature" (Passmore 1966, p. 344).
Cheers,
Speranza
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
