If a lion could talk, we could not understand him. "Wenn ein Löwe sprechen
könnte, wir könnten ihn nicht verstehen."
In a message dated 6/9/2015 12:19:59 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"[T]his distinction between understanding "what is said" were it said by a
human and not understanding a creature saying the same words - is clearly
and repeatedly drawn in my post - without reference to Strawson. This
distinction underpins why we might understand the phrase "Take a photo" when
uttered by humans but not understand "a lion" if it roared out the same words -
an example used in the post. So I am at a loss as to why JLS draws my
attention to a distinction that is clearly and repeatedly drawn in my post as
if I have overlooked it."
Ooops. I did not meant my post as criticism! Merely emphatic! I was
exploring the 'grammar' of "understand" and indeed as McEvoy notices one thing
is
for an addressee (A) -- only McEvoy would not use these abbreviations -- to
understand an utterer (U) -- and another thing for an addressee to
understand what an utterer (U) has utterered -- the utterer's utterance --
abbreviate it as "x".
In Strawson's analysis, it seems clear that A's understanding of U's
meaning that p by uttering x involves a hierarchy and some philosophers may
have
been led to believe that in these types of conceptual analyses of
'understanding', "we" could not understand _a lion_ even if we could understand
the
lion's _talk_.
In other ways, I was exploring variations on the theme by Witters:
i. Wenn ein Löwe sprechen könnte, wir könnten ihn nicht verstehen.
ii. If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.
iii. If a lion could utter x thereby meaning that p, we could not
understand the lion.
-----
On the other hand Prince Maurice had a parrot that everybody could
understand. Prince Maurice said that it was a 'very intelligent, rational,
parrot.
In a short story entitled, Philo 4 (set in Harvard), there is a
philosophical questionnaire -- which is sort of funny. I realise that Witters
uttered
his gnostic aphorism WHILE NOT TEACHING, but I can _imagine_ Witters
designing a test (or quiz) at Cambridge -- for Anscombe and others --.
iv. If a lion could talk, could we understand him?
and I can imagine Witters changing his mind by an answer that ran along the
lines that the very question is a 'reductio ad absurdum' for the concept
of a 'form of life'. I.e. Witters scholarship take as dogmatic what I would
call merely underdogmatic -- at _most_.
"If a lion could talk, could we understand him?"
may fare differently (*VERY* differently) if presented in a quiz to an
Oxonian student!
Cheers,
Speranza
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