[lit-ideas] Re: You Don't Say!
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 13:06:33 +0100 (BST)
These comments are something of an immediate response...
________________________________
From: "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
In a message dated 6/28/2012 6:03:43 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
>Well, part of the problem seems to be that the so-called (by D. McEvoy)
'key tenet' in Witters's philosophy is hardly the standard exegesis (of
Witters's philosophy). Not that there is anything wrong with a novel way of
approaching things -->
As a layperson with only scant knowledge of the enormous secondary literature,
I did not offer this 'key tenet interpretation' knowing how far it deviated
from "the standard exegesis" [insofar as there is such]. Yet what I am
suggesting seems to me compatible with what is found in Monk and Pears, for
example, though it goes further in amplifying how it is W should be understood
as showing not saying. My reasons for putting it forward stretch from
understanding W as being always fundamentally engaged with language from the
POV of there being "limits to language", to recognising that the fundamental
point of what W says in PI lies in what it shows [as correspondingly, and as W
wrote to Russell, the fundamental point of what W says in TLP lies in what it
shows].
An example:- when W says it would, after a certain stage, be "futile" to keep
repeating the same examples to convey the sense of a formula to someone, it is
not properly to understand him to conclude that what he says here is the point
of him saying it: i.e. that his point (in case anyone asks) is that in such a
case it would be "futile" to reiterate the same examples to convey the sense of
the formula to someone who did not understand the sense as we did. The point of
what W says here is in what it shows - that the sense of a formula is not said
in the formula, and so there is nothing that can be said so as to convey the
sense:- that is why it would be "futile" to keeping saying the examples as if
they conveyed their own sense.
Here is a case where doubters of the 'key tenet' should really put their
exegetical cards on the table and give an alternative reading: but if their
exegesis simply stops at taking what W says as being its point, then it seems
to me they have not properly understood. Yet it seems that this is what
interpreters do - we see this in Ayer and even in someone who like Gendlin who
professes to take seriously the idea that W is showing not saying [as I have
posted to explain]. [We might suggest interpretation can settle on answering
'What does this say?' or can pursue 'What does this show?']. The primary source
of W's doubts and misgivings that he would not be properly understood is surely
that, while what W shows is for W fundamental, others will take him merely or
mostly for what he says or appears to say. This was why W did not think the
Vienna Circle had properly understood the TLP: they took it for what TLP
appeared to say [that only the propositions of
natural science have sense (; but remember: the TLP's propositions actually
say nothing with sense)] and missed or skimmed over what it showed as to the
"limits of language" and what we can properly say and what we cannot. From W's
POV the Logical Positivist reading of TLP as a tract expounding a creed of
Logical Positivism is a shallow and superficial reading that can be traced to a
failure to see that what is shown is more fundamental than what is said and
what is said is important only because of what it shows.
So if the "standard" view of TLP is that the
>the 'show'/'say' distinction plays a minor role there>
this is not, in my view, a proper understanding - and it is not W's
understanding of its role, which is that its role is absolutely fundamental (as
W wrote to Russell; and as is related in what W said to his publishers that
what is not contained in TLP is more important than what is contained in TLP).
It is clear that what I am putting forward sees a fundamental continuity in W's
philosophical outlook and thus between TLP and PI: they both address the
"limits of language" as this affects understanding "language", in both cases by
"language" they are concerned with the "sense" of language, and both maintain
that the sense of 'what is said' is not said in 'what is said' but can only be
shown [for to try to say the sense of language in language is to try to go
beyond the "limits of language"].
Moving on to something distinct and important - the status of this 'key tenet
interpretation' in terms of its testability or falsifiability or refutability
or criticizability etc.. It should perhaps be admitted that any view of W's
work raises a problem as to its status in terms of its testability etc. (Here I
am using testability in a wider sense than in the sense in which testability
denotes 'testable by observation in a way that observation can be formulated as
a "test statement" in science'). Nevertheless, it is useful to ask of any
interpretation - What could render this interpretation 'false'?
>D. McEvoy is a Popperian at heart and wants refutations. So, he is looking
for a 'refutation' of his view (or an attempt of a refutation) that the
'key tenet' is otiose as regards an interpretation of Witters's philosophy.
Unless such refutation is presented or found, he rightly holds his exegesis
to be a valid one>
The problem of the status of this 'key tenet' view (in terms of its
falsifiability or refutability or criticizability etc.) is not straightforward.
What could render the 'key tenet' interpretation 'false' - or untenable, or at
least not viable? I have suggested several possibilities: (a) (i) W writing in
a way incompatible with the 'key tenet' or (ii) W denying any such 'key tenet'
is in PI (perhaps in W's Nachlass there is a draft of an unsent letter to Gr**e
to this effect?) (b) an example given of a "rule" [or any other statement]
which says its own sense (c) an example of a statement that says the sense of a
"rule" [or of any other statement], where that statement says its own sense (d)
an alternative and better interpretation of PI - for example, of why W
discusses teaching the sense of a formula to someone who does not understand it
as we do: "better" than the 'key tenet interpretation' that this discussion is
to show that the sense of a formula is
never said by the formula [and so this discussion is an example showing the
'key tenet' idea that the sense of language is never said in language] (e) a
counter-argument or interpretation drawn from W's philosophy of mathematics.
Nothing has been forthcoming [afaicansee] that substantiates a "refutation" in
any of these ways (RH's suggested refutation was easily rebutted, for a "rule"
as programmed into a computer does not contain the sense of that "rule"): on
the contrary, I have even posted to suggest how the 'key tenet' might be tied
into understanding W's philosophy of mathematics.
Of course, this does not mean the 'key tenet interpretation' is therefore
correct: absence of a "refutation" in this way may be only a necessary but not
a sufficient condition of truth. There is also the important (Popperian) maxim
'Irrefutability is a vice not a virtue': while I have indicated what could tell
heavily against the 'key tenet interpretation', the 'key tenet' itself is one
which might be thought to have an irrefutable character; and this is a vice,
even if it might be here an unavoidable vice. And this vice might, to some
extent, be inherited by any interpretation of W's work as reflecting such a
'key tenet'. So there is an important issue here. But this issue is not
straightforward, I feel: we might have to see where discussion takes us,
particularly a discussion that compares the merits of a 'key tenet
interpretation' against alternatives.
>I am fascinated by the fact that D. McEvoy keeps stressing what Witters
does not say, but show . THIS McEvoy manages to _say_, rather than show.>
Yes, I have 'said' "THIS": but the sense of what I have 'said' [or of "THIS"]
was not said by what I 'said'. So this may not be the paradox or contradiction
it might appear: i.e. what I have 'said' is perfectly consistent with the 'key
tenet'. It would only be incompatible if the sense of "THIS" was said by "THIS".
> It would seem that the ideal exegesis for the primacy of 'show' over 'say'
> in
Witters (I and II) should best be _shown_. >
Indeed; and I have stressed this is W's view and that W's view is reflected in
how PI is presented -where 'what is said' by W has its point because of what it
shows [rather than W presenting his POV by 'saying' the point he wants to show,
as he did in TLP].
>On the one hand, McEvoy rightly ejects technical jargon when it comes to
applying original 'show'/'say' distinction by Witters in the TLP -- a narrow
view as to what a formula says with reference to its logical form -- and
sticks to a somewhat broader view that relies on some basic idea of the
'sense' (or "Sinn" but unformulated by Witters) as carried by an expression,
yet
ironically not being _said_ (by it) but shown (by some 'utterer').>
This, to me, is on the right lines: certainly W's conception of a say/show
distinction is not one that involves "technical jargon" but rather an
understanding of sense such as we all have [for W, all our understanding of the
sense of language depends on understanding what can only be shown]. We might
suggest that "Sinn" is "unformulated by Witters" because it is W's view that
"Sinn" cannot be said but only shown.
Now JLS turns to the status of this 'key tenet' in another way, and here I do
not agree:-
>On the other hand, McEvoy apparently regards this 'key' tenet as pertaining
to meta-philosophy, i.e. not as a description of a phenomenon of nature or
culture (for surely scientists don't care about the 'show' and the 'say')
but to a rather more narrow description of a specific field -- 'the fly in
the fly bottle' as it were -- i.e. what philosophers, according to Witters
(or himself, qua philosopher) should end up doing or at least end up
avoiding. It's not clear, incidentally, if there is a prescriptive side to the
description of the phenomenon behind the key tenet of "You don't say; you
_show_" --. If there is, the imperative force of this prescription is kept
somewhat secretive. >
It is hard to put crisply why I do not agree with this: but two things (a) for
W, the say/show distinction [as reflected in the 'key tenet'] is not
"pertaining to meta-philosophy" but is to be found everywhere we have language
for language never says its own sense (b) (which may be 'the same or similar
point' per W) the say/show distinction concerns or pertains to the "limits of
language" - including the "limits of language" as a tool for investigating or
giving an account of itself.
Donal
Salop
Other related posts:
