[lit-ideas] Re: easy
- From: Eric Dean <ecdean99@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2007 14:31:09 +0000
A. Palma writes:
**************
an easy way to test whether one can identify mental states independently from
their linguistic expressions: CONSIDER A CRUCIAL MARXIAN DICTUM; "last night I
shot an elephant in my pajamas. What he was doing in my pajamas is anybody's
guess"(wrongly) attributed to G. Marx well, Consider the first clause of the
sentence. It works and produces its humour effect precisly because of its
ambiguity (if you dop not see it, you are language blind) hence there are two
mental states (menaings? expressions? propositions? brain states?) that get to
be linguistically expressed by on and only sentence. a fortiori mental states
are not identical with linguistic expressions, since 2 is never equal to
one.**************
Well, OK, there's something more to what we do when we talk, write, etc., than
just production of the syntactic object one might call the 'linguistic
expression'. I didn't mean to be disputing that; what I meant to be disputing
was the notion that there is a clear enough definition of whatever that
something more is to support forcing the alternatives Donal offered -- that the
something must either precede, coincide with or follow the linguistic
expression.
The ersatz-Marxian dictum trades on ambiguity, and the existence of ambiguity
implies that there must be something plural connected to the single expression
in some way. But when one tries to define the plural thing associated with the
singular expression, I think one can only do so by either giving other
expressions which express each of the multiple things or by giving expressions
which tell how one might construct those expressions.
The humor is eradicated, of course, but the two 'meanings' of the one sentence
might be expressed as "last night I shot an elephant while I was wearing my
pajamas" and "last night I shot an elephant which was wearing my pajamas". My
question can be restated now about each of these expressions: exactly what's
the distinction between these and the "mental states" or whatever the other
somethings are that they express and what is it about the mental states that
means they must precede rather than coincide with or follow the expressions?
The fact that the same sentence can be used for more than one purpose (because
it's ambiguous) does not mean that there are clearly defined or definable
things called purposes which can be separated from the sentences that fulfill
them. Neither, by the way, does that mean that the sentences make any sense in
isolation from the purposes to which they can be put, nor that the sentences so
fully embody their purposes that the notion of purpose is superfluous.
Purposes do not obey the laws of logic and neither do their relationships to
the sentences issued in fulfilling them.
Attempts to rehabilitate purposes from this unfortunate condition by calling
them mental states are no better than attempts to explain the fact that
soporifics make one sleepy by attributing to them a virtu dormativa.
Best regards to one and all,
Eric Dean
Phoenix --> DC
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