[lit-ideas] humble suggestion

From: palma <palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 09:11:09 +0200
avoid the locution "as such" - it is purely bullshit thrown in to show that
one speaks with the literati-
consider
01 what is  meaning as such?
and contrast with
0.2 what is meaning?


if anyone has a non trivial case to be made for the use of 'as such' I am
unable to fathom it





On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 10:21 PM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:

>  Oh okay, I disregarded the comments about the Tractatus; I would like to
> be explained how statements can 'show' but not ' say' before I comment
> about that. It can be shown or said, or both, but it will need to be at
> least one of these.
>
>  O.K.
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 10:06 PM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>
>> Well, I don't see much to disagree with here. I think that I was
>> suggesting that Popper was beating the Logical Positivists with their own
>> stick, i.e. by showing that the question about meaning that they were so
>> concerned with was every bit as much a metaphysical question as those that
>> they were disposed to dismiss as 'pseudo/issues.' The Logical positivist
>> theory of meaning doesn't make any sense anyway, for if we haven't got some
>> understanding of what a statement means then we cannot also say whether it
>> is 'verifiable' or not. On the other hand, Popper wasn't opposed to all
>> metaphysics, so I am not sure that he would necessarily dismiss any kind of
>> inquiry into meaning.
>>
>>  I have some other complaints about linguistic philosophy, but these
>> aren't necessarily linked to Popper so I will leave it for another post.
>>
>>  O.K.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 29, 2014 at 9:53 PM, Donal McEvoy 
>> <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> >If the question is "What is meaning as such ?" then the question is
>>> metaphysical and subject to the objections that the Logical Positivists
>>> were putting to metaphysics. (Popper's comment was mainly directed against
>>> the Positivist verificationist theory of meaning.)>
>>>
>>>   There are a number of things that might be doubted here.
>>>
>>>  The question of "What is meaning as such?" may be metaphysical but
>>> this was not a question that was "subject to...objections" by the Logical
>>> Positivists: on the contrary, the LPs took themselves as having answered
>>> the question - their answer being that meaning equated to the method of
>>> (empirical) verification. This answer means (i.e. has the consequence) that
>>> unverifiable terms/assertions are meaningless (because they lack any method
>>> for their verification).
>>>
>>>  This answer suited the LPs insofar as it provided a stick to lambast
>>> all metaphysics as meaningless (because all metaphysical terms and claims
>>> lack a method for their verification empirically). But an unwanted
>>> consequence of this answer is that the 'principle of verifiability' (i.e.
>>> the claim that meaning equates to verifiability) must be itself meaningless
>>> (at least according to its own strictures, for there is no 'method of
>>> verification' for a 'principle of verifiability'): and if it is
>>> meaningless, it cannot be true.
>>>
>>>  This consequence caused the LPs no end of difficulty as it makes their
>>> position self-refuting.
>>>
>>>  Here we may contrast their position with that in the Tractatus, a text
>>> that greatly influenced the LPs but which Wittgenstein maintained they
>>> fundamentally misunderstood - particularly on this very point. Wittgenstein
>>> aims to defend something akin to a 'principle of verifiability' in the
>>> Tractatus, whereby only the statements of the natural sciences have
>>> sense. But in Wittgenstein's approach there is a fundamental distinction
>>> between 'saying' and 'showing', and this distinction is used to avoid the
>>> 'principle of verifiability' becoming self-refuting. In Tractarian terms,
>>> to state a 'principle of verifiability' is to say nothing with sense
>>> (hence such a principle, as with the rest of the contents of the
>>> Tractatus, is admitted to be nonsense) yet it shows the truth: so the
>>> 'nonsense' of the Tractatus is nonsense only because of "limits of
>>> language" as to what can be said in language; yet while the Tractarian
>>> pseudo-propositions are nonsense, in that they say nothing with sense,
>>> these nonsensical pseudo-propositions show the truth. In this way
>>> Wittgenstein seeks to avoid the normal conclusion as to a 'meaningless'
>>> statement - that being 'meaningless' it is neither true nor false: given a
>>> say-show distinction, we may avoid this conclusion by admitting that a
>>> pseudo-proposition may show the truth though it says nothing with
>>> sense. (According to early W then, the LPs were making the typical
>>> philosophical mistake of trying to say what cannot be said but which can
>>> only be shown.)
>>>
>>>  Popper found neither W's say/show answer nor the LPs answer
>>> convincing: but at least W has a POV where his position may be true even
>>> though it cannot be said with sense. The LPs 'principle of verifiability'
>>> is meaningless according to its own strictures in a way that means it
>>> cannot be true (for being meaningless it can be neither true nor false).
>>>
>>>  What Popper has to say against the LPs is more than a "comment", and
>>> extends to a critique of the inductivism that must underpin any notion of
>>> 'verifiability': Popper develops a position that discards any notion of
>>> 'verifiability' in inductive terms for a characterisation of 'empirical
>>> systems of propositions' [like the 'natural sciences'] in terms of the
>>> notion of falsifiability [Popper's LdF is an attempt to show the notion
>>> of 'falsifiability' is both necessary and sufficient for characterising
>>> science (and thus demarcating science from unfalsifiable metaphysic
>>>
>>
[lit-ideas] humble suggestion

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