[lit-ideas] Re: lw
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 9 May 2014 07:04:08 +0100 (BST)
>I have 2 children. In both cases, whenever I tried to teach them the meaning of
a word by pointing, they would look from my finger up my arm to my shoulder.>
In all my psychiatric experience, Walter's children have a very odd, almost
unnatural, response to 'pointing'. Rudy has had things pointed out to him many
times and Rudy also uses 'pointing' as part of his way of conveying his meaning
(to a point that is now sometimes embarrassing in public, and so he is now
being taught 'Don't point').
When Wittgenstein uses similar language to Walter, about how when someone
points another could take the direction to be up to their shoulder,
Wittgenstein is creating a striking image to show that what 'pointing' seeks to
convey cannot be determined by the mere act of 'pointing' (if we think
otherwise it is only because we are so accustomed to the sense of 'pointing'
that its sense seems to be contained in the 'pointing': an illusion that
parallels the illusion where we are so accustomed to the sense of words that
the sense seems to be contained in the words). It is part of Wittgenstein's
position that 'pointing' could not function as a means of picking out "things"
from the external world if the only reaction humans had to 'pointing' was like
Walter's children, and humans merely looked from the finger up the arm to the
shoulder.
So 'pointing' raises questions that parallel other fundamental questions about
language. Is the sense of words contained in the words? Do words say their own
sense? Gary Lineker is an ex-soccer player, now soccer pundit and presenter for
the BBC: last night the BBC homepage had a headline "Lineker backs Stones for
England World Cup Team." The instant reaction is surely that the Stones are too
old now for the team. A more considered reaction is that this is an example
where clearly the sense of "Lineker backs Stones for England World Cup Team" is
not contained in or said by the words "Lineker backs Stones for England World
Cup Team".
Donal
London
On Thursday, 8 May 2014, 23:38, Walter C. Okshevsky <wokshevs@xxxxxx> wrote:
I have 2 children. In both cases, whenever I tried to teach them the meaning of
a word by pointing, they would look from my finger up my arm to my shoulder.
Today, one is a successful veterinarian, the other, a lion tamer with Cirque de
Soleil.
Cheers, Walter
Quoting Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>:
> Okay, I acknowledge that the Investigations does not say that language is
> never ever learned or taught by pointing at stuff, only that it is a
> simplistic and incomplete account. This wasn't exactly the main point of
> contention, I mentioned it because it seems to be the account of language
> learning and use largely assumed in The Tractatus, and later at last
> partially rejected in the PI.
>
> Now, I don't have kids, so I would ask those of yous who are parents and
> grandparents whether you often used pointing at things to teach your kids /
> grand-kids the first language.
>
> O.K.
>
>
> On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 11:53 PM, Donal McEvoy
> <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
>
> >
> > >The theory that language is learned by pointing at things is attacked in
> > the Investigations. (The poor Augustine is made the culprit for it.)>
> >
> > What theory? Investigations may (rightly) reject any idea that the mere
> > act of pointing itself conveys the necessary sense (for what the pointing
> > seeks to convey cannot be determined by the mere act of pointing) - and so
> > "pointing at things" cannot be sufficient to teach the requisite sense
> > (e.g. that "table" is a name). But where does Investigations suggest that
> > "pointing at things" plays no role in our learning language (i.e. that we
> > never learn a noun, like "table", via any "pointing at things")? Nowhere.
> > On the contrary "pointing at things" is one of many tools used in teaching
> > and learning language.
> >
> > A great deal of interpretative voodoo has been written about
> > Investigations and then passed off as if this secondhand account is
> > Wittgenstein's account.
> >
> > It is true that Investigations is against the idea that language is
> > learnt merely by pointing at things (a "merely" not stated in Omar's
> > contention), but equally it is false to say Investigations attacks the
> > idea that "pointing at things" may be involved (indeed importantly
> > involved) in learning a language.
> >
> > Wittgenstein's fundamental point about the Augustinian picture of learning
> > names is not that it is false but that we should not be mislead that this
> > "picture" captures in language the naming-relation. The "picture" makes
> > sense as a picture of how we learn names because we already understand
> > the naming-relation and interpret the "picture" in that light (and
> > because we have been shown names in ways that appear to correspond to the
> > "picture"): but a creature with no understanding of a naming-relation
> would
> > not necessarily have the naming-relation conveyed to them by the
> > Augustinian picture, and a creature that only learnt a very different
> sense
> > of a word via "pointing at things" might interpret the "pointing at
> things"
> > in Augustine's "picture" as showing that very different sense (and not as
> > conveying the sense of words as names) - i.e. the "picture" does not say
> > the sense of the naming-relation, although it may show that
> > naming-relation to a user of language who understands how the
> > naming-relation may be shown as Augustine pictures.
> >
> > Donal
> > On Thursday, 8 May 2014, 20:02, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
> > wrote:
> > That was to be: (the aforementioned) "were saying intelligible though
> > not necessarily true things about language in language." (I didn't mean to
> > suggest that they the things they were saying were tautologies.)
> >
> > O.K.
> >
> >
> > On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 8:57 PM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
> >
> > As I understand, it is being argued that such terms as 'meaning' or
> > 'reference' cannot be explained in language since they are about language,
> > and language cannot be used self-referentially. What do we 'show', then,
> to
> > explain to someone the meaning of 'meaning' ? Honestly I have no idea. If
> I
> > needed to teach someone whose first language is other than English the
> > meaning of 'the word 'meaning', I am pretty sure that the last thing I
> > would try would be to draw something on the board. If I cannot translate
> it
> > into his native language, I would have to use explanations, examples etc.
> > drawn from (English) language.
> >
> > The theory that language is learned by pointing at things is attacked in
> > the Investigations. (The poor Augustine is made the culprit for it.)
> >
> > The notion that language cannot be used self-referentially strikes me as
> > clearly false. Consider the following:
> >
> > This sentence is short.
> >
> > I would think that this is a perfectly intelligible (and true)
> > self-referential statement. In fact, we do use language to talk about
> > language very often, and at least some of the time intelligibly. People
> > like Russell, Putnam, Kripke and others have all said intelligible (though
> > necessarily true) things about language in language.
> >
> > O.K.
> >
> >
> > On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 6:31 PM, Donal McEvoy
> <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
> >
> >
> > >3. We are now challenged to disprove the thesis by saying things in
> > language which we are told in advance are unsayable, even though we have
> no
> > idea what such things might be.
> >
> > 4. In such form, the challenge obviously cannot be met, so 1. and 2. are
> > taken as proven.>
> >
> > At to 4, no: if W is right, his POV can only be shown - it cannot be
> > proved, still less expressed (though we may use expressions to show it).
> >
> > As to 3, no: the challenge is to give an account that explains how names
> > name - it is left open whether this can be done, even though W's position
> > is that it cannot. No question is begged: and it is assumed that, if such
> > an account can be given, it will not be "saying" the "unsayable" but
> rather
> > showing that what W thinks is unsayable can in fact be said.
> >
> > JLS' post might allude to the view that 'Fido' names the dog Fido if it is
> > used as a name of Fido: but this does not *explain* *how *'Fido' names
> > Fido (it no more does this than saying "'The snow is white' is true iff
> the
> > snow is white" *explains how* the linguistic statement can refer to a
> > non-linguistic reality). To give examples where names name is not to give
> > an explanation of the naming-relation but merely to illustrate it: what
> the
> > challenge asks is to provide an explanation so that the relation is
> > captured in language, perhaps by way of some "theory" or "criterion" by
> > which we can determine that a word is being used as a name and not
> > otherwise.*
> >
> >
> > Dnl
> > Ldn
> > *Consider the difference between a dog owner uttering 'Fido' when (a)
> > asked the name of his dog (b) shouting at Fido - (b) is not a use of
> 'Fido'
> > to *name* Fido in the same sense as (a), or perhaps at all (and even in
> > (a) 'Fido' may *report *Fido's name rather than 'name' Fido in some other
> > sense, as when (c) the Queen *names* a ship 'Fido').
> > On Thursday, 8 May 2014, 13:05, palma <palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ​wittgenstein was confused in a rather benign way.
> > in his view a statement of the form "king Leonidas is brave" is not
> > 'saying' anything since it fails to be a representation/proposition of a
> > fact (the traditional cretinism of thinking that the abstract is not
> > representable coupled with crappy early behaviorism is the key to
> > understand the view, hence "KL died defending the Thermooilis" is a
> > representation of the fact that KL's heart stopped beating at xx time of
> > the yy etc.​) In flurry of rhet
> > ​h​
> > orics the statements shows either something about what the speaker th
> > ​ought of ​
> > the king, or what hearer is supposed to "grasp" etc. it does not say
> > anything because the limits of what is said/effable are within the same
> > limit of the logical sace, minus contradictions and the negation of
> > contradictions.
> > ​ought ​
> >
> > The twist that LW introduced is to add that something like "317 is
> > prime" is equally not 'saying anything', for the somewhat more
> > sophisticated reason that the quoted claim is tautological, if you believe
> > his theory of numbers, & being tautological it fails to 'exclude' any
> state
> > of affairs actual or possible.
> > it "shows" that 317 is prime, it cannot say it for the reason above.
> > how far one wishes to push such discussion is completely up to the dogma
> > that what Wittgenstein said is Talmudically understood, hence it is 'true'
> > in some sense or other, the rest is interpretation.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 11:34 PM, Omar Kusturica
> <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
> >
> > I don't see what there is about the say-distinction that cannot be said
> > but only shown. "Statements say and pictures show" is a statement, not a
> > picture. It is not something unsayable in our language either, instead it
> > is a platitude. Now, is true that pictures can also 'say' in a way, and
> > statements can also 'show', in a way. But I cannot see statements that
> > 'show but do not say', any more than I can understand pictures that 'say
> > but do not show.' I conclude that Wittgenstein had a few too much to drink
> > when he wrote that, and Donal had a few much too much when he paraphras29
> > rue d'Ulm
> >
> > f-75005 paris france
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > palma, e TheKwini, KZN
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > palma
> >
> > cell phone is 0762362391
> >
> >
> >
> > *only when in Europe*:
> > inst. J. Nicod
> > 29 rue d'Ulm
> > f-75005 paris france
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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