[lit-ideas] more illuminating pieces of information on the transactions between arabic speakers and "ordinary language" philosophers, it appears taht arabic ain't "ordinary" enough
- From: palma <palmaadriano@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 13:20:07 +0200
On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 1:01 PM, dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <
dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Popper often remarked that most connoisseurs misused the word
> 'connoisseur'. But he meant to provoke.
>
> O. K. comments about this idea that a noumenon is the meaning of a word:
>
> "One could also claim, with the ordinary language philosophers, that one
> has privileged insight into the meaning of words, statements, utterances
> and
> what not."
>
> -- with Palma emphasising the what not.
>
> "What not" is an interesting conversational idiom that triggers an
> interesting conversational implicature.
>
> Or rather, it is an interesting conversational idiom BECAUSE it triggers an
> interesting conversational implicature. It was best discussed by Oxford
> scholar L. J. Cohen in
>
> "Grice on the logical particles of language"
>
> The logical form of 'or what not' and 'and what not' are, respectively:
>
> "v ~ x"
>
> and
>
> "& ~ x".
>
> However, Grice is cautious here. When analysing the 'meaning' (or 'sense')
> of "or", in:
>
> A: Where is your wife?
> B: In the kitchen OR the garden.
>
> he is sceptical to admit that 'or' has a meaning (as "dog") has. "Why, we
> might just as well say that "of" and "to" have meanings.
>
> O. K. is right:
>
> "One could also claim, with the ordinary language philosophers, that one
> has privileged insight into the meaning of words, statements, utterances
> and
> what not."
>
> Rather than insight, I would say 'authority' ("that's what _I_'d say", to
> echo Humpty Dumpty). Recall the famous exchange:
>
> Humpty: There's glory for you.
> Alice: I don't see what you mean by glory.
> Humpty: A nice knock-down argument. Impenetrability.
> Alice: May I ask what you mean by that:
> Humpty: That we should change the topic now.
>
> ----
>
> So we may rephrase O. K.'s utterance:
>
> Utterers SURELY have insight and authority into their own meaning (for
> remember it's "utterers", not words or utterances, that mean).
>
> This allows for malaprops. Grice recalls a little girl who THOUGHT that
> when Grice used a particular French idiom, SHE thought HE meant, "Help
> yourself with a piece of cake". The phrase, as it happened, meant (to
> Grice) a
> different thing; but since he expected that the girl would THINK that
> Grice
> meant that the girl should help herself with a piece of cake", "THAT was,
> unfortunately, what I meant".
>
> He also mentions that when visiting Port Said, a colleague from Oxford
> heard a prostitute outside a brothel uttering what the colleague thought
> meant,
> "Come in, darling". He managed to transcribe the utterance to Grice. Back
> in Oxford, Grice showed the transcription to an Arabic scholar, who
> confessed the utterance meant, unfortunately, "You pig of an Englishman".
> However,
> in Grice's approach, what the prostitute meant (since this was what she
> expected her addressee to grasp) was: "Come in, darling -- and you won't
> regret it".
>
> Noumena are one of the most fascinating topics in philosophy. The Oxford
> Lexicon of Philosophy has a full entry on it.
>
> It notes that while the confusion started with Kant, the word has a longer
> history.
>
> The 'nous', from which "noumenon" derives, was usually mentioned by the
> Pre-socratics. It wasn't just the 'thought' of this or that thinker, but
> something _bigger_ (in Schopenhauerian terms, "The world as will and
> representation").
>
> Cheers,
>
> Speranza
>
>
>
>
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--
palma, etheKwini, KZN
palma
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