[C] [Wittrs] Re: Games with Logic and Bachelor
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 13:28:07 -0800 (PST)
Hello Ron.
Regarding 242: "If language is to be a means of communication there must be
agreement not only in definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in
judgments. This seems to abolish logic, but does not do so.--It is one thing to
describe methods of measurement, and another to obtain and state results of
measurement. But what we call 'measuring' is partly determined by a certain
constancy in results of measurement."
1. I would take 242 as being directed toward the private language argument. I
would also think what it really says it this: to understand (and navigate)
sense, one must share the operations of language. No one would take the
position that this excludes logic, because the language of logic generates
meaning the same as, e.g., the language of art. That's the key. What brains do
with language and how they come to understand meaning.
(Note also that for two people to use the school-boy sense of bachelor, they
would both need to know definitions.)
2. My disagreement is over the value of using symbolic logic statements as
though they establish some kind of universal proof. As though they amount to
some kind of geometry. Witttgensteinians understand that the sentence, "If
Tiger is married, he cannot be a bachelor," is determined by the sense of the
words in the language game (including the logical if-then). The languaging
culture (and what the brain does in the cognition of words) is
what fundamentally determines "bachelor" and "married." And therefore, if
you force the logic statement to recognize family resemblance, the statement
breaks down on its own terms.
CF: "If Tiger is any sense of "married," he cannot be any sense of "bachelor."
Note also that for Wittgenstein to have reached the idea that dissolving sense
dissolves all philosophic controversies, is to say that the achievement of
sense-agreement makes disputes become informational. When we know the sense of
"bachelor" and of "married," all that is left is either the performance of the
logic (if-then) or the gathering of information about what Tiger does in his
private life. When sense is resolved, there are no more traffic accidents.
That's what true philosophy really is: someone directing the language
traffic so that there are no accidents.
3. I didn't take my message as a "flame" of our friend J. "I release you"
was Ghandalf helping Theoden from his spell. It's metaphor and theatrics. The
point could really be expressed thusly: a full-blooded Wittgensteinian having a
say about the methodology of a three-quarter-blooded one (or whatever fraction
it is). See point 2. The goal is over the method and approach to
"propositions."
Regards and thanks.
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
Personal Website: http://seanwilson.org
SSRN papers: http://ssrn.com/author=596860
Discussion Group: http://seanwilson.org/wittgenstein.discussion.html
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