[Wittrs] On Languge Being "Open Ended"
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:10:36 -0800 (PST)
... reply to this (and a private message of Stuart's):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Wittrs/message/4288
One of the things I have found about people who cannot become black-belt
Wittgensteinians is that their language skills are poor. And it isn't language
skills in the sense of being a good grammarian or English professor -- though
some of that may be connected -- its poor "radar" for what language is doing.
And hence you get the following: (a) a bumper-sticker approach to the issue
("the anything-goes approach to language"); (b) terrible
counter-examples ("come over to my can of peas, and we'll lick it over a cup of
puke" -- which, of course, still could make sense under given circumstances
[can of peas = hobbit house; puke= a putrid drink]); (c) a failure to
understand Wittgenstein; and, relatedly, (d) the failure to appreciate how
structure exists in the absence of rules, definitions or determinacy. Also,
there seems to be this concomitant psychological need to see words as things
that bind people in certain ways, or else, "the world
shakes," so to speak.
Hopefully, when I complete the manuscript I am working on, you can both find
help with these matters. (Be done in about 2 months). For now, some basics:
1. It is Russellian to say that words mean what dictionaries say or what is
"commonly said." It is no coincidence that this view is linked with the view
that logic dictates what is said, and that what cannot pass this test is
not meaningful. This school of thought was overthrown by Wittgenstein.
(Hallelujah).
2. Meaning is use means exactly that. There are no statist or political
criteria. Majorities do not determine what people say. Only brains and their
behavior do. What this means is that language is as language does. And that if
X and Y "score goals" with whatever usages they do, there is no authority
structure that can be appealed to that could invalidate the goals. (Cardinal
Principle #1: meaning is use).
3. The ability of people to language, like the ability to do math, is not
equal. These are the areas of the brain involved in language.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Surfacegyri.JPG ; We can readily imagine that
people who are gifted in this respect do not language the way people with
ordinary regions language (in terms of capacity and insight -- in terms of
"skilty"). (Why the culture understands this with mathematics but not language
is only a prejudice)
4. One of the great problems with people who are language-challenged is that
they think that what belongs to "metaphor" is something only the creative do
with their spare time, and that this has nothing to do with being a vehicle for
understanding. That is, they cannot make good use of the simile. Have you
ever noticed that Wittgenstein was brilliant with the simile? Have you ever
noticed how powerful similes are when understood? Ask yourself this: those of
you who like symbolic logic and definitions -- are you good with simile?
5. Sigh. The issue with characterizing "getting angry" as "blowing up" is not
one belonging to metaphor. To treat "blowing up" literally is to invite
polysemy into the picture. As I have said several times, polysemy is not family
resemblance -- it is the wrong family. And if you want a structure for language
that is Wittgensteinian, there is your first law.
6. The reason why language can have the fluid character that it does and still
facilitate communication is that brains are quite good at navigating sense. See
Pinker in the Language Instinct.
7. I believe this thread began with whether Tiger could be called a
"bachelor." There being no credible view that such a statement could not, in
fact, be meaningful -- and that many might today call him that given his line
of behavior for many years -- it is no wonder that this issue then turns
ideological. Why a sermon on language when the case at hand falls apart? (see
intro paragraph)
8. And now we end with our hero. I'm glad to see some of you saying things like
"Wittgenstein had trouble here" and "I'm going further than him." This is so
much better than pretending you are Wittgensteinian. Those who cannot handle
these ideas need desperately to go to a ship that can bear you. (Preferably one
on land).
ON CATCHING EXQUISITE SENSE
"A new-born child has no teeth." -- "A goose has no teeth." -- "A rose has no
teeth." -- This last at any rate -- one would like to say -- is obviously true!
It is even surer than that a goose has none. -- And yet it is none so clear.
For what should a rose's teeth have been? The goose has none in its jaw. And
neither, of course, has it any in its wings; but no one means that when he says
it has no teeth. -- Why, suppose one were to say: the cow chews its food and
then dungs the rose with it, so the rose has teeth in the mouth of a beast.
This would not be absurd, because one has no notion in advance where to look
for teeth in a rose." PI, page 221.
"Given the two ideas 'fat' and 'lean,' would you be rather inclined to say that
Wednesday was fat and Tuesday lean, or vice versa? (I incline decisively
towards the former). Now have "fat" and "lean" some different meaning here from
their usual one? __ They have a different use. -- So ought I really to have
used different words? Certainly not that. -- I want to use THESE words (with
their familiar meanings) HERE.-- Now, I say nothing about the causes of this
phenomenon. They MIGHT be associations from my childhood. But that is a
hypothesis. Whatever the explanation, -- the inclination is there." p. 216
PI.
"One might speak of a 'primary' and 'secondary' sense of a word. it is only if
the word has the primary sense for you that you use it in the secondary one.
... The secondary sense is not a 'metaphorical' sense. If I say 'For me the
vowel in e is yellow' I do not mean: 'yellow' in a metaphorical sense, -- for I
could not express what I want to say in any other way than by means of the idea
'yellow.' Id.
ON INDETERMINATE TALKING
“But is it senseless to say: “Stand roughly there.” Suppose that I were
standing with someone in a city square and said that. As I say it I do not draw
any kind of boundary, but perhaps point with my hand – as if I were indicating
a particular spot. And this is just how one might explain to someone what a
game is. One gives examples and intends them to be taken in a particular way …
The point is that this is how we play the game. (I mean the language-game with
the word ‘game.’).” See ¶ 71.
“If I tell someone ‘stand roughly here’ – may not this explanation work
perfectly? And cannot every other one fail too?[1]… But isn’t it an inexact
explanation?—Yes; why shouldn’t we call it ‘inexact?’ Only let us understand
what ‘inexact’ means. For it does not mean ‘unusable.’ See ¶ 88
“I use [names] without a fixed meaning. (But that detracts as little from its
usefulness, as it detracts from that of a table that it stands on four legs
instead of three and so sometimes wobbles.)” See ¶ 79.
“How should we explain to someone what a game is? I imagine that we should
describe games to him, and we might add: “This and similar things are called
‘games.’” … But this is not ignorance. We do not know the boundaries because
none have been drawn” See ¶ 69.
71. One might say that the concept ‘game’ is a concept with blurred edges.
---“But is a blurred concept a concept at all?” --- Is an indistinct photograph
a picture of a person at all? Is it even always an advantage to replace an
indistinct picture by a sharp one? Isn’t the indistinct one often exactly what
we need? See ¶ 71.
“But then the use of the word is unregulated, the ‘game we play with it is
unregulated.’ ---- It is not everywhere circumscribed by rules; but no more are
there any rules for how high one throws the ball in tennis, or how hard; yet
tennis is a game for all that and has rules too. See ¶ ??.
OTHER RELATED MATTERS:
“people nowadays think that scientists exist to instruct them, poets,
musicians, etc, to give them pleasure. The idea THAT THESE HAVE SOMETHING TO
TEACH THEM – that does not occur to them. [all caps substituted for italics –
sw] CV, 1939-1940, p.36
"I think I summed my attitude to philosophy when I said: philosophy ought
really to be written as a POETIC COMPOSITION. It must, as it seems to me, be
possible to gather from this how far my thinking belongs to the present, future
or past. For I was thereby revealing myself as someone who cannot quite do what
he would like to be able to do." from Culture and Value, 1933-34, page 24 ...
“I just took some apples out of a paper bag where they had been lying for a
long time. I had to cut half off many of them and throw it away. Afterwards
when I was copying out a sentence I had written, the second half of which was
bad, I at once saw it as a half-rotten apple. And that’s how it always is with
me. Everything that comes my way becomes a picture for me of what I am thinking
about at the time. (Is there something feminine about this way of thinking?)”
CV 1937, p.31
“Why don’t I call cookery rules arbitrary, and why am I tempted to call the
rules of grammar arbitrary? Because I think of the concept “cookery” as defined
by the end of cookery, and I don’t think of the concept of “language” as being
defined by the ends of language. You cook badly if you are guided in your
cooking by rules other than the right ones; but if you follow other rules than
those of chess you are playing another game; and if you follow grammatical
rules other than such and such ones, that does not mean you say something
wrong, no, you are speaking of something else. PG 184-185 …
[major snipping here -- sw]: “Language is not defined for us as an arrangement
fulfilling a definite purpose” (190), meaning the “connections in the
mechanisms of language” are such that we get to supply them. (191) [unquoted
part my paraphrase – sw]. … “ ‘Language’ is a word like ‘keyboard…’ ” (192) …
footnotes:
________________________________
[1]“Every other one” refers to others that are more or less exact. His point is
that if you specified an exact location, the exactness would only be relevant
if the border was exceeded, which in many cases would render the border
superfluous and unnecessary, because one only needs to talk with fixed borders
for those fixed purposes. Also, in cases where you stand directly on the
border, more exactness would seem to be needed. And if you ever did specify a
perfectly exact boundary, it would seem to be pointless unless you needed a
perfect accounting of something directly on the border. He writes,
“And let us consider what we call an ‘exact’ explanation in contrast with this
one. Perhaps something like drawing a chalk line round an area? Here it strikes
us at once that the line has breadth. So a colour-edge would be more exact. But
has this exactness still got a function here: isn’t the engine idling? And
remember too that we have not yet defined what is to count as overstepping this
exact boundary; how, with what instruments, it is to be established. And so
on.” (See ¶ 88, PI).
Elvis has left the building.
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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