[Wittrs] Re: Searle, Dennett and Wittgenstein
- From: "gabuddabout" <gabuddabout@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 15 May 2010 20:48:47 -0000
--- In WittrsAMR@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> I took the trouble, this morning to search out Searle on the question of what
> he thinks he is doing when he makes assertions about what is conceptually
> true, etc.
>
>
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@> wrote:
> >
> <snip>
>
>
> > you found that someone on Answers.com used 'conceptual truth' as a
> > substitute for 'analytic truth' and you assume that Searle is doing so
> > also.
> >
> > this is nothing more than a three card monte scam. you see a meaning
> > associated with one use of a given word and attribute it to Searle's use
> > of that word
> >
>
> > >and from his own statements made with that claim,
> >
> > are you trying to insinuate that you have some evidence from Searle's
> > own writings that he thinks that his claims in the third axiom are
> > analytically true? if so, would you quote this material?
> >
>
>
> All right, let's let Searle speak for himself on the subject of what he
> thinks it is to do conceptual analysis. The following excerpts are from
> Minds, Language and Society:
>
> p. 159:
>
> "A third feature of philosophical investigations is that they tend to be, in
> a broad sense, about conceptual issues. When we ask, in a philosophical tone
> of voice, what is truth, justice, virtue, or causation, we are not asking
> questions that can be answered just by having a good look at the environment
> or even by performing a good set of experiments on the environment. Such
> questions require at least an analysis of the concepts of "truth," "justice,"
> virtue," and "cause," and this means that the examination of language is an
> essential tool of the philosopher, because language is the vehicle for the
> articulation of our concepts."
>
> [Note his understanding of philosophy as an exercise in conceptual analysis
> which finally boils down to questions of language -- and here he is not far
> from a classic late Wittgensteinian approach.]
Note also that Searle's theory of speech acts and Intentionality go beyond the
analysis of language though all philosophy has to start somewhere (as Austin
put it: Ordinary language may not be the end, but it is a beginning). Searle
is not doing what Bertrand Russell accused Witters of--idle tea table gossip.
>
> p. 160
>
> "In this book, I have been investigating the structure and interrelations of
> mind, language and society -- three interlocking frameworks. The methods are
> not those of the empirical sciences, where one would perform experiments or
> at least conduct opinion surveys. The methods I employ are more adequately
> described, at least in the first stages, as logical or conceptual analysis. I
> try to find constitutive elements of consciousness, intentionality, speech
> acts and social institutions by taking them apart and seeing how they work.
> But, truth to tell, even that is a distortion of the actual methodology in
> practice. In practice, I use any weapon that I can lay my hands on, and I
> stick with any weapon that works. In studying the subjects of this book, for
> example, I read books ranging in subject matter from brain science to
> economics. Sometimes the results of the investigations are to reject the
> existing conceptual apparatus altogether. Thus, I claim we will not
> understand the relation of the mental to the physical as long as we continue
> to take seriously the old conceptual apparatus of dualism, monism,
> materialism and all the rest. Here I am proposing a conceptual revision on
> the grounds that the old concepts are not adequate to the facts as we can
> understand them, given a century of work on the brain. . . "
>
> [Note here that he explicitly rejects a metaphysical approach based on
> arguing for or against dualism, monism, etc. His explicit position seems to
> be a pox on all such houses. Unfortunately, his CRA relies on a dualist
> presumption and this is made somewhat clearer when we consider his argument
> that consciousness is ontologically IRREDUCIBLE, even while granting "causal"
> reducibility; thus he creates all sorts of problems by separating ontological
> from causal questions (a rather idiosyncratic move, it seems to me)
You are idiosyncratic, here.
> while introducing new questions by focusing on a use of "cause" which, as we
> have seen, lots or people seem to have a hard time agreeing to. So one can
> ask whether his effort to start anew, which I generally applaud, solves very
> much in the end -- and this before we even get to the question of the success
> or failure of his CRA.]
So well put!
>
>
> p. 161
>
> "The aim of philosophical analysis, as in any serious theoretical study, is
> to get a theoretical account of the problem areas that is at the same time
> true, explanatory, and general. . . . Thus, my aim -- not one shared by the
> majority of contemporary philosophers, by the way -- has been to try to make
> progress toward getting an adequate general theory."
>
> [Here he diverges from the classical Wittgensteinian approach by embracing
> theorizing in philosophy. Frankly, I don't think he's totally wrong here
> since I believe many of Wittgenstein's adherents take his rejection of
> theorizing too far. After all, Dennett, who is at least as Wittgensteinian as
> Searle, and probably a good deal more so,
Quite true, that!
> is no less prepared to enter the theorizing lists. Why, after all, should our
> theories not be part of, and subject to, the same kinds of Wittgensteinian
> investigations as any of the other things we think and say? Theories, it
> seems to me, are just more comprehensive and systematic formulations than our
> run of the mill ideas about things and, in that sense, they are of the same
> stock. Given that, they are as prone to muddle and confusion as any other
> claims we make and cleaning them up will certainly have an impact on the
> theories themselves, maybe even leading to new theories in the process -- see
> Dennett!]
>
> SWM
See Searle too! Just don't muddle that which is clear enough!
Cheers,
Budd
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