[quickphilosophy] Hacker on “The Rise and Fall of the Picture Theory”
- From: wittrsl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- To: wittrsl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:25:53 -0700 (PDT)
What follows is (i) my summary of some of the salient points in Hacker's 1981
paper; (ii) some excerpts from that paper on W's move away from the picture
theory; and (iii) a couple of comments of my own. I continue to use the
courier
font for my own stuff and the georgia font when I'm either quoting or nearly
quoting (i.e., paraphrasing) . I also continue to use "W" for "Wittgenstein".
The basic premises utilized by W to end up with a picture theory of
representation are:
1. "Ordinary language is in order as it is" though this might not always be
readily apparent and might take analysis to show it. I.e., it is consistent
with the laws of logic that require bivalency and excluded middle. Since so
many ordinary language statements are vague, this must be a function of
vacuous
proper names. These must be handled by the Russellian Theory of Description
and the Fregean requirement of determinacy of sense. [Why such changes do not
amount to altering ordinary language rather than leaving it as it is, seems
odd
to me.]
2. The sense of a prop does not generally determine its truth-value, so
knowing what something means will not generally require us to know whether it
is true or false. That a prop is false does not make it meaningless. So,
what
makes a prop true can't be its sense alone.
3. Languages have generative powers, which means that props must be
composite. Only if props consist of elements can there be rule-governed ways
to generate an infinite number of new props out of existing elements.
4. We do in fact understand things—representatio n is not only possible, but
actual.
It is isomorphism that is necessary to make 1-4 true. If we make a model of a
state of affairs, the model will represent in virtue of being isomorphic with
what it models. Elements of the model must stand for the elements of what is
represented. This, for W, is "the pictorial relation."
Models represent states of affairs, with the structure of the latter
consisting
in the way its constitutive elements are connected with each other. For a
model to represent some state of affairs, the elements of the model must be
arranged isomorphically with the elements of the represented state of affairs,
given the appropriate method of projection.
A model is true if things are as the model represents them as being; otherwise
it's false, and to know whether some model is true or not, it must be compared
with reality.
There must be an internal relation between a model and what it represents
whether it represents truly or falsely. That is, the "logical form" (or the
multiplicity and combinatorial possibilities) of the model and what it
represents must be identical.
No model can represent its own (internal) relation to what it is a model of—it
can only display it. Propositions are a particular type of model and so, too,
must have a logical form matching what they represent, whether they are true
or
false. Their logical form is what is possible for them to say given the rules
of logical syntax.
Hacker then says this regarding W's development after 1929:
In recent years there has been a justifiable reaction to the initial
conception
of the relationship between W's two masterpieces. To be sure there is
profound
change in his philosophy, but there is also profound continuity. But exactly
what changes and what continues is no easy matter to discern. This is not
surprising, for if what W has done is rotate the axis of reference of his
investigation 180 degrees [see PI, sec. 108] then the difference of the
sameness, as it were, will be difficult to perceive….
W continued to think that psychological features of thought processes are
logically irrelevant. In the PI, he insists repeatedly that mental
representations and accompanying experiences are irrelevant to sense and
understanding. The doctrine of avowals underlines the principle that it must
always be possible to distinguish being true from being believed to be true,
and the private language argument emphasizes the necessity of the distinction
between being right and believing oneself to be right. So here we find an
anti-psychologism, and affinity with Realism, which, because of the criteria
link neither involves the Realist disregard for the conditions of possible
knowledge as determining the bounds of sense, nor slips into the typical
reductionism of Anti-realism.
Despite this affinity, however, een the anti-psychologism is transformed. In
the first place, it is no longer wedded to Realist dogmas—in particular the
transcendence (as opposed to the independence) of truth. In the second, the
boundary between philosophy and psychology has shifted dramatically. The
Tractatus was tacitly or explicitly committed to a host of psychological
hypotheses about arcane mental processes whose relation to reality was
mediated
by language. Thought, understanding and belief, although they had a logical
structure similar to the proposition, and contained unknown psychic
constituents, were of no philosophical consequence (except in so far as
sentences like "A believes p" threaten the thesis of extensionality) . The
assignment of meaning to indefinables, the forging of links between language
and reality, applying the method of projection are all mental processes. How
they are done is a matter for psychology; all that concerns logic is that they
are done. In the later work this is repudiated. The subjects of meaning,
understanding and thinking are essential to a proper grasp of the nature of
language. For the relations between meaning that p, understanding `p' and the
ense of `p' are internal. Therefore no psychological explanation or
hypothesis
can replace a philosophical account of these relations….
This…leads to the total repudiation of…the Realist dogma…of the irrelevance to
logic of the grounds of judgment. The grounds of judgment, being what justify
assertion, constitute at least in certain cases, the sense of a proposition. .
The grounds are grammatically related to the proposition and tell us what
proposition it is (Zettel, sec. 437). …
In short, the later philosophy replaces the Realist methodological principles
by diametrically opposed principles. The bounds of sense and the limits of
possible knowledge must coincide. We can squeeze no more sense out of a
proposition than we can put into one. We can assign sense to a prop only in
so
far as we can stipulate the conditions which would justify its employment.
Consequently the crucial strategic principle that sense is given by
truth-conditions independently of means of recognition of truth, which
dominates the Tractatus semantics, is not rejected….[By the time of PI] the
grounds for an assertion are part of its grammar and tell us what proposition
it is. To specify the grounds for an assertion is to explain its sense….The
contrast with the picture theory of meaning here runs deep….
Hacker's interesting paper concludes as follows:
To be sure, [PI's] answer to the great problem of the harmony between language
and reality seems, by comparison with the picture theory of meaning and its
exciting logico-metaphysical atomism, trivial, even uninteresting. Madness is
more interesting than sanity. But it is much better to be sane than to be
mad.
I just want to add my own sense that the continuing fascination of the
Tractatus
among analytic philosophers likely stems from an unwillingness (which I share)
to drop Tractarian doctrines regarding the independence of logic from
epistemology and psychology (as described by Hacker above) just because one
wants to drop the atomism and the picture theory of representation. I think
the "ordinary language philosopher' s" use of "paradigm case" arguments and
the
regular rejection of the distinction between ratio essendi and ratio
cognoscendi by W and his Oxford followers has been enough to cause many
analytic
philosophers to look back longingly on the Tractatus with its clear
distinctions between what is being said and why one is saying it.
Hacker is right that is important not to yield to madness, but one must also
be
careful that the treatment not be as harmful as the disease.
Walto
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