Kripkenstein Attacks!

The last post was referring to Saul Kripke's book, "Wittgenstein: On Rules and Private Language". The first half of this book is Kirpke's attempt to reconstruct Wittgenstein's "argument" against the traditional view that meaning comes from a referent, either mental or physical, and that one can show that one understands something, say, for example, the concept of addition, through the appeal to or interpretation of or application of some kind of general or universal 'rule'. The question is how can I justify my belief that I am 'using the same rule of addition' when I add the two numbers before me right now that I used yesterday when I was adding two different numbers. If I have never before added numbers larger than 57, but I have successfully added smaller numbers in the past, how can I tell that I am applying the same rule? What if 'addition' meant that for every number smaller than 57, proceed in such-and-such a way, but if you ever try to add numbers larger than 57, remember that the answer is always going to be 5? This sounds crazy, I know, and I am probably retelling it wrong, but I think that the important point is that we cannot point to any facts about our previous behavior or our previous 'mental states' to prove that we know when we are 'acting in accord with such-and-such rule'. We can't appeal to our previous behavior because part of the idea of a rule is that it can apply to an infinite number of possibilities, whereas we have only encountered a finite number, and we cannot appeal to the 'mental picture' of the rule (in this case, the rule of addition) because then we would need some other 'mental rule-concept' to appeal in order to be sure that we were interpreting the previous rule-concept correctly. [ex: "How do you know you're reading this map right?" Because I can use this legend that I have here. "But how do you know that you're reading that legend right?"] Kripke says, "Each new application we make is a leap in the dark; any present intention could be interpreted so as to accord with anything we may choose to do." Kripke's answer to this 'skeptical paradox' is through appealing to the fact that we are always engaged in a community of speakers who teach us these concepts and correct us when we use them incorrectly, which is true and good I think, but also I think that there is something to the fact that there is not one way to add, that we use this concept in many different ways in many different parts of our lives, and that mathematics as a whole ought to be viewed not as a set of universal truisms but as an evolving network of tools that we have invented and that we use on a daily basis to help build houses and roads and cakes and to explain the behavior of atomic particles and the populations of fruitflies. But I'm not sure, lots of people tell me that I'm wrong here.

On a personal note: I had a meeting with Prof. James Conant yesterday to talk about my Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein paper. The entire 50 minutes were spent having him list essays and books that I needed to read if I wanted to this paper right. So at the end of the day, there is always something I should be reading.

Notes on the Function of Addition

The Function of Addition - symbolized by the '+' - is used in many different ways. (We could say that the relationship between '+' and the concept of addition have roughly the same relationship as a word and a concept, except that '+' is a sign, not a word.) It is misleading to think only of cases such as "57+68=125". What about the following (which ones qualify as instances of addition?)
(1) 68+(-57) =11
(2) 68-57=11
(3) 57+(-68) = -11
(4) 4+4=8
(5) 4*2=8
(6) 4+4+4+4=16
(7) 4^2=16
(8) No one can know the sum of all positive integers.
(9) Everyone knows that the sum of all positive integers and all negative integers is 0.
(10) Next, add the two tablespoons of sugar to the cup of flour.

Serious Philosophizing

How does one perceive things? We're not interested in the mere scientific question of optics, but the far more fundamental philosophical question of how one's mind accesses the world. For the sake of clarity, let us replace the word 'things' with the word 'material objects'. What is a material object? Well, an object capable of being perceived, such as a chair, which is a good example as it is sturdy, and made of wood, and is roughly man sized and gives off no odor and tends not to make much noise of its own volition, and, along with tables and desks and lamps and books and pens and cigarettes and bottles of beer, tends to be around when serious philosophizing is being done.

10.20.07

We recently read the essay “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” by W.V. Quine, and a response to it, “In Defense of a Dogma”, by Grice and Strawson, for my Meaning and Skepticism class. In the handout, the professor enumerated some criticisms and clarifications for Quine's paper, and one of these criticisms was the following:
“Quine's attack on analyticity amounts to an attack on the very idea that a sentence could have a meaning. If it makes sense to ask “what does it mean?” of a sentence, then we can get a notion of sentence synonym:two statements are synonymous if and only if any true answer to the question “what does it mean?” asked of one of them is also a true answer to the same question asked of the other.”
And the next point reads:
“Quine moves from “we have not made satisfactory sense of x” to “x does not make sense.”

These criticisms express an old way of thinking about meaning, that is, assuming that a meaning is something that is unified, fixed, and stable. But what are we asking for when as for the meaning of a sentence? Here's an example lifted from John Searle's essay “What is a Speech Act?”, where Searle argues that intention alone cannot account for meaning: “Suppose I'm a US Soldier in WWII, and I'm captured by Italian troops. I want to get them to believe I'm a German officer and so release me, but I know very little German. All I remember is the following sentence: “Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühen?” which I know utter as if to tell them I'm a German officer.”

“What does 'Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühen' mean?” seems to have a specific meaning because it has a normal and recognizable use; asking for a translation. But is this question synonymous with either of these two: “What does he mean by 'Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühen' ?” or, “What does 'Do you know the land where the lemon trees bloom' mean?”

Examples like these live along the border lines of concepts, and considering them forces us to rethink the meaning of this word or that word, but not of language as a whole. The very acts of doubting and considering are contingent upon us already knowing the meanings of our words and sentences.

A²+B²=C² is not true. (But 3²+4²=5² is true.) That is to say, that it cannot be either true or false because what it is doing is not 'making a claim' but 'stating a rule'. Once we have decided upon this rule, we can use it as a measuring stick to aid us in deciding what is true and what is false. (Yes, this is very radical, and maybe not right.)

In one sense, what we call 'analytic statements' can never be true or false. The classical philosophical way to describe this is to say that certain statements are 'logically true', 'analytically true', or 'true in every possible world'. But if a statement cannot possibly be false, then it cannot either be considered a 'fact'. That is, the sentence “A bachelor is an unmarried male.” is not a fact. It is not true. It is what we mean by the word, 'bachelor'.

But can this also be said of the sentence, “An unmarried male is an unmarried male.”? Does “A bachelor is an unmarried male.” = “An unmarried male is an unmarried male.”? Under what possible circumstances would I possible need or want to say the sentence “An unmarried male is an unmarried male.”?

Something about the meaning of the word 'meaning': The sentence, “A squared plus B squared means C squared.” doesn't sound right. And neither does the sentence, “Bachelor equals unmarried male.”

But of course the Pythagorean Theorem is true! It's never been proved to be not true! But it's true in a different way. I mean, the sentences, “One foot is the same as twelve inches.”, and “One foot equals twelve inches.” are also both true.

In trying to posit a Theory of Meaning, if I believe that what I am trying to do is locate and identify the meaning of my words, my project will be doomed from the start.

There is no such thing as meaning, just as there is no such thing as language. If that's what you mean by meaning. What is the criteria for meaning? For meaning is not a quality of a sentence, like its grammar can be.

Notes from This Last Week in October

These last few posts, as well as the majority of the posts over the next month or two, are all notes for a paper that I am planning for my MA Thesis. The title is going to be "Something About the Meaning of the Word 'Believe'." The idea at this point is to distinguish and define at three different types of belief: (1) The ordinary language use of "belief", (2) The analytic philosophical use of "belief", and (3) Søren Kierkegaard's concept of belief from "Fear and Trembling". Obviously, (or hopefully obviously) these three uses are very different from one another, and so force the question: Why use the same word in all three cases?
Silentio distinguishes between “conceptualizing” and “comprehending.” Maybe these two words are not synonyms, but they are very similar, even etymologically. (And I suspect that that similarity is even stronger in both Danish and German.) But I think that it is revealing to note that part of understanding the concept “faith” is to realize that one cannot understand faith, that it is part of the definition of “faith” that it is outside of the realm of Logos. (Lacan, the Logos speaks, Logos as God as Logos.) This positing of faith places it in the same family of concepts as “God” and “infinity,” a family that could be described as mystical. So I'll use this as a place-holder for Kierkegaard/ Silentio's concept of faith: Mystical Faith. (The capital letters signify that this is a technical term, and so is not, strictly speaking, the same as mystical faith.)
One of my main points is that Mystical Faith is divorced from belief, or from the act of believing (psychologically speaking), or from [my] understanding of the word-concept “believe.” This is Wittgenstein's point, but it is Kierkegaard's also.
Mystical Faith is unjustified and unjustifiable. (It transcends justice, it negates ethics.) “If faith cannot make it into a holy deed to murder one's own son, then let the judgement fall on Abraham as on anyone else.” (Hannay, 60) But doesn't this concept of faith, contrary to how it appears on the surface, actually in synch with our common understanding of faith? Faith is a kind of belief without justification. The common understanding of belief – what I tenatively label as Ordinary Belief – is related to the following word-concepts: “doubt”, “evidence”, “reason”. And these are anathema to Mystical Faith.

October 18, 2007

October 18, 2007: There is actually a very pragmatic reason for why people believe in God. P.I. §472-474: “The character of the belief in the uniformity of nature can be seen most clearly in the case in which we fear what we expect. Nothing could induce me to put my hand into a flame – although after all it is only in the past that I have burnt myself. The belief that fire will burn me is of the same kind as the fear that it will burn me. I shall get burnt if I put my hand in the fire: that is certainty. That is to say: here we see the meaning of certainty. (What it amounts to, not just the meaning of the word “certainty”.)”

It is, in a way, very reasonable to behave in such a way in order to avoid pain. I know what it feels like to be burned, and I am willing to perform some set of actions over and over again (i.e., rituals) in order to avoid being burned. But this is not Mystical Faith. It is its opposite. This is performance, something that sounds akin to the Roman conception of religion. And this does not describe how faith, belief, and religion function today. (Not speaking historically.)

What I am looking for would be something more like a “way of life”. Wittgenstein’s wrong (gasp!) when he says that “nothing could induce me to put my hand into a flame.” Because I would do so if I had been raised to do so. (Sparta)

But this still is not getting close to what I want to know, which is why people feel the need to give reasons for, or to justify, their religious beliefs. And it has something to do with the statement, “The belief that fire will burn me is of the same kind as the fear that it will burn me.” But this does not explain religious belief or faith.

§485: “Justification by experience comes to an end. If it did not it would not be justification.”

What role does doubt play in the sketching out of the structure of these interrelated concepts?

Notes on Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein

Here it is in German, with an alternate English translation: "Was Tarquinius Superbus in seinem Garten mit den Mohnkopfen sprach, verstand der Sohn, aber nicht der Bote."

"What Tarquinius Superbus said in the garden by means of the poppies, the son understood but the messenger did not."

And here is Wittgenstein from Lectures on Religious Belief: "Suppose someone were a believer and said: "I believe in a Last Judgement," and I said: "Well, I'm not so sure. Possibly." You would say that there is an enormous gulf between us. If he said "There is a German aeroplane overhead," and I said "Possibly I'm not so sure," you'd say we were fairly near." (53)

As I have said before, what I am doing here is looking at the many different ways that the word-concept "believe" can move within varying language-games, and how these movements relate to one another, and what the consequences of misuse and misidentifications of these movments are. Fear and Trembling can be used to show the fissure between at least two different language-games that make a different use of the word-concept "believe" and that may, according to Johannes de Silentio, be so radically different that it is utterly impossible for one use to be understandable to another. In a way, it is as if two mutually exclusive concepts are being invoked by the same 'arbitrary sign'. But, pragmatically speaking, this is not true.

On the other hand, I hope to show through Fear and Trembling that ordinary people in ordinary language-games (i.e., not philosophers) are constantly misusing the word-concept "believe". They think that they're talking about that is or at least resembles faith, but they're behaving as if they're talking about whether or not it is raining outside, or whether or not they believe that Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. Or, to use Wittgenstein's example, they're talking about the Last Judgment as if it were a German plane overhead. (I need to resist saying, "They treat it as if it were a fact in the world.")

From Hong and Hong's translation: "Abraham remains silent - but he cannot
speak. Therein lies the distress and anxiety. Even though I go on nightb and day without interruption, if I cannot make myself understood when I speak, than I am not speaking." (113)

[Working definition: A word-concept is an application of a concept within a particular language-game or a set of language-games.]

Fear and Trembling

"What Tarquin the proud said in his garden with the poppy blooms was understood by the son but not by the messenger." - Hamann

Immediately, Kierkegaard, and I am of as now unsure about how I will distinguish between Kierkegaard and Johannes de Silentio, is stating the major themes of Fear and Trembling: 1) That faith has he understands it is a kind of language, a very unique and peculiar kind of language. 2) That this language exists not merely in words, that it is communicated (performed) through particular kinds of actions. 3) That this language can either be understood or mis-understood, and that the nature of this understanding is of fatal importance.

Wittgenstein, Lectures and Conversations, p. 53: Wittgenstein describes this issue of understanding as a kind of gulf that exists between the believer and the non-believer, a gulf which cannot be breached, or at least not in any ordinary way.