03.04.08
Because words are not signs, godammit! And a language is not a system of signs - they behave in completely different ways.
The thought runs as follows: There must be something arbitrary about a word, because it is always possible for us to decide to use a different word than the one that we are using merely conventionally. For example, the English "dog", the French "chien', and the German "Hund" all signify the same thing!
Therefore, the sign is an object of convention. It is inessential - only the thought that is being expressed is necessary.
But this is a gross abuse of the meaning of the word, "arbitrary"! I use the word "dog" here because the conventions within which I was raised, because of my forms of life, because if I want to make myself understood to myself and to others, I must use the word "dog"! And this means that I do not use it arbitrarily! Furthermore, it is a mistake - that is, it leads to certain philosophical confusions - to say that the word "dog" signifies either the object or the concept "dog". (Depending on who you ask and when.)
But it is still true that the relationship between the sign, er, sorry 'word' "dog" and the object that it signifies is not a necessary one. I agree with you that the sign only has a sense insofar as it has a use within a system of signs, but this is importantly different from it having a necessary, non-contingent relationship. The word can only say how things stand, not that they stand.
I don't understand this use of 'arbitrary' of which you speak. If you want to claim that there is one kind of relationships that are arbitrary, and then there is this other kind of relationships that are 'true in every possible world', then you are already speaking nonsense to me! What could possibly fulfill this latter criteria of being necessarily true, true a priori, or true in every possible world?
Only the truths as shown by the propositions of logic.
But the propositions of logic don't actually say anything! They're senseless!
Or nonsense.
So the disagreement rests on what kind of relationship - if any - exists between language and the world. And whether or not we can ever do anything more than just gesture at the world through our language.
The thought runs as follows: There must be something arbitrary about a word, because it is always possible for us to decide to use a different word than the one that we are using merely conventionally. For example, the English "dog", the French "chien', and the German "Hund" all signify the same thing!
Therefore, the sign is an object of convention. It is inessential - only the thought that is being expressed is necessary.
But this is a gross abuse of the meaning of the word, "arbitrary"! I use the word "dog" here because the conventions within which I was raised, because of my forms of life, because if I want to make myself understood to myself and to others, I must use the word "dog"! And this means that I do not use it arbitrarily! Furthermore, it is a mistake - that is, it leads to certain philosophical confusions - to say that the word "dog" signifies either the object or the concept "dog". (Depending on who you ask and when.)
But it is still true that the relationship between the sign, er, sorry 'word' "dog" and the object that it signifies is not a necessary one. I agree with you that the sign only has a sense insofar as it has a use within a system of signs, but this is importantly different from it having a necessary, non-contingent relationship. The word can only say how things stand, not that they stand.
I don't understand this use of 'arbitrary' of which you speak. If you want to claim that there is one kind of relationships that are arbitrary, and then there is this other kind of relationships that are 'true in every possible world', then you are already speaking nonsense to me! What could possibly fulfill this latter criteria of being necessarily true, true a priori, or true in every possible world?
Only the truths as shown by the propositions of logic.
But the propositions of logic don't actually say anything! They're senseless!
Or nonsense.
So the disagreement rests on what kind of relationship - if any - exists between language and the world. And whether or not we can ever do anything more than just gesture at the world through our language.
posted by Joel | 1:09 PM
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