One could put the whole sense of the book perhaps in these words: What can be said at all, can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.But what is it to say something clearly? In Joan Weiner's paper "Theory and Elucidation" there is a nice quotation from Frege:
When a straight line intersects one of two parallel lines, does it always intersect the other? This question, strictly speaking, is one that each person can only answer for himself. I can only say: so long as I understand the words ‘straight line’, ‘parallel’, and ‘intersect’ as I do, I cannot but accept the parallels axiom. If someone else does not accept it, I can only assume that he understands these words differently. Their sense is indissolubly bound up with the axiom of parallels. [Weiner, p. 20]What could be clearer than the axioms of Euclidean geometry? Or that a straight line intersecting one of two parallel lines must also intersect the other? And yet, as Weiner points out, that doesn't mean we can all understand these axioms without elucidation. There is nothing to guarantee that everyone will accept or understand any given such axiom. Recall Frege on "Logic in Mathematics":
Of course we have to be able to count on a meeting of minds, on others’ guessing what we have in mind. But all this precedes the construction of a system and does not belong within a system. In constructing a system it must be assumed that the words have precise Bedeutungen and that we know what they are.Without checking the context of this quotation, I would say that it suggests a three-part distinction: what precedes the construction of a system, the construction of a system, and what is done within a system. As distinct as these three are, they might not always be completely distinct. Wittgenstein's remarks about the riverbed in On Certainty suggest this, but it is quite evident in Frege's work too (as, again, Weiner makes clear). In his work to construct a system he ends up dropping hints and counting on others' guessing what he has in mind. The precise sciences are born of the 'poetic' humanities, most obviously philosophy (most obviously, that is, if we accept the common story that philosophy is the mother discipline from which other disciplines are off-shoots). If we think in terms of a system, game, or calculus, then I'm inclined to say that the expressive arts, works of color and shade, the land of hints and guesses, belong to something like a foundational level or outer sphere, on top of or within which is the level or sphere of construction of the system or rules of the game, and then inside or above that is the working of the system or playing of the game itself. So the expressive arts or poetry or whatever we want to call it provides, or perhaps merely shapes, something like the context needed for the construction of games, systems, etc. This construction in turn is necessary for the use of the system, the playing of the game, etc. And hence mathematicians, logicians, scientists, need poetry.
And there's more. Problems can arise within the game that call for interpretation of the rules, or the introduction of new rules. And in constructing a system or game we can find that we have to resort to the undefined, to communication by non-scientific means. So the levels or spheres are not completely distinct. So science is continuous with poetry, not merely dependent on it but involved in a somewhat fluid relationship with it.
But: a) I need to check the context of the quotation from Frege, b) I need to think about whether he is really right, c) I especially need to be careful to distinguish the expressive arts' belonging to a sphere of communication or human relations on which technical work depends and the more dramatic claim that technical work depends on the expressive arts themselves (if Frege has to do the work of a poet it does not follow that without Goethe there could be no Frege, or anything like that), d) what about Wittgenstein on saying things clearly? I might get to that in my next post.
I’m not sure I understand the idea that mathematics needs poetry as a context. I mean, I think I understand the idea of mathematic being in need of a context, and to that extent I’m sympathetic to the idea that it is. But why is it not enough for mathematics—assuming it really needs a context—to have our daily lives in the background? Why is it not enough for it, for example, that we go to the grocery store and buy things, and pay for them, and that it matters to us whether we bought one or two bags of potatoes, and that it matters to us how much they cost? Why does mathematics need poetry? Does poetry function as a context for mathematics in a way that is different from the grocery store situation? Would mathematics not be what it is if it weren’t for poetry?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Reshef. I think the answer is that mathematics does not need poetry.
ReplyDeleteYou might then wonder why I suggested otherwise, to which I'll give three answers:
1. I'm thinking out loud here, and probably clicked 'publish' too early even for a mere blog post
2. your concern is one reason why I wrote that "I especially need to be careful to distinguish the expressive arts' belonging to a sphere of communication or human relations on which technical work depends and the more dramatic claim that technical work depends on the expressive arts themselves". I meant that the former claim is the one I want to make, not the latter, dramatic-but-probably-false claim.
3. I'm using (or trying to use) the word 'poetry' as Frege uses it, or in a sense inspired by what he says about poetry and its connection with shading and hinting and so on. I have in mind passages like this one: "What are called the humanities are closer to poetry, and are therefore less scientific, than the exact sciences, which are drier in proportion to being more exact; for exact science is directed toward truth and truth alone. Therefore all constituents of sentences not covered by the assertoric force do not belong to scientific exposition; but they are sometimes hard to avoid, even for one who sees the danger connected with them."
By 'poetry', then, I mean something like the soggy end of language, the one opposite from the dry, exact, scientific end.
So now your question becomes one about the relation between this and grocery shopping, and that's a very difficult but interesting question. It has to do with whether we shop like zombies (I'm thinking of Stephen Mulhall's discussion of the shopkeeper and shopper in Inheritance and Originality), or like the people in Wittgenstein's example who buy and sell wood in strange ways, or like normal people. It has, I suppose I am saying, to do with what constitutes normality. Or, what might be the same point made a different way, it has to do with the context of mathematics. This has to do with things mattering to us, with what things these are, and with the ways in which we care about them. The orientation of our lives at least potentially makes a difference to our mathematics.
But this is getting obscure, at least to me. Mostly my answer is: good point, I should not have said that.
It is very interesting to think about connections like that.
ReplyDeleteI think I need an example: an example through which I could trace the (or a) connection between mathematics and poetry.
Do you think of the connection here as like, perhaps, the connection between religion and ethics, or between the moral and the legal? Or is the relation of a different type?
Also, are you saying that poetry is somehow more basic (a more basic language game?) than mathematics? Or that it belongs in a sphere that is more basic than mathematics—one to which mathematics is supposed to be responsive to?
And also, are you saying that mathematics is not, as it were, self-contained: that it requires a basis, somehow, and a whole life of communication and relations in its background? Or perhaps, you are saying that this just is how mathematics is for us, as opposed to a tribe who would use the same signs and equations, but for whom there was something different in the background—something different to which mathematics was responsive?
Perhaps you should also say something about how you understand the idea of ‘domain.’ You talk of ‘a sphere of communication or human relations,’ and you talk about the distinction between mathematics and poetry. Do you think of each as a self-contained language game? Or as a self-contained family of language games? Or are you thinking about the distinction in some other way?
Sorry for all the questions. Only answer those that you find useful.
Thanks, Reshef. It's helpful to be challenged (in a friendly way) like this, but precisely because your questions are good ones I can't answer them all easily. Let me try to respond as well as I can (which in at least some cases will not be very well at all) to each thing you say. I'll have to do so in two parts.
ReplyDeleteI think I need an example: an example through which I could trace the (or a) connection between mathematics and poetry.
The example I have in mind is Frege's work, which led him from mathematics to philosophy and, in doing philosophy, to rely at certain key points on the kind of hints that he associates with poetry, as in his reference to "the hints of the poets" in "On Sinn and Bedeutung." Wittgenstein and Russell might be good examples too. Frege might have made a mistake here, which is why I say in my last paragraph that I need to think about whether he's right, but I think he is right that mathematics cannot be explained or learned without some reliance on catching on, on seeing what is meant without being explicitly told every step. We have to grasp the rules in a way that is not a matter of interpreting them. And uses of language that help others grasp in this way are what I am, probably misleadingly, calling poetry. I'll try to say more about this below.
Do you think of the connection here as like, perhaps, the connection between religion and ethics, or between the moral and the legal? Or is the relation of a different type?
It is of a different type, as I hope will come out elsewhere.
Also, are you saying that poetry is somehow more basic (a more basic language game?) than mathematics? Or that it belongs in a sphere that is more basic than mathematics—one to which mathematics is supposed to be responsive to?
Yes, I think I am. Although it's important to note the very broad sense of 'poetry' at work here. Writing sonnets is no more basic than mathematics. Technical uses of language are more sophisticated than expressive uses and in some not merely historical sense come later than them. (Or so I think.)
Part II.
ReplyDeleteAnd also, are you saying that mathematics is not, as it were, self-contained: that it requires a basis, somehow, and a whole life of communication and relations in its background?
Tentatively, yes. I can't imagine mathematics, or mathematics that really was mathematics and not just something that looked remarkably like it, without some such background. But I don't want to commit to any foundationalist hypothesis.
Or perhaps, you are saying that this just is how mathematics is for us, as opposed to a tribe who would use the same signs and equations, but for whom there was something different in the background—something different to which mathematics was responsive?
I'm not sure how to distinguish mathematics from mathematics-as-it-is-for-us. I'm sure there's room for some variation or deviance from what we know as mathematics, but any activity or discipline that was too far removed might not be recognizable as mathematics. And then if someone asked whether it was really mathematics or not I might not know what to say. I'm sure it wouldn't matter what I said. (It might matter what mathematicians said, but they might disagree.)
Perhaps you should also say something about how you understand the idea of ‘domain.’ You talk of ‘a sphere of communication or human relations,’ and you talk about the distinction between mathematics and poetry. Do you think of each as a self-contained language game? Or as a self-contained family of language games? Or are you thinking about the distinction in some other way?
I am thinking of mathematics as a pretty self-contained, but not absolutely self-contained, language game or family of language games. But I am thinking of poetry in too broad a sense to be usefully thought of that way, I think. By 'poetry' I mean something like indirect communication. Metaphor is an important part of what I'm trying to talk about. In science, in the law, and in mathematics, we want precision, explicitness, as much clarity as possible. Metaphor, indirection, hints, and the like do not really belong. In contrast, it seems to belong to the essence of the expressive arts, and perhaps poetry (in the normal sense of the word) in particular, not to be precise or explicit in that kind of way. The purpose is not the same. Art is about something like a meeting of minds in a way that science and mathematics are not. I don't know whether it's possible to have indirect communication without direct communication, metaphor without literal statements. It seems not when I put it that way. But my concern here is more with whether it's possible to have direct, explicit, technical communication or language games without some meeting of minds, without some grasping. Frege appears to think you can't. And I think I agree.
Thanks Duncan. That helps a lot.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if you can say more about what ‘poetry’ in the wide, Fregean, sense is. I’m not sure, but I think that even in your posts you described several uses of language—several language games—that would fall under “poetry” in the wide sense. To the extent that you agree, I was wondering if you thought that one of those language games is connected to the idea of seeing the sign in the symbol. Perhaps: one thing we do with language, which we could call “poetry,” is to show a symbol in a sign. I’m not sure how to answer that, and I need your help. Here is my confusion:
On the one hand, when I try to wrap my head around this wide idea of poetry, it seems to me that it is connected to the idea that we are attuned to be responsive in certain ways to the world—to see certain things for instance: to see a facial expression and not just geometrical relations, or to see words and not just ink-marks. This attunement is a transcendental condition for communication, and perhaps thinking in general. Now, it sounds like the wide idea of poetry is meant, among other things, to denote some language game whose point is to capture this attunement. Is this right?
On the other hand, if we take the resolute party line, to see a sign in a symbol is simply to function with it in a certain way, as embedded in a practical grammatical network. In this conception, the symbol is only visible in a sign in a significant use, and to make a symbol visible in a sign is simply to function with it meaningfully (how else?). And if this conception is right, it is a bit weird, if not simply confused, to talk of a language game—apart from other language games—whose point is to make the symbol visible in the sign. I mean, the very idea sounds as if we could pause language, pause the game, suspend the flow of give and take with words, suspend thought, attune ourselves in poetry, and then go back.
I’m drawn in both directions.
Thanks, Reshef. I don't think it can be quite right to say that "the wide idea of poetry is meant, among other things, to denote some language game whose point is to capture this attunement." You're absolutely right that the idea of poetry that I'm working with "is connected to the idea that we are attuned to be responsive in certain ways to the world—to see certain things for instance: to see a facial expression and not just geometrical relations, or to see words and not just ink-marks." But, basically for the reasons you give, it won't work to call it a language game. Beyond that I'm not really sure what to say at this point. It has to do with creativity, with metaphor, with hinting, with guiding, and with expression, but I'm not sure that any of this is a language game, nor that together they form a language game or set of language games. I have to think about this.
ReplyDeleteI'll be away for a day or so, but I'll try to respond more fully when I get back.
I still don't have a proper response, but here's some more. As well as Frege I am thinking of Richard Rorty, and the kind of thing he says in this essay. For instance:
ReplyDeleteIn an essay called "Pragmatism and Romanticism" I tried to restate the argument of Shelley's "Defense of Poetry." At the heart of Romanticism, I said, was the claim that reason can only follow paths that the imagination has first broken. No words, no reasoning. No imagination, no new words. No such words, no moral or intellectual progress.
I ended that essay by contrasting the poet's ability to give us a richer language with the philosopher's attempt to acquire non-linguistic access to the really real. Plato's dream of such access was itself a great poetic achievement. But by Shelley's time, I argued, it had been dreamt out. We are now more able than Plato was to acknowledge our finitude — to admit that we shall never be in touch with something greater than ourselves. We hope instead that human life here on earth will become richer as the centuries go by because the language used by our remote descendants will have more resources than ours did. Our vocabulary will stand to theirs as that of our primitive ancestors stands to ours.
In that essay, as in previous writings, I used "poetry" in an extended sense. I stretched Harold Bloom's term "strong poet" to cover prose writers who had invented new language games for us to play — people like Plato, Newton, Marx, Darwin, and Freud as well as versifiers like Milton and Blake.
This is what inclines me to think that poetry comes before technical language, even though I think of poetry as connected with metaphor, which seems to be parasitic on established uses of language. So I'm torn and will have to think about this more.
Finally, I think of poetry as having to do with, or being like, play. It isn't really a language game of its own, but it can come into any (or at least many) other language games. There are many activities I can carry out and incorporate into them the occasional joke or flourish or bit of whimsy. I'm not doing something else when I do this, just doing the same thing differently. But that's different from inventing a new language game, so I need to get clear about the extent to which Rorty and Frege are saying the same thing and the extent to which they are different. And then decide where I stand in relation to them.
Do you have something like this in mind:
ReplyDeleteDo you think that we can follow up on Wittgenstein saying that games have rules but also a point, and say that poetry has a point but no rules?
Also, do you think of poetry as preparatory in the sense that it establishes rules for the use of words and language?
I think the answer is: Yes and No. Yes, I'm inclined to say that poetry has a point but no rules. Perhaps I'll go back on that later, but I like this way of putting it. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't think of poetry as preparatory in the sense that it establishes rules for the use of words and language. Perhaps it prepares the way for such rules, or suggests a use that might (come to) be rule-governed. Here's an example. I think it was Dylan Thomas who first described something as "Bible-black." This combination of words brings together two things that do seem to go together but that had never (let's assume) been explicitly or perhaps even consciously connected before. I believe the expression caught on and even became something of a cliche. But Thomas didn't make the expression catch on, he just got lucky (or unlucky, if its catching on spoils his poem for future readers). There are no rules for bringing together concepts in this kind of way, but doing so does not create new rules. How should we go on with an expression after just one use of it? We seem to need at least two instances if we are to extrapolate. But the expression is suggestive, and might inspire future uses even if it cannot in any way dictate them.
This connection with innovation and founding is the kind of thing Rorty associates with poetry. The connection with inspiration rather than dictation, with indirect communication, with hinting rather than explicitly stating, is what Frege associates with it. I think I want both, but I might be being greedy (and incoherent) in doing so.
Thanks for the Dylan Thomas example. I think that one of the sources of the unclarity for me was that so much happens in poetry—so many things are done—and the example helps putting things in focus. So thanks again.
ReplyDeleteTwo related questions about the example:
1. Do you think that what Dylan Thomas did is different from simply coining a new term? If so, how? Or is it a special kind of term-coinage?
2. You say that bringing together concepts like in the Dylan Thomas example does not create rules. I need more convincing about this: On the face of it, at least, it seems that the term ‘bible-black’ is (internally) associated with a certain normativity: some things are and some things aren’t bible-black, for instance, and I assume that we can find here other features that normally characterize normativity. Is this different from creating rules? Is this a special kind of creating rules? – Or perhaps you have in mind something that the term does IN ADDITION to all that, something that other terms do not do?
Sorry for my hardheadedness.
No, you're not being hardheaded. I'm just cloudy. Anyway...
ReplyDeleteYes, I think Thomas is doing more than coining a new term. He's putting two things together: the Bible, or the idea of the Bible, and the colour black, or the idea of blackness. He's implying that the two go together, not merely in the sense that many Bibles happen to have black covers. It's a rather critical characterization of Christianity, or at least the form of it he was most familiar with. He is blackening the reputation of Christianity, if you like, while also, perhaps, Christianizing darkness. But he isn't doing this by making up lies about Christianity or reporting on truths that Christians would prefer to be kept secret. He's using a metaphor: the starless sky was black, like a Bible. As a simile this is superficially straightforward: a starless sky really is black, and so are many Bibles. But there's more to the metaphor than that. He didn't choose a Bible at random, thinking that any black object would do. So what more is there? I think it's impossible to say in any explicit and exhaustive way. All that you associate with black--associate that now with all that you associate with the Bible. That's the kind of thing he's getting the reader to do. (Of course it's possible to reject the idea as silly, or not silly but blasphemous.)
I don't see this as creating a rule. A rule for what? Of course, he might have hit upon a shade of black not previously recognized by paint manufacturers, but that isn't the main thing he's up to. The main thing is he's working on our psychology, or trying to anyway. And he's doing so in a way that I find interesting, because there isn't something he's saying that can really be judged true or false, I think, but it's close enough to that that it would make sense to talk about him getting something right or wrong. We might say that he has a false picture of Christianity. But he isn't making a false claim, because he isn't making a claim at all (except that the night sky and a Bible were the same colour, which is true).
This kind of psychological working with language, that lies somewhere between nonsense and the straightforward stating of facts, is (at least one example of) what I have in mind when I talk about poetry.
I’m not sure I understand why you don’t want to say that Thomas coined a term. Granted, to discover that certain things are bible-black is not like discovering a new species, and coming up with a name for it. But I take it (tell me if you think I’m wrong) that the term is meant to draw people’s attention to, and to help them capture, a feature of things that they find interesting or useful to mark and be sensitive to—a feature they did not have a word for before. And if this is the case, then why not just say that he coined a term? What is lost by that?
ReplyDeleteI’m not sure I see where you think the main difference is between what Thomas did, and coining a term. Is it in the way he came up with the term? Is it in the fact, for instance, that a metaphor was used in the invention of this term? Is it in the fact that the term is not arbitrary? – If so, then why not say just this: that in this case the term was coined by, for example, some implicit appeal to the associations that the words “bible” and “black” have for us? Is there something more going on that this description falsifies?
About rules: I might have a different understanding of the notion of rules. I took it to be wide enough to cover any kind of normativity. So, for instance, although perhaps the term ‘bible-black’ might not help an upholsterer to know which color I want my chair in (I don’t see a reason to think that it cannot help in principle), but the important thing is that it does, as you say, help us to get certain things right. And we might get things wrong too—we might misapply the term. It is not that everything is bible-black. And although what is and what is not bible black is also determined by the kind of feel an object has, and the kind of situation it is in, and the kind of mood we are in when we are looking at it, and so on, it seems to me that there is (is it possible for there not to be?) normativity here, and in this sense rules. I’m not sure what is your objection to saying this. Granted, this does not capture everything that is interesting about this case, but is there something that this description cannot but falsify?
Perhaps you are just interested in the unique features of this case and other cases like it—which is certain interesting and valuable—and I keep dragging you to connect it to other more mundane phenomena. Perhaps I am doing this because I think the comparison and the contrasts with the mundane things I’m mentioning could help me better understand the interesting stuff you describe.
I don't mind saying that Thomas coined a new term. In fact, that is what he did. But I don't want to say that this is all he did, precisely because he used a metaphor in doing so. Maybe I'm being too fussy there. I was thinking of some of the names that people give to colours, like yellow number 5, and how different bible-black is from that kind of name. Also, he hasn't identified a new colour and given it a name; he has invented a new name for a colour (and not really a specific colour, it seems to me). To call the sky bible-black seems more like saying the sky was as black as a Bible, i.e. more like simply using a metaphor, than like coming up with a new word for black. But having said all that, he actually is coining a new word, and every name has some sort of feel (or tone or colouring) to it. Even "yellow number 5," which is really a dye rather than a colour, has not no feel but a technical kind of feel to it. So yes, Thomas is coining a new word. But not arbitrarily.
ReplyDeleteAs for rules, I think I had in mind something narrower than something that covers any kind of normativity. If I am the first person to describe something as tortilla-flat, does this create a rule? Have I even introduced a new term, or just coined an expression that may or may not be taken up (and I may or may not want or intend it to be taken up by others or by myself in future)? I don't know what to say about this. I don't think I want to say that every use of a new metaphor is the coining of a new term, but I don't know what harm would be done by saying that. The expression tortilla-flat suggests both flatness (sorry for stating the obvious, but I'm trying to think this through) and some connection with tortillas. So it could be used wrongly in two ways: the thing described is really not that flat (although, of course, there will be a grey area here), or the thing described, while flat, just has nothing to do with tortillas, the introduction of that image is inapt (I can't think of an example--perhaps if someone described an actual tortilla as tortilla-flat that would be a mistake). In other words, there is normativity here. The expression can be used well or badly. But I don't feel like saying that there is a rule for its use. It seems more like the invention of a new musical instrument. The sounds it makes might suggest certain uses, but someone who slaps a guitar as well as strumming it isn't breaking the rules. Or so I would say. Perhaps the first person who ever slapped a guitar was regarded as breaking the rules. Or perhaps slapping was always part of what one did with guitars. I think of rules as having to be established by a certain practice (including, I suppose, the practice of making rules by explicitly stating them, like the rules at a swimming pool--those could be freshly invented but would still count as rules if listed on a notice board). And I don't think there is an established practice about what to do with new metaphors. Some become part of the language, some are only used once. And those that do become part of the language do so organically, unpredictably, I would think, not really in accordance with what I would think of calling a rule.
Does that make sense and/or sound right?
Thanks Duncan.
ReplyDeleteBut now you got me greedy. I want to hear more about why you think the way a term was coined matters? How, for instance, you think it affects the application of the term, if at all? In particular what effect does the fact that a term was coined through a metaphor have on the normativity involved in the application of the term?
I also want to hear more about your ideas about rules, and rule-following. You seem to want to make the following contrast: as opposed to ‘yellow number 5’ whose application is rule governed, the application of ‘bible-black’ is not. – is this right?
Assuming it is, is it part of your conception that rules can be followed blindly? I mean, is it the same kind of blindness that characterizes the operation of a machine? – The reason why I ask is this: if it is not part of your conception that rules are followed blindly, and if there is a difference between using the term ‘bible-black’ well or badly, then I’m not sure what there is to stop us from saying that by coining the term Thomas also invented a new rule, or established a practice. What is the grammatical difference between the use of a metaphor and what you call ‘a practice’? I’m still not sure I see the difference as clearly as I want to.
Perhaps part of the answer has to do with the idea of blindness: That is, perhaps your idea is that although some kind of blindness (perhaps different than machine-blindness, but I feel I need a better characterization) could characterize, or normally characterizes, the application of ‘yellow number 5,’ the application of ‘bible-black’ is not marked by this kind of (non-machine) blindness. – As you can see I’m very vague on this.
Perhaps another part of the answer maybe in this thing you say about inventing the ‘bible-black’ term being like the invention of a musical instrument. I really want to understand this. It sounds very important. I’m not sure how to use this metaphor, though, and I need some guidance. In particular, I need a comparison. What would be the corresponding metaphor for the invention of ‘yellow number 5’?
There is another issue concerning Rorty. It is related, but I’m not sure is it immediately related. I was wondering about the relation, and the magnitude of the agreement between you and Rorty on a particular point. Although you don’t want to say that the application of metaphor is rule-governed, you seem to accept that there is normativity involved. Rorty, as far as I recall, thinks of metaphors as mere sounds that have a typical effect on their audience, but do not have any semantics. Although he thinks they may become semantic, normative, entities, once they congeal, and become part of the rule-governed language game, he doesn’t think that this is how they begin their life.
Is this a fair description of your view? Of Rorty’s? If so, I was wondering if you thought of this as a difference, or perhaps as just a difference of emphasis.
Sorry for being greedy for asking you to say so much. I should pace myself.
I don't know whether you'll be satisfied with these answers, but here goes.
ReplyDeletewhat effect does the fact that a term was coined through a metaphor have on the normativity involved in the application of the term?
I think it complicates the application in the following way. If I invent a word like 'aluminum' to name a substance I have discovered, then this name applies to this substance in a relatively straightforward way. But if I call something that is black 'bible-black' then anyone using this term in future ought to do so only if the thing being described is black and only if the thing described is somehow appropriately linked with the Bible (or a specifically biblical kind of blackness, not just any blackness).
You seem to want to make the following contrast: as opposed to ‘yellow number 5’ whose application is rule governed, the application of ‘bible-black’ is not. – is this right?
I think that's right, yes. (Am I walking into some kind of trap here?) I think why I say this will become clear below. By the way, strictly speaking 'yellow number 5' is the name of a dye, but I want to use it as if it were the name of a specific shade of yellow.
is it part of your conception that rules can be followed blindly? I mean, is it the same kind of blindness that characterizes the operation of a machine? [...] What is the grammatical difference between the use of a metaphor and what you call ‘a practice’?
I'm reluctant to say that rules can be followed blindly, because it seems possible that a borderline or otherwise difficult case might arise and call for judgment. In that case blindly following would not be possible. But difficult cases are much more likely, I think, with some rules than with others. I can imagine a robot being programmed to identify yellow number 5 quite successfully. I cannot imagine a robot that could successfully tell when to call something bible-black (unless that name became nothing more than a label for a specific shade of black). I also think that this is quite important, that the difference between robots and human beings in terms of our ability to handle metaphor is significant.
Continued...
ReplyDeletePerhaps another part of the answer maybe in this thing you say about inventing the ‘bible-black’ term being like the invention of a musical instrument. I really want to understand this. It sounds very important. I’m not sure how to use this metaphor, though, and I need some guidance. In particular, I need a comparison. What would be the corresponding metaphor for the invention of ‘yellow number 5’?
It probably sounds more important than it is. The corresponding metaphor for the invention of yellow number 5 would be the invention of a specific tool or piece of equipment for doing a specific job. If you buy the kind of furniture that you have to put together yourself you often get an Allen wrench with it (I think that's the name) that is just the right size and shape for the job. A piano is not like that (or so, at least, I was thinking when I came up with the analogy). As far as I know, pianos were first invented and then people started to write music for them. There was no prior demand for a machine to make precisely those sounds. So the piano wasn't a means to an end in that way, although of course it was intended to be a means to some unspecified musical end. And I think that composers have written different kinds of music because of the different kinds of instruments available. Allen wrenches don't inspire the same kind of creativity.
Rorty, as far as I recall, thinks of metaphors as mere sounds that have a typical effect on their audience, but do not have any semantics. Although he thinks they may become semantic, normative, entities, once they congeal, and become part of the rule-governed language game, he doesn’t think that this is how they begin their life.
Is this a fair description of your view? Of Rorty’s?
That's how I remember Rorty's view too. It sounds wrong to me (although I don't think in terms of what does or does not have semantics). There's a difference between sound poetry (mere sounds) and regular poetry. And there's a difference between the poems of John Ashbery (obscure, for want of a better word) and those of Wendy Cope (much less so). Sounds matter in all poems, but they matter more when that's all there is to the poem, I would think. I wouldn't want to have to characterize the ways that words mean in poems though: literally, metaphorically, tonally(?), etc... Pictures are important, but that's a metaphor itself.
Does that help? It's helping me to work this out, so thank you.
(Sorry, by the way, that I haven't commented on your blog lately. Your most recent questions are very good ones, it seems to me, but I don't have good (or, in most cases, any) answers to offer. If I think of any I will let you know.)
One picture I get from what you write is of a particular division of labor regarding language: first come the poets and create the basic categories that capture rudimentary forms of interest in things, then come grammarians and make distinctions, and organize, and regulate.
ReplyDeleteThe description of the poet’s activity certainly has a different taste than that of the grammarian. But the truth is that I don’t quite see the division yet. I’m not sure I can quite see two different activities. For don’t regulation and organization capture particular forms of interest in things (to organize them, and regulate them)? Isn’t this exactly what they are—forms of interest? Perhaps I need a more detailed description of the contrast between the activities of the poet, and that of the grammarian—a grammatical contrast. For instance, is the distinction supposed to be between the creation of the rules of the language game, and the playing of the language game according to those rules? – I think that this is more or less what Rorty is after (does this seem to you fair?), but it doesn’t seem to me that this is quite what you are saying. For I think I can sense in what you say that you don’t want to say that the poet creates rules: She is not that kind of legislator. Is this right?
If this is right, then perhaps my whole problem is that I don’t see clearly what that other kind of legislation amounts to. Perhaps, what would help me is if you made a distinction between the two kinds of legislation. Perhaps in the contrast, I’d be able to finally see what you think the poet is supposed to be doing.
Part of my misunderstanding, I think, can be traced to the things you say about following rules. You say that you are “reluctant to say that rules can be followed blindly.” But the reason you give for that sounds to me not as strong as it could be: “because it seems possible that a borderline or otherwise difficult case might arise and call for judgment.” I feel the need for a stronger reason, because my question was meant to apply to the application of rules in non-borderline cases as well. For example, is stopping at a red light done blindly? My sense is that there is a distinction between the way living creatures follow rules, and the way robots do it. Figuratively, robots are soul-less; we aren’t. For us, following the rule goes through understanding the rule, participating in the activity of which the rule is part, making the cogwheels of our mind engage with the activity, and letting them be animated by it. So my sense is that the activity, even when it is rule governed, has a life for us, and that therefore THIS cannot be where the difference is between rule-governed activities and metaphors. Perhaps, however, you disagree. But if you don’t, I don’t quite see where you think the difference is.
Perhaps I can also say it this way: I don’t want to deny that there is a difference between the Allen-wrench and the piano. But it seems to me that you want to say that it is a deep difference, whereas so far all I can see is a difference in degree. I’m frustrated by that, because I share your sense that the difference is deep.
(Don’t worry about my blog. If I wait enough time, and then read stuff I wrote, I’m almost always alarmed to hear this internal monologue of mine. It strikes me as uninviting, and unconversational. As if I can only write (or think) in a laying-down-the-law tone. I’m just in the early stages of learning how to have a blog. For the time being, every time I write something it feels like airing my mind, as you would a mattress. However, since my mind has apparently never been aired before, it remains very stuffy. I can’t blame anyone for not feeling like engaging with it. I only hope that the comments I write here in your blog don’t have the same feel, although I know they probably do.)
Apologies for my delay in replying--I wanted to think a bit first. I don't know that it has paid off, but here goes.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I need a more detailed description of the contrast between the activities of the poet, and that of the grammarian—a grammatical contrast.
There are several different activities that might be worth distinguishing: the creation of a new language game, the playing of that language game, and the description of that language game, for instance. Rorty thinks of poets as creators, including creators of language games. But he thinks that when someone is original their originality might be followed by others (these people we call geniuses) or not (as with people we regard as crazy). I don't know whether he actually says this anywhere, but I would think that some people might be regarded as both crazy and geniuses, some people might be regarded as original and non-crazy, but not quite geniuses, and so on. In other words, I don't think we need to take Rorty as insisting on a neat and black-and-white distinction such that every piece of originality is either brilliant or crazy. But perhaps that's beside the point.
One thing that interest me is the process of new ideas being taken up. I don't think this happens at random, and I don't think "poets" can make their ideas be taken up. It's perhaps a bit like fishing or getting a kite to fly: there are no ways to guarantee success, but there is some skill to getting a bite. It's the originality itself plus this kind of skill that I associate with "poets" more than the creation of a language game. The sport of rugby was supposedly invented when, during a soccer game, one of the players just picked up the ball and ran with it. That's the kind of thing that is either genius or insanity (or some lesser version of one of those things). If some committee was then established to write up a set of rules for the game, I'd be less inclined to call that poetry or genius. (Although I suppose a committee can have genius, as the production of the King James version of the Bible suggests.) Grammarians, I take it, set out to describe the rules of existing language games. The games themselves are created by some combination of "poets", grammarians, and more or less ordinary people who act on the suggestions or innovations of the "poets".
An example might help. Take philosophy. Who was the first Greek philosopher? It's hard to say. If we choose Thales or Socrates, did he create the language game of philosophy? Not in anything like its final form (if there is such a thing). Thales would not have anticipated Socrates. And Socrates would probably not have anticipated Plato, who in turn might not have anticipated Aristotle (even if he saw him develop before his eyes). A new language game emerged, and we can try to trace its origin, but it wasn't created as a complete game all at once. If we now try to say what philosophy is, what the rules of this language game are, we will be partly describing a practice but (probably) partly also moralizing about how the game ought to be played. This might involve some originality. So the distinction between originating a new game and describing, or analyzing, the rules of the game, might not be absolute. But there is still a difference, it seems to me. Dictionaries both guide and describe uses of words, but Shakespeare's coining of new words is a different activity than writing a dictionary. Even if it isn't completely different, or if the difference is hard to describe.
Part II:
ReplyDeleteMy sense is that there is a distinction between the way living creatures follow rules, and the way robots do it.
You are quite right. Robots do not follow rules in the sense that we do, because they don't understand rules. But there are rules, and one can follow them, sometimes quite mechanically. Perhaps there are rules for applying metaphors (though surely not for creating them?), but these will be different from the kind of rules one can follow mechanically. You might object that no rule can literally be followed mechanically, but I'm not speaking literally. 'Add 2' is much more mechanical, much simpler, much less ambiguous, than 'compare with a deer only what is like a deer.' The difference might be one of degree, but it's still real. Isn't it? A robot might not literally follow the rule 'add 2,' but a) robots can do something that looks very much like following this rule, and b) people can follow rules like this in a robotic kind of way. Identifying what is or is not like a deer is not like that. Like in what way? The same goes for using some words that are not metaphorical. What is respectful behavior in a church? What lines in paintings are graceful? I think seeing similarities is still involved in these cases. And in a sense of "seeing similarities" that is not machine-like.
I don’t want to deny that there is a difference between the Allen-wrench and the piano. But it seems to me that you want to say that it is a deep difference, whereas so far all I can see is a difference in degree. I’m frustrated by that, because I share your sense that the difference is deep.
It might be a difference in degree, but can't it still be deep? I think this has to do with Sartre's distinction between things whose essence precedes their existence and things for which this order is reversed. The Allen wrench has its essence first. But sometimes (and I think the piano is one of these cases) something is invented and only then is a use worked out for it. Sometimes it might be that a new kind of plastic is invented in a lab, and then commercial applications might be found. If only one of these is profitable, then the plastic might start being manufactured simply for that purpose. In which case we are close to the Allen wrench case again. But a piano is not like this. Its primary uses are all musical, true, but the creation of music is not like the tightening of a nut or bolt. There is more room for creativity and play. The end is less clear. A piano is still a kind of tool, but it is more like a human being than an Allen wrench is. It is less clearly a means to a specific end, that is to say.
Part III
ReplyDeleteI’m just in the early stages of learning how to have a blog. For the time being, every time I write something it feels like airing my mind, as you would a mattress. However, since my mind has apparently never been aired before, it remains very stuffy. I can’t blame anyone for not feeling like engaging with it. I only hope that the comments I write here in your blog don’t have the same feel, although I know they probably do.
I don't know how to have a blog. I like to think of this as a kind of work, but I'm often kidding myself when I think that. Clearly some/most of what I post is either not philosophy at all or at least not serious philosophy. If I insisted on posting only things worth posting, I might never post anything. On the other hand, when I get too whimsical I feel guilty about wasting the time of the people who regularly visit the blog. So I try to mix it up and hope it works out. Sometimes very light material starts up a serious discussion, which makes it hard to predict what is worth posting and what should be saved for Facebook.
This isn't the only way to run a blog though, of course. Yours doesn't seem stuffy or uninviting to me. The easiest comment to make is always "No, you're wrong!" and I never think that when I read your posts. That's the main reason why I don't comment more. And your comments here are always extremely welcome and helpful.
This is really interesting. It makes me think a lot.
ReplyDeleteIt now seems to me that I might be able to see another distinction that might be important to you. You distinguish between (1) the creation of a new language game, (2) the playing of that language game, and (3) the description of that language game.” I wonder if you are interested in a distinction between 1 and 3 on the one hand and 2 on the other. Describing and creating may be thought of as meta-activities, activities that essentially involve reflection, albeit of different sorts, and I thought that maybe part of the you want to capture between the grammarian and the poet is a distinction on a meta-level, perhaps a distinction between different sorts of reflection on language. Is this right?
If this is right, then what I need is a better idea of the distinction here. Do you think of the activity of the grammarian as reflecting on language from “side-ways on,” as if reflecting while not at the same time also participating? And is the poet reflecting on language somehow from “within,” while taking herself to be at the same time also participating in the language game? (I have in the background questions about the difference between reflection and participation in general: Is reflection a kind of participation? Can we discern a kind of participating that is not reflective? Is reflection necessary for any language usage? Is there a kind of reflection that is necessary in every language usage?...)
Also, assuming that I have understood, would you say that the difference between the grammarian and the poet is (perhaps among other things) a difference between (a) reflection on language with a view to leave it as it is and (b) reflection on language with a view to changing it? Making the distinction like this would allow you to make one distinction between the way the poet brings about changes in the language game and the way the grammarian may do it. My idea is that it will allow you to say that the poet is trying to change the game, to add something, to shape something. And essentially, she has a REASON for this. (Although there are all sorts of questions about the reasoning involved.) At the same time, you can say that although the grammarian is not TRYING to change anything, her activity may yet CAUSE a change in how people play the language game, perhaps almost as an unintended, but not necessarily unwelcome byproduct—-as formulating the rules of rugby might bring about a kind of clarity that would make people play differently, or even allow them to question some rules, and so on. Does this track your intentions?
I have another related question about the idea of clarity in the use of language. The activity of the grammarian, as you describe it, brings about a kind of clarity about language. Do you also think that there is another kind of clarity that the poet may bring about? – If so, what makes this clarity distinct?
Thanks, Reshef. The main thing I want to say to all of this is, Yes. But let me try to expand on that a bit.
DeleteDescribing and creating may be thought of as meta-activities, activities that essentially involve reflection, albeit of different sorts, and I thought that maybe part of the you want to capture between the grammarian and the poet is a distinction on a meta-level, perhaps a distinction between different sorts of reflection on language. Is this right?
I think this is right, but I'm confusing myself by switching back and forth in my thinking between the kind of ground-breaking, inventing a language game, kind of poetry and the Dylan Thomas kind. When someone invents rugby or psychoanalysis or calculus I don't know whether they are reflecting on language. But perhaps they are. Perhaps their invention is a response to some lack they perceive. And when a Dylan Thomas invents a new metaphor, is that the same thing? It might be thought of as reflecting on language and perceiving a way to provide for some perceived hole in the language. So maybe they are the same. Or similar enough to be worth grouping together.
Do you think of the activity of the grammarian as reflecting on language from “side-ways on,” as if reflecting while not at the same time also participating? And is the poet reflecting on language somehow from “within,” while taking herself to be at the same time also participating in the language game?
Yes, exactly. Your questions about reflection and participation are good ones, but I don't have answers now.
Also, assuming that I have understood, would you say that the difference between the grammarian and the poet is (perhaps among other things) a difference between (a) reflection on language with a view to leave it as it is and (b) reflection on language with a view to changing it?
Yes.
Do you also think that there is another kind of clarity that the poet may bring about? – If so, what makes this clarity distinct?
I'm not sure about this, but I want to say that the grammarian restricts while the poet expands. A grammarian, I think, looks at uses of language and then, in codifying them, rules some out as illegitimate. Or at least does not add anything not already there. (Although it might be there only implicitly.) The poet adds something new, although perhaps this something is somehow already implicitly there, which might explain its reception. A new term like 'bible-black' might add clarity by bringing out something that people already feel, but only obscurely. A new game might answer to some already felt need. So the difference between the grammarian and the poet might not be absolute, but it's at least a difference of focus or emphasis, or purpose.
Part II
ReplyDeleteAbout the distinction between the piano and the Allen Wrench: one thing that confuses me a bit here is that people can be creative with Allen wrenches. I have in mind the use of saws as musical instruments, for example. I’m not sure, but it seems to me that the distinction you are after is not really a distinction between things, tools, but between USES of tools. So, for instance, if I understand-—correct me if I’m wrong—-to make the distinction you are interested in, we don’t need to talk about two things (piano and the Allen Wrench); we can equally talk about different uses of the Allen wrench: creative and non-creative, for specific predetermined end and not for specific predetermined end, uses that tend to elicit surprise and uses that don’t, and so on (although I’m still not sure how to draw this line). Would you agree?
(I don’t think of this as necessarily a criticism Sartre’s distinction, which seem to be a distinction between things. Perhaps we can alternatively say that Sartre’s distinction still captures a difference of use, but does that in a metaphysical mode. Or do you think he wanted to capture something different, or more? At any rate, it sounds implausible to say that Sartre wouldn’t accept that there is a difference between stencil-like and creative uses of pianos.)
Thanks for what you say about my blog.
Yes, I agree. The important difference is in use. But some things are made to be played with while some are built for a specific purpose. Most saws are not manufactured in order to be used as musical instruments. Some musical instruments and related products are made by people who expect musicians to be able to find uses that they have not yet thought of. But yes, it's the use that really matters, I think.
Delete(And I didn't mean to criticize Sartre. As you say, I'm sure he would have no trouble seeing these differences. I just think his way of making the distinction between paper-knives and people might be helpful here.)
You say that maybe the Dylan Thomas example and the invention of a new language game may be worth grouping together. It seems right that in both cases there is something similar: both are cases of going beyond familiar patterns of language usage. And maybe there are other similarities. For those purposes it may be useful to group them together. But I don’t think you should give up on your intuition. I have a sense that there is something important there. I mean, you are after an important difference. And I’m just interested in the difference now; let’s think about the grouping later.
ReplyDeleteIf I understand, I wonder if you think it might be possible to capture this difference by saying that the point of Dylan Thomas invention was not to create a new pattern of usage. We can say this, even if we accept at the same time that it has in fact led to the creation of such a pattern. What is important is that this was not the main thing Dylan Thomas was after, or perhaps that this was not internal to what he was after. Here, it seems, that Dylan Thomas is different from the inventor of Rugby, for instance. (I don’t know about psychoanalysis. It is complex.)
In any case, if this is right, then the question becomes: what was the point of the invention? If it wasn’t the establishment of a new practice, then what was it? Perhaps—maybe even probably—there is more than one thing to say here. But here is a thought that just came to mind: The invention of ‘bible black’ seem to me not just an addition of a practice, it is the kind of invention that also has an effect, and perhaps would be meant to affect, the way in which we conceive of some of our existing practices. So, for instance, the invention of ‘bible-black’ does not just add a color to our repertoire; it is also a commentary on the category ‘color’ itself. As a result of the invention, it seems, the category ‘color’ changes, or is re-shaped, or is re-thought. And this comes out in the fact that after the invention of ‘bible-black’, what it means to describe the color of things changes. ‘Description of color’ is not exactly as it was before the invention. And it also seems to me that this is part of the intention behind the invention—this re-thinking of the categories is internal to the invention. Maybe this can also be related to the issue of the special kind of clarity that the invention of ‘bible-black’ brings. But in any case, the invention of Rugby does not seem to me like that, or at least it does not seem to me that it would have the tendency to be like that. This does not mean that it cannot have such effects, but it would be strange if the inventor of Rugby had such effects in mind: to make us re-conceive our very idea of what games are.
Psychoanalysis is really different. I’m not sure what to say here. There seem to be a lot that is going on. Psychoanalysis is not just one language game; it is many. I would think that there are probably differences between the effects on how we think about things that the psychoanalytic conception of the unconscious had on the one hand, and the effects that the psychoanalytic conception of the relations between the id ego and superego had on the other. I don’t know enough about that, though.
Thanks, Reshef. I don't know enough about psychoanalysis to say anything much about it either.
ReplyDeleteI think I agree with the points you make here, but I'll just add two small caveats. First, I have no idea what the inventor of rugby was thinking or intending. He broke the rules of the game he was playing in a very blatant way. He has since been regarded as a kind of genius, but it seems possible he was just a trouble-maker. Anyway, that's irrelevant to the present discussion, as far as I can see.
Secondly, I think you're on to something with Thomas and changing what it means to describe the color of things. But he wasn't being completely original in that regard. We call things sky blue or blood red, and this doesn't always merely designate the shade of the color. Calling something blood red suggests some connection with blood, just as calling something bible-black suggests a connection with the Bible. Although Thomas is original (as far as I know) in noting the connection between the Bible and blackness. It's no secret that the sky is blue and blood is red. It had been largely overlooked, though, that Bibles are black. Or the idea that this might be significant had not been voiced anyway. So he is doing something new in describing the color of a thing, bending the language, as it were, in an intentional way. And this is quite unlike what the inventor of rugby did, as you say.
(Sorry for the delayed response. I'm travelling and don't have a quiet office to think in.)
I hope you are having a good time.
ReplyDeleteI want to ask about the a comparison you make between bible-black and blood-red and sky-blue. I suggested that calling something “bible black” may also be meant to make us re-conceive our notion of “color,” and if I understand, you are pointing out that the same thing may have already been done by blood-red and sky-blue. I’m assuming that you are right. But I wonder about this: do you think it is the kind of thing you can be done once and for all?
I admit that this is one of the places I feel a bit uncomfortable with Rorty’s view. It seems that for him, once you made people re-think their categories, your work is done. He seems to think that although it may indeed take a bit of time until the new categories congeal and take root, ultimately, people now have new categories, like “bible-black,” which they now can go on to use as a matter of course.
Now it may be that something like that could happen to “bible-black.” But I wonder if this HAS to happen, and I wonder if something like this did happen, it would reflect an understanding of what Thomas was trying to do—the speech act, as it were. For to me it seems probable that although Thomas was trying to invent a new category, and to make us re-think our categories, he nevertheless was not at the same time trying to do something that had in view an end to this reflection. I mean, it seems to me very much possible that part of what he may have been trying to do is get us into a reflective mood. Does that seem right to you?
I mean, there is a kind of playfulness that is involved in coming up with terms like “bible-black.” It seems to me that when people use language like this, they may mean for there to be a kind of riddle involved: they want to get their audience into a kind of imaginative mood, in which the depth of things is explored, and their dimensions investigated. They may, and this is my point, not want to say the last word, but only the first. They may just want to say the word that would set us off thinking, also about the categories with which we capture things. And if this is right, then although it is possible that “blood-red” and “sky-blue” may have similar effects on us—that they too may make us think—we may nevertheless be in constant need for prodding. We may be in need for new terms that could induce this sort of reflection from us. Does that sound plausible?
Sorry for the delay in replying--I had very limited internet access for the last week or so (none at all most of the time). And thanks very much for this comment.
ReplyDeleteI do think that what you say sounds very plausible. Whether an effect can be created or produced once and for all is a good question, and I think the answer must be No. If sky blue becomes just a colour that never makes anyone think about the sky then it is a dead metaphor. We now have the tool at our disposal, but its tendency to get us to think is, ex hypothesi, gone. So Rorty may well be missing something important here, as he seems to be if he thinks that metaphorical language is like birdsong (as you pointed out before).
They may, and this is my point, not want to say the last word, but only the first.
I like this way of putting it very much. I would only add that it's hard to say what poets want. Some appear to be much more conscious about what they are up to than others. Thomas is probably pretty conscious of what he means to achieve and how, but some poets (and other artists) work, as far as I can tell, largely by feel. That is, it's not so much that they want to make us re-think our categories or even get the audience in an imaginative mood: they want to write a poem (or paint a picture or play the trumpet) and they do what feels right. We can describe this in terms of intentions and desires, but the artist won't necessarily agree with or care about the intentions we ascribe to her. I don't know whether this matters, but it's the only thing I can think to add to your point.
Thanks.